Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Algorithmic and computing technologies for health assessment of real structures in the presence of nonlinearity and uncertainty

The research team at the University of Arizona proposed several novel structural health assessment (SHA) algorithms. Structures are represented by finite elements (FE) and the health is assessed by identifying the stiffness parameters of all the elements and comparing them with expected values, or with previous values, or observing differences between similar elements. They can identify the location and severity of defect and exact location within a defective element. These algorithms use several system identification (SI) based concepts with different levels of sophistications. They do not require excitation information and can assess the health of large structural systems using only limited noise-contaminated acceleration timehistories measured at a small part of a structure. They are widely available in the literature. However, algorithmic and computational rigors of them are generally not presented in technical papers due to severe page limitation. Some of them are briefly presented in this paper without discussing the specific algorithms.
Effects of feedback on collaborative writing in an online learning environment

The need for supporting student writing has received much attention in writing research. One specific type of support is feedback—including peer feedback—on the writing process. Despite the wealth of literature on both feedback and academic writing, there is little empirical evidence on what type of feedback best promotes writing in online environments. This article reports on research that tries to determine what type of feedback best improves the quality of collaborative writing and what the effects of feedback are on student learning in an environment based on asynchronous written communication. The results reveal that concerning the type of feedback, epistemic feedback or epistemic and suggestive feedback best improve the quality of collaborative writing performance. The nature of the feedback-giver (whether teacher feedback or teacher and peer) makes a difference to the final text only when the feedback is epistemic, or epistemic and suggestive.
Mnium marginatum Özütlerinin Antimikrobiyal Aktivitesi

et Bu calismada Mnium marginatum ozutlerinin antimikrobiyal etkilerinin gozlenmesi amaclanmistir. Calismada 4 farkli cozucu (aseton, kloroform, metanol ve steril distile su (sdH20)) kullanilarak ozutler elde edihnis ve antimikrobiyal etkileri icin, bazi gram pozitif bakteriler (Bacillus cereus ATCC 11778, Staphylococcus aereus ATCC 29213), gram negatif bakteriler (Escherichia coli ATCC 25922, Escherichia coli ATCC 35218, Pseudomonas aeruginosa ATCC 27853, Salmonella enteritidis ATCC 13076) ve maya kulturleri (Candida glabrata RSKK 04019, Candida albicans ATCC 90028), disk difuzyon metodu kullanilarak denenmistir. Disk difuzyon metodu ile elde edilen sonuclarda; M. marginatum’un kloroform ekstrakti, diger ekstraktlarla karsilastirildiginda E. coli ATCC 25922 (15 mm) uzerine yuksek bir antimikrobiyal etki gosterirken; en dusuk inhibisyon etkiyi ise C. glabrata RSKK 04019 (6 mm) uzerine kloroform ve sdeO ekstraktlari gostermistir
Primary myotubes preferentially mature into either the fastest or slowest muscle fibers

Myoblasts and myotubes are heterogeneous, but what is the significance of this heterogeneity? Is it a vital component of the mechanism by which a muscle develops or is it part of the process that generates mature fibers with diverse sizes, speeds of contracture, and metabolisms? We have begun to explore these questions by using BrdU to selectively label rat primary myotubes, thus enabling their mature characteristics to be defined for the first time. In the soleus, the type I fibers of primary myotube origin were 21% larger than those of secondary myotube origin, indicating that the origin of a fiber can affect its mature force production. In the extensor digitorum longus (EDL), the primary myotubes differentiated into all known fibers types, but with marked variation in frequency. In the superficial portion of the EDL, 97% of primary myotubes became IIB fibers, even though approximately 41% of the fibers in this region are IIA or IIX. In the deep portion, primary myotubes preferentially developed into type I fibers. Thus, primary myotubes in the EDL predominantly differentiate into the two most dissimilar fiber types: the slowest, smallest, most oxidative, type I fibers and the largest, fastest, most glycolytic, type IIB fibers. Each of the subtypes of primary myotubes had a different fate. In the EDL, the slow and fast primary myotubes appeared to differentiate into type I and IIB fibers, respectively. This implies that spatial and temporal signals operating in the limb are major determinants of the mature pattern of fiber types and that innervation of a muscle involves a selective matching between the various types of motoneurons and muscle fibers. Dev. Dyn. 1998;213: 147–157. © 1998 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Relationship of microglial and astrocytic activation to disease onset and progression in a transgenic model of familial ALS

Transgenic mice that highly over‐express a mutated human CuZn superoxide dismutase (SOD1) gene [gly93→ala; TgN(SOD1‐G93A)G1H line] found in some patients with familial ALS (FALS) have been shown to develop motor neuron disease that is characterized by motor neuron loss in the lumbar and cervical spinal regions and a progressive loss of motor activity. The mutant Cu,Zn SOD exhibits essentially normal SOD activity but also generates toxic oxygen radicals as a result of an enhancement of a normally minor peroxidase reaction. Consequently, lipid and protein oxidative damage to the spinal motor neurons occurs and is associated with disease onset and progression. In the present study, we investigated the time course of microglial (major histocompatibility‐II antigen immunoreactivity) and astrocytic (glial fibrillary acidic protein immunoreactivity) activation in relation to the course of motor neuron disease in the TgN(SOD1‐G93A)G1H FALS mice. Four ages were investigated: 30 days (pre‐motor neuron pathology and clinical disease); 60 days (after initiation of pathology, but pre‐disease); 100 days (approximately 50% loss of motor neurons and function); and 120 days (near complete hindlimb paralysis). Compared to non‐transgenic littermates, the TgN(SOD1‐G93A)G1H mice showed significantly increased numbers of activated astrocytes (P < 0.01) at 100 days of age in both the cervical and lumbar spinal cord regions. However, at 120 days of age, the activation lost statistical significance. In contrast, microglial activation was significantly increased several‐fold at both 100 and 120 days. We hypothesize that astrocytic activation may exert a trophic influence on the motor neurons that is insufficiently maintained late in the course of the disease. On the other hand, the sustained, intense microglial activation may conceivably contribute to the oxidative stress and damage involved in the disease process. If true, then agents which inhibit microglia may help to limit disease progression. GLIA 23:249–256, 1998. © 1998 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Solid State Bioconversion for Producing Functional Flours from Whole Quality Protein Maize and Common Beans with Enhanced Nutritional Value, Antioxidant and Antihypertensive Potential

The aim was to develop functional flours with enhanced nutritional value, antioxidant and antihypertensive potential from quality protein maize and common beans throughout solid state bioconversion (SSB) process. The SSB processes were performed at 35°C/84h (maize) and 38°C/100h (beans) using a rhizopus oligosporus strain. The bioprocessed maize and bean (bioprocessed bean cotyledons blended with seed coats) samples were dried, cooled, and milled to obtain bioprocessed whole quality protein maize flour (BQPMF) and bioprocessed common bean flour (BCBF), respectively. SSB process increased the protein content (26.8 - 33.5%), soluble, insoluble and total dietary fiber contents (132-196%, 15-24%, and 40-43%, respectively), resistant starch (130-133%), calculated protein efficiency ratio (C-PER; 33-49 %), phenolic content (69.5- 127.02%), antioxidant capacity (AoxA) (38-75%) and angiotensin converting enzyme-inhibitory (ACE-I) activity of quality protein maize and common beans. The mixture prepared from 60% BQPMF+40% BCBF had, in dry basis, 19.78% proteins, 24.65% total dietary fiber, 3.92% resistant starch, and C-PER 2.24, antioxidant activity 199.24 μmol Trolox equivalents/g sample, and IC 50 (antihypertensive potential) 25.12 µg peptide/mL suspension. The SSB bioprocess resulted in an effective strategy to improve nutritional value, phenolic content, antioxidant activity, and antihypertensive potential of quality protein maize and common beans. The flours developed in this work (BQPMF, BCBF and its mixture) can be considered functional foods of high nutritional value and with potential for prevention and control of degenerative diseases such as hypertension and those derived from oxidative stress.
Dysfunctions at human intestinal barrier by water-borne protozoan parasites: lessons from cultured human fully differentiated colon cancer cell lines.

Summary Some water-borne protozoan parasites induce diseases through their membrane-associated functional structures and virulence factors that hijack the host cellular molecules and signalling pathways leading to structural and functional lesions in the intestinal barrier. In this Microreview we analyse the insights on the mechanisms of pathogenesis of Entamoeba intestinalis, Giardia and Cryptosporidium observed in the human colon carcinoma fully differentiated colon cancer cell lines, cell subpopulations and clones expressing the structural and functional characteristics of highly specialized fully differentiated epithelial cells lining the intestinal epithelium and mimicking structurally and functionally an intestinal barrier.
Mobile Application for News and Interactive Services

In this paper, we describe the design and implementation details of a mobile application supporting news access and virtual community interactive services, based on open technologies such as Android, Java programming language, Android libraries, MySQL database and an open Web server. The goal was to create an easy to use, mobile, interactive, flexible, including a portable Android client and a Web portal access to the content. To prove these features, we chose to implement and compare two different kind of interactive services, and made plans for further services and improvements.
Evaluating CROPGRO‐Soybean Performance for Use in Climate Impact Studies

Researchers frequently use crop simulation models to estimate the impacts of climate change on agricultural production. While most models used for this purpose have been validated thoroughly at the research plot level, few studies have evaluated them for multiple years and sites and with inputs commonly used in climate impact studies. Here, we examine how well CROPGRO-Soybean performs across space and time using cultivar coefficients provided with the model, estimates of solar radiation, and soil inputs that were estimated from readily available soil surveys. Modeled yield for three maturity groups was compared with that observed from 8 to 23 yr at eight agricultural experiment stations in the southeastern United States. The model was evaluated with respect to its ability to replicate the mean and standard deviation of observed yield. The mean squared deviation (MSD), weighted according to the number of years at each station, was 0.42 (Mg ha -1 ) 2 . The model simulated mean yield and the magnitude of interannual yield variability very well. The component of MSD related to the pattern of interannual variability contributed most to MSD. Our results support the use of crop models in studies that require accurate simulation of the temporal mean and variance of yields.
β-catenin, MAPK and Smad signaling during early Xenopus development

Knowledge of when and where signaling pathways are activated is crucial for understanding embryonic development. In this study, we have systematically analyzed and compared the signaling pattern of four major pathways by localization of the activated key components β-catenin (Wnt proteins), MAPK (tyrosine kinase receptors/FGF), Smad1 (BMP proteins) and Smad2 (Nodal/activin/Vg1). We have determined semi-quantitatively the distribution of these components at 18 consecutive stages in Xenopus development, from early blastula to tailbud stages, by immunofluorescence on serial cryosections. The image obtained is that of very dynamic and widespread activities, with very few inactive regions. Signaling fields can vary from large gradients to restricted areas with sharp borders. They do not respect tissue boundaries. This direct visualization of active signaling verifies several predictions inferred from previous functional data. It also reveals unexpected signal patterns, pointing to some poorly understood aspects of early development. In several instances, the patterns strikingly overlap, suggesting extensive interplay between the various pathways. To test this possibility, we have manipulated maternal β-catenin signaling and determined the effect on the other pathways in the blastula embryo. We found that the patterns of P-MAPK, P-Smad1 and P-Smad2 are indeed strongly dependent on β-catenin at this stage. [supplementary material][1]: [1]: http://dev.biologists. org/cgi/content/full/129/1/37/DC1
Myeloperoxidase-Hepatocyte-Stellate Cell Cross Talk Promotes Hepatocyte Injury and Fibrosis in Experimental Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis.

AIMS Myeloperoxidase (MPO), a highly oxidative enzyme secreted by leukocytes has been implicated in human and experimental nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), but the underlying mechanisms remain unknown. In this study, we investigated how MPO contributes to progression from steatosis to NASH. RESULTS In C57Bl/6J mice fed a diet deficient in methionine and choline to induce NASH, neutrophils and to a lesser extent inflammatory monocytes are markedly increased compared with sham mice and secrete abundant amounts of MPO. Through generation of HOCl, MPO directly causes hepatocyte death in vivo. In vitro experiments demonstrate mitochondrial permeability transition pore induction via activation of SAPK/JNK and PARP. MPO also contributes to activation of hepatic stellate cells (HSCs), the most important source of collagen in the liver. In vitro MPO-activated HSCs have an activation signature (MAPK and PI3K-AKT phosphorylation) and upregulate COL1A1, α-SMA, and CXCL1. MPO-derived oxidative stress also activates transforming growth factor β (TGF-β) in vitro, and TGF-β signaling inhibition with SB-431542 decreased steatosis and fibrosis in vivo. Conversely, congenital absence of MPO results in reduced hepatocyte injury, decreased levels of TGF-β, fewer activated HSCs, and less severe fibrosis in vivo. INNOVATION AND CONCLUSION Cumulatively, these findings demonstrate important cross talk between inflammatory myeloid cells, hepatocytes, and HSCs via MPO and establish MPO as part of a proapoptotic and profibrotic pathway of progression in NASH, as well as a potential therapeutic target to ameliorate this disease.
Molecular phylogeny of the genus Dahlia Cav. (Asteraceae, Heliantheae–Coreopsidinae) using sequences derived from the internal transcribed spacers of nuclear ribosomal DNA

Abstract Sequences of the internal transcribed spacers (ITS) of the 18S–26S nuclear ribosomal DNA were used to resolve phylogenetic relationships among 13 species of the genus Dahlia . Phylogenetic reconstruction from both parsimony analysis and pairwise distance data produced a single tree in which four clades could be distinguished, these broadly separating the species into the different chromosome numbers found in Dahlia ( x =16, x =17 and x =18). Although species based on x =16 were divided into two clades, there is the suggestion that this separation may be artificial and that these should be combined as a single clade. The phylogeny produced here has been discussed with reference to the existing taxonomic treatment of the genus. It currently appears that the genus Dahlia is monophyletic and it is evident that the different basic chromosome numbers within the dysploid series in Dahlia have evolved only once. This proposed monophyly of the genus coupled with the successful production of hybrids within the dysploid series (2 n =32, 2 n =34 and 2 n =36) suggests that the species of Dahlia have evolved from a common ancestor.
Rural Marketing of Telecom Services in India

According to the NCAER Rural Infrastructure Report (2007), the demand for telecommunication services are surging across rural India, as middle class and upper classes are growing in most villages but the tele-density levels are very low 1.67 per 100 residents compared with an average of 8.59 overall and 25.90 in Indian cities. This paper is an attempt to study the current status of title services in rural areas and challenges and opportunities in the telecom sector in rural areas.
Content based image retrieval using MPEG-7 dominant color descriptor

Content Based Image Retrieval (CBIR) is an automatic process for searching relevant images based on image features and user inputs. MPEG-7 is an international standard for multimedia content description, and it is an important achievement for CBIR. MPEG-7 has a collection of effective descriptors for images, videos, audios and other multimedia contents. In its visual part, several color descriptors are defined, in which Dominant Color Descriptor (DCD) is a compact and effective descriptor. However, due to the shortcomings of its similarity measure method, the DCD’s performance is worse than a more compact Color Layout Descriptor. This is mainly due to the use of a modified Quadratic Histogram Distance Measure (DCD-QHDM) in DCD. In this thesis, it will be shown that the DCD-QHDM is unable to control the upper bound of the distance between two descriptors and its similarity coefficients are unable to utilize color distance to fine-tune the distance. On the other hand, DCD cannot be directly used in Relevance Feedback (RF) image retrieval with simple histogram weighting technique for further improving the accuracy using user feedback. To address these problems, a Merged Palette Histogram (MPH) approach for DCD is proposed in this thesis. For the first problem, a new Merged Palette Histogram Similarity Measure (MPHSM) is proposed to provide an alternative to the DCD-QHDM. This new similarity measure is based on a merged color palette as a common color space to define histogram intersection. Experimental results show that the proposed MPHSM provides better DCD-based retrieval accuracy in terms of the Averaged Normalized Modified Retrieval Rate (ANMRR) and better visual results using different image datasets. To further improve the retrieval accuracy, MPH based Relevance Feedback (MPH-RF) technique is developed for the second problem. The major problem of the conventional histogram weighting RF method is that it is required to apply on a common feature space among all selected relevant images. However, this is not practical for DCD as it uses individual color space. The proposed MPH-RF solving this problem by merging colors and their percentages to form a new DCD, which represents the images in a compact and natural way. Experimental results show that the improvement of MPH-RF is about 0.0568-0.0828 in terms of ANMRR for different combinations of similarity measures and datasets. These results also demonstrated that the combination of MPHSM
The Ancestry of Reptiles

Reptiles of several distinct lineages have been described from the lower part of the Upper Carboniferous. Neither reptiles nor any plausible ancestors are known from earlier beds. The nature of the amphibian-reptilian transition must be studied on the basis of relicts of earlier groups which are contemporary with true reptiles. Several genera from the Middle Pennsylvanian locality of Nyrany, Czechoslovakia, have been considered closely related to the ancestry of reptiles. The incomplete nature of the original descriptions of Diplovertebron, Gephyrostegus and Solenodonsaurus has led to considerable confusion as to their taxonomic distinction and phylogenetic significance. Subsequently these taxa have been variously synonymized and considered as being alternately embolomeres, primitive anthracosaurs, seymouriamorphs, extremely primitive reptiles and captorhinomorphs. On the basis of redescription of type material from museums in Berlin, Prague and Cambridge as well as more recently discovered specimens, it is possible to establish the identity of these forms and to describe them in considerable detail. The type of Diplovertebron punctatum can be identified as a small embolomere. The material on which it is based can be distinguished from the types of Solenodonsaurus and Gephyrostegus. The type of Gephyrostegus bohemicus is a primitive anthracosaur. On the basis of this and other material, description of almost the entire skeleton is possible. The vertebral column has 24 presacral segments, each consisting of a large U-shaped pleurocentrum and a smaller, crescentic intercentrum. This genus is an almost ideal relict of the anthracosaur group which gave rise to reptiles. It is clearly distinct from the Permian seymouriamorphs, and could not have given rise to any known members of that group. Eusauropleura digitata from a deposit of equivalent age at Linton, Ohio, is a related, but somewhat more primitive from. The body proportions of these genera indicate that they were terrestrial in habit, with no specifically aquatic adaptations. The type of Solenodonsaurus janenschi is a very primitive reptile. This form retains an otic notch and labyrinthine infolding of the enamel, but the postcranial skeleton is very close to the pattern of romeriid captorhinomorphs. Material of a very immature specimen assigned to this genus by Pearson has a typically reptilian palate and skull roof pattern, but anthracosaurian dorsal and ventral scales. Material (designated by them as specimen I) assigned to the genus Gephyrostegus by Brough & Brough actually pertains to a romeriid captorhinomorph. On the basis of this material, the ancestry of captorhinomorph reptiles from the gephyrostegid anthracosaurs can be firmly established. The families Solenodonsauridae and Limnoscelidae are relicts of more primitive, but still reptilian, lineages which retain a number of anthracosaurian characteristics.
Connectional networks within the orbital and medial prefrontal cortex of macaque monkeys

The intrinsic cortico‐cortical connections within the orbital and medial prefrontal cortex (OMPFC) were demonstrated with retrograde and anterograde tracers injected into each of the architectonic areas that constitute this region. Although many of the connections linked neighboring areas, others selectively connected relatively distant areas. Most, but not all, of the connections were reciprocal. Altogether, the connections formed at least two distinct networks within the OMPFC.