Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Antileishmanial Effect of Coffea arabica, Salvia rhytidea and Bunium persicum against Leishmania major and Leishmania tropica Promastigotes and Their Cytotoxicity and Antioxidant Activities

Aims: This study was aimed to use Coffea arabica, Salvia rhytidea and Bonium persicum extracts against Leishmania major and L. tropica promastigotes to compare various concentrations of these plant extracts. In addition, their cytotoxicity and antioxidant activities were also evaluated. Study Design: This study was performed experimentally using various concentrations of three medicinal plant extracts compared to control groups. Original Research Article Sharifi et al.; EJMP, 22(3): 1-10, 2018; Article no.EJMP. 39364 2 Methodology: Fresh seeds of C. arabica and B. persicum and leaves of S. rhytidea were powdered and each plant material was extracted by ethyl alcohol via warm maceration method. Complete medium was used to prepare nine final concentrations (1-1000 μg/ml) for experiments. The cytotoxicity and antioxidant activities of the ethanolic extracts were evaluated using colorimetric cell viability WST1 and DPPH assays. All experiments were performed in triplicate and analyzed by t-test. The optical density (OD) values as measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) were used to calculate the IC50 values. Selectivity index (SI) of the plant extracts was not attributed to cytotoxicity when it was ≥ 10. Results: The results indicated that B. persicum extract had potent antileishmanial activity against the promastigotes of both Leishmania species based on a dose-dependent response ( = 0.001) followed by C. arabica and S. rhytidea extracts. The IC50 values for C. arabica, S. officialis and B. persicum against L. major and L. tropica were 79. 2μg/mL and 40. 8μg/mL; 98. 7μg/mL and 45. 5μg/mL and 49.4 and 23. 9μg/mL, respectively. These extracts were safe for macrophages as the SI values of C. arabica, S. officialis and B. persicum for L. major and L. tropica were 12.1 and 23.5; 9.04 and 19.6 and 14.0 and 28.9, respectively. Results also confirmed the great antioxidant activities for these plant extracts. Conclusion: The present findings indicated that the extracts possess potential antileishmanial activities and remarkable antioxidant levels with an excellent safety index.
Introducing Pose Consistency and Warp-Alignment for Self-Supervised 6D Object Pose Estimation in Color Images

Most successful approaches to estimate the 6D pose of an object typically train a neural network by supervising the learning with annotated poses in real world images. These annotations are generally expensive to obtain and a common workaround is to generate and train on synthetic scenes, with the drawback of limited generalisation when the model is deployed in the real world. In this work, a two-stage 6D object pose estimator framework that can be applied on top of existing neural-network-based approaches and that does not require pose annotations on real images is proposed. The first self-supervised stage enforces the pose consistency between rendered predictions and real input images, narrowing the gap between the two domains. The second stage fine-tunes the previously trained model by enforcing the photometric consistency between pairs of different object views, where one image is warped and aligned to match the view of the other and thus enabling their comparison. In the absence of both real image annotations and depth information, applying the proposed framework on top of two recent approaches results in state-of-the-art performance when compared to methods trained only on synthetic data, domain adaptation baselines and a concurrent self-supervised approach on LINEMOD, LINEMOD OCCLUSION and HomebrewedDB datasets.
The study of morphological and cultural properties of Sparassis crispa (Sparassidaceae, polyporales).

A verification of S parassis crispa (Wulfen) Fr. strains of the IBK Mushroom Culture Collection using molecular-genetic and cultural-morphological methods were done. For all S. crispa strains a complete determination of the nucleotide sequences of the internal transcribed spacer: ITS1, 5.8S and ITS2 regions of rRNA, as well as the partial determination of 18S and 28S sequences surrounding the ITS, was performed. As a result of the search in the gene bank, the S . crispa samples deposited there showed 99-98% identity with the sequences we received, thus confirming the species of the examined strains. On the basis of the sequences we received, investigated strains were registered in NCBI GenBank. To confirm the taxonomic affiliation of the strains we studied their cultural and morphological characteristics. Microstructures of vegetative mycelium by optical and scanning electron microscopy were investigated. In all S. crispa cultures we observed the hyphae with regular one-sided gapless clamp connections, numerous secretory cells on the surface of the hyphae, anastomoses, filamentous strands and films. We studied the growth rate and morphology of the strains on seven agar nutrient media. According to the radial growth rate of S. crispa cultures can be placed to the very slowly growing mushrooms, growth rate of 0,5−2,8 mm/day. We found the selective media such as malt agar with the addition of pine sawdust (SS) and larch sawdust (SM) as most favorable for the vegetative growth and generative stage for all strains, temperature of incubation was 26 ± 0.1 °C. For mycelial growth the critical temperature was 39 ± 0.1 °C for S. crispa strains 312, 314 and 40 ± 0.1 °C for the strains 304, 2004. We confirmed belonging of studied strains to S. с rispa species according to established morphological and cultural characteristics. This result coincided with the results of DNA typing. Thus, the obtained mycelium growth parameters on nutrient media, micro- and macromorphological characteristics can be used as additional taxonomic characteristics of S. с rispa culture in the vegetative stage of growth. The strain S. с rispa 314 may become a potential producer for new fungal biotechnologies in Ukraine in the near future and reintroduction of this species in the nature.
The pro-metastatic effects of hemodynamic shear stress : breast cancer cells acquire aggressiveness during circulation

V TABLE OF CONTENTS . VII LIST OF FIGURES . XI ABBREVIATIONS . XIV Introduction . 1 1.1 Cancer Metastasis . 1 1.1.1 Distant Metastasis is a Multi-Step Process . 1 1.1.2 Circulating Tumor Cells (CTCs) . 3 1.1.3 Extravasation . 3 1.1. 4 Metastasis of Breast Cancer . 5 1.2 Hemodynamic Shear Stress . 5 1.2. 1 The Effects of Shear Stress on Endothelial Cells . 6 1.2. 2 The Effects of Shear Stress on Tumor Cells . 7 1.3 Tumor Cell Migration . 9 1.3. 1 The Process of Cell Migration . 9 1.3. 2 ERK1/2 and Cell Migration . 11 1.3. 3 Tumor Cell Migration is Important for Metastasis . 13 1.3. 4 Tumor Cell Migration is Regulated by Extracellular Signals . 14
Astrocyte-Synapse Receptor Coupling in Tripartite Synapses: A Mechanism for Self-Observing Robots

A model of an intentional self-observing system is proposed based on the structure and functions of astrocyte-synapse interactions in tripartite synapses. Astrocyte-synapse interactions are cyclically organized and operate via feedforward and feedback mechanisms, formally described by proemial counting. Synaptic, extrasynaptic and astrocyte receptors are interpreted as places with the same or different quality of information processing described by the combinatorics of tritograms. It is hypothesized that receptors on the astrocytic membrane may embody intentional programs that select corresponding synaptic and extrasynaptic receptors for the formation of receptor-receptor complexes. Basically, the act of self-observation is generated if the actual environmental information is appropriate to the intended observation processed by receptor-receptor complexes. This mechanism is implemented for a robot brain enabling the robot to experience environmental information as “its own”. It is suggested that this mechanism enables the robot to generate matches and mismatches between intended observations and the observations in the environment, based on the cyclic organization of the mechanism. In exploring an unknown environment the robot may stepwise construct an observation space, stored in memory, commanded and controlled by the intentional self-observing system. Finally, the role of self-observation in machine consciousness is shortly discussed.
Gut Microbial succession during conventionalization of germfree chicken

A gnotobiotic chicken model was developed to study the succession of intestinal microflora from hatching to 18 days of age. Intestinal samples were collected from a local population of feral chickens and administered orally to germ-free 3 day old chicks. Animals were enthanized on 0, 9 and 18 days of age and intestinal samples were collected and subjected to genomic analysis. The five most prevalent phyla were Bacteroidetes (45.73±3.35%), Firmicutes (36.47±2.60%), Proteobacteria (8.28±0.91%), Actinobacteria (5.09±0.52%), and Spriochetes (2.10±0.38%). Principle coordinate analysis indicated the 0, 9 day and 18 day variables clustered together and the microbial communities changed temporally. The Morista-Horn index values ranged from 0.72 to 1, indicating the communities at 0, 9 or 18 days were more similar than dissimilar. The predicted functional profiles of the microbiomes of 0, 9 and 18 days were also similar. These results indicate the gnotobiotic chicks stably maintain the phylogentic diversity and predicted metabolic functionality of the inoculum community. Importance The domestic chicken is the cornerstone of animal agriculture worldwide with a flock population exceeding 40 billion birds/year. It serves as the economically valuable source of protein globally. Microbiome of poultry has important effects on chicken growth, feed conversion, immune status and pathogen resistance. The significance of our research is in developing a gnotobiotic chicken model to study chicken gut microbiota function. Our experimental model shows that young germfree chicks are able to colonize diverse set of gut bacteria. Therefore, besides using this model to study mechanisms of gut microbiota interactions in the chicken gut, our model could be also used for applied aspects such as determining the safety and efficacy of new probiotic strains derived from chicken gut microbiota.
The complete chloroplast genome of the common self-heal, Prunella vulgaris (Lamiaceae)

Abstract Prunella vulgaris L. is an important medicinal herb widely used in China and western countries. Its natural distribution occurs in various habitats throughout northern hemisphere. In present study, we assembled and characterized its whole chloroplast (cp) genome based on Illumina pair-end sequencing data. The complete chloroplast genome size is 156,132 bp. It contained 134 genes, including 89 protein-coding genes, 37 tRNA genes, and 8 rRNA genes. 8 gene species had two copies. The overall GC content of this genome was 37.9%. A further phylogenomic analysis of Lamiaceae, including 29 taxa, was conducted for the placement of P. vulgaris.
The complete mitochondrial genome sequence of the sakura shrimp, Sergia lucens (Crustacea, Decapoda, Sergestidae)

Abstract Here, we present the complete mitochondrial genome of the sakura shrimp, Sergia lucens (Crustacea, Decapoda, Sergestidae). The circular genome is 16,087 base pairs in length and contains 13 protein-coding genes, 22 tRNA genes, and two rRNA genes. The nucleotide composition of the S. lucens mitogenome is biased towards A + T (69.9%). The gene arrangement was identical to penaeid shrimps. Maximum likelihood phylogenetic analysis using the nucleotide sequences of 13 protein-coding genes placed S. lucens next to Acetes chinensis, supporting the conventional taxonomic relationship of Sergia and Acetes.
Phytochemical Screening and Antioxidant Potential in the Leaf Extract of Annona Muricata

: The objective of the study was designed to screen the preliminary phytochemicals and to determine the antioxidant potential in the hydroethanolic leaf extract of Annona muricata. The phytochemical analysis revealed the presence of selected phytoconstituents (flavonoids, phenols, tannins, saponins, steroids, glycosides and alkaloids). Activity of Enzymic antioxidants (superoxide dismutase, catalase, peroxidase and glutathione reductase) in the leaf extract was observed to be 24.2, 3.08, 7.40 and 20.37U/g respectively. Nonenzymic antioxidants such as ascorbic acid (22.5 mg/g) , α -tocopherol (3.25 mg/g), carotenoids (2.64 mg/g), reduced glutathione (1.64 mg/g), phenols (11.8 mg/g), flavonoids (1.64 mg/g), tannins (2.84 mg/g) and carbohydrate (18.69 mg/g) were found to be rich in the hydroethanolic extract. The results obtained in the present study revealed that Annona muricata leaf extracts proves to be potential source of natural antioxidant and hence justifies its use in folkloric medicine which might be used for further investigation. cell membranes against oxidative damage [20] . Peroxidase and Glutathione reductase activity in hydroethanolic leaf extract of Annona muricata was found to be 7.40 and 20.37 U/g respectively.
BLIL PFC Boost Converter for Plug in Hybrid Electric Vehicle Battery Charger

AC-DC Converters are the key component in the battery chargers of PHEV (Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles). Most commonly used AC-DC PFC (Power Factor Correction) topologies in PEHV battery chargers are conventional PFC boost converter, bridgeless PFC boost converter and interleaved PFC boost converter. To overcome the disadvantages of the above mentioned topologies bridgeless interleaved (BLIL) PFC boost converter was developed. The conventional PFC boost converter and bridgeless interleaved PFC Boost topology were designed and simulated using MATLAB/SIMULINK. Conventional PFC Boost Converter was designed for interval D=0.6 and bridgeless interleaved topology were designed for two duty intervals D>0.5 and D<0.5. The input performance parameters such as THD (Total Harmonic Distortion) and power factor for the two topologies were obtained and comparison were made between the two topologies. The input supply voltage used for both the converters are 230V.
Inheritance of resistance to dieback disease in mango ('Mangifera indica')

The fungi 'Lasiodiplodia theobromae' and 'Neofusicoccum parvum' are pathogens responsible for causing dieback disease in mangoes. Studies on the inheritance of resistance to these fungal diseases in mango are quite limited. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the inheritance of resistance to dieback disease in three pseudo-F2 progenies to assist in mango breeding programs. Young branches containing young leaves were selected, and suspension of 103 conidia/mL of 'L. theobromae' or 'N. parvum' was sprayed separately. After inoculation, leaves were protected in a plastic wet chamber for 48 hours. The infection was estimated by taking the branches without symptoms/total number of inoculated branches. Plants without disease symptoms in more than 90% of the branches, in three different inoculation periods, were considered as resistant. Keitt, Haden, and Espada cultivars were resistant to both fungi, while 'Tommy Atkins' was susceptible to both pathogens. Monogenic resistance, conferred by recessive alleles, was observed for 'L. theobromae' for the three crossings evaluated, despite the 13:3 segregation detected for 'Keitt' x 'Tommy Atkins'. For 'N. parvum', recessive resistance with 3:1 monogenic segregation was observed in the crossing 'Keitt' x 'Tommy Atkins', and 9:7 epistatic segregation was reported in the crossing 'Haden' x 'Tommy Atkins' and 'Espada x 'Tommy Atkins'. The mono or digenic inheritance observed in the present study indicates the possibility of selection in the F2 generation and identification of plants with double resistance to 'L. theobromae' and 'N. parvum' in mango trees.
Three new species of lichenized fungi from Qinghai Province, China

Three new species of lichenized fungi—Calogaya qinghaiensis, Caloplaca zeorina,Verrucaria eminens—are described from Qinghai province, China, and compared with closely related species. Key words—biodiversity, Teloschistaceae, Verrucariaceae, taxonomy
Neurobiological Basis of Brain Blood Oxygenation Responses Correlated with Cognitive Stroop Task Performance Before and After an Acute Bout of Aerobic Exercise

Cardiovascular activities may increase the brain blood flow improving neural activities leading to improved cognition. Consequently, the effects of an acute bout of moderate intensity aerobic exercise on cortical brain blood oxygenation and its correlation with cognitive color-word Stroop task performance were tested. The Stroop tasks were congruent (color matches word) and incongruent (color does not match word). Prefrontal (PFC) and motor cortex (MC) blood flow was recorded by fNIRS (functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy) while the human subjects performed the Stroop tasks before and after 30 minutes of exercise or equivalent time of rest (controlling for practice effect of repeating the Stroop task multiple times). It was predicted that PFC blood flow increase after exercise will correlate with increased Stroop interference and decreased cognitive flexibility after an acute bout of aerobic exercise at 70% of maximal Heart Rate (HR). We observed that Stroop interference in aerobic exercise and practice alone (rest) were not significantly (p>0.6) different indicating that exercise did not improve cognition above the learning effect. Increase in blood flow (both neurovascular and neurometabolic coupling) in previously deactivated PFC channels was positively correlated (p<0.05) to increased Stroop interference (worse cognitive speed and accuracy) after an acute bout of aerobic exercise. Highlights Does moderate intensity aerobic exercise improve cognition? Does prefrontal cortex oxygenation correlate with cognition changes after exercise?
Structural and functional analysis of glycosyltransferase mechanisms

Supervisory Committee Dr. Stephen Evans, Supervisor (Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology) Dr. Alisdair Boraston, Departmental member (Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology) Dr. Terry Pearson, Departmental member (Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology) Dr. Thomas Fyles, Outside member (Department of Chemistry) Insight into the biochemical mechanisms utilized by retaining and inverting glycosyltransferase enzymes is an important stepping stone to the directed design of stereospecific inhibitor based drugs. The suitability of proposed mechanisms was probed using site directed mutagenesis of catalytically relevant residues as well as the use of catalytically inactive substrate analogs UMP-PO2-CH2-D-Gal and α-L-Fuc-(1→2)-β-D-(3-deoxy)-Gal-O(CH2)5CH3 with the retaining human enzyme a specific α-1,3-N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase (GTA) in conjunction with kinetic and structural approaches including two dozen high resolution X-ray structures and a 2.5 Å resolution neutron structure. The neutron structure depicts a remarkably non-polar active site which lacks suitably positioned hydrogen atoms to support a dissociative mechanism. Site directed mutagenesis of residues which should be essential to initiate and stabilize a dissociative oxocarbenium ion do not abolish enzyme activity. iv The catalytically inactive substrate analogs depict the acceptor nucleophile to lay very close to the anomeric carbon (2.5 Å), which is considerably closer than the closest observed enzymatic dipoles (4.8 Å). This is an indication that the active site architecture is more suited to facilitate a mechanism initiating with nucleophilic attack than dissociation. To ensure that these observations are applicable to other glycosyltransferases, in depth geometric analysis of all published liganded structures of GT-A fold glycosyltransferase enzymes are reported that display conserved architectures in which the acceptor nucleophile approach is closer than enzymatic dipoles required for dissociation for both inverting and retaining enzymes. Inverting and retaining enzymes present the donor sugar through different conserved geometries about the divalent cation cofactor: all inverting enzymes position the donor for inline nucleophilic attack by the acceptor, the retaining enzymes position the sugar to be attacked from an orthogonal
Chromosomal aberrations and Ac/Ds transposition in Garlic

A BSTRACT: Garlic ( Allium sativum L.) is a commonly used Allium crop worldwide. It might be expected that garlic would show some intraspecific variations because of its vegetative reproduction. This study shed light on such variations joined with the existence of the transposable element Ac in garlic. The examined cells exhibited different types of chromosomal aberration were recorded as percentages of the total abnormal cells. Microscopic examination of root tip cells of the (Egaseed 2) clone showed a variety of chromosomal aberrations represented as: gap, chromatid deletion, chromatid break, end-to-end association and centromeric attenuation. DNA was isolated from ten individual cloves of Egaseed 2 clone. Using Ac primer, a monomorphic fragment of 100 bp was detected in 10 cloves of the Egyptian clone (Egaseed 2) of garlic. One of the same cloves, no. 7, has an additional fragment of 300 bp. The relationship between Ac element existence and chromosomal changes occurrence was discussed.
Two new species of aphyllophoroid fungi (Basidiomycota) from southern China

Two new species of aphyllophoroid fungi (Basidiomycota) from Nonggang, Guangxi Autonomous Region, tropical, China are described. Perenniporia nonggangensis mainly characterized by resupinate to effused-reflexed basidiocarps with cream to greyish cream pore surface, up to 1.4 cm thick, broad-ellipsoid to subglobose, non-truncate and non-dextrinoid basidiospores. Aporpium obtusisporum characterized by pileate basidiocarps with poroid to lamellate hymenophore when mature, abundant hyphal pegs on both pileal surface and tubes, ovalelliptic, obtuse apically, cyanophilous basidiospores. Morphology and sequence analysis of the combined ITS and nLSU dataset support their taxonomic position as new species.
Molecular Typing and Antimicrobial Susceptibility of Acinetobacter baumannii Isolates in Kermanshah City with Pulse Field Gel Electrophoresis (PFGE)

Background and Objective: Acinetobacter baumannii (A. baumannii) in the last decade has been identified as one of the opportunistic pathogens and an important cause of nosocomial infections. Molecular typing plays an important role in studying the epidemiology of Acinetobacter. The aim of this study was to investigate the genomic pattern which was performed by Pulse Field Gel Electrophoresis (PFGE) and antimicrobial susceptibility of the isolates from patients in various hospitals in the city of Kermanshah, the city which is located in the west of Iran. Materials and Methods: 33 isolates of A. baumannii were collected from clinical samples in four general hospitals of Kermanshah. Isolates were identified by biochemical tests and API 20NE kit. The antimicrobial susceptibility of isolates was determined by Kirby-Bauer disk diffusion method. The clonal connection was estimated by PFGE and DNA patterns were analyzed by Gel compare II 6.5 software. Original Research Article Mohajeri et al.; JPRI, 20(6): 1-8, 2017; Article no.JPRI. 39168 2 Results: All isolates showed high-level of resistance, but resistance which was observed against Colistin and Minocycline was low, while no resistance to Polymyxin B and Tigecycline was observed. The PFGE analysis revealed the existence of 10 different genetic patterns among the 33 strains including: I (n = 12), II (n = 2), III (n = 4), IV (n = 3), V (n = 3), VI (n = 4), VII (n = 2). Clone I was the dominant clone. In terms of antibiotic resistance, no significant difference was observed among the different genetic patterns. Conclusion: Isolates were obtained from a large variety of patterns genetically. This study could represent the wide range of isolates of A. baumannii that were gathered from different parts of the hospital. Diverse sources of infection may, therefore, appear to control these infections, according to various sources, which are not simple.