Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effect of organic selenium in the diet on sperm quality of boars.

The effect of a diet supplemented with organic selenium (Se) on sperm production and quality of boars was investigated. Sixty mature boars from a commercial artificial insemination centre were randomly allocated at Day (D) 0 into Group A and B. Group A received the regular ration supplemented with inorganic Se (0.4 mg/kg feed as Na(2) SeO(3)) whereas Group B was switched to the same diet but with organic Se (0.4 mg/kg fed as Se-yeast). The sperm was investigated during 4 months (D0, D30, D60, D75, D90, D105 and D120). Sperm concentration and motility were objectively measured using a photometer and Computer Assisted Semen Analysis (CASA) respectively. Morphology of the sperm was assessed using eosin-nigrosin staining and the resistance to induction of oxidative stress (production of malonaldehyde, MDA) through thiobarbituric acid reagent species analysis. Additionally, the Se concentration in sperm and blood plasma were measured. Repeated measures analysis of variance (anova) from D60 to 120 (spermatogenesis of approximately 2 months) or anova at D120 (Se concentrations) were used for statistical analysis. The total number of ejaculated sperm was not significantly different between both groups, but boars of Group B had a significantly higher sperm concentration (434.6 vs 514.1 × 10(6) sperm/ml; p < 0.05). Small differences (p < 0.05) were observed between both groups for some CASA parameters, namely straight line velocity (μm/s) (Group A: 48.3, Group B: 45.1), straightness (%) (Group A: 65.6, Group B: 62.2) and linearity (%) (Group A: 32.2, Group B: 29.3). The sperm of Group B showed more oxidative stress (4.1 vs 4.9 μmol MDA/l; p < 0.05) compared with those of Group A. No significant differences (p > 0.05) were observed for the other parameters. Under the present study conditions, changing from inorganic Se to organic Se in the diet of boars increased sperm concentration but reduced some motility parameters and resistance to oxidative stress.
New Journal of Physics Imaging of complex density in silver nanocubes by coherent x-ray diffraction

When using coherent x-rays to perform lensless imaging, it is the complex wave field exiting the sample or, in the case of the Bragg geometry, the deformed electron density distribution of a crystal, that is being sought. For most samples, to some extent, the image will be complex, containing both an amplitude and phase variation across the sample. We have developed versions of the hybrid input–output (HIO) and error reduction (ER) algorithms that are very robust for the inversion to complex objects from three-dimensional (3D) coherent x-ray diffraction (CXD) data measured around a Bragg spot of a small crystal. The development and behavior of these algorithms will be discussed in the context of inverting a 3D CXD pattern measured around a (111) Bragg spot of a silver nanocube. 7 Author to whom any correspondence should be addressed. New Journal of Physics 12 (2010) 035019 1367-2630/10/035019+16$30.00 © IOP Publishing Ltd and Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft
A New Construction of  $(k+2,k)$  Minimal Storage Regenerating Code Over F3 With Optimal Access Property for All Nodes

The optimal access property is highly desirable for distributed storage systems. In this letter, based on the (k+2,k) zigzag code, we propose a new (k+2,k) minimal storage regenerating code. The new code inherits the key properties of the zigzag code, such as the optimal access property for all systematic nodes and small alphabet F3. Furthermore, the new code possesses the optimal access property for the two parity nodes, at the expense of doubled storage per node of the original zigzag code. While possessing the same properties (optimal access property for all nodes and small alphabet F3), the new code requires only half of the storage per node compared with that of the modified zigzag code.
Oxidation of Ammonia by Methane-oxidizing Bacteria and the Effects of Ammonia on Methane Oxidation

Certain similarities between methane-oxidizing bacteria and ammonia-oxidizing bacteria suggest an evolutionary relationship (Wilkinson, I 971 ; Quayle, 1972)~ but the interactions of methane-oxidizing bacteria with ammonia have only briefly been described. Hutton & Zobell (1949) and Whittenbury, Phillips & Wilkinson (1970) observed that methaneoxidizing bacteria produced nitrite from ammonia, and the latter workers also noted the competitive inhibition of methane utilization by ammonia. Recently Ferenci, Strarm & Quayle (1975) showed that ammonia could act as a competitive inhibitor for both methane and carbon monoxide oxidation in Pseudomonas methanica. In addition Hubley, Thomson & Wilkinson (1975) reported that the specificity of a number of inhibitors of ammonia oxidation in Nitrosomonas, as described by Hooper & Terry (r973), followed a similar pattern when inhibiting methane oxidation in Methylosinus trichosporium. This work attempts to describe more precisely the nature of the interactions of ammonia with methane-oxidizing bacteria.
A watershed approach for improving medical image segmentation

In this paper, a novel watershed approach based on seed region growing and image entropy is presented which could improve the medical image segmentation. The proposed algorithm enables the prior information of seed region growing and image entropy in its calculation. The algorithm starts by partitioning the image into several levels of intensity using watershed multi-degree immersion process. The levels of intensity are the input to a computationally efficient seed region segmentation process which produces the initial partitioning of the image regions. These regions are fed to entropy procedure to carry out a suitable merging which produces the final segmentation. The latter process uses a region-based similarity representation of the image regions to decide whether regions can be merged. The region is isolated from the level and the residual pixels are uploaded to the next level and so on, we recall this process as multi-level process and the watershed is called multi-level watershed. The proposed algorithm is applied to challenging applications: grey matter–white matter segmentation in magnetic resonance images (MRIs). The established methods and the proposed approach are experimented by these applications to a variety of simulating immersion, multi-degree, multi-level seed region growing and multi-level seed region growing with entropy. It is shown that the proposed method achieves more accurate results for medical image oversegmentation.
In vitro immunological activities of the polysaccharide fraction from Haemophilus influenzae type a endotoxin

Mild hydrolysis of Haemophilus influenzae type a lipopolysaccharide by ion exchangers in the presence of chloroform, to remove the lipid moiety, yielded a nontoxic and immunogenic polysaccharide fraction. This polysaccharide selectively triggered murine B lymphocytes in vitro: (i) it induced enhancement of thymidine incorporation and stimulated antibody secretion in cultures of normal and nude mouse spleen cells; (ii) it did not stimulate splenic T lymphocytes; (iii) the activation of B lymphocytes was not absolutely dependent on the presence of macrophages. Sepharose 4B gel filtration showed that this polysaccharide consisted at least of two fractions: PS I (molecular weight [MW] 10(6)) and PS II (MW 10(4)). Only PS I was found to act as a polyclonal B cell activator. EDTA treatment dissociated the polysaccharide into PS III (MW 10(6)) and PS IV (MW 10(4)), which was not reassembled after the addition of 0.02 M CaCl2. Both fractions PS III and PS IV were unable to stimulate B lymphocytes. The immunological active fraction of H. influenzae polysaccharide is PS I. This fraction consists of a high-molecular-weight group (10(6)) and an association of 10(4)-MW aggregated units.
Stimulation of Slow Skeletal Muscle Fiber Gene Expression by Calcineurin in Vivo *

Adult skeletal muscle fibers can be categorized into fast and slow twitch subtypes based on specialized contractile and metabolic properties and on distinctive patterns of muscle gene expression. Muscle fiber-type characteristics are dependent on the frequency of motor nerve stimulation and are thought to be controlled by calcium-dependent signaling. The calcium, calmodulin-dependent protein phosphatase, calcineurin, stimulates slow fiber-specific gene promoters in cultured skeletal muscle cells, and the calcineurin inhibitor, cyclosporin A, inhibits slow fiber gene expression in vivo, suggesting a key role of calcineurin in activation of the slow muscle fiber phenotype. Calcineurin has also been shown to induce hypertrophy of cardiac muscle and to mediate the hypertrophic effects of insulin-like growth factor-1 on skeletal myocytes in vitro. To determine whether activated calcineurin was sufficient to induce slow fiber gene expression and hypertrophy in adult skeletal muscle in vivo, we created transgenic mice that expressed activated calcineurin under control of the muscle creatine kinase enhancer. These mice exhibited an increase in slow muscle fibers, but no evidence for skeletal muscle hypertrophy. These results demonstrate that calcineurin activation is sufficient to induce the slow fiber gene regulatory program in vivo and suggest that additional signals are required for skeletal muscle hypertrophy.
Terrain recognition for outdoor mobile robots

Recent work in terrain recognition for outdoor mobile robots mainly focused on several typical pure terrain sample classification, and only one terrain feature is extracted for terrain sample description. In this paper, a segmentation scheme for complex terrain samples is designed for the terrain recognition process. The segmentation scheme is achieved using the graph segmentation followed by the watershed segmentation. The terrain image area is identified on the basis of segmentation. For terrain recognition, several global-based features are extracted from the typical terrain samples: Color Histogram, LBP (Local Binary Pattern), CEDD (Color and Edge Directivity Descriptor), with an ELM (Extreme Learning Machine) classifier to implement the classification experiment. We evaluate the performance of the three features and the principle of extracted feature, and we combined color histogram features with LBP features in series method, and the fused feature are proved to be robust to terrain samples with multi-illumination and jitter scenarios with higher classification accuracy.
Total-Field versus Scattered-Field Finite-Difference Codes: A Comparative Assessment

This paper deals with time-domain finite-difference (TDFD) techniques for solutions of Maxwell's equations. Two types of algorithms are treated: scattered-field algorithms in which the incident fields (E¿i,H¿i), are analytically known but the scattered fields (E¿s,H¿s) must be computed with TDFD methods, and total-field calculations in which total fields (E¿T,H¿T) are found by TDFD techniques. Nonlinear problems and heavily shielded cavities can only be treated with the total-field approach. The price of this generality is an increase in mathematical complexity and computational cost.
Characterization of the murine immune response to type 6 pneumococcal polysaccharide

The antibody response to type 6 (Danish type 6A) pneumococcal capsular polysaccharide (S6) was determined in various strains of mice. S6 elicited a very low plaque-forming cell (PFC) response in most strains of mice. BALB/c mice responded better than most other strains, and the response to S6 was further characterized in BALB/c mice. Immunization with 1 to 5 micrograms of S6 induced a plaque-forming cell response of short duration which consisted totally of immunoglobulin M-producing PFC. Athymic nude mice produced three- to fivefold more PFC in response to S6 than their euthymic littermates, suggesting that thymus-derived (T) cells negatively influence the S6 response. Regulation of the response by T cells was further suggested by the ability of antilymphocyte serum to enhance the S6 PFC response and by the suppressed response induced by priming with a low dose of S6 3 days before immunization with an optimal dose of S6 (low dose paralysis). When concanavalin A was given 2 days after immunization with S6, the response was enhanced two- to sevenfold, suggesting that the response is also positively influenced by T amplifier cells. When the avidity of the antibody produced by S6-specific PFC was measured by a plaque inhibition test, the avidity of the anti-S6 antibody was found to be very low. These results suggest that S6 is a poor immunogen because the affinity of the S6-specific antibody and B cell surface receptors is low.
Teaching a Cross-Disciplinary Nanocomputing Systems Course

The end of photolithography as the driver for Moore's Law is predicted within few years and different emerging technologies (mostly nanotechnology) are expected to replace the current CMOS-based system integration paradigm. As nanotechnology is emerging, there is a strong need for well-educated engineers in nanocomputing systems design, and research and education efforts are also called to overcome numerous nano-based systems issues. This paper proposes an interdisciplinary course in nanocomputing systems by introducing two emerging technologies: Crossbar-based Nano-Architecture and Quantum-Dot Cellular Automata (QCA). The goals of the course are to introduce our students to the design trends of computing systems in the nanotechnology era, and make them highly competitive in future engineering jobs market. The course will be offered as undergraduate seniors/graduate course.
Conceptual analysis and representation of event-triggering mechanism in power system

A conceptual design methodology is proposed for event-triggered based power system control. The event-triggering mechanism is adopted to reduce the communication burden between origin of the remote control signal and the controller location. The remote signal is transmitted to the controller location only when a pre-defined state dependent event-triggering condition, is satisfied. The triggering condition is derived from a stability criterion, and is monitored continuously by a separate event-monitoring unit located at the origin of the remote signal. The stability of the resulting closed loop system is guaranteed via the input-to-state stability (ISS) technique. The proposed event triggered mechanism is implemented on single machine infinite bus test power system. The validation of proposed mechanism is carried out through the simulation studies on MATLAB/Simulink platform. The numerical results show the efficacy of the controller in managing the communication channel usage without compromising the stated system stability objectives.
Multipotent marrow stromal cell line is able to induce hematopoiesis in vivo

Several murine marrow stromal cells were established from murine bone marrow cultures. Stromal cell lines transfected with a tumor‐inducing polyoma virus middle T antigen (MTAg) were inoculated into nude mice subcutaneously. KUSA‐MTAg cells, one of these cell lines, led to the rapid local development of bone marrow consisting of trilineage hemantopoietic cells and bone; other cell lines produced spindle cell sarcoma or hemangiosarcoma. These results suggested that a single stromal cell line, KUSA‐MTAg cells, may induce hematopoietic stem cells or early progenitors of three lineages of hematopoietic cells in vivo. Interestingly, untransfected KUSA cells expressed three new mesenchymal phenotypes, osteocytes, adipocytes, and myotubes, after treatment with 5‐azacytidine. © 1992 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Defaming Rover: Error-Based Latent Rhetoric in the Medical Literature on Dog Bites

ABSTRACT This article examines the accuracy and rhetoric of reports by human health care professionals concerning dog bite injuries published in the peer-reviewed medical literature, with respect to nonclinical issues, such as dog behavior. A qualitative content analysis examined 156 publications between 1966 and 2015 identified by terms such as “dog bite” or “dangerous dogs. ” The analysis revealed misinformation about human–canine interactions, the significance of breed and breed characteristics, and the frequency of dog bite–related injuries. Misinformation included clear-cut factual errors, misinterpretations, omissions, emotionally loaded language, and exaggerations based on misunderstood or inaccurate statistics or reliance on the interpretation by third parties of other authors’ meaning. These errors clustered within one or more rhetorical devices including generalization, catastrophization, demonization, and negative differentiation. By constructing the issue as a social problem, these distortions and errors, and the rhetorical devices supporting them, mischaracterize dogs and overstate the actual risk of dog bites.
Prognostic significance of parameters derived from co-registered 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose PET and contrast-enhanced MRI in patients with high-grade glioma.

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to determine the prognostic significance of the volume and intensity of abnormal (18)F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) accumulation within areas of contrast enhancement on post-therapeutic volumetric MRI. METHODS A total of 10 patients with Grade III or IV glioma were treated with resection followed by intracavitary radiation therapy with (131)I-labelled antitenascin monoclonal antibody. Patients underwent serial FDG-PET and 1.5 T MR imaging. For each patient, MR and FDG-PET image volumes at each time point were aligned using a rigid-body normalised mutual information algorithm. Contrast-enhancing regions of interest (ROIs) were defined using a semi-automated k-means clustering technique. Activity within the ROI on the co-registered PET scan was calculated as a ratio (mean activity ratio; MAR) to activity in contralateral normal-appearing white matter (NAWM). The PET lesion was defined as the portion of the ROI associated with activity greater than two standard deviations above the mean in NAWM. Survival was assessed using the logrank test. RESULTS Larger contrast-enhancing ROIs were strongly associated with an increased MAR (r = 0.51; p<0.002). Enhancing lesions with an MAR >1.2 were associated with decreased survival (p<0.016). In nine patients who died, the MAR on PET correlated inversely with survival duration (r = -0.43; p<0.01), whereas PET lesion volume did not. CONCLUSION Following intracavitary radiation therapy, the development of contrast-enhancing lesions that are associated with high mean FDG-PET accumulation suggests poor prognosis.
Coded OFDM for broadband indoor wireless systems

In this paper we investigate the use of OFDM for broadband indoor wireless links as a means of dealing with the multipath propagation problem. We consider three solutions capable of simplifying the system. First, we consider differential encoding, so that phase estimation is not required. The second solution consists of the use of special coding schemes that are capable of spreading the information bits among the subcarriers, so that the BER performance is not deteriorated by badly attenuated subcarriers. Two coding schemes are compared, a Walsh coding scheme and 4-state trellis-coded modulation. As a third solution, we consider a Nyquist sampling rate OFDM. We show that the Nyquist sampling rate OFDM signal, which is supposed to be dependent on a perfect receiver timing, can be made resistant to a receiver timing mismatch by using the coding schemes and by decreasing the rolloff factor of the Nyquist pulse, with extra benefits of greater bandwidth efficiency and lower added noise.
TOWARD A DEFINITION OF FOLKLORE IN CONTEXT

proliferation. The German Volkskunde, the Swedish folkminne, and the Indian lok sahitya all imply slightly different meanings that the English term "folklore" cannot syncretize completely. ' Similarly, anthropologists and students of literature have projected their own bias into their definitions of folklore. In fact, for each of them folklore became the exotic topic, the green grass on the other side of the fence, to which they were attracted but which, alas, was not in their own domain. Thus, while anthropologists regarded folklore as literature, scholars of literature defined it as culture.2 Folklorists themselves resorted to enumerative,3 intuitive,4 and operational definitions; yet, while all these certainly contributed to the clarification of the nature of folklore, at the same time they circumvented the main issue, namely, the isolation of the unifying thread that joins jokes and myths, gestures and legends, costumes and music into a single category of knowledge. The difficulties experienced in defining folklore are genuine and real. They
Grid Connected Photovoltaic System with Fuzzy Logic Control Based MPPT

This paper focused on modelling and simulation of grid connected photovoltaic system. This work presents a fuzzy logic control based maximum power point tracking approach to enhance the efficiency and robustness of the solar photovoltaic (PV) power generation and establishes a dynamic model of grid-connected PV system by Matlab/Simulink environment which reflect the characteristics of the system accurately. Grid-connected PV system includes a PV array, dc-dc converter, fuzzy logic control based MPPT, inverter, LC filter, P-Q based inverter control, a distribution network. Improved fuzzy logic control based MPPT and P and Q based inverter control scheme provides a closed loop active and reactive power control and accurate synchronisation to grid. Simulation results presented here validate the component models and the chosen control schemes.
Failure of net atomic charge models to represent the van der Waals envelope electric potential of n‐alkanes

Traditional net atomic charge models were found unsatisfactory for representing the molecular electric potential (MEP) of n‐alkanes ethane through decane in their van der Waals envelopes. The MEP of these molecules was calculated by ab initio methods. Mulliken atomic charges were erratic and gave root mean square (rms) relative errors of fit to the MEP ranging from 152 to 607% with the 6‐31 + + g** basis set. Fitting the MEP with potential‐derived net atomic charges (PD charges) gave errors ranging from 51 to 62% with the same basis set. The use of larger basis sets, inclusion of electron correlation, use of more MEP data points, or relaxation to optimal structural geometry did not improve significantly the representation of the MEP by net atomic charges. In many cases PD charges of hydrogen atoms were negative, and carbon atoms were positive. To improve the representation of the MEP of n‐alkanes, augmentation of the model with nonatomic sites was investigated with the program PDM93. Models with additional charge sites located between hydrogens, on a line bisecting the CH2 group, achieved fits to the MEP with errors reduced to 8% or less, except for n‐butane, where the fitting error was 16%. The PD models augmented with methylene bisector sites generally show positive hydrogen charges. They also show CH2 group charge alternation along the n‐alkane chains. The augmented charge models were consistent with the observed quadrupole moment of ethane and gave satisfactory predictions for the crystal structures of pentane and octane. © 1994 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.