Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Modulatory effects of curcumin and resveratrol on lung carcinogenesis in mice

The aim of the present study is to explore the chemopreventive potential of curcumin and resveratrol during promotional phase of benzo(a)pyrene (BP) induced lung carcinogenesis in mice. The mice were segregated into five groups which included normal control, BP‐treated, BP+curcumin‐treated, BP+resveratrol‐treated and BP+curcumin+resveratrol‐treated groups. The BP treatment resulted in a significant increase in the levels of lipid peroxidation (LPO). On the other hand, reduced glutathione (GSH) levels and the activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD) were found to be significantly decreased following BP treatment. Administration of curcumin to BP‐treated mice decreased the levels of LPO significantly. Further, treatment of resveratrol to BP‐treated mice significantly elevated the activities of SOD. Combined treatment of curcumin and resveratrol, kowever, showed significant improvement in LPO and GSH levels as well as in the activities of SOD. Histo‐architectural studies showed well‐differentiated signs of lung carcinogenesis following BP administration to mice. Although treatments with resveratrol and curcumin given separately to BP‐treated mice showed appreciable improvement in the histo‐architecture of the lung, combined treatment resulted in a noticeable improvement in the lung histo‐architecture. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Optimizing Social Interaction - A Computational Approach to Support Patient Engagement

Social media can directly support disease management by creating online spaces where patients can interact with clinicians, and share experiences with other patients. Nevertheless, much more work remains to be carried out for providing and sharing an optimized information content. In this paper we formulate, from a theoretical perspective, an optimization problem aimed to encourage the creation of a sub-network of patients which, being recently diagnosed, wish to deepen their knowledge about their pathologies with some other patients, whose clinical profile turn to be similar, and have already been followed up within specific, even alternative, care centers. We will focus on the hardness of the proposed problem and provide a Genetic Algorithm (GAbased) approach to seek faster approximated solutions.
Auto-Split Laser Lift-Off Technique for Vertical-Injection GaN-Based Green Light-Emitting Diodes

An auto-split laser lift-off (LLO) method for fabrication of vertical-injection GaN-based green light-emitting diodes (ASV-LEDs) is demonstrated. The ASV-LEDs exhibited a significant improvement in the light output and thermal dissipation, as compared with that of conventional LEDs on sapphire. The intrinsic physical mechanism of the auto-split LLO technique is studied by a Frank-Read dislocation clustering model. The laser energy density and mesa spacing are shown to be key factors in the auto-split LLO method. It is believed that this method offers an alternative way to fabricate high-performance GaN-based thin-film LEDs.
The complete mitochondrial genome of Saxidomus purpuratus (Veneroida: Veneridae)

Abstract In this study, the complete mitochondrial genome of Saxidomus purpuratus is determined, which is the first complete mitochondrial genome in the genus Saxidomus. The genome was of 19 637 bp in length, including 2 rRNAs, 22 tRNAs and 12 protein-coding genes with the order of ND3 and ND5 reversed. Maximum likelihood tree based on nucleotide sequences of 12 mitochondrial PCGs was constructed, in which S. purpuratus was clustered with 3 Meretrix species. The results are expected to provide useful data for species identification and further studies of the genus Saxidomus.
Interaction of platelet‐activating factor, spleen and atrial natriuretic peptide in plasma volume regulation during endotoxaemia in rats

1 We studied endotoxin (lipopolysaccharide, LPS)‐induced platelet‐activating factor (PAF) production in various visceral organs, and the effect of PAF antagonists or splenectomy on LPS‐induced changes. 2 PAF production in response to LPS was highest in the spleen, followed by ileum, heart, lung and kidneys. None was found in the liver. The splenic response was rapid, reaching 10 times the basal level at 30 min. The increased PAF content in each organ was unrelated to the enzyme activity of either macrophages or neutrophils. 3 LPS‐induced hypotension and haemoconcentration were largely prevented by PAF antagonists and splenectomy. 4 Plasma volume fell, and plasma atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP) rose, after LPS administration. Splenectomy or pretreatment with PAF antagonists almost completely prevented these LPS‐induced changes at 30 min, but only partially reversed them at 90 min. 5 These results suggest that during endotoxaemia: (a) the spleen is the site of the highest endogenous PAF production; (b) the initial release of ANP is dependent on the production of endogenous PAF, and a PAF‐ANP interaction mediates the early plasma volume reduction; (c) plasma volume reduction as well as ANP release depend on the spleen; (d) PAF mediated the hypotensive response and its action in the spleen; and (e) sequestered neutrophils are probably not the main source of PAF in the spleen.
Control Strategy of Multi-modular Active Power Filter System

The design and implementation of multi-modular shunt active power filter (APF) system is presented. System configuration and N+1 redundancy design, load current sensing scheme, modeling and stability analysis have been investigated. Finally, simulation and experiment results of multi-modular shunt active power filter system are given to verify the control strategy.
Employee Motivation and its Most Influential Factors : A study on the Telecommunication Industry in Bangladesh

People are playing an important role for effective operation in every organization. In the recent years organizations have realized this and become increasingly interested in managing employees which will enhance business performance. The purpose of this study is to examine the ranked importance of some motivational factors and to recognize how the Telecommunication sector of Bangladesh is performing in motivating its workforce. Telecom industry was chosen since significant issues were reported about employee unrest during 2012. The data was collected from 81 employees of different private telecommunication companies and was analyzed using mean values and frequency percentage tables. The result concludes that, payment is not the only factor for motivating employees; rather there are some other pivotal factors likeopportunities for growth and development, job security, interesting work are the key which have significant contribution in propelling employee motivation in the workplace. Carefully designed employee engagement programs and reward systems should be considered.
Diagnostic Accuracy of Follow-Up FDG PET or PET/CT in Patients With Head and Neck Cancer After Definitive Treatment: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to assess the diagnostic performance of FDG PET or PET/CT for detection of local, regional, and distant recurrences in the follow-up of patients with head and neck cancer who underwent definitive treatment. MATERIALS AND METHODS A systematic search was performed in MEDLINE and Cochrane Library (updated September 2014) to identify relevant published studies. Studies investigating the accuracy of FDG PET/CT that were performed at least 4 months after therapy were included. Two authors independently screened all retrieved articles, selected studies that met the inclusion criteria, and extracted the data. Histopathologic confirmation or clinical follow-up of at least 6 month (or both) was considered as the reference standard. RESULTS Twenty-three studies constituting a total of 2247 FDG PET/CT examinations met our inclusion criteria. The pooled sensitivity and specificity of follow-up PET/CT for detection of recurrence were 0.92 (95% CI, 0.90-0.94), and 0.87 (95% CI, 0.82-0.91), respectively. The pooled sensitivity and specificity of scans performed 4-12 months after treatment were 0.95 (95% CI, 0.91-0.97) and 0.78 (95% CI, 0.70-0.84), respectively. Similar estimates for scans performed at or more than 12 months after treatment were 0.92 (95% CI, 0.85-0.96) and 0.91 (95% CI, 0.78-0.96), respectively. The overall accuracy of FDG PET/CT in detecting recurrence is higher in patients without suspicion of recurrence before the scan compared with the patients with suspected recurrence. CONCLUSION The high diagnostic performance of FDG PET/CT in detecting recurrence in curatively treated patients with head and neck cancer supports its use in clinical practice for patient follow-up. Further studies are needed to evaluate the prognostic utility of PET/CT in the follow-up of head and neck cancer.
The Social Psychology of Disintegrative Shaming in Education

Despite considerable research concerning drug education and zero tolerance policies, few have examined their combined youth impact. Comprehensive and nationally recognized mixed method evidence is drawn from 77 school districts and 118 schools in the Drug, Alcohol and Tobacco Education (DATE) evaluation. For the first time it is found that the combined negative impact of traditional prevention and intervention efforts—e.g., Life Skills Training (LST) and zero tolerance policies—are so serious that they extend into the wider conditions of educational achievement. Findings are explained by the social psychological processes of “disintegrative shaming,” where young people are to be shamed into abstinence and experiencing or witnessing school removal rather than help when needed. With more research needed the negative effects of traditional prevention and intervention— particularly salient among disproportionately affected urban/minority youth—suggest that related efforts be reconsidered together as well as part of mainstream education.
Inter-firm rivalry and firm growth: Is there any evidence of direct competition between firms?

Inter-firm competition has received much attention in the theoretical literature, but recent empirical work suggests that the growth rates of rival firms are uncorrelated, and that firm growth can be taken as an essentially independent process. We begin by investigating the correlations of the growth rates of competing firms (i.e. the largest and second-largest firms in the same industry) and observe that, surprisingly, the growth of these firms can be taken as independent. Nevertheless, peer-effect regressions, that take into account the simultaneous interdependence of growth rates of rival firms, are able to identify significant negative effects of rivals' growth on a firm's growth.
Invertebrate responses to decreasing water levels in a subtropical river floodplain wetland

Unregulated river floodplains are dynamic environments, and invertebrates living in these wetlands must be able to respond to fluctuating water levels. As water levels decrease in the floodplain, aquatic and semi-aquatic invertebrates may either move with the receding water or remain and become exposed to drying on non-inundated floodplain soil. Invertebrates inhabiting floodplains may use several strategies to cope with exposed (non-inundated) conditions; they may survive exposure by forming desiccation-resistant stages, emerging as adults (insects only), or living in a non-dormant state in exposed soil. To investigate invertebrate responses to a receding water line, benthic core samples were collected in exposed and inundated floodplain soil at successively lower water levels after a flood in the Sipsey River floodplain, west central Alabama. Insect emergence was also compared on inundated and exposed floodplain. Some invertebrate groups moved with the receding water line (aquatic chironomids, ostracods, cladocerans, copepods, Acari, and stratiomyids), while others did not (semi-aquatic/terrestrial chironomids, collembolans, oligochaetes, nematodes, diplurans, proturans, tenebrionids, and sciarids). Chironomids were the dominant emerging insect (73%), and adults emerged from both inundated (33 individuals m−2 d−1) and exposed floodplain soil (15 individuals m−2 d−1). These results document the importance of at least two survival strategies for aquatic invertebrates: moving with decreasing water levels and emerging from exposed floodplain soil (insects only). The semi-aquatic taxa not responding to receding water can survive in both exposed and inundated soil, at least for the short period observed in this study. Thus, many floodplain invertebrates in small-to-medium sized rivers are able to cope with a dynamic and unpredictable inundation pattern, which likely enhances wetland productivity.
Fish faunal provinces of the conterminous United States of America reflect historical geography and familial composition

Although the conterminous USA has a long history of ichthyological exploration, the description of biogeographical provinces has been ad hoc. In this study we quantitatively determined fish faunal provinces and interpreted them in the context of the geological history of North America. We also evaluated influences of major river basin occupancy and contemporary environmental factors on provincial patterns. Our data set comprised 794 native fishes, which we used to generate a presence and absence matrix for U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) four‐digit hydrologic units. Three nested data sets were analysed separately: primary freshwater families, continental freshwater families (including primary and secondary families) and all freshwater families (including primary, secondary and peripheral families). We used clustering analysis to delimit faunal breaks and one‐way analysis of similarity (ANOSIM) to determine significance among clusters (i.e. provinces). We used an indicator‐species analysis to identify species that contributed most to province delineations and a similarity‐percentage (SIMPER) analysis to describe the relative influence of representatives from each category (i.e. primary, secondary, peripheral) on provincial boundaries. Lastly, we used a parsimony redundancy analysis to determine the roles of historical (i.e. major river basin) and contemporary environmental factors in shaping provinces. Analysis of the nested data sets revealed lessening provincial structure with inclusion of more families. There were 10 primary freshwater provinces, 9 continental freshwater provinces and 7 all freshwater provinces. Major basin occupancy, but not contemporary environmental factors, explained substantial variance in faunal similarities among provinces. However, provincial boundaries did not conform strictly to modern river basins, but reflected river‐drainage connections of the Quaternary. Provinces represent broad‐scale patterns of endemism and provide a starting point for future studies. Relative malleability of province boundaries in the continental interior highlights this region as biogeographically diverse and dynamic. Interior‐core provinces of this region (Central Gulf Coastal Plains, Northern Interior) have not been recognized previously and warrant further study.
Exploiting robust direct data domain STAP for GMTI in very high resolution SAR

In this paper we exploit the robust direct data domain STAP (RD3-STAP) in the SAR case. This is extremely interesting especially for very high resolution SAR systems. In fact, in this case due to the strong heterogeneous characteristics of the clutter over range, stochastic STAP might fail due to the possible lack of enough homogeneous secondary data for adequate clutter covariance matrix estimation. In the proposed approach, the RD3-STAP filter is applied in the Doppler domain independently for every different Doppler bin, leading to a factorization of the space-time cancellation problem into independent space only cancellation sub-problems. The different spectral clutter components decoupling resulting from long SAR coherent processing intervals ensures that clutter cancellation capabilities are not reduced by this factorization. A nice property of the RD3-STAP filter ensures together with the clutter cancellation also a compensation of the moving target phase history. A possible integration of the RD3-STAP with the remainder SAR processing is presented and finally the effectiveness of the integrated technique is tested against a simulated dataset.
Loss of heterozygosity on chromosome 6 in HPV‐16 positive cervical carcinomas carrying the DRB1*1501‐DQB1*0602 haplotype

High‐risk human papillomaviruses (HPVs), specifically HPV‐16 and ‐18, have been associated with the development of carcinoma in situ (CIS) and of invasive cervical cancer (CC). However, only a small fraction of HPV‐infected women will show signs of disease progression, suggesting that other factors in the carcinogenic pathway are needed. We previously demonstrated that human leukocyte antigen (HLA) DRB1*1501‐DQB1*0602 (high risk) was associated with the development of CIS and CC tumors in HPV‐16‐positive patients. To characterize the molecular changes that could be relevant to tumor progression, we compared the extent of loss of heterozygosity (LOH) on chromosome 6 in HPV‐16‐positive CIS patients who were carriers of high‐risk and neutral HLA haplotypes. CIS and CC cases demonstrated similar LOH patterns. A wide range of LOH frequencies was found at 6p (10–53%) and 6q (5–28%) in CIS cases, suggesting that LOH is an early event in the carcinogenic process. A comparative analysis of LOH frequencies in the high‐risk versus the neutral HLA haplotypes showed a statistically significant difference in the extent of LOH at 6p24–p25 (58.6% versus 25.8%; P = 0.018) and at 6p21.3 (79.3% versus 35.5%; P = 0.001), a region that contains the HLA complex. LOH at this region could affect genes encoding HLA class I–II molecules, as well as factors responsible for the assembly, transport, and stable expression of HLA molecules. These losses may be a reflection of both an abnormal immune response and a general genome‐wide instability resulting from virus persistence. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Cancer of the tongue in Finland : incidence, detection, survival and prognostic factors

A population-based study was conducted to determine the trends in incidence and survival of cancer of the mobile tongue in Finland over the past 40 years. Possible changes in patient and tumour characteristics, early detection and prognostic factors of cancer of the mobile tongue were monitored in a geographically defined area of Northern Finland over the past 20 years. There were 1504 new cases with cancer of the mobile tongue in 1953-1994 in Finland and 105 cases in 1974-1994 in Northern Finland. An increasing trend in incidence of cancer of the mobile tongue was observed over the past 20 years both nationwide and in Northern Finland. The stage distribution of the cancer of the mobile tongue remained very much the same throughout the study period. Despite the increasing incidence rate and unchanged stage distribution of the tumours, the 5-year relative survival rate of cancer of the tongue improved from 40% to 58% in the 40-year study period in Finland. To evaluate the detection of cancer of the tongue, patients' primary care files were reviewed. It was revealed that the diagnostic skills of the physician/dentist first contacted by the patient had a significant effect on the patient's prognosis. If the cancer was not detected at the primary visit and no follow-up was scheduled, the delay was often fatally long. The most important factor influencing the referral pattern was the patient's primary symptom at the initial visit. The more closely the symptom was related to the tongue, the more likely the patient was correctly referred. To recognise aggressively behaving early stage (Stages I-II) cancers of the tongue, various prognostic factors were analysed. It was observed that an old age (65+years) of the patient, a high malignancy score of the tumour and the absence of p53 predicted poor prognosis in early stage carcinomas. Patients with these qualities may require more aggressive initial therapy.
Evaluating Conversational Characters Created through Question Generation

Question generation tools can be used to extract a question-answer database from text articles. We investigate how suitable this technique is for giving domain-specific knowledge to conversational characters. We tested these characters by collecting questions and answers from naive participants, running the questions through the character, and comparing the system responses to the participant answers. Characters gave a full or partial answer to 53% of the user questions which had an answer available in the source text, and 43% of all questions asked. Performance was better for questions asked after the user had read the source text, and also varied by question type: the best results were answers to who questions, while answers to yes/no questions were among the poorer performers. The results show that question generation is a promising method for creating a question answering conversational character from an existing text.
nhibition of cholinesterases and carboxylesterases of two invertebrate pecies , Biomphalaria glabrata and Lumbriculus variegatus , by the arbamate pesticide carbaryl

In this study, the effects of sublethal concentrations of the carbamate carbaryl on the cholinesterase (ChE) and carboxylesterase (CES) activities present in the oligochaete Lumbriculus variegatus and in the pigmented Biomphalaria glabrata gastropod were investigated. The results showed that ChE activity from both species was inhibited by in vivo and in vitro exposure to carbaryl, with EC50 and IC50 values approximately 20 times lower for the oligochaete than for the gastropod. On the other hand, the recovery process in uncontaminated media was more efficient in oligochaetes than in snails. Thus, in only 2 h the oligochaetes showed no inhibition with respect to control values whereas the snails did not reach control values even after 48 h of being in pesticide-free water. CES activity was investigated in whole body soft tissue homogenates using three different substrates: p-nitrophenyl butyrate, 1-naphthyl acetate (NA) and 2-NA. In addition, the presence of multiple CES isozymes in L. variegatus and B. glabrata extracts, with activity towards 1and 2-NA, was confirmed by native polyacrylamide electrophoresis. In both species, the activities measured using the naphthyl substrates were higher than the activity towards p-nitrophenyl butyrate. In addition, B. glabrata showed a higher CES activity than L. variegatus independently of the substrate used. In L. variegatus, in vivo CES activity towards the different substrates was less sensitive to carbaryl inhibition than ChE activity. In contrast, in B. glabrata, CES activity towards pnitrophenyl butyrate was inhibited at lower insecticide concentrations than ChE. The results of this study dge o contribute to the knowle towards pesticides.
End-to-End Flow-Level Quality-of-Service Guarantees for Switched Networks

This thesis studies the question of Quality-of-Service guarantees at flow level for industrial Ethernet networks. Packet scheduling algorithms are studied to realize hybrid networks shared by best-effort and guaranteed low-latency services. A flow-level evaluation framewok for TCP and UDP flows is developed to characterize statistical performance properties of infinite and short flows. The application layer is modeled to describe realistic protocols behavior.