Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Stringent Definitions : What Should Count as “ Unconscious ” and “ Perception ” ?

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Epizootics in harbour seals ( Phoca vitulina ): clinical aspects

Epizootic diseases causing considerable mortality in harbour seal populations have mainly been reported from the waters of the United States and Europe. Such die-offs were largely attributable to viral infections. Several hundred individuals died from respiratory infections caused by Influenza A viruses at the coast of New England, USA, in 1979, 1980 and 1982. More than 53,000 harbour seals were killed in European waters by Phocine Distemper Virus (PDV), a morbillivirus, in two outbreaks in 1988 and 2002. For several other epizootics of smaller scale in the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific coast of the USA and, most recently, in Danish and Swedish waters in 2007 the causes remain unclear, although characteristic respiratory symptoms and interstitial pneumonia suspicious of viral etiology were detected as well as occasionally bacterial infections caused by Erysipelothrix rhusiopathiae and Pseudomonas aeruginosa . Mass mortalities caused by biotoxins, direct human interactions or changes in oceanographic conditions have so far not been described for harbour seals. However, high organochlorine loads detected in European harbour seal populations and suspected to impede immune functions, were considered an aggravating factor in the 1988 morbillivirus epizootic. Establishing supranational stranding networks is a key prerequisite for the detection of future unusual die-offs in marine mammals. Detailed post-mortem investigations of all organ systems are essential for targeted etiological studies towards the causes of mass mortalities in seals.
Construct Bispecific for Murine EpCAM and Murine CD 3 Therapeutic Window of MuS 110 , a Single-Chain Antibody

EpCAM (CD326) is one of the most frequently and highly expressed tumor-associated antigens known and recently has also been found on cancer stem cells derived from human breast, colon, prostate, and pancreas tumors. However, like many other tumor-associated antigens used for antibodybased immunotherapeutic approaches, EpCAM is expressed on normal tissues including epithelia of pancreas, colon, lung, bile ducts, and breast. To assess the therapeutic window of an EpCAM/CD3-bispecific single-chain antibody construct of the bispecific T-cell engager (BiTE) class, we constructed murine surrogate of MT110 (muS110) from single-chain antibodies specific for murine EpCAM and CD3 antigens. Immunhistochemical analysis showed that, with minor differences, the expression of EpCAM protein on a large variety of tissues from man and mouse was similar with respect to distribution and level. MuS110 exhibited significant antitumor activity at as low as 5 Mg/kg in both syngeneic 4T1 orthotopic breast cancer and CT-26 lung cancer mouse models. Dosing of muS110 for several weeks up to 400 Mg/kg by intraanimal dose escalation was still tolerated, indicating existence of a significant therapeutic window for an EpCAM-specific BiTE antibody in mice. MuS110 was found to have similar in vitro characteristics and in vivo antitumor activity as MT110, a human EpCAM/human CD3-bispecific BiTE antibody that currently is in formal preclinical development. [Cancer Res 2008;68(1):143–51]
The use of AFLP markers to elucidate relationships within Cryptocoryne (Araceae)

Four species complexes in Cryptocoryne were included in a study of genetic diversity: The C. beckettii complex (Sri Lanka), the C. crispatula complex (Mainland Asia), and selected accessions from the diand polyploid cordate leaved species from Malesia, altogether comprising 400+ accessions. The Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism (AFLP) method was discriminative not only within but also between species complexes. Within the cordate leaved Malesian species, it was also possible to discriminate between diploids, tetraploids and hexaploids forming very robust relationship groupings. The AFLP study also revealed that, geographical proximity exposed closer genetical relationship than morphologically similar accessions geographically apart.
The Housing Price Boom of the Late ’90s: Did Inflation Targeting Matter?

The recent boom in housing markets of most developed economies has spurred criticism that inflation targeting central banks may have neglected the build-up of financial imbalances. This paper provides a formal empirical test of such claims, using a standard program evaluation methodology to correct for a possible bias due to self-selection into inflation targeting. We consider 17 industrial economies over 1980-2006, among which nine countries have targeted inflation at some dates. We find robust evidence of a significant positive effect of inflation targeting on real housing price growth and on the housing price to rent ratio.
A Multi-layer Description of the Environment using Curvature Information for Robot Navigation

u˜ nez Abstract—In this paper, a novel method for a multi-layer description of the enviroment based on curvature information is presented. The proposal consists of three consecutive stages: data acquisition and pre-processing, segmentation and landmarks extraction. The main novelty of this work is the use of a RGBD sensor that projects the 3D points onto a set of planes to different heights. Each one of these planes corresponds to different scan laser readings that are segmented using an adaptive curvature estimation. This adaptive segmen- tation is used to directly extract breakpoints, line segments and real and virtual corners of the 3D environment. Experimental results show that the proposed approach is efficient for detecting landmarks in structured and semi- structured real and virtual environments. A comparative study of similar approaches in terms of robustness and accuracy demostrates the improvements of the presented environ- ment description system.
The spatial scaling of beta diversity

Beta diversity is an important concept used to describe turnover in species composition across a wide range of spatial and temporal scales, and it underpins much of conservation theory and practice. Although substantial progress has been made in the mathematical and terminological treatment of different measures of beta diversity, there has been little conceptual synthesis of potential scale dependence of beta diversity with increasing spatial grain and geographic extent of sampling. Here, we evaluate different conceptual approaches to the spatial scaling of beta diversity, interpreted from ‘fixed’ and ‘varying’ perspectives of spatial grain and extent. We argue that a ‘sliding window’ perspective, in which spatial grain and extent covary, is an informative way to conceptualize community differentiation across scales. This concept more realistically reflects the varying empirical approaches that researchers adopt in field sampling and the varying scales of landscape perception by different organisms. Scale dependence in beta diversity has broad implications for emerging fields in ecology and biogeography, such as the integration of fine-resolution ecogenomic data with large-scale macroecological studies, as well as for guiding appropriate management responses to threats to biodiversity operating at different spatial scales.
Recent Advances in Childhood Atopic Dermatitis

Received June 7, 2007 Abstract Significant progress has been made in the understanding of the pathogenesis of atopic dermatitis but the cure remains elusive. The management strategy is therefore to reduce the disease exacerbation and produce comfort for affected children and their families. Thorough clinical assessment helps to guide the education process which is an essential part of management. Use of topical corticosteroids and emollients remain the first line management together with avoidance of triggers. The topical immunomodulating agents, tacrolimus and pimecrolimus have broadened the armamentarium in the management of atopic dermatitis. Use of systemic immunosuppressants is now proved to be safe and effective for refractory atopic dermatitis provided that proper ways of monitoring side effects are adopted. Novel management approach, such as probiotics, has evolved from advances in our understanding of the pathobiology of this common skin disease.
Part A : Toxic / Hazardous Substances and Environmental Engineering

Microscopic fungi recovered from honey and their toxinogenity Miroslava Kačániová a , Vladimíra Kňazovická a , Soňa Felšöciová a & Katarína Rovná b a Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Sciences, Slovak University of Agriculture, Nitra, Slovak Republic b Department of Green's Biotechnics, Horticulture and Landscape Engineering Faculty, Slovak University of Agriculture, Nitra, Slovak Republic
DEFENSIVE BEHAVIOUR OF Apis cerana F. AGAINST PREDATORY WASPS

Summary Defensive behaviour of Apis cerana F. was studied against predatory wasps Vespa velutina and Vespa magnifica. The honeybee Apis cerana showed a well organized defense and killed more number of predatory wasps by exhibiting well organized balling behaviour as compared to Apis mellifera L. The bee mortality was higher when fewer wasps visited the apiary due to an unorganized defence. However, when the intensity of attack was severe, fewer bees and more wasps were killed due to an organized defense.
Shankaran 920 PATHOPHYSIOLOGY OF BRAIN INJURY DUE TO HI The pathophysiology of brain injury secondary

Neonatal encephalopathy due to hypoxic ischemia (HI) occurs in 1.5 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.3–1.7) per 1000 live full-term births. About 15% to 20% of affected newborns die in the postnatal period, and an additional 25% will sustain childhood disabilities. The presence of abnormal neurologic examination results in the first few days of life highly predicts a brain insult in the perinatal period. Neonates with mild encephalopathy usually do not have an increased risk of motor or cognitive deficits. Neonates with severe encephalopathy have a high risk of death (up to 85%) and an increased risk of cerebral palsy (CP) and mental retardation among survivors. Neonates with moderate encephalopathy have significant motor deficits, fine motor disability, memory impairment, visual or visuomotor dysfunction, increased hyperactivity and delayed school readiness. The essential criteria suggested as prerequisites to a diagnosis of a hypoxic-ischemic insult resulting in moderate or severe encephalopathy in term infants include the following: metabolic acidosis with a cord pH of less than 7.0 or a baseline deficit of 12 mmol/L or more, early onset of encephalopathy, multisystem organ dysfunction, and exclusion of other causes such as coagulation, metabolic and genetic disorders, or maternal trauma.
Immunopathology and Infectious Diseases A 2 A Adenosine Receptor ( A 2 AAR ) as a Therapeutic Target in Diabetic Retinopathy

In diabetic retinopathy (DR), abnormalities in vascular and neuronal function are closely related to the local production of inflammatory mediators whose potential source is microglia. A2A adenosine receptor (A2AAR) has been shown to possess anti-inflammatory properties that have not been studied in DR. Here, we evaluate the role of A2AAR and its underlying signaling in retinal complications associated with diabetes. Initial studies in wild-type mice revealed that the treatment with the A2AAR agonist resulted in marked decreases in hyperglycemia-induced retinal cell death and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)release. To further assess the role of A2AAR in DR, we studied the effects of A2AAR ablation on diabetes-induced retinal abnormalities. Diabetic A2AAR / mice had significantly more terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP nick-end labeling-positive cells, TNFrelease, and intercellular adhesion molecule-1 expression compared with diabetic wild-type mice. To explore a potential mechanism by which A2AAR signaling regulates inflammation in DR, we performed additional studies using microglial cells treated with Amadori-glycated albumin, a risk factor in diabetic disorders. The results showed that activation of A2AAR attenuated Amadori-glycated albumininduced TNFrelease in a cAMP/exchange protein directly activated by cAMP-dependent mechanism and significantly repressed the inflammatory cascade, C-Raf/extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK), in activated microglia. Collectively, this work provides pharmacological and genetic evidence for A2AAR signaling as a control point of cell death in DR and suggests that the retinal protective effect of A2AAR is mediated by abrogating the inflammatory response
Conventional and Islamic stock markets: what about financial performance?

The study aims to analyze the performance of both Islamic and conventional stock markets, particularly at normal time and during the Subprime crisis period. The performance has been assessed by reference to one of the most important financial concepts, extremely useful in investment selections, namely: the informational efficiency. For this purpose, we use a relevant methodology based on the time varying parameters model combined with a GARCH specification, Granger non-causal test and structural break points technique. Empirical results show that the weak efficiency hypothesis is relatively verified in both the Islamic and the conventional market systems, but it varies from one market to another depending on the specific characteristics of each one. Moreover, we conclude that Islamic markets are not fully immunized against effects of financial crises and strong financial fragilities. The results of the Granger non-causality test suggest that the Islamic stock markets have succeeded to relatively escape important part of the last Subprime crisis risky effects. This evidence may support investment in this brand of markets and therefore allows the strengthening of economic growth.
Motion Prediction of Ships and Yachts by Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics

Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) is a (relatively) recent numerical analysis technique that facilitates the development of a virtual towing tank for the analysis of ship and yacht motions. SPH is a mesh-free interpolation method in which particles follow the motion of the material and its interfaces. Although the accuracy of the method merits further work, the SPH method when used to model fluid flow suffers neither from the inaccuracies of the Eulerian finite difference solution, nor from the large deformation limitations of Lagrangian finite elements. When water is analysed using mesh-free techniques, the simulation can model many non-linear phenomena including breaking waves as well as dispersion in splash-like events. The combination in the one analysis package of both mesh-based and mesh-free capabilities makes feasible the analysis of ship and yacht behaviour in waves. This physics-based analysis technique yields an approach that is unrestricted in its ability to model conventional displacement vessels, multi-hulled wave-piercing vessels, planing vessels or even submarines. Furthermore, airborne events such as those leading to slamming of yachts can also be analysed. This paper will present a number of recent case studies to demonstrate the flexibility of the SPH numerical towing tank for the analysis of ships and yachts in waves.
Hepatoprotective effect of Phytosome Curcumin against paracetamol-induced liver toxicity in mice

Curcuma longa, which contains curcumin as a major constituent, has been shown many pharmacological effects, but it is limited using in clinical due to low bioavailability. In this study, we developed a phytosome curcumin formulation and evaluated the hepatoprotective effect of phytosome curcumin on paracetamol induced liver damage in mice. Phytosome curcumin (equivalent to curcumin 100 and 200 mg/kg body weight) and curcumin (200 mg/kg body weight) were given by gastrically and toxicity was induced by paracetamol (500 mg/kg) during 7 days. On the final day animals were sacrificed and liver function markers (ALT, AST), hepatic antioxidants (SOD, CAT and GPx) and lipid peroxidation in liver homogenate were estimated. Our data showed that phytosome has stronger hepatoprotective effect compared to curcumin-free. Administration of phytosome curcumin effectively suppressed paracetamol-induced liver injury evidenced by a reduction of lipid peroxidation level, and elevated enzymatic antioxidant activities of superoxide dismutase, catalase, glutathione peroxidase in mice liver tissue. Our study suggests that phytosome curcumin has strong antioxidant activity and potential hepatoprotective effects.
Encoder Word Embedding Condition Image LR Image Coarse Image Generator Encoder Sharing Weights Sharing Weights + z ⇠ N ( 0 , 1 ) “ side ” + Condition Image Target

This paper addresses a challenging problem – how to generate multi-view cloth images from only a single view input. To generate realistic-looking images with different views from the input, we propose a new image generation model termed VariGANs that combines the strengths of the variational inference and the Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs). Our proposed VariGANs model generates the target image in a coarse-to-fine manner instead of a single pass which suffers from severe artifacts. It first performs variational inference to model global appearance of the object (e.g., shape and color) and produce a coarse image with a different view. Conditioned on the generated low resolution images, it then proceeds to perform adversarial learning to fill details and generate images of consistent details with the input. Extensive experiments conducted on two clothing datasets, MVC and DeepFashion, have demonstrated that images of a novel view generated by our model are more plausible than those generated by existing approaches, in terms of more consistent global appearance as well as richer and sharper details.
Toll-Like Receptor 3 Ligand Dampens Liver Inflammation by Stimulating V (cid:1) 14 Invariant Natural Killer T Cells to Negatively Regulate (cid:2)(cid:3) T Cells

V (cid:1) 14 invariant natural killer T (V (cid:1) 14 i NKT) cells are at the interface between the innate and adaptive immune responses and are thus critical for providing full engagement of host defense. We investigated the role of polyriboinosinic:polycytidylic acid (poly I:C), a replication-competent viral double-stranded RNA mimic and a specific agonist that recognizes the cellular sensor Toll-like receptor 3 (TLR3), in regulating V (cid:1) 14 i NKT cell activation. We established for the first time that hepatic V (cid:1) 14 i NKT cells up-regulate TLR3 extracellularly after poly I:C treatment. Notably, activation of TLR3-expressing hepatic V (cid:1) 14 i NKT cells by a TLR3 ligand was suppressed by TLR3 deficiency. Our studies also revealed that V (cid:1) 14 i NKT cell activation in response to poly I:C administration uniquely suppressed the accumulation and activation of intrahepatic (cid:2)(cid:3) T cells (but not natural killer cells) by inducing apoptosis. Furthermore, we established that activated hepatic V (cid:1) 14 i NKT cells (via cytokines and possibly reactive oxygen species) influenced the frequency and absolute number of intrahepatic (cid:2)(cid:3) T cells, as evidenced by increased hepatic (cid:2)(cid:3) T cell accumulation in V (cid:1) 14 i NKT cell-deficient mice after poly I:C treatment relative to wild-type mice. Thus, hepatic innate immune response after poly I:C treatment. We demonstrate that a functional consequence of hepatic V (cid:1) 14 i NKT cell activation in response to poly I:C administration is the subsequent induction of apoptotic death of hepatic (cid:2)(cid:3) T cells. Overall, our findings demonstrate a novel role for activated hepatic V (cid:1) 14 i NKT cells in negatively regulating the recruitment, activation, and potentially harmful effector function(s) of intrahepatic (cid:2)(cid:3) T cells on application of the TLR3 ligand, poly I:C.
Micropropagation of Dioscorea alata L. from microtubers induced in vitro

A new method made up of different steps was established for micropropagation of Dioscorea alata. First plantlets were regenerated from shoots proliferating on nodal cuttings cultured on half strength Murashige and Skoog salt medium (MS/2) (basal medium) supplemented with 0.5 mg l -1 BAP and 1 mg l -1 NAA. These plantlets were used to induce microtubers on the basal medium supplemented with 1 to 5 mg l -1 6-benzylaminopurine (BAP), kinetin (Kin) or α-naphthalene acetic acid (NAA) and 10 to 60 g l -1 sucrose. BAP at 2 to 3 mg l -1 combined with 20 to 30 g l -1 sucrose was more effective than Kin and NAA. It gave rise to 92% plantlets producing microtubers and the highest numbers of microtubers per plantlet varied between five and six. Microtubers, when sectioned and cultured on the basal medium supplemented with different BAP/NAA or Kin/NAA ratios, differentiated into shoots that, when isolated and subcultured in the same media, gave rise to rooted plantlets. The highest percentage of microtubers that differentiated into shoots was 98.8%, the highest number of shoots per microtuber was 7.5 and hence the highest number of rooted plantlets regenerated from those shoots was induced with BAP/NAA ratio (3/2 mg l -1 ) compared to that of BAP/NAA and Kin/NAA ratios. When the plantlets were acclimatized in different substrates, 97% survived in the mixture black soil/sand at equal volume (V/V) and this was the best result for the final step of the micropropagation of D. alata in this study. The different steps here described, allowed the regeneration of 45 and 16 plantlets from microtubers in about 251 days using BAP and NAA, respectively, and constituted a new and rapid method for the production of healthy seeds of this species. Keywords: Growth regulators, micropropagation, microtubers, yam African Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 12(10), pp. 1057-1067
Subaqueous soils : their genesis and importance in ecosystem management

Research by soil scientists examining estuarine aquatic substrates has identified pedogenic processes, resulting in the reclassification of these aquatic substrates (sediments) as subaqueous soils (SASs). Pedogenic processes in SASs are similar in concept to those occurring in subaerial soils, and thus SASs can be described and mapped based on pedogenic similarities using Jenny’s soil forming factors for interpreting soil genesis. The occurrence of SASs in estuarine and freshwater ecosystems places them at the centre of many ecosystem-dependent processes supporting food webs linked directly to the human population and its economy. Early research on SASs has been driven by addressing fishery habitat support questions for US subaquatic vegetation populations (SAV), and for estimating the carbon sequestration potential of soils with SAV. New land use interpretations for SASs include bottom type, presence of sulphidic materials, potential for submerged aquatic vegetation restoration, limitations for moorings and species lists for plants and algae common to tidal areas. Subaquatic soils are a viable, exciting frontier of soil science research that will surely foster multi-disciplinary collaborations. While their genesis is only beginning to be understood, it is clear that their importance in human-dependent land management issues such as soil and water quality, food supply and human survival is great. However, the fragility of such soils for providing vital functions to support life on Earth suggests that they need to be investigated and monitored.