Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
DNA-damaging effect of cadmium and protective action of quercetin

Cadmium is a widespread environmental and occupational pollutant and quercetin is a dietary flavonoid, which is reported to modulate the effects of many mutagens and carcinogens. We investigated the ability of cadmium chloride to induce DNA damage in human lymphocytes in the presence of quercetin using the alkaline comet assay. Cadmium chloride (5-150 μM) evoked dose-dependent DNA damage and quercetin at 50 μM decreased the extent of the damage. The lymphocytes exposed to cadmium chloride were able to remove their DNA damage within a time period shorter than 120 min. The cells treated with quercetin at 50 μM prior to exposure to cadmium required shorter periods of time to recover. Quercetin could chelate cadmium ions, scavenge free radicals produced by cadmium or regenerate cellular DNA-repair enzymes.
0076. Monographic revision of the genus Aegidinus Arrow (1904) and generic phylogeny of the world Orphninae(Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Orphninae).

A taxonomic revision was performed on the New World scarabaeoid genus Aegidinus Arrow (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Orphninae). Twelve new species and three previously described species are included in the revision. Keys to New World genera, species of the genus Aegidinus, and distribution maps are provided. Phylogenetic analyses of the world genera of the Orphninae were conducted using 30 adult, morphological characters from representatives of 13 of the 14 genera and three out-group taxa. The subfamily Orphninae is a strongly supported monophyletic group (bootstrap support 88-90%) with respect to the chosen out-group. Characters that support the Orphninae are: mandibles not sickle shaped, molar surface on the mandibles present, lacinia present, and stridulatory comb present. Separate Old and New World lineages are also supported by the phylogeny, when two genera, Goniorphnus Arrow and Stenosternus Karsch, are excluded from the analysis. The new species described are: Aegidinus cornutus Colby, A. crypticus Colby, A. howdenorum Colby, A. howeae Colby, A. oreibates Colby, A. petrovi Colby, A. simulatus Colby, A. sunidgea Colby, A. teamscaraborum Colby, A. tricornis Colby, A. unicus Colby, and A. venezuelensis Colby.
Pathotypes and virulence of Xanthomonas oryzae causing bacterial blight disease of rice in Peninsular Malaysia.

A study was conducted on Xanthomonas oryzae isolates collected from major granary areas in Peninsular Malaysia. Study on the 346 isolates indicated that most of them (29.5%) could be grouped into pathotype P1.0. Pathotype P1.0 was only virulent against rice variety IR 8 which carried the resistant gene Xa-11 but remained avirulent against other differential varieties. Pathotype P1.0 was detected in all states. The most virulent pathotype was P7.7 which was capable of causing severe lesion on all differential varieties tested. However, most of the virulent pathotypes were only represented by a small number of isolates and limited to certain localities only. Rice variety MR 84 which was popular in the 90s was susceptible to the common isolates. However, other differential varieties such as Cempo Selak, Zenith, IR 20, DV 85 and Patong 32 were resistant, and most of the tested isolates remained avirulent against them. *Rice and Industrial Crops Research Centre, MARDI Seberang Perai, P.O. Box 203, 13200 Kepala Batas, Pulau Pinang, Malaysia **Rice and Industrial Crops Research Centre, MARDI Headquarters, Serdang, P.O. Box 12301, 50774 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Authors’ full names: Saad Abdullah and Habibuddin Hashim E-mail: asaad@mardi.gov. my ©Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute 2010 Introduction The bacterium Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae (Xoo) or previously known as Xanthomonas campestris pv. oryzae is the causal pathogen of the bacterial blight disease (BLB) of rice in Asia (Swings et al. 1990). It is considered as one of the most serious and widespread diseases affecting rice industry in Asia since the 1960s (Ou 1985). It causes yellowing of the leaves, followed by death of infected leaf tissues, which usually starts from the tip of the leaves (Plate 1). Due to the reduction in the leaf area size, an infected susceptible plant may suffer a yield reduction of as high as 50% (Saad 1995). Incidence of the disease was observed in the rice fields of Peninsular Malaysia in the early 80s, but was in a limited widespread (Saad 1995). However, it became more widespread recently, which was believed to be partly due to the wide scale planting of a susceptible rice variety, MR 84, for many long consecutive years. The disease also caused an estimated loss of about RM50 million during the period of 1982 to 1994 (Saad 1994). Chemical control of the disease is impractical due to unavailability of a suitable bactericide to suppress the disease development and its effect. Hence, breeding rice varieties resistant to the disease
Handling Norms in Multi-Agent System by Means of Formal Argumentation

Formal argumentation is used to enrich and analyse normative multi-agent systems in various ways. In this chapter, we discuss three examples from the literature of handling norms by means of formal argumentation. First, we discuss how existing ways to resolve conflicts among norms using priorities can be represented in formal argumentation, by showing that the so-called Greedy and Reduction approaches can be represented using the weakest and the last link principles respectively. Based on such representation results, formal argumentation can be used to explain the detachment of obligations and permissions from hierarchical normative systems in a new way. Second, we discuss how formal argumentation can be used as a general theory for developing new approaches for normative reasoning, using a dynamic ASPIC-based legal argumentation theory. We show how existing logics of normative systems can be used to analyse such new argumentation systems. Third, we show how argumentation can be used to reason about other challenges in the area of normative multiagent systems as well, by discussing a model for arguing about legal interpretation. In particular, we show how fuzzy logic combined with formal argumentation can be used to reason about the adoption of graded categories and thus address the problem of open texture in normative interpretation. Our aim to discuss these three examples is to inspire new applications of formal argumentation to the challenges of normative reasoning in multiagent systems.
A proposed method to estimate dynamic panel models when either N or T or both are not large

Traditionally the bias of an estimator has been reduced asymptotically to zero by enlarging data panel dimensions N or T or both. This research proposes a novel econometric modelling method to separate and measure the bias of an estimator without altering data panel dimensions. This is done by recursively decomposing its bias in systematic and nonsystematic parts. This novel method addresses the bias of an estimator as a type of asymptotic serial correlation problem. Once this method disentangles bias components it could provide consistent estimators and adequate statistic inference. This recursive bias approach is missed from the current bias literature. This novel method results do not cast doubt about the asymptotic bias approach conclusions, but made them incomplete. Monte Carlo simulations find consistent sample estimators asymptotic convergence with population estimators by enlarging the sample size. In these simulations the population estimator value is provided beforehand the simulation begins. The mean advantage of the alternative recursive estimator bias approach is that the sample estimator recursively converges with population estimators without enlarging sample size. Importantly this novel method avoids researcher bias criteria, which consist on an arbitrary a priori population estimator value selection.
Corporate Boards and Ownership Structure as Antecedents of Corporate Governance Disclosure in Saudi Arabian Publicly Listed Corporations

This study investigates whether and to what extent publicly listed corporations voluntarily comply with and disclose recommended good corporate governance (CG) practices, and distinctively examines whether the observed cross-sectional differences in such CG disclosures can be explained by ownership and board mechanisms with specific focus on Saudi Arabia. The study’s results suggest that corporations with larger boards, a Big 4 auditor, higher government ownership, a CG committee, and higher institutional ownership disclose considerably more than those that are not. By contrast, the study finds that an increase in block ownership significantly reduces CG disclosure. The study’s results are generally robust to a number of econometric models that control for different types of disclosure indices, firm-specific characteristics, and firm-level fixed effects. The study’s results have important implications for policy makers, practitioners, and regulatory authorities, especially those in developing countries across the globe.
Phytoplankton patchiness in Winam Gulf, Lake Victoria: a study using principal component analysis of in situ fluorescent excitation spectra

Summary 1. In order to characterise phytoplankton patchiness at fine scales, a profiling multiwavelength fluorometer was cast at numerous locations throughout Winam Gulf in Lake Victoria to measure fluorescent excitation spectra, which are indicators of both phytoplankton diversity and coloured dissolved organic matter (CDOM). 2. Processing the spectral data with principal component analysis (PCA) revealed that linear combinations of four fundamental ‘base’ spectra could explain almost all of the variation in spectral measurements. Three of the base spectra were associated with spatially distinct patches of phytoplankton containing different species assemblages, while the fourth base spectrum was due to CDOM fluorescence. 3. The locations of the phytoplankton patches were traced to the south-east of Winam Gulf, the western end of the Rusinga Channel and the open waters of Lake Victoria adjacent to Winam Gulf, respectively. The high CDOM fluorescence was traced mainly to relatively deep water in the Rusinga Channel. 4. The phytoplankton and CDOM patchiness were interpreted in the context of physical and chemical gradients that were measured at the site at the same scale as the spectral data. Strong relationships were found between the gradients in spectral data and other environmental variables, which suggested several underlying explanations for the phytoplankton and CDOM patchiness.
Patients’ satisfaction with healthcare: comparing general practice services in a tertiary and primary healthcare settings

Background: Patient satisfaction with healthcare is predictive of their likelihood of continuing use of available healthcare; comply with medical instruction and improvement in overall coverage and effectiveness of care. This research compared the level of patients’ satisfaction with general practice care delivered at physicians-manned General Outpatient clinics at tertiary and primary health centres in Rivers State. Method: This comparative cross-sectional study was conducted using the Patient Satisfaction Questionnaire (PSQ-18). A total of 1290 regular patients were recruited by systematic random sampling. Non-parametric analyses such as median satisfaction scores, Chi-square, Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney U test were conducted using SPSS version 20 statistical software. A p-value <0.05 was considered statistically significant Result: Study showed patients who received care at the comprehensive health Centre were significantly more satisfied in domains such as patient-doctor communication (p<0.001), interpersonal manner (p<0.001), accessibility and convenience (p<0.001), technical quality (p=0.006), financial aspects of care (p<0.001) and general satisfaction (p<0.001) than their counterparts at the tertiary Centre. There was no statistically significant difference with time spent during consultations in both centres (p=0.583). Other predictors of satisfaction were younger age, male gender, married, higher education, and those of the Moslem religious faith. Conclusion: Patients who sought general practice care from the health Centre were more satisfied that those who did at the tertiary Centre. We recommend increased sensitization on patients’ utilization of primary health care systems as first contact, continuing, comprehensive and efficient personal and non-personal healthcare needs. Keywords: General practice, Patients’ satisfaction, predictors of satisfaction, Primary health Centre, Tertiary health Centre
Sparse Geometric Representation Through Local Shape Probing

We propose a new shape analysis approach based on the non-local analysis of local shape variations. Our method relies on a novel description of shape variations, called Local Probing Field (LPF), which describes how a local probing operator transforms a pattern onto the shape. By carefully optimizing the position and orientation of each descriptor, we are able to capture shape similarities and gather them into a geometrically relevant dictionary over which the shape decomposes sparsely. This new representation permits to handle shapes with mixed intrinsic dimensionality (e.g., shapes containing both surfaces and curves) and to encode various shape features such as boundaries. Our shape representation has several potential applications; here we demonstrate its efficiency for shape resampling and point set denoising for both synthetic and real data.
Effect of Hesperidin Supplementation on Lipid and Antioxidant Metabolism in Ethanol-fed Rats

This study examined the effect of hesperidin supplementation with an ethanol diet on lipid and antioxidant metabolism in rats. Male Sprague-Dawley rats were divided into two groups (n=10), and were assigned to one of two dietary categories: E? , ethanol diet (50 g/L) for 8 wks; E? H₄, ethanol diet for the first 4 wks and hesperidin (0.02%, w/w) supplemented ethanol diet for the last 4 wks. The plasma and hepatic lipids, hepatic cholesterol regulating enzyme activity, hepatic antioxidant enzyme activity and lipid peroxidation were determined. Supplementation with hesperidin for the last 4 wks during the 8 wks period of the ethanol diet, significantly increased the ADH activity. In conjunction with the chronic administration of ethanol, hesperidin supplementation resulted in a significant decrease in the hepatic cholesterol and triglyceride concentrations compared to the E? group. The hepatic HMG-CoA reductase and ACAT activities were significantly lower in the hesperidin-supplemented group. When comparing hepatic antioxidant enzyme activities, SOD, GSH-Px, and G6PD activities and GSH level were significantly higher in the E? H₄ group than in the E? group. Plasma TBARS levels were significantly lower in rats fed ethanol with hesperidin compared to the rats fed only ethanol; however, the hepatic TBARS levels were not significantly different between the groups. Accordingly, the additional hesperidin supplement with an ethanol diet might be effective for improving the hepatic lipid metabolism and antioxidant defense system.
Evaluation of soil fertility and mulberry leaf quality on silkworm rearing and cocoon characteristics.

Soil samples were collected from six different mulberry growing areas of Malnad region of Karnataka and analyzed for the soil fertility and leaf quality parameters. The influence of soil nutrient status on mulberry plant growth and leaf quality with regard to five varieties M5, DD, S54, S36 and V1 and the overall impact on silkworm larval growth and cocoon characteristics were studied in detail. It was observed that the six sampling areas differed significantly in the parameters analyzed. Variety V1 from Kadur region showed the best result among all the five varieties grown in six sampling areas.
Novel conditional mouse models for targeted kidney research : Emphasis on the analysis of the biological function of nephrin

10 Introduction . 12 Review of the literature . 14 1. The kidney: Structure and main functions. 14 1.1. Podocytes and slit diaphragm. 16 1.2. Filtration barrier injury leads to proteinuria . 16 2. Congenital nephrotic syndrome of the Finnish type . 17 3. Molecular composition of the SD . 19 3.1. Nephrin . 19 3.2. Nephrin associated proteins . 26 4. SD protein expression in extra-renal tissues . 42 4.1. Testis . 42 4.2. CNS. 45 4.3. Pancreas . 46 5. Conventional KO mouse models in podocyte research . 47 6. Novel conditional genetic mouse models in targeted podocyte research . 48 6.1. Podocyte specific gene expression and promoters. 48 6.2. Site-specific recombinases in the podocytes . 50 6.3. Inducible systems . 52 6.4. RNA Interference . 54 Aims of this thesis. 57 Materials and methods . 58 1. Human and mouse testis and brain samples (III) . 58 2. Constructs and cloning. 58 2.1. Doxycycline inducible Cre recombinase construct (I) . 58 2.2. Doxycycline inducible rat nephrin construct (II) . 59 2.3. Long hairpin RNAi construct (Unpublished data) . 60 3. In vitro assays and micro-injection (I, II, Unpublished data) . 61 4. Cross-breedings . 62 4.1. JRC-CRE x Z/AP reporter-line (I). 62 4.2. Transgenic JRC-Nephrin x Nephrin KO mice (II) . 62 5. Phenotypic and histological characterization. 63 5.1. Determination of urinary protein level (II). 63
Mechanical Properties and Structure of Laser Beam and Wide Gap Brazed Joints Produced Using Mar M247-Amdry DF3 Powders

The microstructure and mechanical properties of materials produced by Wide Gap Brazing (WGB) and Laser Beam (LBW) cladding with different blends of Mar M247 and Amdry DF-3 brazing powders were studied. It was shown that LBW Mar M247 based materials comprised of 0.6 to 1 wt. % B were weldable. The weld properties were superior to WGB deposits with the same bulk chemical composition, due to the formation of a dendritic structure typical for welded joints, and the precipitation of cuboidal borides of Cr, Mo, and W in the ductile Ni-Cr based matrix. Both materials were found to have useful properties for 3D additive manufacturing (AM) and repair components manufactured from high gamma prime precipitation hardened superalloys.
Effect of Cultivation on Spatial distribution of Nematode Trophic Groups in Black Soil

Geostatistics combined with GIS was applied to assess the spatial distribution of nematode trophic groups following two contrasting soil uses in the black soil region of Northeast China. Two plots, one with fallow for 12 years and the other cultivated, were marked on regular square grids with 2-m spacing. Soil samples were collected from each sampling point, nematodes were extracted from these samples and classified into four trophic groups: bacterivores, fungivores, plant parasites, and omnivores/predators. The numbers of total nematodes and trophic groups analyzed had normal distributions on both fallow and cultivated plots. The absolute abundances of total nematodes and trophic groups were observed to be much more homogeneous on cultivated plot than on fallow one. Geostatistical analysis showed that the densities of total nematodes and trophic groups on both fallow and cultivated plots exhibited spatial dependence at the sampled scale and their experimental semivariograms were adjusted to a spherical or exponential model, except those of bacterivores and fungivores on cultivated plot. The spatial distribution of nematode trophic groups was found to be different for the two land uses, indicating that cultivation changed the native condition for soil nematode activities.
ELECCTROMYOGRAPHIC EVALUATION OF CANINE GUIDANCE OCCLUSION AND BILATERAL BALANCED OCCLUSION IN THERMOPLASTIC COMPLETE DENTURES

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of two occlusal schemes; canine guidance occlusion and bilateral balanced occlusion on the masseter and temporalis muscle activity in thermoplastic complete dentures. Ten male completely edentulous patients whose ages ranged from 55 to 70 years were selected. Half of the selected patients received a thermoplastic complete denture with canine guidance occlusal scheme and the other half of the patients received a thermoplastic complete denture with bilateral balanced occlusal scheme. Electromyographic evaluation of the masseter and temporalis muscles, during chewing banana, peanut and carrot, was conducted on the patients after using their dentures for one month. Each occlusal scheme was then converted into the other scheme using the same dentures, and the procedure of evaluation was repeated after another one month. The data were collected, tabulated and analyzed by using Paired sample t-test. The results of this study showed that there was no significant difference between the canine guidance occlusal scheme and the bilateral balanced occlusal scheme in the electromyographic activity of both masseter and temporalis muscles during chewing all test foods. It was concluded that both bilateral balanced occlusion and canine guidance occlusion can be used successfully in thermoplastic complete dentures without affecting the masseter or temporalis muscle activity.
Identification and Functional Characterization of Trans-acting Factors Involved in Vegetal mRNA Localization in Xenopus Oocytes

Directional transport of specific mRNAs is a mechanism for the generation of asymmetry which is of primary biological importance. In Xenopus oocytes, mRNA localization to the vegetal cortex is important for germ layer formation and germ cell development. Using a biochemical purification approach for enriching localizing RNPs based on their large size, Xenopus Elr-type proteins which are in 4 isoforms, homologs of the Hu/ELAV proteins, were identified as novel components of the vegetal mRNA localization machinery.They bind specifically to the localization elements of several different vegetally localizing Xenopus mRNAs of all three localization pathways and they are part of one RNP together with other localization proteins, such as Vg1RBP, XStaufen1, VgRBP60 and 40LoVe. Immuno-isolated ElrA/B RNPs reveal other interesting, novel components of the localizing RNPs, such as RAP42/46, XhermesR and SLBP2. In addition maternal mRNA masking proteins, namely FRGY2a/b and Xp54 were also identified implying that localized mRNAs may also be masked.Blocking of Elr-type protein binding by either localization element mutagenesis or antisense morpholino oligonucleotides mediated masking of their target RNA sequences inhibits vegetal localization in Xenopus oocytes. ElrA/B proteins are predominantly cytoplasmic, with ElrA showing weak expression in the nucleus but perhaps joining the RNP complex in the nucleus. ElrA/B is also enriched at the vegetal cortex, a feature found to be similarly exhibited by the various localization proteins identified.ElrA/B proteins were found to moderately upregulate translation, when tethered to the 3 UTR of a reporter mRNA in the oocytes, whilst XDE LE with mutations blocking ElrA/B binding has no significant alteration of translation. Analysis also shows ElrA/B binding to XDE LE has no significant effect on mRNA stability in the oocyte; however in the embryo, the mutant versions of XDE LE show reduce stability in PGCs compared to the wild type.