Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Nutrient-Nutrient Interactions 2-Keto-4-( Methylthio ) Butyric Acid ( Keto Analog of Methionine ) Is a Safe and Efficacious Precursor of L-Methionine in Chicks 1 , 2

Relative bioefficacy and toxicity of Met precursor compounds were investigated in young chicks. The effectiveness of DL-Met and 2-keto-4-(methylthio)butyric acid (Keto-Met) to serve as L-Met precursors was quantified using Met-deficient diets of differing composition. Efficacy was based on slope-ratio and standard-curve methodology. Using L-Met as a standard Met source added to a purified diet, DL-Met and Keto-Met were assigned relative bioefficacy values of 98.5 and 92.5%, respectively, based on weight gain. Relative bioefficacy values of 98.5 and 89.3% were assigned to DL-Met and Keto-Met, respectively, when chicks were fed a Met-deficient, corn-soybean meal-peanut meal diet. Thus, both DL-Met and Keto-Met are effective Met precursor compounds in chicks. Additionally, growth-depressing effects of L-Met, DL-Met, and Keto-Met were compared using a nutritionally adequate corn-soybean meal diet supplemented with 15 or 30 g/kg of each compound. Similar reductions in weight gain, food intake, and gain:food ratio were observed for each compound. Subjective spleen color scores, indicative of splenic hemosiderosis, increased linearly (P , 0.01) with increasing intakes of each compound, suggesting a similarity in overall toxicity among these compounds. Because conversion of Keto-Met to L-Met in vivo merely requires transamination, Keto-Met may prove to be a useful supplement not only in food animal production, but also as a component of enteral and parenteral formulas for humans suffering from renal insufficiency. J. Nutr. 137: 1868–1873, 2007.
A class of Active Queue Management algorithm based on BP neural network

As an end-to-end congestion control mechanism, Active Queue Management (AQM) technology maintains smaller queue length and higher link utilization through discarding packets in intermediate network nodes. This paper discussed some previous AQM algorithms, RED, BLUE and RLGD, and found out shortcomings in which by comparing with them. On the Basis of Artificial Intelligence (AI) theory and technology, a new AQM algorithm based on BP neural network is proposed. In the end, the implement of the new Active Queue Management algorithm is presented, and the convergence is proved.
A survey - Energy Efficient Routing protocol for Homogenous & Heterogeneous Networks

The wireless sensor networks have gained a lot of grasp in the previous years due to various encroachments in this field. One of the major challenges faced by WSNs is the problem of energy efficiency. Various routing protocols have been used for improving the lifetime of WSNs. In this paper, we have discussed various protocols for homogeneous as well as heterogeneous sensor networks. For homogeneous networks, LEACH, LEACH-C and PEGASIS protocols are used. For heterogeneous networks, EDDEEC and BEENISH protocols are used. Theoretical analysis shows that heterogeneous protocols results in better throughput, stability and improved lifetime of network.
Increasing key space at little extra cost in RFID authentications

Traditional authentication and key establishment protocols utilize nonce parameters as a means for message freshness, recent aliveness, and key derivation. Improving identity verification, increasing key space, or making secret updates more complex through nonces are not goals. Generating random numbers as nonces and not making the most out of them can be considered as a loss in resource stricken radio frequency identification (RFID) tags. By increasing the shared secrets slightly, a new functionality for the nonces is introduced, which makes the authentication and key establishment protocols of RFID systems more secure, in general. The proposed method contributes to the security of communication channels by increasing the key space. Attaining better security, with just a slight increase in the shared secrets and the already generated nonces, is beneficial compared to the existing costly, resource-demanding security primitives.
Induction of epithelial tumors in Drosophila melanogaster heterozygous for the tumor suppressor gene wts

The imaginal disk cells of Drosophila have a cell cycle that is very similar to that of mammalian cells. Data concerning factors inducing tumors in these cells may directly relate to the risk of these factors for inducing cancer in humans. One of the genes involved in the regulation of cell cycle control is wts (warts), the Drosophila homolog of the mammalian tumor suppressor gene LATS1. The Drosophila wts mutations are recessive lethal. However, homozygous clones that arise in heterozygous flies in the imaginal disk cells lead to epithelial tumors, spectacular outgrowths visible on the cuticle of the adult. We have treated Drosophila larvae, heterozygous for wts, with the chemical mutagen MMS (methyl methanesulfonate) or with X‐rays and measured the appearance of epithelial tumors in the eclosing adult flies. This test is a variation of the well‐known Drosophila somatic mutation and recombination test (SMART), where mostly recessive markers have been used leading to visible phenotypes in the eyes and wings of the fly. We show that the sensitivity of this test is far greater than the comparable test system using the recessive eye marker white. Environ. Mol. Mutagen. 40:277–282, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Evidence for an Anti-parallel Orientation of the Ligand-activated Human Androgen Receptor Dimer (*)

Domain interactions of the human androgen receptor (AR) dimer were investigated using a protein-protein interaction assay in which the NH2- and carboxyl-terminal regions of human AR were fused to the Saccharomyces cerevisiae GAL4 DNA-binding domain and herpes simplex virus VP16 transactivation domain to produce chimeric proteins. Transcriptional activation of a GAL4 luciferase reporter vector up to 100-fold was greater than Fos/Jun leucine zipper binding, indicating stable AR interaction between AR NH2-terminal residues 1-503 and steroid-binding domain residues 624-919 that was specific for and dependent on androgen binding to the steroid-binding domain and was inhibited by anti-androgen binding. Deletion mutagenesis within the NH2-terminal region indicated transactivation domain residues 142-337 were not required for dimerization, whereas deletions near the NH2 terminus (Δ14-150) or NH2-terminal to the DNA-binding domain (Δ339-499) reduced or eliminated the AR interaction, respectively. An NH2-/NH2-terminal interaction was also observed, but no interaction was detected between ligand-free or bound steroid-binding domains. The results indicate that high affinity androgen binding promotes interactions between the NH2-terminal and steroid-binding domains of human AR, raising the possibility of an androgen-induced anti-parallel AR dimer.
Cholinergic and noradrenergic afferents influence the functional properties of the postnatal visual cortex in rats

Based on previous evidence that acetylcholine (ACh) and noradrenaline (NA) play a permissive role in developmental plasticity in the kitten visual cortex, we reinvestigated this topic in the postnatal visual cortex of rats with normal vision. In rats, the functional properties of visual cortical cells develop gradually between the second and the sixth postnatal week (Fagiolini et al., 1994). Cortical cholinergic depletion, by basal forebrain (BF) lesions at postnatal day (PD) 15 (eye opening), leads to a transient disturbance in the distribution of ocular dominance (Siciliano et al., 1997). In the present study, we investigated the development of visual cortical response properties following cytotoxic lesions of the locus coeruleus (LC) alone or in combination with lesions of cholinergic BF. The main result is that early NA depletion impairs the orientation selectivity of cortical neurons, causes a slight increase of their receptive-field size, and reduces the signal-to-noise ratio of cell responses. Similar effects are obtained following NA depletion in adult animals, although the effects of adult noradrenergic deafferentation are significantly more severe than those obtained after early NA depletion. Additional cholinergic depletion causes an additional transient change in ocular-dominance distribution similarly to that obtained after cholinergic deafferentation alone. Comparisons between depletion of NA on the one hand and depletion of both NA and ACh on the other suggest that the effects of combined deafferentation on the functional properties studied result from simple linear addition of the effects of depleting each afferent system alone.
Childhood Beauty Pageant Contestants: Associations with Adult Disordered Eating and Mental Health

This study evaluated the association between childhood beauty pageants and adult disordered eating, body dissatisfaction, depression, and self-esteem. Eleven women who participated in childhood beauty pageants were matched on age and BMI with 11 non-participating women. Childhood pageant participants scored higher on body dissatisfaction, interpersonal distrust, and impulse dysregulation than non-participants, and showed a trend toward greater ineffectiveness. There were no significant differences between groups on measures of bulimia, body perception, depression, and self-esteem. These findings suggest childhood beauty pageant participation may influence adult body dissatisfaction, interpersonal distrust, and impulse dysregulation, but not bulimic behaviors, body perception, depression, and self-esteem. Parts of this article were presented as an oral paper presentation at the Academy for Eating Disorder’s International Conference on Eating Disorders, April 2004, Orlando, Florida.
Some New Insights into Currency Boards: Evidence from Bulgaria

The presence of a Currency Board (CB) monetary system in Bulgaria is a key factor in assessing monetary policy transmission, since a CB implies no monetary autonomy. Using the SVAR technique according to the statistical properties of macroeconomic time series, we propose evidence sustaining the endogeneity of main Bulgarian monetary aggregates to shocks on the ECB interest rate. These results shed a new perspective over CB functioning.
Endohedral stannaspherenes Mn@Sn12 and its dimer: ferromagnetic or antiferromagnetic?

The endohedral Mn@Sn12 has been characterized, where a Mn cation is trapped inside an icosahedral Sn 12 , also called stannasphere, as can be seen in Figure 1. This endohedral structure is a sextuplet, with the 3d orbitals of Mn singly occupied. Thermodynamically, this encapsulation process is highly permitted, being the encapsulation free energy of around 24 kcal/mol. These monomers yields to a ferromagnetic or antiferromagnetic coupling in the case of the dimer. Three different dimers have been tried. The difference between dimers is the orientation of the monomers, where one atom of one monomer faces one atom, or two atoms another two, or finally three atoms face other three atoms. The most stable dimer is the one where three atoms face another three. In all cases the ferromagnetic and the antiferromagnetic dimers are near degenerate.
Cytokine‐Induced Sickness Behavior: Mechanisms and Implications

Abstract: Sickness behavior refers to a coordinated set of behavioral changes that develop in sick individuals during the course of an infection. At the molecular level, these changes are due to the brain effects of proinflammatory cytokines such as interleukin‐1 (IL‐1) and tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFα). Peripherally released cytokines act on the brain via a fast transmission pathway involving primary afferent nerves innervating the bodily site of inflammation and a slow transmission pathway involving cytokines originating from the choroid plexus and circumventricular organs and diffusing into the brain parenchyma by volume transmission. At the behavioral level, sickness behavior appears to be the expression of a central motivational state that reorganizes the organism priorities to cope with infectious pathogens. There is evidence that the sickness motivational state can interact with other motivational states and respond to nonimmune stimuli probably by way of sensitization and/or classical conditioning. However, the mechanisms that are involved in plasticity of the sickness motivational state are not yet understood.
A migratory population of skin‐derived dendritic cells expresses CXCR5, responds to B lymphocyte chemoattractant in vitro, and co‐localizes to B cell zones in lymph nodes in vivo

Chemokine receptors on dendritic cells (DC) and chemokines within lymph nodes (LN) contribute to trafficking of DC to appropriate sites within the LN. Here we show that DC that have migrated out of skin ex vivo (migratory DC, migDC) express 50‐fold more CXCR5 mRNA than fresh Langerhans cells and migrate in response to B lymphocyte chemoattractant (BLC) in vitro. When injected into the footpad of mice, migDC emigrate to regional LN where up to 40 % are found in B cell zones. By contrast, murine bone marrow‐derived DC display 14‐fold less CXCR5, do not migrate to BLC in vitro, and migrate strictly to T cell zones in LN. We propose that activated skin DC utilize CXCR5 and BLC as a possible mechanism to home to B cell zones of LN, where they may have direct effects on B cells.
Comparison of three anaesthetic protocols in Bennett's wallabies (Macropus rufogriseus).

OBJECTIVE Investigate physiological and sedative/anaesthetic effects of xylazine, medetomidine or dexmedetomidine combined with ketamine in free-ranging Bennett's wallabies. STUDY DESIGN Prospective clinical trial. ANIMALS Twenty-six adult free-ranging Bennett's wallabies. METHODS Animals were darted intramuscularly with one of three treatments: xylazine and ketamine, 2.0 and 15.0 mg kg(-1), respectively (XK): medetomidine and ketamine 0.1 and 5.0 mg kg(-1) (MK) and dexmedetomidine and ketamine 0.05 and 5.0 mg kg(-1) (DMK). Body weights were estimated. If the animal was still laterally recumbent after 45 minutes of anaesthesia, then an alpha-2 adrenoceptor antagonist, atipamezole, was administered (XK: 0.4 mg kg(-1), MK: 5 mg kg(-1), DMK: 2.5 mg kg(-1)). Heart rate (HR) and respiratory rate (f(R)) were recorded at 5-minute intervals and temperature at 10-minute intervals. Venous blood was taken 30 minutes after initial injection. Statistical analysis utilized anova. p < 0.05 was considered significant. RESULTS Animals became recumbent rapidly in all groups. XK animals had muscle twitches, responded to external stimuli, and three animals required additional dosing; this was not observed in the MK and DMK groups. HR (mean +/- SD beats minute(-1)) in XK (81 +/- 4) was significantly higher than MK (74 +/- 2) and DMK (67 +/- 4). There were no differences in f(R), temperature, blood-gas and biochemical values between groups. More animals in MK (9/10) and DMK (5/6) needed antagonism of anaesthesia compared with XK (1/10). There were no adverse effects after anaesthesia. CONCLUSION AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE Cardio-respiratory effects were similar in all groups. There were fewer muscle twitches and reactions to external stimuli in MK and DMK. Duration of anaesthesia was shorter in XK; most animals in MK and DMK needed atipamezole to assist recovery. All three treatments provided satisfactory sedation/anaesthesia and are suitable for use in Bennett's wallabies.
Factors Contributing to the Resilience of Middle-Adolescents in a South African Township: Insights from a Resilience Questionnaire.

Factors that contribute to resilience are key to the positive development of youths, and knowledge of such factors is essential for promoting resilience in schools through both policy and practice. This study reports on the results of an item and factor analysis of the Resilience Questionnaire for Middle-adolescents in Township Schools (R-MATS) that was used to survey 291 Grade 9 middle-adolescent learners from two black-only township secondary schools. The majority of respondents indicated an overall sense of contending with various stressors, especially the exposure to violence, and academic challenges. Respondents attributed their buoyancy to individual and environmental factors, such as self-confidence, an internal locus of control, a tough personality, commitment, being achievement-oriented, as well as positive identification of and access to social support. Keywords : middle-adolescence; resilience questionnaire; resilient; R-MATS; township school
Endoscopic removal of intravesical thermometer using a rigid nephroscope and forceps

Intravesical thermometers are occasionally encountered in urologic practice. In the present paper, we describe the removal of a thermometer from the bladder of a woman who presented with irritable bladder symptoms. The thermometer was removed intact transurethrally using a rigid nephroscope and forceps, even though both ends of the thermometer were embedded in the bladder wall. Our retrieval technique may be of general use in such cases, and it should be attempted before resorting to open surgery.
SHiP + + : Enhancing Signature-Based Hit Predictor for Improved Cache Performance

In this paper, we analyze the state-of-the-art replacement policy based on Signature-Based Hit Prediction (SHiP). While we observe that the proposed SHiP implementation improves performance over the LRU policy on all configurations, we identify three areas of improvement. First, the policies for updating the counters in the Signature History Counter Table (SHCT) can be modified. Second, a broader range of insertion points for an incoming line can be used based on the value of the SHCT counter. Third, cache performance under prefetching can be enhanced by using a separate SHCT table for demand and prefetch lines and modifying the insertion/promotion of prefetch lines. We call our proposed implementation of SHiP with these enhancements as SHiP++. We evaluate SHiP++ on 17 benchmarks from the SPEC2006 suite. For the single-core without prefetching configuration, SHiP++ improves performance by 6.2% over LRU and 2.2% over SHiP. For the single-core with prefetching configuration, SHiP++ improves performance by 4.6% over LRU and 2.2% over SHiP. SHiP++ incurs an overhead of less than 20KB for managing the 2MB cache, well within the provisioned 32KB.
Enhancement of Transistor-to-Transistor Variability Due to Total Dose Effects in 65-nm MOSFETs

We studied device-to-device variations as a function of total dose in MOSFETs, using specially designed test structures and procedures aimed at maximizing matching between transistors. Degradation in nMOSFETs is less severe than in pMOSFETs and does not show any clear increase in sample-to-sample variability due to the exposure. At doses smaller than 1 Mrad( SiO2) variability in pMOSFETs is also practically unaffected, whereas at very high doses-in excess of tens of Mrad( SiO2)-variability in the on-current is enhanced in a way not correlated to pre-rad variability. The phenomenon is likely due to the impact of random dopant fluctuations on total ionizing dose effects.
Toroidal black holes and topological censorship.

Recent theorems regarding topological censorship are in apparent conflict with simulations of the collapse of rotating matter to form toroidal black holes. The geometry of a temporarily toroidal event horizon is analyzed and shown to be completely consistent with the theorems. A simple flat space model provides insight into the geometry of a toroidal black hole.
Selective medium for thermophilic campylobacters including Campylobacter upsaliensis.

AIMS--To develop a selective supplement for the recovery of thermophilic Campylobacter spp, including Campylobacter upsaliensis from faeces, using campylobacter blood free selective agar base as the growth medium. METHODS--Minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) of cefoperazone and of teicoplanin were determined for 51 strains of C upsaliensis, 159 strains of other thermophilic Campylobacter spp, and for 66 Enterobacteriaceae (cefoperazone only). From these results a medium using campylobacter blood free selective agar base incorporating cefoperazone (8 mg/l), amphotericin (10 mg/l), and teicoplanin (4 mg/l)--CAT medium--was formulated and compared with the commercially available campylobacter blood free selective medium (modified CCDA) for isolation of Campylobacter spp from 7000 human faecal specimens. The two media were also compared for the recovery of C upsaliensis from 45 spiked human faeces. RESULTS--Isolation rates of Campylobacter spp other than C upsaliensis were similar for both media, but the CAT medium alone recovered four of the five strains of C upsaliensis from the faecal samples examined. From the spiked faeces specimens, recovery of C upsaliensis was increased by between 35% and over 200-fold on the CAT medium compared with the modified CCDA. CONCLUSIONS--CAT selective agar was a suitable alternative medium to modified CCDA for the growth of thermophilic Campylobacter spp, including C upsaliensis from faeces.
Very high genetic fragmentation in a large marine fish, the meagre Argyrosomus regius (Sciaenidae, Perciformes) : impact of reproductive migration, oceanographic barriers and ecological factors

The meagre Argyrosomus regius is a large Sciaenid fish known to reproduce in the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea in just five distinct and restricted geographic areas: along the Mauritanian coast and at estuary openings (Gironde, Tagus, Guadalquivir and Nile). The biological traits of A. regius (high dispersal capabilities, high fecundity, long larval phase, overlapping generations, reproduction until 40 years of age) are, in principle, favourable to high gene flow, which should lead to genetic homogeneity over large geographic scales. Nevertheless, the high geographic distances between the few reproductive areas leads one ask whether there is genetic differentiation in this species. In the present study, the genetic differentiation of the wild A. regius was investigated across most of its natural range from the Atlantic Ocean (France, Portugal, Spain, Mauritania) to the Mediterranean Sea (Egypt, Turkey), using 11 microsatellite markers previously identified in another Sciaenid, the red drum Sciaenops ocellatus . At least two very distinct groups could be identified, separated by the Gibraltar Strait. Genetic divergences (F ST values) were intermediate between the Atlantic samples (0.012–0.041), high between Egypt and the Atlantic (0.06–0.107) or Aegean Sea (0.081) and extremely high between the Aegean Sea and the Atlantic (0.098–0.168). A. regius exhibited a very high level of genetic differentiation rarely reported in marine fishes. These results also demonstrate the existence of a sixth independent spawning area in the Menderes delta (Turkey). Factors potentially involved in this very high genetic fragmentation are discussed, including physical barriers, glaciation pulses and biological traits.