Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Steroidal Lactones from Withania somnifera, an Ancient Plant for Novel Medicine

Withania somnifera, commonly known as Ashwagandha, is an important medicinal plant that has been used in Ayurvedic and indigenous medicine for over 3,000 years. In view of its varied therapeutic potential, it has also been the subject of considerable modern scientific attention. The major chemical constituents of the Withania genus, the withanolides, are a group of naturally occurring C28-steroidal lactone triterpenoids built on an intact or rearranged ergostane framework, in which C-22 and C-26 are appropriately oxidized to form a six-membered lactone ring. In recent years, numerous pharmacological investigations have been carried out into the components of W. somnifera extracts. We present here an overview of the chemical structures of triterpenoid components and their biological activity, focusing on two novel activities, tumor inhibition and antiangiogenic properties of withaferin A and the effects of withanolide A on Alzheimer's disease. The most recent attempts in biotechnological production of withanolides are also discussed.
Comparison of 2 Different Formulations of Artificial Bone for a Hybrid Implant With a Tissue-Engineered Construct Derived From Synovial Mesenchymal Stem Cells: A Study Using a Rabbit Osteochondral Defect Model

Background: Previously, we developed a hybrid implant composed of hydroxyapatite (HA)–based artificial bone coupled with a mesenchymal stem cell (MSC)–based scaffold-free tissue-engineered construct (TEC) and demonstrated its feasibility for osteochondral repair. Beta-tricalcium phosphate (βTCP) may be a promising alternative to HA, as it is a highly biocompatible material and is resorbed more rapidly than HA in vivo. Hypothesis: A βTCP-based hybrid TEC implant will exhibit superior osteochondral repair when directly compared with an HA-based hybrid implant, as tested using a rabbit osteochondral defect model. Study Design: Controlled laboratory study. Methods: Osteochondral defects were created in the femoral groove of skeletally mature rabbits. The TEC and artificial bone, using either HA or βTCP with the same porosities and similar mechanical properties, were hybridized and then implanted in the defects. A histological evaluation and microindentation testing were performed for the assessment of repair tissue. Results: Osteochondral defects treated with the TEC/βTCP implants showed more rapid subchondral bone repair at 1 month, but the cartilaginous tissue deteriorated over time out to 6 months after implantation. Osteochondral defects treated with the TEC/HA implants maintained good histological quality out to 6 months after implantation and also exhibited better biomechanical properties at 6 months as compared with the TEC/βTCP implants. Conclusion: Contrary to our hypothesis, the TEC/HA hybrid implant facilitated better osteochondral repair than did the TEC/βTCP implant. The results of the present study suggest the importance of a stable restoration of subchondral bone for long-term effective osteochondral repair rather than rapid remodeling of subchondral bone. Clinical Relevance: This study contributes to the future selection of suitable materials for patients with osteochondral lesions.
Implementation of Protection Techniques against Single Event upsets for IIR Filters

Circuits operating under radiation may be affected by undesirable effects caused by charged particles located in the space environment. Soft errors, especially those produced in harsh environments (as for example radiation), are a major concern for digital circuits. When a particle hits the silicon, it loses its energy and transmits it to the silicon, causing a current burst. In the case of Single Event Upsets (SEUs), these can randomly change the content of storage cells. To protect storage cells of integrated circuits from this phenomenon is by designing circuits that able to detect an SEU event and act accordingly to prevent error propagation and guarantee full reliability in the system. T hose based on redundancy, as Triple M odular Redundancy (TMR) and Hamming Codes, are especially popular, since they are quite straightforward to implement. We present new approach using single Hamming encoder and common decoder to protect storage cells present in the IIR filter from this type of Single Event Upsets (SEU). This design is coded using VHDL language and synthesized using Xilinx ISE. The design is compared with shared hamming encoder and decoder design. The implementation result shows that the gate occupancy of proposed design is better compared to conventional protection technique.
Non Coherent Spectral Analysis of ADC using FFT Windows: an Alternative Approach

This article presents an alternative method for testing Analog-to-Digital Converters (ADC) by non-coherent spectral analysis using weighting windows and focusing on the maxima of the window spectrum instead of summing the power inside the main lobe of the window spectrum, as it is always done. Comparing to the existing method, theoretical laws for computing fundamental, harmonics and noise power spectral densities are derived and software simulations are used to validate them.
Austropediomys marshalli gen. et sp. nov., a new Pediomyoidea (Mammalia, Metatheria) from the Paleogene of Brazil: paleobiogeographic implications

The Pediomyiodea has been largely regarded as a Late Cretaceous North American metatherian lineage; however, some studies have suggested that a few South American taxa could be related to this family. Herein, Austropediomys marshalli gen. et sp. nov. from the Itaborai Basin, Brazil (lower Eocene – Itaboraian SALMA), is described. Austropediomys gen. nov. represents the first report of a pediomyoid metatherian in the Paleogene of South America backed by a phylogenetic analysis. Several derived features in the upper molars support its belonging to the Pediomyoidea: presence of accessory ‘conular-like’ structures (here named conuloids) lingual to the conules; supernumerary stylar cusps; asymmetric stylar shelf, with parastylar shelf reduced to a narrow rim in M1; straight centrocrista; short and obliquely oriented prepacrista, which contacts StA in M2–3. The presence of ‘conular-like’ structures lingual to the paraconule and metaconule is identified in Austropediomys gen. nov. and in Late Cretaceous pediomyoids as well, and results in the phylogenetic analysis as a synapomorphy of the Pediomyoidea. Austropediomys gen. nov. is autapomorphyc in the presence of enlarged conuloids on protocristae. The record of a pediomyoid in the Paleogene of South America increases the temporal and biogeographical range of this lineage. Also, our results support the hypothesis that several non-related metatherian lineages dispersed from North to South America via the Caribbean Plate, most probably during the latest Cretaceous, in an island-hopping or sweepstakes model.
A PetriNet-Based Approach for Supporting Traceability in Cyber-Physical Manufacturing Systems

With the growing popularity of complex dynamic activities in manufacturing processes, traceability of the entire life of every product has drawn significant attention especially for food, clinical materials, and similar items. This paper studies the traceability issue in cyber-physical manufacturing systems from a theoretical viewpoint. Petri net models are generalized for formulating dynamic manufacturing processes, based on which a detailed approach for enabling traceability analysis is presented. Models as well as algorithms are carefully designed, which can trace back the lifecycle of a possibly contaminated item. A practical prototype system for supporting traceability is designed, and a real-life case study of a quality control system for bee products is presented to validate the effectiveness of the approach.
A bayesian approach to array geometry design

In this paper, we consider the design of planar arrays that optimize direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation performance. We assume that the single-source DOA is a random variable with a known prior probability distribution, and the sensors of the array are constrained to lie in a region with an arbitrary boundary. The Crame/spl acute/r-Rao Bound (CRB) and the Fisher Information Matrix (FIM) for single-source DOA constitute the basis of the optimality criteria. We relate the design criteria to a Bayesian CRB criterion and to array beamwidth; we also derive closed-form expressions for the design criteria when the DOA prior is uniform on a sector of angles. We show that optimal arrays have elements on the constraint boundary, thus providing a reduced dimension iterative solution procedure. Finally, we present example designs.
Test bench for fractional horse power single phase induction motors using virtual instrumentation

In this article experimental results of a capacitor run single phase induction motor are presented. Regarding the motor's special construction which has two independent windings inserted in the same stator slots a test bench was developed that allows motor testing using virtual instrumentation. Also a power and control circuit was created to permit motor's start and stop from Labview. Speed versus torque characteristics were obtained using a hysteresis dynamometer, a programmable high speed controller and PC. For data accuracy the graphs were compared with other 2 sets gathered from different brakes. Representative curves for the motor are also presented. Due to the motor's unsymmetrical rotor's parameters calculus is presented.
Life Satisfaction and Psychological Well-Being of Older Adults With Cancer Experience

Promoting health and well-being among individuals of advancing age is a significant issue due to increased incidence of cancer among older adults. This study demonstrates the benefits of expecting positive outcomes and participating in volunteer activities among older adults with cancer. We used a nationally representative sample of 2,670 individuals who have experienced cancer from the 2008 wave of the Health and Retirement Study. We constructed a structural equation model to explore the associations of optimism, volunteerism, life satisfaction, and psychological well-being. The level of optimism was a significant predictor of volunteerism, which in turn affected life satisfaction and psychological well-being. The level of engagement in volunteer activities was found to have significant path coefficients toward both life satisfaction and psychological well-being. Our study provides evidence that older adults who have experienced cancer and maintained a positive outlook on their lives and engaged in personally meaningful activities tended to experience psychological well-being and life satisfaction.
Transfer learning for direct policy search: A reward shaping approach

In the perspective of life long learning, a robot may face different, but related situations. Being able to exploit the knowledge acquired during a first learning phase may be critical in order to solve more complex tasks. This is the transfer learning problem. This problem is addressed here in the case of direct policy search algorithms. No discrete states, nor actions are defined a priori. A policy is described by a controller that computes orders to be sent to the motors out of sensor values. Both motor and sensor values can be continuous. The proposed approach relies on population based direct policy search algorithms, i.e. evolutionary algorithms. It exploits the numerous behaviors that are generated during the search. When learning on the source task, a knowledge base is built. The knowledge base aims at identifying the most salient behaviors segments with regards to the considered task. Afterwards, the knowledge base is exploited on a target task, with a reward shaping approach: besides its reward on the task, a policy is credited with a reward computed from the knowledge base. The rationale behind this approach is to automatically detect the stepping stones, i.e. the behavior segments that have lead to a reward in the source task before the policy is efficient enough to get the reward on the target task. The approach is tested in simulation with a neuroevolution approach and on ball collecting tasks.
Lung Function in Very Low Birth Weight Adults

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Lung function attained in young adulthood is 1 of the strongest predictors of obstructive airways disease in later life. Adults born preterm at very low birth weight (VLBW; <1500 g) who have experienced bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) have reduced lung function. We studied the association of lung function in young adulthood with preterm birth at VLBW and with BPD and other prenatal and neonatal conditions. METHODS: We performed spirometry for 160 VLBW subjects (29 with BPD according to Northway criteria) aged 18 to 27 years and 162 term control subjects group-matched for gender, age, and birth hospital. Lung function was expressed as z scores according to the Global Lung Function Initiative standards. RESULTS: Forced expiratory volume in 1 second z score was 1.41 units (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.89 to 1.94) lower in BPD-VLBW subjects and 0.39 units (95% CI: 0.08 to 0.69) in non–BPD VLBW subjects compared with control subjects. Corresponding differences for forced expiratory volume in 1 second/forced vital capacity were 1.52 (95% CI: 0.99 to 2.05) and 0.51 (95% CI: 0.21 to 0.81), respectively. Maternal smoking in pregnancy predicted poorer airflow in all groups; this finding was strongest in the BPD-VLBW group. Lung function was unrelated to fetal or postnatal growth or to neonatal respiratory distress syndrome. CONCLUSIONS: Young adults born at VLBW have reduced airflow. The outcome is stronger in those who have a history of BPD but is present among those with no such history. This finding suggests an increased risk of later obstructive airways disease in adults born at VLBW.
A Dynamic Fault-Tolerant Model for Open Distributed Computing

Open distributed computer systems are some of the most successful structures ever designed for the computer community together with their undisputed benefits for users. However, their complexity has also introduced a few side-effects, most notably the unpredictable nature of the underlying environments and reconfiguration burdens imposed by environmental changes. Thus, to gain high level of system performance, a required level of reliability has to be maintained. In this paper, we propose a mechanism to analyze the underlying environmental faults and failures. This model provides an adaptable fault-tolerant approach in order to address unanticipated events and unpredictable hazards in distributed systems. Therefore, this model maintains the required reliability by analyzing the environment and selects the optimal replication strategy for existing conditions. This pragmatic and theoretically appealing approach is a part of the Juice system which supports adaptation properties for open distributed environments
Semantics management for big networks

We define "Big Networks" as those that generate big data and can benefit from big data management in their operations. Examples of big networks include the emerging Internet of things and social networks. A major challenge in big networks is storing, processing and accessing massive multidimensional data to extract useful information for more efficient and smarter networking operations. Dimension reduction, learning patterns and extracting semantics from big data would help in mitigating such challenge. We have proposes a network "memory" system, termed NetMem, with storage and recollection mechanisms to access and manage data semantics in the Internet. NetMem is inspired by functionalities of human memory for learning patterns from huge amounts of data. In this paper we refine NetMem design and explore hidden Markov models, latent dirichlet allocation, and simple statistical analysis-based techniques for semantic reasoning in NetMem. In addition, we utilize locality sensitive hashing for reducing dimensionality. Our simulation study demonstrates the benefits of NetMem and highlights the advantages and limitations of the aforementioned techniques both with and without dimensionality reduction.
Factors associated with adherence to recommendations for screening mammography among American Indian women in Colorado.

OBJECTIVE To compare adherence to screening mammography recommendations of American Indian and non-Hispanic White women in the Denver, Colorado, area. DESIGN/SETTING/PARTICIPANTS This study retrospectively examined adherence patterns in 229 American Indian and 60,197 non-Hispanic White women > or = 40 years and older, with at least one screening mammogram in the Colorado Mammography Project (CMAP), from January 1, 1999, to December 31, 2003. The CMAP was a prospective study of women receiving mammograms at participating clinics around Denver. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Using logistic mixed models, we defined two dependent variables as annual and biennial adherence from the intervals between screening mammograms for each woman. RESULTS Biennial adherence was substantially higher than annual adherence for both American Indian and non-Hispanic White women in our analyses. American Indian women were less likely than non-Hispanic White women to adhere to biennial recommendations in multivariate models controlling for age, family history of breast cancer, and economic status (zip code): odds ratio (OR) . 4 and 95% confidence interval (CI) . 2-. 6. The association between American Indian race/ethnicity and annual adherence was similar, although not as strong (OR .5, 95% CI .3-.8). CONCLUSIONS American Indian women in the CMAP cohort were less likely than non-Hispanic White women to adhere to recommendations for screening mammography, both annually and biennially. Additional research is needed to explore the effect of biennial screening and other barriers among American Indian women.
The Estimation of Rainwater Acidity Level based on the Ambient Air Pollutants Concentration (Case Study: DKI Jakarta)

Nowadays, acid rain is a common phenomenon occurring in metropolitan city, such as Jakarta. Human activities including transportation and industries in and surrounding this city have increased pollutants in the atmosphere, which lead to an increased of acid rain events. Analyzing on rainwater pH is common approach to assess whether an acid rain occurs or not. However, information on this pH value for greater Jakarta is limited. Here we used a combined of Henry's law approach and Weather Research Forecasting-Chemistry (WRF-Chem) to estimate rainwater pH in Jakarta. The WRF-Chem was employed to generate SO 2 and NO 2 concentrations. Results showed that rainwater pH is below the threshold (pH = 5.6) in observation and modeling (Henry’s approach) throughout greater Jakarta. Rainwater pH showed a diurnal fluctuation with low value during night and morning, but high value at afternoon. Likely, season contributed to distribution of acid rain. Based on Henry’s approach, some regions (Bundaran HI, Kebon Jeruk, and Jagakarsa) revealed a high potency of acid rain for rainy season as indicated by the H + concentration. On other hand, a high potency of acid rain during dry season was observed in Kelapa Gading and Bundaran HI. Our findings indicated that traffic may influence on rain acid events as shown by a high H + concentration in Bundaran HI both dry and wet seasons.
Influence of impregnating liquids on dielectric response of impregnated cellulose insulation

The dielectric response of cellulose in the form of paper and pressboard was investigated. Samples of pressboard were impregnated with different insulating liquids: new and aged transformer oil and synthetic ester. Samples of non-impregnated paper were investigated during drying process. The research was done for two groups of pressboard with about 5 % and 0.5 % moisture content. The moisture level was determined using Karl Fischer titration. Obtained data were analyzed using Havriliak-Negami relaxation function. The results can be useful for moisture evaluation in various impregnated cellulose insulations e.g. transformers, bushings, capacitors.
Haptically Linked Dyads

Are Two Motor-Control Systems Better Than One? Kyle Reed, Michael Peshkin, Mitra J. Hartmann, Marcia Grabowecky, James Patton, and Peter M. Vishton Department of Mechanical Engineering, Northwestern University; Department of Biomedical Engineering, Northwestern University; Department of Psychology, Northwestern University; Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois; and Department of Psychology, College of William and Mary
Novel LDLR Variants in Patients with Familial Hypercholesterolemia: In Silico Analysis as a Tool to Predict Pathogenic Variants in Children and Their Families

Familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) is an autosomal dominant disease with a frequency of 1:500 in its heterozygous form. To date, mutations in the low‐density lipoprotein receptor gene (LDLR) are the only identified causes of FH in the Greek population, causing high levels of low‐density lipoprotein (LDL) and total cholesterol and premature atherosclerosis. The Greek FH population is genetically homogeneous, but most previous studies screened for the most common mutations only. The study aimed to characterize and assess novel LDLR variants. LDLR was examined by whole‐gene DNA sequencing in 561 FH patients from 262 families of Greek origin. Novel LDLR variants were analyzed in silico using various software predicting pathogenicity and changes in protein stability. Twelve novel LDLR variants were identified, six of which are putative disease‐causing variants: c.977C>G in exon 7, c.1124A>C in exon 8, c.1381G>T in exon 10, c. 628_643dup{636del}, c.661–673dup in exon 4, and 13 c.1987+1_+33del in intron 13. All six putative variants were confirmed in the hypercholesterolemic members of the family. The results show that in silico analysis is a valuable tool to predict potential pathogenicity of novel variants, especially for populations that have not been extensively studied. The identification of novel pathogenic variants will facilitate the molecular diagnosis of FH from early childhood.
Estimation of Growth Rates of Escherichia coli BJ4 in Streptomycin-Treated and Previously Germfree Mice by In Situ rRNA Hybridization

ABSTRACT The growth physiology of Escherichia coli during colonization of the intestinal tract was studied with four animal models: the streptomycin-treated mouse carrying a reduced microflora, the monoassociated mouse with no other microflora than the introduced strain, the conventionalized streptomycin-treated mouse, and the conventionalized monoassociated mouse harboring a full microflora. A 23S rRNA fluorescent oligonucleotide probe was used for hybridization to whole E. coli cells fixed directly after being taken from the animals, and the respective growth rates of E. coli BJ4 in the four animal models were estimated by correlating the cellular concentrations of ribosomes with the growth rate of the strain. The growth rates thus estimated from the ribosomal content ofE. coli BJ4 in vivo did not differ in the streptomycin-treated and the monoassociated mice. After conventionalization there was a slight decrease of the bacterial growth rates in both animal models.