Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Biological Effects of Clinically Relevant CoCr Nanoparticles in the Dura Mater: An Organ Culture Study

Medical interventions for the treatment of spinal disc degeneration include total disc replacement and fusion devices. There are, however, concerns regarding the generation of wear particles by these devices, the majority of which are in the nanometre sized range with the potential to cause adverse biological effects in the surrounding tissues. The aims of this study were to develop an organ culture model of the porcine dura mater and to investigate the biological effects of CoCr nanoparticles in this model. A range of histological techniques were used to analyse the structure of the tissue in the organ culture. The biological effects of the CoCr wear particles and the subsequent structural changes were assessed using tissue viability assays, cytokine assays, histology, immunohistochemistry, and TEM imaging. The physiological structure of the dura mater remained unchanged during the seven days of in vitro culture. There was no significant loss of cell viability. After exposure of the organ culture to CoCr nanoparticles, there was significant loosening of the epithelial layer, as well as the underlying collagen matrix. TEM imaging confirmed these structural alterations. These structural alterations were attributed to the production of MMP-1, -3, -9, -13, and TIMP-1. ELISA analysis revealed that there was significant release of cytokines including IL-8, IL-6, TNF-α, ECP and also the matrix protein, tenascin-C. This study suggested that CoCr nanoparticles did not cause cytotoxicity in the dura mater but they caused significant alterations to its structural integrity that could lead to significant secondary effects due to nanoparticle penetration, such as inflammation to the local neural tissue.
Elevation of brain glutathione by γ‐glutamylcysteine ethyl ester protects against peroxynitrite‐induced oxidative stress

Elevation of glutathione (GSH) has been recognized as an important method for modulating levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in the brain. We investigated the antioxidant properties of γ‐glu‐cys‐ethyl ester (GCEE) in vitro and its ability to increase GSH levels upon in vivo i.p. injection. GCEE displays antioxidant activity similar to GSH as assessed by various in vitro indices such as hydroxyl radical scavenging, dichlorofluorescein fluorescence (DCF), protein specific spin labeling, glutamine synthetase (GS) activity, and protein carbonyls. Intraperitoneal injection of GCEE to gerbils resulted in a 41% increase in brain total GSH levels in vivo as determined by the DTNB‐GSH reductase recycling method. Gerbils injected with buthionine sulfoximine (BSO), an inhibitor of γ‐glutamylcysteine synthetase, had 40% less total brain glutathione. Gerbils injected with BSO followed by a GCEE injection had GSH levels similar to vehicle‐injected controls, suggesting that GCEE upregulates GSH biosynthesis by providing γ‐glutamylcysteine and not cysteine. Cortical synaptosomes from GCEE‐injected animals were less susceptible to peroxynitrite‐induced oxidative damage as assessed by DCF fluorescence, protein‐specific spin labeling, and GS activity. These experiments suggest that GCEE is effective in increasing brain GSH levels and may potentially play an important therapeutic role in attenuating oxidative stress in neurodegenerative diseases associated with oxidative stress such as Alzheimer disease. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Online absorption of mediolateral balance disturbances for a small humanoid robot using accelerometer and force-sensor feedback

Sociable humanoid robots should be able to coexist with humans in human environments, where they will very likely have to face unexpected disturbance forces. In this paper, an online ankle-hip control strategy is presented that allows a standing biped robot to withstand a force in the mediolateral direction, using foot force-sensor and accelerometer feedback. The control algorithm is simple and can be implemented on any biped robot equipped with these sensors. Experimental results are presented for a small humanoid robot Fujitsu HOAP-1 showing that our method allows the robot to bear considerable perturbation forces.
A Surface Reconstruction Algorithm Based on 3D Point Cloud Stratified Sliced

This paper presents a novel surface reconstruction algorithm based on 3D point cloud sliced by a series of planes vertical to Z-axis. First, the density and distribution of point cloud is analyzed in vertical direction Z-axis and a stratified point cloud model is put forward to present an object feature, in which point cloud is sliced with irregular intervals. An approach of stratified point cloud projected on plane is proposed. The algorithm based on Delaunay triangulation technique in two dimensions gain quickly the local topological connection relationships between points. Further, the planar triangular mesh is mapped into 3D-TIN. Finally, the object surface model is composed of the stratified 3D-TINs with consistent edges. Two tests are implemented to demonstrate that the algorithm is very simple, robust and suitable to reconstruct the object surface based on complex shaped and irregular 3D point cloud. Copyright © 2014 IFSA Publishing, S. L.
Recreational Fishing: Its Expansion, its Economic Value and Aquaculture's Role in Sustaining it

Economic growth usually leads to a substantial increase in the demand for recreational fishing, and China is likely to follow this trend. Factors influencing this expansion in demand are identified. Recreational fishing is of major economic importance in higher income countries and indicators of its economic significance are given. Growing demand for recreational fishing results in intensified involvement of recreational fishers in conflicts about resource use. With increasing demand for recreational fishing, recreational fishers face growing competition with one another for limited fish stocks and with commercial fishers. Their concerns for environmental threats to fish stocks also intensify. Furthermore, some strategies of recreational fishers are increasingly criticised by conservationists. Governments, therefore, are put under pressure to adopt policies to address these conflicts. Some of the policy measures adopted to help sustain the fisheries and reduce conflict are outlined. These include limits on the catch and exclusive zones for recreational fishing. However, wild stocks of fish are likely to remain under mounting harvesting and other pressures. Therefore, we need to consider the role that aquaculture can play in overcoming these problems. The possible ways in which aquaculture can do this are outlined and discussed.
Circulating and Tissue Endothelin Immunoreactivit in Hypercholesterolemic Pigs

BackgroundHypercholesterolemia is characterized by a coronary vasoconstrictive response to the endothelium-dependent vasodilator acetylcholine. This abnormality may be due to reduced synthesis of endothelium-derived relaxing factor and/or enhanced synthesis and release of an endothelium-derived contracting factor. Endothelin is an endothelium-derived vasoconstrictor and mitogenic peptide that is present in normal plasma, and its circulating concentrations are elevated in disease states that are characterized by abnormal endothelium-dependent relaxation to acetylcholine. The current studies were designed to test the hypotheses that experimental hypercholesterolemia results in elevation of plasma and tissue endothelin immunoreactivity and that the abnormal acetylcholine-evoked coronary vasoconstriction in the hypercholesterolemic animals is associated with further elevation of plasma endothelin. Methods and ResultsPlasma concentrations and molecular forms of endothelin immunoreactivity were determined following 2% cholesterol diet for 4 months in pigs and during intracoronary acetylcholine administration. Second, we assessed the presence of endothelin in the coronary vascular wall by using immunohistochemistry. Hypercholesterolemia elevated plasma endothelin concentration and enhanced coronary artery tissue endothelin immunoreactivity. The endothelium-dependent vasodilator acetylcholine further increases plasma endothelin in hypercholesterolemia in association with coronary vasoconstriction. The predominant molecular form of endothelin in hypercholesterolemia is the biological active endothelin-l. ConclusionThis study suggests a role for endothelin as an early participant and a marker for the endothelial dysfunction in hypercholesterolemia as well as a participant in the atherogenic process.
Linguistic Approach to Cryptographic Data Sharing

In the paper will be presented a new way of secret sharing algorithms expansion towards additional, linguistic stage, for the generation of the secret linguistic elements. Such a part shall be generated in the form of a linguistic description of the shared data, built by defined context-free grammar. The introduction of linguistic formalism in this scheme will provide additional information required for revealing the secret previously split with any (m, n)-threshold scheme.
Robust swing up and balancing control of the acrobot based on a disturbance observer

This paper proposes robust swing up and balancing control scheme of the acrobot system based on a disturbance observer. The partial feedback linearization and LQR control method are fast and effective way to control the nominal acrobot system. However, these control method does not guarantee the robustness. Also, the limit cycle phenomenon which appears in the acrobot system around the desired unstable equilibrium point can be assumed a sinusoidal signal. Therefore, disturbance observer for the sinusoidal disturbance is applied to develop the compensation scheme which minimizes the effect of the disturbance. The proposed control strategy was verified through the simulation results.
Derivatives,Money and Real Growth

This paper analyzes the derivatives market from the point of view of the effects it exerts on the definition of money and the efficacy of monetary policy. An hypothesis is also put forward on the role played in the capital accumulation. Empirical evidence is provided which does not reject the hypothesis that derivatives function as the speculative demand for money, contributing to determine interest rates and, in this way, influencing real and financial investment decisions according to the paradigm proposed by Tobin.
Evaluate Nodes Importance in Directed Network Using Topological Potential

Mining concernful nodes in large network is a basic and important work in the research of complex network.There are some classic algorithms for ranking nodes in directed network. This paper provides a ranking algorithm based on topological structure.By defining and computing the topological potential score for each node,we can obtain a more accurate global ranking which can reflect nodes importance in the network.We also demonstrate the algorithm with using a real-world network.According to the experiment result,this method provides a general framework for some classic ranking measures. Furthermore,by optimizing influence factor,it can also reveal the position differences in network structure.
Draft Genome Sequence of an Oceanobacillus sp. Strain Isolated from Soil in a Burial Crypt

ABSTRACT We present the draft genome of an Oceanobacillus sp. strain isolated from spores found in soil samples from a burial crypt of the Cathedral of Sant'Antonio Abate in Castelsardo, Italy. The data obtained indicated the closest relation of the strain with Oceanobacillus caeni.
A Quantitative and Qualitative Investigation of Performance-Related Commits in Android Apps

Performance is nowadays becoming a crucial issue for mobile apps, as they are often implementing computational-intensive features, are being used for mission-critical tasks, and, last but not least, a pleasant user experience often is a key factor to determine the success of an app. This paper reports a study aimed at preliminarily investigating to what extent developers take care of performance issues in their commits, and explicitly document that. The study has been conducted on commits of 2,443 open source Android apps, of which 180 turned out to contain a total of 457 documented performance problems. We classified performance-related commits using a card sorting approach, and found that the most predominant kinds of performance-related changes include GUI-related changes, fixing code smells, network-related code, and memory management.
A review of models for introducing computational thinking, computer science and computing in K-12 education

Computer science is becoming ever increasingly important to our society. Computer science content has, however, not traditionally been considered a natural part of curricula for primary and secondary education. Computer science has traditionally been primarily a university level discipline and there are no widely accepted general standards for what computer science at K-12 level entails. Also, as the interest in this area is rather new, the amount of research conducted in the field is still limited. In this paper we review how 10 different countries have approached introducing computer science into their K-12 education. The countries are Australia, England, Estonia, Finland, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, South Korea, Poland and USA. The studied countries either emphasize digital competencies together with programming or the broader subject of computer science or computing. Computational thinking is rarely mentioned explicitly, but the ideas are often included in some form. The most common model is to make computer science content compulsory in primary school and elective in secondary school. A few countries have made it compulsory in both, while some countries have only introduced it in secondary school.
Another attempt to explain an illiquid banking system: the Diamond and Dybvig model with sequential service taken seriously

To help readers understand Diamond and Dybvig's explanation of an illiquid banking system and my explanation of the sequential service constraint, I descrbe my model twice. First I describe the model in a more-or-less way and summarize its results. Although some of the results that distinguish my model from Diamond and Dybving's cannot be fully described in this context, the main ingredients of our models can. A more complete and necessarily more technical description of my model and results follows. This requires previous exposure to economic theory at the level of a rigorous intermediate microeconomics theory course and to calculus.
Functional regionalization of the teleost cerebellum analyzed in vivo

Significance We have resolved an efferent connection map of the zebrafish cerebellar Purkinje cells (PCs), showing that the PC efferents represent one of the highest conserved circuitries throughout vertebrates. Moreover, by physiological characterization and functional interrogation using optogenetics in freely moving zebrafish, we have identified distinct PC regions responsible for controlling specific but different stereotypic behaviors. This finding indicates that the output of the cerebellar PC layer is topographically organized and shows that zebrafish can serve to unveil the highly sought structure–physiology–function relationships in the vertebrate brain directly in vivo. There has been accumulating evidence for a regionalized organization of the cerebellum, which was mostly deduced from anatomical mapping of axonal projections of cerebellar afferents. A likewise regionalization of the cerebellar output has been suggested from lesion studies and dye-tracer experiments, but its physiological targets as well as the functional relevance of such an output regionalization are less clear. Ideally, such functional regionalization should be proven noninvasively in vivo. We here provide evidence for such a regionalization of the output from the cerebellar cortex by genetically encoded transneuronal mapping of efferent circuits of zebrafish Purkinje neurons. These identified circuits correspond to distinct regionalized Purkinje cell activity patterns in freely behaving zebrafish larvae during the performance of cerebellar-dependent behaviors. Furthermore, optogenetic interrogation of selected Purkinje cell regions during animal behavior confirms the functional regionalization of Purkinje cell efferents and reveals their contribution to behavior control as well as their function in controlling lateralized behavioral output. Our findings reveal how brain compartments serve to fulfill a multitude of functions by dedicating specialized efferent circuits to distinct behavioral tasks.
The Functional Test for Agility Performance is a Reliable Quick Decision-Making Test for Skilled Water Polo Players

Abstract The reliability of the Functional Test for Agility Performance has only been evaluated in water polo players in a small group of novice athletes. Thus, the aim of this study was to evaluate the reliability of the Functional Test for Agility Performance in skilled water polo players. Forty-two athletes (17.81 ± 3.24 years old) with a minimum of 5 years of competitive experience (7.05 ± 2.84 years) and playing at the national or international level were evaluated. The Functional Test for Agility Performance is characterized as a specific open decision-making test where a tested player moves as quickly as possible in accordance to a pass made by another player. The time spent in the test was measured by two experienced coaches. Descriptive statistics, repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA), 95% limit of agreement (LOA), intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) and standard error of measurements (SEM) were used for data analysis. Athletes completed the Functional Test for Agility Performance in 4.15 0.47 s. The ICC value was 0.87 (95% IC = 0.80-0.92). The SEM varied between 0.24 and 0.38 s. The LOA was 1.20 s and the CV average considering each individual trial was 6%. The Functional Test for Agility Performance was shown to be a reliable quick decision-making test for skilled water polo players.
The Utility of Combinatory Categorial Grammar in Designing a Pedagogical Tool for Teaching Languages

This paper intends to demonstrate how Applicative and Combinatory Categorial Grammar (ACCG) can be drawn on to design powerful software applications for the teaching of languages. To this end, we present some modules from our “pictographic translator”, a software that performs syntactical analysis of sentences in natural language directly written by the user, and then dynamically displays series of pictograms that illustrate the words and structure of the user’s sentences. After a short presentation of our application and an introduction to ACCG, we will examine how this formalism enables the building of several high-level functions in our system, such as disambiguation, structure exhibition and grammatical correction/validation. We finally open a short discussion concerning the potential (and limits) of this architecture with regards to multilingualism.
Usability testing vs. heuristic evaluation: was there a contest?

Recent research comparing usability assessment methods has been interpreted by some to imply that usability testing is no longer necessary, because other techniques, such as heuristic evaluation, can find some usability problems more cost-effectively. Such an interpretation grossly overstates the actual results of the studies. In this article, we, as authors of studies that compared inspection methods to usability testing, point out the rather severe limitations to using inspection methods as a substitute for usability testing and argue for a more balanced repertoire of usability assessment techniques.
Utilization of adaptive-coefficient estimation method for Motion artifacts reduction from photoplethysmographic signals

Modern pulse oximeters are employed in critical care units to measure the vital medical parameters like heart rate and blood oxygen saturation levels. These devices work by acquiring the photoplethysmographic (PPG) data utilizing PPG sensors attached to finger/earlobe/forehead of the patient and then computing the ratio of amplitudes of the red and IR PPG signals. Further the ratio of amplitudes is used to estimate oxygen saturation levels with the help of calibration curve. Patient movements while recording the pulse oximeter data may result in erroneous estimation of medical data and may result in wrong diagnosis by the clinician. Data corruption in recorded PPG signals is referred as Motion artifact (MA) corruption and its detection and reduction is a crucial problem for most of the researchers. It is clear evident that detection and reduction of MA component from recorded PPG data by any signal processing technique may guarantee error-free estimation of oxygen saturation in arterial blood (SpO2). In this work, we present a adaptive coefficient estimation technique to detect MA components from quasi periodic natured PPG signal and then deduce MA reduced PPG signal. Fourier coefficients are estimated using basic least mean squares algorithm. The novelty of the proposed technique lies in detection and reduction of MA noise by estimating the Fourier coefficients and then based on randomness measures considering only the required number of Fourier coefficients dynamically to generate MA reduced PPG signal. SpO2 is estimated from MA reduced PPGs by utilizing the calibration curve. The superiority of proposed technique is been proved by comparing the experimental results with results obtained using basic least mean squares (LMS) method. PPG data recorded with different MA (Vertical, Horizontal and Bending movements of patient's finger) is considered for experiment analysis. Obtained SpO2 parameter calculations proved the efficacy of estimation technique in measurement of reliable and accurate SpO2, helpful for medical diagnosis.
Redynis: Traffic-aware dynamic repartitioning for a distributed key-value store

Most modern data stores tend to be distributed, to enable the scaling of the data across multiple instances of commodity hardware. Although this ensures a near unlimited potential for storage, the data itself is not always ideally partitioned, and the cost of a network round-trip may cause a degradation of end-user experience with respect to response latency. The problem being solved is bringing the data objects closer to the frequent sources of requests using a dynamic repartitioning algorithm. This is important if the objective is to mitigate the overhead of network latency, and especially so if the partitions are widely geo-distributed. The intention is to bring these features to an existing distributed key-value store product, Redis.
THE TRANSFORMATION OF MONOCYTES INTO FIBROBLASTS THROUGH THE ACTION OF ROUS VIRUS

In normal cultures, the transformation of monocytes into fibroblasts generally occurred when cells became packed together through some mechanical factors that prevented their free migration and determined their accumulation. Various modifications of the medium, the addition of dead tissue, and of trypsin or the products of trypsin digestion, failed to bring about the transformation. The inoculation af cultures of monocytes with filtered extract of Rous sarcoma frequently determined the appearance of fibroblasts. The first change undergone by the monocytes cultivated in vitro was a large increase in their size. Later, the giant monocytes became transformed into cells that did not differ essentially from those that grow from a fragment of adult connective tissue.