Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Ischemia Leads to Apoptosis—and Necrosis‐like Neuron Death in the Ischemic Rat Hippocampus

Morphological evidence of apoptosis in transient forebrain ischemia is controversial. We therefore investigated the time sequence of apoptosis‐related antigens by immunohistochemistry and correlated it with emerging nuclear patterns of cell death in a model of transient forebrain ischemia in CA1 pyramidal cells of the rat hippocampus. The earliest ischemic changes were found on day 2 and 3, reflected by an upregulation of phospho‐c‐Jun in a proportion of morphologically intact CA1 neurons, which matched the number of neurons that succumbed to ischemia at later time points. At day 3 and later 3 ischemic cell death morphologies became apparent: pyknosis, apoptosis‐like cell death and necrosis‐like cell death, which were confirmed by electron microscopy. Activated caspase‐3 was present in the vast majority of cells with apoptosis‐like morphology as well as in a small subset of cells undergoing necrosis; its expression peaked on days 3 to 4. Silver staining for nucleoli, which are a substrate for caspase‐3, revealed a profound loss of nucleoli in cells with apoptosis‐like morphology, whereas cells with necrosis‐like morphology showed intact nucleoli. Overall, cells with apoptosis‐like morphology and/or caspase‐3 expression represented a minor fraction (<10%) of ischemic neurons, while the vast majority followed a necrosis‐like pathway. Our studies suggest that CA1 pyramidal cell death following transient forebrain ischemia may be initiated through c‐Jun N‐terminal kinase (JNK) pathway activation, which then either follows an apoptosis‐like cell death pathway or leads to secondary necrosis.
Design of test-system for EMC investigations of aviation electronic devices

The aim of this paper is to introduce automated workstation, which was created for testing of the electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) of the avionics equipment. EMC testing is of importance for flight safety and efficient operations. This paper describes the workstation design and some results of experimental checking and testing of EMC, such as the switch - mode power supply.
On the importance of pre-and post-conditioning procedures for speaker recognition systems based on total variability factors

The total variability factor approach in the speaker recognition field draws on the reduction of a high-dimensional representation of utterances based on the Gaussian Mixture Model of Universal Background model (GMM-UBM) paradigm. Once the low-rank total variability factor (referred to as i-vector) has been extracted, Gaussian modelings of speaker and session have proven to be efficient in terms of performance, but only if conditioning procedures are applied to vectors before modeling. We show in this article that pre-conditioning procedures (applied to high-dimensional representation before or during i-vector extraction) are also needed to achieve the best performance. The impact assessment of these preand post-procedures is evaluated, with the state-of-the-art representation and with the semiparametric GMM-UBM based representation referred to as binary key. This evaluation shows the importance of both procedures, which lead to a relative reduction of 48% and 30% in detection errors.
LA TRADUCTION DE LA MÉTA PHORE VERBALE DANS UN CONTEXTE DE VULGARISATION : ÉTUDE DE CAS

Cette etude vise a analyser la maniere dont 48 etudiants ont traduit de l’anglais vers le francais la metaphore verbale de la chasse dans un article de vulgarisation scientifique. Nous avons observe comment les etudiants ont traduit deux manifestations linguistiques de cette metaphore et examine la cohesion de leur traduction. Dans la plupart des cas observes (77,08 %), les etudiants ont remplace l’expression metaphorique de la chasse par une expression non metaphorique. Dans les autres cas, ils ont soit calque l’expression metaphorique (11,45 %), soit choisi une expression metaphorique evoquant une metaphore parente (10,42 %), soit evite completement de traduire (1,04 %).
Managed Bumblebees Outperform Honeybees in Increasing Peach Fruit Set in China: Different Limiting Processes with Different Pollinators

Peach Prunus persica (L.) Batsch is self-compatible and largely self-fertile, but under greenhouse conditions pollinators must be introduced to achieve good fruit set and quality. Because little work has been done to assess the effectiveness of different pollinators on peach trees under greenhouse conditions, we studied ‘Okubo’ peach in greenhouse tunnels near Beijing between 2012 and 2014. We measured pollen deposition, pollen-tube growth rates, ovary development, and initial fruit set after the flowers were visited by either of two managed pollinators: bumblebees, Bombus patagiatus Nylander, and honeybees, Apis mellifera L. The results show that B. patagiatus is more effective than A. mellifera as a pollinator of peach in greenhouses because of differences in two processes. First, B. patagiatus deposits more pollen grains on peach stigmas than A. mellifera, both during a single visit and during a whole day of open pollination. Second, there are differences in the fertilization performance of the pollen deposited. Half of the flowers visited by B. patagiatus are fertilized 9–11 days after bee visits, while for flowers visited by A. mellifera, half are fertilized 13–15 days after bee visits. Consequently, fruit development is also accelerated by bumblebees, showing that the different pollinators have not only different pollination efficiency, but also influence the subsequent time course of fertilization and fruit set. Flowers visited by B. patagiatus show faster ovary growth and ultimately these flowers produce more fruit. Our work shows that pollinators may influence fruit production beyond the amount of pollen delivered. We show that managed indigenous bumblebees significantly outperform introduced honeybees in increasing peach initial fruit set under greenhouse conditions.
A Genetic Algorithm for Dynamic Cloud Application Brokerage

Cloud Service Brokers (CSBs) may abstract complex resource allocation decisions for efficiently mapping demands of tenants into offers of providers. Nowadays, both demands and offers could be considered in dynamic environments, representing particular challenges in cloud computing markets. This work studies a broker-oriented Virtual Machine Placement (VMP) in dynamic environments such as: (1) variable resource offers and (2) pricing, from providers and (3) dynamic requirements of tenants. A genetic algorithm is proposed for an efficient and scalable resolution of the considered problem. Experimental results demonstrate good quality of solutions obtained by the proposed algorithm when compared to a state-of-the-art Integer Linear Programming (ILP) algorithm. Additionally, experimental results also demonstrate the good level of scalability of the proposed algorithm for large instances of the considered problem.
Lightweight Application-Level Crash Consistency on Transactional Flash Storage

Applications implement their own update protocols to ensure consistency of data on the file system. However, since current file systems provide only a preliminary ordering guarantee, notably fsync, these update protocols become complex, slow, and error-prone. We present a new file system, CFS, that supports a native interface for applications to maintain crash consistency of their data. Using CFS, applications can achieve crash consistency of data by declaring code regions that must operate atomically. By utilizing transactional flash storage (SSD/X-FTL), CFS implement a lightweight mechanism for crash consistency. Without using any heavyweight mechanisms based on redundant writes and ordering, CFS can atomically write multiple data pages and their relevant metadata to storage. We made three technical contributions to develop a crash consistency interface with SSD/X-FTL in CFS: selective atomic propagation of dirty pages, in-memory metadata logging, and delayed deallocation. Our evaluation of five real-world applications shows that CFS-based applications significantly outperform ordering versions: 2-5× faster by reducing disk writes 1.9-4.1× and disk cache flushing 1.1-17.6×. Importantly, our porting effort is minimal: CFS requires 317 lines of modifications from 3.5 million lines of ported applications.
A Novel Design of an Efficient EMI Reduction Technique for SoC Applications

Electromagnetic interference (EMI), once the exclusive concern of equipment designers working with high-speed signals, is no longer limited to a narrow class of high-end applications. Continued innovation in semiconductor technology has resulted in the ready availability of cost-effective, high-performance system-on-chip (SoC) devices, microcontrollers (MCUs), processors, digital signal processors (DSPs), application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and analog/digital converters (ADCs). One of the most effective and efficient approaches to controlling and reducing EMI is to use spread spectrum clock generation (SSCG) technology e.t. c for better implementation of System on Chip , The proposed technique, a novel portable and all-digital spread spectrum clock generator (ADSSCG) suitable for system-on-chip (SoC) applications with low-power consumption is presented in this paper , Provide different EMI attenuation performance for various SoC applications.
Shanghai Stock Prices as Determined by the Present-Value Model☆

Derived from the present-value model of stock prices, our model implies that the log stock price is a linear function of expected log dividends and the expected rate of growth of dividends where expectations are formed adaptively. The model explains very well the prices of 47 stocks traded on the Shanghai Stock Exchange observed at the beginning of 1996, 1997, and 1998. The estimated parameters are remarkably similar to those reported for stocks traded on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange.
A Public Health perspective for establishing water-related guidelines and standards

For a number of historic reasons, the setting of water-related guidelines has become fragmented among different agencies and divorced from general public health. This runs contrary to the fundamental public health perspective that views the control of pathogens (including waterborne ones) as a more holistic activity, integrating across all exposure pathways. There are two levels at which this integration occurs. At one level, the focus is on proximal factors, such as water quality, sanitation and hygiene that have a direct causal link to disease as depicted through a 'systems' approach to transmission cycles. At another level the focus is on the distal causal factors, such as socioeconomic conditions, which have an impact both on the health of a society and on individuals through their linkages to the proximal factors. The purpose of this chapter is to provide a
Review: ‘Keeping my mind strong’: enabling children to discuss and explore issues relating to their perceptions of positive mental health through the arts

Young people’s mental health is a growing area of concern, with three-quarters of lifetime mental health problems now presenting before the age of 24 years (Kessler et al., 2005). As such, investment is needed to enhance the mental health and wellbeing of children. There needs to be a greater emphasis on promoting positive mental health, building resilience and developing positive coping strategies. Nurses should be at the forefront of this and need to actualise their potential for working in this area. This paper presents an interesting approach, arts-based research (ABR), to conducting research on positive mental health with young people. ABR is not research about art, but a method of enquiry that allows for new questions to be asked in a new way. It is well documented that active participation is needed in research, including research methods that engage children and aid in developing understanding of a phenomenon from their frame of reference. Capturing the unique perspective of children has the potential to offer an alternative insight using their own voice. ABR is a method that can allow for this, and as such this methodological perspective can be used as an alternative to traditional methodologies. ABR may also be useful in studying topics that are sensitive by nature, encouraging free expression in an alternative means to words. The authors present their findings on how children of different ages (5–18 years) depict positive mental health through image. While much of the findings are what might have been expected, there is certainly room in the literature to broaden and deepen our understanding of how children view mental health. Unsurprisingly, issues such as bullying and lack of personal connections came to the forefront as factors that influence mental health negatively, whereas conversely positive relationships were seen as something that promoted positive mental health. Of note, this research demonstrates that, even at a very young age,
Gender-Specific Potential Inhibitory Role of Ca2+/Calmodulin Dependent Protein Kinase Phosphatase (CaMKP) in Pressure-Overloaded Mouse Heart

Background Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase phosphatase (CaMKP) has been proposed as a potent regulator of multifunctional Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent protein kinases (i.e., CaMKII). The CaMKII-dependent activation of myocyte enhancer factor 2 (MEF2) disrupts interactions between MEF2-histone deacetylases (HDACs), thereby de-repressing downstream gene transcription. Whether CaMKP modulates the CaMKII- MEF2 pathway in the heart is unknown. Here, we investigated the molecular and functional consequences of left ventricular (LV) pressure overload in the mouse of both genders, and in particular we evaluated the expression levels and localization of CaMKP and its association with CaMKII-MEF2 signaling. Methodology and Principal Findings Five week-old B6D1/F1 mice of both genders underwent a sham-operation or thoracic aortic constriction (TAC). Thirty days later, TAC was associated with pathological LV hypertrophy characterized by systolic and diastolic dysfunction. Gene expression was assessed by real-time PCR. Fetal gene program re-expression comprised increased RNA levels of brain natriuretic peptide and alpha-skeletal actin. Mouse hearts of both genders expressed both CaMKP transcript and protein. Activation of signalling pathways was studied by Western blot in LV lysates or subcellular fractions (nuclear and cytoplasmic). TAC was associated with increased CaMKP expression in male LVs whereas it tended to be decreased in females. The DNA binding activity of MEF2 was determined by spectrophotometry. CaMKP compartmentalization differed according to gender. In male TAC mice, nuclear CaMKP was associated with inactive CaMKII resulting in less MEF2 activation. In female TAC mice, active CaMKII (phospho-CaMKII) detected in the nuclear fraction, was associated with a strong MEF2 transcription factor-binding activity. Conclusions/Significance Gender-specific CaMKP compartmentalization is associated with CaMKII-mediated MEF2 activation in pressure-overloaded hearts. Therefore, CaMKP could be considered as an important novel cellular target for the development of new therapeutic strategies for heart diseases.
Soft switching non-isolated current-fed inverter for PV/Fuel-cell applications

A non-isolated current-fed inverter for fuel-cell/PV applications is proposed. An impulse commutated current-fed half-bridge converter is selected as the front-end dc/dc converter that provides high voltage gain required for such applications. Impulse commutation enables zero current switching (ZCS) of the semiconductor devices. The devices' voltage gets naturally clamped owing to impulse commutation eliminating the turn-off spike. Voltage doubler has been employed to reduce the device voltage ratings and enhance the voltage gain. Variable frequency modulation ensures output voltage regulation with input and load voltage variations. A 500 W prototype was developed in the laboratory to demonstrate the inverter performance and verify the proposed operation and claims.
Phenotype manipulations confirm the role of pectoral muscles and haematocrit in avian maximal thermogenic capacity

In small resident bird species living at northern latitudes, winter cold acclimatization is associated with an increase in pectoral muscle size and haematocrit level, and this is thought to drive the seasonal increase in summit metabolic rate (Ṁsum, a measure of maximal shivering thermogenic capacity). However, evidence suggesting that pectoral muscle size influences Ṁsum is correlational and the link between haematrocrit level and Ṁsum remains to be demonstrated. We experimentally tested the relationship between pectoral muscle size and Ṁsum by manipulating muscle size using a feather clipping protocol in free-living wintering black-capped chickadees (Poecile atricapillus). This also allowed us to investigate the link between haematocrit and thermogenic capacity. After a first series of measures on all birds, we cut half of the flight feathers of experimental individuals (N=14) and compared their fat and pectoral muscle scores, Ṁsum and haematocrit level at recapture with their previous measures and with those of control birds (N=17) that were captured and recaptured at comparable times. Results showed that: (1) experimental birds developed larger pectoral muscles than control individuals and (2) mass-independent Ṁsum was up to 16% higher in birds expressing large pectoral muscles. Ṁsum was also positively correlated with haematocrit, which was not affected by the experimental manipulation. These findings demonstrate that, for a given body mass, large pectoral muscles are associated with a higher Ṁsum in black-capped chickadees and that oxygen carrying capacity likely supports thermogenesis in this species.
Market Formation and Fixed Income E-Commerce

The fixed-income markets are enormous, however innovation in this sector has trailed that in the much smaller equities markets. Recently, a number of alternate trading systems (ATS) have been introduced, many of which use the Internet as an enabling infrastructure. Despite the size and impact of these markets, there is a surprising lack of IS research in this field, yet the context provides a potentially fruitful test bed for e-commerce and market formation theory. This work introduces the motivation / ability framework for considering the likelihood of organizations in succeeding at forming fixed-income e-commerce markets, offers a theory-based discussion of the challenges and opportunities for firms seeking to create fixed-income ATS, highlights issues of system ownership, and uses examples to illustrate evolutionary trends.
A genetic algorithm selection perturbative hyper-heuristic for solving the school timetabling problem

Research in the domain of school timetabling has essentially focused on applying various techniques such as integer programming, constraint satisfaction, simulated annealing, tabu search and genetic algorithms to calculate a solution to the problem. Optimization techniques like simulated annealing, tabu search and genetic algorithms generally explore a solution space. Hyper-heuristics, on the other hand, search a heuristic space with the aim of providing a more generalized solution to the particular optimisation problem. This is a fairly new technique that has proven to be successful in solving various combinatorial optimisation problems. There has not been much research into the use of hyper-heuristics to solve the school timetabling problem. This study investigates the use of a genetic algorithm selection perturbative hyper-heuristic for solving the school timetabling problem. A two-phased approach is taken, with the first phase focusing on hard constraints, and the second on soft constraints. The genetic algorithm uses tournament selection to choose parents, to which the mutation and crossover operators are applied. The genetic algorithm selection perturbative hyper-heuristic (GASPHH) was applied to five different school timetabling problems. The performance of the hyper-heuristic was compared to that of other methods applied to these problems, including a genetic algorithm that was applied directly to the solution space. GASPHH performed well over all five different types of school timetabling problems.
Assessing the business value of E-commerce : Evidence from emerging electronic markets

In this paper we propose a research framework upon which the assessment of the perceived business value of ecommerce can be assessed. The specific concept in question has been the general form of interorganisational systems as expressed via the Internet. The research framework has sought to validate research hypotheses concerning the antecedents of innovative behaviour of firms that enter into the Internet practice. As type of practice the research adopts four generic types such as Customer Service, Marketing, provision of Corporate Image and Efficiency in operations. The dependent variable of the study was chosen to be the perceived value of the internet, measured by means of loyalty, word of mouth communication and intention to intensify the use of Internet in the future. The empirical results of the study were drawn from a sample of Greek enterprises that had on-line presence over the last two years or more. From a population of 350 firm contacted we obtained 125 useable responses that were analysed using Structural Equation Modell ing methods. Our results indicate a very good fit of the conceptual model to the empirical data and furthermore research hypotheses concerning the use of the internet and perceived value have been confirmed.
International Journal of General Medicine Dovepress Hepatitis C Treatment: Where Are We Now?

The license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Abstract: Chronic hepatitis C infection affects millions of people worldwide and confers significant morbidity and mortality. Effective treatment is needed to prevent disease progression and associated complications. Previous treatment options were limited to interferon and ribavirin (RBV) regimens, which gave low cure rates and were associated with unpleasant side effects. The era of direct-acting antiviral (DAA) therapies began with the development of first-generation NS3/4A protease inhibitors in 2011. They vastly improved outcomes for patients, particularly those with genotype 1 infection, the most prevalent genotype globally. Since then, a multitude of DAAs have been licensed for use, and outcomes for patients have improved further, with fewer side effects and cure rates approaching 100%. Recent regimens are interferon-free, and in many cases, RBV-free, and involve a combination of DAA agents. This review summarizes the treatment options currently available and discusses potential barriers that may delay the global eradication of hepatitis C.
REAL UNDERSTANDING OF LPN-PROBLEM-BASED LIGHTWEIGHT AUTHENTICATION PROTOCOLS

A family of lightweight authentication protocols, HB-family, has been proposed for low-computationload- required applications such as radio frequency identification (RFID). Security of this family is based on the learning parity with noise (LPN) problem which has been proven to be an NP-complete problem. But, we find that security of these LPN-problem-based protocols is doubted. We will demonstrate how to cheat the verifier without solving the secret keys with high probability.