Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effect of the Ethanolic Leaf Extract of Moringa oleifera on Insulin Resistance in Streptozotocin Induced Diabetic Rats

Insulin resistance plays a central role in the pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes mellitus. Ameliorating insulin resistance helps to improve glycaemic control and hence reduce the risk of development and progression of diabetic complications. The extract of Moringa oleifera has been shown to improve hyperglycaemia, however, little is known on its effect on insulin resistance and beta-cell function. The objective of this study was to determine the effect of the ethanolic leaf extract of Moringa oleifera on insulin resistance in high-fat diet and streptozotocin induced diabetic rats. Different doses (250 and 500 mg/kg) of the ethanolic leaf extract of Moringa oleifera were administered orally for two weeks, to high-fat diet and streptozotocin induced diabetic rats, and were compared with metformin 320 mg/kg and control group (distilled water 10 ml/kg) for the effect on fasting blood glucose, serum insulin and insulin resistance (HOMA). The extract of Moringa oleifera (at doses of 250 mg/kg and 500 mg/kg) significantly lowered the fasting blood glucose at days 7 and 14 compared to controls (p = 0.0021 and p = 0.0001 respectively). There was a significant increase in serum insulin level in the control group at days 7 and 14 compared to the groups treated with the extract (250 mg/kg, 500 mg/kg) and metformin (p<0.01, p<0.02 and p<0.01 respectively). The extract at both doses and metformin (320 mg/kg) induced a significant improvement in insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) on days 7 and 14 (p < 0.0001).
Foodborne illness associated with niacin: report of an outbreak linked to excessive niacin in enriched cornmeal.

SUPPLEMENTATION of commercially prepared foods with vitamins and minerals has become routine in the United States since the 1940s. Although such additives are classified as "generally regarded as safe" (GRAS) (1), mistakes in adding or mixing can result in concentrations that can cause illness. In this report we describe an outbreak of foodborne illness attributed to excessive amounts of a vitamin and mineral additive mix in cornmeal. Symptoms were compatible vith niacin toxicity; this is the first outbreak of niacin toxicity reported in association with a commercially prepared additive mix. The outbreak emphasizes the need for care in commercial processing when dealing with additives. It also uinderscores the relative safety of the additives involved, in that no serious sequelae resulted despite high concentrations of the vitamin and mineral supplements.
Design and Analysis of Film Bulk Acoustic Resonator (FBAR) Filter for RF Applications

The RF band pass filters are important for wireless communication applications. They can be realized using Thin Film Bulk Acoustic Resonator (TFBAR). TFBAR is designed using Aluminium Nitride (AlN) and electrodes of piezoelectric material are made with Platinum (Pt). Various modelling techniques has been used for realizing three layered TFBAR structure. Modified Butter worth-van Dyke model (MBVD) is one used for numerical simulation of AlN film and thin electrodes. The result shows that Lm, Cm, Rm and Co model is perfectly applicable for predicting the response of TFBAR. The proposed design is realized by connecting three series and two shunt FBARs in ladder configuration. In the present work, the filter has been designed for a bandwidth of 270 MHz at −3 dB. The minimum insertion loss of −0.9 dB and return loss of –25 dB are obtained for VSWR ≤ 2 at resonance frequency.
Suppression of OsMADS7 in rice endosperm stabilizes amylose content under high temperature stress

Summary High temperature significantly alters the amylose content of rice, resulting in mature grains with poor eating quality. However, only few genes and/or quantitative trait loci involved in this process have been isolated and the molecular mechanisms of this effect remain unclear. Here, we describe a floral organ identity gene, OsMADS7, involved in stabilizing rice amylose content at high temperature. OsMADS7 is greatly induced by high temperature at the early filling stage. Constitutive suppression of OsMADS7 stabilizes amylose content under high temperature stress but results in low spikelet fertility. However, rice plants with both stable amylose content at high temperature and normal spikelet fertility can be obtained by specifically suppressing OsMADS7 in endosperm. GBSSI is the major enzyme responsible for amylose biosynthesis. A low filling rate and high expression of GBSSI were detected in OsMADS7 RNAi plants at high temperature, which may be correlated with stabilized amylose content in these transgenic seeds under high temperature. Thus, specific suppression of OsMADS7 in endosperm could improve the stability of rice amylose content at high temperature, and such transgenic materials may be a valuable genetic resource for breeding rice with elite thermal resilience.
Review of the state of world aquaculture.

This document is an update to the regular review of world aquaculture, based mainly on national statistics provided to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN by its members through 1995. The review consists of three parts. The first part presents a global perspective on food production and production trends. Some of the major strategic issues facing aquaculture development are identified and a rough estimation of production by the year 2000 is provided. The second part reviews developments and trends in some important fields; these include environmental interactions, biodiversity and genetics, aquafeed resources, fish health and quarantine, regulatory frameworks, product safety, international trade, and international aid to research and development. The third part reviews production and production trends, as well as main development issues and outlook on a regional basis for Asia, Africa, Europe, the former USSR, North America, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Oceania.
Phonological representations in poor readers

According to the ‘phonological deficit hypothesis’, problems in reading and spelling in dyslexic persons are due to poor representations of sounds in long term memory. As a result, the acquisition of the grapheme-phoneme correspondence and word decoding is assumed to be difficult. In this paper we describe a perception experiment to find evidence for poor phonological representations in 9-13 year old pupils who perform poorly in reading. The experiment is a two-alternative forced choice task in which subjects had to identify an intervocalic consonant in clean and noisy conditions. The results support the phonological deficit hypothesis but do not provide unique cues for the precise manifestation of this deficit. Between normal and poor readers, significant differences have been found with respect to reaction times, but not to accuracy.
How regulation of phloem transport could link potassium fertilization to increased growth.

Identifying the factors that limit growth is a pre-requisite for using plant resources more efficiently, especially under changing climate conditions. For the optimization of tree growth in planta-tions or re-forestation areas, a detailed understanding of this complex regulation is required. In this issue, Epron et al. (2015) make a significant contribution toward this goal by demonstrat ing how potassium (K) fertilization acts to increase growth of field-grown Eucalyptus grandis trees. Their results point to the central role that carbon transport plays in the regulation of tree growth. In the same way, previous studies provided evidence that ozone ( Kasurinen et al. 2012), elevated CO 2 ( Mikan et al. 2000) and nitrogen ( Högberg et al. 2010) affect growth by altering the flux of carbon to a particular plant compartment, as do stress and other factors that increase the carbon storage rate ( Babst et al. 2005, Sala et al. 2012). Nevertheless, we still have little knowledge of the specific conditions under which carbon transport limits growth or how it could be targeted to increase carbon-use efficiency.
Why Is It So Difficult to Inhibit Behavior

adjustment and suffer from tendencies toward negative affect, cognitive disruption, and health problems. Polivy says impulse control can cause problems. The experimental evidence she cites backs her up. But some of the evidence cited in Polivy's article is correlational, which makes a complementary observation relevant: Some of those who tend toward the overcontrol of motivational impulse may already have problems.
Impact of MAI and channel estimation errors on the performance of Rake receivers in UWB communications

The performance of Rake receivers for ultrawide-bandwidth communications is discussed, taking into account the effects of multiple access interference (MAI) and channel estimation errors. Two alternative signaling formats are considered: time-hopping pulse-position modulation (TH-PPM) and TH pulse-amplitude modulation (TH-PAM). The channel exhibits multipath propagation and its impulse response is either assumed known or is estimated with least squares methods. Computer simulations show that, even with perfect channel knowledge (PCK), TH-PAM is superior to TH-PPM. The superiority increases with the number of users and becomes substantial in the presence of channel estimation errors. An intuitive explanation of this fact is provided.
Influence of an Anonymous Stranger on a Routine Decision to Act or Not to Act: An Experiment in Conformity*

The purpose of the study was to investigate the impact of law-adhering and law-violating contexts on subject-behavior in a potentially law-violating situation in which the probability of negative sanctions was slight. Observations were made on subjects who had to make a decision either to violate or to adhere to a “Don't-Walk” signal at the intersection with sparse traffic. The three specific conditions included the control-condition in which no model was present and the experimental conditions in which an anonymous male stranger, the experimenter's confederate, acted either as a law-adhering model or as a law-violating model. The presence of a law-adhering model significantly increases the rate of pedestrian-adherence to a minor legal restriction on the part of both males and females. After the ceiling effects arising from the design of the experiment were factored out, the results showed that a law-violating model has greater influence on subject-behavior than the law-adhering model does. In both the la.
Cost-related skipping of medications and other treatments among medicare beneficiaries between 1998 and 2000

AbstractOBJECTIVE: To report rates of cost-related skipping of medications and other treatments, assess correlates of skipping, examine changes in skipping between 1998 and 2000, and identify factors associated with changes in skipping. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: Cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses of surveys of a probability sample of Medicare beneficiaries in 13 states in 1998 and 2000. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Self-reported rates of skipping medications and other treatments. RESULTS: Cost-related skipping rates increased from 9.5% in 1998 to 13.1% in 2000. In separate multivariable models using 1998 and 2000 data, higher out-of-pocket costs, lower physician-patient relationship quality, low income, and lacking prescription drug coverage were associated with more skipping (P<.05 for all). Better physical and mental health, and greater age were associated with less skipping (P<.05). HMO membership was not associated with higher rates of skipping in 1998 (P=.84), but was in 2000 (P<.0004). In longitudinal analyses, increased medication costs and HMO membership were associated with the observed increase cost-related skipping between 1998 and 2000. CONCLUSIONS: Cost-related skipping was associated with several factors, including drug coverage, poverty, poor health, and physician-patient relationship quality. The important role of physician-patient relationships in cost-related skipping has not been shown previously. Physicians should be aware of these risk factors for cost-related skipping, and initiate dialogue about problems paying for prescription medications and other treatments.
Agent Based Intersection Traffic Simulation

This project focuses on simulating the traffic at an intersection using agent-based planning and behavioral methods. The motivation is to simulate this traffic in a way that’s noisy, believable, and high level of detail. The main approach is based on the idea of a control obstacle and a greedy sampling method to navigate the robots. Other behaviors are generated using constraints and finite state machines.
Two‐Dimensional Speckle‐Tracking Echocardiography Reveals Systolic Abnormalities in Granulomatosis with Polyangiitis (Wegener’s)

Background: Two‐dimensional speckle‐tracking echocardiography (STE) is a novel technique providing accurate assessment of myocardial function. However, its value in granulomatosis with polyangiitis (Wegener’s) (WG) has not been studied. Objective: To assess the presence and frequency of systolic left ventricular (LV) dysfunction using STE and to determine incremental value of STE over standard echocardiography to detect myocardial abnormalities in WG. Methods: Twenty‐two WG patients (11 males, 11 females, mean age 46.8 ± 12.3 years) and 22 sex‐ and age‐matched healthy subjects underwent standard and STE. Global longitudinal, circumferential, and rotational deformation parameters were calculated. Results: All patients had LV ejection fraction (EF) >50%. LVEF was 65.0 ± 7.5% and LV end‐diastolic volume index 44.8 ± 11.8 mL/m2. Regional LV wall motion abnormalities were found in 7 (32%), while abnormal global STE determined systolic dysfunction in 16 (73%) subjects (P = 0.008). Global longitudinal, circumferential and radial peak‐systolic deformational parameters (strain or strain rate) were decreased in 11 (50%), 9 (41%), and 3 (14%) patients (P = 0.02), respectively. Comparing patients with abnormal and normal STE derived global systolic function, the former had higher cumulative disease extent index (10.6 ± 3.0 vs 7.5 ± 1.8; P = 0.03) and vasculitis damage index (7.9 ± 1.9 vs 6.0 ± 1.7; P = 0.04). Conclusions: Despite normal LVEF the global systolic LV abnormalities detected by STE are common in WG. They correspond to the extent and severity of WG and are more frequent than regional wall motion abnormalities in standard echocardiography.
Solving One-Dimensional Phase Change Problems with Moving Grid Method and Mesh Free Radial Basis Functions

Many heat-transfer problems involve a change of phase of material due to solidification or melting. Applications include: the safety studies of nuclear reactors (molten core concrete interaction), the drilling of high ice-content soil, the storage of thermal energy, etc. These problems are often called Stefan's or moving boundary value problems. Mathematically, the interface motion is expressed implicitly in an equation for the conservation of thermal energy at the interface (Stefan's conditions). This introduces a non-linear character to the system which treats each problem somewhat uniquely. The exact solution of phase change problems is limited exclusively to the cases in which e.g. the heat transfer regions are infinite or semiinfinite one dimensional-space. Therefore, solution is obtained either by approximate analytical solution or by numerical methods. Finite-difference methods and finite-element techniques have been used extensively for numerical solution of moving boundary problems. Recently, the numerical methods have focused on the idea of using a mesh-free methodology for the numerical solution of partial differential equations based on radial basis functions. In our case we will study solid-solid transformation. The numerical solutions will be compared with analytical solutions. Actually, in our work we will examine usefulness of radial basis functions (especially multiquadric-MQ) for one-dimensional Stefan's problems. The position of the moving boundary will be simulated by moving grid method. The resultant system of RBF-PDE will be solved by affine space decomposition.
Intercorporate Relations: The Structural Analysis of Business

List of figures List of tables Introduction Mark S. Mizruchi and Michael Schwartz Part I. Theoretical Perspectives: 1. A resource dependence perspective on intercorporate relations Jeffrey Pfeffer 2. Finance capital and the internal structure of the capitalist class in the United States Michael Soref and Maurice Zeitlin 3. A structural approach to markets Eric M. Leifer and Harrison C. White 4. What is money? a social structural interpretation Wayne E. Baker 5. Corporation, class, and city system Donald A. Palmer and Roger Friedland Part II. National and International Business Structures: A Comparative Perspective: 6. The structure of class cohesion: the corporate network and its dual James Bearden and Beth Mintz 7. Intercorporate structures in Western Europe: a comparative historical analysis John Scott 8. The articulation of power and business structures: a study of Colombia Enrique Ogliastri and Carlos Davila 9. Business-government relations in modern Japan: a Todai-Yakkai-Zaikai complex? Koji Taira and Teiichi Wada 10. International bank capital and the new liberalism Meindert Fennema and Kees van der Pijl Index of authors Subject index.
Similarity for Ontologies - A Comprehensive Framework

In this paper we present a comprehensive framework for measuring similarity within and between ontologies as a basis for the interoperability across various application fields. In order to define such a framework, we base our work on an abstract ontology model that allows adhering to various existing and evolving ontology standards. The main characteristic of the framework is its layered structure: We have defined three levels on which the similarity between two entities (concepts or instances) can be measured: data layer, ontology layer, and context layer, that cope with the data representation, ontological meaning and the usage of these entities, respectively. In addition, in each of the layers corresponding background information is used in order to define the similarity more precisely. The framework is complete in the sense of covering the similarity between all elements defined in the abstract ontology model by comprising similarity measures for all above-named layers as well as relations between them. Moreover, we have validated our framework with several practical case studies in order to prove benefits of applying our approach compared to traditional similarity measures. One of these case studies is described in detail within the paper.
The Glia of Caenorhabditis elegans

Glia have been, in many ways, the proverbial elephant in the room. Although glia are as numerous as neurons in vertebrate nervous systems, technical and other concerns had left research on these cells languishing, whereas research on neurons marched on. Importantly, model systems to study glia had lagged considerably behind. A concerted effort in recent years to develop the canonical invertebrate model animals, Drosophila melanogaster and Caenorhabditis elegans, as settings to understand glial roles in nervous system development and function has begun to bear fruit. In this review, we summarize our current understanding of glia and their roles in the nervous system of the nematode C. elegans. The recent studies we describe highlight the similarities and differences between C. elegans and vertebrate glia, and focus on novel insights that are likely to have general relevance to all nervous systems. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
GRB 050911: A Black Hole-Neutron Star Merger or a Naked GRB

GRB 050911, discovered by the Swift Burst Alert Telescope, was not seen 4.6 hr later by the Swift X-ray Telescope, making it one of the very few X-ray nondetections of a gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglow at early times. The γ-ray light curve shows at least three peaks, the first two of which (~T0 - 0.8 and T0 + 0.2 s, where T0 is the trigger time) were short, each lasting 0.5 s. This was followed by later emission 10-20 s postburst. The upper limit on the unabsorbed X-ray flux was 1.7 × 10-14 ergs cm-2 s-1 (integrating 46 ks of data taken between September 11 and 18), indicating that the decay must have been rapid. All but one of the long bursts detected by Swift were above this limit at ~4.6 hr, whereas the afterglows of short bursts became undetectable more rapidly. Deep observations with Gemini also revealed no optical afterglow 12 hr after the burst, down to r = 24.0 (5 σ limit). We speculate that GRB 050911 may have been formed through a compact object (black hole-neutron star) merger, with the later outbursts due to a longer disk lifetime linked to a large mass ratio between the merging objects. Alternatively, the burst may have occurred in a low-density environment, leading to a weak, or nonexistent, forward shock—the so-called "naked GRB" model.
Disposition of the Dipeptidyl Peptidase 4 Inhibitor Sitagliptin in Rats and Dogs

The pharmacokinetics, metabolism, and excretion of sitagliptin [MK-0431; (2R)-4-oxo-4-[3-(trifluoromethyl)-5,6-dihydro[1,2,4]triazolo[4,3-a]pyrazin-7(8H)-yl]-1-(2,4,5-trifluorophenyl)butan-2-amine], a potent dipeptidyl peptidase 4 inhibitor, were evaluated in male Sprague-Dawley rats and beagle dogs. The plasma clearance and volume of distribution of sitagliptin were higher in rats (40–48 ml/min/kg, 7–9 l/kg) than in dogs (∼9 ml/min/kg, ∼3 l/kg), and its half-life was shorter in rats, ∼2 h compared with ∼4 h in dogs. Sitagliptin was absorbed rapidly after oral administration of a solution of the phosphate salt. The absolute oral bioavailability was high, and the pharmacokinetics were fairly dose-proportional. After administration of [14C]sitagliptin, parent drug was the major radioactive component in rat and dog plasma, urine, bile, and feces. Sitagliptin was eliminated primarily by renal excretion of parent drug; biliary excretion was an important pathway in rats, whereas metabolism was minimal in both species in vitro and in vivo. Approximately 10 to 16% of the radiolabeled dose was recovered in the rat and dog excreta as phase I and II metabolites, which were formed by N-sulfation, N-carbamoyl glucuronidation, hydroxylation of the triazolopiperazine ring, and oxidative desaturation of the piperazine ring followed by cyclization via the primary amine. The renal clearance of unbound drug in rats, 32 to 39 ml/min/kg, far exceeded the glomerular filtration rate, indicative of active renal elimination of parent drug.
A Taxonomy of Factors Related to Suicidal Behavior

This article presents a taxonomy of factors related to suicidal behavior. Drawing from a large pool of theoretical formulations, empirical data, and clinical research, it presents several categories of factors: pathological states, phenomenological states, self-destructive processes, personality traits, chronic stressors, acute stressors, facilitators of suicide, background factors, and symptomatic behaviors. The model yields three types of suicidal behavior: the depressed-perfectionistic type, the Impulsive type, and the dlsintegrative type. Each type consists of a different cluster of interactions among the various factors. The factors within each cluster reflect a unifying theme. Some of the possible interactive dynamics are demonstrated and supported by research. The taxonomy and implied model provide an interactive perspective of the causes of suicide, open up avenues for systematic research and evaluation of risk, and suggest several distinct dynamics of suicide that can serve as a basis of psychotherapy and intervention.