Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Increased Nephrotoxicity after Combined Administration of Melamine and Cyanuric Acid in Rats

Renal toxicity by melamine in combination with cyanuric acid (1:1) was investigated. Male rats were orally administered melamine plus cyanuric acid (5, 50 or 400 mg/kg each) for 3 days. In contrast to a negligible effect by melamine alone (50 mg/kg, a no-observed-adverse-effect-level: NOAEL), co-administration with cyanuric acid markedly increased the concentrations of blood urea nitrogen and creatinine, as well as kidney weight. A high dose (400 mg/kg) of melamine plus cyanuric acid induced more severe kidney toxicity. The increased blood parameters for kidney toxicity and organ weight lasted longer than 4 days. Combined treatment with melamine and cyanuric acid (50-400 mg/kg each) resulted in many gold-brown crystals and toxic lesions in renal tubules, which were not observed in animals treated with melamine alone (50 mg/kg). These results indicate that only a 3-day exposure to melamine in combination with cyanuric acid causes severe renal damage, even at a NOAEL for melamine found in a 13-week toxicity study. Therefore, it is suggested that the tolerable daily intake or regulatory/management levels of melamine need to be re-considered for cases of co-exposure with cyanuric acid.
Effects of Different Types of Interaction on Learning Achievement, Satisfaction and Participation in Web-Based Instruction

This study investigated the effects of three types of interaction (academic, collaborative and social interaction)on learning, satisfaction, participation and attitude towards online learning in a Web-based instruction (WBI)environment.Academic interaction includes interaction between learners and online resources as well as task-oriented interaction between learners and instructor. Collaborative interaction among learners becomes possible when a group of learners work collaboratively on a specific topic or share ideas and materials to solve a given problem. Social interaction between learners and instructors occurs when instructors adopt strategies to promote interpersonal encouragement or social integration. The results indicate that: the social interaction group outperformed the other groups; the collaborative interaction group expressed the highest level of satisfaction with their learning experience; the collaborative and social interaction groups participated more actively in posting their opinions than the academic interaction group; and Web-based learning experiences brought positive attitude changes with respect to the use of the Web in learning - regardless of the type of interaction. It is concluded that even for adult learners, social interaction with instructors and collaborative interaction with peer students are important in enhancing learning and active participation in online discussion.
Central Nervous Insulin Administration Does Not Potentiate the Acute Glucoregulatory Impact of Concurrent Mild Hyperinsulinemia

Experiments in rodents suggest that hypothalamic insulin signaling essentially contributes to the acute control of peripheral glucose homeostasis. Against this background, we investigated in healthy humans whether intranasal (IN) insulin, which is known to effectively reach the brain compartment, impacts systemic glucose metabolism. Twenty overnight-fasted healthy, normal-weight men were IN administered 210 and 420 international units [IU] (10 and 20 IU every 15 min) of the insulin analog aspart (ins-asp) and placebo, respectively, during experimental sessions lasting 6 h. The use of ins-asp rather than human insulin enabled us to disentangle exogenous and endogenous insulin kinetics. IN insulin dose-dependently decreased plasma glucose concentrations while reducing C-peptide and attenuating endogenous insulin levels. However, we also observed a slight dose-dependent permeation of ins-asp into the circulation. In control experiments mimicking the systemic but not the central nervous uptake of the IN 210 IU dose via intravenous infusion of ins-asp at a dose of 0.12 IU/kg/24 h (n = 10), we obtained essentially identical effects on fasting plasma glucose concentrations. This pattern indicates that sustained IN insulin administration to the human brain to enhance central nervous insulin signaling does not acutely alter systemic glucose homeostasis beyond effects accounted for by concurrent mild hyperinsulinemia.
Simulation and identification of a field oriented controlled induction motor using artificial neural networks

One of the main deficiencies of the conventional controllers of the electric drives is the inability of capturing the unknown characteristics of a load around a wide range of the operation point, that which hinders the selection and adjustment of the controller's parameters. In this work we intend the use of the Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) for the identification of an induction motor with field orientation control. The results of the training of the neural network and the simulation of the identification of the system are exposed in this paper.
Making College Worth it: A Review of Research on the Returns to Higher Education

Recent stories of soaring student debt levels and under-placed college graduates have caused some to question whether a college education is still a sound investment. In this paper, we review the literature on the returns to higher education in an attempt to determine who benefits from college. Despite the tremendous heterogeneity across potential college students, we conclude that the investment appears to payoff for both the average and marginal student. During the past three decades in particular, the earnings premium associated with a college education has risen substantially. Beyond the pecuniary benefits of higher education, we suggest that there also may exist non-pecuniary benefits. Given these findings, it is perhaps surprising that among recent cohorts college completion rates have stagnated. We discuss potential explanations for this trend and conclude by succinctly interpreting the evidence on how to make the most out of college.
Optimized H.264 Video Encoding and Packetization for Video Transmission Over Pipeline Forwarding Networks

Previous works showed that the quality-of-service (QoS) requirements of multimedia applications can be optimally satisfied by pipeline forwarding (PF) by providing end-to-end delay guarantees as well as high network resource utilization. However, the unavoidable mismatch between reserved resources and the unpredictable traffic profile of a video stream has an impact on the resulting application layer quality. Therefore, a new low-complexity H.264 video encoding and packetization scheme based on a distortion-optimized macroblock grouping technique is designed here to maximize the performance of video transmission on PF networks. The scheme considers the perceptual importance of the different parts of the video data to group the most important information in few packets that are the natural candidates to receive the deterministic service provided by PF. Results show peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) gains up to 2.5 dB over traditional video encoding and packetization schemes, as well as more graceful degradation in case of high network load.
Oral Human Abuse Potential of Oxycodone DETERx® (Xtampza® ER)

Oxycodone DETERx® (Collegium Pharmaceutical Inc, Canton, Massachusetts) is an extended‐release, microsphere‐in‐capsule, abuse‐deterrent formulation designed to retain its extended‐release properties after tampering (eg, chewing/crushing). This randomized, double‐blind, placebo‐controlled, triple‐dummy study evaluated the oral abuse potential of intact and chewed oxycodone DETERx capsules compared with crushed immediate‐release oxycodone. Subjects with a history of recreational opioid use who were nondependent/nontolerant to opioids were enrolled. Treatments included intact oxycodone DETERx (high‐fat, high‐calorie meal and fasted), chewed oxycodone DETERx (high‐fat, high‐calorie meal and fasted), crushed immediate‐release oxycodone (fasted), and placebo (high‐fat, high‐calorie meal). Plasma samples were collected to determine pharmacokinetic parameters. The primary endpoint was drug liking at the moment; other endpoints included drug effects questionnaire scores, Addiction Research Center Inventory/Morphine Benzedrine Group score, pupillometry measurements, and safety. Thirty‐eight subjects completed the study. Chewed and intact oxycodone DETERx were bioequivalent, unlike crushed immediate‐release oxycodone, which yielded higher peak oxycodone plasma concentrations compared with all methods of oxycodone DETERx administration. The mean maximum (peak) effect (Emax) for drug liking was significantly lower for chewed and intact oxycodone DETERx than for crushed immediate‐release oxycodone (P < .01). The time to Emax was significantly longer for chewed and intact oxycodone DETERx than for crushed immediate‐release oxycodone (P < .0001). Scores for feeling high and Addiction Research Center Inventory/Morphine Benzedrine Group scores demonstrated lower abuse potential for chewed and intact oxycodone DETERx compared with crushed immediate‐release oxycodone. Study treatments were well tolerated; no subjects experienced serious adverse events. These results demonstrate the lower oral abuse potential of chewed and intact oxycodone DETERx than crushed immediate‐release oxycodone.
Performance of Single-Carrier Block Transmissions Over Multipath Fading Channels With Linear Equalization

We study uncoded bit-error-rate (BER) performances of single-carrier block transmissions, zero-padded (ZP), and cyclic-prefixed (CP) transmission, when linear equalizers are applied and the BERs are averaged over one block. We show analytically that the BER of ZP transmission with linear equalization degrades as the bandwidth efficiency increases, i.e., there is a tradeoff between BER and bandwidth efficiency in ZP transmission. It is also proven that when minimum mean-squared-error (MMSE) equalization is adopted, ZP transmission outperforms CP transmission and uncoded orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) on the average over random channels. However, the difference between the ZP and the CP transmission becomes smaller as the block size gets larger, since the average BER performance of the ZP transmission degrades, while the average BER performance of CP transmission improves, as a function of the block size. Numerical examples are provided to validate our theoretical findings and to compare the block transmission systems
Illumination-robust Change Detection Using Texture Based Features

We propose a change detection method which is robust against illumination change and requires little background learning as a result of using texture based features. We propose Peripheral TErnary Sign Correlation (PTESC) which is robust against illumination changes by using i1/0/1 ternary code for encoding the intensity difference between pixels in texture, and combine it with Bi-polar Radial Reach Correlation (BPRRC) which yields high detectability in a region with little texture. We show that our method detects changes with fewer false positives and false negatives under illumination changes compared with former methods.
A Novel Method for Load Flow Analysis of Unbalanced Three-Phase Radial Distribution Networks

This paper presents a novel method for load flow analysis in radially operated 3-phase distribution networks without solving the well-known conventional load flow equations. The method can be applied for distribution systems in which the loads are unbalanced. As the size of matrix used is very small compared to those in conventional methods, the amount of memory used is very small, the speed is very high, and the relative speed of calculation increases with the size of the system. The method was applied to some practical networks and the results show the superiority of this method over the conventional ones. As this method is significantly faster than any other method developed to date, it has great potential for on-line operations.
Skin and Bones: The Contribution of Skin Tone and Facial Structure to Racial Prototypicality Ratings

Previous research reveals that a more ‘African’ appearance has significant social consequences, yielding more negative first impressions and harsher criminal sentencing of Black or White individuals. This study is the first to systematically assess the relative contribution of skin tone and facial metrics to White, Black, and Korean perceivers’ ratings of the racial prototypicality of faces from the same three groups. Our results revealed that the relative contribution of metrics and skin tone depended on both perceiver race and face race. White perceivers’ racial prototypicality ratings were less responsive to variations in skin tone than were Black or Korean perceivers’ ratings. White perceivers ratings’ also were more responsive to facial metrics than to skin tone, while the reverse was true for Black perceivers. Additionally, across all perceiver groups, skin tone had a more consistent impact than metrics on racial prototypicality ratings of White faces, with the reverse for Korean faces. For Black faces, the relative impact varied with perceiver race: skin tone had a more consistent impact than metrics for Black and Korean perceivers, with the reverse for White perceivers. These results have significant implications for predicting who will experience racial prototypicality biases and from whom.
Participatory Development Research. Enhancing Capacity within Applied Research - Case: Livestock

The acceptance of the ideals of participatory and cross-disciplinary approaches in agricultural research for development is now widespread in the development sector and with good reason. However, in spite of the importance of these approaches when addressing smallholder livestock farming systems the real success stories are few, probably because of the difficulties in cross-disciplinary research and the lack of a clear understanding of participatory approaches among many researchers. There is a need to share experiences with these approaches among researchers and development officers. This paper uses three examples of Danida funded research for development projects to discuss ideas of participatory action research and cross-disciplinarity against experiences from the field. Action research is an activity that combines research and development by trying to help local people solving an immediate problematic situation and simultaneously building general knowledge using scientific methods. This gives the researcher a dual role as participant and observer of the system through the phases of the research cycle, e.g. problem identification, planning of interventions, implementation/action and finally observation as a basis for another round starting with a revised problem description. Cross disciplinarity is needed to research the complex interactions between crops, livestock, farm management and off-farm activities in smallholder systems and their link with questions such as marketing, environmental pressure, gender issues and poverty. Cross-disciplinary collaboration between researchers vary in the extent of integration of the different disciplines from Multidisciplinary over Inter- to Trans-disciplinary and it seems important to be aware of the ambitions in a project from the outset. Large resources are needed to carry out truly Trans-disciplinary research because time is needed for researchers to agree on a common methodology, coordinate data recording and interpretation which give both Intra-Project and Extra-project challenges. The challenges of participation and cross-disciplinarity were addressed differently in the three reviewed projects as demonstrated in the paper. Important experiences for researchers and results for farmers have been gained in all three projects but none of them succeeded in being both Cross-disciplinary and truly participatory at the same time. The projects demonstrate a significant development during their lifetime and a clear commitment by the researchers to serve development purposes involving local stakeholders at different stages in the process. These experiences should therefore encourage a more widespread interaction between development programmes and research in the future. It has proven difficult to establish and maintain cross-disciplinary research projects for a number of reasons, some of which rely on researcher attitudes and traditions and others on funding mechanisms.
Are minimum wages intrusive

If there were but one issue economists could agree about overwhelmingly, it would have to be the minimum wage. Most economists agree not only that it is probably the most intrusive form of labor legislation, but also that its effects on employment can be accurately predicted. Testing these predictions with actual data, however, has proven more difficult than it first appeared, and lately, some evidence calls the established theory into question.
MicroRNA binding site scoring model

MicroRNAs(miRNAs) are small, non-coding, endogenous RNA molecules that play an important role in genetics by regulating the expression of target genes. Gene expression regulation is due to its binding to specific location of messenger RNA(mRNA). In case of plants, effective prediction of miRNA interaction on mRNA is possible, as targets needs strict sequence complementarity with that of miRNA, but in animal systems it is difficult due to lack of complementarity. We introduce a scoring based miRNA target prediction system which gives better accuracy than the existing systems. Our system model consists of two stages. The first stage is to build a classifier using a database of miRNA and experimentally validated targets and non targets. Each mRNA target sequence is aligned with miRNA sequence using Smith-Waterman algorithm and 23 features are extracted. A Random Forest based classifier gives an accuracy of 95.56% which is better than the existing models. For a given mRNA and miRNA sequence pair, the system predicts the possible binding location and corresponding score of the binding using the trained classifier. This is cross validated with the validated site and we obtained a correct result.
The opcA and ΨopcB regions in Neisseria: genes, pseudogenes, deletions, insertion elements and DNA islands

Previous data have indicated that the opc gene encoding an immunogenic invasin is specific to Neisseria meningitidis (Nm) and is lacking in Neisseria gonorrhoeae (Ng). The data presented here show that Nm and Ng both contain two paralogous opc‐like genes, opcA, corresponding to the former opc gene, and ΨopcB, a pseudogene. The predicted OpcA and OpcB proteins possess transmembrane regions with conserved non‐polar faces but differ extensively in four of the five surface‐exposed loops. Gonococcal OpcA was expressed weakly under in vitro conditions, and it is unknown whether these bacteria can express this protein at high levels. Analysis of the sequences flanking opcA and ΨopcB revealed a framework of conserved housekeeping genes interspersed with DNA islands. These regions also contained several pseudogenes, deletions and IS elements, attesting to considerable genome plasticity. Both opcA and ΨopcB are located on DNA islands that have probably been imported from unrelated bacteria. A third island encodes the dcmD/dcrD R/M genes in Ng versus a small open reading frame in most strains of Nm. Rare strains of Nm were identified in which the R/M island has been imported. DNA islands in Nm and Ng seem to have been acquired by recombination via conserved flanking housekeeping genes rather than by insertion of mobile genetic elements.
A Security Enhancement on a Remote User Authentication Scheme Based on the Rabin Cryptosystem with Secure Password Updating

User authentication plays an important role to ensure that only authorized users can access resources. Kim et al. proposed a remote user authentication scheme based on the Rabin cryptosystem to resist well-known attack such as offline password guessing attack, unlimited online password guessing attack and server impersonation. In their scheme, a user will be issued a smart card for authentication, and the computation load of the smart card is light. Although their scheme possesses superior properties, we find that it suffers from one fatal security flaw such that a legal user cannot access resources after password change phase. In this paper, we first show the security flaw and propose an improvement with secure password updating.
Classifying Online Handwriting Characters under Cosine Representation

The natural way of handwriting to enter data into computer is still preferable in many tasks. However, handwriting character recognition is not a trivial task for computer. Based on the presentation of the input, handwriting recognition can be divided into two classes: offline and online. The main advantage of online handwritten data over offline data is the availability of stroke segmentation and order of writing. Utilizing this information rather than static image only can obtain higher recognition rate [11]. In this paper, we extend the method proposed in [13] to represent multiple strokes of a character together in a single set of features using cosine transformation. Using this representation, we have developed an online writer-independent character recognition system with MultiLayer Perceptron (MLP) classifiers, one classifier for each single character. We have tested our system on Section 1a (isolated digits) of the Unipen data set [7] and have obtained very competitive results.
Influence of gender on loss to follow-up in a large HIV treatment programme in western Kenya.

OBJECTIVE To determine the incidence of loss to follow-up in a treatment programme for people living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection in Kenya and to investigate how loss to follow-up is affected by gender. METHODS Between November 2001 and November 2007, 50 275 HIV-positive individuals aged ≥ 14 years (69% female; median age: 36.2 years) were enrolled in the study. An individual was lost to follow-up when absent from the HIV treatment clinic for > 3 months if on combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) or for > 6 months if not. The incidence of loss to follow-up was calculated using Kaplan-Meier methods and factors associated with loss to follow-up were identified by logistic and Cox multivariate regression analysis. FINDINGS Overall, 8% of individuals attended no follow-up visits, and 54% of them were lost to follow-up. The overall incidence of loss to follow-up was 25.1 per 100 person-years. Among the 92% who attended at least one follow-up visit, the incidence of loss to follow-up before and after starting cART was 27.2 and 14.0 per 100 person-years, respectively. Baseline factors associated with loss to follow-up included younger age, a long travel time to the clinic, patient disclosure of positive HIV status, high CD4+ lymphocyte count, advanced-stage HIV disease, and rural clinic location. Men were at an increased risk overall and before and after starting cART. CONCLUSION The risk of being lost to follow-up was high, particularly before starting cART. Men were more likely to become lost to follow-up, even after adjusting for baseline sociodemographic and clinical characteristics. Interventions designed for men and women separately could improve retention.
Towards Transparent Handheld See-Through Devices

See-through has been simulated for handheld devices to enable back-of-device interaction and for augmented reality applications. Researchers explored a wide range of applications for such devices and technologies to realize them. In this paper we revise previous work on simulated and real see-through handheld devices and their applications. Based on previous work and our own experience with see-through devices, we argue that using pseudo-transparency has inherent drawbacks. We discuss that usable transparent handheld devices require adaptive transparency, consideration of binocular disparity, and new ways to capture content. Furthermore, we indicate approaches to address these factors.