Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hibiscus sabdariffa L. and Its Bioactive Constituents Exhibit Antiviral Activity against HSV-2 and Anti-Enzymatic Properties against Urease by an ESI-MS Based Assay

For decades, Hibiscus sabdariffa L. and its phytochemicals have been shown to possess a wide range of pharmacologic properties. In this study, aqueous extract of Hibiscus sabdariffa (AEHS) and its bioactive constituent protocatechuic acid (PCA), have been evaluated in vitro for their antiviral activity against HSV-2 clinical isolates and anti-enzymatic activity against urease. Antiherpetic activity was evaluated by the titer reduction assay in infected Vero cells, and cytotoxicity was evaluated by the neutral red dye-uptake method. Anti-urease activity was determined by a developed Electrospray Ionization-Mass Spectrometry (ESI-MS)-based assay. PCA showed potent anti-HSV-2 activity compared with that of acyclovir, with EC50 values of 0.92 and 1.43 µg∙mL−1, respectively, and selectivity indices > 217 and > 140, respectively. For the first time, AEHS was shown to exert anti-urease inhibition activity, with an IC50 value of 82.4 µg∙mL−1. This, combined with its safety, could facilitate its use in practical applications as a natural urease inhibitor. Our results present Hibiscus sabdariffa L. and its bioactive compound PCA as potential therapeutic agents in the treatment of HSV-2 infection and the treatment of diseases caused by urease-producing bacteria.
Service Competition and Product Quality in the U.S. Automobile Industry

We study the impact of service attributes (warranty length, after-sales service quality) on consumer demand in the U.S. automobile industry, examining the presence of complementarities/substitution between service attributes and product quality. Our results estimate a median willingness to pay for one year of a warranty of approximately $850, which is equivalent to 3.1% of the median vehicle price in our sample. We find that, for a car with median characteristics, the effect on consumer utility of a 1% price decrease is equivalent, all else being equal, to increasing product quality by 2.2%, and is in turn equivalent to increasing the warranty length by 8%. Our results also indicate that service attributes play a compensatory role with respect to product quality; i.e., the impact of warranty length and service quality on demand increases when product quality decreases. Conversely, both service metrics are complementary with respect to demand; i.e., the better the service quality, the higher the marginal effect of longer warranties. Our results thus imply that, in our period of analysis, warranties played a more important role for American firms than for foreign firms, consistent with the fact that American manufacturers exhibited lower product quality and higher service quality than non-American firms. This paper was accepted by Martin Lariviere, operations management .
Implementation of a Computerized Screening Inventory: Improved Usability Through Iterative Testing and Modification

Background The administration of health screeners in a hospital setting has traditionally required (1) clinicians to ask questions and log answers, which can be time consuming and susceptible to error, or (2) patients to complete paper-and-pencil surveys, which require third-party entry of information into the electronic health record and can be vulnerable to error and misinterpretation. A highly promising method that avoids these limitations and bypasses third-party interpretation is direct entry via a computerized inventory. Objective To (1) computerize medical and behavioral health screening for use in general medical settings, (2) optimize patient acceptability and feasibility through iterative usability testing and modification cycles, and (3) examine how age relates to usability. Methods A computerized version of 15 screeners, including behavioral health screeners recommended by a National Institutes of Health Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research collaborative workgroup, was subjected to systematic usability testing and iterative modification. Consecutive adult, English-speaking patients seeking treatment in an urban emergency department were enrolled. Acceptability was defined as (1) the percentage of eligible patients who agreed to take the assessment (initiation rate) and (2) average satisfaction with the assessment (satisfaction rate). Feasibility was defined as the percentage of the screening items completed by those who initiated the assessment (completion rate). Chi-square tests, analyses of variance, and Pearson correlations were used to detect whether improvements in initiation, satisfaction, and completion rates were seen over time and to examine the relation between age and outcomes. Results Of 2157 eligible patients approached, 1280 agreed to complete the screening (initiation rate=59.34%). Statistically significant increases were observed over time in satisfaction (F 3,1061=3.35, P=.019) and completion rates (F 3,1276=25.44, P<.001). Younger age was associated with greater initiation (initiated, mean [SD], 46.6 [18.7] years; declined: 53.0 [19.5] years, t 2,155=−7.6, P<.001), higher completion (r=−.20, P<.001), and stronger satisfaction (r=−.23, P<.001). Conclusions In a rapid-paced emergency department with a heterogeneous patient population, 59.34% (1280/2157) of all eligible patients initiated the computerized screener with a completion rate reaching over 90%. Usability testing revealed several critical principles for maximizing usability of the computerized medical and behavioral health screeners used in this study. Further work is needed to identify usability issues pertaining to other screeners, racially and ethnically diverse patient groups, and different health care settings.
Towards an Automated Multitrack Mixing Tool using Answer Set Programming

The use of Answer Set Programming (ASP) inside musical domains has been demonstrated specially in composition, but so far it hasn’t overtaken engineering areas in studio-music (post) production such as multitrack mixing for stereo imaging. This article aims to demonstrate the use of this declarative approach to achieve a well-balanced mix. A knowledge base is compiled with rules and constraints extracted from the literature about what professional music producers and audio engineers suggest creating a good mix. More specially, this work can deliver either a mixed audio file (mixdown) as well as a mixing plan in (human-readable) text format, to serve as a starting point for producers and audio engineers to apply this methodology into their productions. Finally this article presents a decibel (dB) and a panning scale to explain how the mixes are generated.
The Effect of Extracellular pH Changes on Intracellular pH and Nitric Oxide Concentration in Endothelial and Smooth Muscle Cells from Rat Aorta

Aims It has been known for more than a century that pH changes can alter vascular tone. However, there is no consensus about the effects of pH changes on vascular response. In this study, we investigated the effects of extracellular pH (pHo) changes on intracellular pH (pHi) and intracellular nitric oxide concentration ([NO]i) in freshly isolated endothelial cells and cross sections from rat aorta. Main Methods The HCl was used to reduce the pHo from 7.4 to 7.0 and from 7.4 to 6.5; the NaOH was used to increase the pHo from 7.4 to 8.0 and from 7.4 to 8.5. The fluorescent dyes 5-(and-6)-carboxy SNARF-1, acetoxymethyl ester, acetate (SNARF-1) and diaminofluorescein-FM diacetate (DAF-FM DA) were employed to measure the pHi and [NO]i, respectively. The fluorescence intensity was measured in freshly isolated endothelial cells by flow cytometry and in freshly obtained aorta cross sections by confocal microscopy. Key Findings The endothelial and vascular smooth muscle pHi was increased at pHo 8.5. The extracellular acidification did not change the endothelial pHi, but the smooth muscle pHi was reduced at pHo 7.0. At pHo 8.5 and pHo 6.5, the endothelial [NO]i was increased. Both extracellular alkalinization and acidification increased the vascular smooth muscle [NO]i. Significance Not all changes in pHo did result in pHi changes, but disruption of acid-base balance in both directions induced NO synthesis in the endothelium and/or vascular smooth muscle.
Similarity-based web browser optimization

The performance of web browsers has become a major bottleneck when dealing with complex webpages. Many calculation redundancies exist when processing similar webpages, thus it is possible to cache and reuse previously calculated intermediate results to improve web browser performance significantly. In this paper, we propose a similarity-based optimization approach to improve webpage processing performance of web browsers. Through caching and reusing of style properties calculated previously, we are able to eliminate the redundancies caused by processing similar webpages from the same website. We propose a tree-structured architecture to store style properties to facilitate efficient caching and reuse. Experiments on webpages of various websites show that the proposed technique can speed up the webpage loading process by up to 68% and reduce the redundant style calculations by up to 77% for the first visit to a webpage with almost negligible overhead.
Management of chronic hepatitis C virus infection in patients with end-stage renal disease: a review

Infection with hepatitis C virus (HCV) is highly prevalent in chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients, mainly in those on hemodialysis (HD). The seroprevalence of HCV in developing countries ranges between 7% and 40%. Risk factors for this infection in the CKD population include the number of blood transfusions, duration of end-stage renal disease (ESRD), and prevalence of HCV in HD. Chronic HCV infection in patients with ESRD is associated with an increase in morbidity and mortality in the pre and post kidney transplant periods. The increase in mortality is directly associated with liver complications and an elevated cardiovascular risk in HCV-infected patients on hemodialysis. Antiviral treatment may improve the prognosis of patients with HCV, and standard interferon remains the cornerstone of treatment. Treatment of HCV in patients with CKD is complex, but achieving a sustained viral response may decrease the frequency of complications after transplantation. It appears that HCV-infected patients who remain on maintenance dialysis are at increased risk of death compared with HCV patients undergoing renal transplantation.
Modeling Hybrid Multimedia N/W-Web Services Using Rapide ADL

Dynamic delivery of network/web services across platforms/technologies will provide leverage of existing investment, scalability, and promote interoperability. In this research we envision a number of hybrid wireless terminal devices/nodes with at least one device/node bridge (called base station or access point) between the air and a physical wired network hosting a number of server applications in the form of real-time interactive network-web multimedia services located on either the wireless devices or on the nodes of the wired network. Each heterogeneous wireless mobile device/node that inhabit this hybrid platform/technology environment has a specific discovery protocol (Jini, UPnP), and a set of network-web services implemented in various languages (VB, VC++, Java) running on various platforms (XML, JSP). We model these networked enabled devices, applications, and services in Rapide ADL to seek out and find other complementary networked devices, applications, and services needed to properly complete specified wireless multimedia tasks. This federation of wired-wireless heterogeneous environment presents a modern, flexible infrastructure based on wired-wireless technologies and streaming standards. The federation is open for integration of new-networked Internet services and for evolving to provide a complete heterogeneous distributed computing environment.
Antibiotic prescribing practices by dentists: a review

Antibiotics are prescribed by dentists for treatment as well as prevention of infection. Indications for the use of systemic antibiotics in dentistry are limited, since most dental and periodontal diseases are best managed by operative intervention and oral hygiene measures. However, the literature provides evidence of inadequate prescribing practices by dentists, due to a number of factors ranging from inadequate knowledge to social factors. Here we review studies that investigated the pattern of antibiotic use by dentists worldwide. The main defects in the knowledge of antibiotic prescribing are outlined. The main conclusion is that, unfortunately, the prescribing practices of dentists are inadequate and this is manifested by over-prescribing. Recommendations to improve antibiotic prescribing practices are presented in an attempt to curb the increasing incidence of antibiotic resistance and other side effects of antibiotic abuse.
Energy efficiency improvements for wireless sensor networks by using cross-layer analysis

This thesis proposes cross-layer approaches which enable to improve energy efficiency of wireless sensor networks and wireless body area networks (WSN & WBAN). The focus is on the physical (PHY) and medium access control (MAC) layers of communication protocol stack and exploiting their interdependencies. In the analysis of the PHY and MAC layers, their relevant characteristics are taken into account, and cross-layer models are developed to study the effect of these layers on energy efficiency. In addition, cross-layer analysis is applied at the network level by addressing hierarchical networks' energy efficiency. The objective is to improve energy efficiency by taking into account that substantial modifications to current standards and techniques are not required to take advantage of the proposed methods. The studied scenarios of WSN take advantage of the wake-up radio (WUR). A generic WURbased MAC (GWR-MAC) protocol with objective to improve energy efficiency by avoiding idle listening is proposed. First, the proposed cross-layer model is developed at a general level and applied to study the forward error correction (FEC) code rate selection effect on the length of the transmission period and energy efficiency in a star topology network. Then an energy efficiency model for intelligent hierarchical architecture based on GWR-MAC is proposed and performance comparison with a duty-cycle radio (DCR) approach is performed. Interactions between different layers' devices are taken into account, and the WUR and DCR approaches are compared as a function of event frequency. The third cross-layer model focuses on the effect of the FEC code rate and data packet payload length on the energy efficiency of the IEEE Std 802.15. 6-based WBANs using IR-UWB PHY. The results acquired by using analytical modelling and simulations with the Matlab software clearly illustrates the potential energy gains that can be achieved with the proposed cross-layer approaches. The developed WUR-based MAC protocol, analytical models and achieved results can be exploited by other researchers in the WSN and WBAN field. The contribution of this thesis is also to stimulate further research on these timely topics and foster development of short-range communication, which has a crucial role in future converging networks such as the Internet of Things.
Prompter: A Self-Confident Recommender System

Developers often consult different sources of information like Application Programming Interfaces (API) documentation, forums, Q&A websites, etc. With the aim of gathering additional knowledge for the programming task at hand. The process of searching and identifying valuable pieces of information requires developers to spend time and energy in formulating the right queries, assessing the returned results, and integrating the obtained knowledge into the code base. All of this is often done manually. We present Prompter, a plug-in for the Eclipse IDE which automatically searches and identifies relevant Stack Overflow discussions, evaluates their relevance given the code context in the IDE, and notifies the developer if and only if a user-defined confidence threshold is surpassed.
Dasatinib promotes apoptosis of cutaneous squamous carcinoma cells by regulating activation of ERK1/2

Cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (cSCC) is the most common metastatic skin cancer among White population.1 Treatment of patients with unresectable and metastatic cSCC is challenging in the absence of targeted therapies, and the metastatic disease is associated with poor prognosis.2,3 Tyrosine kinases have been identified as desirable targets for cancer therapy. Imatinib mesylate, an inhibitor of multiple tyrosine kinases, is indicated for the therapy of chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML) and gastrointestinal stromal tumors.4 A secondgeneration tyrosine kinase inhibitor, dasatinib, is an inhibitor of BCRABL and Src family kinases, indicated for the therapy of imatinibresistant CML.5 Recent studies have demonstrated the effect of dasatinib in the treatment of solid cancers alone or in combination with other antineoplastic drugs, but the efficacy of dasatinib in the treatment of cSCC is not known.6 Eph receptors represent the largest family of receptor tyrosine kinases. Eph receptors and their ligands, ephrins, play an important role in various biological processes involving cell migration, for example organ development, tissue remodelling, axon guidance and angiogenesis, as well as in progression of cancer.7 We have recently reported that EphB2 promotes growth and invasion of cSCC cells in culture and in human cSCC xenografts in vivo, identifying EphB2 as a putative therapeutic target in cSCC.8 EphB2 has been listed as one of putative targets for dasatinib, but the effect of dasatinib on endogenous EphB2 is not known.9
MECHANISM OF GROWTH OF METAL WHISKERS BY MEANS OF VAPOUR REDUCTION

Experiments were made on the growth of copper and iron whiskers by means of vapour reduction. The mechanism of growth was studied in order to find out the effective procedures of growing thick and long whiskers with very high strength. The growth of whiskers was found to be facilitated when the crystal structure of the grow-boat material is similar to that of the whisker. This led to the conclusion that the growth of whiskers is through a mechanism involving an axial screw dislocation. On the basis of observations on the mode of distribution and the direction of growth of the copper and iron whiskers grown on the wall of the boat, it was concluded that the growth of these whiskers proceeded from the tip. Furthermore, experiments showed that the cuprous (or ferrous) chloride vapour was preferentially reduced by hydrogen at the tip of the whisker, presumably because of the catalyzing action of the surface step produced at the tip by a screw dislocation.Observations on the growth of thick copper whiskers with a diameter of 50-120 microns revealed laminar growth, growth in piling up forms and in layers. Such peculiar growth behavior may possibly be associated with an alternation of one-dimensional and two-dimensional nucleation and growth. The possibility of growing a piece of bulk crystal essentially free from dislocations by suitably selecting and controlling the condition and mode of growth was discussed.
Interference Management in Long Term Evolution-Advanced System

: Incorporating Home eNodeB (HeNB) in cellular networks, e.g. Long Term Evolution Advanced (LTE-A), is beneficial for extending coverage and enhancing capacity at low price especially within the non-line-of sight (NLOS) environments such as homes. HeNB or femtocell is a small low powered base station which provides radio coverage to the mobile users in an indoor environment. This deployment results in a heterogeneous network where the available spectrum becomes shared between two layers. Therefore, a problem of Inter Cell Interference (ICI) appears. This issue is the main challenge in LTE-A. To deal with this challenge, various techniques based on frequency, time and power control are proposed. This paper deals with the impact of carrier aggregation and higher order MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) schemes on the LTE-Advanced performance. Simulation results show the advantages of these schemes on the system capacity (4.10<sup>9 </sup>b/s/Hz when bandwidth B=100 MHz and when applying MIMO 8x8 for SINR=30 dB), maximum theoretical peak data rate (more than 4 Gbps for B=100 MHz and when MIMO 8x8 is used) and spectral efficiency (15 b/s/Hz and 30b/s/Hz when MIMO 4x4 and MIMO 8x8 are applying respectively for SINR=30 dB).
FDI Effects on Economic Growth: The Role of Natural Resource and Environmental Policy

Foreign direct investment (FDI) is a crucial ingredient of the global economy. In the Persian Gulf, FDI is a major source of economic growth, employment, technology, and productivity. Because of these benefits, attracting FDI in the Persian Gulf region has become a key element of strategies promoting economic development. Natural resources and environmental policy in host countries may affect the FDIeconomic growth relationship. There has been much dispute as to whether economies that are open and those with more natural capital and lax environmental policy grow faster. This paper examines whether natural resources and environmental policy in Persian Gulf countries alter the relationship between FDI and Persian Gulf’s economics growth. We estimate a linear dynamic panel-data model using data from Persian Gulf countries over the period 1980–2012.The results show that the impact of arable land, forest area and the interaction between FDI and environmental policy on economic growth is negative, but renewable internal freshwater resources flows, mineral depletion and energy use have a positive effect. JEL Classification: F43, N95, O13.
VOLUME STABILITY OF CAC-CaSO 4 - CaCO3-H2O SYSTEMS DURING DRYING

SUMMARY: Cement hydrates and their chemically bound water content are sensitive against changes in relative humidity and temperature. This may cause specific solid volume changes affecting dimensional properties of hydrated cement paste such as shrinkage, swelling and expansion, and therefore impact the performance and also the transport properties of cementitious materials. In the present paper we present preliminary results on the study of hydration states of the main crystalline cement hydrates found in hydrated Calcium Aluminate Cements (CAC) – CaSO4 – CaCO3 systems when exposed to different drying conditions. The techniques used to measure water content and volume of crystalline cement hydrates as well as thermodynamic properties associated to these changes are described. A first attempt to thermodynamically model volume changes of a cementitious