Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Study of the effect of a propolis solution on the macrophage cultures: A cellular analysis

The function of the normal cell applies for a balance between the physiologic demands and the limitations of the cellular structure and of the metabolic capacity; the result is a stable state or homeostasis. The cells can alter his functional state in reply to a moderate stressor maintain his stable state. More excessive physiologic stresses or pathological averse stimuli (injury) turn in adaptations, reversible injury or irreversible injury and cellular death. The adaptations take place when physiologic or pathological stresses induce a new state that alters the cell, which preserves his viability in reply to extern stimuli as hyperplasia, hypertrophy, atrophy and metaplasia. The cellular reversible injury shows cellular pathological alterations that can be restored to the normality if the stimulus will be withdrawn or if the cause of the injury was not serious. The irreversible injury takes place when the stimulus exceeds the capacity of the cell to be adapted and shows pathological constant alterations that cause the cellular death. There are two morphological and mechanical standards of cellular death: ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 3 Number 6 (2014) pp. 277-287 http://www.ijcmas. com
ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst

The study focuses on the nature of hotel service quality and performance in a UK Hotel chain. It examines managerial conceptualisations, implementation and measurement and contextual issues that affect decision-making. Although managers acknowledge the importance of service quality and performance monitoring, their efforts are impeded by flaws in implementation and contextual constraints. The results reveal the flaws as lack of policy on quality, non-implementation of action plans and biased reward schemes. The contextual constraints are identified as competition, budgetary, staff turnover and biased rewards. The results in this study seems to suggest that service and quality are sacrificed at the altar of profits as senior managers appear to hope for quality but reward financial performance. The results also identify a significant gap in UK literature and a consequent paucity in knowledge regarding the use of service guarantees as service quality strategy in hotels. It is concluded that hotel leaders should take responsibility for delivery on service quality and business performance.
The roles of different pathways in the release of cholesterol from macrophages Published, JLR Papers in Press, August 29, 2007.

Cholesterol efflux occurs by different pathways, including transport mediated by specific proteins. We determined the effect of enriching cells with free cholesterol (FC) on the release of FC to human serum. Loading Fu5AH cells with FC had no effect on fractional efflux, whereas enriching mouse peritoneal macrophages (MPMs) resulted in a doubling of fractional efflux. Efflux from cholesterol-normal MPM and Fu5AH cells to 15 human sera correlated well with HDL parameters. However, these relationships were reduced or lost with cholesterol-loaded MPMs. Using macrophages from scavenger receptor class B type I (SR-BI)-, ABCA1-, and ABCG1-knockout mice, together with inhibitors of SR-BI- and ABCA1-mediated efflux, we were able to quantitate efflux upon loading macrophages with excess cholesterol and to establish the contributions of the various efflux pathways in cholesterol-normal and -enriched cells. The removal of ABCA1 had essentially no effect on the total efflux when cell cholesterol levels were normal. However, in cholesterol-enriched cells, the removal of ABCA1 reduced efflux by 50%. Approximately 20% of the efflux stimulated by FC-loading MPM is attributable to ABCG1. The SR-BI contribution to efflux was small. Another pathway that is present in all cells is aqueous diffusion. Our studies demonstrate that this mechanism is one of the major contributors to efflux, particularly in cholesterol-normal cells.
A Security Analysis of My.MP3.com and the Beam-it Protocol

My.MP3. com is a service that streams audio in the MP3 format to its users. In order to resolve copyright concerns, the service first requires that a user prove he or she owns the right to listen to a particular CD. The mechanism used for the verification is a program called Beam-it which reads a random subset of an audio CD and interacts with the My.MP3. com servers using a proprietary protocol. This paper presents a reverse-engineering of the protocol and the client-side code which implements it. An analysis of Beam-it’s security implications and speculations as to the Beam-it server architecture are also presented. We found the protocol to provide strong protection against a user pretending to have a music CD without actually possessing it, however we found the protocol to be unnecessarily verbose and includes information that some users may prefer to keep private.
Impact of fault ride-through and dynamic reactive power support of photovoltaic systems on short-term voltage stability

This paper investigates the impact of the Fault Ride-Through (FRT) capability and the dynamic reactive power support of large-scale PhotoVoltaic (PV) systems according to the newly proposed German Grid Code (GGC) on short-term voltage stability. The PV system is based on a generic model and realistic parameters are used that are determined in consultation with a manufacturer. In this context, improvements of the generic PV system model are stated. The GGC requirements are compared with several other control schemes for dynamic reactive power support, such as the adjusted control mode, i.e., the active and reactive current is calculated according to the grid impedance angle. The results show that the GGC requirements help the power system to avoid short-term voltage instability. Moreover, the requirements lead to an enhanced dynamic performance in terms of voltage support and recovery. Only the adjusted control mode shows a slightly better performance than the GGC. However, as this control scheme needs on-line information about the grid impedance angle, and therefore, additional infrastructure for the measurements, it is also more expensive. Hence, it can be concluded that the GGC requirements, with respect to FRT and dynamic reactive power support, are reasonable from a technical and economical point of view.
Optimal Consumption Problem in a Diffusion Short-Rate Model

We consider a problem of an optimal consumption strategy on the infinite time horizon when the short-rate is a diffusion process. General existence and uniqueness theorem is illustrated by the Vasicek and so-called invariant interval models. We show also that when the short-rate dynamics is given by a Brownian motion or a geometric Brownian motion, then the value function is infinite.
An Intelligent Wireless Sensor and Actuator Network System for Greenhouse Microenvironment Control and Assessment

Purpose: As application-specific wireless sensor networks are gaining popularity, this paper discusses the development and field performance of the GHAN, a greenhouse area network system to monitor, control, and access greenhouse microenvironments. GHAN, which is an upgraded system, has many new functions. It is an intelligent wireless sensor and actuator network (WSAN) system for next-generation greenhouses, which enhances the state of the art of greenhouse automation systems and helps growers by providing them valuable information not available otherwise. Apart from providing online spatial and temporal monitoring of the greenhouse microclimate, GHAN has a modified vapor pressure deficit (VPD) fuzzy controller with an adaptive-selective mechanism that provides better control of the greenhouse crop VPD with energy optimization. Using the latest soil-matrix potential sensors, the GHAN system also ascertains when, where, and how much to irrigate and spatially manages the irrigation schedule within the greenhouse grids. Further, given the need to understand the microclimate control dynamics of a greenhouse during the crop season or a specific time, a statistical assessment tool to estimate the degree of optimality and spatial variability is proposed and implemented. Methods: Apart from the development work, the system was field-tested in a commercial greenhouse situated in the region of Punjab, India, under different outside weather conditions for a long period of time. Conclusions: Day results of the greenhouse microclimate control dynamics were recorded and analyzed, and they proved the successful operation of the system in keeping the greenhouse climate optimal and uniform most of the time, with high control performance.
Beam Nested Rollout Policy Adaptation

The Nested Rollout Policy Adaptation algorithm is a tree search algorithm known to be efficient on combinatorial problems. However, one problem of this algorithm is that it can converge to a local optimum and get stuck in it. We propose a modification which limits this behavior and we experiment it on two combinatorial problems for which the Nested Rollout Policy Adaption is known to be good at.
The Epidemiology of Venous Thromboembolism

Abstract Venous thromboembolism (VTE) occurs for the first time in ≈100 persons per 100,000 each year in the United States, and rises exponentially from <5 cases per 100,000 persons <15 years old to ≈500 cases (0.5%) per 100,000 persons at age 80 years. Approximately one third of patients with symptomatic VTE manifest pulmonary embolism (PE), whereas two thirds manifest deep vein thrombosis (DVT) alone. Despite anticoagulant therapy, VTE recurs frequently in the first few months after the initial event, with a recurrence rate of ≈7% at 6 months. Death occurs in ≈6% of DVT cases and 12% of PE cases within 1 month of diagnosis. The time of year may affect the occurrence of VTE, with a higher incidence in the winter than in the summer. One major risk factor for VTE is ethnicity, with a significantly higher incidence among Caucasians and African Americans than among Hispanic persons and Asian‐ Pacific Islanders. Overall, ≈25% to 50% of patient with first‐time VTE have an idiopathic condition, without a readily identifiable risk factor. Early mortality after VTE is strongly associated with presentation as PE, advanced age, cancer, and underlying cardiovascular disease. (Circulation. 2003;107:I‐4 ‐I‐8.)
High‐fidelity paleointensity determination from historic volcanoes in Japan

[1] Providing high-fidelity paleointensity estimates is pivotal to identify temporal fluctuation of ancient geomagnetic field. Despite abundance of available paleointensity data in Japan, only dozen of them satisfy modern standards with systematic alteration checks. High-fidelity paleointensity estimates were obtained from historic andesitic lavas collected from Mt. Aso (Ojodake, ≈700 BC), Mt. Kirishima (Iwoyama, AD 1768; Ohachi, AD 1235), and Mt. Sakurajima (An-ei, AD 1779; Nabeyama, AD 764–766). Variation of geomagnetic field intensity is distinctively different from the prediction of global models (ARCH3k.1, CALS3k.3, CALS3k.4, CALS7k.2, and CALS10k.1b) for the past 4000 years in Japan. The compilation of high-fidelity Thellier data set in Japan showed two obvious high intensities at AD 590–765 and AD 1330–1435 and one low intensity at ≈700 BC. These time intervals with anomalous high/low intensities are nearly identical to three of the four potential archeomagnetic jerks recognized from the European archeomagnetic data, implying that the archeomagnetic jerks were global (or at least northern hemispheric) features. To improve the poor representation of regional geomagnetic field variation with respect to the global model prediction, more high-fidelity paleointensity determinations are required in East Asia.
Pearls Hide Behind Linearity: Simplifying Deep Convolutional Networks for Embedded Hardware Systems via Linearity Grafting

The increasing complexity of convolutional neural networks (CNNs) has fueled a huge demand for compression. Nonetheless, network pruning, as the most effective knob, fails to deliver Pareto-optimal networks. To tackle this issue, we introduce a novel pruning-free compression framework dubbed Domino, pioneering to revisit the trade-off dilemma between accuracy and efficiency from a fresh perspective of linearity and non-linearity. Specifically, Domino leverages two predictors, including one vanilla latency predictor and one meta-accuracy predictor, to identify the less important non-linear building blocks, which are then grafted with the linear counterparts. And next, the grafted network is trained on target task to obtain decent accuracy, after which the grafted linear building block that contains multiple consecutive linear layers is reparameterized into one single linear layer to boost the efficiency on target hardware without degrading the accuracy on target task. Extensive experiments on two popular Nvidia Jetson embedded platforms (i.e., Xavier and Nano) and two representative networks (i.e., MobileNetV2 and ResNet50) clearly demonstrate the superiority of Domino. For example, Domino-Aggressive achieves +10.6%/+8.8% higher top-l/top-5 accuracy on ImageNet than ${\mathrm {MobileNetV}} 2 \times 0.2$, while bringing $\times 1.9/\times 1.3$ speedup on Xavier/Nano.
Association of Parental Obesity With Concentrations of Select Systemic Biomarkers in Nonobese Offspring

OBJECTIVE—Parental obesity is a risk factor for offspring obesity. It is unclear whether parental obesity also confers risk for obesity-associated conditions (e.g., a proinflammatory or prothrombotic state) in the absence of offspring obesity. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS—We compared concentrations of multiple biomarkers representing distinct biological pathways (C-reactive protein [CRP], aldosterone, renin, B-type natriuretic peptide, NH2-terminal proatrial natriuretic peptide, fibrinogen, and plasminogen activator inhibitor-1) in nonobese Framingham Offspring Study participants with no parents (n = 665), one parent (n = 488), or two parents (n = 119) with obesity (BMI ≥30 kg/m2). RESULTS—Nonobese offspring with both parents with obesity had higher CRP levels (median 2.16 mg/l) than offspring with one parent (1.58 mg/l) or no parents (1.35 mg/l) with obesity. After multivariable adjustment, a nonlinear relationship with parental obesity became evident: compared with those without parental obesity, CRP levels were higher in offspring with two obese parents (P = 0.04) but not in offspring with only one obese parent (P = 0.76). Renin levels were more linearly related to parental obesity status, being significantly higher in offspring with one parent (P = 0.04) or two parents (P = 0.09) with obesity (P = 0.02 for trend). The other systemic biomarkers did not vary according to parental obesity status (all P > 0.05). CONCLUSIONS—Our findings suggest that offspring with a high risk of developing obesity have an altered biomarker profile, characterized by systemic inflammation and increased neurohormonal activity, even in the absence of obesity. This is consistent with the notion that parental obesity may confer an increased susceptibility to other adiposity-associated traits.
The Research of Integral Sliding Mode Adaptive Control in Electric Servo Loading System

In this paper, an integral sliding mode adaptive control scheme is presented for a class electric servo loading system with uncertain parameters and external disturbance. Integral control is introduced to avoid the assumption that the derivative of desired signal must be known in conventional sliding mode variable structure control, and the adaptive algorithm based on Lyapunov method is used to make the system insensitive to parameters uncertainties. The performance of electric servo loading system is illustrated by simulation, and the simulation results show that the proposed integral sliding mode adaptive control scheme improves the tracking precision of the electric servo loading system considerably and is fairly robust to plant parameters variations and external disturbances. Keyword—electric servo loading system; nonlinear system; integral sliding mode adaptive control
Cliques of Neurons Bound into Cavities Provide a Missing Link between Structure and Function

The lack of a formal link between neural network structure and its emergent function has hampered our understanding of how the brain processes information. We have now come closer to describing such a link by taking the direction of synaptic transmission into account, constructing graphs of a network that reflect the direction of information flow, and analyzing these directed graphs using algebraic topology. Applying this approach to a local network of neurons in the neocortex revealed a remarkably intricate and previously unseen topology of synaptic connectivity. The synaptic network contains an abundance of cliques of neurons bound into cavities that guide the emergence of correlated activity. In response to stimuli, correlated activity binds synaptically connected neurons into functional cliques and cavities that evolve in a stereotypical sequence toward peak complexity. We propose that the brain processes stimuli by forming increasingly complex functional cliques and cavities.
Efficient Sparse Dynamic Programming for the Merged LCS Problem

The invention relates to a force transducer with at least 100 pC/N sensitivity. The piezo elements of this force transducer are connected rigidly to the force introducing elements, and therefore require no mechanical prestressing. A diaphragm may be provided and is then the only force shunt with a maximum proportion of 5%. The main force flow runs in these transducers through the piezo elements themselves, thereby keeping the pseudo-pyro effect, which is frequently brought about by mechanical shunting, within very narrow limits. Because of bottlenecks in the heat guide path to the piezo elements and the symmetrical construction of the supports, heat transients are also prevented from exerting an appreciable effect on the position of the zero point. This provides zero point stability, which allows accurate measurements in the 0 . 1 N range, even where the ambient conditions are unfavorable from the point of view of temperature.
Prevalence of the Metabolic Syndrome : A Global Epidemic

The metabolic syndrome (MetS) consists of a constellation of vascular risk factors and metabolic abnormalities comprising (1) centrally distributed obesity; (2) atherogenic dyslipidemia, characterized mainly by elevated triglycerides and decreased high-density lipoproteins; (3) high blood pressure; and (4) hyperglycemia.1 This cluster of highly interrelated factors appears to increase the individual’s risk of vascular disease by promoting the development of atherosclerotic vascular disease and type II diabetes mellitus.2 It is important to recognize that the MetS is a syndrome and not a defined uniform entity. In the effort to introduce the MetS into clinical practice, diverse organizations have used different diagnostic criteria, which may respond to 2 main different conceptual approaches to the syndrome (Table). The first approach focuses on the pathogenesis of MetS and considers insulin resistance as the common physiological abnormality that can lead to the clustering of the mentioned metabolic risk factors and therefore as a main therapeutic target.3–5 The second approach responds to a more pragmatic view and has the purpose of identifying people at higher long-term risk for atherosclerotic vascular disease who may deserve clinical intervention to reduce vascular risk.6,7 These distinct conceptual views of the MetS have probably contributed to a lack of certainty regarding its pathogenesis and value as a cardiovascular disease risk marker.8,9 Therefore, for now, we will attempt to follow a comprehensive and pathogenesis-based approach to MetS to make our exposition more intelligible.
Anticoagulants, renal failure and atrial fibrillation

The prevalence of atrial fibrillation (AF) in patients with chronic renal failure (CRF) and end-stage renal disease (ESRD) is very high and also in this population AF is associated with an increased risk of stroke. Warfarin is the treatment of choice for AF to prevent thromboembolic events, but it has been reported that its use in CRF and hemodialysis (HD) patients is associated with an increased risk of bleeding compared with patients with normal renal function. Moreover, historical studies suggest that warfarin increases the incidence of both ischemic and hemorrhagic strokes in HD patients. However, a clear benefit:risk ratio against warfarin in patients with CRF or ESRD and AF has not been demonstrated. New oral anticoagulants, thrombin or factor Xa inhibitors, are now available. Patients with severe CRF (i.e., glomerular filtration rate < 30 mL/min) and with ESRD, however, were excluded from the trials that have established their efficacy and safety. The advent of new oral anticoagulants raises the important question if patients with severe CRF and ESRD should be excluded or not from this new therapeutic opportunity.
Structure, Diversity, and Mobility of the Salmonella Pathogenicity Island 7 Family of Integrative and Conjugative Elements within Enterobacteriaceae

ABSTRACT Integrative and conjugative elements (ICEs) are self-mobile genetic elements found in the genomes of some bacteria. These elements may confer a fitness advantage upon their host bacteria through the cargo genes that they carry. Salmonella pathogenicity island 7 (SPI-7), found within some pathogenic strains of Salmonella enterica, possesses features indicative of an ICE and carries genes implicated in virulence. We aimed to identify and fully analyze ICEs related to SPI-7 within the genus Salmonella and other Enterobacteriaceae. We report the sequence of two novel SPI-7-like elements, found within strains of Salmonella bongori, which share 97% nucleotide identity over conserved regions with SPI-7 and with each other. Although SPI-7 within Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi appears to be fixed within the chromosome, we present evidence that these novel elements are capable of excision and self-mobility. Phylogenetic analyses show that these Salmonella mobile elements share an ancestor which existed approximately 3.6 to 15.8 million years ago. Additionally, we identified more distantly related ICEs, with distinct cargo regions, within other strains of Salmonella as well as within Citrobacter, Erwinia, Escherichia, Photorhabdus, and Yersinia species. In total, we report on a collection of 17 SPI-7 related ICEs within enterobacterial species, of which six are novel. Using comparative and mutational studies, we have defined a core of 27 genes essential for conjugation. We present a growing family of SPI-7-related ICEs whose mobility, abundance, and cargo variability indicate that these elements may have had a large impact on the evolution of the Enterobacteriaceae.