Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Respiratory Viral Infections and Subversion of Cellular Antioxidant Defenses

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) formation is part of normal cellular aerobic metabolism, due to respiration and oxidation of nutrients in order to generate energy. Low levels of ROS are involved in cellular signaling and are well controlled by the cellular antioxidant defense system. Elevated levels of ROS generation due to pollutants, toxins and radiation exposure, as well as infections, are associated with oxidative stress causing cellular damage. Several respiratory viruses, including respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), human metapneumovirus (hMPV) and influenza, induce increased ROS formation, both intracellularly and as a result of increased inflammatory cell recruitment at the site of infection. They also reduce antioxidant enzyme (AOE) levels and/or activity, leading to unbalanced oxidative-antioxidant status and subsequent oxidative cell damage. Expression of several AOE is controlled by the activation of the nuclear transcription factor NF-E2-related factor 2 (Nrf2), through binding to the antioxidant responsive element (ARE) present in the AOE gene promoters. While exposure to several pro-oxidant stimuli usually leads to Nrf2 activation and upregulation of AOE expression, respiratory viral infections are associated with inhibition of AOE expression/activity, which in the case of RSV and hMPV is associated with reduced Nrf2 nuclear localization, decreased cellular levels and reduced ARE-dependent gene transcription. Therefore, administration of antioxidant mimetics or Nrf2 inducers represents potential viable therapeutic approaches to viral-induced diseases, such as respiratory infections and other infections associated with decreased cellular antioxidant capacity.
Rhinitis, Ocular, Throat and Dermal Symptoms, Headache and Tiredness among Students in Schools from Johor Bahru, Malaysia: Associations with Fungal DNA and Mycotoxins in Classroom Dust

There are few studies on rhinitis and sick building syndrome (SBS) among students in tropical countries. We studied associations between levels of five fungal DNA sequences, two mycotoxins (sterigmatocystin and verrucarol) and cat allergen (Fel d 1) levels in schools and rhinitis and other weekly SBS symptoms in the students. Fungal DNA was measured by quantitative PCR and cat allergen by ELISA. Pupils (N = 462) from eight randomly selected schools in Johor Bahru, Malaysia participated (96%). Dust samples were collected by cotton swabs and Petri dishes exposed for one week. None of the schools had a mechanical ventilation system, but all classrooms had openable windows that were kept open during lectures and indoor CO2 levels were low (mean 492 ppm; range 380–690 ppm). Weekly nasal symptoms (rhinitis) (18.8%), ocular (11.6%), throat (11.1%), dermal symptoms, headache (20.6%) and tiredness (22.1%) were common. Total fungal DNA in swab samples was associated with rhinitis (p = 0.02), ocular symptoms (p = 0.009) and tiredness (p = 0.001). There were positive associations between Aspergillus versicolor DNA in Petri dish samples, ocular symptoms (p = 0.02) and tiredness (p = 0.001). The level of the mycotoxin verrucarol (produced by Stachybotrys chartarum) in swab samples was positively associated with tiredness (p = 0.04). Streptomyces DNA in swab samples (p = 0.03) and Petri dish samples (p = 0.03) were negatively associated with tiredness. In conclusion, total fungal contamination, measured as total fungal DNA) in the classrooms, Aspergillus versicolor and verrucarol can be risk factors for rhinitis and SBS symptoms among students in the tropical country Malaysia.
Influence of Slot Opening on Optimal Stator and Rotor Pole Combination and Electromagnetic Performance of Switched-Flux PM Brushless AC Machines

The significant influence of slot opening on the optimal stator and rotor pole combination and on the electromagnetic performance of the switched-flux permanent magnet (SFPM) machine is observed and investigated in this paper. A new SFPM brushless machine with remarkable slot opening relative to the magnet thickness is developed to reduce the magnet usage and to increase the slot area. Its stator slot opening is almost several times of that in the conventional SFPM machine, but its magnet usage is only half. However, the new machine exhibits ~ 40% larger back EMF and electromagnetic torque than those of the conventional machine, while its cogging torque and torque ripple are significantly lower.
MI-WDIS: web data integration system for market intelligence

As an important supporting technology of Market Intelligence (MI), Web data integration is facing new challenges, such as the integrity of data acquisition, the quality of data extraction and data consolidation. To solve such problems, we propose an MI-oriented web data integration system (MI-WDIS), which achieves excellent performances in integrating Surface Web and Deep Web data with much less manual work. Based on MI-WDIS, we have developed a platform for intelligent analysis of job data. The platform collects tens of thousands of job data daily and provides personalized services for job seekers through diversified channels. Besides, it provides other advanced services, including intelligence analysis, automatic monitoring and alerting, for various organizations, such as enterprises, training institutions and recruitment agencies.
Optimal Sharpening of CIC Filters and An Efficient Implementation Through Saramäki-Ritoniemi Decimation Filter Structure ( Extended Version )

Conventional sharpened cascaded-integrator-comb (CIC) filters use generic sharpening polynomials to improve the frequency response. In contrast to the existing literature, an optimization framework is described for the selection of CIC sharpening polynomial and an efficient implementation through Saramäki-Ritoniemi decimation structure is suggested for its realization. The optimized sharpening polynomials are application specific and designed to meet given passband ripple and stopband attenuation specifications. Numerical results show that the optimized structure can be used without a secondary droop compensation filter, which is typically required for the conventional systems.
Rabies Outbreaks and Vaccination in Domestic Camels and Cattle in Northwest China

In contrast to many countries where rabies has been well controlled in humans and livestock, even in wildlife, rabies is still endemic in almost regions of China. In Northwest China, rabies transmitted by stray dogs and wild foxes has caused heavy economic losses to local herdsmen, as well as causing numbers of human cases. In this study, as part of an investigation of ways to prevent rabies epidemics in livestock, we report an analysis of domestic cattle and camel rabies cases in Ningxia Hui (NHAR) and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (IMAR) and the immune efficacy of canine inactivated rabies vaccines in these animals. We found that rabies viruses from these animals are closely related to dog-hosted China I and fox-associated China III lineages, respectively, indicating that the infections originated from two different sources (dogs and wild foxes). As well as the previously reported Arctic and Arctic-related China IV lineage in IMAR, at least three separate phylogenetic groups of rabies virus consistently exist and spread throughout Northwest China. Since there is no licensed oral vaccine for wild foxes and no inactivated vaccine for large livestock, local canine inactivated vaccine products were used for emergency immunization of beef and milk cattle and bactrian (two-humped) camels in local farms. Compared with a single injection with one (low-efficacy) or three doses (high-cost), a single injection of a double dose of canine vaccine provided low-price and convenience for local veterinarians while inducing levels of virus neutralizing antibodies indicative of protection against rabies for at least 1 year in the cattle and camels. However, licensed vaccines for wildlife and large domestic animals are still needed in China.
Precarious victory : the 2002 German federal election and its aftermath

The 2002 campaign and election was one of the most dramatic in the history of the Federal Republic. An unprecedented last minute swing narrowly re-elected the Social Democratic-Green government of Chancellor Schroeder. The campaign featured the first-ever American style television debate between the two candidates for the chancellorship. Foreign policy, particularly the refusal of Schroeder to support the Iraq policies of US President George W. Bush, played an unusually important role. In the aftermath of the election the government was faced with a deteriorating economy and the charge of the opposition that it had deliberately mislead voters during the campaign. In this volume, distinguished experts from both sides of the Atlantic analyse these and other critical issues. Their work is based on extensive research in Germany and Washington, which included interviews with major political figures and the collection of new campaign and election data. Contributors: William Patterson, E. Gene Frankland, Clay Clemens, Christian Soe, Gerald R. Kleinfeld, David Patton, Dieter Roth, Mary N. Hampton, Ferdinand Breitbach, Irwin Collier, Helga Welsh, Stephen Szabo. "
Virologic Tools for HCV Drug Resistance Testing

Recent advances in molecular biology have led to the development of new antiviral drugs that target specific steps of the Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) lifecycle. These drugs, collectively termed direct-acting antivirals (DAAs), include non-structural (NS) HCV protein inhibitors, NS3/4A protease inhibitors, NS5B RNA-dependent RNA polymerase inhibitors (nucleotide analogues and non-nucleoside inhibitors), and NS5A inhibitors. Due to the high genetic variability of HCV, the outcome of DAA-based therapies may be altered by the selection of amino-acid substitutions located within the targeted proteins, which affect viral susceptibility to the administered compounds. At the drug developmental stage, preclinical and clinical characterization of HCV resistance to new drugs in development is mandatory. In the clinical setting, accurate diagnostic tools have become available to monitor drug resistance in patients who receive treatment with DAAs. In this review, we describe tools available to investigate drug resistance in preclinical studies, clinical trials and clinical practice.
Private sector initiatives in nature conservation.

The provision and management of protected natural areas has generally been regarded as the province of governments. Yet there are theoretical arguments to support the contention that the private sector can play a valuable role in nature conservation. There are also numerous examples of private sector initiatives in countries as economically, culturally and environmentally diverse as Australia, New Zealand, Germany and Vanuatu.
Automatic program generation for heterogeneous architectures

The new generation accelerator based HPC clusters use OpenCL language for exploiting the heterogeneous compute power. OpenCL is a portable language which allows dynamic binding of heterogeneous compute devices at runtime. It uses a kernel programming method by which the different functionality of the program can execute simultaneously on heterogeneous devices. An OpenCL program is made up of host code, execution environment and device code making the program lengthy and complex. This paper describes the software named OpenCLGen which automatically generates OpenCL programs for single or multiple CPU or GPU devices. A complete OpenCL program is generated with minimum programming effort based on the kernel code supplied by the user; thereby helping to improve programmer productivity. OpenCLGen produces a downloadable package aggregating the host code, header files, runtime for kernel code, Makefile and user instructions. This paper describes the design of the OpenCLGen software and offers a comparison to other similar software.
Oncogenic Mutations of p110α Isoform of PI 3-Kinase Upregulate Its Protein Kinase Activity

In addition to lipid kinase activity, the class-I PI 3-kinases also function as protein kinases targeting regulatory autophosphorylation sites and exogenous substrates. The latter include a recently identified regulatory phosphorylation of the GM-CSF/IL-3 βc receptor contributing to survival of acute myeloid leukaemia cells. Previous studies suggested differences in the protein kinase activity of the 4 isoforms of class-I PI 3-kinase so we compared the ability of all class-I PI 3-kinases and 2 common oncogenic mutants to autophosphorylate, and to phosphorylate an intracellular fragment of the GM-CSF/IL-3 βc receptor (βic). We find p110α, p110β and p110γ all phosphorylate βic but p110δ is much less effective. The two most common oncogenic mutants of p110α, H1047R and E545K have stronger protein kinase activity than wildtype p110α, both in terms of autophosphorylation and towards βic. Importantly, the lipid kinase activity of the oncogenic mutants is still inhibited by autophosphorylation to a similar extent as wildtype p110α. Previous evidence indicates the protein kinase activity of p110α is Mn2+ dependent, casting doubt over its role in vivo. However, we show that the oncogenic mutants of p110α plus p110β and p110γ all display significant activity in the presence of Mg2+. Furthermore we demonstrate that some small molecule inhibitors of p110α lipid kinase activity (PIK-75 and A66) are equally effective against the protein kinase activity, but other inhibitors (e.g. wortmannin and TGX221) show different patterns of inhibition against the lipid and protein kinases activities. These findings have implications for the function of PI 3-kinase, especially in tumours carrying p110α mutations.
Chaos-differential Evolution for Multiple Sequence Alignment

Multiple Sequence Alignment is one of the most important and challenging problem in bioinformatics, which is known as NP-hard problem. In this paper, a Chaos-differential evolution (CDE) is proposed to solve MSA. In the proposed CDE algorithm, DE and chaos are hybridized to combine the evolutionary searching ability of DE and overcoming local optima of chaotic local search. Simulation shows that novel algorithm has superior performance compared to other existing algorithms.
Can Pretrained Neural Networks Detect Anatomy?

Convolutional neural networks demonstrated outstanding empirical results in computer vision and speech recognition tasks where labeled training data is abundant. In medical imaging, there is a huge variety of possible imaging modalities and contrasts, where annotated data is usually very scarce. We present two approaches to deal with this challenge. A network pretrained in a different domain with abundant data is used as a feature extractor, while a subsequent classifier is trained on a small target dataset; and a deep architecture trained with heavy augmentation and equipped with sophisticated regularization methods. We test the approaches on a corpus of X-ray images to design an anatomy detection system.
Facetten der Lehrerfortbildungsmotivation - eine faktorenanalytische Betrachtung

Der Fort- und Weiterbildung von Lehrpersonen wird eine hohe Bedeutung fur die Verbesserung der Unterrichtsqualitat zugeschrieben. Auf die Eff ektivitat entsprechender Masnahmen haben neben der Konzeption und Qualitat der Fortbildungsangebote auch deren Wahrnehmung und Nutzung durch die Lehrpersonen einen erheblichen Einfl uss. Die Wahrnehmung und die Nutzung durften wiederum u. a. von der Fortbildungsmotivation der Lehrkrafte abhangen. Bislang gibt es allerdings kaum empirische Studien, die die Fortbildungsmotivation von Lehr personen explizit untersuchen und auf unterschiedliche Facetten uberprufen. In der vorliegenden Studie wurde aufbauend auf der Selbstbestimmungstheorie ein Instrument zur Erfassung der Lehrerfortbildungsmotivation entwickelt und faktorenanalytisch anhand einer Stichprobe von N = 102 Lehrpersonen der Sekundarstufe gepruft. Uber eine exploratorische Faktorenanalyse wurden vier trennbare und interpretierbare Faktoren extrahiert: Soziale Inter aktion, Externale Erwartungsanpassung, Karriereorientierung und Ent wicklungsorientierung. Die gebildeten Skalen sind reliabel und zeigen erste Hin weise auf
Advanced Extreme Learning Machine Modeling using Radial Basis Function Network and Context Clustering

In this paper, we propose a new hybrid intelligent modeling using context clustering and Extreme Learning Machine (ELM) mechanism. It has been a sensitive issue that the ELM mechanism assigns initial parameters randomly, despite of its superior performance. The proposed approach focuses on initial parameters determination of the modeling to improve the accuracy of the ELM mechanism, through removing randomness of assignment. To accomplish it, a context clustering based on Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM), considering a relationship between input-output spaces will be adopted to a Radial Basis Function Network (RBFN) of the ELM. In addition, the proposed approach will reduce the randomness of results from the original ELM. Simulations and the results show usefulness of the proposed approach with improved performance accuracy.
Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences Gesture Processing as Grounded Motor Cognition: towards a Computational Model

In this paper, we present an approach to treat and model the processing (i.e. recognition and production) of communicative gestures as grounded motor cognition. We first review cognitive theories and neuropsychological studies on human motor cognition. On this basis, we propose a computational framework that connects the sensorimotor processing of hand gestures in representational structures of meaning (visuospatial imagery), other modalities (language), and communicative intentions. We present an implementation that enables an embodied virtual agent to engage in gesture-based interaction with a human user.
Modulation of Immunity by Antiangiogenic Molecules in Cancer

In the last decades a new class of therapeutic drugs have been developed that block tumor angiogenesis. These antiangiogenic molecules, which target VEGF or VEGFR, PDGFR, and c-kit, can act not only on endothelial cells but also on immune cells. Some antiangiogenic molecules inhibit the development of immunosuppressive mechanisms developed by the tumors to escape the immune system (such as regulatory T cells, myeloid-derived suppressor cells, and immunosuppressive cytokines). These immunomodulatory effects must be characterized in detail to enable a better prescription of these treatments. In this paper we will focus on the impact of anti-angiogenic drugs on immunosuppression and their potential combination with immunotherapeutic strategies. Interestingly, immune parameters or their modulation during treatment could serve as potential biomarkers of response or resistance to anti-angiogenic therapies.
Availability of protocol goals

A new principle for prudent design of security protocols is developed to extend and complement the existing ones. Called goal availability, the principle requires that a given protocol goal be confirmed by a formal guarantee that the principals can invoke in practice. In consequence, the guarantees must be based on assumptions that the principals are able to verify. Analysing known protocols in the light of the new principle highlights unknown features. for example, an established BAN-logic claim is undermined, and some weaknesses of a modern smart card protocol are discovered. Our findings support the general claim that checking a protocol against goal availability helps discover unspotted lacks of explicitness in the protocol messages. The protocol analyses reported here are all machine assisted, but goal availability serves for protocol analysis in general.
Interactive inhibitory effects of formoterol and montelukast on activated human neutrophils

The research question addressed in the current study was: do formoterol (1 and 10 nM) and montelukast (2 &mgr;M) possess interactive inhibitory effects on activated human neutrophils, particularly in relation to alterations in cyclic AMP and cytosolic Ca2+ fluxes? Isolated human blood neutrophils were activated with the chemoattractant N-formyl-l-methionyl-l-leucyl-l-phenylalanine (fMLP) (1 &mgr;M) in combination with cytochalasin B (CB; 3 &mgr;M). Fura-2-acetoxymethyl ester-based spectrofluorimetry, lucigenin-enhanced chemiluminescence, colorimetric and flow cytometric procedures were used to measure cytosolic Ca2+ fluxes, production of superoxide, elastase release and beta-2 integrin (CR3) expression, respectively, while cyclic AMP and leukotriene (LT)B4 were assayed using competitive binding ELISA procedures. Activation of the cells with fMLP/CB resulted in abrupt and sustained increases in cytosolic Ca2+, as well as release of elastase and production of superoxide and LTB4, and expression of CR3, all of which were attenuated by formoterol and montelukast individually, and especially by the combination of these agents. These anti-inflammatory effects of each agent, as well as the combination, were associated with significant increases in cyclic AMP. The findings of the current study may explain the efficacy of montelukast and formoterol when used in combination with inhaled corticosteroids in the treatment of severe asthma, possibly by controlling neutrophil-driven inflammation of the airways.
Comments on the scalar propagator in AdS × S and the BMN plane wave

We discuss the scalar propagator on generic ADSd+1 × Sd′+1 backgrounds. For the conformally flat situations and masses corresponding to Weyl invariant actions the propagator is powerlike in the sum of the chordal distances with respect to AdSd+1 and Sd′+1. In all other cases the propagator depends on both chordal distances separately. We discuss the KK mode summation to construct the propagator in brief. For AdS5 × S5 we relate our propagator to the expression in the BMN plane wave limit and find a geometric interpretation of the variables occurring in the known explicit construction on the plane wave.
Optimal Design of Grounding System in Transmission Line

A novel optimization methodology is proposed for the design of transmission line grounding systems, taking into account technical as well as economical considerations. The problem of designing the grounding systems of transmission lines is stated as a linear-integer programming problem in terms of the construction characteristics and the particular requirements of the tower grounding schemes at the supports of each of the different line sections, in order to minimize the variable investment costs, subject to the maximum allowed line outage rate due to the lightning activity. The mathematical statement of the problem allows solutions in which the transmission tower footing resistance changes along the line, depending on the cost and on the particular characteristics of each tower grounding, assuring however, that the average behavior enforces the desired outage rate due to lightning activity, selecting the complementary electrode scheme required at each tower. The methodology is tested on a real case consisting of a 230 kV transmission line, 85.4 km long, with 180 towers. The linear programming branch and bound mathematical technique was applied for the solution of the test case. Two different simulation approaches for the calculation of the behavior of the line subject to lightning phenomena were evaluated without loss of generality: the approach proposed in [1], selected as an initial test due to its simplicity, and the improved version presented in [2]. Results are presented and compared to the design obtained through conventional tower design approaches with important reductions in the investment costs, encouraging the use and further development of the methodology.