Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mistletoe alkali inhibits peroxidation in rat liver and kidney.

AIM To explore the antioxidant and free radical scavenger properties of mistletoe alkali (MA). METHODS The antioxidant effect of mistletoe alkali on the oxidative stress induced by carbon tetrachloride (CCl4) in rats was investigated. The rats were divided into four groups (n = 8): CCl4-treated group (1 mL/kg body weight), MA -treated group (90 mg/kg), CCl4+MA-treated group and normal control group. After 4 wk of treatment, the level of malondialdehyde (MDA), a lipid peroxidation product (LPO) was measured in serum and homogenates of liver and kidney. Also, the level of glutathione (GSH), and activities of glutathione reductase (GR), glutathione peroxidase (GSPx), superoxide dismutase (SOD), and glutathione-S-transferase (GST) in liver and kidney were determined. Scavenging effects on hydroxyl free radicals produced in vitro by Fenton reaction were studied by ESR methods using 5,5-dimethyl-1-pyrroline-N-oxide (DMPO) as a spin trap reagent and H2O2/UV as the OH. source. Urinary 8-hydroxydeoxyguanosine (8-OHdG) was determined by competitive ELISA. RESULTS In CCl4-treated group, the level of LPO in serum of liver and kidney was significantly increased compared to controls. The levels of GSH and enzyme activities of SOD, GSPx and GR in liver and kidney were significantly decreased in comparison with controls. In CCl4+MA-treated group, the changes in the levels of LPO in serum of liver and kidney were not statistically significant compared to controls. The levels of SOD, GSPx and GR in liver and kidney were significantly increased in comparison with controls. There was a significant difference in urinary excretion of 8-OHdG between the CCl4-treated and MA-treated groups. CONCLUSION Oxidative stress may be a major mechanism for the toxicity of CCl4. MA has a protective effect against CCl4 toxicity by inhibiting the oxidative damage and stimulating GST activities. Thus, clinical application of MA should be considered in cases with carbon tetrachloride-induced injury.
Disrupting Global Governance: The Internet Whois Service, ICANN, and Privacy

ABSTRACT The Internet's Whois service allows anyone to type a domain name into a Web interface and then receive the name and contact details of whoever has registered it. Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) contracts make it mandatory to provide indiscriminate public access to this information. Data protection laws in Europe and other countries conflict with this ICANN policy, yet Whois has remained in place for a decade. This article offers an explanation for this puzzling contradiction. We use the concept of a default value to explain how the development of a technological system can change the institutional conditions under which rights claims can be realized. We also note that the Whois story poses problems for Daniel Drezner's theory of global governance. Despite disagreement between the two great powers, the ICANN regime provides effective global governance; Drezner's theory cannot explain how the rise of a technical system could produce a global shift in privacy policy and alter the bargaining power of Great Powers.
INFLUENCIA DEL CLIMATERIO Y LA TERAPIA HORMONAL DE REEMPLAZO SOBRE LA SEXUALIDAD FEMENINA

SUMMARY Background: The symptoms that affect the sexual sphere in women’s during climacteric are of high prevalence. Aims: To describe the fundamental aspects of human sexual response during the climacteric and to analyze the effect of climacteric replacement hormone therapy. Methodology: a revision of existing bibliography was done, from MEDLINE and LILACS databases, finding a total of 465 articles. From that group, those which presented the highest scientific rigor were selected. Results: It was found that climacteric affects in a variable way the female sexual response, affecting not only her biological sphere, but her psychological and behavioral spheres. It can be seen that there are endocrine and trophic factors acting upon the different tissues which modify the coital factor of this response. It was also found that sexual desire and orgasm are affected in a more variable way, the affection not exclusively depending on biological parameters. Conclusion: The use of hormone replacement lower it the deterioration of the human sexual response during the climacterium.
From laboratory to the street: capturing witness memory using the Self-Administered Interview

c� ) is a tool designed to elicit a comprehensive initial account from witnesses at the scene of an incident or shortly thereafter to inoculate against the loss of information associated with delayed interview. Drawing on the principles of the Cognitive Interview (CI), the SAI c � provides witnesses with a series of instructions and retrieval cues to support recall. Requesting that witnesses complete an SAI c � not only serves to preserve and protect memory but also enables officers to prioritize the allocation of policing resources during the critical early stages of an investigation. The current review traces the development of the SAI c � from a series of laboratory studies through to field trials and integrates our findings with theoretical accounts of human memory. We present new data from trials of the tool in the field and consider future avenues for research and further development of the SAI c
Automated Recovery of the Center of Rotation in Optical Projection Tomography in the Presence of Scattering

Finding the center of rotation is an essential step for accurate 3-D reconstruction in optical projection tomography. Unfortunately, current methods are not convenient since they require either prior scanning of a reference phantom, small structures of high intensity existing in the specimen, or active participation during the centering procedure. To solve these problems this paper proposes a fast and automatic center of rotation search method making use of parallel programming in graphics processing units. Our method is based on a two step search approach making use only of those sections of the image with high signal-to-noise ratio. We have tested this method both in nonscattering ex vivo samples and in in vivo specimens with a considerable contribution of scattering such as Drosophila melanogaster pupae, recovering in all cases the center of rotation with a precision 1/4 pixel or less.
PTH/PTHrP Receptor in Early Development and Indian Hedgehog--Regulated Bone Growth

The PTH/PTHrP receptor binds to two ligands with distinct functions: the calcium-regulating hormone, parathyroid hormone (PTH), and the paracrine factor, PTH-related protein (PTHrP). Each ligand, in turn, is likely to activate more than one receptor. The functions of the PTH/PTHrP receptor were investigated by deletion of the murine gene by homologous recombination. Most PTH/PTHrP receptor (−/−) mutant mice died in mid-gestation, a phenotype not observed in PTHrP (−/−) mice, perhaps because of the effects of maternal PTHrP. Mice that survived exhibited accelerated differentiation of chondrocytes in bone, and their bones, grown in explant culture, were resistant to the effects of PTHrP and Sonic hedgehog. These results suggest that the PTH/PTHrP receptor mediates the effects of Indian Hedgehog and PTHrP on chondrocyte differentiation.
An Empirical Study of Fuzzy Approach with Artificial Neural Network Models

using artificial neural networks is a significant topic in many scientific areas nowadays. Artificial neural network models are sufficient due to their abilities to solve nonlinear problems especially financial researches in recent years. For these reasons, in this paper we made a forecasting study for weekly closed prices of the exchange rate of Turkish Liras (TL) to Euro between 2005 and 2009 which has important effect in economical and industrial areas. We applied the best four networks which are called multilayer perceptron (MLP), radial basis function (RBF) neural network and generalized regression neural network (GRNN) to improve forecasting fuzzy time series with different degrees of membership by using MSE performance measure. Empirical results show that the MLP outperforms others to forecast neural network based-fuzzy time series.
A Supernova-regulated Interstellar Medium: Simulations of the Turbulent Multiphase Medium

The dynamic state of the interstellar medium, heated and stirred by supernovae (SNe), is simulated using a three-dimensional, nonideal MHD model in a domain extended 0.5×0.5 kpc horizontally and 2 kpc vertically, with the gravitational field symmetric about the midplane of the domain, z=0. We include both Type I and Type II SNe, allowing the latter to cluster in regions with enhanced gas density. The system segregates into two main phases: a warm, denser phase and a hot, dilute gas in global pressure equilibrium; there is also dense, cool gas compressed into filaments, shells, and clumps by expanding SN remnants. The filling factor of the hot phase grows with height, so it dominates at |z| ≳0.5 kpc. The multicomponent structure persists throughout the simulation, and its statistical parameters show little time variation. The warm gas is in hydrostatic equilibrium, which is supported by thermal and turbulent pressures. The multiphase gas is in a state of developed turbulence. The rms random velocity is different in the warm and hot phases, 10 and 40 km s-1, respectively, at |z| ≲1 kpc; the turbulent cell size (twice the velocity correlation scale) is about 60 pc in the warm phase.
Identifying the Important HIV-1 Recombination Breakpoints

Recombinant HIV-1 genomes contribute significantly to the diversity of variants within the HIV/AIDS pandemic. It is assumed that some of these mosaic genomes may have novel properties that have led to their prevalence, particularly in the case of the circulating recombinant forms (CRFs). In regions of the HIV-1 genome where recombination has a tendency to convey a selective advantage to the virus, we predict that the distribution of breakpoints—the identifiable boundaries that delimit the mosaic structure—will deviate from the underlying null distribution. To test this hypothesis, we generate a probabilistic model of HIV-1 copy-choice recombination and compare the predicted breakpoint distribution to the distribution from the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Across much of the HIV-1 genome, we find that the observed frequencies of inter-subtype recombination are predicted accurately by our model. This observation strongly indicates that in these regions a probabilistic model, dependent on local sequence identity, is sufficient to explain breakpoint locations. In regions where there is a significant over- (either side of the env gene) or under- (short regions within gag, pol, and most of env) representation of breakpoints, we infer natural selection to be influencing the recombination pattern. The paucity of recombination breakpoints within most of the envelope gene indicates that recombinants generated in this region are less likely to be successful. The breakpoints at a higher frequency than predicted by our model are approximately at either side of env, indicating increased selection for these recombinants as a consequence of this region, or at least part of it, having a tendency to be recombined as an entire unit. Our findings thus provide the first clear indication of the existence of a specific portion of the genome that deviates from a probabilistic null model for recombination. This suggests that, despite the wide diversity of recombinant forms seen in the viral population, only a minority of recombination events appear to be of significance to the evolution of HIV-1.
A Spontaneous Mutation Involving Kcnq2 (Kv7.2) Reduces M-Current Density and Spike Frequency Adaptation in Mouse CA1 Neurons

The M-type K+ current [IK(M)] activates in response to membrane depolarization and regulates neuronal excitability. Mutations in two subunits (KCNQ2 and KCNQ3; Kv7.2 and Kv7.3) that underlie the M-channel cause the human seizure disorder benign familial neonatal convulsions (BFNC), presumably by reducing IK(M) function. In mice, the Szt1 mutation, which deletes the genomic DNA encoding the KCNQ2 C terminus and all of CHRNA4 (nicotinic acetylcholine receptor α4 subunit) and ARFGAP-1 (GTPase-activating protein that inactivates ADP-ribosylation factor 1), reduces seizure threshold, and alters M-channel pharmacosensitivity. Genomic deletions affecting the C terminus of KCNQ2 have been identified in human families with BFNC, and truncation of the C terminus prevents proper KCNQ2/KCNQ3 channel assembly in Xenopus oocytes. We showed previously that Szt1 mice have a reduced baseline seizure threshold and altered sensitivity to drugs that act at the M-channel. Specifically, the proconvulsant M-channel blocker linopirdine and anticonvulsant enhancer retigabine display increased and decreased potency, respectively, in Szt1 mice. To investigate the effects of the Szt1 mutation on IK(M) function explicitly, perforated-patch electrophysiology was performed in CA1 pyramidal neurons of the hippocampus in brain slices prepared from C57BL/6J-Szt1/+ and control C57BL/6J+/+ mice. Our results show that Szt1 reduces both IK(M) amplitude and current density, inhibits spike frequency adaptation, and alters many aspects of M-channel pharmacology. This is the first evidence that a naturally occurring Kcnq2 mutation diminishes the amplitude and function of the native neuronal IK(M), resulting in significantly increased neuronal excitability. Finally, the changes in single-cell biophysical properties likely underlie the altered seizure threshold and pharmacosensitivity reported previously in Szt1 mice.
Identifying Events using Similarity and Context

As part of our work on automatically building knowledge structures from text, we apply machine learning to determine which clauses from multiple narratives describing similar situations should be grouped together as descriptions of the same type of occurrence. Our approach to the problem uses textual similarity and context from other clauses. Besides training data, our system uses only a partial parser as outside knowledge. We present results evaluating the cohesiveness of the aggregated clauses and a brief overview of how this work fits into our overall system.
Stress Among Marketing Executives: A Review of Literature for Conceiving a Conceptual Model and Structuring a Scale for Measurement of Stress

The most common problem found in every individual, irrespective of age, sex, cast, creed or any other thing is ‘stress’. It is universally accepted that optimum levels of stress can act as a creative, motivational force that can drive people to achieve incredible feats (eustress). Chronic or traumatic stress (distress) on the other hand, is potentially very destructive and can deprive people of physical and mental health, and at times even of life itself. Stress these days has become distress and its impacting the overall performance and health of people. This study is conducted to figure out the major reasons behind stress among marketing executives, who actually face a lot of stress and could not cope well with it. The major purpose of this study was to examine the existing literature for conceiving a model and structuring a scale for measurement of stress. After studying the literature It was found that stress can be divided into two parts namely; on-the-job stress and off-the-job stress.
Melatonin: Signaling mechanisms of a pleiotropic agent

Melatonin acts both as a hormone of the pineal gland and as a local regulator molecule in various tissues. Quantities of total tissue melatonin exceed those released from the pineal. With regard to this dual role, to the orchestrating, systemic action on various target tissues, melatonin is highly pleiotropic. Numerous secondary effects result from the control of the circadian pacemaker and, in seasonal breeders, of the hypothalamic/pituitary hormonal axes. In mammals, various binding sites for melatonin have been identified, the membrane receptors MT1 and MT2, which are of utmost chronobiological importance, ROR and RZR isoforms as nuclear receptors from the retinoic acid receptor superfamily, quinone reductase 2, calmodulin, calreticulin, and mitochondrial binding sites. The G protein‐coupled receptors (GPCRs) MT1 and MT2 are capable of parallel or alternate signaling via different Gα subforms, in particular, Gαi2/3 and Gαq, and via Gβγ, as well. Multiple signaling can lead to the activation of different cascades and/or ion channels. Melatonin frequently decreases cAMP, but also activates phospholipase C and protein kinase C, acts via the MAP kinase and PI3 kinase/Akt pathways, modulates large conductance Ca2+‐activated K+ and voltage‐gated Ca2+ channels. MT1 and MT2 can form homo and heterodimers, and MT1 interacts with other proteins in the plasma membrane, such as an orphan GPCR, GPR50, and the PDZ domain scaffolding protein MUPP1, effects which negatively or positively influence signaling capacity. Cross‐talks between different signaling pathways, including influences of the membrane receptors on nuclear binding sites, are discussed. © 2009 International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc.
Distinguishing Trust from Risk: An Anatomy of the Investment Game

The role of trust in promoting economic activity and societal development has received considerable academic attention by social scientists. A popular way to measure trust at the individual level is the so-called “investment game” (Berg, Dickhaut, and McCabe, 1995). It has been widely noted, however, that risk attitudes can also affect decisions in this game, and thus in principle confound inferences about trust. We provide novel evidence shedding light on the role of risk attitudes for trusting decisions. To the best of our knowledge our data are the first rigorous evidence that (i) aggregate investment distributions differ significantly between trust and risk environments, and (ii) risk attitudes predict individual investment decisions in risk games but not in the corresponding trust games. Our results are convergent evidence that trust decisions are not tightly connected to a person’s risk attitudes, and they lend support to the “trust” interpretation of decisions in investment games.
Calories for Sale: Food Marketing to Children in the Twenty-First Century

Budgets for marketing to children have spiked well into the billions, an escalation that mirrors the rise in childhood obesity rates. Children are targets for a maelstrom of marketing for all sorts of products enabled by sophisticated technology and minimal government regulation. Despite the fact that recent studies document links between food advertising and childhood obesity, a significant proportion of marketing that targets children is for energy-dense, low-nutrient food. Moreover, advances in digital technology allow marketers to find more direct, personalized gateways to reach young audiences that sidestep parental authority and bank as much on the unknowing parent as the gullible child. Cataloguing the depth and breadth of child-centered food marketing while discussing grassroots strategies for instituting change, the authors argue that parents can no longer keep pace either with innovations in advertising or increased spending, suggesting the need for more stringent government regulations on food marketing to children.
FASTUS: A Finite-state Processor for Information Extraction from Real-world Text

Approaches to text processing that rely on parsing the text with a context-free grammar tend to be slow and error-prone because of the massive ambiguity of long sentences. In contrast, FASTUS employs a nondeterministic finite-state language model that produces a phrasal decomposition of a sentence into noun groups, verb groups and particles. Another finite-state machine recognizes domain-specific phrases based on combinations of the heads of the constituents found in the first pass. FASTUS has been evaluated on several blind tests that demonstrate that state-of-the-art performance on information-extraction tasks is obtainable with surprisingly little computational effort.
Female serial killers in the early modern age? Recurrent infanticide in Finland 1750–1896

This article examines multiple infanticide in early modern Finland in which the same woman killed several newborns after repeated hidden pregnancies and childbirths. A well-documented case in Lohja, Nummi and Pusula Court of Assizes in 1874 is compared with nine other recurrent infanticides in Finland in the period 1750–1896. The context of the series of crimes and the reasons why it took so long to apprehend the murderers differed from the majority of reported infanticides, which were quite unplanned and the perpetrators of which were apprehended within days of the act. These offenders were serial killers who experienced a need to kill even if they were not literally serial killers according to modern conceptions of male-oriented serial killing. They did not deliberately get themselves pregnant with men in order to obtain psychological gratification from killing newborn babies. Rather, they resorted to killing several of their illegitimate babies as a solution of birth control because their first such crime went unreported or unprosecuted, probably as a result of the complicity of others. Such a perpetrator in the early modern age is labeled a ‘love-child murderess’ or a ‘burker of newborns’, depending on her relationship with the father or fathers of the victims. Serial killings of newborn babies as a solution of birth control continue to exist in modern times as serial neonaticide. It is suggested that a perpetrator of this category of crime in all ages be labeled a ‘birth controller’.
Left Ventricular Failure Produces Profound Lung Remodeling and Pulmonary Hypertension in Mice: Heart Failure Causes Severe Lung Disease

Chronic left ventricular failure causes pulmonary congestion with increased lung weight and type 2 pulmonary hypertension. Understanding the molecular mechanisms for type 2 pulmonary hypertension and the development of novel treatments for this condition requires a robust experimental animal model and a good understanding of the nature of the resultant pulmonary remodeling. Here we demonstrate that chronic transverse aortic constriction causes massive pulmonary fibrosis and remodeling, as well as type 2 pulmonary hypertension, in mice. Thus, aortic constriction-induced left ventricular dysfunction and increased left ventricular end-diastolic pressure are associated with a ⩽5.3-fold increase in lung wet weight and dry weight, pulmonary hypertension, and right ventricular hypertrophy. Interestingly, the aortic constriction-induced increase in lung weight was not associated with pulmonary edema but resulted from profound pulmonary remodeling with a dramatic increase in the percentage of fully muscularized lung vessels, marked vascular and lung fibrosis, myofibroblast proliferation, and leukocyte infiltration. The aortic constriction-induced left ventricular dysfunction was also associated with right ventricular hypertrophy, increased right ventricular end-diastolic pressure, and right atrial hypertrophy. The massive lung fibrosis, leukocyte infiltration, and pulmonary hypertension in mice after transverse aortic constriction clearly indicate that congestive heart failure also causes severe lung disease. The lung fibrosis and leukocyte infiltration may be important mechanisms in the poor clinical outcome in patients with end-stage heart failure. Thus, the effective treatment of left ventricular failure may require additional efforts to reduce lung fibrosis and the inflammatory response.