Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Growth Hormone Releasing Peptide-2 Attenuation of Protein Kinase C-Induced Inflammation in Human Ovarian Granulosa Cells

Cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) and interleukin-8 (IL-8) are two important inflammatory mediators in ovulation. Ghrelin may modulate inflammatory signaling via growth hormone secretagogue receptors. We investigated the role of ghrelin in KGN human ovarian granulosa cells using protein kinase C (PKC) activator phorbol 12, 13-didecanoate (PDD) and synthetic ghrelin analog growth hormone releasing peptide-2 (GHRP-2). GHRP-2 attenuated PDD-induced expression of protein and mRNA, the promoter activity of COX-2 and IL-8 genes, and the secretion of prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) and IL-8. GHRP-2 promoted the degradation of PDD-induced COX-2 and IL-8 proteins with the involvement of proteasomal and lysosomal pathways. PDD-mediated COX-2 production acts via the p38, c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK), extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) and nuclear factor kappa-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells (NF-κB) pathways; PDD-mediated IL-8 production acts via the p38, JNK and ERK pathways. GHRP-2 reduced the PDD-induced phosphorylation of p38 and JNK and activator protein 1 (AP-1) reporter activation and PDD-induced NF-κB nuclear translocation and reporter activation. The inhibitors of mitogen-activated protein kinase phosphatase-1 (MKP-1) and protein phosphatase 2 (PP2A) reduced the inhibitory effect of GHRP-2 on PDD-induced COX-2 and IL-8 expression. Our findings demonstrate an anti-inflammatory role for ghrelin (GHRP-2) in PKC-mediated inflammation of granulosa cells, at least in part, due to its inhibitory effect on PKC-induced activation of p38, JNK and NF-κB, possibly by targeting to MKP-1 and PP2A.
Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology Non-infected Preterm Parturition Is Related to Increased Concentrations of Il-6, Il-8 and Mcp-1 in Human Cervix

Background: Human cervical ripening is an inflammatory process. In labour at term the mRNA-levels and protein concentrations for interleukin-6 (IL-6) and IL-8 in cervix significantly increase. The aim of this study was to investigate if there are differences in the inflammatory process of preterm and term cervical ripening.
Asymptotic properties of dual-hop AF relay MIMO communication systems

The present paper studies the asymptotic performance of dual-hop amplify-and-forward multiple-input multiple-output relay communication systems. In the corresponding setup, a relay amplifies the signal received from a source, retransmitting it towards a destination, while the direct source-destination link is absent. Ergodic achievable rates under separate decoding, along with the average bit error rate under various detection schemes are derived in the regime where the number of antennas at each terminal grows without bound. To overcome the mathematical difficulty of averaging over both channel realizations and input signals we apply large-system analysis based on the replica method from statistical physics. The validity of the large-system analysis is further verified through Monte Carlo simulations, providing particularly good accuracy at low SNR.
Shedding Light on the Global Distribution of Economic Activity

Collection of data on economic variables, especially sub-national income levels, is problematic, due to various shortcomings in the data collection process. Additionally, the informal economy is often excluded from official statistics. Nighttime lights satellite imagery and the LandScan population grid provide an alternative means for measuring economic activity. We have developed a model for creating a disaggregated map of estimated total (formal plus informal) economic activity for countries and states of the world. Regression models were developed to calibrate the sum of lights to official measures of economic activity at the sub-national level for China, India, Mexico, and the United States and at the national level for other countries of the world, and subsequently unique coefficients were derived. Multiplying the unique coefficients with the sum of lights provided estimates of total economic activity, which were spatially distributed to generate a spatially disaggregated 1 km map of total economic activity.
Household Capital and the Agrarian Problem in Russia

Changes in Russian agriculture - new institutional structures in the countryside peasant households and the transition to a market economy and democracy population and household structure in rural Russia research design household structure and labour community attachment and social networks physical capital household agricultural production and sales employment, household income and durable goods mental health and symptoms of depression subjective quality of life supporting sustainable households and communities in an era of globalization.
Performance evaluation of the IBM RISC system/6000: comparison of an optimized scalar processor with two vector processors

The authors report the performance of the 6000-series computers as measured using a set of portable, standard-Fortran, computationally intensive benchmark codes that represent the scientific workload at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. On all but three of the benchmark codes, the 40-ns RISC (reduced instruction set computer) system was able to perform as well as a single Convex C-240 processor, a vector processor that also has a 40-ns clock cycle, and, on these same codes, it performed as well as the FPS-500, a vector processor with a 30-ns clock cycle. <<ETX>>
Greenhouse gas balances of managed peatlands in the Nordic countries – present knowledge and gaps

Abstract. This article provides an overview of the effects of land-use on the fluxes of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) and from peatlands in the Nordic countries based on the field data from about 100 studies. In addition, this review aims to identify the gaps in the present knowledge on the greenhouse gas (GHG) balances associated with the land-use of these northern ecosystems. Northern peatlands have accumulated, as peat, a vast amount of carbon from the atmosphere since the last glaciation. However, the past land-use and present climate have evidently changed their GHG balance. Unmanaged boreal peatlands may act as net sources or sinks for CO2 and CH4 depending on the weather conditions. Drainage for agriculture has turned peatlands to significant sources of GHGs (mainly N2O and CO2). Annual mean GHG balances including net CH4, N2O and CO2 emissions are 2260, 2280 and 3140 g CO2 eq. m−2 (calculated using 100 year time horizon) for areas drained for grass swards, cereals or those left fallow, respectively. Even after cessetion of the cultivation practices, N2O and CO2 emissions remain high. The mean net GHG emissions in abandoned and afforested agricultural peatlands have been 1580 and 500 g CO2 eq. m−2, respectively. Peat extraction sites are net sources of GHGs with an average emission rate of 770 g CO2 eq. m−2. Cultivation of a perennial grass (e.g., reed canary grass) on an abandoned peat extraction site has been shown to convert such a site into a net sink of GHGs (−330 g CO2 eq. m−2). In contrast, despite restoration, such sites are known to emit GHGs (mean source of 480 g CO2 eq. m−2, mostly from high CH4 emissions). Peatland forests, originally drained for forestry, may act as net sinks (mean −780 g CO2 eq. m−2). However, the studies where all three GHGs have been measured at an ecosystem level in the forested peatlands are lacking. The data for restored peatland forests (clear cut and rewetted) indicate that such sites are on average a net sink (190 g CO2 eq. m−2). The mean emissions from drained peatlands presented here do not include emissions from ditches which form a part of the drainage network and can contribute significantly to the total GHG budget. Peat soils submerged under water reservoirs have acted as sources of CO2, CH4 and N2O (mean annual emission 240 g CO2 eq. m−2). However, we cannot yet predict accurately the overall greenhouse gas fluxes of organic soils based on the site characteristics and land-use practices alone because the data on many land-use options and our understanding of the biogeochemical cycling associated with the gas fluxes are limited.
Effects of Variable-Density Thinning on Understory Diversity and Heterogeneity in Young Douglas-fir Forests

Aukema, Juliann E. ; Carey, Andrew B. 2008. Effects of variable-density thinning on understory diversity and heterogeneity in young Douglas-fir forests. Res. Pap. PNW-RP-575. Portland, OR: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. 20 p. Nine years after variable-density thinning (VDT) on the Forest Ecosystem Study, we examined low understory vegetation in 60 plots of eight stands (four pairs of VDT and control). We compared native, exotic, ruderal, and nonforest species richness among the stands. We used clustering, ordination, and indicator species analysis to look for distinctive patches of plant associations. Native, exotic, ruderal, and nonforest plant species diversity were higher in VDT stands compared to control stands for both forests. Differentiation of the understory into multiple distinct vegetation patches was not definitive, but there were trends toward greater heterogeneity in VDT stands.
Effects of time after ovariectomy, season and oestradiol on luteinizing hormone and follicle-stimulating hormone secretion in ovariectomized ewes.

During the breeding season, five groups of three ewes were implanted at ovariectomy with 0.36, 0.5, 1.0 and 6.0 cm oestradiol implants or implants containing no steroid. Eleven days after receiving implants, blood samples were taken every 10 min for 6 h; implants were then removed. Treatments were repeated three times during each of two consecutive breeding seasons and four times during the intervening anoestrus. In ovariectomized ewes without steroid treatment, luteinizing hormone (LH) pulse frequency increased from early to mid-breeding season, decreased to a minimum at mid-anoestrus and increased to reach a maximum at the mid-point of the second breeding season, subsequently declining. LH pulse amplitude was inversely related to frequency. Basal serum LH concentrations decreased gradually from the first breeding season to reach a minimum at mid-anoestrus and gradually increased to reach a maximum at the end of the second breeding season. Mean serum LH and follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) concentrations were higher at the end of the second breeding season compared with the beginning of the first breeding season. All parameters of gonadotrophin secretion were decreased much more by oestradiol during the anoestrus than during the breeding season. LH pulse frequency was decreased during anoestrus and at high oestradiol concentrations during the first breeding season. Apart from LH pulse amplitude, the decreases in all parameters of gonadotrophin secretion were less during the second compared with the first breeding season. The minimum effective dose of oestradiol required to decrease mean and basal serum concentrations of LH during anoestrus was lower than in the breeding season. The minimum effective dose of oestradiol required to decrease mean serum concentrations of FSH was lower in the first compared with the second breeding season. Oestradiol depression of LH pulse amplitude and mean serum concentrations of LH and FSH showed a dose dependency during the breeding season. During anoestrus dose dependency was seen for basal concentrations of LH and mean serum concentrations of LH and FSH. We conclude that significant chronic changes in gonadotrophin secretion occur in the ewe with time after ovariectomy. Sensitivity to oestradiol also changes, and the effects of oestradiol are not always dose dependent. We suggest that the circannual pattern of LH pulse frequency and basal LH secretion are directly linked to the circannual cycle of photoperiod. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
Performance Comparision of Vehicular Radar System between On-Road and Tunnel Space

Recently, vehicular radar systems are widely adopted to monitor various traffic accident situations on the road. Although the radar provides real-time object detection and high accuracy, it suffers from severe performance degradations when it is surrounded by unexpected obstacles such as traffic barrier and road side wall. In this paper, in order to analyze these problems, we conduct performance comparisons of the vehicular radar system between open road space and enclosed tunnel space. Through the experiment results, we confirm that the radar system is highly affected by neighboring structures and buildings. In addition, we also reveal that the performance of the radar system can be improved by tuning the view angle and height when it is installed.
Modeling of Rheological Object with Square or Cubic Finite Element

Rheological object, such as various food products and biological tissues, has both elastic and plastic proper ties. Modeling of rheological object has not been studied frequen tly comparing with the modeling of elastic one. Our previously developed FE models of rheological objects were based on trian gular or tetrahedra finite elements. In this paper, the FE model of rheological object formulated with square (2D) or cubic (3D) finite elements were presented. At first, the 2D FE model with square elements was formulated and was then extended to 3D ca se with cubic elements. The developed FE models were then utili zed to simulate regular shaped objects and computation cost and simulation results were compared with the results from triangularor tetrahedrabased models. We found that the FE model with square or cubic elements works as well as the model based on triangular or tetrahedra elements but can save computationcost with a speed-up ratio of about 30% in 2D or 50% in 3D cases.
Summarization Using Fuzzy Logic

The goal of text summarization is to generate summary of the original text that helps the user to quickly understand large volumes of information available in that text. This is an increasingly important task in the current era of information overload, given the huge amount of text available in documents. There are several ways in which one can characterize different approaches to text summarization: extractive and abstractive from single document or multi document. This paper focuses on the text summarization by sentence extraction. The first step in summarization by extraction is the identification of important features. In our experiment, we used 65 test documents in DUC2002 data set. Each document is prepared by preprocessing process: sentence segmentation, tokenization, removing stop word, and word stemming. Then, we use 8 important features and calculate their score for each sentence. We propose text summarization based on fuzzy logic to improve the quality of the summary created by the general statistic method. We compare our results with the baseline summarizer and Microsoft Word 2007 summarizers. The results show that the best average precision, recall, and f-measure for the summaries were obtained by fuzzy method.
Ecological speciation ! Or the lack thereof ? 1

Ecological speciation occurs when adaptation to different environments or resources causes the evolution of reproductive isolation. This process is now thought to be very important in the evolution of biological diversity. Indeed, support for ecological speciation is so often asserted in the literature that one can get the impression of ubiquity. Eager to ride on the coattails of this exciting work, my own research has investigated ecological speciation in guppies, sticklebacks, and Darwin’s finches. Much to my initial dismay, I failed to find simple and strong signatures of ecological speciation in the first two of these systems. Setting aside the possibility of personal incompetence, my apparent deviation from ubiquity might simply reflect an existing literature bias. This bias seems obvious in retrospect given that essentially all published studies of ecological speciation purport to be confirmatory, whereas many cases of divergent selection and adaptive divergence are associated with only weak to modest levels of reproductive isolation. In short, different populations can be arrayed along a continuum from panmixia to complete reproductive isolation. Variation along this continuum might profitably be used for studying factors, outlined herein, that can promote or constrain ‘‘progress’’ toward ecological specia-
WiCloud: Innovative uses of network data on smart campus

Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) aims to provide mobile and cloud computing capabilities within the radio access network, and emphasizes the openness of the internet which can transfer the real-time radio network information into context-related services. In this article, we research the state-of-the-art technology of mobile and cloud convergence, then propose WiCloud, a MEC platform, which integrates an edge data center into wireless network to provide edge networking, proximate computing and data acquisition for innovative services. Moreover, we do a series experiment to verify the performance of WiCloud, and according to the campus scenes, we developed four kinds of applications to demonstrate the capability of the ecosystem to promote the process of Smart Campus.
Value of symptoms and additional diagnostic tests for colorectal cancer in primary care: systematic review and meta-analysis

Objective To summarise available evidence on diagnostic tests that might help primary care physicians to identify patients with an increased risk for colorectal cancer among those consulting for non-acute lower abdominal symptoms. Data sources PubMed, Embase, and reference screening. Study eligibility criteria Studies were selected if the design was a diagnostic study; the patients were adults consulting because of non-acute lower abdominal symptoms; tests included signs, symptoms, blood tests, or faecal tests. Study appraisal and synthesis methods Two reviewers independently assessed quality with a modified version of the QUADAS tool and extracted data. We present diagnostic two by two tables and pooled estimates of sensitivity and specificity. We refrained from pooling when there was considerable clinical or statistical heterogeneity. Results 47 primary diagnostic studies were included. Sensitivity was consistently high for age ≥50 (range 0.81-0.96, median 0.91), a referral guideline (0.80-0.94, 0.92), and immunochemical faeces tests (0.70-1.00, 0.95). Of these, only specificity of the faeces tests was good. Specificity was consistently high for family history (0.75-0.98, 0.91), weight loss (0.72-0.96, 0.89), and iron deficiency anaemia (0.83-0.95, 0.92), but all tests lacked sensitivity. None of these six tests was (sufficiently) studied in primary care. Conclusions Although combinations of symptom and results of immunochemical faeces tests showed good diagnostic performance for colorectal cancer, evidence from primary care is lacking. High quality studies on their role in the diagnostic investigation of colorectal cancer in primary care are urgently needed.
Extralipid effects of hypolipidemic drugs – why do clinical trials weakly support experimental data ?

There are many experimental and clinical data confirming the inflammatory cause of atherosclerosis. It is in agreement with the commonly accepted, pathomorphological theory described as: “reaction to injury”. Connections between the concentration of proinflammatory cytokines, chemokines and serum lipoproteins are under current investigations. There are also attempts to compare amount of the above-mentioned molecules with atherosclerotic plaque dimentions and increased artery wall thickness. Much more promissing seems to be describing the role of inflammatory cell products in vascular risk stratification. Carefully planned, prospective observations of patients are of greatest value for reliable information. The role of multicenter clinical studies is smaller because of their strict end-points and methodological restrictions. Hence, the question has arisen whether adherents of large population trials and evidence-based medicine trust in value of single-center studies. How to reconcile the effectiveness of therapy based on large population trials with complicated methods of determination of proinflammatory factors? Restrictive inclusion criteria requiring accurate diagnosis of inflammation raise doubts. For some investigators, it is only preselection, which reduces the real value of achieved results. Anti-inflammatory and vasoprotective influence of hypolipidemic and hypotensive drugs is considered to be an important clinical supplementation to their basic mechanism of action. It cannot be ruled out that these additional effects of drugs are responsible for better outcomes in the treated patients. Generally, precise distinguishing the effects of different groups of drugs is usually impossible in circumstances of clinical trials. However, we can measure different molecules, hs-CRP assay represents the best choice at this time.
The electroencephalogram and cortical neural networks

The character of the EEG, its cellular sources, and its relationship to cognitive events are outlined. Then four theories of the EEG are discussed-the Amsterdam group's model of alpha activity, the Nunez model of global resonance, Freeman's model of oscillation in the cortical minicolumn, and the New Zealand group's stochastic model of EEG at millimetric scale. Experiments supporting these theories are outlined, including spatial and temporal characteristics of the alpha rhythm, velocities of EEG wave propagation, and phase relations of cell action potentials with EEG near 40 Hz.These theories are mutually consistent, differing only with regard to the scale of phenomenon accounted for. They imply that real cortical dynamic properties bear analogy to those of Hopfield networks, Boltzmann machines, and Amit probabilistic attractor networks. The cortex may be described as a system with a single instantaneous basin of attraction, the locus of the basin being subject to adiabatic control by brain-stem afferent.
Locality-based scheduling for shared-memory multiprocessors

The last decade has produced enormous improvements in microprocessor performance without a corresponding improvement in memory or interconnection network performance. As a result, the relative cost of communication in shared-memory multiprocessors has increased dramatically. Although many applications could ignore the cost of communication and still achieve good performance on the previous generations of shared-memory machines, good performance on modern machines requires that communication be reduced or eliminated. One way to reduce the need for communication is to use scheduling polices that exploit knowledge of the location of data when assigning processes to processors, improving locality of reference by co-locating a process with the data it will require. This chapter presents an overview of the tradeo s to be made in process scheduling, and evaluates locality-based scheduling techniques at the level of the operating system kernel, thread package, and parallelizing compiler.
Three-Manifold Invariants: Chern-Simons Field Theory with Real Gauge Groups

Invariants for framed unoriented links in S obtained from Chern-Simons gauge field theory based on an arbitrary real gauge group have been used to construct a threemanifold invariant. This is a generalization of a similar construction developed earlier for SU(2) Chern-Simons theory. The procedure exploits a theorem of Lickorish and Wallace and also those of Kirby, Fenn and Rourke which relate three-manifolds to surgeries on framed unoriented links. The invariant is an appropriate linear combination of link invariants which does not change under Kirby calculus. The invariant is related to the partition function of Chern-Simons theory. This thus provides an efficient method of evaluating the partition function for these field theories. As some examples, explicit computations of these manifold invariants for a few three-manifolds have been done.