Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Anticonvulsant effect of Persea americana Mill (Lauraceae) (Avocado) leaf aqueous extract in mice

Various morphological parts of Persea americana Mill (Lauraceae) (avocado) are widely used in African traditional medicines for the treatment, management and/or control of a variety of human ailments, including childhood convulsions and epilepsy. This study examined the anticonvulsant effect of the plant's leaf aqueous extract (PAE, 50–800 mg/kg i.p.) against pentylenetetrazole (PTZ)‐, picrotoxin (PCT)‐ and bicuculline (BCL)‐induced seizures in mice. Phenobarbitone and diazepam were used as reference anticonvulsant drugs for comparison. Like the reference anticonvulsant agents used, Persea americana leaf aqueous extract (PAE, 100–800 mg/kg i.p.) significantly (p < 0.05–0.001) delayed the onset of, and antagonized, pentylenetetrazole (PTZ)‐induced seizures. The plant's leaf extract (PAE, 100–800 mg/kg i.p.) also profoundly antagonized picrotoxin (PCT)‐induced seizures, but only weakly antagonized bicuculline (BCL)‐induced seizures. Although the data obtained in the present study do not provide conclusive evidence, it would appear that ‘avocado’ leaf aqueous extract (PAE) produces its anticonvulsant effect by enhancing GABAergic neurotransmission and/or action in the brain. The findings of this study indicate that Persea americana leaf aqueous extract possesses an anticonvulsant property, and thus lends pharmacological credence to the suggested ethnomedical uses of the plant in the management of childhood convulsions and epilepsy. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Advantages of extending wiki pages with knowledge-based recommendations

In this paper we present WeeVis, a knowledge-based recommender system embedded in a Wiki environment. Since Wikis are used since quite a long time for knowledge management and retrieval in many companies, we show how MediaWiki pages can be extended with knowledge bases for deriving recommendations for items. The WeeVis extension reduces the time to discover relevant information from Wiki pages by adding recommender functionality to the page content. Two examples (one from the e-government domain and one from the nutrition domain) of real world applications of WeeVis are shown and outline the advantages of the system.
TOWARDS A TABLE-TOP BOARD GAME FOR SOUTH AFRICAN HIGHER EDUCATION ACCOUNTANCY STUDENTS

A growing body of literature on undergraduate teaching and learning indicates that lecturers should constantly amend their teaching practices and pedagogical framework. Responses from the business world and the accounting profession indicate that lecturers should incorporate workplace skills, as well as the practical application of theory in their teaching practices. Teaching and learning research across disciplines suggests that the use of games in classrooms could not only address the skills required in practice, but also enhance students’ motivation to learn. The objective of this paper was to develop a table-top board game for accounting students to address the skills they require in the workplace, but also to apply theoretical concepts learnt by playing the game in order to motivate students to deepen their learning. This paper was designed as a locally bound case study. Accounting students, as research participants, played the custom-made table-top board game and later, by means of a questionnaire, reflected that they felt motivated to learn subject matter through playing the game. The game also inspired them to apply the theory they previously learnt in order to progress in and be successful in the game. The game was also conducive to developing other soft skills. The authors postulate that the use of a board game could change the way students learn, how students and lecturers interact with one another, as well as how lecturers adapt their approach to teaching and learning. The research indicates that using a board game for accountancy education could contribute towards the redesign of students’ classroom experiences.
Influence of Sperm and Phytoplankton on Spawning in the Echinoid Lytechinus variegatus

The cues triggering large-scale broadcast-spawning events in marine invertebrates are not fully understood. Using the sea urchin Lytechinus variegatus, we tested the effectiveness of a variety of potential spawning cues in eliciting a spawning response. In the laboratory, during two consecutive spawning seasons, about 400 isolated sea urchins were exposed to phytoplankton, sperm, or eggs, singly or in combination. The likelihood of spawning, time to spawning, and spawning behavior were recorded for both sexes. Sperm was most successful at inducing spawning. No response to eggs was noted. Phytoplankton alone did not trigger spawning, but when a phytoplankton cue was followed by the addition of sperm, spawning behavior was induced, the time between addition of sperm and spawning was reduced, and the variance among individuals in the time of spawning initiation was reduced. Males spawned sooner in response to cues than females and rarely spawned spontaneously in phytoplankton or control treatments. A semilunar pattern in the sensitivity to spawning cues was noted. During time periods when sea urchins were less ripe, the ratio of spawning males to spawning females increased. Our results indicate that seasonal and lunar cycles, together with the presence of phytoplankton, increase the sensitivity of these sea urchins to spawning cues and the precision of their responses to conspecific sperm.
Bayesian Indoor Navigation Aid for Users with Limited Perceptual Input

Indoor spatial navigation is a challenge for individuals with limited visual input (Low Vision) and can be a challenge for individuals with normal visual input in unfamiliar, complex environments. Although outdoor navigation can be achieved using Global Positioning Systems (GPS), these signals are not available for indoor navigation. We have developed an indoor navigation aid that uses a Bayesian approach (Partially Observable Markov Decision Process; POMDP) to localize and guide a user within an unfamiliar building. We describe the fundamental concept here, in addition to empirical evaluation of the system within virtual environments of varying sizes. Our findings show that the system improves performance when visual information is degraded and also improves performance under normal conditions in large, com-
Wen-Dan Decoction Improves Negative Emotions in Sleep-Deprived Rats by Regulating Orexin-A and Leptin Expression

Wen-Dan Decoction (WDD), a formula of traditional Chinese medicine, has been clinically used for treating insomnia for approximately 800 years. However, the therapeutic mechanisms of WDD remain unclear. Orexin-A plays a key role in the sleep-wake cycle, while leptin function is opposite to orexin-A. Thus, orexin-A and leptin may be important factors in sleep disorders. In this study, 48 rats were divided into control, model, WDD-treated, and diazepam-treated groups. The model of insomnia was produced by sleep deprivation (SD) for 14 days. The expressions of orexin-A, leptin, and their receptors in blood serum, prefrontal cortex, and hypothalamus were detected by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, immunohistochemistry, and real time PCR. Open field tests showed that SD increased both crossing movement (Cm) and rearing-movement (Rm) times. Orexin-A and leptin levels in blood serum increased after SD but decreased in brain compared to the control group. mRNA expressions of orexin receptor 1 and leptin receptor after SD were decreased in the prefrontal cortex but were increased in hypothalamus. WDD treatment normalized the behavior and upregulated orexin-A, leptin, orexin receptor 1 and leptin receptor in brain. The findings suggest that WDD treatment may regulate SD-induced negative emotions by regulating orexin-A and leptin expression.
Long term persistent accumulation of CD8+ T cells in synovial fluid of rheumatoid arthritis

OBJECTIVE To characterise the type and kinetics of T cell clones in synovial lesions of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). METHODS Mononuclear cells from serial samples of synovial fluid (SF) and peripheral blood from nine RA patients were separated phenotypically using antibody coated magnetic beads. After mRNA preparation, reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was performed to amplify V-D(N)-J (that is, the third complementarity determining, CDR3) regions of their T cell receptor beta chain genes. This was followed by single strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP) analysis to detect the clonotypes of accumulating T cells. Amino acid sequences of the dominant clones were also determined. RESULTS Although peripheral T cells were heterogeneous, accumulation of oligoclonal T cells was detected in SF. The predominant accumulating clone was the CD8 subset, which was persistently present in serial samples obtained over almost one year of follow up. A proportion of these cells expressed CD25 or CD45RO, or both, suggesting they are ‘memory’ clones. CONCLUSION The persistent presence of CD8+ T cell clones in RA joints indicates that they may be involved in the perpetuation of the chronic inflammatory process in RA joints.
On-Web Encyclopedia of Genome Profiles (On-Web GP) for Species-Identification for All Organisms

Traditionally, identification of species has been carried out based on phenotypes. However, genotype based species identification is more promising especially in microbiology because of the fact that microbes, generally have few easily-accessible features, are difficult to observe, are often impossible to cultivate, and exhibit aberrant behaviors under different conditions [1]. Recently we demonstrated that genotype based species-identification could be achieved universally by Genome profiling [2]. Furthermore, we showed that a rich amount of information of genome profiles could be expressed quantitatively by introducing species identification dots (spiddos) and pattern similarity score (PaSS) (see Fig. 1) [3]. On the other hand, we have been pursuing the universal protocol and a high-throughput method for Genome profiling [4]. Combining these together with the Internet technology, here we present an on-web database system for genotype-based species-identification, where the information on query genome profiles can be obtained: identification of species and the knowledge of neighborhood species [5].
Dust in Spiral Galaxies: Comparing Emission and Absorption to Constrain Small-Scale and Very Cold Structures

The detailed distribution of dust in the disks of spiral galaxies is important to understanding the radiative transfer within disks and to measuring overall dust masses if significant quantities of dust are either very opaque or very cold. We address this issue by comparing measures of dust absorption, using the galaxy-overlap technique in the optical, with measures of the dust grains' thermal emission from 50–2000 μm, using ISOPHOT on board Infrared Space Observatory (ISO) and SCUBA at the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope. We examine three spiral galaxies projected partially in front of E/S0 galaxies: AM 1316-241, NGC 5545, and NGC 5091 (for NGC 5091 we have only optical and ISO data). Adopting an empirical exponential model for the dust distribution, we compare column densities and dust masses derived from the absorption and emission techniques. This comparison is sensitive to the amount of dust mass in small, opaque structures, which would not contribute strongly to area-weighted absorption measures, and to very cold dust, which would contribute to optical absorption but provide only a small fraction of the submillimeter emission. In AM 1316-241, we find global dust masses of 2–5 × 107 M⊙, with the two techniques agreeing at the 50% level. NGC 5545 has about half this dust mass. The concordance of dust masses is well within the errors expected from our knowledge of the radial distribution of dust and argues against any dominant part of the dust mass being so cold or opaque. The 50–2000 μm data are well fitted by modified Planck functions with an emissivity law β = -2, at 21 ± 2 K; a modest contribution from warmer dust is required to fit only the 50 μm measurement of NGC 5545. We incorporate empirical corrections to the flux scale of ISOPHOT P32 data, which can reach a factor 2 from comparison of IRAS and ISO fluxes for objects in two programs. We also present 12 μm ISOCAM observations of these pairs. The light profiles at this wavelength exhibit shorter disk scale lengths than in the optical. Comparison of Hα and 12 μm images of NGC 5545 indicate that ISOCAM images are reliable tracers of star formation.
Concurrent Data Structures

Data structures are an important component of efficient and well-structured programs. In shared memory distributed computing, correct data structures are difficult to construct because concurrent accesses by different processes can conflict with one another. One simple approach is to use a global lock to restrict access to one process at a time. But this can severely affect performance. This talk will present a survey of some of the interesting techniques that have been developed to build efficient concurrent data structures. It will also discuss how we think concurrent data structures should be evaluated.
Automated question answering for customer helpdesk applications

This paper describes a closed domain question answering system which can be used as the first step in automating a customer helpdesk of a commercial organization. Even though there has been an increasing interest in data-driven methods over the past decade to achieve more natural human-machine interactions, such methods require a large amount of manually labeled representative data on how user converses with a machine. However, this is a strong requirement that is difficult to be satisfied in the early phase of system development. The knowledge-based approach that we present here is aimed at maximally making use of the user experience available with the customer services representatives (CSRs) in the organization and hence not relying on application data. The approach takes into account the syntactic, lexical, and morphological variations, as well as a way of synonym transduction that is allowed to vary over the systems knowledgebase. The query understanding method, which is based on a ranking algorithm and a pattern writing process, takes into account the intent, context, and content components of natural language meaning as well as the word order. A genetic algorithm-based method is presented for regularly updating the ranking parameters to adapt to changes in the nature of users' queries over time. We present an evaluation of our system deployed in a real-world enterprise helpdesk environment at Exetel Pty Ltd., Australia.
Prediction of PEF and LITH logs using MRGC approach

The Fuzzy logic method offers superior log estimation properties for a large class of well log functions and has been employed as a standard tool in formation evaluation of Oil production zones. However it suffers from spurious behavior in the vicinity of edge trends in log signals. In this article, we used The MULTI-RESOLUTION GRAPH-BASED CLUSTERIN (MRGC) Supervised framework for obtaining lithology properties from PEF & LITH logs that estimated in one of the Well (D) in the field since there is no core data in most wells. Estimations are performed from basic information and model logs of another well (A), including RHOB, NPHI, DT, PHIE, and NDS. Taking advantage of this framework, we show that it is feasible to recover log data from a relatively accurate method especially in inhomogeneous formation than the Fuzzy logic method. (Mahdi Pabakhsh, Kamyar Ahmadi, Mohammad Ali Riahi and Abbas Abbaszadeh Shahri. Prediction of PEF and LITH logs using MRGC approach. Life Sci J 2012;9(4):974-982) (ISSN:1097-8135). http://www.lifesciencesite. com. 150
Interaction between Bone Marrow Mesenchymal Stem Cells and Neural Stem Cells Growing in Calcium Alginate Beads

The repair of central nervous system (CNS) disorders, such as Parkinson's disease (PD) and spinal cord injury, is difficult. Neural stem cells (NSCs) transplantation is believed to be effective in the treatment of neural diseases [1] , however, NSCs are limited and difficult to be isolated from brain. Bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) are a new cell source to CNS diseases for the cells possessing the advantages of multi-differentiation potentials [2] , weaker immunogenicity, easy obtaining and expansion, and secreting cytokines in in vivo microenvironment [3] . In this work, the interaction between BMSCs and NSCs in vitro were investigated to provide experimental evidences for therapy or repair of CNS diseases or injuries via BMSCs transplantation.
Improved Edge Awareness in Discontinuity Preserving Smoothing

Discontinuity preserving smoothing is a fundamentally important procedure that is useful in a wide variety of image processing contexts. It is directly useful for noise reduction, and frequently used as an intermediate step in higher level algorithms. For example, it can be particularly useful in edge detection and segmentation. Three well known algorithms for discontinuity preserving smoothing are nonlinear anisotropic diffusion, bilateral filtering, and mean shift filtering. Although slight differences make them each better suited to different tasks, all are designed to preserve discontinuities while smoothing. However, none of them satisfy this goal perfectly: they each have exception cases in which smoothing may occur across hard edges. The principal contribution of this paper is the identification of a property we call edge awareness that should be satisfied by any discontinuity preserving smoothing algorithm. This constraint can be incorporated into existing algorithms to improve quality, and usually has negligible changes in runtime performance and/or complexity. We present modifications necessary to augment diffusion and mean shift, as well as a new formulation of the bilateral filter that unifies the spatial and range spaces to achieve edge awareness.
Do plain packaging and pictorial warnings affect smokers' and non-smokers' behavioral intentions?

This research considers how tobacco warnings, plain packaging and interactions between these measures affect behavioral intentions. While existing literature shows the superiority of pictorial warning labels (PWLs) versus text-only tobacco warnings, few studies have examined the interaction effects of warnings and plain packaging on smoking intentions. Nor has earlier work examined the influence of smoking status (smoker vs non-smoker) on both warning and plain packaging effectiveness. Our experimental study addressed this gap by surveying 338 individuals using a factorial design with two manipulated factors (PWLs vs text-only warnings; plain pack vs current branded tobacco pack). Results show that the plain pack and warnings work independently and in unison to influence smokers’ and non-smokers’ behavioral intentions. The findings are particularly relevant to the many countries currently considering plain packaging and facing opposition from tobacco companies.
Bidding Among Friends and Enemies

We consider an auction setting in which potential buyers, even if they fail to obtain the good, care about the price paid by the winner. We study the impact of these price-externalities on the first-price auction and the second-price auction in a symmetric information framework. First, we consider situations in which bidders care about the price paid independently from the identity of the winner. We prove that the first-price auction is not affected by this kind of price-externalities while the second-price auction is. In broader specifications, we observe though that the first-price auction can be affected by the presence of such price-externalities. In any case, in comparison with the first-price auction, the second-price auction exacerbates the effects of price-externalities whatever their types. Therefore, there is no revenue equivalence between the two auction formats.
The macroeconomic effects of oil price shock under different monetary policy rules on euro area and selected Asian countries

The fundamental of this study is to investigate the effect of oil price shocks on macroeconomic activities and how monetary policy responds to oil price shock on macroeconomic activities between the Euro Area and selected Asian countries. The empirical study uses time series data for the period of 1980 quarter one to 2010 quarter four which was obtained from various sources. In order to carry out a more thorough analysis, various restrictions are formed by using different monetary policy tools to observe the impact on the macroeconomic activities. In this study, two baseline and eight restrictions which can be differentiated into two different monetary policy tools. The econometric model is estimated by using the SVAR approach to find out the short-run and long-run responses of macroeconomic variables to oil price shock within these two regions. The result shows that the inflation rate of Euro Area respond the most towards oil price shock in comparison to Asian countries. However, the response of Real Gross Domestic Product (RGDP) and Nominal Effective Exchange Rate (NEER) for Japan is increasing but that is not the case for other countries even Euro Area. Later on, with the inclusion of monetary policy tools, Asian countries responses is less significant compare to Euro Area‟s inflation when the restrictions of all macroeconomic variables responses are included. Asian countries are indifferent or alternatively there are no significant changes whether monetary policy tool steps in or intervenes. THE MACROECONOMIC EFFECTS OF OIL PRICE SHOCK UNDER DIFFERENT MONETARY POLICY RULES ON EURO AREA AND SELECTED ASIAN COUNTRIES Page 2 of 125 Undergraduate Research Project Faculty of Business and Finance CHAPTER 1: RESEARCH OVERVIEW
The photometric calibration of the ISO Short Wavelength Spectrometer

We give an overview of the photometric calibration of the Short Wavelength Spectrometer (SWS) through the Per- formance Verification phase. The basic strategy for deriving absolute flux densities from detector output for the grating and Fabry-Perot sections of SWS is reviewed, and the results are demonstrated with 2.4 - 45 m spectra of representative stan- dards Dra, Lyr, and Cru. The effects of in-orbit changes in the relative spectral response function (RSRF) and ISO pointing are discussed. The systematic continuum flux level uncertain- ties (1 ) are within the pre-launch specification of 30%. Further improvements depend on characterization of the in-orbit RSRF, improved performance of ISO pointing, and new data process- ing techniques.