Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Single and Multiple Visual Systems in Arthropods

Extraction of two visual pigments from crayfish eyes prompted an electrophysiological examination of the role of visual pigments in the compound eyes of six arthropods. The intact animals were used; in crayfishes isolated eyestalks also. Thresholds were measured in terms of the absolute or relative numbers of photons per flash at various wavelengths needed to evoke a constant amplitude of electroretinogram, usually 50 µv. Two species of crayfish, as well as the green crab, possess blue- and red-sensitive receptors apparently arranged for color discrimination. In the northern crayfish, Orconectes virilis, the spectral sensitivity of the dark-adapted eye is maximal at about 550 mµ, and on adaptation to bright red or blue lights breaks into two functions with λmax respectively at about 435 and 565 mµ, apparently emanating from different receptors. The swamp crayfish, Procambarus clarkii, displays a maximum sensitivity when dark-adapted at about 570 mµ, that breaks on color adaptation into blue- and red-sensitive functions with λmax about 450 and 575 mµ, again involving different receptors. Similarly the green crab, Carcinides maenas, presents a dark-adapted sensitivity maximal at about 510 mµ that divides on color adaptation into sensitivity curves maximal near 425 and 565 mµ. Each of these organisms thus possesses an apparatus adequate for at least two-color vision, resembling that of human green-blinds (deuteranopes). The visual pigments of the red-sensitive systems have been extracted from the crayfish eyes. The horse-shoe crab, Limulus, and the lobster each possesses a single visual system, with λmax respectively at 520 and 525 mµ. Each of these is invariant with color adaptation. In each case the visual pigment had already been identified in extracts. The spider crab, Libinia emarginata, presents another variation. It possesses two visual systems apparently differentiated, not for color discrimination but for use in dim and bright light, like vertebrate rods and cones. The spectral sensitivity of the dark-adapted eye is maximal at about 490 mµ and on light adaptation, whether to blue, red, or white light, is displaced toward shorter wavelengths in what is essentially a reverse Purkinje shift. In all these animals dark adaptation appears to involve two phases: a rapid, hyperbolic fall of log threshold associated probably with visual pigment regeneration, followed by a slow, almost linear fall of log threshold that may be associated with pigment migration.
Serum Level of Interleukin 17 in Patients with Erosive and Non erosive Oral Lichen Planus

Background and aims Oral lichen planus is a relatively common chronic oral mucosal disease of unknown etiology. Regarding numerous studies on the immunologic factors involved in the etiology of lichen planus, the present study evaluated the serum interleukin-17 (IL-17) level in patients with erosive and non-erosive oral lichen planus. Materials and methods This descriptive analytical study included 24 patients with erosive oral lichen planus (EOLP), 24 patients with non-erosive oral lichen planus (NEOLP) and 24 healthy volunteered as control. Blood samples of the subjects underwent ELISA, using special kits, to determine serum interleukin-17 levels. Data was analyzed using with descriptive statistic, chi-square test, and one-way ANOVA and Tukey post-hoc test with SPSS 16 software. Results EOLP patients showed a high level of serum IL-17 compared with NEOLP patents and control groups (EOLP=184.16 ± 12.41 pg/mL, NEOLP=106.09±10.78 pg/mL, control=15.50 ± 4.34 pg/mL, P - 0.001). Conclusion High level of serum IL-17 in erosive oral lichen planus patients compared to the non-erosive type and healthy individuals may be the reason for higher inflammation and atrophy in the erosive type.
Overview of some patterns for architecting and managing composite web services

The composition of Web services has gained a considerable momentum as a paradigm for enabling Business-to-Business (B2B) Collaborations. Numerous technologies supporting this new paradigm are rapidly emerging, thereby creating a need for methodologies that bring these technologies together. The identification and documentation of relevant patterns, both at the analysis and design levels, is an important step in this direction.
Cryptography from Anonymity

There is a vast body of work on implementing anonymous communication. In this paper, we study the possibility of using anonymous communication as a building block, and show that one can leverage on anonymity in a variety of cryptographic contexts. Our results go in two directions. middot Feasibility. We show that anonymous communication over insecure channels can be used to implement unconditionally secure point-to-point channels, broadcast, and general multi-party protocols that remain unconditionally secure as long as less than half of the players are maliciously corrupted. middot Efficiency. We show that anonymous channels can yield substantial efficiency improvements for several natural secure computation tasks. In particular, we present the first solution to the problem of private information retrieval (PIR) which can handle multiple users while being close to optimal with respect to both communication and computation
A High Girth Graph Construction

We give a deterministic algorithm that constructs a graph of girth logk(n) + O(1) and minimum degree k-1, taking number of nodes n and number of edges $e = {\left \lfloor nk / 2 \right \rfloor }$ (where $k < \frac {n}{3}$) as input. The degree of each node is guaranteed to be k-1, k, or k+1, where k is the average degree. Although constructions that achieve higher values of girth---up to $\frac {4}{3} \log_{k-1}{(n)}$---with the same number of edges are known, the proof of our construction uses only very simple counting arguments in comparison. Our method is very simple and perhaps the most intuitive: We start with an initially empty graph and keep introducing edges one by one, connecting vertices which are at large distances in the current graph. In comparison with the Erdos--Sachs proof, ours is slightly simpler while the value it achieves is slightly lower. Also, our algorithm works for all values of n and $k < \frac {n}{3}$, unlike most of the earlier constructions.
Joint disparity and motion field estimation in stereoscopic image sequences

This work aims at determining, given two stereoscopic image sequences, at any time instant two dense velocity fields, for the left and the right sequence, and the disparity field. The disparity field of the previous stereoscopic pair is considered as known. Thus at the initial time instant the disparity field of the first stereoscopic pair is estimated. For both problems multiscale iterative relaxation algorithms are used. Results are given with real stereoscopic data.
Increases in Blood Pressure and Heart Rate Induced by Caffeine are Inhibited by (−)-Epigallocatechin-3-O-gallate: Involvement of Catecholamines

In a previous experiment, (−)-epigallocatechin-3-O-gallate (EGCG) reduced caffeine-induced locomotor activity and stereotyped behaviors and inhibited caffeine-induced neuronal stimulant activity. This research was performed to give additional evidence that EGCG counteracts caffeine-induced stimulant effects in animals. EGCG inhibited caffeine-induced cardiovascular activation measures, such as arterial pressure and heart rate. In addition, the increases in the levels of adrenaline and noradrenaline in the blood induced by caffeine was reduced by EGCG. We suggest that EGCG may reduce caffeine-induced increases in blood pressure and heart rate and may decrease the levels of catecholamines in the blood. Therefore, EGCG counteracts caffeine-induced cardiovascular activity. The stimulant effects of caffeine should be reduced by the amount of EGCG in green tea.
Control of biodegradation of magnesium (Mg) alloys for medical applications

Abstract: Magnesium-based metals, including pure magnesium and its alloys, are becoming increasingly popular in the medical industry due to the fact that they are biodegradable. This chapter briefly introduces the concept of biodegradable magnesium-based metals and their advantages as a new class of metallic biomaterials. Relevant research progress is summarized, especially the corrosion control of magnesium-based metals by appropriate surface modification, which is a key issue for clinical applications.
Randomized clinical trial of continuous transversus thoracis muscle plane block for patients undergoing open heart valve replacement surgery

Abstract The optimal analgesia regimen after open cardiac surgery is unclear. The aim of this study was to investigate the beneficial effects of continuous transversus thoracis muscle plane (TTMP) blocks initiated before surgery on open cardiac surgery outcomes. A group of 110 patients were randomly allocated to either receive bilateral continuous TTMP blocks (TTP group) or no nerve block (SAL group). The primary endpoint was post‐operative pain at 4, 8, 16, 24, 48 and 72 h after extubation at rest and exercise. The secondary outcome measures included analgesia requirements (sufentanil and flurbiprofen axetil administration), time to extubation, incidence of reintubation, length of stay in the ICU, incidence of post‐operative nausea and vomiting (PONV), time until return of bowel function, time to mobilization, urinary catheter removal and length of hospital stay. The length of stay in the ICU and length of hospital stay were significantly longer in the SAL group than in the TTP group. NRS scores at rest and exercise were significantly lower in the TTP group than in the SAL group at all time points. The TTP group required significantly less intraoperative and post‐operative sufentanil and post‐operative dynastat consumption than the SAL group. Time to extubation, time to first flatus, time until mobilization and time until urinary catheter removal were significantly earlier in the TTP group than in the SAL group. The incidence of PONV was significantly lower in the TTP group. Bilateral continuous TTMP blocks provide effective analgesia and accelerate recovery in patients undergoing open heart valve replacement surgery.
Low Mood Leads to Increased Empathic Distress at Seeing Others’ Pain

Previous studies have shown changes in empathy in patients with depression, including an elevated level of trait personal distress. This study examined if low mood causes changes in self-reported empathic distress when seeing others in pain. To test this, we conducted an initial (n = 26) and close replication study (n = 46) in which sad mood was induced in healthy participants (overall mean age M = 21, SD = 5, range = 18–41 years). Participants viewed and rated video stimuli inferring pain experienced by other people. Results showed that participants perceived the videos depicting others’ pain (versus no-pain) to be more distressing under a sad mood compared to a neutral mood condition, implying that sadness enhances one’s emotional reactivity toward others’ distress. This supports previous depression literature suggesting an impaired emotional processing ability, and could contribute to some of the unhelpful behaviors seen in depression such as social withdrawal and avoidance.
Plasmids pMOL28 and pMOL30 of Cupriavidus metallidurans Are Specialized in the Maximal Viable Response to Heavy Metals

ABSTRACT We fully annotated two large plasmids, pMOL28 (164 open reading frames [ORFs]; 171,459 bp) and pMOL30 (247 ORFs; 233,720 bp), in the genome of Cupriavidus metallidurans CH34. pMOL28 contains a backbone of maintenance and transfer genes resembling those found in plasmid pSym of C. taiwanensis and plasmid pHG1 of C. eutrophus, suggesting that they belong to a new class of plasmids. Genes involved in resistance to the heavy metals Co(II), Cr(VI), Hg(II), and Ni(II) are concentrated in a 34-kb region on pMOL28, and genes involved in resistance to Ag(I), Cd(II), Co(II), Cu(II), Hg(II), Pb(II), and Zn(II) occur in a 132-kb region on pMOL30. We identified three putative genomic islands containing metal resistance operons flanked by mobile genetic elements, one on pMOL28 and two on pMOL30. Transcriptomic analysis using quantitative PCR and microarrays revealed metal-mediated up-regulation of 83 genes on pMOL28 and 143 genes on pMOL30 that coded for all known heavy metal resistance proteins, some new heavy metal resistance proteins (czcJ, mmrQ, and pbrU), membrane proteins, truncated transposases, conjugative transfer proteins, and many unknown proteins. Five genes on each plasmid were down-regulated; for one of them, chrI localized on pMOL28, the down-regulation occurred in the presence of five cations. We observed multiple cross-responses (induction of specific metal resistance by other metals), suggesting that the cellular defense of C. metallidurans against heavy metal stress involves various regulons and probably has multiple stages, including a more general response and a more metal-specific response.
CTD : A Compiler Translation Debugger Using Interspersed Code

All rights to this work released under the Creative Commons Zero Waiver. Abstract As domain-specific languages multiply, more tool support is needed to support compiler production. One major obstacle is debugging incorrect compiler translations. We built an interface prototype for a debugger that intersperses high-level source code with the low-level target code emitted by the compiler. The two versions can be stepped through in tandem and data in both versions can be examined, allowing inconsistencies to be pinpointed. Preliminary evaluations with compilers written using the SEJITS framework show users prefer the new debugger interface, use the add watch feature more, and exhibit unique debugging behaviors when using the tool.
Ecotoxicology and Biomarkers For Assessing Health Risks In Exposure To Agrochemicals

Interindividual variation in response to agrochemicals and their potential toxic effects is mediated by intrinsic and extrinsic factors. The intrinsic variations stem from inherited predispositions exemplified in different blood groupings, immunoantigens, metabolic activation and detoxification, and DNA extrinsic factors include the geographical climatic variations, background of infectious diseases, heath sanitaion, socioenvironmental stresses and standard of living. Populations in developing countries have their own genetical trait characteristics where some genetic diseases are more dominant e.g. sickle cell anemia such as schistosomiasis and hepatitis viruses are more abundant in the poor sanitation conditions of the third world countries. These unfavorable genetic and ecological factors when interacting synergistically together will render the people in the developing countries at higher risk because of high susceptibility to exposure and health hazards of agrochemicals. Highly susceptible population groups in general and those in the third world in particular, require specific biomarkers to measure and assess the agrochemicals. In this review, attemps are made to address such specific biomarkers needed to detect and to evaluate the levels of susceptibility, exposure and adverse health effects of agrochemicals with special reference to pesticides in developing countries. Hazards of Transported and Bioaccumulated Toxic Residues 1. Pollution Transported by the Atmosphere Synthetic chemicals, e.g. DDT and PCBs are concentrated by high-lipid marine organisms. Such substances are sometimes found in the surface microlayers in association with films and microorganisms. , J. Agric. & Env. Sci. Alex. Univ., Egypt. Vol. 2 ( 1 ) 2003
All-optical regenerator with re-polarization function based on dual optical injection VCSEL

We propose a novel optical-regenerator based on two-transverse mode VCSEL with dual optical-injection locking. The nonlinear transfer function in input-output characteristics enables us to reshape the degraded input signal. In addition, the polarization state of the output signal can be tightly controlled. The CW assist light injected into the fundamental transverse mode increases the speed and stabilizes the polarization of the output light at the same time. A possibility of 4R (3R+Re-polarization) regeneration at 10 Gbps is suggested.
Comparison Machine Learning Algorithms for Recognition of Epileptic Seizures in EEG

The aim of this study is to diagnose epileptic seizures by using dif- ferent machine learning algorithms. For this purpose, the frequency compo- nents of the EEG are extracted by using the discrete wavelet transform (DWT) and parametric methods based on autoregressive (AR) model. Both these two feature extraction methods are applied to the input of machine learning classifi- cation algorithms such as Artificial Neural Networks (ANN), Naive Bayesian, k-Nearest Neighbor (k-NN), Support Vector Machines (SVM) and k-Means. The results show that k-NN, ANN and SVM were the most efficient method ac- cording to test processing of both DWT and AR as feature extraction for recog- nition of epileptic seizures in EEG.
A Novel Function for the Cathepsin D Inhibitor in Tomato1

Proteinaceous aspartic proteinase inhibitors are rare in nature and are described in only a few plant species. One of them corresponds to a family of cathepsin D inhibitors (CDIs) described in potato (Solanum tuberosum), involving up to 15 isoforms with a high sequence similarity. In this work, we describe a tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) wound-inducible protein called jasmonic-induced protein 21 (JIP21). Sequence analysis of its cDNA predicted a putative function as a CDI. The JIP21 gene, whose protein has been demonstrated to be glycosylated, is constitutively expressed in flowers, stem, and fruit, and is inducible to high levels by wounding and methyl jasmonate in leaves of tomato plants. The genomic sequence of JIP21 shows that the gene is intronless and reveals the presence of both a methyl jasmonate box (TGACT) and a G-box (CACGT) in the promoter. In contrast to the presumed role of JIP21 based on sequence analysis, a detailed biochemical characterization of the purified protein uncovers a different function as a strong chymotrypsin inhibitor, which questions the previously predicted inhibitory activity against aspartic proteinases. Moreover, Egyptian cotton worm (Spodoptera littoralis) larvae fed on transgenic tomato plants overexpressing JIP21 present an increase in mortality and a delay in growth when compared with larvae fed on wild-type plants. These larvae belong to the Lepidoptera family whose main digestive enzymes have been described as being Ser proteases. All these results support the notion that tomato JIP21 should be considered as a chymotrypsin inhibitor belonging to the Ser proteinase inhibitors rather than a CDI. Therefore, we propose to name this protein tomato chymotrypsin inhibitor 21 (TCI21).
Outlier Detection In Financial Statements:A Text Mining Method

This paper presents a text mining methodology to extract outlying knowledge from a collection of financial statements. The main idea is to extract relevant financial performance indicators and discover implicit textual description of the indicators. The extracted information was represented using a network language i.e. conceptual graph. Outlier mining was performed on the conceptual graph representation using a deviation based method. Experiments were carried out to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed method. Results show that the proposed method is able to excerpt outlying knowledge from the financial statements with accuracy comparable to human experts.
Tool supported real-time system verification with combination of abstraction/deduction and model checking. (Abstractions booléennes pour la vérification des systèmes temps-réel)

Cette these presente un schema formel et efficace pour la verification de systemes temps-reel. Ce schema repose sur la combinaison par abstraction de techniques deductives et de model checking, et cette combinaison permet de contourner les limites de chacune de ces techniques. La methode utilise le raffinement iteratif abstrait (IAR) pour le calcul d'abstractions finies. Etant donne un systeme de transitions et un ensemble fini de predicats, la methode determine une abstraction booleenne dont les etats correspondent a des ensembles de predicats. La correction de l'abstraction par rapport au systeme d'origine est garantie en etablissant un ensemble de conditions de verification, issues de la procedure IAR. Ces conditions sont a demontrer a l'aide d'un prouveur de theoremes. Les proprietes de surete et de vivacite sont ensuite verifiees par rapport au modele abstrait. La procedure IAR termine lorsque toutes les conditions sont verifiees. Dans le cas contraire, une analyse plus fine determine si le modele abstrait doit etre affine en considerant davantage de predicats. Nous identifions une classe de diagrammes de predicats appeles PDT (predicate diagram for timed system) qui decrivent l'abstraction et qui peuvent etre utilises pour la verification de systemes temporises et parametres.
Ixekizumab, an interleukin-17A specific monoclonal antibody, for the treatment of biologic-naive patients with active psoriatic arthritis: results from the 24-week randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled and active (adalimumab)-controlled period of the phase III trial SPIRIT-P1

Objective To assess the safety and efficacy of ixekizumab, a monoclonal antibody that inhibits interleukin-17A, in a double-blind phase III trial enrolling patients with active psoriatic arthritis (PsA). Methods Patients naive to biologic therapy with active PsA were randomised to subcutaneous injections of placebo (N=106), adalimumab 40 mg once every 2 weeks (active reference; N=101), ixekizumab 80 mg once every 2 weeks (IXEQ2W) (N=103), or ixekizumab 80 mg once every 4 weeks (IXEQ4W) (N=107). Both ixekizumab regimens included a 160-mg starting dose. The primary objective was to assess the superiority of IXEQ2W or IXEQ4W versus placebo as measured by the proportion of patients achieving an American College of Rheumatology 20 (ACR20) response at week 24. Results Significantly more patients treated with ixekizumab achieved an ACR20 response with IXEQ2W (62.1%) or IXEQ4W (57.9%) than placebo (30.2%) (p≤0.001; non-responder imputation method). Disease activity and functional disability were significantly improved with both ixekizumab doses versus placebo at weeks 12 and 24, and there was significantly less progression of structural damage at week 24 (p≤0.01). Clearance of plaque psoriasis was greater with ixekizumab than placebo (p≤0.001). Efficacy results with adalimumab, the active reference arm, showed significant improvements versus placebo. Treatment-emergent adverse events were more frequent with ixekizumab (65.7–66.4%) and adalimumab (64.4%) than placebo (47.2%) (p<0.05). Conclusions In biologic-naive patients with active PsA, ixekizumab treatment resulted in improvements in disease activity and physical function, as well as in the inhibition of structural damage progression. Overall, adverse events were more frequent in all active groups compared with placebo. Trial registration number NCT01695239; EudraCT2011-002326-49; Results.