Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Highly potent and selective inhibition of human immunodeficiency virus by the bicyclam derivative JM3100

Bicyclams, in which the cyclam (1,4,8,11-tetraazacyclotetradecane) moieties are tethered via an aliphatic bridge (i.e., propylene, as in JM2763) are potent and selective inhibitors of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) and type 2 (HIV-2) (E. De Clercq, N. Yamamoto, R. Pauwels, M. Baba, D. Schols, H. Nakashima, J. Balzarini, Z. Debyser, B. A. Murrer, D. Schwartz, D. Thornton, G. Bridger, S. Fricker, G. Henson, M. Abrams, and D. Picker, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 89:5286-5290, 1992). We have now found that the bicyclam JM3100, in which the cyclam moieties are tethered by an aromatic bridge [i.e., phenylenebis(methylene)], inhibits the replication of various HIV-1 and HIV-2 strains in various cell lines at a 50% effective concentration (EC50) of 1 to 10 ng/ml, which is about 100-fold lower than the concentration required for JM2763 to inhibit HIV replication and at least 100,000-fold lower than the cytotoxic concentration (> 500 micrograms/ml). In primary T4 lymphocytes or primary monocytes, JM3100 proved inhibitory to HIV-1(IIIB) and several clinical HIV-1 isolates at an EC50 of less than 1 ng/ml. On the basis of time-of-addition experiments, JM3100 appeared to interact with a viral uncoating event, and this was further corroborated by an uncoating assay in which RNase sensitivity of [5-3H]uridine-labeled virions was monitored. In addition, but possibly mechanistically related, JM3100 blocks formation of infectious particles. JM3100 was also found to interfere directly with virus-induced syncytium formation, albeit at a higher concentration (1 to 2 microgram/ml) than that required for inhibition of viral replication. Following subcutaneous injection of 10 mg of JM3100 per kg of body weight to rabbits, anti-HIV activity was detected in serum corresponding to serum drug levels exceeding for at least 6 h by >100-fold the EC(50) required to inhibit HIV replication in vitro. When combined with either 3'-azido-2',3' -dideoxythymidine or 2',3' -dideoxyinosine, JM3100 achieved a additive inhibition of HIV replication, and when repeatedly subcultivated in the presence of JM3100, the virus remained sensitive to the compound for at least 30 passages (120 days) in cell culture.
Breast cancer screening: false positive rate is lower in older women

EDITOR —Werneke and McPherson1 question the detection rates of cancer observed in the breast screening programme in East Sussex, Brighton, and Hove that we reported in our recent paper.2 They suggest that these are the result of a high proportion of false positive screens. It is unfortunate that they did not consult us beforehand. The paper gives results of an ongoing study, but …
Low-Volume PFC Rectifier Based on Nonsymmetric Multilevel Boost Converter

This paper introduces a digitally controlled single-phase rectifier with power factor correction (PFC) based on a modified three-level boost converter topology. In comparison with the conventional boost-based systems, the new PFC rectifier has about three times smaller inductor and significantly lower switching losses. The improvements are achieved by replacing the output capacitor of the boost converter with a nonsymmetric active capacitive divider, with a 3:1 division ratio, and by utilizing the downstream converter stage for the capacitive divider's center-tap voltage regulation. The nonsymmetric voltage divider and applied switching sequence effectively provide four-level converter behavior using the same number of components as three-level converters. As a result, a 66% reduction of the inductor compared to the conventional boost-based PFC and a 33% compared to the standard three-level solutions operating at the same effective switching frequencies are also achieved. Experimental results obtained with a 400 W, 200 kHz, universal input voltage (85 Vrms-265 Vrms) PFC prototype demonstrate three times smaller inductor current ripple than that of the conventional boost converter allowing for the same inductor reduction. Efficiency improvements of up to a 6% are also demonstrated.
Chapter 3 PRIVATE MATCHING

Consider two organizations that wish to privately match data. They want to find common data elements (or perform a join) over two databases without revealing private information. This was the premise of a recent paper by Agrawal, Evfimievski, and Srikant. We show that Agrawal et al. only examined one point in a much larger problem set and we critique their results. We set the problem in a broader context by considering three independent design criteria and two independent threat model factors, for a total of five orthogonal dimensions of analysis. Novel contributions include a taxonomy of design criteria for private matching , a secure data ownership certificate that can attest to the proper ownership of data in a database, a set of new private matching protocols for a variety of different scenarios together with a full security analysis. We conclude with a list of open problems in the area.
BUILDING PAY ENVIRONMENTS TO FACILITATE HIGH-PERFORMANCE TEAMS

Because of the complexity of quality improvement, teamwork and collaboration are essential to making quality initiatives successful. To be credible, quality initiatives as well as employee teams must generate measurable, meaningful results to demonstrate that the time and energy expended is worth the effort. Teams must progress beyond the process and training elements of quality to attain organizational goals.
A tradeoff between safety and liveness for randomized coordinated attack protocols

Attack Protocols George Varghese* Nancy A. Lynch Laboratory for Computer Science Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, MA 02139 t We study randomized, synchronous protocols for coordinated attack. Such protocols trade offthe number of rounds (N), the worst case probability of disagreement (U), and the probability that all generals attack (Z). We prove a nearly tight bound on the tradeoff between L and U (L/U ~ N) for a strong adversary that destroys any subset of messages. Our techniques may be useful for other problems that allow a nonzero probability of disagreement.
Teenagers' Use of MSN Features, Discussion Topics, and Online Friendship Development: The Impact of Media Richness and Communication Control

With a sample of 248 Hong Kong adolescents, this study probed the impact of media richness and communication control on teenagers' use of MSN® for online friendship development. Both media richness and communication control contributed to MSN's overall functionality and teenagers' self-presentation and friendship development. Media richness positively influenced both social and task communications and shortened the time needed to turn a stranger to friend, whereas communication control showed a positive relationship to social friendship communication. Rich features, such as webcam and MSN Spaces, facilitated the increase of acquaintances, new friends, opposite-sex friends, and total number of friends, whereas messaging helped build close friendships. Overall, media richness and communication control appeared to be valid constructs in explaining teenagers' MSN feature use and online friendship development.
Relationship of Visceral Adipose Tissue to Recurrence of Adenomatous Polyps

OBJECTIVES:Insulin is a growth factor for colorectal cancer. Visceral adipose tissue (VAT) is strongly associated with insulin levels, and insulin and visceral obesity have been associated in cohort studies with colorectal cancer. The aim of this investigation was to determine whether VAT is associated with recurrence of adenomatous polyps, the precursor to colorectal cancer.METHODS:As an ancillary study to the Polyp Prevention Trial, a randomized clinical trial that evaluated the effect of a low-fat, high-fiber, high vegetable and fruit diet on adenomatous polyp recurrence, subjects at one clinical center underwent measurement of VAT with a single-slice CT scan through the L4–L5 interspace. The scan was performed around the time of the subject's year 4 colonoscopy that determined adenoma recurrence.RESULTS:Of 119 subjects, 44 of 84 men (52%) and 16 of 35 women (46%) had a recurrent adenoma (p = 0.51). Body mass index (BMI) and weight at baseline and at year 4 colonoscopy were unrelated to adenoma recurrence. In a multivariate model including visceral fat quartile, remote history of polyps, gender, age, and randomization group, only remote history of polyps was statistically significantly associated with recurrent adenoma with a relative risk of 4.6 (95% CI 1.7, 12.4, p = 0.001). There was no consistent monotonic trend of increased or decreased risk of recurrence as one ascended quartiles of adipose tissue for visceral, subcutaneous, or total abdominal fat.CONCLUSION:In this study, no association between visceral adipose tissue and adenomatous polyp recurrence was observed. Further study and exploration of the role of VAT in adenoma progression is required.
PRIMER ESTUDIO PSICOMÉTRICO DE LA VERSIÓN ESPAÑOLA DEL AGGRESSIVE SEXUAL BEHAVIOR INVENTORY (ASBI)

This instrumental study analyzes the internal structure, reliability and the validity of the Aggressive Sexual Behavior Inventory (ASBI) and provides the first psychometric data of Hispan- ic samples. For this purpose, the ASBI, the STAXI - 2, the Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire and the Crowne-Marlowe Social Desirability Scale were applied in two samples consisting of respec- tively 227 and 699 men, all of them Salvadorian university students. The results do not support the multidimensional structure which was proposed originally by the authors of the ASBI, being the usage of total scores more recommended. This one-dimensional structure presents Cronbach alpha values of 0.90 and 0.85 in each sample. Evidence was found that this Spanish version of the ASBI has an adequate convergent and divergent validity. Finally, the influence of social desirability in the evaluation of aggressive sexual behaviour in men is discussed.
Nanoparticles laden in situ gelling system for ocular drug targeting

Designing an ophthalmic drug delivery system is one of the most difficult challenges for the researchers. The anatomy and physiology of eye create barriers like blinking which leads to the poor retention time and penetration of drug moiety. Some conventional ocular drug delivery systems show shortcomings such as enhanced pre-corneal elimination, high variability in efficiency, and blurred vision. To overcome these problems, several novel drug delivery systems such as liposomes, nanoparticles, hydrogels, and in situ gels have been developed. In situ-forming hydrogels are liquid upon instillation and undergo phase transition in the ocular cul-de-sac to form viscoelastic gel and this provides a response to environmental changes. In the past few years, an impressive number of novel temperature, pH, and ion-induced in situ-forming systems have been reported for sustain ophthalmic drug delivery. Each system has its own advantages and drawbacks. Thus, a combination of two drug delivery systems, i.e., nanoparticles and in situ gel, has been developed which is known as nanoparticle laden in situ gel. This review describes every aspects of this novel formulation, which present the readers an exhaustive detail and might contribute to research and development.
Environmental monitoring as an IoT application in building smart campus of Universitas Udayana

The idea of Internet of Things as a platform in smart campus has become increasingly popular. It requires an infrastructure comprised of communication networks, sensor nodes, and gateways to connect to the Internet. Each sensor node is responsible to collect data from the surrounding environment. This paper designs a wireless sensor network in internet of thing for environmental monitoring application. There are two scenarios design for this project. One uses EPS8266 to send data directly to the internet, and the other is to use Arduino and XBee 802.15. 4 in multi hop wireless network. In the latter, data from several nodes are collected by an aggregator and send them to the gateway. The wireless communication between the nodes and aggregator is based on XBee 802.15. 4 Radio. The XBee radios that connected to the nodes will act as a router, while another one that connected to the gateway act as coordinator. Arduino Wi-Fi shield with 802.11 standard is used to send the information to a web server. A web server based on Webrick with Ruby on Rails platform is built to display the measurement results.
A Conditional Random Field Framework for Thai Morphological Analysis

This paper presents a framework for Thai morphological analysis based on the theoretical background of conditional random fields. We formulate morphological analysis of an unsegmented language as the sequential supervised learning problem. Given a sequence of characters, all possibilities of word/tag segmentation are generated, and then the optimal path is selected with some criterion. We examine two different techniques, including the Viterbi score and the confidence estimation. Preliminary results are given to show the feasibility of our proposed framework.
GABA Production in Lactococcus lactis Is Enhanced by Arginine and Co-addition of Malate

Lactococcus lactis NCDO 2118 was previously selected for its ability to decarboxylate glutamate to γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA), an interesting nutritional supplement able to improve mood and relaxation. Amino acid decarboxylation is generally considered as among the biochemical systems allowing lactic acid bacteria to counteracting acidic stress and obtaining metabolic energy. These strategies also include arginine deiminase pathway and malolactic fermentation but little is known about their possible interactions of with GABA production. In the present study, the effects of glutamate, arginine, and malate (i.e., the substrates of these acid-resistance pathways) on L. lactis NCDO 2118 growth and GABA production performances were analyzed. Both malate and arginine supplementation resulted in an efficient reduction of acidity and improvement of bacterial biomass compared to glutamate supplementation. Glutamate decarboxylation was limited to narrow environmental conditions (pH < 5.1) and physiological state (stationary phase). However, some conditions were able to improve GABA production or activate glutamate decarboxylation system even outside of this compass. Arginine clearly stimulated glutamate decarboxylation: the highest GABA production (8.6 mM) was observed in cultures supplemented with both arginine and glutamate. The simultaneous addition of arginine, malate, and glutamate enabled earlier GABA production (i.e., during exponential growth) at relatively high pH (6.5). As far as we know, no previous study has reported GABA production in such conditions. Although further studies are needed to understand the molecular basis of these phenomena, these results represent important keys suitable of application in GABA production processes.
Altered Inter-Subregion Connectivity of the Default Mode Network in Relapsing Remitting Multiple Sclerosis: A Functional and Structural Connectivity Study

Background and Purpose Little is known about the interactions between the default mode network (DMN) subregions in relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS). This study used diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and resting-state functional MRI (rs-fMRI) to examine alterations of long white matter tracts in paired DMN subregions and their functional connectivity in RRMS patients. Methods Twenty-four RRMS patients and 24 healthy subjects participated in this study. The fiber connections derived from DTI tractography and the temporal correlation coefficient derived from rs-fMRI were combined to examine the inter-subregion structural-functional connectivity (SC-FC) within the DMN and its correlations with clinical markers. Results Compared with healthy subjects, the RRMS patients showed the following: 1) significantly decreased SC and increased FC in the pair-wise subregions; 2) two significant correlations in SC-FC coupling patterns, including the positive correlation between slightly increased FC value and long white matter tract damage in the PCC/PCUN-MPFC connection, and the negative correlations between significantly increased FC values and long white matter tract damage in the PCC/PCUN-bilateral mTL connections; 3) SC alterations [log(N track) of the PCC/PCUN-left IPL, RD value of the MPFC-left IPL, FA value of the PCC/PCUN-left mTL connections] correlated with EDSS, increases in the RD value of MPFC-left IPL connection was positively correlated to the MFIS; and decreases in the FA value of PCC/PCUN-right IPL connection was negatively correlated with the PASAT; 4) decreased SC (FA value of the MPFC-left IPL, track volume of the PCC/PCUN-MPFC, and log(N track) of PCC/PCUN-left mTL connections) was positively correlated with brain atrophy. Conclusions In the connections of paired DMN subregions, we observed decreased SC and increased FC in RRMS patients. The relationship between MS-related structural abnormalities and clinical markers suggests that the disruption of this long-distance “inter-subregion” connectivity (white matter) may significantly impact the integrity of the network's function.
Survey on Techniques for Plant Leaf Classification PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF ARRAY ANTENNAS

In this paper we present survey on various classification techniques which can be used for plant leaf classification. A classification problem deals with associating a given input pattern with one of the distinct classes. Plant leaf classification is a technique where leaf is classified based on its different morphological features. There are various successful classification techniques like k-Nearest Neighbor Classifier, Probabilistic Neural Network, Genetic Algorithm, Support Vector Machine, and Principal Component Analalysis. Deciding on the method for classification is often a difficult task because the quality of the results can be different for different input data. Plant leaf classifications has wide applications in various fields such as botany, Ayurveda, Agriculture etc. The goal of this survey is to provide an overview of different classification techniques for plant leaf classification.
Estimation of tropical forest height and biomass dynamics using lidar remote sensing at La Selva, Costa Rica

[1] In this paper we present the results of an experiment to measure forest structure and biomass dynamics over the tropical forests of La Selva Biological Station in Costa Rica using a medium resolution lidar. Our main objective was to observe changes in forest canopy height, related height metrics, and biomass, and from these map sources and sinks of carbon across the landscape. The Laser Vegetation Imaging Sensor (LVIS) measured canopy structure over La Selva in 1998 and again in 2005. Changes in waveform metrics were related to field-derived changes in estimated aboveground biomass from a series of old growth and secondary forest plots. Pairwise comparisons of nearly coincident lidar footprints between years showed canopy top height changes that coincided with expected changes based on land cover types. Old growth forests had a net loss in height of −0.33 m, while secondary forests had net gain of 2.08 m. Multiple linear regression was used to relate lidar metrics with biomass changes for combined old growth and secondary forest plots, giving an r2 of 0.65 and an RSE of 10.5 Mg/ha, but both parametric and bootstrapped confidence intervals were wide, suggesting weaker model performance. The plot level relationships were then used to map biomass changes across La Selva using LVIS at a 1 ha scale. The spatial patterns of biomass changes matched expected patterns given the distribution of land cover types at La Selva, with secondary forests showing a gain of 25 Mg/ha and old growth forests showing little change (2 Mg/ha). Prediction intervals were calculated to assess uncertainty for each 1 ha cell to ascertain whether the data and methods used could confidently estimate the sign (source or sink) of the biomass changes. The resulting map showed most of the old growth areas as neutral (no net biomass change), with widely scattered and isolated sources and sinks. Secondary forests in contrast were mostly sinks or neutral, but were never sources. By quantifying both the magnitude of biomass changes and the sensitivity of lidar to detect them, this work will help inform the formulation of future space missions focused on biomass dynamics, such as NASA's Deformation Ecosystem Structure and Dynamics of Ice mission.
Traditional Indian Medicines Used for the Management of Diabetes Mellitus

Plants have always been a source of drugs for humans since time immemorial. The Indian traditional system of medicine is replete with the use of plants for the management of diabetic conditions. According to the World Health Organization, up to 90% of population in developing countries use plants and its products as traditional medicine for primary health care. There are about 800 plants which have been reported to show antidiabetic potential. The present review is aimed at providing in-depth information about the antidiabetic potential and bioactive compounds present in Ficus religiosa, Pterocarpus marsupium, Gymnema sylvestre, Allium sativum, Eugenia jambolana, Momordica charantia, and Trigonella foenum-graecum. The review provides a starting point for future studies aimed at isolation, purification, and characterization of bioactive antidiabetic compounds present in these plants.
Determinants of Nontraditional Student Status: A Methodological Review of the Research

This article presents a review of 21 years (1990 to 2011) of multidisciplinary research on nontraditional college students that focuses on determinants of nontraditional student status and research methodology. The purpose is to address the methodological hindrances that have contributed to deficit-based views of nontraditional students in scholarly research. Specifically, the goals of the study are (a) to identify determinants used to classify nontraditional student status beyond older age, and (b) to provide a systematic analysis of methodological and theoretical approaches used to interpret findings on nontraditional students. Study findings are used to draw updated conclusions about conceptualizing nontraditional students and ways that scholars can promote a more accurate depiction of nontraditional students in the research.
Functional consequences of nonsynonymous single nucleotide polymorphisms in the CB2 cannabinoid receptor

Objective To test the hypothesis that the two nonsynonymous single nucleotide polymorphisms at the CB2 cannabinoid receptor gene may have functional consequences on human CB2. Methods Q63R, H316Y, and Q63R/H316 mutations were made in recombinant human CB2 by the method of site-directed mutagenesis. After these mutant CB2 receptors were stably transfected into HEK293 cells, ligand binding, ligand-induced activity, and constitutive activity assays were performed to test the functional significance of these mutations. Results In general, our results showed that the CB2 polymorphic receptors are able to bind cannabinoid ligands and mediate signal transduction. However, in ligand-induced cyclic AMP accumulation assays, the cannabinoid agonists WIN55212-2 and 2-arachidonoylglycerol had reduced efficacy in cells expressing the polymorphic receptors as compared with the CB2 wild-type receptor. Furthermore, in constitutive activity assays, the H316Y and Q63R/H316Y polymorphic receptors exhibited higher constitutive activity than the CB2 wild-type receptor. Conclusion Our data shows that the presence of the polymorphisms at both positions 63 and 316 produce alterations in the CB2 receptor functions. Moreover, these findings strengthen the idea that the CB2 polymorphic receptors may contribute to the etiology of certain diseases.