Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Profiling of bacterial flora in crevices around titanium orthodontic anchor plates.

OBJECTIVES The aims of this study were to characterize the microflora in crevices around titanium orthodontic anchor plates using anaerobic culture and molecular biological techniques for bacterial identification, and to compare the microbial composition between crevices around anchor plates and gingival crevices. MATERIAL AND METHODS Samples from crevices around titanium anchor plates and healthy gingival crevices of 17 subjects (aged 20-29) were cultured anaerobically, and isolated bacteria were identified by 16S rRNA sequencing. RESULTS The average logarithm colony-forming units/ml were 6.84, 7.51 and 8.88 in healthy anchor plate crevices, inflamed anchor plate crevices and healthy gingival crevices, respectively, indicating that the bacterial density of anchor plate crevices was lower than that of healthy gingival crevices. Of 184 strains isolated from healthy anchor plate crevices of seven subjects, 108 (59%) were anaerobic bacteria, while 73 (40%) were facultative bacteria. Predominant isolates were Gram-negative rods, such as Campylobacter (12%), Fusobacterium (10%) and Selenomonas (10%), and Gram-positive facultative bacteria, such as Actinomyces (17%) and Streptococcus (8.2%). Of 133 strains isolated from inflamed anchor plate crevices of three subjects, 110 (83%) were anaerobic bacteria, while predominant isolates were Gram-negative rods, such as Prevotella (47%), Fusobacterium (33%) and Campylobacter (16%). On the other hand, of 146 strains isolated from healthy gingival crevices of seven subjects, 98 (67%) were facultative bacteria, while 45 (31%) were anaerobic bacteria. Predominant isolates were Gram-positive facultative bacteria, such as Actinomyces (37%) and Streptococcus (20%). CONCLUSIONS These results suggest that the environment in crevices around titanium orthodontic anchor plates is anaerobic and supportive of anaerobic growth of bacteria, which may trigger inflammation in the tissue around the plates.
MODULATION OF [3H]-8-OH-DPAT BINDING TO RAT BRAIN MEMBRANES BY METAL IONS

The binding of ( 3 H)-8-OH-DPAT to rat hippocampal and cortical membranes was specific and saturable with Kd = 0.87 ± 0.18 nM and Kd = 2.4 ± 0.9 nM, respectively. Guanine nucleotides decreased the ( 3 H)-8-OH-DPAT binding affinity without significant influence on the number of binding sites. The radioligand binding affinity was only slightly affected by the pH in the interval from 6 to 9. The 5-HT 1A receptors in cortical membranes were considerably more stable than in hippocampus, indicating that the lipid environment determines the stability of the receptor in these brain regions. All chlorides of m onovalent metals studied at concentrations above 30 mM decreased the ( 3 H)-8-OH-DPAT binding. A significant increase in 2 nM ( 3 H)-8-OH-DPAT binding to hippocampal membranes was found in the presence of millimolar concentrations of MgCl2, CaCl2, BaCl2, MnCl2, CoCl2, and NiCl2, while the radioligand binding to cortical membranes was inhibited. It is proposed that different G proteins are coupled to 5-HT 1A receptors in rat hippocampus and cerebral cortex.
On Scheduling of Data Dissemination in Vehicular Networks with Mesh Backhaul

Vehicular networks have become increasingly popular in the research community. Messages in vehicular networks are usually subject to both time and space constraints, and therefore should be disseminated during a specified duration and within a specific coverage. Since vehicles are constantly moving in and out of a region, dissemination of a message should be repeated to achieve reliability. However, the reliable dissemination for some messages might be at the cost of unreliable or even no chance of dissemination for other messages, which raises tradeoffs between reliability and fairness. In this paper, we study the scheduling of data dissemination in vehicular networks with mesh infrastructure. Performance metrics for reliability and fairness are proposed first. Our metric for reliability covers factors in both time and space dimensions and the metric for fairness incorporates fairness in both the network-wise sense and the mesh roadside unit-wise (MRU-wise) sense. Several scheduling algorithms are developed: one reliability-oriented algorithm, one fairness- oriented algorithm and three hybrid schemes. Extensive evaluation work is performed to quantitively analyze different scheduling algorithms. Our evaluation results show that (1) hybrid schemes outperform reliability-oriented and fairness-oriented algorithms in the sense of overall efficiency and (2) different algorithms have quite different characteristics on reliability and fairness.
Revising Learner Misconceptions Without Feedback: Prompting for Reflection on Anomalies

The Internet has enabled learning at scale, from Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) to Wikipedia. But online learners may become passive, instead of actively constructing knowledge and revising their beliefs in light of new facts. Instructors cannot directly diagnose thousands of learners' misconceptions and provide remedial tutoring. This paper investigates how instructors can prompt learners to reflect on facts that are anomalies with respect to their existing misconceptions, and how to choose these anomalies and prompts to guide learners to revise incorrect beliefs without any feedback. We conducted two randomized experiments with online crowd workers learning statistics. Results show that prompts to explain why these anomalies are true drive revision towards correct beliefs. But prompts to simply articulate thoughts about anomalies have no effect on learning. Furthermore, we find that explaining multiple anomalies is more effective than explaining only one, but the anomalies should rule out multiple misconceptions simultaneously.
HiNO: An Approach for Inferring Hierarchical Organization from Regulatory Networks

Background Gene expression as governed by the interplay of the components of regulatory networks is indeed one of the most complex fundamental processes in biological systems. Although several methods have been published to unravel the hierarchical structure of regulatory networks, weaknesses such as the incorrect or inconsistent assignment of elements to their hierarchical levels, the incapability to cope with cyclic dependencies within the networks or the need for a manual curation to retrieve non-overlapping levels remain unsolved. Methodology/Results We developed HiNO as a significant improvement of the so-called breadth-first-search (BFS) method. While BFS is capable of determining the overall hierarchical structures from gene regulatory networks, it especially has problems solving feed-forward type of loops leading to conflicts within the level assignments. We resolved these problems by adding a recursive correction approach consisting of two steps. First each vertex is placed on the lowest level that this vertex and its regulating vertices are assigned to (downgrade procedure). Second, vertices are assigned to the next higher level (upgrade procedure) if they have successors with the same level assignment and have themselves no regulators. We evaluated HiNO by comparing it with the BFS method by applying them to the regulatory networks from Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Escherichia coli, respectively. The comparison shows clearly how conflicts in level assignment are resolved in HiNO in order to produce correct hierarchical structures even on the local levels in an automated fashion. Conclusions We showed that the resolution of conflicting assignments clearly improves the BFS-method. While we restricted our analysis to gene regulatory networks, our approach is suitable to deal with any directed hierarchical networks structure such as the interaction of microRNAs or the action of non-coding RNAs in general. Furthermore we provide a user-friendly web-interface for HiNO that enables the extraction of the hierarchical structure of any directed regulatory network. Availability HiNO is freely accessible at http://mips.helmholtz-muenchen.de/hino/.
What Eye Movement Research Tells Us About Perceptual Behavior of Children and Adults: Implications for the Visual Arts

The record of eye fixations and movements is an objective measure of an individual's involvement with an art object. This review of eye movement research reveals distinct patterns of viewing behavior which are determined by the age of the viewer, the type of visual material, nature of the problem confronting the viewer, and the structure of the object. Strategies to employ, alter, or measure the effect of these behaviors are important to learning and research in the visual arts. Eye movement research over the last forty-five years provides evidence that some general characteristics of eye movement behavior can be identified for children and adults while viewing works of art and pictures. The perception of an art object occurs so rapidly that the individual is unaware of the many eye movements and fixations used to scan the surface of the object. The record of eye movements and fixations is an objective measure which can help in understanding the perceptual process with works of art. Descriptions of the relationship of eye movements and perceptual response to works of art can be found in the art literature. Bevlin (1971) describes John Sargent's painting "The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit" in the following manner: "The two strong groupings of standing figures are balanced by the seated child. Our eyes are led to the child by the downward sweep in the aprons on the older sisters" (p. 246). Taylor (1957) outlines a viewing pattern concerning Pietro Perugino's painting "The Crucifixion with Saints": "our eyes tend to relate similar colors. Further, strong contrasts, whether of hue or of value,
Temporal and Spatial Patterns of Ovarian Gene Transcription Following an Ovulatory Dose of Gonadotropin in the Rat1

Abstract In recent years, there have been a number of efforts to identify genes that are expressed in mature ovarian follicles in response to an ovulatory dose of LH or its homologue hCG. This review keys on 20 ovulation-specific genes that we have identified by the molecular procedure known as differential display. The objective is to use this sampling of genes to illustrate the diversity in the temporal and spatial patterns of expression of genes in the ovary following the stimulus of this gonadal target tissue by a single glycoprotein hormone. The specific genes that are surveyed include 5-aminolevulinate synthase; early growth response protein-1; γ-glutamylcysteine synthetase; cyclooxygenase-2; epiregulin; pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptide; tumor necrosis factor-stimulated gene-6; regulator of G-protein signaling protein-2; adrenodoxin; steroidogenic acute regulatory protein; 3α-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase; CD63, a disintegrin and metalloproteinase with thrombospondin motifs; tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase-1; carbonyl reductase, a G-protein-coupled receptor; pancreatitis-associated protein-III; glutathione S-transferase; and metallothionein-1. The ovulatory expression of these different genes is predominantly within the granulosa layer of mature follicles. However, there were also instances of expression in the thecal and stromal tissue of the ovary, as well as in vascular endothelial cells and in luteal tissue. The overwhelming impression is that the molecular events of ovulation are far more complex, and therefore more highly ordered, than originally imagined.
Knowledge-enabled SCM auditing (K-SCM): A methodology and a case illustration

Knowledge Management (KM) plays a key role in the success of several enterprise systems, such as supply chain management (SCM). This paper discusses knowledge-enabled supply chain management (K-SCM) as it enhances the organizations' expertise in SCM. We propose a framework that integrates KM processes with SCM components. We developed an audit methodology that can be performed to assess the organization's readiness in K-SCM. The developed framework consists of KM dimensions and Supply Chain Operation Reference (SCOR) components. The proposed audit methodology is subsequently illustrated through a case of a manufacturing company based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The paper concludes with implications for managerial practice and future research.
Improving Coordination and Cooperation Through Competition

We use game theory and experimental economics approaches to analyze the relationships between corporate culture and the persistent performance differences among seemingly similar enterprises. First, we show that competition leads to higher minimum effort levels in the minimum effort coordination game. This implies that, organizations with competitive institutional design are more likely to have better coordination, hence better performance outcome. Furthermore, we show that organizations with better co- ordination also lead to higher rates of cooperation in the prisoner’s dilemma game. This supports the theory that the high-efficiency culture developed in coordination games act as a focal point for the outcome of subsequent prisoner’s dilemma game. In turn, we argue that these endogenous features of culture developed from coordination and cooperation can help explain the persistent performance differences.
Anhedonia and Suicide: A 6.5-Yr. Follow-up Study of Patients Hospitalised for a Suicide Attempt

This was a prospective follow-up study of suicidal patients to assess the association of anhedonia, depression, and completed suicides. Survival analysis as well as Cox's regression makes it possible to weigh the influence of variables. A cohort of 106 patients (81 women, 25 men, M age = 33 yr., SD=9.9) admitted to medical or surgical departments after a suicide attempt was followed during a 6.5-yr. mean observation period. In total, 6.7% of patients completed suicide. High proportion of male subjects (71.4%) and low anhedonia, assessed on the Physical Anhedonia Scale, decreased survival time of the cohort and characterized subjects who deceased by suicide. These results suggested that the people who completed suicide were characterized by low anhedonia. Further research is needed on people who attempt suicide and present with specific psychiatric diagnoses.
The epidemiology of chronic fatigue syndrome.

After years of relative obscurity, the problems of patients with excessive fatigue that defies simple explanation are again in the news. These symptoms are now acquiring the label "chronic fatigue syndrome" (CFS). The subject of CFS is extraordinarily rich and complex. Recent reviews and chapters have considered the condition from the point of view of such diverse disciplines as anthropology, endocrinology, history, immunology, neurophysiology, neuropsychology, psychiatry, and virology. Progress has been made in many of these fields, although consensus remains elusive. This review concerns the epidemiology of CFS, and it will therefore emphasize studies that have taken a population or primary care perspective. Readers requiring detailed information on nonepidemiologic aspects of CFS are referred elsewhere (1, 2).
An effective network processor design framework - using multi-objective evolutionary algorithms and object oriented techniques to optimise the intel IXP1200 network processor

In this paper we present a framework for design space exploration of a network processor, that incorporates parameterisation, power and cost analysis. This method utilises multi-objective evolutionary algorithms and object oriented analysis and design. Using this approach an engineer specifies certain hard and soft performance requirements for a multi-processor system, and allows it to be generated automatically by competitive evolution/optimisation, thus obviating the need for detailed design. To make the proposal concrete, we use the Intel IXP1200 network processor as a baseline complex system design and show how various improvements can be make to this architecture by evolutionary/competitive design. Various approaches to multi- objective optimisation (Darwin, Lamarck Baldwin, etc.) are compared and contrasted in their ability to generate architectures meeting various constraints. We also present an assessment of a proposed architecture with reference to four different packet processing roles. The merits of an "island clocking" scheme versus a "common clocking" scheme are also discussed. Our paper highlights the flexibility that this framework bestows on the designer, along with the potential to achieve cost savings and performance improvement.
A BPSK decision-feedback equalization method robust to phase and timing errors

We present a new approach to binary phase shift keying (BPSK) channel equalization that uses the aggregating method of bagging to improve its ability to handle noise and estimation errors. Bagging forms a single equalized output from an average of N equalizers that are run on independently permuted sets of the received signal. We show in simulations that bagging offers improvement compared to the traditional adaptive decision-feedback equalizers (DFEs), especially in the presence of estimation errors caused by phase and timing recovery.
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Multimodal Biometrics-Based Student Attendance Measurement in Learning Management Systems

In this paper we present a solution to obtain useful and reliable user logs in a Learning Management System (LMS). Current LMS logs are combined with biometric-based logs that show the student behaviour. Our system models the student behaviour, allowing to know exactly how much time the student spends in front of the computer examining the contents of the LMS. Besides, user verification and face tracking are also integrated, what guarantees that the student is the person actually interacting with the system. The presented multimodal solution for user tracking and user verification combines face tracking, face verification, speaker verification and fingerprint verification. Face tracking and face verification are performed in a non-collaborative fashion. Fingerprint or speaker verification is performed on demmand, with the aim of avoiding a negative influence of adverse environmental or behavioural human factors in the reliability of the user logs generated by the system. These circumstances can thwart the non collaborative face verification performance involved in the tracking process. The presented solution solves the problem of user tracking and authentication even in adverse environments for face verification.
Dimensionality and Psychometric Invariance of the Youth Self-Report Form of the Child Behavior Checklist in Cross-National Settings

The Youth Self-Report Form's (YSR's) factor model was derived from traditional exploratory factor analytical procedures. Assuming appropriate model specification, psychometrically invariant items, and that its items provide useful psychometric information across nations omitted from its normative samples, the YSR is widely used in cross-national studies of nonreferred children. Item response theory analytical procedures reveal (a) 2 dimensions partly overlapping with the YSR's Internalizing and Externalizing second-order factors; (b) variance (i.e., differential item functioning) in how well a few items discriminate for nonreferred children across two nations; and (c) variance in estimating severity levels in children with identical psychopathological severity cross-nationally. Addressing psychometric variance, limiting redundancy, and matching children's psychopathological severity levels with items measuring this severity might promote more accurate and economical assessment.
Nox1-dependent Reactive Oxygen Generation Is Regulated by Rac1*

Rac1 has been implicated in the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in several cell types, but the enzymatic origin of the ROS has not been proven. The present studies demonstrate that Nox1, a homolog of the phagocyte NADPH-oxidase component gp91phox, is activated by Rac1. When Nox1 is co-expressed along with its regulatory subunits NOXO1 and NOXA1, significant ROS generation is seen. Herein, co-expression of constitutively active Rac1(G12V), but not wild-type Rac1, resulted in marked further stimulation of activity. Decreased Rac1 expression using small interfering RNA reduced Nox1-dependent ROS. CDC42(G12V) failed to increase activity, and small interfering RNA directed against CDC42 failed to decrease activity, pointing to specificity for Rac. TPR domain mutants of NOXA1 that interfere with Rac1 binding were ineffective in supporting Nox1-dependent ROS generation. Immunoprecipitation experiments demonstrated a complex containing Rac1(G12V), NOXO1, NOXA1, and Nox1. CDC42(G12V) could not substitute for Rac1(G12V) in such a complex. Nox1 formed a complex with Rac1(G12V) that was independent of NOXA1 and NOXO1, consistent with direct binding of Rac1(G12V) to Nox1. Rac1(G12V) interaction with NOXA1 was enhanced by Nox1 and NOXO1, suggesting cooperative binding. A model is presented comparing activation by regulatory subunits of Nox1 versus gp91phox (Nox2) in which Rac1 activation provides a major trigger that acutely activates Nox1-dependent ROS generation.
Performance Analysis of Transmit Diversity and Spatial Multiplexing MIMO modes Vs. SISO System in LTE-Downlink System

- In this paper we evaluate the performance of LTE-Downlink System with different Transmit diversity and Spatial multiplexing MIMO modes in LTE-downlink. Here we analysis performance on BLER-Block Error Rate and Data Throughput vs SNR-Signal to Noise Ratio. Two Transmit Diversity schemes Space Frequency Block Codes (SFBC) and Frequency Switched Transmit Diversity (FSTD) and two Spatial Multiplexing with different antenns are used. The performance of LTE compared with four MIMO and SISO modes in terms of Throughput and BLER. Also we used the ITU defined Pedestrian channel type B for evaluation
Effects of Gum Arabic (Acacia senegal) on Renal Function in Diabetic Mice

Background/Aims: Gum arabic (GA) is a Ca2+-, Mg2+- and K+-rich dietary fiber used for the treatment of patients with chronic kidney disease in Middle Eastern countries. In healthy mice, GA treatment increases creatinine clearance, renal ADH excretion, as well as intestinal and renal excretion of Mg2+ and Ca2+. GA decreases plasma Pi concentration, urinary Pi and Na+ excretion. The present study explored the effects of GA on renal function in diabetic mice. Methods: Metabolic cage experiments were performed on Akita mice (akita+/–), which spontaneously develop insulin deficiency and thus hyperglycemia. Plasma and urinary concentrations of Na+, K+ and Ca2+ were measured by flame photometry (AFM 5051, Eppendorf, Germany), creatinine by the Jaffé method, phosphate photometrically, urea by an enzymatic method, glucose utilizing a glucometer and an enzymatic kit, aldosterone using an RIA, urinary albumin fluorometrically, and blood pressure by the tail-cuff method. Results: GA (10% in drinking water) significantly increased urinary excretion of Ca2+ and significantly decreased plasma phosphate and urea concentrations, urinary flow rate, urinary Na+, phosphate and glucose excretion, blood pressure and proteinuria. Conclusions: GA treatment decreases blood pressure and proteinuria in diabetic mice and may thus prove beneficial in diabetic nephropathy.