Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Antioxidant, Anti-Inflammatory, and Analgesic Activities of Agrimonia eupatoria L. Infusion

Agrimony (Agrimonia eupatoria L.) (Ae) is used in traditional medicine to treat inflammatory and oxidative related diseases. Therefore, this study focuses on the anti-inflammatory and analgesic potential of Ae infusion (AeI). Phenolic compounds characterization was achieved by HPLC-PDA-ESI/MSn. To evaluate antioxidant potential, 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH), superoxide anion, hydroxyl radical, and SNAP assays were used. In vitro anti-inflammatory activity of AeI was investigated in LPS-stimulated macrophages by measuring the NO production. In vivo anti-inflammatory activity was validated using the mouse carrageenan-induced paw edema model. Peripheral and central analgesic potential was evaluated using the acetic acid-induced writhing and hot-plate tests, respectively, as well as the formalin assay to assess both activities. The safety profile was disclosed in vitro and in vivo, using MTT and hematoxylin assays, respectively. Vitexin, quercetin O-galloyl-hexoside, and kaempferol O-acetyl-hexosyl-rhamnoside were referred to in this species for the first time. AeI and mainly AePF (Ae polyphenolic fraction) showed a significant antiradical activity against all tested radicals. Both AeI and AePF decreased NO levels in vitro, AePF being more active than AeI. In vivo anti-inflammatory and analgesic activities were verified for both samples at concentrations devoid of toxicity. Agrimony infusion and, mainly, AePF are potential sources of antiradical and anti-inflammatory polyphenols.
Improving e-learning with sentiment analysis of users' opinions

E-learning has witnessed a great interest from the part of corporations, educational institutions and individuals alike. As an education pattern, e-learning systems have become more and more popular. It commonly refers to teaching efforts propagated through the use of computers in a bid to impart knowledge in a non traditional classroom environment. As a prerequisite for an effective development of e-learning systems, it is important to have certain knowledge about users' opinions and build an evaluation regarding them. Hence, an opinion mining method has been applied in this paper for the sake of helping the developers to improve and promote the quality of relevant services. Actually, three feature selection methods MI (Mutual Information), IG (Information Gain), and CHI statistics (CHI) have been investigated and advanced along with our proper HMM and SVM-based hybrid learning method. In fact, the experimental results have indicated that opinion mining becomes more difficult and challenging when performed for e-learning blogs. Moreover, we attempt to demonstrate that IG performs the best potential for sentimental terms selection and exhibits the best performance for sentiment classification.
Accessing and Manipulating Ontologies Using Web Services

Ontologies and Semantic Web Services are the two core technologies of the Semantic Web. The Semantic Web hinges on the ability of computer programs to perform some task involving the autonomous resolution of semantic issues. This ability requires providing standard access for software to ontologies. Moreover, for the Semantic Web to gain widespread acceptance, it needs to reach a critical mass of applications that can interact. This last point requires providing standard access to functionalities for manipulating ontologies. Therefore, it is relevant to bring ontologies and Web Services together by providing access to ontologies through Semantic Web Services. We analyse different kinds of ontology-manipulation functionalities that could be implemented as ontology Web Services (OWS). We then propose an architecture allowing programs to insert calls to ontology Web Services into the more general framework of Web Services. We show that this architecture is a necessary complement to OWL-S for Semantic Web applications to perform dynamic discovery and invocation of Web Services, thus addressing a key requirement of the Semantic Web. We then demonstrate the scalability of our architecture as it allows the composition of (ontology) Web Services for performing complex tasks. 1 Web Service Access to Ontologies Ontologies and Semantic Web Services are arguably the two core technologies of the Semantic Web. Ontologies provide the backbone of the Semantic Web, defining the semantics of the data and Web resources. Web Services enable programs to call functions provided by a remote server. The structure of the parameters and of the result of the function are represented in an explicit way so that the service can be invoked by any client. Web Services, albeit not yet Semantic Web Services, have become important components of business applications. Currently however, most examples of Web Services (and in fact Semantic Web Services) operate on data that conforms to some schema or ontology. At the same time, ontologies themselves are first-class objects on the Semantic Web. Therefore, we believe that any infrastructure for Semantic Web Services will be incomplete without components to access and manipulate ontologies themselves through Web Services. Such access and manipulation include query of ontology
Predictors of owner response to companion animal death in 177 clients from 14 practices in Ontario.

OBJECTIVE To identify predictors of grief and client desires and needs as they relate to pet death. DESIGN Cross-sectional mail survey. SAMPLE POPULATION 177 clients, from 14 randomly selected veterinary practices, whose cat or dog died between 6 and 43 days prior to returning the completed questionnaire. PROCEDURE Veterinary practices were contacted weekly to obtain the names of clients whose pets had died until approximately 200 clients were identified. Clients were contacted by telephone, and a questionnaire designed to measure grief associated with pet death was mailed to those willing to participate within 1 to 14 days of their pet's death. The questionnaire measured potential correlates and modifiers of grief and included three outcome measures: social/emotional and physical consequences, thought processes, and despair. Demographic data were also collected. RESULTS Approximately 30% of participants experienced severe grief. The most prominent risk factors for grief included level of attachment, euthanasia, societal attitudes toward pet death, and professional support from the veterinary team. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE Bivariate and multivariate analyses highlighted the impact owners' attitudes about euthanasia and professional intervention by the veterinary team had on reactions to pet death. Owners' perceptions of societal attitudes, also a predictor of grief, indicate that grief for pets is different than grief associated with other losses.
The origin of motor fluctuations in Parkinson’s disease

The severity of dopamine depletion and the consequent pathophysiologic changes that occur in basal ganglia circuits determine the severity of parkinsonian signs. Restoring the dopamine deficit or the downstream physiologic abnormalities improves Parkinson’s Disease (PD) main motor features and as a result, attenuates the short-duration response (SDR). Therefore, both the magnitude and duration of the motor response are a function of the degree of motor severity, which is primarily governed by the loss of tonic dopaminergic activity and disruption of basal ganglia homeostatic mechanisms among which the STN-GPe/GPi circuits play a fundamental role. As neurodegeneration advances, standard levodopa administration give rises to wider oscillations in striatal dopamine availability and “pulsatile” stimulation of striatal dopamine receptors becomes predominant. This induces molecular and physiologic changes that further accentuate and aggravate the SDR that sustains motor fluctuations. Treatments capable of providing and restoring more tonic and physiologic dopaminergic stimulation may avoid many of these abnormalities and lead to better clinical outcomes.
Prognostic Value and Staging Classification of Retropharyngeal Lymph Node Metastasis in Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma Patients Treated with Intensity-modulated Radiotherapy

Background The development of intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) has revolutionized the management of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). The purpose of this study was to evaluate the prognostic value and classification of TNM stage system for retropharyngeal lymph node (RLN) metastasis in NPC in the IMRT era. Material and Methods We retrospectively reviewed data from 749 patients with biopsy-proven, non-metastatic NPC. All patients received IMRT as the primary treatment. Chemotherapy was administered to 86.2% (424/492) of the patients with stage III or IV disease. Results The incidence of RLN metastasis was 64.2% (481/749). Significant differences were observed in the 5-year disease-free survival (DFS; 70.6% vs. 85.4%, P<0.001) and distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS; 79.2% vs. 90.1%, P<0.001) rates of patients with and without RLN metastasis. In multivariate analysis, RLN metastasis was an independent prognostic factor for disease failure and distant failure (P = 0.005 and P = 0.026, respectively), but not for locoregional recurrence. Necrotic RLN metastases have a negative effect on disease failure, distant failure and locoregional recurrence in NPC with RLN metastasis (P = 0.003, P = 0.018 and P = 0.005, respectively). Survival curves demonstrated a significant difference in DFS between patients with N0 disease and N1 disease with only RLN metastasis (P = 0.020), and marginally statistically significant differences in DMFS and DFS between N1 disease with only RLN metastasis and other N1 disease (P = 0.058 and P = 0.091, respectively). In N1 disease, no significant differences in DFS were observed between unilateral and bilateral RLN metastasis (P = 0.994). Conclusions In the IMRT era, RLN metastasis remains an independent prognostic factor for DFS and DMFS in NPC. It is still reasonable for RLN metastasis to be classified in the N1 disease, regardless of laterality. However, there is a need to investigate the feasibility of classifying RLN metastasis as N1a disease in future by a larger cohort study.
Asymmetric Dimethylarginine Is Associated with Developmental Programming of Adult Kidney Disease and Hypertension in Offspring of Streptozotocin-Treated Mothers

Diabetes mellitus complicates pregnancies, leading to diseases in adult life in the offspring. Asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA) is increased in diabetes mellitus, kidney disease, and hypertension. We tested whether maternal diabetes causes increased ADMA in rats, resulting in kidney disease and hypertension in the adult offspring, and whether these can be prevented by maternal citrulline supplementation. Newborn female and pregnant Sprague-Dawley rats were injected with streptozotocin (STZ), which made up the nSTZ and STZ models, respectively. For the STZ model, 4 groups of male offspring were killed at age 3 months: the control, STZ, and Cit and STZ+Cit (control and STZ rats treated with 0.25% l-citrulline solution, respectively) groups. The nSTZ rats had lower nephron numbers. The renal level of ADMA was higher in the nSTZ rats than in controls. The STZ group developed kidney injury, renal hypertrophy, and elevated blood pressure at the age of 12 weeks. These conditions were found to be associated with increased ADMA levels, decreased nitric oxide (NO) production, and decreased dimethylarginine dimethylaminohydrolase (DDAH) activity in the kidney. In addition, ADMA caused a nephron deficit in cultured rat metanephroi. Maternal citrulline supplementation prevented hypertension and kidney injury, increased the renal DDAH-2 protein level, and restored the levels of ADMA and NO in the STZ+Cit group. Reduced nephron number and increased ADMA contribute to adult kidney disease and hypertension in offspring of mothers with STZ-induced diabetes. Manipulation of the ADMA-NO pathway by citrulline supplementation may be a potential approach to prevent these conditions.
An Omnibus Identification of BitTorrent Traffic in a Stub Network

Accurate, real time identification of P2P traffic is especially important for network management, because they seriously affect QoS of normal network services. In this paper, we propose an omnibus approach to identify Bit Torrent (BT) traffic in real time. We apply application signatures to identify unencrypted traffic. And for those encrypted BT traffic, we propose a message stream model according to the handshakes of the message stream encryption (MSE) protocol which is used by BT to obfuscate the traffic. At last, we propose a pre-identification method based on BT signaling analysis. It can predict BT flows and distinguish them at the first packet of each TCP flow with SYN flag only. And we use modified Vuze clients to generate and label BT traffic in real traffic traces, which help us to evaluate our omnibus approach with high accuracy. The results indicate that our approach can identify BT traffic at the very beginning of or even before the TCP flow.
"Choose your Companions from the Best" (W. B. Yeats—"To a Young Beauty")

Abstract Much pastoral care involves accompanying those who are grieving. This article suggests that regular, active engagement with the creative arts is a way of repairing the energy expended in sensitive pastoral care. Reflecting on the connection between grief and creativity in psychoanalytic literature, the author has coined the expression creative repair. Responses to a list of relevant questions from two groups of ordained ministers have supported the author's hypothesis. The author has identified a gap in the literature around the resourcing of those who minister. The author suggests implications for theological training and ongoing Continuing Ministerial Development and indicates that good practice could usefully be modelled by those in senior posts.
Manipulative managers and devilish dictators: Teachers’ perspectives on the dilemmas and challenges of classroom leadership

Abstract This qualitative study looked at how early childhood teachers talk about and interact with the most powerful children in their classrooms—the student leaders. Relying primarily on interviews with six teachers in early childhood classrooms (infants, toddlers, and preschoolers) within a University‐affiliated center, this paper reconsidered leadership qualities in young children from the teachers’ point of view, probing the often overlooked challenges and dilemmas that young leaders present in student‐student and student‐adult relationships. Findings showed that the teachers described children's leadership skills in positive ways in the abstract, but these theoretical beliefs were quickly challenged by the realities of the classroom. As a result, teachers faced the complex dilemma of supporting individual children's leadership strengths while nurturing their own visions of classroom community. Findings are discussed with reference to implications for practice, including implications for early childhood teacher education, and suggestions for further study.
Is it a Monologue, a Dialogue or a turn in a Dialogue?

The various approaches prevalent in argumentation theory take as their fundamental unit of analysis the concept of 'an argument'. It is generally assumed that any unit of argument is inherently dialectical: Eemeren and Grootendorst (1992), for example, use the notion of an " implicit discussion ". It has recently been recognised, however, that there may be important differences between arguments found in monologic situations and those found in dialogue. Once the distinction has been drawn between monologue and dialogue, a number of important questions arise: How can we define a monologue? How does a monologue differ from a turn in a dialogue? What are the linguistic and contextual parameters that affect monologue and dialogue, and how do these parameters impact the resultant form of argument? How can we classify a given argument, and does that classification then affect subsequent evaluation? In this paper, the frameworks proposed by Blair and Reed are summarised and, adducing Vorobej's comments, a number of problems with each are identified. This facilitates the subsequent construction of a model which both clearly distinguishes monologue and dialogue and integrates elements of both earlier models. The paper examines how the distinction between the process of constructing an argument and the resultant textual product plays a vital role in classifying a discourse. Furthermore, it is argued that it is impossible to classify an argument without consideration of the context in which it was created, and that that contextual information is not necessarily manifest in the text of an argument.
The Adenosine Analog Tubercidin Inhibits Glycolysis in Trypanosoma brucei as Revealed by an RNA Interference Library*

We used an RNA interference (RNAi) library in a forward genetic selection to study the mechanism of toxicity of tubercidin (7-deazaadenosine) to procyclic Trypanosoma brucei. Following transfection of cells with an RNAi-based genomic library, we used 5 μm tubercidin to select a drug-resistant cell line. Surprisingly, we found in these resistant cells that the hexose transporters had been silenced. We subsequently found that silencing of hexokinase, a glycolytic enzyme, also yielded tubercidin-resistant parasites. These observations suggested that glycolysis could be a target of tubercidin action and that RNAi silencing of glycolytic enzymes was gradual enough to allow the parasites to adapt to alternative sources of energy. Indeed, adaptation of procyclic trypanosomes to a glucose-independent metabolism by reduction of glucose in the culture medium caused tubercidin resistance. High pressure liquid chromatography analysis of glycolytic intermediates from parasites treated with tubercidin showed a dose-dependent increase in concentration of 1,3-bisphosphoglycerate, a substrate of phosphoglycerate kinase. Furthermore, tubercidin triphosphate inhibited recombinant T. brucei phosphoglycerate kinase activity in vitro with an IC50 of 7.5 μm. We conclude that 5 μm tubercidin kills trypanosomes by targeting glycolysis, especially by inhibition of phosphoglycerate kinase.
Correlation between overall survival and differential plasma and tissue tumor marker expression in nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients with different sites of organ metastasis

Differential overall survival of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) with different organ site metastases has been documented. Here, we attempted to determine the underlying mechanisms by assessing plasma and tumor tissue markers in relation to patient survival. Pretreatment plasma Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) DNA concentrations, cytokines and tissue macrophages, proliferation and apoptosis markers were determined in 178 patients with metastatic NPC. The median overall survival (OS) was 19 months. Patients with single organ metastases had better outcomes than those with multiple organ metastases (median OS: 26 months vs. 16 months), with statistical significance. Among the single organ involvement cases, patients with lung metastasis only showed longer survival than those with bone or liver involvement (median OS: 50 months vs. 21 months vs. 18 months; P < 0.001). Pretreatment plasma EBV DNA concentrations were lower in patients with lung metastasis than bone or liver metastasis among single organ site groups. Plasma interferon-γ-inducible protein-10 (IP-10) and monocyte chemotactic protein-1 (MCP-1) expression levels were correlated with differential single organ site metastasis OS and EBV DNA load. Liver metastatic tissue had higher density of infiltrating macrophages and proliferative index than the lung metastatic group. Low pretreatment plasma EBV DNA load, expression of cytokines, such as IP-10 and MCP-1, tissue macrophage infiltration, and proliferative index may contribute to the differences in overall survival.
The risk associated with aprotinin in cardiac surgery.

BACKGROUND The majority of patients undergoing surgical treatment for ST-elevation myocardial infarction receive antifibrinolytic therapy to limit blood loss. This approach appears counterintuitive to the accepted medical treatment of the same condition--namely, fibrinolysis to limit thrombosis. Despite this concern, no independent, large-scale safety assessment has been undertaken. METHODS In this observational study involving 4374 patients undergoing revascularization, we prospectively assessed three agents (aprotinin [1295 patients], aminocaproic acid [883], and tranexamic acid [822]) as compared with no agent (1374 patients) with regard to serious outcomes by propensity and multivariable methods. (Although aprotinin is a serine protease inhibitor, here we use the term antifibrinolytic therapy to include all three agents.) RESULTS In propensity-adjusted, multivariable logistic regression (C-index, 0.72), use of aprotinin was associated with a doubling in the risk of renal failure requiring dialysis among patients undergoing complex coronary-artery surgery (odds ratio, 2.59; 95 percent confidence interval, 1.36 to 4.95) or primary surgery (odds ratio, 2.34; 95 percent confidence interval, 1.27 to 4.31). Similarly, use of aprotinin in the latter group was associated with a 55 percent increase in the risk of myocardial infarction or heart failure (P<0.001) and a 181 percent increase in the risk of stroke or encephalopathy (P=0.001). Neither aminocaproic acid nor tranexamic acid was associated with an increased risk of renal, cardiac, or cerebral events. Adjustment according to propensity score for the use of any one of the three agents as compared with no agent yielded nearly identical findings. All the agents reduced blood loss. CONCLUSIONS The association between aprotinin and serious end-organ damage indicates that continued use is not prudent. In contrast, the less expensive generic medications aminocaproic acid and tranexamic acid are safe alternatives.
Identiﬁcation and Functional Characterization of the Novel Edwardsiella tarda Effector EseJ

Edwardsiella tarda is a Gram-negative enteric pathogen that causes hemorrhagic septicemia in ﬁsh and gastro- and extraintesti-nal infections in humans. The type III secretion system (T3SS) of E. tarda has been identiﬁed as a key virulence factor that contributes to pathogenesis in ﬁsh. However, little is known about the associated effectors translocated by this T3SS. In this study, by comparing the proﬁle of secreted proteins of the wild-type PPD130/91 and its T3SS ATPase (cid:2) esaN mutant, we identiﬁed a new effector by matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization–time of ﬂight (MALDI-TOF) mass spectrometry. This effector con-sists of 1,359 amino acids, sharing high sequence similarity with Orf29/30 of E. tarda strain EIB202, and is renamed EseJ. The secretion and translocation of EseJ depend on the T3SS. A (cid:2) eseJ mutant strain adheres to epithelioma papillosum of carp (EPC) cells 3 to 5 times more extensively than the wild-type strain does. EseJ inhibits bacterial adhesion to EPC cells from within bacterial cells. Importantly, the (cid:2) eseJ mutant strain does not replicate efﬁciently in EPC cells and fails to replicate in J774A.1 macrophages. In infected J774A.1 macrophages, the (cid:2) eseJ mutant elicits higher production of reactive oxygen species than wild-type E. to amplify the eseJ gene region with the primers (cid:2) eseJ -check-for and (cid:2) eseJ -check-rev (Table 2). One hundred forty-four colonies per organ per ﬁsh were examined for the ratio of (cid:2) eseJ mutant to wild type. The competitive index (CI) is deﬁned as the ratio of the (cid:2) eseJ and wild-type strains within the output divided by their ratio within the input. Statistical analysis. All data are presented as means (cid:7) standard errors of the means (SEM). Data were analyzed using Student’s t test, and P values less than 0.05 were considered signiﬁcant.