Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Mitochondrion Is a Site of Trypanocidal Action of the Aromatic Diamidine DB75 in Bloodstream Forms of Trypanosoma brucei

ABSTRACT Human African trypanosomiasis (HAT) is a fatal tropical disease caused by infection with protozoans of the species Trypanosoma brucei gambiense and T. b. rhodesiense. An oral prodrug, DB289, is a promising new therapy undergoing phase III clinical trials for early-stage HAT. DB289 is metabolically converted to the active trypanocidal diamidine DB75 [2,5-bis(4-amidinophenyl)furan]. We previously determined that DB75 inhibits yeast mitochondrial function (C. A. Lanteri, B. L. Trumpower, R. R. Tidwell, and S. R. Meshnick, Antimicrob. Agent Chemother. 48:3968-3974, 2004). The purpose of this study was to investigate if DB75 targets the mitochondrion of T. b. brucei bloodstream forms. DB75 rapidly accumulates within the mitochondria of living trypanosomes, as indicated by the fluorescent colocalization of DB75 with a mitochondrion-specific dye. Fluorescence-activated cell sorting analysis of rhodamine 123-stained living trypanosomes shows that DB75 and other trypanocidal diamidines (pentamidine and diminazene) collapse the mitochondrial membrane potential. DB75 inhibits ATP hydrolysis within T. brucei mitochondria and appears to inhibit the oligomycin-sensitive F1F0-ATPase and perhaps other ATPases. DB75 is most likely not an inhibitor of electron transport within trypanosome mitochondria, since DB75 fails to inhibit mitochondrial respiration when glycerol-3-phosphate is used as the respiratory substrate. However, DB75 inhibits whole-cell respiration (50% inhibitory concentration, 20 μM) at drug concentrations and incubation durations that also result in the dissipation of the mitochondrial membrane potential. Taken together, these findings suggest that the mitochondrion is a target of the trypanocidal action of DB75.
Apply Feature Selection to the Integration of TCM and Western Medicine

Differentiation of syndromes of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) mainly depends on the information obtained from four diagnosis methods. Now many physicochemical parameters are available in clinic. There exists great correlation between TCM syndromes and physicochemical parameters. The objective of the paper is to analyze the correlation between TCM syndromes and physicochemical parameters quantitatively and find the most informative physicochemical parameter combination which is useful in differentiation of syndromes. A novel definition of correlation degree based on Renyi's entropy is proposed which can measure the correlation between variables efficiently. Feature selection based on the correlation degree is used to find the most informative physicochemical parameters for assisting differentiation of syndromes.
Exchange Rate Assessment; Extension of the Macroeconomic Balance Approach

The IMF's internal analysis of exchange rate issues has been guided by, and limited by, the conceptual and empirical frameworks that have emerged from the collective research of the economics profession. The research has provided several general approaches that are useful for assessing whether countries exchange rates seem broadly appropriate. One involves the calculation of purchasing power-party (PPP) measure or international competitiveness indicators. A second, known as the macroeconomic balance framework, focuses on the extent to which prevailing exchange rates and policies are consistent with simultaneous internal and external equilibrium over the medium run. Some recent extensions of the macroeconomic balance approach and the manner in which it is applied by the IMF staff are described in this paper.
Tunable Bandpass and Bandstop Filters Based on Dual-Band Combline Structures

New methods for the design of tunable combline bandpass and bandstop filters are presented. The first part of this paper presents a tunable bandstop filter designed using a dual-band circuit with wide passband and integrated narrow stopband. A prototype has been constructed and measured results shows that the bandwidth remained constant at 30 MHz as the filter was tuned from 3.22 GHz to 3.66 GHz. The second part of this paper presents a tunable bandpass filter designed using a dual-band circuit with both wide passband and stopband. The response corresponds to two narrow passbands, where the lower passband bandwidth and center frequency can be tuned. A prototype has been constructed and measured results demonstrate wide centre frequency tuning range and over 300% bandwidth tuning without the need for coupling adjustment.
Bounding the eigenvalues of the Laplace–Beltrami operator on compact submanifolds

We give upper bounds for the eigenvalues of the Laplace–Beltrami operator of a compact m‐dimensional submanifold M of ℝm+p. Besides the dimension and the volume of the submanifold and the order of the eigenvalue, these bounds depend on either the maximal number of intersection points of M with a p‐plane in a generic position (transverse to M), or an invariant that measures the concentration of the volume of M in ℝm+p. These bounds are asymptotically optimal in the sense of the Weyl law. On the other hand we show that, even for hypersurfaces (that is, when p = 1), the first positive eigenvalue cannot be controlled only in terms of the volume, the dimension and (for m ⩾ 3) the differential structure.
The Price of Happy Hens: A Hedonic Analysis of Retail Egg Prices

This paper analyzes price differentials among conventional, cage-free, organic, and Omega-3 eggs using retail scanner data from two regional markets and the United States as a whole. Results reveal significant premiums attributable to cage-free (a 57% premium on average) and organic (an 85% premium on average). However, significant variation exists among geographic locations; price premiums for organic over conventional eggs in Dallas are almost twice as high as those in San Francisco. Estimates indicate that about 42% of the typically observed premium for cage-free eggs over conventional eggs (and 36% of the premium for organic eggs) can be attributed to egg color rather than differences in hensâ€™ living conditions. Despite the large implicit price premiums for cage-free and organic, our data reveal that most shoppers are not willing to pay such high prices for cage-free and organic attributes.
Dermoscopic feature analysis for melanoma recognition and prevention

Computer-aided diagnosis system automatically analyze skin lesions, and reduces the amount of repetitive and boring tasks carried out by the doctor. The full model of an automated system includes three important stages in order to comply with the lesion analysis : segmentation, feature extraction and classification. The data-set contains images and annotations provided by physicians. Segmentation is an imperative preprocessing step for CAD system of skin lesions. Feature extraction of segmented skin lesions is a pivotal step for implementing accurate decision support systems. Dermatologists take keen interest in examining a specific clinically significant part in a lesion. That part is projected to have lesion information in the form of texture that can be relevant for detection. In case of detection of melanoma various local features for example pigment network and streaks usually occur in peripheral region of the lesion. This led to the extraction of peripheral part for feature extraction instead of whole lesion processing. In this article detailed information regarding Feature extraction and selection techniques for dermoscopic images is presented.
No Margin, No Mission: Health Care Organizations and the Quest for Ethical Excellence

1. Virtue among the ruins? 2. Evidence-based ethics and the BEST Project 3. Organizational ethics 4. Consumer empowerment 5. Medical necessity, coverage decisions, and medical policy 6. The care of vulnerable populations 7. Community benefits 8. The confidentiality of personal health information 9. The perennial ethical challenges of health care in competitive systems
Dynamic Instrumentation and Optimization for GPU Applications

Parallel architectures like GPUs are a tantalizing compute fabric for performance-hungry developers. While GPUs enable order-of-magnitude performance increases in many dataparallel application domains, writing efficient codes that can actually manifest those increases is a non-trivial endeavor, typically requiring developers to exercise specialized architectural features exposed directly in the programming model. Achieving good performance on GPUs involves effort-intensive tuning, typically requiring the programmer to manually evaluate multiple code versions in search of an optimal combination of problem decomposition with architectureand runtimespecific parameters. For developers struggling to apply GPUs to more general-purpose computing problems, the introduction of irregular data structures and access patterns serves only to exacerbate these challenges, and only increases the level of effort required. This paper proposes to automate much of this effort using dynamic instrumentation to inform dynamic, profile-driven optimizations. In this vision, the programmer expresses the application using higher-level front-end programming abstractions such as Dandelion [13], allowing the system, rather than the programmer, to explore the implementation and optimization space. We argue that such a system is both feasible and urgently needed. We present the design for such a framework, called Leo. For a range of benchmarks, we demonstrate that a system implementing our design can achieve from 1.12 to 27x speedup in kernel runtimes, which translates to 9-40% improvement for end-to-end performance.
DEHYDROEPIANDROSTERONE INCREASES THE PROLIFERATION OF NEURAL PROGENITOR CELLS DERIVED FROM P19 EMBRYONAL CARCINOMA STEM CELLS

Introduction: The p19 line of embryonal carcinoma cells develop into neurons, astroglia and fibroblasts after aggregation and exposure to retinoic acid (RA). Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) is a neurosteroid, which can increase the proliferation of human neural stem cells (NSC) and positively regulate the number of neurons produced. This study was initiated to assess the effect of DHEA on neural progenitor cells derived from p19 embryonal carcinoma stem cells. Methods: p19 cells were suspended in DMEM containing 5% FBS in bacterial-grade Petri dishes in the presence of RA and DHEA at different concentrations for 6 days. Serum concentration was decreased to 3% on days 5 and 6. The aggregates were then collected and processed for flow cytometry, immunocytochemistry and RT-PCR analyses. Cells were trypsinized for dispersion and were placed in to poly-L-lysine (10 8g/ml) coated tissue culture dishes without RA and DHEA for 4 days. Differentiated cells were then evaluated by phase contrast microscopy. Results: Flow cytometry analyses of Nestin and Brdu/Nestin showed percent Nestin positive and proliferating Nestin positive cells in different groups including DHEA and RA groups. Brdu/Nestin immunochemistry confirmed proliferation of Nestin positive cells and also RT-PCR analysis showed the expression of proneural markers and estrogen receptor genes. Result showed that RA + DHEA (1µM) significantly increased the number of Nestin positive and newly formed Nestin positive cells compared to other groups. Conclusion: These results showed that DHEA accompanied by RA significantly increased the number of Nestin positive and newly formed Nestin positive cells derived from p19 embryonal carcinoma cells but in comparison to RA could not induce neural progenitor cells.
Joint adaptive modulation and predistortion for nonlinear time-varying channels

This paper proposes a simple joint adaptive modulation and predistortion scheme over nonlinear time-varying channels equipped with High Power Amplifiers (HPAs). The paper includes the probability of Bit Error Rate (BER) analysis of MQAM transmission over nonlinear channels, which is the key factor in designing adaptive modulation. The paper includes performance comparison of adaptive modulation over nonlinear channels with and without predistortion, for different normalized Doppler frequencies. The analysis is supported with simulation results. Results show that the combined adaptive modulation with predistortion technique significantly improves the spectral efficiency.
Time-Ants: An innovative temporal and spatial ant-based vehicular Routing Mechanism

Increasing amounts of time is wasted due to traffic congestion in both developed and developing countries. This has severe negative effects, including drivers stress due to increased time pressure, reduced usage efficiency of trucks and other commercial vehicles, and increased gas emissions-responsible for climate change and air pollution affecting population health in densely populated areas. As existing centralized approaches were neither efficient, nor scalable, there is a need for alternative approaches. Social insects provide many solutions for dealing with decentralized problems. For instance ants choose their routes based on pheromones left by previous ants. However, Ant Colony Optimization is not directly applicable to vehicle routing, as routing the vehicles to the same road would cause traffic congestion. Yet, the traffic is broadly similar from work-to work-day. This paper introduces an ant-colony optimization-based algorithm called Time-Ants. Time-Ants considers that an amount of “pheromone” or a traffic rating is assigned to each road at any given time in the day. Using an innovative algorithm the vehicle's routes are chosen based on these traffic ratings, aggregated in time. After several iterations this results in a global optimum for the traffic system. Bottlenecks are identified and avoided by machine learning. Time-Ants outperforms another leading algorithm by up to 19% in terms of percentage of vehicles to reach the destination within a given time-frame.
Social Inclusion of People with Mental Illness: Introduction: barriers to social and occupational integration

The focus in this book is on people with serious mental illnesses, particularly psychoses, schizophrenia and manic-depressive illness (termed bipolar illness in the USA). Although less serious psychiatric conditions such as depression may also lead to social and occupational exclusion, the barriers are not as formidable or as extensive as with the psychotic illnesses. Perhaps this is because the latter often produce symptoms with which the person in the street cannot empathise. One of us (JL) was sharing the platform at a public meeting with Lewis Wolpert, who has written and spoken extensively about the severe depressive illness he suffered in the past and from which he has fully recovered. He told the audience that it took a great effort for him to overcome his reluctance to expose his experience to the public because of the considerable stigma accorded to depression. JL followed this confession by relating that when patients in his care who suffer from schizophrenia ask him how to explain the gaps in their work record to a potential employer, he advises them to say that they have been depressed. Disabilities produced by the illness The barriers are partly attributable to the effects of the illness and its management by professionals and partly to the reaction of the public. Both schizophrenia and manic-depressive illness commonly lead to delusions – false beliefs about the world – and hallucinations – seeing or hearing things that others do not experience.
Varying the universality of supersymmetry-breaking contributions to MSSM Higgs boson masses

which they are independently nonuniversal (NUHM2). We show how the NUHM1 scenarios generalize the ðm1=2 ;m 0Þ planes of the CMSSM by allowing eitheror mA to take different (fixed) values and we also show how the NUHM1 scenarios are embedded as special cases of the more general NUHM2 scenarios. Generalizing from the CMSSM, we find regions of the NUHM1 parameter space that are excluded because the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP) is a selectron. We also find new regions where the neutralino relic density falls within the range preferred by astrophysical and cosmological measurements, thanks to rapid annihilation through direct-channel Higgs poles, or coannihilation with selectrons, or because the LSP composition crosses over from being mainly bino to mainly Higgsino. Generalizing further to the NUHM2, we find regions of its parameter space where a sneutrino is the LSP, and others where neutralino coannihilation with sneutrinos is important for the relic density. In both the NUHM1 and the NUHM2, there are slivers of parameter space where the LHC has fewer prospects for discovering sparticles than in the CMSSM, because either m1=2 and/or m0 may be considerably larger than in the CMSSM.
Finite element implementation of the eigenfunction series solution for transient heat conduction problems with low Biot number

Analytical solutions to transient heat conduction problems are often obtained by superposition of a particular solution (often the steady-state solution) and an eigenfunction series, representing the terms that decay exponentially with time. Here, a finite element realization of this method is presented in which conventional finite element discretization is used for the spatial distribution of temperature and analytical methods for the time dependence. This leads to a linear eigenvalue problem whose solution then enables a general numerical model of the transient system to be created. The method is an attractive alternative to conventional time-marching schemes, particularly in cases where it is desired to explore the effect of a wide range of operating parameters. The method can be applied to any transient heat conduction problem, but particular attention is paid to the case where the Biot number is small compared with unity and where the evolution of the system is very close to that with zero heat loss from the exposed surfaces. This situation arises commonly in machines such as brakes and clutches which experience occasional short periods of intense heating. Numerical examples show that with typical parameter values, the simpler zero heat loss solution provides very good accuracy. One also shows that good approximations can be achieved using a relatively small subset of the eigenvectors of the problem.
Free energy model for hysteresis in magnetostrictive transducers

This article addresses the development of a free energy model for magnetostrictive transducers operating in hysteretic and nonlinear regimes. Such models are required both for material and system characterization and for model-based control design. The model is constructed in two steps. In the first, Helmholtz and Gibbs free energy relations are constructed for homogeneous materials with constant internal fields. In the second step, the effects of material nonhomogeneities and nonconstant effective fields are incorporated through the construction of appropriate stochastic distributions. Properties of the model are illustrated through comparison and prediction of data collected from a typical Terfenol-D transducer.
A Method to Guarantee Ontology Consistency on Property Range Changes

An important target in ontology evolution is to guarantee ontology consistency when changes occur. Most of previous work focused on providing general methods for handling abstract changes, but ignored detailed methods for the specific changes, especially those property range changes which often arise in practice. This paper presents a process to apply a request change, by focusing on the specific case of request about modifying the range of property. We propose all the three situations of the property range change according to the relationship between the old range of property 'Rg' and the new one 'Rg1'. The three situations contain Rg1 includes Rg, Rg includes Rg1 and Rg doesnpsilat intersect with Rg1. Each may influence different ontology entities and cause a special additional changes set to ensure the consistent state. An algorithm resolving these situations is proposed and implemented in our system. And a practical case study is presented.
Production of Ethanol from Sugars and Lignocellulosic Biomass by Thermoanaerobacter J1 Isolated from a Hot Spring in Iceland

Thermophilic bacteria have gained increased attention as candidates for bioethanol production from lignocellulosic biomass. This study investigated ethanol production by Thermoanaerobacter strain J1 from hydrolysates made from lignocellulosic biomass in batch cultures. The effect of increased initial glucose concentration and the partial pressure of hydrogen on end product formation were examined. The strain showed a broad substrate spectrum, and high ethanol yields were observed on glucose (1.70 mol/mol) and xylose (1.25 mol/mol). Ethanol yields were, however, dramatically lowered by adding thiosulfate or by cocultivating strain J1 with a hydrogenotrophic methanogen with acetate becoming the major end product. Ethanol production from 4.5 g/L of lignocellulosic biomass hydrolysates (grass, hemp stem, wheat straw, newspaper, and cellulose) pretreated with acid or alkali and the enzymes Celluclast and Novozymes 188 was investigated. The highest ethanol yields were obtained on cellulose (7.5 mM·g−1) but the lowest on straw (0.8 mM·g−1). Chemical pretreatment increased ethanol yields substantially from lignocellulosic biomass but not from cellulose. The largest increase was on straw hydrolysates where ethanol production increased from 0.8 mM·g−1 to 3.3 mM·g−1 using alkali-pretreated biomass. The highest ethanol yields on lignocellulosic hydrolysates were observed with hemp hydrolysates pretreated with acid, 4.2 mM·g−1.
Rapid Severing and Motility of Chloroplast-Actin Filaments Are Required for the Chloroplast Avoidance Response in Arabidopsis[C][W][OA]

This study reveals a mechanism underlying chloroplast-actin filament dynamics during their disappearance processes, which are needed for the chloroplasts to produce a rapid avoidance response to strong blue light. These processes are specifically regulated by light intensity and position through phot2 and are different from those of cortical actin filaments. Phototropins (phot1 and phot2 in Arabidopsis thaliana) relay blue light intensity information to the chloroplasts, which move toward weak light (the accumulation response) and away from strong light (the avoidance response). Chloroplast-actin (cp-actin) filaments are vital for mediating these chloroplast photorelocation movements. In this report, we examine in detail the cp-actin filament dynamics by which the chloroplast avoidance response is regulated. Although stochastic dynamics of cortical actin fragments are observed on the chloroplasts, the basic mechanisms underlying the disappearance (including severing and turnover) of the cp-actin filaments are regulated differently from those of cortical actin filaments. phot2 plays a pivotal role in the strong blue light–induced severing and random motility of cp-actin filaments, processes that are therefore essential for asymmetric cp-actin formation for the avoidance response. In addition, phot2 functions in the bundling of cp-actin filaments that is induced by dark incubation. By contrast, the function of phot1 is dispensable for these responses. Our findings suggest that phot2 is the primary photoreceptor involved in the rapid reorganization of cp-actin filaments that allows chloroplasts to change direction rapidly and control the velocity of the avoidance movement according to the light’s intensity and position.