Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Anti-Inflammatory and Anti-Superbacterial Properties of Sulforaphane from Shepherd's Purse

Shepherd's purse, Capsella bursa-pastoris (L.) Medik. , has been considered a health food for centuries in Asia and is known to contain the isothiocyanate compound sulforaphane. In this study, we evaluated the anti-inflammatory and antibacterial properties of a sulforaphane-containing solution (SCS) isolated from shepherd's purse. SCS had significant anti-inflammatory activity indicated by the decreased levels of nitric oxide (NO), cytokines (interleukin 1β [IL-1β], IL-6, and IL-10), and prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) in lipopolysaccharide-stimulated RAW 264.7 murine macrophages. In addition, SCS decreased the inducible NO synthase (iNOS) and cyclooxygenase 2 (COX-2) levels, which confirmed the anti-inflammatory activity of SCS. Further, SCS inhibited vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) and Bacillus anthracis. The minimal inhibitory concentration was 250 µg/ml for VRE and 1,000 µg/ml for B. anthracis. Taken together, these data indicate that SCS has potential anti-inflammatory and anti-superbacterial properties, and thus it can be used as a functional food or pharmaceutical.
On the Theory of Optimal Taxation in a Growing Economy

This paper considers the following question: Would a "golden rule" capital accumulation policy of equating the marginal product of capital to the rate of growth of population be appropriate in a mixed economy in which the government does not have direct control over resource allocation but can use distortionary taxes to obtain resources for augmenting the private capital stock? The key result derived hereis that the golden rule level of capital intensity remains optimal if the tax structure that prevails at the equilibrium does not alter the individual labor supply. This is true even if the constancy of labor supply represents a balancing of income effects and substitution effects of a distortionary tax. In contrast, if the form of the tax and the nature of the utility function imply that labor supply is distorted, the optimal capital intensity will in general not correspond to the golden rule level.
Data Processing and Government Administration: The Failure of the American Legal Response to the Computer

Introduction . 1322 I. The Data Processing Model and the Computer . 1325 A. The Information Society and the Data Processing M odel . 1326 B. The Service Administration and Its Need for Personal Inform ation . 1329 C. Capabilities of the Computer as Machine . 1334 1. Rapid Processing of Enormous Data Banks . 1335 2. Multifunctionality . 1339 3. Seductive Precision of Output . 1341 II. The Danger to Bureaucratic Justice and Autonomy . 1343 A. Possible Paradigms . 1344 1. Privacy . 1344 2. Bureaucratic Justice . 1348 3. Autonomy . 1349
Potency, Efficacy and Durability of DNA/DNA, DNA/Protein and Protein/Protein Based Vaccination Using gp63 Against Leishmania donovani in BALB/c Mice

Background Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) caused by an intracellular protozoan parasite Leishmania, is fatal in the absence of treatment. At present there are no effective vaccines against any form of leishmaniasis. Here, we evaluate the potency, efficacy and durability of DNA/DNA, DNA-prime/Protein-boost, and Protein/Protein based vaccination against VL in a susceptible murine model. Methods and Findings To compare the potency, efficacy, and durability of DNA, protein and heterologous prime-boost (HPB) vaccination against Leishmania donovani, major surface glycoprotein gp63 was cloned into mammalian expression vector pcDNA3.1 for DNA based vaccines. We demonstrated that gp63 DNA based vaccination induced immune responses and conferred protection against challenge infection. However, vaccination with HPB approach showed comparatively enhanced cellular and humoral responses than other regimens and elicited early mixed Th1/Th2 responses before infection. Moreover, challenge with parasites induced polarized Th1 responses with enhanced IFN-γ, IL-12, nitric oxide, IgG2a/IgG1 ratio and reduced IL-4 and IL-10 responses compared to other vaccination strategies. Although, vaccination with gp63 DNA either alone or mixed with CpG- ODN or heterologously prime-boosting with CpG- ODN showed comparable levels of protection at short-term protection study, DNA-prime/Protein-boost in presence of CpG significantly reduced hepatic and splenic parasite load by 107 fold and 1010 fold respectively, in long-term study. The extent of protection, obtained in this study has till now not been achieved in long-term protection through HPB approach in susceptible BALB/c model against VL. Interestingly, the HPB regimen also showed marked reduction in the footpad swelling of BALB/c mice against Leishmania major infection. Conclusion/Significance HPB approach based on gp63 in association with CpG, resulted in robust cellular and humoral responses correlating with durable protection against L. donovani challenge till twelve weeks post-vaccination. These results emphasize the potential of DNA-prime/Protein-boost vaccination over DNA/DNA and Protein/Protein based vaccination in maintaining long-term immunity against intracellular pathogen like Leishmania.
Safety of anti-tumour necrosis factor agents in patients with chronic hepatitis C infection: a systematic review.

OBJECTIVES To identify all of the patients affected by chronic hepatitis C infection treated with TNF-α blockers (adalimumab, certolizumab pegol, etanercept, golimumab and infliximab) in order to evaluate the safety profile. METHODS A systematic review of the literature from January 1990 to October 2010. RESULTS In total, 37 publications with data on 153 patients who were treated with anti-TNF-α agents in the setting of HCV infection were found. The mean anti-TNF-α treatment duration was 11.9 months. Ninety-one patients had RA, 22 had psoriasis, 6 had Crohn's disease and 14 patients had other chronic inflammatory diseases. To date, etanercept is the biological agent that has been most extensively used in the patients with HCV infection, with only one definitely confirmed case of HCV hepatitis worsening and five suspected cases (elevation of transaminases not associated with an increase in the HCV viral load and vice versa) in 110 treated patients. Treatment with this agent resulted in stable levels of liver transaminases and a stable viral load in 74 patients, with an improvement in HCV chronic liver disease in combination with IFN-ribavirin therapy in 29 patients. CONCLUSIONS The safety profile of anti-TNF-α agents in the setting of HCV infection seems to be acceptable, even if differences in the hepatotoxic profile are apparent between different agents. In the absence of long-term and large, controlled clinical trials a definitive statement on the safety of anti-TNF-α therapies in the setting of chronic HCV infection cannot be made.
How shall we catch people's concerns in micro-blogging?

In micro-blogging, people talk about their daily life and change minds freely, thus by mining people's interest in micro-blogging, we will easily perceive the pulse of society. In this paper, we catch what people are caring about in their daily life by discovering meaningful communities based on probabilistic factor model (PFM). The proposed solution identifies people's interest from their friendship and content information. Therefore, it reveals the behaviors of people in micro-blogging naturally. Experimental results verify the effectiveness of the proposed model and show people's social life vividly.
Assessment of the Prevalence of Diabetic Gastroparesis and Validation of Gastric Emptying Scintigraphy for Diagnosis

Objective: Gastroparesis is defined as delayed gastric emptying and is a common medical condition in diabetic patients. Scintigraphy is commonly used as a standard diagnostic procedure for the quantitative assessment of gastroparesis. The aims of this study were to determine an optimum imaging time for the diagnosis of gastroparesis, to assess the prevalence of gastroparesis, to evaluate the correlation between endoscopy and scintigraphy findings as well as the correlation between gastric emptying with patient genders, blood glucose concentration, and functional dyspepsia. Methods: Gastric emptying was assessed in 50 diabetic patients with a mean age of 50.16 years. For evaluation of gastric emptying, a test meal containing 2 pieces of toast, 120 cc non-labeled water and fried egg labeled with 1 mCi of 99mTc was given to each patient. The scintigraphy was performed immediately after ingestion and was repeated at 1, 1.5, 2 and 4 hours after ingestion. In some patients, an additional 90-minute dynamic scan was also acquired. Results: The prevalence of gastroparesis in this study population was determined as 64%. Also, the results of this study revealed that a 4-hour scan after ingestion is more relevant than a 90-minute dynamic scan for the evaluation of delayed gastric emptying. There was no statistically significant difference between 1-hour and 2-hour scans, 1-hour and 90-minute scans, 2-hour and 90-minute scans, 2-hour and 4-hour scans. Likewise there was no significant correlation between blood glucose levels, gender and calculated values of gastric emptying time in all groups. Conclusion: According to our findings, it can be suggested that the prevalence of gastroparesis is higher than that mentioned in some previous studies. Also, this study indicates that a gastric emptying scintigraphy at 2 and 4 hours after meal ingestion might provide the anticipated clinical information in diabetic patients with dyspepsia without other evident reasons.
Cooperative control of connected micro-cells for a virtual single cell for fast handover

Microcellular network will have to become a proper choice for broadband mobile network in future mobile multimedia due to its high re-use radio resource. This paper discusses packet multiplexing control of connected micro-cells as a virtual single cell to support fast handover in such a micro-cell network. Adjacent cells are grouped into a multicast group to create an LMC (Logical Macro Cell) and active MTs (Mobile Terminal) in the same serving BS are assigned to an identical LMC. When an MT changes its connection to a new cell, its LMC also switches over to a new LMC with the purpose of reserving resources for future handover of the MT. Switch-over of LMC creates a virtual single cell environment for each MT. The switchover time is only the processing time in which the central node (CN) changes in rows of the LMC table. The wireless segment of the LMC offers radio connections over parallel polling to each terminal instead of contention to support for fast mobility between micro-cells. By reserving resource for each MT in each BS (base station) through scheduled parallel polling, the handover between micro-cells is performed at the answer of the polling in a new cell. Thus it is not necessary to stop connection and contend with other MTs for gaining channels. Our simulation results prove that the parallel polling and the LMC switchover work well to offer smooth high-data rate to fast mobile users without handover latency though the radio resources is reduced somewhat for reservation. OMNeT++ simulation tool is used for our simulation performance.
Kangaroo: Reliable Execution of Scientific Applications with DAG Programming Model

As high performance computing (HPC) systems increase in scale with higher potential level of component failure, the need rises for developing fault tolerant systems. However, current fault tolerance mechanisms, including Reply, Check pointing, and Redundant Execution, dose not scale well in large-scale scientific computing. Kangaroo is a reliable execution engine for scientific applications. Parallel programs are modeled as directed acyclic graph (DAG), and executed on clusters with graph theory based scheduling policy. Kangaroo provides effective execution of scalable parallel programs and transparently tolerates failures during runtime. In this paper, we describe the implementations of Kangaroo system, discuss designs of scheduling and fault tolerance, and evaluate the performance by a dense matrix inversion program. The results demonstrate that scheduling policies have a strong effect on program performance. They also demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of our approach to fault tolerance.
FISA-XP: an agile-based integration of security activities with extreme programming

The steep rise in security threats has forced organizations to adopt sound security practices right from the development stage of any software project. With the rising popularity of lightweight, agile methodologies, this becomes more complicated. This paper proposes a framework, FISA-XP, which can be adopted for the development of a secure software system. The proposed framework integrates security activities with the core activities of Extreme Programming based on their degree of agility. In order to calculate agility degree, some agility features are selected using a threshold value. The compatibility of the agile activities with security activities is subsequently assessed by introducing an integration matrix that describes whether integration of an agile activity with each security activity is possible or not. This framework assists in integrating security activities with agile activities, keeping the combined agility degree within acceptable limits. Thus, our approach introduces an Acceptable Agility Reduction Factor, which gives a threshold value for an acceptable reduction in agility degree. If reduction in combined agility degree is below the threshold value then that security activity is not accepted for integration. TISA-XP, an automated tool, has been designed to enable developers to use FISA-XP practically. This tool has been used by a software-developing company on an experimental basis and the feedback reflects its practical feasibility.
Rent-Extracting Tariffs and the Management of Exhaustible Resources

The paper examines the interaction between a resource-exporting and a resource-importing country. The exporter chooses an optimal depletion rate and decides the allocation of the extracted resource between exports and domestic use. Optimal management from a national view entails inefficiency from a global perspective because too little resource is exported since the supplying country exploits its monopoly power. The importing country, however, has incentive to extract some of the resource rent with a tariff. The optimal tariff induces greater overall inefficiency.
Inter Vivos Gifts: Compensatory or Equal Sharing?

Empirical studies of intergenerational transfers usually find that bequests are equally divided among heirs while inter vivos gifts tend to be compensatory. Using the HRS data set from the U.S. we find that only 5 % of parents who give, divide their gifts equally among their children. Estimating probit models, using family panels, we find that gifts are compensatory in the sense that a child is more likely to receive a gift if she works fewer hours and has lower earnings than than her brothers and sisters. These results carry over to the amounts given. Fixed effects Tobit estimations show that the fewer hours a child works and the lower her income is, the more the parents give. Gifts are compensatory. The empirical results are, therefore, consistent with the predictions of the altruistic model of intergenerational transfers.
Channel estimation of sparse multipath based on compressed sensing using Golay sequences

For the novel channel estimation method using compressed sensing (CS), many strategies have been proposed for its performance improvements. Nevertheless, random sequences are usually used to construct sensing matrix, but it is difficult and expensive to be implemented in hardware, and may cause large Peak-to-Average Power Ratio (PAPR) in OFDM system. Consequently, in this paper, the method that to obtain deterministic sensing matrix by deterministic sequence named as Golay Complementary Sequence is detailed investigated. Golay sequence has the properties as perfect periodic auto-correlations, simultaneously realizing timing acquisition and channel estimation. Also PAPR can be limited within 3dB in OFDM system by the method. Simulation results show that the deterministic sensing matrix can offer reconstruction performance similar to random matrix.
OFDM -CPM performance analysis at Saleh Model

OFDM/CPM is now a recognized alternative to conventional OFDM for the transmission of signals over nonlinear channel. This paper presents a characterization of nonlinear distortion effects in orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing/continuous phase modulation (OFDM/CPM) transmission systems at Saleh Model. In a second step, a comparison with simulation results is carried out to show that CM is more suitable to show characterization of nonlinear distortion than PAPR.
Modular Verification of Performance Correctness

Component-based software engineering is concerned with predictability in both functional and performance behavior, though most formal techniques have typically focused their attention on the former. The objective of this paper is to present specification-based proof rules compositional or modular verification of performance in addition to functionality, addressing both time and space constraints. The modularity of the system makes it possible to verify performance correctness of a module or procedure locally, relative to the procedure itself. The proposed rules can be automated and are intended to serve as part of a system of rules that accommodate a language sufficiently powerful to support component-based, objectoriented software.
Humanoid separation of speech sources in reverberant environments

This paper presents a framework for humanoid binaural source separation in a non-ideal reverberant environment and investigates the ideal position of a human head for several separation algorithms. A movable human dummy head residing in a normal office room is used to model the conditions humans experience in a complex auditory scene. Prior to source separation the dummy head analyzes the auditory scene, estimates several parameters and aligns to the best separation position. The estimated information is used to enhance the succeeding source separation: Several parallel separation paths estimate independent time-frequency masks to demix the target source. A combination stage infers a final estimate of the ideal binary mask. The presented approach outperforms fixed beamforming and the DUET source separation algorithm in reverberant auditory scenes consisting of two and three speech sources by up to 17 dB SIR gain.
Discussion and Experimental Verification on the Relations of Polarization, Deformation and Induced Voltage of Piezoelectric Material

The poling process is described by force analysis for the dipoles inside of the piezoelectric material. The inducing process of electric charges of piezoelectric material under deformation of shrink or stretch along the poling direction is observed. In this case, three sandwiched cantilever models with one or two piezoelectric layers connected in series or parallel are designed and fabricated. Then, under an initially instant excitation, the generation of the induced positive and negative electric charges on the surface of the piezoelectric layers polarized along the thickness direction is analyzed and measured. Finally, experimental measurements verify theoretical results strongly.
TARGET EVOLUTION AND THERAPY ADVANCEMENTS FOR ALZHEIMER ’ S DISEASE : A REVIEW

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) has engulfed most parts of the world and the number is expected to rise drastically in the near future. Consequently researchers are focusing on novel and better therapeutics to tackle this deteriorating condition. The current therapeutics offer only symptomatic relief leaving an incomplete cure. Given the complexity of the disease pathogenesis, a multi-target approach is the need. Although an efficient elucidation of disease etiology and pathology has served useful in drug discovery the final results in most cases are unconvincing. This article summarizes the different therapeutic strategies that can provide an insight in the treatment of AD.
The Second Workshop on Metaphor in NLP

Much computational work has been done on identifying and interpreting the meaning of metaphors, but little work has been done on understanding the motivation behind the use of metaphor. To computationally model discourse and social positioning in metaphor, we need a corpus annotated with metaphors relevant to speaker intentions. This paper reports a corpus study as a first step towards computational work on social and discourse functions of metaphor. We use Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) to annotate data from three web discussion forums covering distinct domains. We then compare these to annotations from our own annotation scheme which distinguish levels of metaphor with the labels: nonliteral, conventionalized, and literal. Our hope is that this work raises questions about what new work needs to be done in order to address the question of how metaphors are used to achieve social goals in interaction.
ANNALES DE L’INSTITUT FOURIER

— The theory of Whittaker functors for GL n is an essential techni- cal tools in Gaitsgory’s proof of the Vanishing Conjecture appearing in the geometric Langlands correspondence. We deﬁne Whittaker functors for G S p 4 and study their properties. These functors correspond to the maximal parabolic subgroup of G S p 4 , whose unipotent radical is not commutative. We also study similar functors corresponding to the Siegel parabolic subgroup of G S p 4 , they are related with Bessel models for G S p 4 and Waldspurger models for GL 2 . We deﬁne the Waldspurger category, which is a geometric counterpart of the Waldspurger module over the Hecke algebra of GL 2 . We prove a geometric version of the multiplicity one result for the Waldspurger models. Résumé. — La théorie des foncteurs de Whittaker pour GL n est un outil tech- nique essentiel dans la démonstration de Gaitsgory de la qui apparaît dans le programme de Langlands géométrique. On introduit et étudie les foncteurs de Whittaker pour G S p 4 . Ces foncteurs correspondent au sous-groupe parabolique maximal de G S p 4 dont le radical unipotent n’est pas commutatif. On étudie aussi les foncteurs similaires qui correspondent au parabolique de Siegel de G S p 4 , ils sont liés aux modèles de Bessel pour G S p 4 et aux modèles de Waldspurger pour GL 2 . On introduit la categorie de Waldspurger qui est un analogue géométrique du module de Waldspurger sur l’algèbre de Hecke pour GL 2 . On démontre une version géométrique de la multiplicité un pour les modèles de Waldspurger.
Kriging Interpolation Based Ultrasound Scan Conversion Algorithm

Digital scan conversion was employed in ultrasound image devices to display scanned vector data in Cartesian coordinate that were acquired with polar coordinate. So interpolation was applied to estimate unsampled pixels gray values. Most interpolation algorithms enhanced all the detail and smooth regions. A Kriging interpolation based scan conversion algorithm is proposed to distinguish detail regions and smooth regions with asymmetry operator. Detail regions are interpolated with adaptive cubic interpolation and other smooth regions with Kriging interpolation. This algorithm preserves smooth regions and enhances detail regions in result ultrasound images. Experiment results indicate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.