Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
New Step from Islamic Countries for Tourism: OIC, the Concept of Capital City of Islamic Tourism

At the end of 2013, in Gambia, all members countries of OIC (the Organization of Islamic Cooperation) agreed to hold a conference to explore and develop Islamic tourism potential in member countries. After this meeting, in Indonesia 4 member countries’ Tourism Ministries’ Coordination meeting was organized in June 2014. Main discussions of the conference were on understanding the growing demand of Islamic values in global economy and tourism industry. Bases on these goals, OIC announced the concept of “Tourism Capital City of Islamic Countries” firstly and for 2015 Jerusalem, 2016 Konya / Turkey, 2017 Madinah / Saudi Arabia, 2018 Tabriz / Iran were selected as Islamic tourism capital cities. The concepts of Halal, halal food, halal tourism and as a new step capital city of Islamic tourism mean that Muslim world wants to take place in the market because of advantages of economic gains and marketing images of tourism. The study tries to show the last attacks of Muslim world to tourism. The study will provide some example activities from last two capital cities’ (Jerusalem, Konya) and will examine the results or effects of these tourism activities.
Techniques for Efficient Event Routing

The huge development of the Internet in the 1990s gave birth to the first large scale network-based applications. All these systems were based on the client/server interaction paradigm, a communication model that has dramatically contributed to the development of distributed computing. In the 1990s the client/server paradigm has been extensively used to develop a huge number and variety of applications. The reasons are simple: it is a very clean model which adheres well to software modularity and usability requirements. Even if the client/server model has encountered a widespread adoption, it is far from being perfect. The first problem is that it requires participants to know each other, i.e. the client must know in advance the server with which it will interact. A second problem lies in the fact that the interaction is inherently synchronous: a client requests some services from a server and waits for the reply. This form of interaction is also known as request/reply. The tight coupling between interacting parties is an undesirable characteristic for all those applications that run on a large scale, whose participants are heterogeneous, whose components are not reliable, etc. For these reasons various alternatives to the client/server model have been introduced that try to address the cited shortcomings and satisfy the needs of ever more demanding applications: RPC, RMI, tuple spaces, messages queues and publish/subscribe. The publish/subscribe interaction paradigm has been recognized, in the last years, as a valid alternative to the client/server model, and has attracted the attention of both the industry and academia. With publish/subscribe, communications are no more 1 2 CHAPTER 1. PUBLISH/SUBSCRIBE SYSTEMS based on the notion of a source/destination channel, but are instead focused on the content of the information exchanged: consumers just express their interests on the type of information they expect to receive, regardless of the source of such information. Thanks to the radically different perspective on communication it offers, the publish/subscribe interaction paradigm can address many issues raised by advanced distributed applications and, more importantly, it is claimed to provide the loosely coupled form of interaction required in large scale dynamic distributed systems. As a consequence, the publish/subscribe interaction paradigm is nowadays becoming an essential part of large scale distributed systems design, and many software platforms have incorporated event-based communication mechanisms. Information buses are the basis of many systems [94, 19], and a large number of publish/subscribe systems have been developed (e.) as well as …
Using surface velocities to calculate ice thickness and bed topography: a case study at Columbia Glacier, Alaska, USA

Abstract Information about glacier volume and ice thickness distribution is essential for many glaciological applications, but direct measurements of ice thickness can be difficult and costly. We present a new method that calculates ice thickness via an estimate of ice flux. We solve the familiar continuity equation between adjacent flowlines, which decreases the computational time required compared to a solution on the whole grid. We test the method on Columbia Glacier, a large tidewater glacier in Alaska, USA, and compare calculated and measured ice thicknesses, with favorable results. This shows the potential of this method for estimating ice thickness distribution of glaciers for which only surface data are available. We find that both the mean thickness and volume of Columbia Glacier were approximately halved over the period 1957–2007, from 281 m to 143 m, and from 294 km3 to 134 km3, respectively. Using bedrock slope and considering how waves of thickness change propagate through the glacier, we conduct a brief analysis of the instability of Columbia Glacier, which leads us to conclude that the rapid portion of the retreat may be nearing an end.
Novel Formulation Approaches for Dermal and Transdermal Delivery of Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs

Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are among the most frequently prescribed drug groups. These drugs are used dermally or systemically in treatment of various rheumatic diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis (RA), as well as for osteoarthritis, low back pain and some joint diseases. The mechanism of action of NSAIDs is reversible inhibition of the cyclooxygenase enzyme (COX) and decreasing the synthesis of prostaglandins (Lionberger 2010; Massey 2010). However, these drugs lead to unfavorable effects specifically on the stomach as a result of inhibition of prostaglandins (PGs), which play a role in protection of the gastric mucosa, in systemic administration. The severity of these unfavorable side effects may range from a simple ailment like dyspepsia to peptic ulcer and gastrointestinal hemorrhage. Furthermore, the acidic character of NSAIDs may lead to local irritation and lesions on the gastrointestinal mucosa. Therefore, some NSAIDs are administered percutaneously and transdermally to achieve local or systemic effect as an alternative to oral and parenteral administration (Heyneman et al., 2000; Hooper et al., 2004). In dermal administration, the drug substances have to pass the stratum corneum (SC) layer to reach lower layers of the skin and/or to enter systemic circulation. In this context, formulation of the product may play a key role for penetration and absorption of the active ingredient (Lee & Maibach, 2006). Several formulation approaches for cutaneous administration of NSAIDs have been employed. The conventional pharmaceutical forms particularly used for dermal administration to achieve local effect are gels, creams and ointments (Williams, 2003). Furthermore, studies on novel drug delivery systems are available for transdermal administration of NSAIDs. These new approaches include liquid crystals, nano/micro emulsions, liposomes, solid lipid particles and patches. These systems are used to enhance cutaneous passage of drugs into systemic circulation and to target different layers of the skin (Guy, 2010; Santos et al., 2008; El Maghraby et al., 2008; Ceve, 2004). Different approaches have been performed to enhance cutaneous passage of drugs with the objective of overcoming the low skin permeability (Guy, 2010; Tromer & Neubert,
FLUID BALANCE AND BAROREFLEX RESPONSE: NEUROMODULATORS, NEURAL CIRCUITS AND SEX CHROMOSOME COMPLEMENT INFLUENCES (Balance de fluidos corporales y respuesta barorefleja: Influencias de neuromoduladores, circuitos neurales y complemento cromosómico sexual)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Changes in body water/sodium balance are tightly controlled by the CNS to avoid abnormal cardiovascular function and the development of pathological states. This process of sensory integration takes place in different nuclei, with diverse phenotypes and at different levels of the CNS. Our aim was to study the specific neurochemical groups, their roles, their connections and the associated endocrine responses during body sodium depletion or sodium overload conditions. For this purpose, we combined the immunohistochemical detection of different neurotransmitters, a retrograde transported dye and a marker of neural activity. We also determined the involvement of sex chromosome complement (SCC) in both bradycardic baroreflex response and in brain activity in a sodium depletion model. Our results demonstrated that the activity of serotonergic and oxytocinergic neurons significantly increases during blood volume expansion, suggesting their involvement in the homeostatic regulatory response. We also observed tonic activity of serotonergic neurons of the dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN) during the first hours after sodium depletion. The activity then decreased 24 h after sodium depletion and increased after body sodium reestablishment, independently of the sodium concentration of the solution consumed, suggesting that this system is involved in the inhibition of sodium appetite under conditions of satiety. In contrast, the paraventricular and supraoptic oxytocinergic neurons were activated and the oxytocin plasma levels increased only after hypertonic NaCl intake in both depleted and non-depleted animals, suggesting that this system is involved in the processing of hyperosmotic signals. Our hodological results provide insight into how different areas, such as the DRN and lateral parabrachial nucleus, form a neural network that regulates body fluid balance, and show the main integratory nuclei involved in the satiety phase of sodium appetite and consequently in the regulation of extracellular volume. Finally, we also demonstrated that the SCC influences bradycardic baroreflex response and modulates brain activity in nuclei closely involved in the regulatory response to RAAS stimulation.
Digital-IF WCDMA handset transmitter IC in 0.25-μm SiGe BiCMOS

Implemented in a 0.25-μm SiGe BiCMOS process, a highly integrated low-power transmitter IC (TxIC) is developed for wideband code-division multiple-access handset applications. Based on a digital-IF heterodyne architecture, it eliminates the external IF surface acoustic wave filter by adopting a meticulous frequency plan and a special-purpose second-order-hold D/A conversion scheme. The TxIC features a low-power high-speed D/A converter designed to drive a dominantly capacitive load. For the upconversion mixer and the RF amplifier, adaptive biases are designed to minimize the quiescent power consumption and to provide current boost only when needed. The TxIC achieves <1% EVM. It consumes 180 mW (3-V supply) for the maximum output power of +5 dBm and reduces to 120 mW during power backoff.
VISUAL MODEL BASED SINGLE IMAGE DEHAZING USING ARTIFICIAL BEE COLONY OPTIMIZATION

Images are often degraded by atmospheric haze , a phenomenon due to the particles in the air that scatter light. Haze induces a loss of contrast,its visual effect is blurring of distant objects. This paper presents a novel algorithm for improving the visibility of an image degraded by haze. The proposed method uses a cost function based on human visual model to estimate airlight map. It employs Artificial Bee Colony optimization (ABC) as the optimization technique for estimating air light map. Image is dehazed by removing the estimatedairlight from the degraded image. The performance of the algorithm is tested and compared with various other dehazing methods and the proposed algorithm dehazes the image effectively outperforming other methods.
Interaction Force Modeling for Joint Misalignment Minimization Toward Bio-Inspired Knee Exoskeleton Design

Roboticists have developed a diverse array of powered exoskeletons for human augmentation and rehabilitation over the last few decades. One of the key design objectives is to minimize the discomfort to enhance the user experience. The high inertia and joint misalignment of conventional rigid exoskeletons are two key factors that cause these problems. Different types of control algorithms have been developed to compensate the inertia and render low impedance to the wearers [1-2]. In addition to the high inertia, the misalignment between exoskeleton joints and musculoskeletal joints of wearers can cause detrimental forces [3-4]. Conventionally, the mechanical knee joints of rigid knee exoskeletons are typically treated as a simple 1 degree of freedom (DOF) hinge mechanism, but the biological knee possesses complex kinematic characteristics. When this kind of 1-DOF exoskeleton and wearer’s limb form a closed kinematic chain, both kinematic and kinetic interference will inevitably occur. There are two existing solutions to tackle the joint misalignment problems. One method aims to use complex mechanisms (e.g. cam mechanism or five-bar linkage) to
A model for a global inventory of ants: A case study in Madagascar

For systematics to receive wide support across the biological and environmental sciences and attract public interest, taxonomic endeavors must be accelerated, products made more widely accessible across a broader community, and effort focused on global revisions of select taxa. Without this change in scope, systematics will never be in a position to respond to the needs of conservation or provide convincing examples of the role of taxonomy in society. Without this change, there will be little hope in attracting the broad and deep support needed to discover the vast amount of asyet-undocumented diversity before it disappears. Among the arthropods, ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) are an especially diverse and ecologically important group whose social behavior and ecological dominance have been the subject of intense biological study. These characteristics strengthen the selection of ants as a model taxon for global inventory. The model I describe is based on protocols tested in Madagascar to collect, inventory, process, prepare, and identify enormous numbers of ant specimens across diverse large-scale landscapes. In addition, the concurrent development of tools to accelerate species identification, description, and dissemination demonstrates the feasibility, challenges, and impacts of a global inventory of ants.
Diabetes and Oxidative Stress: The Mechanism and Action

Diabetes mellitus is one of the major metabolic disorders. Diabetes is recognized for severe complications including diabetic nephropathy, neuropathy and retinopathy. Long-lasting effect of hyperglycemia results in increased oxidative stress. Oxidative stress results from an imbalance between radical- generating and radical scavenging systems. Increased oxidative stress has been shown to be increased in both insulin-dependent (IDDM), and noninsulin-dependent (NIDDM) diabetes mellitus and it could cause initial β cell damage in type I diabetes, or impaired insulin production, release or function in type II diabetes. Therefore, people with diabetes may also have greater antioxidant requirements because of increased production of free radicals in hyperglycemia. In this article, oxidative stress, free radicals, antioxidants and various mechanisms of reactive oxygen species (ROS) formation such as polyol pathway, protein oxidation, advanced glycation endproducts and lipid peroxidation in diabetic patients will be surveyed. Keyword: Diabetes, Lipid Peroxidation, Antioxidant, Oxidative Stress
Nonlinear viscoelasticity of adherent cells is controlled by cytoskeletal tension

The viscoelastic response of living cells to small external forces and deformations is characterized by a weak power law in time. The elastic modulus of cells and the power law exponent with which the elastic stresses decay depend on the active contractile prestress in the cytoskeleton. It is unknown whether this also holds in the physiologically relevant regime of large external forces and deformations. We used magnetic tweezers to apply stepwise increasing forces to magnetic beads bound to the cytoskeleton of different cell lines, and recorded the resulting cell deformation (creep response). The creep response followed a weak power law at all force levels. Stiffness and power law exponent increased with force in all cells, indicating simultaneous stress stiffening and fluidization of the cytoskeleton. The amount of stress stiffening and fluidization differed greatly between cell types but scaled with the contractile prestress as the only free parameter. Our results demonstrate that by modulating the internal mechanical tension, cells can actively control their mechanical properties over an exceedingly large range. This behavior is of fundamental importance for protection against damage caused by large external forces, and allows the cells to adapt to the highly variable and nonlinear mechanical properties of the extracellular matrix.
Chandra Discovery of Luminous Supersoft X-Ray Sources in M81

A Chandra ACIS-S imaging observation of the nearby galaxy M81 (NGC 3031) reveals nine luminous soft X-ray sources. The local environments, X-ray spectral properties, and X-ray light curves of the sources are presented and discussed in the context of prevailing physical models for supersoft sources. It is shown that the sample falls within expectations based on population synthesis models taken from the literature, although the high observed luminosities (Lobs ~ 2 × 1036-3 × 1038 ergs s-1 in the 0.2-2.0 keV band) and equivalent blackbody temperatures (Teff ~ 40-80 eV) place the brightest detected M81 objects at the high-luminosity end of the class of supersoft sources defined by previous ROSAT and Einstein studies of nearby galaxies. This is interpreted as a natural consequence of the higher sensitivity of Chandra to hotter and more luminous systems. Most of the sources can be explained as canonical supersoft sources: accreting white dwarfs powered by steady surface nuclear burning with X-ray spectra well fitted by hot white dwarf local thermodynamic equilibrium atmosphere models. An exceptionally bright source is scrutinized in greater detail since its estimated bolometric luminosity, Lbol ~ 1.5 × 1039 ergs s-1, greatly exceeds theoretical estimates for supersoft sources. This source may be beyond the stability limit and undergoing a phase of mass outflow under extreme conditions. Alternatively, a model in which the observed X-ray spectrum arises from an accretion disk around a black hole of mass ~1200/(cos i)1/2 M☉ (viewed at an inclination angle i) cannot be excluded.
Cocenters and representations of pro-$p$ Hecke algebras

In this paper, we study the relation between the cocenter and the representations of an affine pro-$p$ Hecke algebra. As a consequence, we obtain a new criterion on the supersingular representation: a (virtual) representation is supersingular if and only if its character vanishes on the non-supersingular part of the cocenter.
An Overview of Target Specific Neuro-Protective and Neuro-Restorative Strategies

The cellular mechanisms underlying neuronal loss and neurodegeneration have been an area of great interest for neuroscientists throughout the world. The development of animal models that simulate critical components of clinical neurodegenerative diseases have provided tremendous insight into the pathophysiological pathways and have facilitated the application of targeted pharmacotherapy. Although neurodegenerative diseases (ND), such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Parkinson’s disease (PD), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Huntington’s disease (HD), and multiple sclerosis (MS) each have distinct clinical symptoms and pathologies, they also share common mechanisms such as intraand/or extracellular accumulation of misfolded proteins; apoptosis; neuroinflammation; mitochondrial injury, oxidative stress and excitotoxic insult (Tarawneh and Galvin, 2010). No one mechanism appears to be primary in all cases of a particular ND, and these pathogenic most mechanisms most likely act synergistically through complex interactions to promote neurodegeneration. Discussion of these mechanisms is briefly reviewed here in reference to their implications for the development of novel neuroprotective /neuro-restorative agents targeting one or more of these pathways.
Abstract No. bert683 Crystal Structure of the Type III Secretion Chaperone SigE

No. bert683 Crystal Structure of the Type III Secretion Chaperone SigE M.G. Bertero , Y. Luo, D. Lim, and N.C. J. Strynadka (U. British Columbia) Beamline(s): X12C Introduction: Several gram negative bacterial pathogens have evolved a type III secretion system to deliver virulence effector proteins directly into eukaryotic cells, a process essential for disease [1]. This specialized secretion process requires customized chaperones that are specific for particular effector proteins. Despite the low sequence similarities, most type III secretion chaperones are small (<20 kDa), acidic and dimeric. The crystal structure of the Salmonella typhimurium SigD-specific chaperone has been determined at 1.9 resolution [2]. Methods and Materials: The crystal structure of intact SigE was solved by MAD phasing using a selenomethionine derivative [3]. All data was collected at 100 K in a cryogenic stream. Three-wavelengths data was collected at the Se absorption peak, edge and high energy remote. Results: The crystal structure of SigE reveals a novel fold with a-b-b-b-a-b-b-a topology (Fig. 1a). This topology differs significantly from that of SecB, the type II general secretory chaperone [4]. As expected from its acidic pI, SigE has a significant level of negatively charged electrostatic surface area; the charged surface is relatively localized to one face of the molecule and is interspersed with exposed hydrophobic surface (Fig. 1c). Previous work supports the existence of a dimeric form of SigE, in vivo and in vitro. Accordingly, the asymmetric unit of the SigE crystals contains a homo-dimer in which the two monomers are related by an approximate 2-fold non-crystallographic rotation symmetry. The dimerization interface arises through symmetrical interactions between the region containing the helix-strand motif, a2-b4, and its dimeric counterpart (a1-b4) in such a way that a2 and a2 are approximately parallel (Fig. 1b). The buried area between the dimeric interface is ~2190 , predominantly hydrophobic with additional hydrogen bonded interactions by polar side chains. Acknowledgments: Work in our laboratory was supported by the Burroughs Welcome Foundation, the Howard Hughes Medical Research Institute, Canadian Institute of Health Research, the Canadian Bacterial Disease Network Center of Excellence and the Toronto Hospital for Sick Children. We are thankful to excellent technical support at the beamline X12C at NSLS. References: [1] Hueck, C. J. Type III protein secretion systems in bacterial pathogens of animals and plants. Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews 62, 379-433 (1998). [2] Wattiau, P., Woestyn, S. and Cornelis, G. R. Customized secretion chaperones in pathogenic bacteria. Molecular Microbiology 20, 255-62 (1996). [3] Hendrickson, W. A. Determination of macromolecules structures from anomalous diffraction of synchrotron radiation. Science 254, 51-8 (1991). [4] Driessen, A. J. SecB, a molecular chaperone with two faces. Trends in Microbiology 9, 193-6 (2001).