Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Parameter Identification Via Second Order Sliding Modes

A method for identification of any even number of parameters of the process transfer function from the test on the process, which involves application of the modified twisting algorithm, is proposed. Equations for determining the unknown parameters can be written separately for the magnitude and the argument of the transfer function that simplifies the task of identification. As a result, the problem can be reduced to the iterative solution of a system algebraic equations. Examples are provided
Signaling mechanisms of melatonin in antiproliferation of hormone‐refractory 22Rv1 human prostate cancer cells: implications for prostate cancer chemoprevention

Abstract: There is an unmet clinical demand for safe and effective pharmaceuticals/nutraceuticals for prostate cancer prevention and hormone‐refractory prostate cancer treatment. Previous laboratory and human studies of our laboratory demonstrated an association between the antiproliferative action of melatonin and melatonin MT1 receptor expression in prostate cancer. The aim of this study was to determine, using a pharmacological approach, the signaling mechanisms of melatonin in hormone‐refractory 22Rv1 human prostate cancer cell antiproliferation. Both immunoreactive MT1 and MT2 subtypes of G protein‐coupled melatonin receptor were expressed in 22Rv1 cells. Melatonin inhibited, concentration dependently, cell proliferation, upregulated p27Kip1 gene transcription and protein expression, and downregulated activated androgen signaling in 22Rv1 cells. While the effects of melatonin were mimicked by 2‐iodomelatonin, a high‐affinity nonselective MT1 and MT2 receptor agonist, melatonin effects were blocked by luzindole, a nonselective MT1 and MT2 receptor antagonist, but were unaffected by 4‐phenyl‐2‐propionamidotetraline, a selective MT2 receptor antagonist. Importantly, we discovered that the antiproliferative effect of melatonin exerted via MT1 receptor on p27Kip1 gene and protein upregulation is mediated by a novel signaling mechanism involving co‐activation of protein kinase C (PKC) and PKA in parallel. Moreover, we also showed that a melatonin/MT1/PKC mechanism is involved in melatonin‐induced downregulation of activated androgen signal transduction in 22Rv1 cells. Taken together with the known molecular mechanisms of prostate cancer progression and transition to androgen independence, our data provide strong support for melatonin to be a promising small‐molecule useful for prostate cancer primary prevention and secondary prevention of the development and progression of hormone refractoriness.
Abortion and infant mortality before and after the 1973 US Supreme Court decision on abortion

Summary The fifty states of the US were compared in 1971–72 and 1974–75 with respect to percentage apparent conceptions aborted and infant mortality rates attributed to various causes. Only non-vehicle accidental deaths were consistently related to abortion. The correlation is non-linear; non-vehicle accidental deaths were especially high in states with little or no abortion. A decline in non-vehicle accidental deaths from before to after the Supreme Court decision was most pronounced in states where there were fewest abortions before the decision and where increases in abortion occurred following the decision.
‘Urobotics’: robots in urology

Robots are far from new; in the fourth century BC, Aristotle developed the concept of automation when he wrote: `If every instrument could accomplish its own work, obeying or anticipating the will of others 1⁄4 if the shuttle could weave, and the pick could lyre, without a hand to guide them, chief workmen would not need servants, 1⁄4' [1]. The term `robot' (Czech, from robota meaning forced labour) was coined by Karel Capek, a Czech playwright who introduced a robot into his play RUR (Rossum's Universal Robots) which opened in January 1921. The plot was simple: `Man makes robot. Robot kills man'! In 1941, Isaac Asimov, a scientist and writer of science fact and ®ction, ®rst used the word `robotics' to describe the technology of robots, and proposed the three laws of robotics, to which he later added a `zeroth' law [2].
Fractal signature analysis measures cancellous bone organisation in macroradiographs of patients with knee osteoarthritis.

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether fractal signature analysis (FSA) of digitised macroradiographs of knees quantifies alterations in trabecular structure in the tibial cancellous bone of osteoarthritic patients with either early or definite joint space narrowing compared with non-arthritic subjects. METHODS: 90 osteoarthritic knees had macroradiographs at x5 magnification. Joint space width and FSA of horizontal and vertical trabecular organisation in the tibial subarticular cancellous bone were measured in the medial and lateral tibio-femoral compartments and compared to reference values obtained from the knees of 14 healthy non-arthritic volunteers, and to the subject's age and weight. RESULTS: Compared to the non-arthritic joints, FSA of the trabecular structure of the medial diseased compartment of the tibia was significantly different and correlated with the degree of joint space narrowing (P < 0.003); FSA of horizontal trabecular structures decreased (P < 0.001) in knees with early osteoarthritis (joint space > 3 mm) and vertical trabecular FSA increased in knees with marked joint space narrowing (joint space < 3 mm). In the lateral compartment of the tibia, FSA did not show a difference between any of the categories. With increasing age of all subjects, the changes in FSA indicated a significant increase in the number of fine horizontal and vertical trabeculae. No correlation was found between the subjects' body weight and changes in the subarticular cancellous bone organisation. CONCLUSIONS: FSA quantifies changes in cancellous bone organisation in knee osteoarthritis. In the diseased compartment, increased horizontal trabecular thickness occurred early and preceded the later changes in the vertical structures.
The Brugada ECG Pattern in a Neonate

We report a neonate resuscitated from sudden death with a Brugada ECG pattern several days after the initial event. The baby was subsequently diagnosed with a fatty acid oxidation disorder (medium chain Acyl‐CoA dehydrogenase deficiency or MCAD). We speculate that free fatty acid accumulation can give rise to the Brugada ECG pattern.
Environmental conditions shape the temporal pattern of investment in reproduction and survival

The relationship between environmental stress exposure and ageing is likely to vary with stressor severity, life-history stage and the time scale over which effects are measured. Such factors could influence whether stress exposure accelerates or slows the ageing process, but their interactions have not previously been experimentally investigated. We found that experimental exposure of zebra finches to mildly challenging environmental circumstances from young to old adulthood, which increased exposure to stress hormones, reduced breeding performance during early adulthood, but had positive effects when individuals were bred in old adulthood. This difference was not due to selective mortality, because the effects were evident within individuals, and no evidence of habituation in the response to the stressor was found. The more stressful environment had no effects on survival during young or old adulthood, but substantially improved survival during middle age. Changes in the effects at different ages could be due to the duration and nature of the challenging exposure, or to variation in coping capacity or strategy with age. These results show that living under challenging environmental circumstances can influence ageing trajectories in terms of both reproductive performance and longevity. Our results provide experimental support for the emerging idea that stress exposure needs to be optimized rather than minimized to obtain the best health outcomes.
Caspase‐related apoptosis in chronic ischaemic microangiopathy following experimental vein occlusion in mini‐pigs

Purpose: Acute brain ischaemia (stroke) causes a central area of coagulation necrosis. Peripheral to it and after a few hours, apoptosis causes neurons throughout the entire area to die progressively. However, this sequence of events is related to the reperfusion of regenerated capillaries or collateral circulation, and is considered to be potentially salvageable. Similar findings have been reported in the retina after ischaemia−reperfusion injury in rats. In the present study, we intended to investigate whether delayed cell death is involved in neuronal injuries to the inner retina during chronic retinal ischaemia.
Anatomic Reference for Computed Tomography of Paranasal Sinuses and Their Communication in the Egyptian Buffalo (Bubalus bubalis)

The purpose of this work was to present an anatomic reference for computed tomography (CT) for the paranasal sinuses of adult buffalo fit the use of anatomists, radiologists, clinicians and veterinary students. CT images with the most closely corresponding cross sections of the head were selected and studied serially in a rostral to caudal progression from the level of the interdental space to the level of the nuchal line. The anatomical features were compared with the dissected heads and skulls. The paranasal sinuses of buffalo comprise dorsal conchal, middle conchal, maxillary, frontal, palatine, sphenoidal (inconstant, small and shallow when present), lacrimal and ethmoidal that were identified and labelled according to the premolar and molar teeth as landmarks. The topographic description of all the compartments, diverticula, septa and communication of the paranasal sinuses in buffalo has been presented. The relationship between the various air cavities and paranasal sinuses was easily visualized.
Finger–digit compatibility in Arabic numeral processing

Finger–digit response compatibility was tested by asking participants to identify Arabic digits by pressing 1 of 10 keys with all 10 fingers. The direction of the finger–digit mapping was varied by manipulating the global direction of the hand–digit mapping as well as the direction of the finger–digit mapping within each hand (in each case, from small to large digits, or the reverse). The hypothesis of a left-to-right mental number line predicted that a complete left-to-right mapping should be easier whereas the hypothesis of a representation based on finger counting predicted that a counting-congruent mapping should be easier. The results show that when all 10 fingers are used to answer, a mapping congruent with the prototypical finger-counting strategy reported by the participants leads to better performance than does a mapping congruent with a left-to-right oriented mental number line, both in palm-down and palm-up postures of the hands, and they demonstrate that finger-counting strategies influence the way that numerical information is mentally represented and processed.
Using category-based semantic field for text categorization

This paper proposes a new document representation method to text categorization. It applies category-based semantic field (CBSF) theory for text categorization to gain a more efficient representation of documents. The lexical chain is introduced to compute CBSF and Hownet* used as a lexical database. In particular, the title of each document functions as a clue to forecast the potential CBSF of the test document. Combined with classifier, this approach is examined in text categorization and the result indicates that it performs better than conventional methods with features chosen on the basis of bag-of-words (BOW) system, on the same task.
Bovine Herpesvirus 5 Glycoprotein E Is Important for Neuroinvasiveness and Neurovirulence in the Olfactory Pathway of the Rabbit

ABSTRACT Glycoprotein E (gE) is important for full virulence potential of the alphaherpesviruses in both natural and laboratory hosts. The gE sequence of the neurovirulent bovine herpesvirus 5 (BHV-5) was determined and compared with that of the nonneurovirulent BHV-1. Alignment of the predicted amino acid sequences of BHV-1 and BHV-5 gE open reading frames showed that they had 72% identity and 77% similarity. To determine the role of gE in the differential neuropathogenesis of BHV-1 and BHV-5, we have constructed BHV-1 and BHV-5 recombinants: gE-deleted BHV-5 (BHV-5gEΔ), BHV-5 expressing BHV-1 gE (BHV-5gE1), and BHV-1 expressing BHV-5 gE (BHV-1gE5). Neurovirulence properties of these recombinant viruses were analyzed using a rabbit seizure model (S. I. Chowdhury et al., J. Comp. Pathol. 117:295–310, 1997) that distinguished wild-type BHV-1 and -5 based on their differential neuropathogenesis. Intranasal inoculation of BHV-5 gEΔ and BHV-5gE1 produced significantly reduced neurological signs that affected only 10% of the infected rabbits. The recombinant BHV-1gE5 did not invade the central nervous system (CNS). Virus isolation and immunohistochemistry data suggest that these recombinants replicate and spread significantly less efficiently in the brain than BHV-5 gE revertant or wild-type BHV-5, which produced severe neurological signs in 70 to 80% rabbits. Taken together, the results of neurological signs, brain lesions, virus isolation, and immunohistochemistry indicate that BHV-5 gE is important for efficient neural spread and neurovirulence within the CNS and could not be replaced by BHV-1 gE. However, BHV-5 gE is not required for initial viral entry into olfactory pathway.
Hybrid design of dual Vth and power gating to reduce leakage power under Vth variations

Increase in leakage power and Vth variation is a critical concern in leading-edge CMOS technology. Traditional dual Vth design with the worst corner model becomes difficult to achieve for low leakage because delay variation of high Vth cell is increased significantly by Vth variation. In this paper, we demonstrated that a power gated cell is more tolerant in delay variation than high Vth cell in 45 nm technology. We propose hybrid design technique to use power gated cells in the dual Vth circuit to reduce standby leakage without causing performance degradation. Also, we developed an optimization methodology based on simulated annealing. The proposed technique was applied to ISCAS'85 benchmark circuits. Standby leakage power was reduced by 44% on average over the conventional dual Vth design.
Television's Cultivation of American Adolescents' Beliefs about Alcohol and the Moderating Role of Trait Reactance

Cultivation research has shown that heavy television viewing is linked to audiences' generalized, and often skewed, views of reality. This research investigates whether television viewing is related to adolescents' views about the consequences of drinking and whether psychological trait reactance moderates this cultivation effect. Results from a survey of 445 American teenagers show that cumulative exposure to television is linked to reduced beliefs about alcohol's negative consequences and greater intentions to drink. These effects were greater for adolescents low on trait reactance. This research adds to the general psychological research on trait reactance as a moderator of media influences and makes a substantive contribution toward furthering our understanding of the media and public health concerns that surround risky adolescent behaviors.
Hematological changes among Chinese workers with a broad range of benzene exposures.

BACKGROUND Depression of peripheral blood cells is a well-known indicator of benzene hematotoxicity. Previous studies of its effects on specific types of blood cells have yielded inconsistent results. We examine hematological findings and their possible relations with exposure markers validated in a recent biomarker project conducted in Tianjin, China. METHODS Personal benzene exposures were sampled with 3-M organic vapor monitors, and analyzed by gas chromatography. The peripheral blood cells were counted by a cell counter. The WBC differential was manually counted on a total of 900 cells by a US commercial laboratory. RESULTS A total of 130 exposed workers and 51 age- and gender-matched unexposed subjects were recruited in this study. Benzene exposure levels monitored on the day of biological sample collection for exposed workers ranged from 0.06 to 122 ppm. Their 4-week average and cumulative benzene exposure levels were 0.08-54.5 ppm and 6.1-623.2 ppm-years, respectively. Significant decreases of red blood cells (RBC), white blood cells (WBC), and neutrophils were observed and correlated with both personal benzene exposures and levels of urinary metabolites (S-phenylmercapuric acid and t,t-muconic acid) and albumin adducts of benzene oxide and 1,4-benzeoquinone. CONCLUSIONS The depressions in RBC, WBC, and neutrophils observed in this study are not only exposure dependent, but also significantly different in the lowest exposed group (at or below 0.25 ppm) compared with unexposed subjects. The results of the present study appear to suggest that lymphocytes may not be more sensitive to chronic benzene exposure than neutrophils.
Five Approaches to Deal With Problem of DC Offset in Phase-Locked Loop Algorithms: Design Considerations and Performance Evaluations

The presence of the dc component in the phase-locked loop (PLL) input results in fundamental frequency oscillations in the phase and frequency estimated by the PLL. The removal of these oscillations is a challenging task because of their low frequency. The aim of this paper is to provide a detailed analysis of several approaches that little work has been conducted on their application for addressing the problem of dc offset in the PLL algorithms. These approaches include using the dq-frame delayed signal cancellation (DSC) operator and the notch filter (NF) as the PLL in-loop filtering stages, and using the αβ-frame DSC operator, the complex coefficient filter, and a cross-feedback network for blocking the dc offset before the PLL input. Design aspects of these methods are presented, some methods to enhance their performances are proposed, and their advantages and disadvantages are evaluated.
Body composition and time course changes in regional distribution of fat and lean tissue in unselected cancer patients on palliative care—Correlations with food intake, metabolism, exercise capacity, and hormones

Several investigations that yielded different results in terms of net changes in body composition of weight‐losing cancer patients have been reported that employed a variety of methods based on fundamentally different technology. Most of those reports were cross‐sectional, whereas to the authors' knowledge there is sparse information available on longitudinal follow‐up measurements in relation to other independent methods for the assessment of metabolism and performance.
Design and analysis of studies evaluating smoking cessation interventions where effects vary between practices or practitioners.

BACKGROUND Patients grouped together in practices may share characteristics that cause them to have similar responses to an intervention. Sampling from such groups means that the power of a trial is less than when subjects are selected from the population at random. Knowledge of likely variation in outcome at the practice level is necessary to calculate the extent to which sample size would need to be inflated to maintain statistical power in the face of 'cluster effects'. OBJECTIVES To plan sample size and precision requirements of a clinical trial, we examined reports of primary care smoking cessation trials for information on outcomes at the level of clusters, and found them unhelpful. We therefore constructed hypothetical scenarios to quantity the potential importance of this effect. METHOD Scenarios of moderate and large inter cluster variation were compared with a sample where there was no difference in effect size at the level of practices. RESULTS A study with 80% power to detect a difference of 20% versus 10% at a 5% significance level would need 200 patients in each arm in the absence of cluster effects. With moderate variation in outcome between clusters, over a thousand patients would be needed in the study to maintain this precision. With larger inter-cluster variation, close to 4000 subjects would be required. CONCLUSIONS In the absence of detailed data from previous studies, hypothetical models can give insight into the statistical implications of possible cluster effects on study design and analysis. With even moderate inter-cluster variation, sample size will have to be inflated considerably to maintain the same statistical precision. Workers in this field will greatly assist those planning future research if they publish details of variation in outcome at the level of clusters.
Development of a biochemotherapy regimen with concurrent administration of cisplatin, vinblastine, dacarbazine, interferon alfa, and interleukin-2 for patients with metastatic melanoma.

PURPOSE To evaluate the antitumor activity and toxicity of concurrent biochemotherapy that uses cisplatin, vinblastine, and docarbazine (DTIC) (CVD) in combination with interferon alfa-2a (IFN-alpha) and interleukin-2 (IL-2) in patients with metastatic melanoma. PATIENTS AND METHODS Between October 1992 and October 1993, 53 patients with a documented diagnosis of metastatic melanoma with measurable lesions and an Eastern Oncology Cooperative Group (ECOG) performance status of 2 or less were enrolled onto this study. Patients were required to have no clinically significant cardiac dysfunction and to be free from symptomatic brain metastases. The treatment consisted of cisplatin 20 mg/m2 daily for 4 days; vinblastine 1.6 mg/m2 daily for 4 days; and DTIC 800 mg/m2 intravenously (i.v.) day 1 with IL-2 9 x 10(6) IU/m2 i.v. by continuous infusion daily for 4 days and IFN-alpha 5 x 10(6) U/m2 subcutaneously daily for 5 days, repeated at 21-day intervals. Response was assessed after two cycles and patients who responded were continued on treatment for a total of six cycles. RESULTS Among 53 assessable patients, 11 patients (21%) achieved a complete response (CR) and 23 patients (43%) achieved a partial response (PR), for an overall objective response rate of 64%. The median time to disease progression for all patients was 5 months. The median survival of all patients entered onto the trial was 11.8 months. Among the 11 patients who achieved a CR, five patients (9%) have remained in continuous CR for 50+ to 61+ months. The toxicity of biochemotherapy consisted of severe myelosuppression, significant nausea and vomiting, and moderately severe hypotension that required inpatient hospital care for each 5-day cycle of treatment. There were no treatment-related deaths. CONCLUSION Concurrent biochemotherapy for patients with advanced melanoma is capable of producing high CR and overall response rates and resulted in durable complete remissions in a small fraction of patients. Toxicity, although severe, was manageable in a routine inpatient hospital environment.
Microbial Biosynthesis of Polyglutamic Acid Biopolymer and Applications in the Biopharmaceutical, Biomedical and Food Industries

ABSTRACT This review article provides an updated critical literature review on the production and applications of Polyglutamic Acid (PGA). α-PGA is synthesized chemically, whereas γ-PGA can be produced by a number of microbial species, most prominently various Bacilli. Great insight into the microbial formation of γ-PGA has been gained thanks to the development of molecular biological techniques. Moreover, there is a great variety of applications for both isoforms of PGA, many of which have not been discovered until recently. These applications include: wastewater treatment, food products, drug delivery, medical adhesives, vaccines, PGA nanoparticles for on-site drug release in cancer chemotherapy, and tissue engineering.