Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparison of cellular localisation of the Ca2+‐binding proteins calbindin, calretinin and parvalbumin in the retina of four different Macaca species

Ca2+‐binding proteins are differentially expressed in the nervous system; their functional role often remains unclear. This immunohistochemical study aimed at characterising and comparing the expression pattern of the Ca2+‐binding proteins calbindin (Calb), calretinin (Calr) and parvalbumin (Parv) in the retina of four species of macaque monkeys: Macaca fascicularis (cynomolgus macaque), M. mulatta (rhesus macaque), M. thibetana (Tibetan macaque) and M. fuscata (Japanese macaque). Calb was found in cone photoreceptors and in a subset of bipolar cells. Calr was expressed in a subpopulation of amacrine cells. Parv was present in horizontal and ganglion cells. In addition, Müller cells were stained using antibodies against the specific marker cellular retinaldehyde‐binding protein (CRALBP). Immunostainings were used for calculation of the density of different cell populations. The expression pattern was similar between the examined species and between retinal regions.
Effects of Diaphragmatic Breathing With and Without Pursed-Lips Breathing in Subjects With COPD

BACKGROUND: Breathing exercises, such as diaphragmatic breathing and pursed-lips breathing, play a role in some individuals with COPD and might be considered for those patients who are unable to exercise. However, in the literature are reports of some adverse effects of diaphragmatic breathing in patients with COPD. Thus, the purpose of this study was to assess the effects of diaphragmatic breathing and diaphragmatic breathing combined with pursed-lips on chest wall kinematics, breathlessness, and chest wall asynchrony in subjects with COPD, and also to assess whether the combination of both exercises reduces the adverse effects of diaphragmatic breathing while maintaining its benefits. METHODS: Seventeen subjects with COPD, mean ± SD, 65 ± 7 y of age, with a history of smoking and clinical stability without hospitalization or symptoms of exacerbation in the past 4 wk, were evaluated. On day 1, participants' characteristics were collected, and they learned diaphragmatic breathing and its combination with pursed-lips breathing. On day 2, the participants were evaluated by optoelectronic plethysmography with the participants in the seated position while performing breathing exercises. RESULTS: Diaphragmatic breathing and diaphragmatic breathing plus pursed-lips breathing promoted a significant increase in chest wall tidal volume and its compartments as well as a reduction in breathing frequency compared with quiet breathing. No significant changes were observed in dyspnea or end-expiratory volume of the chest wall. A significant increase in asynchrony (inspiratory-expiratory phase ratio) was observed during diaphragmatic breathing and diaphragmatic breathing plus pursed-lips breathing compared with quiet breathing, with no differences observed between the exercises. CONCLUSIONS: Despite the increase in asynchrony, both breathing exercises were able to improve chest wall volumes without affecting dyspnea. The combination of exercises maintained the benefits but did not reduce the adverse effects of diaphragmatic breathing.
Protocols for Measuring Glutamate Uptake: Dose‐Response and Kinetic Assays in In Vitro and Ex Vivo Systems

This article presents detailed descriptions of procedures and troubleshooting tips for basic in vitro and ex vivo uptake assays for the functional characterization of glutamate transporters and the assessment of the effect of compounds that modulate their activity. Assays are performed in cell lines that transiently or stably express a particular transporter under investigation, in primary cultures of astrocytes, or in ex vivo synaptosomal preparations that endogenously express these transporters. Two main assays are described, including dose‐response assays to measure potencies of test compounds for stimulation or inhibition of function (EC50 or IC50 values, respectively) and kinetic functional assays to calculate apparent affinity (KM) and maximal velocity (Vmax) of radiolabeled substrate uptake into the cells. The methods described use glutamate transporters as an example; however, the protocols can be adapted to other neurotransmitter transporters using their respective substrates (e.g., GABA uptake through GATs, serotonin uptake through SERTs, among others). © 2018 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Evaluation of the Safety and Efficacy of a Multienzyme Complex in Patients with Functional Dyspepsia: A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Study

Abstract Functional dyspepsia (FD) is a highly prevalent disorder having nonspecific symptoms and varied pathophysiology. Its treatment remains a challenge as therapeutic options are limited, unsatisfactory, and elusive. Thus, safety and efficacy of DigeZyme®, a proprietary multienzyme complex (MEC), was evaluated as a dietary supplement in FD patients. In this randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group study, 40 patients were randomly assigned (1:1 ratio) to receive either MEC (50 mg, TID; n = 20) or placebo (n = 20) for 60 days. Reports of adverse or serious adverse events (AEs), abnormal results of vital signs, abnormal findings during physical examination, and abnormal laboratory investigations were monitored closely. Efficacy measures were change in Short-Form Leeds Dyspepsia Questionnaire (SF-LDQ), Nepean Dyspepsia Index-Short Form (NDI-SF), Visual Analog Scale (VAS), Clinical Global Impression Severity Rating Scale (CGI-S), and Glasgow Dyspepsia Severity Score (GDSS) at baseline and follow-up visits on day 15, 30, and 60. Supplementation with MEC was associated with statistically significant differences (P value ranging from .0401 to .0033) in all efficacy parameters compared with placebo. The between-group comparison also revealed that MEC supplement had a significantly greater effect (P < .001) versus placebo. No investigation product-related AEs were reported. There were no clinically significant abnormalities in physical findings and no statistically significant changes in biochemical and hematological parameters, vital signs, body weight, and body mass index observed between the two groups at baseline and follow-up visits. MEC supplementation represents an effective and safe alternative to manage dyspepsia symptoms in FD patients.
On Microtargeting Socially Divisive Ads: A Case Study of Russia-Linked Ad Campaigns on Facebook

Targeted advertising is meant to improve the efficiency of matching advertisers to their customers. However, targeted advertising can also be abused by malicious advertisers to efficiently reach people susceptible to false stories, stoke grievances, and incite social conflict. Since targeted ads are not seen by non-targeted and non-vulnerable people, malicious ads are likely to go unreported and their effects undetected. This work examines a specific case of malicious advertising, exploring the extent to which political ads1 from the Russian Intelligence Research Agency (IRA) run prior to 2016 U.S. elections exploited Facebook's targeted advertising infrastructure to efficiently target ads on divisive or polarizing topics (e.g., immigration, race-based policing) at vulnerable sub-populations. In particular, we do the following: (a) We conduct U.S. census-representative surveys to characterize how users with different political ideologies report, approve, and perceive truth in the content of the IRA ads. Our surveys show that many ads are "divisive": they elicit very different reactions from people belonging to different socially salient groups. (b) We characterize how these divisive ads are targeted to sub-populations that feel particularly aggrieved by the status quo. Our findings support existing calls for greater transparency of content and targeting of political ads. (c) We particularly focus on how the Facebook ad API facilitates such targeting. We show how the enormous amount of personal data Facebook aggregates about users and makes available to advertisers enables such malicious targeting.
Single Stage Dual Active Bridge AC-DC Converter with Active Power Decoupling

The paper introduces a new a isolated DC-AC DAB converter topology, capable of active power decoupling on the AC side of the transformer, made up of two full bridges with no additional active component. The differential voltage modulated by the DC-side full bridge is used to control the voltage applied to the primary winding of a high-frequency transformer, while the common mode voltage generated by the AC-side full bridge is applied to the secondary windings. The choice of applying the common mode voltage ripple of the AC-side full bridge to the transformer, allows to have the required ripple voltage to transfer the power, while keeping the differential voltage ripple, that is applied to the AC output, at its minimum value, making possible the use of a small AC filter inductor. A control strategy is proposed and validated by simulation. This work is being developed at University of Nottingham within the framework of project SENSIBLE.
Characterization and Analysis of In-Plane Shear Behavior of Glass Warp-Knitted Non-Crimp Fabrics Based on Picture Frame Method

Glass warp-knitted fabrics have been widely used as complex structural reinforcements in composites, such as wind turbine blades, boats, vehicles, etc. Understanding the mechanical behavior and formability of these textiles is very necessary for the simulation of forming processes before manufacturing. In this paper, the shear deformation mechanics of glass warp-knitted non-crimp fabrics (WKNCF) were experimentally investigated based on a picture frame testing apparatus equipped to a universal testing machine. Three commercially available fabrics of WKNCFs were tested for four cycles by the picture frame method. The aim was to characterize and compare the shear behavior of relatively high areal density fabrics during preform processing for composites. The energy normalization theory was used to obtain the normalized shear force from the testing machine data; then, the shear stress against the shear angle was fitted by cubic polynomial regression equations. The results achieved from the equations demonstrated that the in-plane shear rigidity modulus was associated with the shear angle. The effect of the shearing cycles and stitching pattern on shear resistance was also analyzed.
Estimation and Human Health Risk Assessment of Organochlorine Pesticides in Raw Milk Marketed in Zagazig City, Egypt

Milk is nearly a perfect natural food and is widely used by all segments of our population especially for infants and the elderly. Organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) have been used worldwide, particularly in many African countries as in Egypt for the control of pests. OCPs are characterized by their bioaccumulation in the environment, especially in the food chain, where they find their way into the human body. The objectives of this study were initially to estimate the residual concentrations of different OCPs in three kinds of fresh and raw milk from different animals (cattle, buffalo, and goat) marketed in Egypt. Additionally, human dietary intake and risk assessment of OCPs were calculated. The tested OCPs included pp-DDT and its metabolites pp-DDD and pp-DDE; hexachlorohexanes (HCHs) including α HCH and γ HCH; heptachlor and heptachlor epoxide; aldrin and endrin; chlordane, methoxychlor, and hexachloride benzene. The recorded results revealed that goat and buffalo milk samples had the highest incidence of OCPs' contamination (75% for each), while this percentage was 50% in cow's milk. The mean values of ΣOCPs were 317.83 ± 34.11, 605 ± 50.54, and 1210.57 ± 99.55 (ppb/ww) in the examined cattle, buffalo, and goat milk samples, respectively. All examined OCPs were within the maximum permissible limits (MPLs) set by World Health Organization with only 10% of goat milk samples exceeding this MRL. The estimated daily intake, noncancer, and cancer health risk assessment of the tested OCPs revealed the potential cancer risk especially among children consuming goat's milk. The public health importance of such OCPs was discussed.
Progressive Indices: Indexing Without Prejudice

textabstractDatabase cracking is a method to create partial indices as a side-effect of processing queries. Cracking efficiently smears out the cost of creating a full index over a stream of queries, creating an index that is overfitted to queried parts of the data. This core characteristic of cracking leads to unpredictable performance and unreliable convergence towards a full index. These problems are aggravated when considering updates and multidimensional queries. We envision a new indexing technique, Progressive Indexing that improves database cracking by strictly limiting perquery indexing cost to a budget (e.g., a user-defined fraction of scan costs), allowing the first and subsequent queries to complete without heavy penalties. At the same time, all indexing effort is spent towards predictable convergence towards a full index. We discuss different algorithms to deal with multidimensional queries and updates while maintaining a robust and convergent index, we then explore the research space and new challenges that arise from this new technique.
An Overview on Image Registration Techniques for Cardiac Diagnosis and Treatment

Image registration has been used for a wide variety of tasks within cardiovascular imaging. This study aims to provide an overview of the existing image registration methods to assist researchers and impart valuable resource for studying the existing methods or developing new methods and evaluation strategies for cardiac image registration. For the cardiac diagnosis and treatment strategy, image registration and fusion can provide complementary information to the physician by using the integrated image from these two modalities. This review also contains a description of various imaging techniques to provide an appreciation of the problems associated with implementing image registration, particularly for cardiac pathology intervention and treatments.
Effect of size and chemical composition of graphene oxide nanoparticles on optical absorption cross-section

Abstract. Photothermal therapy with various nanoparticles, as photothermal transducers, is a widely researched technique. A continuous wave (CW) laser is employed during this procedure. The therapeutic setup is slightly modified to measure the optical absorption cross-section of the graphene oxide (GO), by mitigating the effects of heat diffusion and light scattering. With an 808-nm CW laser setup modulated by a waveform modulation setup, the effect of nanoparticle size and composition of GO in water on optical absorption cross section is characterized.
Calcul des efforts aérodynamiques agissant sur les pales d’une petite éolienne

La modélisation aérodynamique de l’hélice d’un aérogénérateur est une étape essentielle dans la conception de cette machine. Son objectif est de calculer les efforts aérodynamiques qui s’exercent sur les pales, de déterminer les paramètres optimaux de ces pales et d’estimer la puissance maximale extraite par cette machine. Cette modélisation est une tache complexe à cause de la rotation de l’hélice qui crée un écoulement tridimensionnel de l’air autour des pales. Dans ce travail, deux théories sont combinées, la première théorie est celle de l’écoulement axial (the axial momentum theory), la deuxième est la théorie de l’élément de la pale (blade element theory), qui tient compte de la composante de rotation de l’écoulement de l’air engendré par la rotation des pales. La combinaison de ces deux approches a permis de résoudre les équations des efforts et du couple aérodynamiques par méthode itérative. La convergence de l’algorithme de résolution a été accomplie pour plusieurs profils aérodynamiques.
The Optimal Approach to the Painting Problems on Polygonal Surfaces

We proposed a novel method to the painting problems according to the concepts of triangulation meshes and spanning-tree based approach to find the complete area coverage path with minimum length and $\boldsymbol{O}(\boldsymbol{n}\boldsymbol{log} \boldsymbol{n})$ time complexity, where $\boldsymbol{n}$ denotes the number of triangles. In our algorithm, a mobile robot is guided through a sequence of areas to be covered without consuming energy and time, and the robot will return to the starting point at the end. Based on our knowledge, this is the fastest method with minimum length addressing the complete area coverage problem for painter robots on polygonal surfaces.
Prevalence of food addiction among Iranian children and adolescents: Associations with sociodemographic and anthropometric indices

Background: Food addiction has been defined as consuming palatable foods leading to addictive-like behaviors. Little studies have assayed food addiction in children and adolescents. Thus, we aimed at identifying the prevalence of food addiction and the relationship between food addiction, sociodemographic and anthropometric indicators among children and adolescents in southwestern Iran. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 222 elementary school students aged 7 to 13 years in Ahvaz, Iran, using a random sampling method. Sociodemographic and anthropometric indicators were obtained. The 25-item child version of the Yale Food Addiction Scale (YFAS-C) was applied to provide food addiction diagnosis and symptoms. A nonparametric analysis was used for data analysis. Results: The prevalence of food addiction was 17.3%. Also, the most common symptoms associated with food addiction were (1) inability to cut down, (2) withdrawal, and (3) tolerance. The students with food addiction diagnosis were older than the undiagnosed (p=0.04). The males and students older than 8 years showed a higher food addiction score than females and students under 8 years (p<0.05). In females, significant positive correlations were found between anthropometric indicators, including body mass index and body mass index z-score, with food addiction score (p<0.01). Conclusion: Food addiction diagnosis was more prevalent in males and students over 8 years. Females with higher YFAS-C scores had elevated body mass index z-scores, suggesting that food addiction may be a remarkable problem in childhood and early adolescence and may also be related to a risk of overweight/obesity in Iranian students.
Sexual Health in Women.

The Clinical Update series is intended to help busy providers stay up to date with important and potentially practice changing articles that have been published on topics pertinent to the care of women. In this update on sexual health, we have chosen to review studies on the safety and efficacy of testosterone for women and the global consensus position statement on its use as well as the safety and efficacy of bremelanotide for the treatment of hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD). We also highlight the recently published position statement on the management of genitourinary syndrome of menopause (GSM) from The North American Menopause Society.
A Rock Model for the Cold and Hot Spots in the Chang’E Microwave Brightness Temperature Map

Thermal anomaly spots (both hot and cold) have been found in the global 37-GHz brightness temperature (TB) map of the moon based on the Chang’E (CE) microwave radiometer measurements. To explain their origin, a rock model is proposed to simulate the TB variation against latitude along the profile of a fresh crater in a single track way, which is selected to highlight the topographic effect and avoid any modification to the data. A mixed upper layer made up of rock and soil (regolith and dust) was employed into our previous multilayer model. The thermal properties (thermal conductivity and heat capacity) of the mixture layer are presumed to be linear with the fraction of rocks. Given that high-frequency (37 GHz) measurements are chosen, only the meter size and larger rocks of the upper mixed layer are considered to avoid scattering effects. Several fresh craters poor/rich in ilmenite are selected as testing sites. Despite uncertainties in parameters such as rock abundance (RA), and iron and titanium abundances, three conclusions can be reached from these cases: 1) RA has a significant effect on both the TB value and TB variation trend against latitude; its contribution over some craters may be as high as 15 K; 2) the simulations based on our rock model fit the CE observations better than those when rocks are not included; and 3) the rock and ilmenite contributions could be the main cause for the cold and hot spots found in the CE microwave map.
A Greedy Routing Strategy Based on Euclidean Geometry for Vehicular Delay Tolerant Network

Delay/Disruption-Tolerant Networks (DTN) was initially used for Inter-Planetary Networks (IPN) and it was extended to many different scenarios characterized by the high mobility of nodes, the constant disconnection and high delays, such as Vehicular Networks (VANETs), Sensor Networks, Military Ad Hoc Networks and Networks in catastrophic scenarios, Pocket Switched Networks (PSN) and Under-Water Networks. A key challenge in an DTN-based environment is the message routing protocol that enables communication between any two nodes (at any time) because it must deal with possible unconnected end-to-end paths at the time of sending a message to a destination. This paper presents a Greedy DTN Routing Strategy Based on Euclidean Geometry (GREG) for Vehicular Delay Tolerant Network, where a mathematical model is employed to predict the position of the nodes. GREG algorithm computes, based on prediction positions computed, the distance between the node currently holding the message and the destination node. An Euclidean Geometry distance between two points is used. Results show that the GREG protocol has a good trade-off between routing efficacy and network resource consumption.
Identification of Three Dalbergia Species Based on Differences in Extractive Components

Dalbergia cultrate, Dalbergia latifolia, and Dalbergia melanoxylon are precious and valuable traded timber species of the genus Dalbergia. For chemotaxonomical discrimination between these easily confused species, the total extractive content of the three wood species was determined using four different organic solvents. Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy was used to analyze functional group differences in the extractive components, inferring the types of principal chemical components according to characteristic peak positions, intensities, and shapes. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) was carried out a detailed characterization of the extractive components. The relative content of individual chemical components was determined by area normalization. Results revealed differences in the chemical components and total and individual extract contents of the three Dalbergia species, indicating that FTIR and GC-MS spectroscopy can be applied to identify and discriminate between Dalbergia cultrate, Dalbergia latifolia, and Dalbergia melanoxylon.
CFAAR: Control Flow Alteration to Assist Repair

We present CFAAR, a program repair assistance technique that operates by selectively altering the outcome of suspicious predicates in order to yield expected behavior. CFAAR is applicable to defects that are repairable by negating predicates under specific conditions. CFAAR proceeds as follows: 1) It identifies predicates such that negating them at given instances would make the failing tests exhibit correct behavior. 2) For each candidate predicate, it uses the program's state information to build a classifier that dictates when the predicate should be negated. 3) For each classifier, it leverages a Decision Tree to synthesize a patch to be presented to the developer. We evaluated our toolset using 149 defects from the IntroClass and Siemens benchmarks. CFAAR identified 91 potential candidate defects and generated plausible patches for 41 of them. Twelve of the patches are believed to be correct, whereas the rest provide repair assistance to the developer.