Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Detection and Quantification of Neurotransmitters in Dialysates

This unit describes methods for the separation and quantification of neurotransmitters, peptides, and second messengers in microdialysis samples by high‐pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) coupled to either electrochemical detection (EC) or fluorescence detection. The protocols describe commonly used procedures for the detection of catecholamines and indoleamines (HPLC‐EC detection; detection of acetylcholine (HPLC‐EC detection with enzyme reactor), and detection of amino acids (HPLC‐fluorescence detection). Each of these protocols affords detection limits in the low nanomolar range.
Competition between ON and OFF Neural Pathways Enhancing Collision Selectivity

The LGMD1 neuron of locusts shows strong looming-sensitive property for both light and dark objects. Although a few LGMD1 models have been proposed, they are not reliable to inhibit the translating motion under certain conditions compare to the biological LGMD1 in the locust. To address this issue, we propose a bio-plausible model to enhance the collision-selectivity by inhibiting the translating motion. The proposed model contains three parts, the retina to lamina layer for receiving luminance change signals, the lamina to medulla layer for extracting motion cues via ON and OFF pathways separately, the medulla to lobula layer for eliminating translational excitation with neural competition. We tested the model by synthetic stimuli and real physical stimuli. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed LGMD1 model has a strong preference for objects in direct collision course-it can detect looming objects in different conditions while completely ignoring translating objects.
Risk Factors Associated with the Occurrence of Porcine Cysticercosis in Kiambu, Kenya

Porcine cysticercosis is parasitic diseases of pigs caused by the larval stages of Taenia solium (pork tapeworm) and appears as cysts in the muscles, organs and central nervous system. Pigs acquire the infection by ingestion of contaminated feed and water with taenia eggs shed in faeces by infected humans. This condition leads to economic loss as infected carcasses are condemned at slaughter. Humans acquire the infection by consumption of infected and undercooked pig meat where the adult worm resides in the small intestines of infected humans (Taeniasis) and the larval stages are found in the muscles, brain and other tissues in humans with neurocysticercosis being of major public health concern. A study to evaluate the risk factors in pig production management systems that would contribute to the occurrence of porcine cysticercosis was carried out in four study sites in 2016. A total of 81 pig farms were visited, structured questionnaires were administered to the pig farmers to collect data on sociodemographic, water and sanitation, pig husbandry practices and awareness on porcine cysticercosis from one member of each household. Observations were made on the management systems especially feeding and housing of the pigs. In an earlier study, the prevalence of porcine cysticercosis had been estimated by lingual examination. Logic regression analysis was done to determine the relationships between porcine cysticercosis and management practices level. The pig stock sizes were ranging from 1 pig to 78 pigs and with an average of 11.12. Majority (97.5%) of pig farmers in the study area practiced zero grazing system. In order of preference, the farmers reported to feed their pigs on manufactured commercial feeds, home mixed feeds, swill from hotel and garbage, household left over, and fodder from garden. The main source of water for watering livestock was tapped water within the compound which was reported by 71.6% of the respondents. Other sources were wells and borehole reported by 27.2% and 1.2% of the respondents respectively. On animal health practices, 88.9% of the pig keepers de-wormed their pigs while 97.5% sought veterinary services. There were 69.1% of the respondents who reported that they usually buy replacement pigs. All the respondents kept pigs for commercial purposes. Porcine cysticercosis was significantly associated with sources of household income (p=0.033, the practices of feeding pig on home mixed feeds (p=0.006), neighbors’ leftovers (p=0.001), and swill (P=0.001) and also frequency of de-worming pigs (p=0.027). The main risk factor for porcine cysticercosis was the feeding of uncooked swill (odd ratio=7.97). This study is significant in that it has documented for the first-time management risk factor associated with cysticercosis in the study area. The results of this study may be used to advice on improved pig husbandry practices and to design strategies for the control of Taenia solium taeniasis and cysticercosis in the study area.
Synthesis of Modified Nucleosides

This chapter will focus first on nucleosides modified in the heterocyclic base. Basemodified nucleosides have a wide variety of uses, often after incorporation into oligonucleotides, such as attachment to reporter groups and studies of base-pairing altered by mutagens, by carcinogens, or by design (Beaucage and Iyer, 1993). In keeping with Current Protocols format, the goal of this chapter is not to review the subject, but to provide a set of specific and detailed procedures leading to specific compounds. Within this framework, however, the procedures should enable researchers to undertake syntheses of related compounds that have been reported in the chemical literature. The compounds produced may themselves be key intermediates from which other modified nucleosides of interest can be prepared. For example, the palladium-mediated C5 substitution of pyrimidines pioneered by Bergstrom has proved over the years to be a uniquely valuable route to these important compounds (Goodchild, 1990). An understanding of the synthetic procedure detailed in UNIT 1.1 will provide access to a large number of C5-modified pyrimidines. Similarly, UNIT 1.8 describes the synthesis and use of aminoalkyl-modified purine analogs.
Initial Steps towards a Multilevel Functional Principal Components Analysis Model of Dynamical Shape Changes

In this article, multilevel principal components analysis (mPCA) is used to treat dynamical changes in shape. Results of standard (single-level) PCA are also presented here as a comparison. Monte Carlo (MC) simulation is used to create univariate data (i.e., a single “outcome” variable) that contain two distinct classes of trajectory with time. MC simulation is also used to create multivariate data of sixteen 2D points that (broadly) represent an eye; these data also have two distinct classes of trajectory (an eye blinking and an eye widening in surprise). This is followed by an application of mPCA and single-level PCA to “real” data consisting of twelve 3D landmarks outlining the mouth that are tracked over all phases of a smile. By consideration of eigenvalues, results for the MC datasets find correctly that variation due to differences in groups between the two classes of trajectories are larger than variation within each group. In both cases, differences in standardized component scores between the two groups are observed as expected. Modes of variation are shown to model the univariate MC data correctly, and good model fits are found for both the “blinking” and “surprised” trajectories for the MC “eye” data. Results for the “smile” data show that the smile trajectory is modelled correctly; that is, the corners of the mouth are drawn backwards and wider during a smile. Furthermore, the first mode of variation at level 1 of the mPCA model shows only subtle and minor changes in mouth shape due to sex; whereas the first mode of variation at level 2 of the mPCA model governs whether the mouth is upturned or downturned. These results are all an excellent test of mPCA, showing that mPCA presents a viable method of modeling dynamical changes in shape.
CH...O Hydrogen Bonds in -sheets

A detailed analysis of the occurrence of the C-H.O hydrogen bonds in sheet regions of proteins has been presented. 11 unique protein structures with resolution 1.3 A containing beta-sheets show a widespread presence of C-H.O hydrogen bonds. These have average C(alpha). O, CH.O distances and a C(alpha)-H.O angle of 3.29, 2.38 A and 143 degrees, respectively. As in the case of N-H.O hydrogen bonds, parallel and antiparallel beta-sheet regions show the same hydrogen-bond geometry. An inverse correlation is observed between the hydrogen-bond geometries involving the C(alpha)(i)-H.O=C and the N(i+1)-H.O=C suggesting that C-H.O hydrogen bonds may act as an additional stabilizing factor. The propensity of different amino-acid residues to form such hydrogen bonds varies and shows a clear preference for valine and threonine. C-H.O hydrogen bonds involving side chains also occur extensively in beta-sheet regions.
Atypical Clinical Picture of Breast Cancer with Dominant Symptoms of Hematologic and Gastrointestinal Malignancies

Citation: Rybicka-Ramos M, Kasiarz G, Pluta K, Wilczyński T, Pruszyński J, et al. (2020) Atypical Clinical Picture of Breast Cancer with Dominant Symptoms of Hematologic and Gastrointestinal Malignancies. Int J Blood Res Disord 7:050. doi.org/10.23937/2469-5696/1410050 Accepted: June 01, 2020: Published: June 03, 2020 Copyright: © 2020 Rybicka-Ramos M, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
An Argument: The Safety of Human Papillomavirus (HPV) in Pregnancy

An Argument: The Safety of Human Papillomavirus (HPV) in Pregnancy Masoud Mardani 1, * Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran Corresponding author: Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. Tel: +98-9121132678, Email: drmasoudmardani@yahoo.com
Theoretical Study on Antioxidant Activity of Five Phenolic Acids

Quantum chemical studies of five kinds of phenolic antioxidants,such as gallic acid,caffeic acid,protocatechuic acid,vanillic acid and ferulic acid were reported.Based on the optimization of molecular geometry and energy calculation,optimal structures,frontier orbital energies,dissociation enthalpies(BDE) and hydroxyl ionization potential(IP) were achieved.The results showed that antioxidant properties of five phenolic acids derived from dehydrogenation capacity of hydroxyl group from phenolic acids and the effect of ortho substitution on benzene ring.In non-polar solvents,the antioxidant activity of five phenolics was found to be ranked from high to low in the following sequence: caffeic acid gallic acid ferulic acid protocatechuic acid vanillic acid.In polar solvents,the decreasing sequence of antioxidant activity of five phenolic acids was gallic acid caffeic acid ferulic acid protocatechuic acid vanillic acid.
Correlation of p16 and nm23-H1 expression levels with incidence and prognosis of soft tissue sarcoma

The expression levels of p16 and nm23-H1 genes in soft tissue sarcoma (STS) were evaluated to investigate correlation of the expression levels with the incidence and prognosis of STS. Tumor tissues and para-carcinoma normal tissues were collected from 64 STS patients. The messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) expression levels of p16 and nm23-H1 in the tissues were detected via reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR), and the protein expression levels of p16 and nm23-H1 in tissues were detected using immunohistochemistry. Spearman's correlation analysis was used for the correlation between expression levels of p16 and nm23-H1 in STS tissues and the correlation between p16 and nm23-H1 mRNA and protein expression. Moreover, the correlation of p16 and nm23-H1 expression levels in tumor tissues with pathological parameters and prognosis of STS patients were analyzed combined with clinical data. Results of RT-qPCR showed that mRNA expression levels of p16 and nm23-H1 in tumor tissues of STS patients were significantly lower than those in para-carcinoma normal tissues (P<0.01). Results of immunohistochemistry showed that the positive expression rates of p16 and nm23-H1 in tumor tissues of STS patients (43.75 and 39.06% respectively) were significantly lower than those in para-carcinoma normal tissues (85.93 and 89.06% respectively). The expression of p16 and nm23-H1 mRNA was positively correlated with protein expression levels. There was a positive correlation between the expression levels of p16 and nm23-H1 in tumor tissues of STS patients. The negative expression of p16 in tumor tissues of STS patients correlated with tumor size, tumor metastasis and clinical staging, and the negative expression of nm23-H1 correlated with tumor metastasis and clinical staging. The overall 5-year survival rate of patients was 54.68%, and the prognosis of patients with positive expression levels of p16 and nm23-H1 was better. Univariate survival analyses revealed that p16 and nm23-H1 were influencing factors of the overall survival rate of STS patients. p16 and nm23-H1 expression in STS is low, and their expression levels are closely related to the pathological parameters and prognosis of STS patients, so they can serve as reference indexes for prognosis estimation of STS.
Capturing and Exploiting Citation Knowledge for Recommending Recently Published Papers

With the continuous growth of scientific literature, discovering relevant academic papers for a researcher has become a challenging task, especially when looking for the latest, most recent papers. In this case, traditional collaborative filtering systems are ineffective, since they are unable to recommend items not previously seen, rated or cited. This is known as the item cold-start problem. In this paper, we explore the potential of exploiting citation knowledge to provide a given user with relevant suggestions about recent scientific publications. A novel hybrid recommendation method that encapsulates such citation knowledge is proposed. Experimental results show improvements over baseline methods, evidencing benefits of using citation knowledge to recommend recently published papers in a personalised way. Moreover, as a result of our work, we also provide a unique dataset that, differently to previous corpora, contains detailed paper citation information.
PRELIMINARY CULTURE , INSTITUTIONS AND THE WEALTH OF NATIONS

We construct an endogenous growth model including a cultural variable along the dimension of individualism-collectivism. The model predicts that more individualism should lead to more innovation because of the social rewards associated to innovation in an individualist culture. This cultural effect may offset negative effects of bad institutions on growth. Collectivism on the other hand should lead to higher efficiency gains but these are static and not dynamic, unlike the effect of individualism on innovation. We provide strong evidence of a causal effect of individualism on income per worker and total factor productivity as well as on innovation. We use measures of distance of blood type frequency as an instrument proxying for the parental transmission of culture to their offspring. The effect of culture on long-run growth remains very robust even after controlling for the effect of institutions. We give evidence of a two-way causal effect between culture and institutions. Acknowledgments: We thank Insook Lee and Vladimir Asriyan for excellent research assistance. We benefited from discussions with Olivier Coibion, Gerard Padro-I-Miquel, Guido Tabellini.
Soft Materials Architectures for Robot Manipulation

Robot manipulation has been a prolific subject of academic research for several decades however, today’s robotic manipulators have yet to demonstrate an ability to perform robust and versatile dexterous manipulation. This challenge can largely be attributed to a trade-off between complexity and capability in the design of robotic manipulators. In order to bridge this gap, we leverage the paradigm of Soft Robotics. This work involves the development of two distinct soft robotic end effectors. The first is a stiffness and adhesion tuning gripper, which is capable of grasping objects of various shapes, weights, and sizes. Pull-off tests conducted using this gripper show that transitioning from a soft to stiff state during grasping enables up to 6× increase in adhesion strength. The second end effector developed for this study is a tendon driven foam hand, which is intended to be highly dexterous while requiring a low number of motors for actuation. We develop a hand which demonstrates a high potential for dexterity, and indicate a design based on postural synergies which would allow it to complete 5 distinct dexterous tasks using only two motors.
Sperm Morphology and DNA Integrity of Frozen Thawed Buffalo Semen Treated with Heparin Binding Protein

1 Department of Veterinary Physiology, Madras Veterinary College, Chennai-600 007, Tamil Nadu, India 2 Department of Veterinary Physiology and Biochemistry, Veterinary College and Research Institute, Tirunelveli-627 358, Tamil Nadu, India 3 Department of Veterinary Physiology, Madras Veterinary College, Chennai-600 007, Tamil Nadu, India 4 Department of Bioinformatics and ARIS Cell, Madras Veterinary College, Chennai-600 007, Tamil Nadu, India
High-Performance Framework for Dataset Generation

The aim of this bachelor thesis is the development of a Python framework. The main task for this framework is the generation of datasets, which can be further used for surface reconstruction. They are needed for training a neural network, which is then able to reconstruct meshes on its own given a point cloud of a mesh. In order to optimize the training of the neural network, a lot of training data is needed. This framework utilizes multi-processing to achieve a faster generation process in comparison to sequentially generating one mesh after another. In addition, the framework is also able to handle any kind of similar pipeline. The user is able to deﬁne the steps of such pipeline in an XML document, which then can make calls to arbitrary programs. This fact makes the framework an all-purpose tool for any kind of task that needs to process a lot of data independent from each other. The results show a great performance increase when generating datasets. This can be seen in the benchmarks that have been done. The time of execution for a ﬁxed amount of ﬁles has been measured with diﬀerent modes of execution. The custom process pool we developed shows a faster time overall compared to using Python’s process pool for each step of the pipeline independently. It is also way faster in comparison to running every step for each ﬁle sequentially.
Experiencing Cybersecurity One Game at a Time: A Systematic Review of Cybersecurity Digital Games

Background. Cybersecurity is of increasing importance in our interconnected world, yet the field has a growing workforce deficit and an underrepresentation of women and people of color. In an effort to address these issues, many digital games have been created to teach individuals about cybersecurity and keeping themselves, their data, and their networks safe. Intervention. We present the results of a systematic review of digital games related to cybersecurity as a means to understand how players are being introduced to cybersecurity in game-based contexts. Methods. Using a systematic search, we identified 181 games related to cybersecurity (either through content or aesthetics) by searching the Apple App Store, the Google Play Store, Steam, and the web broadly. Each game was played for up to an hour and characteristics such as the game story, game elements, and presentation of cybersecurity were gathered. Results. We found diverse conceptualizations of cybersecurity and of cybersecurity professionals. Further, the nature of games and the framing of cybersecurity varied by the platform and device on which the game was available (computer, mobile, or web). Web games were most likely to present cybersecurity as cyber safety and were more likely to be a gamified quiz or worksheet. Computer and mobile games tended to present cybersecurity through game aesthetics or deep content engagement. The games mirrored the underrepresentation of women and minoritized individuals in the field. Discussion. With the variety of digital cybersecurity games and the differences in games based on the platform on which the game is available, it is important game developers move beyond presenting cybersecurity through gamification and focusing on cyber safety. The current scope of cybersecurity games leaves room for the development of games focused on deeper content engagement with cybersecurity topics in an environment conducive to the broadening participation goals of the cybersecurity field.
Atherogenic lipid profile and health behaviours in women post-menopause working in agriculture.

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVE There is a significantly higher risk of lipid disorders occurrence, including atherogenic dyslipidemia in women after menopause than it is in general population. The aim of the work was to investigate the correlation between health behaviours and the occurrence of lipid disorders in women after menopause working in agriculture. MATERIAL AND METHODS The study was conducted in years 2015-2016 and included 843 post-menopausal women working in agriculture. The following were used: a questionnaire including socio-demographic data, laboratory lipid tests, inventory of health behaviours. The following were estimated: logistic regression models for serum lipids concentration versus frequency of health behaviours in the examined women. RESULTS Adverse lipid profile was found in over a half of post-menopausal women working in agriculture, whereas the frequency of health behaviours were estimated at the average level, although the frequency of correct eating habits and health practices was significantly lower than preventive behaviours and positive psychological attitudes. A correlation was found between the frequency of health behaviours and the occurrence of lipid disorders in women after menopause working in agriculture: more frequent health practices co-existed with the lower concentration of total cholesterol and a higher concentration of HDL-cholesterol, more frequent preventive behaviours co-existed with lower concentration of LDL-cholesterol. Women with higher concentration of triglycerides undertook pro-health practices relatively more often. CONCLUSIONS The study revealed a high prevalence of lipid disorders in postmenopausal women working in agriculture. More effective health education programmes are necessary in the area of reduction the risk factors of CVD in the population of women working in agriculture.
Labor Market Reforms and Unemployment: Does the Evidence Tell an Orthodox Tale?

Using multivariate regression methods, an emerging body of research has been interpreted to lend strong support to the orthodox view that rigidities imposed by social protection policies and institutions explain the pattern of unemployment across developed countries. In previous papers we challenged the robustness of these findings (Baker et al, 2004; 2005). Some recent studies have concluded that simple correlations using various aggregate indicators of labor market ‘reforms’ provide additional compelling support for the rigidity view. In this paper we take a close look at this correlation evidence and find it unconvincing as well. The evidence to date fails to offer evidence of costs in the form of poor employment performance sufficiently large and robust to justify the dismantling of complex country-specific sets of social institutions that provide economic and social benefits to citizens.