Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Induction of competence and progression signals in human T lymphocytes by phorbol esters and calcium ionophores

We have investigated the induction of competence (IL‐2 responsiveness) and progression in human T lymphocyte proliferation triggered by phorbol ester and calcium ionophore. The degree of proliferation induced with the phorbol ester, phorbol 12,13‐dibutyrate (PDB) and the calcium ionophore ionomycin was dependent on the duration of exposure to these agents, with more than 6 h required for obtaining maximum proliferation. Following brief exposure to both agents for 30 min, which did not cause significant proliferation, T cells became competent to proliferate in response to exogenous interleukin 2 (IL‐2). These competent T cells also progressed to DNA synthesis following incubation with PDB in the absence of ionomycin. Induction of competence to proliferate in response to either PDB or IL‐2 was blocked by EGTA, suggesting that transmembrane Ca2+ flux was obligatory at this stage. Since other phorbol esters and synthetic diacylglycerols also stimulated DNA synthesis in competent cells, it is likely that progression was triggered by activation of protein kinase C. Following a brief exposure to PDB and ionomycin, subsequent incubation with PDB induced gene expression and secretion of IL‐2 and augmented the expression of IL‐2 receptors in the competent cells. Thus, we have demonstrated that Ca2+ mobilization is required for rendering T cells competent to express functional IL‐2 receptors, to produce IL‐2 in response to subsequent incubation with PDB, and that sustained activation of protein kinase C seems necessary for IL‐2 production and subsequent progression of competent T cells to DNA synthesis.
Improvement of insulin sensitivity by chelation of intracellular Ca(2+) in high-fat-fed rats.

It has been postulated that sustained high levels of intracellular calcium concentration ([Ca(2+)](i)) in the insulin target cells may cause insulin resistance. We evaluated this hypothesis by examining the effect of an intracellular Ca(2+) chelator, 5,5'-dimethyl derivative of bis (o-aminophenoxy) ethane-N,N,N',N' tetraacetic acetoxymethyl ester (dimethyl-BAPTA/AM), on insulin resistance. Insulin resistance was induced in rats by feeding a high-fat diet for 3 to 4 weeks. The whole body insulin sensitivity was determined by the steady state glucose infusion rate (GIR) under euglycemic hyperinsulinemic (6 mU x kg(-1) x min(-1)) clamps. Compared with control rats, the high-fat diet (HFD) fed rats showed significantly lower GIR (12.2 +/- 0.7 v 20.2 +/- 0.9 mg x kg(-1) x min(-1); P <. 01). In the HFD rats, an intravenous injection of dimethyl-BAPTA/AM (6 mg/kg) 90 minutes before the clamps significantly increased GIR to 16.3 +/- 0.9 mg x kg(-1) x min(-1) (P <.02), reversing insulin resistance by about 50%; but this intervention had no effect in the controls. This increase in GIR by dimethyl-BAPTA/AM was observed without an increase in femoral artery blood flow, indicating that the chelator increased GIR directly through improving cellular responsiveness to insulin. The stimulatory effect of insulin on 2-deoxy glucose (2-DG) uptake by the isolated epididymal adipocytes was reduced by 35% in the HFD rats compared with the control rats (P <.01). Pretreatment of the HFD rats with dimethyl-BAPTA/AM restored 2-DG uptake to the level in the control rats. The direct measurement of [Ca(2+)](i) using fura-2/AM in isolated adipocytes showed that basal [Ca(2+)](i) was significantly higher in the HFD rats than in the control rats (145 +/- 11 v 112 +/- 9 nmol/L; P <.05). An injection of dimethyl-BAPTA/AM in the HFD rats lowered [Ca(2+)](i) to 127 +/- 11 nmol/L, which did not differ from the level in the control rats (P >.2). The present study clearly demonstrates that an injection of intracellular Ca(2+) chelator in the HFD rats reverses insulin resistance, as well as normalizes elevated [Ca(2+)](i) in the insulin target cells. The results strongly support that sustained high levels of [Ca(2+)](i) in the insulin target cells may play an important role in insulin resistance, at least in the HFD rats.
Heterogeneidad en precios explicada por la participación en actividades recreativas

El objetivo de este articulo consiste en analizar el efecto que las distintas frecuencias de participacion en actividades recreativas –en el entorno habitual y fuera de el– ejercen sobre la sensibilidad del consumidor a los precios. Se propone que esta sensibilidad esta afectada por la motivacion del individuo a la hora de elegir un destino que le permite realizar dichas actividades. A su vez, esta motivacion condiciona la influencia de la cultura residual (la mostrada en el entorno habitual) y la cultura turistica (la presentada en el destino). Con este fin, identificamos las sensibilidades a los precios de cada individuo. La aplicacion empirica se desarrolla sobre una muestra de 2.127 personas y se usa un Modelo Logit con Coeficientes Aleatorios para estimar estas sensibilidades individuales, y un analisis de regresion para observar el efecto de las frecuencias de participacion en las actividades recreativas. Los resultados muestran que la cultura residual y turistica tiene un efecto en la sensibilidad al precio, dando lugar a la existencia de distintas sensibilidades por grado de frecuencia de participacion y por tipo de actividad.
New Self-Aligned Silicon Nanowire Transistors on Bulk Substrate Fabricated by Epi-Free Compatible CMOS Technology: Process Integration, Experimental Characterization of Carrier Transport and Low Frequency noise

A new method to fabricate self-aligned silicon nanowire transistors (SNWTs) has been realized on bulk silicon substrate by fully epi-free compatible CMOS technology. The SNWTs exhibit excellent immunity of short-channel effects (SCEs) and achieve high Ion/Ioff ratio of 2.6times108. The transportation characteristics, ballistic efficiency and low frequency noise of SNWTs are investigated for the first time.
Description and initial evaluation of a Xenopus metamorphosis assay for detection of thyroid system‐disrupting activities of environmental compounds

A eedi recognizedforthedevelopmentandevaluationofbioassaysfordetectionofthyroid s stem–disrupting compounds. The issue of testing for thyroid disruption can be addressed by exploiting amphibian metamorphosis as a biological model. In the present study, a test protocol for a Xenopus metamorphosis assay (XEMA) was developed and its interlaboratory transferability was evaluated in an informal ring test with six laboratories participating. In the XEMA test, exposure of Xenopus laevis tadpoles was initiated at stages 48 to 50 and continued for 28 d. Development and growth of tadpoles were assessed by means of developmental stage and whole body length determinations, respectively. For initial test protocol evaluation, thyroxine (T4), and propylthiouracil (PTU) were used as positive controls for thyroid system–modulating activity, and ethylenethiourea (ETU) was used as a test compound. Exposure of tadpoles to 1 μg/L T4 produced a significant acceleration of metamorphosis whereas PTU concentrations of 75 and 100 mg/L completely inhibited metamorphosis. Five different ETU concentrations (5, 10, 25, 50, and 100 mg/L) were tested and a concentration‐dependent inhibition of metamorphosis was observed. None of the compounds affected tadpole survival, and only PTU caused a slight retardation in tadpole growth. This study demonstrates that the XEMA test provides a sensitive, robust, and practical testing approach for detection of compounds with both agonistic and antagonistic effects on the thyroid system in Xenopus tadpoles.
Composite field-oriented control for linear induction motor based super-twisting sliding mode observers

A composite sliding mode field-oriented control (FOC) for linear induction motors (LIM) is developed in this paper. A new sliding-mode observer-controller scheme is designed to provide a line speed tracking, in which the observer can estimate the load thrust and feed back to controller for small switching gain of sliding mode controller. The control scheme also incorporates super-twisting sliding mode observers of current and rotor flux, so as to improve the LIM control performance. Simulated and experimental results show that this scheme can provide fast dynamic characteristics and strong robustness.
A distributed Arabic text classification approach using latent semantic analysis for big data

Recently, big data have special concerns from researchers, this due to the valuable information can be collected from it. LSA has an effective performance in classification, and information retrieval, since it deals with the semantics of the words. In this paper, we proposed a distributed text classification approach based on LSA, and Cosine Similarity, and can be applied to big data. The proposed approach reduced the time required for classification, and outperform the related work in terms of precision, and recall.
Kidney histology and clinical correlates in malignant hypertension.

In this clinico-pathologic study, post-mortem kidney material from 30 cases with malignant hypertension (MHT) defined as severe hypertension with bilateral retinal haemorrhages and exudates (grade III retinopathy) with (grade IV retinopathy) or without papilloedema, were studied. Mucoid intimal proliferation (MIP) in interlobular artery and ischaemic collapse of the glomerular tufts occurred in all cases, whereas fibrinoid necrosis (FN) was seen in only 24 (80%) of the cases. FN was not correlated nor associated with sex, age, blood pressure, retinopathy or serum creatinine. Tubular atrophy and interstitial fibrosis occurred in 24 (80%) and correlated best (rS = 0.8, p < 0.05) with serum creatinine in comparison to glomerular sclerosis (rS = 0.6, p = n.s), fibrinoid necrosis (rS = 0.49, p = n.s) and epithelial crescents (rS = 0.43, p = n.s). This study provides histologic evidence of lack of difference between grades III and IV retinopathy, shows MIP as the more characteristic vascular lesion in MHT and also, good correlation between renal function and tubulointerstitial involvement.
Phase Diagram of Colloidal Solutions.

The phase diagram of globular colloids is studied using a combined analytic and computational representation of the relevant chemical potentials. It is shown how the relative positions of the phase boundaries are related to the range of interaction and the number of contacts made per particle in the solid phase. The theory presented successfully describes the features of the phase diagrams observed in a wide variety of colloidal systems. [S0031-9007(96)01805-4]
Clustering and Nearest Neighbour Based Classification Approach for Mobile Activity Recognition

We present a hybridized algorithm based on clustering and nearest neighbour classifier for mobile activity recognition. The algorithm transforms a training dataset into a more compact and reduced representative set that lessens the computational cost on mobile devices. This is achieved by applying clustering on the original dataset with the concept of percentage data retention to direct the operation. After clustering, we extract three reduced and transformed representation of the original dataset to serve as the reference data for nearest neighbour classification. These reduced representative sets can be used for classifying new instances using the nearest neighbour algorithm step on the mobile phone. Experimental evaluation of our proposed approach using real mobile activity recognition dataset shows improved result over the basic KNN algorithm that uses all the training dataset.
Weight of the evidence linking feed to an outbreak of porcine epidemic diarrhea in Canadian swine herds

The weight of the evidence gathered during an outbreak of porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED) in Canada in January 2014 supports an association with feed containing spray-dried porcine plasma contaminated with the virus. Many questions remain regarding the importance of feed and (or) feed ingredients in the transmission of PED virus.
Laser-pointer human computer interaction system

There have been some researches on laser pointer, and the most common application of a laser pointer is for presentation, although some others proposed to use Wii remote to do the presentation. We develop a laser-pointer system for supporting human computer interaction, in which a user can use a laser pointer to draw trajectories and send commands to a computer. It can also be used to do object tracking or support other applications as well.
Global leprosy statistics: a cause for pride, or frustration?

Global statistics on leprosy are published annually in the Weekly Epidemiological Record (WER) of the WHO, most recently on 11 August 2006. They make challenging reading, including between the lines : : : . The recent report begins with a comment that the new Global Strategy for Further Reducing the Leprosy Burden and Sustaining Leprosy Control Activities (plan Period: 2006– 2010) has been ‘endorsed by all partners’, emphasizing the need for ‘high quality diagnostic services and treatment services using multidrug therapy, and ensuring that they are equitably distributed, affordable and easily accessible. ’ Importantly, though the word elimination is mentioned, it is not emphasized, and is used mainly with reference to continued progress towards the elimination target ‘within the next few years’, with no year specified. Importantly, it is acknowledged that eradication is not possible with current tools. Given the many unrealistic comments about leprosy in recent years, that is a useful public recognition. Leprosy will continue for many decades in today’s major endemic countries, even under the most favourable projections, and one is not going to eradicate armadillos from the New World. Leprosy is not an eradicable disease. Data from 115 countries and territories are reported. Among the absentees are all the nations of Europe, the USA, Australia, and several developing countries, all with endemic autochthonous (or, considering northern Europe, imported) leprosy. However, the major leprosy endemic countries are there; and 12 of the initial absentees, including the USA (but still no European nation – why not? ) were reported in a supplementary WER note on 15 September. The August 11 report tells us that leprosy declined by about a quarter in the world over the year 1995 – more precisely, that there were 296,499 new cases reported in 2005 [down 111,292 (27%) from 407,791 in 2004] and that the registered prevalence was 219,826 on January 1, 2006 [down 66,237 (23%) from 286,063 the previous year]. We are told that only
Android-Based Digital Image Steganography and Steganalysis

Steganography is the discipline concerned with achieving confidential communication by hiding information in plain sight. Media for hiding this information include images, video, audio and markup languages (Papapanagiotou et al. 2005). Steganographic schemes typically exploit information redundancies which are not easily perceptible. Digital images tend to exhibit such redundancy, and thus are a popular medium for steganography. Throughout the years, many different methodologies have been proposed in the literature, of which steganographic schemes like F5, OutGuess or Yet Another Steganographic Scheme (YASS) are a sample. While some steganographic techniques operate in the primal domain, the majority of newer techniques utilize the frequency domain to conceal information. F5, OutGuess and YASS occupy this group, embedding the information to hide in the image’s discrete cosine transform (DCT) coefficients and extending the range of encodable images to compressed JPEGs (Hamid et al. 2012). The inverse problem of detecting information hidden in plain sight, steganalysis, is similarly developed for digital images. For instance, Fridrich (2004) used linear discriminant analysis to achieve a detection accuracy upwards of 87% on stego-images encoded with OutGuess. Steganography has reached consumers with multiple options present in iOS and Android app stores. Typical app features are encoding and decoding of images with a private key. PixelKnot and SSE for example, use the F5 algorithm to hide text in images. However, one of the challenges of mobile platforms is limited memory and computation. The range of techniques from steganography and steganalysis that can be used reliably on mobile devices is restricted.
Supporting people with long-term conditions.

There are 17.5 million people in the UK with a long-term condition (Department of Health (DoH), 2005a), often with inadequate health or social care plans in place. The fragmentation of the health and social care structures are mirrored in the fact that 5% of people with long-term conditions account for 42% of hospital admissions (DoH, 2004a). As an increase in the number of people living with chronic illness is anticipated to rise it is now recognized globally that steps must be taken to identify those most at risk who have complex needs which are not being met.
Magnetic resonance imaging of boys with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and their unaffected siblings.

OBJECTIVE To study the influence of increased familial risk for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) on brain morphology. METHOD Volumetric cerebral measures based on whole brain magnetic resonance imaging scans from 30 boys with ADHD, 30 of their unaffected siblings, and 30 matched controls were compared. RESULTS Both subjects with ADHD and their unaffected siblings displayed reductions in right prefrontal gray matter and left occipital gray and white matter of up to 9.1% (p < 0.05). Right cerebellar volume was reduced by 4.9% in subjects with ADHD (p = 0.026) but not in their unaffected siblings (p = 0.308). A 4.0% reduction in intracranial volume was found in subjects with ADHD (p = 0.031), while a trend was observed in their unaffected siblings (p = 0.068). CONCLUSIONS The volumetric reductions in cortical gray and white matter in subjects with ADHD are also present in their unaffected siblings, suggesting that they are related to an increased familial risk for the disorder. In contrast, the cerebellum is unaffected in siblings, suggesting that the reduction in volume observed in subjects with ADHD may be more directly related to the pathophysiology of this disorder.
Do People Use Consensus Information in Making Causal Attributions ?

Nisbett and Borgida's failure to obtain effects for consensus information on person versus situation attributions was questioned regarding their operationalization of consensus. Nisbett and Borgida's finding was replicated, but an operationalization of consensus designed to reflect Kelley's conceptual criterion of perceived covariation and to represent more levels of consensus resulted in significant consensus effects on person versus situation attributions In Study 2, consensus information was found to affect specific traits judged to be relevant to the given behavior. In addition, the second study found significant effects for consensus information on the subjects' predictions of target persons' behavior. Included were discussions of (a) issues regarding operationalization of the consensus variable, (b) issues regarding operationalization of dependent variables in consensus research, and (c) the relationship between consensus research in the area of attribution and base-rate research in the area of the psychology of prediction (Kahneman & Tversky).
Ethnic difference of the BDNF 196G/A (val66met) polymorphism frequencies: The possibility to explain ethnic mental traits

Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), the most abundant of the neurotrophins in the brain, serves as a neurotransmitter modulator, and participates in plasticity mechanisms such as long-term potentiation and learning. Based on the pivotal role of BDNF for several neuronal systems, it is of great interest to assess the potential contribution of BDNF to mental function. In our previous report, we determined the frequency of the BDNFgenepolymorphismatposition 196,G/A (val/met) in proBDNF region, in Japanese health volunteers [Itoh et al., 2003], which showed association with one of personality traits. Here we report the ethnic difference of the polymorphism frequencies by comparisons with the previous reports: we have found the significant differences among Japan [Itoh et al., 2003], Italy [Ventriglia et al., 2002], and USA [Egan et al., 2003] in allele (P<0.0001) and genotype (P<0.0001) frequencies of theBDNF196G/Apolymorphism (Table I). BDNF is known to modulate serotonin transporter function [Mossner et al., 2000]. Our previous studydemonstrated that frequency of serotonin transporter transcriptional control region (5-HTTLPR) polymorphism, associated with personality traits, in 191 Japanese subjects was considerably different from that in Caucasians [Kumakiri et al., 1999]. Taken together, it is indicated that both BDNF and serotonin transporter have ethnic differences in frequencies of the polymorphisms. These findings suggest that BDNF and serotonin transporter may act in harmony to produce ethnic traits. Moreover, there were two reports about relationship between BDNF and memory disturbance. Egan et al. [2003] showed that the A (met) allele was associated with poorer episodic memory and abnormal hippocampal activation. Ventriglia et al. [2002] showed that homozygosity for theG (val) allele confer an increased risk for sporadic Alzheimer’s disease (AD). As there seems to be a conflict between A (met) allele with poorer episodic memory and G (val) associated with AD, it is difficult to explain. Here we also report that the frequency of healthy individuals who carried G/G (val/val) was significantly decreased in Japanese (33.8%) than in Italians (48.7%) or in Americans (68.4%). In general, several studies have found that the prevalence rates of AD in Japanese were lower than in Western populations [Suh and Shah, 2001]. For example, the highest prevalence rate of AD in Japan was 3.1%, whereas that in Western populations was 8.7%. The ethnic difference in frequencies of BDNF 196G/A polymorphism can explain that Japanese may have lower risk for AD than Western populations. Our findings that major interethnic differences in the allelic frequencies of the BDNF 196G/A polymorphism exist may be helpful for future strategies to the molecular basis underlying ethnic differences in personality traits and prevalence rates of illness.
Expert and User Evaluations Of Persuasive Hajj Learning Procedures Courseware

Previous researches and current initial findings have found that Hajj supplementary learning materials approaches are less effective in giving clear understanding to users, particularly the pilgrims. Most of the materials are based on passive learning. Therefore, this study incorporates virtual environments (VE) and multimedia technologies to develop Virtual Hajj (V-Hajj) courseware, as an attempt to provide a better learning aid for supporting active learning and self-directed learning in Hajj learning. In view of our preliminary study revealed that elders were lack of trust to use a computer courseware for learning, this study also adapts some guidelines in persuasive technology to persuade them towards the developed prototype. This paper discussed two types of evaluations that have been conducted, namely expert and users’ evaluations by using in the multimedia and VE heuristics evaluations and technology acceptance model (TAM) questionnaires.
Implementation of GSM channel estimation using open-source SDR environment

Channel estimation and equalization is a major area of research and development in communications engineering. However in the open literature there is no elaborate report on how to implement it on real signals from base-stations. In this paper we give the detailed steps to implement channel estimation block on real GSM signals using open-source software defined radio (SDR) environment. This work is expected to help all the researchers trying to implement and test channel equalization algorithms on real signal.