Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Neuroinflammation: a potential therapeutic target

The increased appreciation of the importance of glial cell-propagated inflammation (termed ‘neuroinflammation’) in the progression of pathophysiology for diverse neurodegenerative diseases, has heightened interest in the rapid discovery of neuroinflammation-targeted therapeutics. Efforts include searches among existing drugs approved for other uses, as well as development of novel synthetic compounds that selectively downregulate neuroinflammatory responses. The use of existing drugs to target neuroinflammation has largely met with failure due to lack of efficacy or untoward side effects. However, the de novo development of new classes of therapeutics based on targeting selective aspects of glia activation pathways and glia-mediated pathophysiologies, versus targeting pathways of quantitative importance in non-CNS inflammatory responses, is yielding promising results in preclinical animal models. The authors briefly review selected clinical and preclinical data that reflect the prevailing approaches targeting neuroinflammation as a pathophysiological process contributing to onset or progression of neurodegenerative diseases. The authors conclude with opinions based on recent experimental proofs of concept using preclinical animal models of pathophysiology. The focus is on Alzheimer’s disease, but the concepts are transferrable to other neurodegenerative disorders with an inflammatory component.
Endocannabinoid System in Frog and Rodent Testis: Type-1 Cannabinoid Receptor and Fatty Acid Amide Hydrolase Activity in Male Germ Cells1

Abstract N-arachidonoylethanolamide (anandamide [AEA]) is the main endocannabinoid described to date in the testis. It exerts its effects through the activation of G-protein coupled cannabinoid receptors (CNR). However, the activity of AEA in controlling male reproduction is still poorly known. Here we provide direct evidence on the presence of the “endocannabinoid system,” constituted by type-1 cannabinoid receptor (CNR1) and fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH), in the frog Rana esculenta testis demonstrating its expression in tubular compartment. In fact, during the annual reproductive cycle, both proteins increase in September, when the appearance of spermatids (SPT) occurs. Immunocytochemistry confirms their localization in germ cells and, in particular, in elongated SPT. Signals are still present in spermatozoa (SPZ), as demonstrated by Western blot analysis. Furthermore, the activation of CNR1 reduces sperm motility. Comparative research, carried out using mouse and rat SPZ, definitely indicates that the endocannabinoid system operates in SPZ of phylogenetically distant species. A conserved physiological role of endocannabinoid system in controlling the inhibition of sperm motility is suggested.
INCREASED &bgr;-2 MICROGLOBULINURIA IN HUMAN IMMUNODEFICIENCY VIRUS-1-INFECTED CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS TREATED WITH TENOFOVIR

A single-center cross sectional evaluation of &bgr;-2 microglobinuria as a marker of proximal renal tubule damage in 92 HIV-infected children showed that tenofovir treatment was significantly associated with very high abnormal values. In view of the very long duration of treatments for HIV infection, their possible consequences for the child's growing body should be carefully evaluated.
Research on the space environment characteristic and the development of the traditional village in China: Taking Pengzhuang in the northern Jiangsu province as an example

Traditional villages in the northern Jiangsu province have a local character and history unique artistic style, traditional culture and art Jiangsu indispensable part. How to make achieving sustainable and harmonious for development in rural areas, it is a major problem currently in these places. In this paper, field research and theoretical analysis a multidisciplinary approach, the traditional villages of northern Jiangsu space environment features, including location and spatial pattern are elaborated, analyzed the current conditions of rural development. Then taking Pengzhuang Village in the northern Jiangsu as example, discuss the current situation as well as its architectural characteristics of the space environment group and architectural types. Discussing the necessity of architectural features traditional villages in Northern implementation of conservation is proposed as the main ecological environmental protection and rural development policy space. Beautiful traditional village development should be coordinated development of economic and social environment, especially in the process of our socialist new rural construction, village spatial patterns of Jiangsu for basic research has positive practical value and far-reaching historical significance.
A twenty-five year review of laboratory-acquired human infections at the National Animal Disease Center.

The National Animal Disease Center's experience with personnel exposure or infection with pathogenic agents is summarized. A total of 128 laboratory-associated exposures to infectious disease agents were reported. Of these exposures, 103 resulted from known accidents. The other 25 were identified only after the development of clinical or serological manifestations of infection. Thirty-four cases of laboratory-acquired infections were reviewed. Class 3 organisms--Chlamydia sp. , Brucella sp. and Mycobacterium sp. --were responsible for 76% of the infections encountered, with Brucella sp. incriminated most frequently. The most commonly reported cause of exposure was associated with hypodermic syringe use. Unknown routes of exposure, presumed to be aerosol related, were the overwhelming explanation involved in the laboratory-associated infections.
The Simulated Open Field Environment for auditory localization research

Most research on auditory localization has been done in either a non-reverberant environment or using virtual acoustic space presented under headphones. The Simulated Open Field Environment (SOFE) uses computer controlled loudspeakers in an anechoic chamber to create realistic auditory scenes with simulated sources and echoes. Each approach has didsadvantages; for example the anechoic environment represents an unnatural listening condition, while head movements can have an impact on studies with virtual acoustics, and neither offers the subjective experience of immersion in a coherent auditory/visual spatial environment. A major upgrade of the SOFE now features 48 channels of parallel audio in addition to a projected high-resolution visual scene of 80. Together these provide 360of acoustic stimuli with a concomitant visual display. Use of such a large number of loudspeakers allows for higher resolution in simulating more complex environments, including multiple sources and reflections as well as auditory motion, and current work is directed toward still greater resolution through amplitude panning between speakers. Distancedependent damping as well as temporal delay is simulated for all auditory signals. Subjects mark perceived sound azimuths with a visual marker on the screen moved with a trackball. In another task they mark both the direction and distance of a sound by moving virtual visual sources in a 3-dimensional display of visual perspective.
Histopathological reactions and axonal regeneration in the transected spinal cord of hibernating squirrels

The failure of axonal regeneration in the transected spinal cord of mammals has been attributed to many factors, including an intrinsic lack of regenerative capacity of mature CNS neurons, mechanical obstruction of axonal elongation by glial‐connective tissue scars, necrosis of spinal tissue resulting in cavitation, lack of trophic influences sufficient to sustain outgrowth, and contact inhibition resulting from the formation of aberrant synapses. Assessment of the relative importance of each of these factors requires animal models in which one or more of these pathological processes can be eliminated. We therefore examined the effects of spinal transection in the hibernating animal because, during hibernation, collagen formation is depressed while nerve regeneration and slow axonal transport are maintained. Midthoracic spinal transections were performed in hibernating ground squirrels and the spinal cords were examined histologically 1–6 months later. The lesion site was composed primarily of a loose accumulation of macrophages and showed minimal glial and collagenous scarring, or cavitation. There was extensive regeneration of intrinsic spinal cord and dorsal root fibers. These axons grew to the margin of the lesion where they turned abruptly and continued growing along the interface between the lesion and the spinal cord. We conclude (1) that mammalian spinal‐cord neurons have considerable regenerative potential; (2) that such mechanical impediments as collagenous and glial scarring, cyst formation, and cavitation cannot provide the sole explanation of why regeneration in the mammalian CNS is abortive; and (3) that specific physical and chemical properties of the cells in the environment of the growth cone regulate the extent and orientation of regenerative axonal outgrowth.
Reduced kynurenine aminotransferase‐I activity in SHR rats may be due to lack of KAT‐Ib activity

KYNURENINE aminotransferase I (KAT-I), which also shows glutamine transaminase K (GTK) activity, catalyses the conversion of kynurenine to kynurenic acid, an endogenous glutamate antagonist. Both the GTK and KAT enzyme activities were found to be significantly reduced in kidney, brain and medulla oblongata homogenates of spontaneously hypertensive (SHR) compared to Wistar—Kyoto (WKY) rats. Enzyme activity stains on native gel separations of partially purified kidney homogenates was associated with two major bands of GTK (KAT-I)-activity in WKY and Wistar rats, KAT-Ia and KAT-Ib. SHR rats however showed only KAT-Ia activity. These findings suggest that the absence of KAT-Ib activity may result in a reduced ability to synthesise kynurenic acid in SHR rats, this may help to explain the enhanced sensitivity to glutamate seen in this strain.
Combined Psychotherapy and Deconditioning of a Child's Phobia*

A four and one-half year old child with a crippling fear of bees was successfully treated by a combination of psychotherapy and behaviour therapy. The case illustrates that the etiology and treatment may be viewed equally well from two theoretical points of view. Carl was referred by his general practitioner because of his fear of bees, which had lasted for eighteen months and increased in intensity to the point where he screamed when a bee flew by him, and generalizing to become a fear of any flying insects. This fear began when three year old Carl was crawling through the grass and was stung on his thumb by a bee. The parents later found him in great distress with the swollen thumb. Thinking that it had been broken they rushed him to emergency where it was X-rayed, an event which Carl recollects very vividly. Subsequently he was frightened of all bees, then flies, then he began to avoid the flowers in the garden and in time it was hard to get him outside at all. His father, a gardener by trade found his behaviour very irritating and would shout at his son when the child became frightened. By the time Carl was seen he had accumuiated many neurotic symptoms including a fear of tractors, fear of monsters;' nightmares, banging his head on his pillow, infantile behaviour, blanket clinging and poor eating habits. He had always been a sensitive and inquisitive child. However, apart from difficulty in toilet training, his early development was fairly normal. When examined he had an average I.Q. , was anxious, hyperactive, friendly to the exam-
The RPB7 Orthologue E′ Is Required for Transcriptional Activity of a Reconstituted Archaeal Core Enzyme at Low Temperatures and Stimulates Open Complex Formation*

RNA polymerases from Archaea and Eukaryotes consist of a core enzyme associated with a dimeric E′F (Rpb7/Rpb4) subcomplex but the functional contribution of the two subunit subcomplexes to the transcription process is poorly understood. Here we report the reconstitution of the 11-subunit RNA polymerase and of the core enzyme from the hyperthermophilic Archaeon Pyrococcus furiosus. The core enzyme showed significant activity between 70 and 80 °C but was almost inactive at 60 °C. E′ stimulated the activity of the core enzyme at 60 °C, dramatically suggesting an important role of this subunit at low growth temperatures. Subunit F did not contribute significantly to catalytic activity. Permanganate footprinting at low temperatures dissected the contributions of the core enzyme, subunit E′, and of archaeal TFE to open complex formation. Opening in the –2 and –4 region could be achieved by the core enzyme, subunit E′ stimulated bubble formation in general and opening at the upstream end of the transcription bubble was preferably stimulated by TFE. Analyses of the kinetic stabilities of open complexes revealed an unexpected E′-independent role of TFE in the stabilization of open complexes.
The psychological impact of exposure to floods

A number of studies have shown a range of symptoms resulting from exposure to natural disasters such as flooding. Among these consequences, individuals may experience symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression and anxiety. The aim of this study was to examine the psychological impact of flooding in the UK. A cross-sectional survey was used to investigate the psychological symptoms associated with the aftermath of the flood amongst adults living in the affected communities. A questionnaire battery including the Harvard Trauma Questionnaire (trauma and symptoms associated with PTSD), Hopkins Symptom Checklist (anxiety and depression), Coping Strategies Questionnaire and a range of questions addressing sociodemographic characteristics and factors relating to the flood was administered to households in flood-affected areas. Four hundred and forty four completed questionnaires were returned. 27.9% of participants met criteria for symptoms associated with PTSD, 24.5% for anxiety and 35.1% for depression. Females had higher mean scores on PTSD, anxiety and depression than males. Most frequently reported coping strategies were rational, detached and avoidant, with the least frequent being emotional coping. Having to vacate home following flood, previous experience of flooding and poor health were associated with greater psychological distress. Detached coping appeared to be related to less distress. Although it is not possible to determine whether the symptoms were a direct consequence of the flood, symptoms of distress are a significant issue amongst communities affected by environmental events warranting further attention to prevent chronic distress.
Sonoelastographıc assessment of the age-related changes of the Achilles tendon.

AIMS Tendons are crucial for optimal muscle force transfer and subject to changes with aging which may impair functional ability of elderly individuals. Achilles is the largest and the strongest tendon in the body; therefore it is an excellent site for the radiologic investigation of aging of tendons. Sonoelastography (SE) is a new ultrasound-based imaging technique that provides information on elastic properties and stiffness of tissues. The aim of our study was to investigate the age-related alterations in Achilles tendons using SE. MATERIAL AND METHODS Forty five geriatric (age ≥ 65 years) and 42 young (age 18-40 years) healthy consecutive subjects were enrolled. Subjects with known history of metabolic or endocrine diseases, sports or traumatic injuries, peripheral vascular disorders were excluded. Both Achilles tendons were scanned with a real-time SE probe at a frequency of 6-15 MHz. Strains of Achilles tendons' proximal, middle and distal parts were assessed semi-quantitatively with comparing a reference tissue. RESULTS Both SE methods -color coded evaluation and strain measurement- showed a remarkably stiffer tendon in the elderly subjects compared to young subjects in all thirds of Achilles tendons. In young subjects 84.9 % tendon thirds were blue, and 15.1% were green whereas, in elders 93.7% were blue and 6.3% were green (p=0.024). There was a significant correlation between age and stiffness of tendons assessed with strain indices. CONCLUSION Our result showed increased tendon stiffness in elderly subjects which might be responsible for the high prevalence of Achilles tendinopathies observed in elderly subjects.
Stress-Temperature Effects on Peat Compression

Laboratory and field tests have shown that accelerated compression of peat soils occurs in response to moderate heating and an effective overconsolidation is produced on subsequent cooling. This phenomenon has been termed thermal precompression. In this study, long-term laboratory and field tests were conducted to investigate secondary compression behavior of peat as a function of stress and temperature. Step­ stress and step-temperature compression tests were conducted on two peat soils. Dramatic effects were observed upon heating and cooling. A field test site in Middleton, Wisconsin, USA was constructed to test the thermal precompression concept for in situ peats. The site contained two instrumented embankments. The soils under one test embankment were left at ambient temperature conditions. The soils beneath the second embankment were heated for a one-year period using a circulating hot water system. An increase in temperature up to 20°C over ambient conditions was achieved at depths extending to 5 m. Secondary compression rates for the heated embankment were up to 4 times greater than the corresponding rates for the unheated embankment. After the soils under the second embankment cooled for one year, a second lift of soil was applied to both embankments and subsequent settlement was monitored over a ten-year period. The relationship of rate of void ratio change during secondary compression as a result of temperature and stress changes is described. This is provided as a function of void ratio for the peat soils using laboratory tests and for in situ compression using the field test site data. I Member, ASCE, Assistant Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Lawrence Technological University, 21000 W. Ten Mile Rd., Southfield, Ml48075 2 Member, ASCE, Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Wisconsin, 1415 Engineering Dr., Madison, WI 53706 3 Associate Member, ASCE, Associate Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095
ON THE VEPP-4 CONTROL SYSTEM

The VEPP-4 control system was designed almost 20 years ago as CAMAC-based distributed control system [1]. Today the main peculiarity of the upgraded VEPP4 [2] control system is the employment of obsolete CAMAC-embedded 24-bit Odrenok computers in the middle (process) level. The communications software is developed to provide an effective interaction between user (operator) applications on the high level and executive programs in the middle level. The communications software is Linux-based and includes the Application Server and Device Servers. The Application Server provides channel and database access for user applications. The Device Servers provide interaction with the hardware. The backend database server is based on PostgreSQL. This paper describes the structure of the VEPP-4 control system database and data/channel access procedures.
Energy-efficient multilayer routing protocol for SPMIPv6-based IP-WSN

Conservation of energy is considered the most critical issue for battery-powered IP-based wireless sensor networks IP-WSN. IP-WSNs are of tremendous importance due to their broad range of commercial applications in healthcare, environmental analysis and precision agriculture. In these applications, global addressing and multilayer routing for IP-WSN are challenging issues. Most of the routing protocols in WSNs are layer-two based. For energy efficiency and end-to-end communication, the necessity of multilayer routing has been drawing significant attention. With the help of the sensor proxy mobile IPv6 SPMIPv6 protocol, a tiny sensor node is capable of handling multilayer routing. In this paper, we discuss an energy-efficient multilayer routing protocol EMRIP for an SPMIPv6-based global IP-WSN scheme. Mathematical analysis and simulation results show that the proposed routing scheme significantly enhances the energy efficiency, throughput, minimises end-to-end delay, controls packet overhead and reduces mobility costs.
Manifold-based learning for person re-identification

The research described in this paper consists in developing a system for re-identifying people across multiple non-overlapping cameras. The proposed approach consists of three main steps: appearance-based feature extraction, data projection on manifold space, and similarity estimation for person re-identification. We first decompose the human image into a grid of patches and characterize each patch by a colorimetric feature vector. These patches are then embedded into a non-linear manifold, which preserves the local and global proximity among data points. Finally, a matching framework is introduced to estimate the similarity of image pairs and to make the final decision of re-identification. The performance of our system is evaluated on the well-known VIPeR dataset. The experimental results show that the proposed system leads to satisfactory results.
Modeling and Control of Hydraulic Linear and Free-Piston Engines.

Modeling and Control of Hydraulic Linear and Free-Piston Engines by Kevin Michael Zaseck Co-Chairs: Ilya Kolmanovsky, Zoran Filipi, and Dennis Assanis The United States Environmental Protection Agency has developed a free-piston engine (FPE) and a Hydraulic Linear Engine (HLE) for application as hydraulic power plants in a hydraulic hybrid vehicle. Both engines extract power from the oscillatory motion of the pistons using a linear hydraulic pump. The HLE uses a single crank as a safety and timing mechanism. However, the FPE does not possess a crank and therefore has a variable compression ratio and lower friction than a conventional internal combustion engine (ICE). This dissertation’s objective is to compare HLE and FPE performance trends though modeling while developing control tools necessary to enable reliable operation. A physics-based engine model is necessary to evaluate performance trends and assist with controls development. We combine dynamics, thermodynamics, and hydraulics modules to predict the instantaneous behavior of each engine. Phenomenological friction models capture the major differences in engine performance. Preliminary results show that asymmetrical piston behavior causes discrepancies in HLE efficiency from cylinder-to-cylinder (C-2-C). Variations in C-2-C HLE performance necessitate a cylinder balancing control structure.
Text Simplification Using Neural Machine Translation

Text simplification (TS) is the technique of reducing the lexical, syntactical complexity of text. Existing automatic TS systems can simplify text only by lexical simplification or by manually defined rules. Neural Machine Translation (NMT) is a recently proposed approach for Machine Translation (MT) that is receiving a lot of research interest. In this paper, we regard original English and simplified English as two languages, and apply a NMT model–Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) encoder-decoder on TS to make the neural network to learn text simplification rules by itself. Then we discuss challenges and strategies about how to apply a NMT model to the task of text simplification.