Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Gut-Brain Axis in Neurodegenerative Diseases and Relevance of the Canine Model: A Review

Identifying appropriate animal models is critical in developing translatable in vitro and in vivo systems for therapeutic drug development and investigating disease pathophysiology. These animal models should have direct biological and translational relevance to the underlying disease they are supposed to mimic. Aging dogs not only naturally develop a cognitive decline in many aspects including learning and memory deficits, but they also exhibit human-like individual variability in the aging process. Neurodegenerative processes that can be observed in both human and canine brains include the progressive accumulation of β-amyloid (Aβ) found as diffuse plaques in the prefrontal cortex (PFC), including the gyrus proreus (i.e., medial orbital PFC), as well as the hippocampus and the cerebral vasculature. Tau pathology, a marker of neurodegeneration and dementia progression, was also found in canine hippocampal synapses. Various epidemiological data show that human patients with neurodegenerative diseases have concurrent intestinal lesions, and histopathological changes in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract occurs decades before neurodegenerative changes. Gut microbiome alterations have also been reported in many neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer’s (AD) and Parkinson’s diseases, as well as inflammatory central nervous system (CNS) diseases. Interestingly, the dog gut microbiome more closely resembles human gut microbiome in composition and functional overlap compared to rodent models. This article reviews the physiology of the gut-brain axis (GBA) and its involvement with neurodegenerative diseases in humans. Additionally, we outline the advantages and weaknesses of current in vitro and in vivo models and discuss future research directions investigating major human neurodegenerative diseases such as AD and Parkinson’s diseases using dogs.
Representative images for browsing large image collections: a cognitive perspective

In large collections of images, one of the ways to facilitate browsing is by providing thumbnails of representative images. This paper seeks to examine the issue of choice of representative images within the categories. Towards this end, a study of free sorting of 50 images by 75 participants was conducted, in which they sorted the images into categories and selected a representative image for the categories and also indicated the prominent feature in the selected image. The results indicate that there is reasonable agreement in the choice of representative images and the selection of prominent features appearing in the images. The prominent feature seems to be one of the factors that have a bearing on the way people categorize.
Real time accurate collision detection for virtual characters

This paper presents an accurate real time collision detection algorithm for interactively animated virtual characters using sphere-trees as Bounding Volume Hierarchies. We build upon a fast mathematical method for on-demand sphere refitting during the animation and improve it for being applicable to any object, without dependency on its geometrical level of detail or its dynamic/static behavior. It uses sphere-plane intersection test as the exact test in the collision detection algorithm instead of the usual triangle-triangle one. Corner-trees, a special hierarchy that ensures the utilization of the plane-sphere intersection test is right, are also presented. In the worst case, the optimization decreases in 25% the time needed to process a frame in extreme conditions. The algorithm has been successfully tested on a real time and collaborative 3D virtual world.
Cell attachment modulation by radiation from a pulsed light diode (λ = 820 nm) and various chemicals

Adhesive interactions between cells and extracellular matrices play a regulative role in wound repair processes. The objective of this investigation is to study the mechanisms of light action on cellular adhesion in vitro. The adhesion of HeLa cells to a glass matrix is evaluated after irradiation with a pulsed near‐infrared (IR) diode and treatment with various chemicals.
Components of Resistance in Three Bread Wheat Lines to Russian Wheat Aphid (Homoptera: Aphididae) in South Africa

Studies were done to determine the level of antibiosis and tolerance in three resistant wheat, Triticum aestivum L. , lines, PI 262660, PI 137739, and PI 294994, to Diuraphis noxia (Mordvilko), a serious pest of wheat in South Africa. Nymphal production was lowest on PI 262660, followed by PI 137739 and PI 294994. The mean production of nymphs per adult aphid over 21 d on PI 262660, PI 137739, and PI 294994 was, respectively, 40.0, 55.1, and 66.9% of that on the susceptible cv. Betta. In the tolerance test, the plant height and dry mass of PI 262660 were significantly less affected than the other entries. PI 137739 and PI 294994 were as severely affected as the susceptible entries.
Power Scheduling for Renewable Energy Connected to the grid

In this work, a scheduling strategy considering an Energy Storage System (ESS) is proposed to manage the distributed energy resources (DERs) optimally in a grid-connected hybrid PV-wind-microgrid. In order to increase the use of the renewable energy sources and ensure a full charge in the battery for the next day. The optimization problem of this study is addressed through a linear mathematical model, to minimize the cost of energy bought from the utility grid and maximize the income for selling electricity generated by hybrid PV-wind. The optimization model is tested by using a simulation of the model. The achieved results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed scheduling strategy.
Evidence for a role for the cell membrane in copper tolerance of Mimulus guttatus Fischer ex DC.

SUMMARY The effect of copper on root growth, K"*^ efflux and short-term copper uptake by three isogenic genotypes of Mimulus guttatus Fischer ex DC. differing only in their copper tolerance gene is studied. The tolerant homozygotes do not differ in any way from the heterozygotes. The non-tolerant homozygotes show greater rooi inhibition, greater K^ efHux, and greater short-term Cu^" uptake. The difference in the uptake parameters is best described by a greater linear diffusion term in the non-tolerant genotypes. These results suggest that copper damages the cell membrane, and that this damage leads to an increase m the leakiness of the membrane, leading to both greater K' efflux and Cu^"^ influx via diffusion. This suggests that the primary copper tolerance mechanism probably resides in the cell membrane. The rapidity with which the differences between the genotypes is established suggests that the differences are constitutive. It is argued that these results provide further evidence against the involvement of phytochelatin s in the primary tolerance mechanism.
Twistorial maps between quaternionic manifolds

We introduce a natural notion of quaternionic map between almost quaternionic manifolds and we prove the following, for maps of rank at least one: • A map between quaternionic manifolds endowed with the integrable almost twistorial structures is twistorial if and only if it is quaternionic. • A map between quaternionic manifolds endowed with the nonintegrable almost twistorial structures is twistorial if and only if it is quaternionic and totally- geodesic. As an application, we describe all the quaternionic maps between open sets of quaternionic projective spaces.
ACCOUNTANTS ABOUT ACCOUNTING POLICIES. AN EMIPRICAL INVESTIGATION OF SMES FROM BIHOR COUNTY

This paper examines the setting up of accounting procedures and policies in sampled SMEs from Bihor, county selected after criteria of size at the end of 2008. In order to conduct our research we have set up a questionnaire of 25 questions which has been applied to 100 SMEs. The obtained results showed that out of the 83 respondents, only 92,68% agree with the provisions of Article 10 of Order 3055/2009, according to which entities must develop their own accounting policies approved by the managers, only 75,60% of the respondents agree that the existence of written accounting policies at the enterprise level improves the quality of financial reporting and managersâ€™ decision making process and a significant number of respondents (21,95%) do not know the fact that during a financial year, a firmâ€™s accounting policies cannot be changed. The most relevant result of our investigative research consist in identifying the need to train the human resources involved in the process of writing and applying accounting policies and procedures in SMEs and the necessity to set up a manual of accounting department.
Exploring the Social Dynamics of Suicide-Related Behavior and Attitudes Within a National Sample of US Adolescents

>> Since the late-nineteenth century, scholars have investigated how structural elements within a community—what is now called social support—relate to suicide. However, social support has rarely been used to study adolescent suicide, particularly within a nationally representative sample. The current study, using the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health (Add Health), explores the ties between social support mechanisms and adolescent expressions of suicide ideation and suicide attempts. Using the 2-level hierarchical generalized linear modeling (HGLM) technique, the current study found that such phenomena can be understood in terms of social support and certain individual factors, some common to both ideation and attempts, others unique to one or the other. Moreover, suicide ideation and attempts were linked to the risk-taking behaviors of the youths, their friends, and their family members. Feeling safe at school was one of the most consistent protective factors included in the study.
Structural and chemical changes in cocoa (Theobroma cacao L) during fermentation, drying and roasting

Cocoa seeds and pulp were fermented for 144 h, followed by natural drying. The tegument was removed and the cotyledons were broken into nibs which were roasted at 150 °C for 30 min. Non-fermented material, material fermented for 24, 48 and 72 h, material fermented for 144 h and then dried, and also the roasted nibs, were all prepared for chemical and microscopic analyses. Light microscopy revealed the presence of anionic and cationic residues and of neutral sugars. During fermentation there was a reduction in the cytoplasmic content of phenolic compounds and in the number of protein bodies. The cell wall showed a reduction in anionic residues and a loss of crystallinity. These alterations were maximum after 72 h. Drying and roasting increased the number of damaged cells and reduced the amount of cytoplasmic material. The chemical analyses generally confirmed the microscopy results. The concentration of amino-terminal groups and total free amino acids increased during fermentation (up to 72 h), but returned to the initial values after roasting. The principal chemical changes were related to reducing sugars, free amino acids, proteins and phenols, and PCA was suggested as a useful tool to compare different samples. Microscopic analysis revealed the degradation of protein and phenolic bodies and cellular damage during roasting. © 2000 Society of Chemical Industry
A review on ethanomedicinal uses and phyto-pharmacology of anti-inflammatory herb Vitex negundo.

Vitex negundo is an important medicinal plant with potent anti-inflammatory activity. The major constituents of this plant are flavonoids, casticin, chryso-splenol and vitexin, Chrysophenol D, nishindine and hydrocotylene. It also contains monoterpenes agnuside, eurostoside, and aucubin. These constituents contribute various pharmacological activities as anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antinociceptive, anti-ulcer, free radicals scavenging, hepatoprotective and many more. This review discuss the investigation made by various workers related to its ethnobotanical claims, ayurvedic properties, chemical constituents, pharmacological activities ,analytical studies and other aspects considering this plant since years till date.
Alternative growth and energy storage responses to mortality threats in damselflies

The role of physiology in mediating the growth/predation risk trade-off has been largely ignored. We examined effects of predation risk on relationships between growth and storage molecules in Enallagma aspersum and Ischnura verticalis damselfly larvae that differ in this trade-off. In laboratory and field experiments, both species had similar growth and mortality rates and similar concentrations of storage molecules in the absence of mortality threats. However, in the presence of dragonfly predators Ischnura larvae had higher mortality rates and grew faster than Enallagma larvae. Consistent with the difference in growth rate, Enallagma's total protein concentrations decreased under predation risk while those of Ischnura did not. Glucose and glycogen concentrations were not affected, while triglyceride concentrations were lower under predation risk in Enallagma but not in Ischnura. Species differences at the physiological level to the presence of mortality threats may be crucial to understanding patterns in metamorphic and post-metamorphic traits.
Five-Level Transformerless Inverter for Single-Phase Solar Photovoltaic Applications

Transformerless inverters are extensively employed in grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) generation systems due to its advantages of achieving low cost and high efficiency. However, the common-mode voltage issues have been motivated the proposition of new topologies, control, and modulation schemes. In common ground PV inverters, the grid neutral line is directly connected to the negative pole of the dc bus. Therefore, the parasitic capacitances are bypassed and the leakage current can be eliminated. In this paper, a five-level common ground transformerless inverter with reduced output harmonic content for PV systems is proposed. In addition, the proposed inverter can process reactive power and it presents a maximum dc-voltage utilization in opposition to half-bridge-based topologies. The operation modes of the proposed inverter, a simple modulation strategy, as well as the design guidelines are analyzed in detail. Finally, experimental results demonstrate the feasibility and good performance of the proposed inverter.
Effects on the Stem of Winter Barley of Manipulating the Source and Sink during Grain-filling II. CHANGES IN THE COMPOSITION OF WATER-SOLUBLE CARBOHYDRATES OF INTERNODES

Field-grown barley plants were manipulated by removing ears and by shading to promote and to reduce, respectively, the storage of carbohydrates in their stems. Water-soluble carbohydrate (WSC) was extracted and separated by HPLC into glucose, fructose, sucrose, and fructan of degree of polymerization (DP) 3, 4, 5, >5, and measured in both the penultimate and fourth internodes from the ear to determine the effects of the manipulations. During the accumulation of WSC, the mass of fructan with a DP greater than 5 continued to increase whilst the mass of fructans of DP 3 to 5 reached a maximum and then remained constant
Learning Intent to Book Metrics for Airbnb Search

Airbnb is a two-sided rental marketplace offering a variety of unique and more traditional accommodation options. Similar to other online marketplaces we invest in optimizing the content surfaced on the search UI and ranking relevance to improve the guest online search experience. The unique Airbnb inventory, however, surfaces some major data challenges. Given the high stakes of booking less traditional accommodations, users can spend many days to weeks searching and scanning the description page of many accommodation ”listings” before making a decision to book. Moreover, much of the information about a listing is unstructured and can only be found by the user after they go through the details on the listing page. As a result, we have found traditional search metrics do not work well in the context of our platform. Basic metrics of single user actions, such as click-through-rates, number of listings viewed, or dwell time, are not consistently directionally correlated with our downstream business metrics. To address these issues we leverage machine learning to isolate signals of intent from rich behavioral data. These signals have key applications including analytical insights, ranking modeling inputs, and experimentation velocity. In this paper, we describe the development of a model-based user intent metric, ”intentful listing view”, which combines the signals of a variety of user micro-actions on the listing description page. We demonstrate this learned metric is directionally correlated with downstream conversion metrics and sensitive across a variety of historical search experiments.
PHYSIOLOGICAL ACTION OF THE GERMINATION INHIBITOR IN THE HUSK OF AEGILOPS KOTSCHYI BOISS

Summary The germination inhibitor contained in the glume and hull of Aegilops kotschyi, an Irano-Turanian graminaceous species growing in Israel, was investigated. It appears to function via the gibberellin (GA) metabolism of the plant and is coumarin- or abscisin-like in action.
Photosynthesis and photorespiration in the genus Oryza

Photosynthetic gas exchange has been surveyed in 22 of the 23 species currently placed in the genus Oryza and constituting the wild relatives of cultivated rice. Unimproved, wild germplasm of a number of species showed light-saturated assimilation rates in atmospheric air at least as great as cultivars and elite breeding material of the cultigen O. sativa. One of these species was O. australiensis, different accessions of which were significantly (P = 0.001) superior in assimilation rate to the O. sativa genotypes tested, including representatives of the Indica, Japonica and Javanica subgroups. Amongst species, assimilation rate was correlated positively with light saturation and with carboxylation efficiency. The wild species fell into two distinct groupings according to whether they originated from sun or shade habitats, with the higher assimilation rates being associated with the sun species. Assimilation rates were also higher in diploids than in tetraploids and this was associated with the fact that all sun species are diploids and all tetraploids are shade species. The carbon dioxide compensation concentrations ranged from 28 to 43 mu mol mol(-1) with the two lowest values (28 and 32 mu mol mol(-1)) coming from accessions of O. rufipogon. The mean value for the absolute quantum yield of photosynthesis measured on attached leaves was 0.060. There was a large range in the activity of phosphoenolpyruvate (PEP) carboxylase with a number of species having rates several times those of C-3 species. Some species with the highest assimilation rates were assessed for photorespiratory losses and these were generally around 30% and similar to O. sativa cultivars. However, a range of O. rufipogon accessions had photorespiration rates significantly (P = 0.01) lower than the O. sativa genotypes tested. No species in the genus possessed C-4 photosynthetic metabolism though some did overlap with compensation concentrations and phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase activities reported for C-3-C-4 intermediate species. The potential value of wild relatives to the improvement of cultivated rice is discussed.
Empirical Bayesian Graphical Entity Resolution

Databases often contain corrupted, degraded, and noisy data with duplicate entries across and within each database. Such problems arise in citations, medical databases, human rights databases, and a variety of other applied settings. The target of statistical inference can be viewed as an unsupervised problem of determining the edges of a bipartite graph that links the observed records to unobserved latent entities. Bayesian approaches provide attractive benefits, naturally providing uncertainty quantification via posterior probabilities. A hierarchical Bayesian (HB) method for record linkage has previously been proposed, but the method suffers from limitations, including the need to specify prior distributions for the unobserved latent entities. We propose a novel empirical Bayesian (EB) record linkage approach that improves on the earlier HB approach not only by avoiding the prior specification problem but also by allowing both categorical and string-valued variables. Our extension to string-valued variables also involves the proposal of a new probabilistic mechanism by which observed record values for string fields can deviate from the values of their associated latent entities. Moreover, we explore theoretical properties of record linkage under our family of models via information theory. We apply our proposed methodology to a simulated data set of German names and an Italian household survey, showing our method performs favorably compared to several standard methods in the literature.
Voacanga africana: Chemistry, quality and pharmacological activity

This review examines the natural products in Voacanga africana, a small tree, whose seeds are the most economically important plant part though in traditional medicines the bark and root are also widely used. Voacanga is used to treat or cure a wide range of diseases in Africa. This paper also discusses the botany, chemistry and pharmacological properties and presents current and potential applications of this species. The alkaloids are the principal bioactive compounds responsible for its use in traditional medicine. The major alkaloids include voacamine, voacangine, vobasine, and ibogaime. Others include voacristine, voacamidine, voacarine, voaphylline, vobtusine, voalfolidine and tabersonine. With over 1,600 tons of seeds exported annually from Ghana and Cote D'Ivoire, voacanga is an important source of additional income for harvesters and exporters in West Africa.
Load-balanced Range Query Workload Partitioning for Compressed Spatial Hierarchical Bitmap (cSHB) Indexes

The spatial databases are used to store geometric objects such as points, lines, polygons. Querying such complex spatial objects becomes a challenging task. Index structures are used to improve the lookup performance of the stored objects in the databases, but traditional index structures cannot perform well in case of spatial databases. A significant amount of research is made to ingest, index and query the spatial objects based on different types of spatial queries, such as range, nearest neighbor, and join queries. Compressed Spatial Bitmap Index (cSHB) structure is one such example of indexing and querying approach that supports spatial range query workloads (set of queries). cSHB indexes and many other approaches lack parallel computation. The massive amount of spatial data requires a lot of computation and traditional methods are insufficient to address these issues. Other existing parallel processing approaches lack in load-balancing of parallel tasks which leads to resource overloading bottlenecks. In this thesis, I propose novel spatial partitioning techniques, Max Containment Clustering and Max Containment Clustering with Separation, to create load-balanced partitions of a range query workload. Each partition takes a similar amount of time to process the spatial queries and reduces the response latency by minimizing the disk access cost and optimizing the bitmap operations. The partitions created are processed in parallel using cSHB indexes. The proposed techniques utilize the blockbased organization of bitmaps in the cSHB index and improve the performance of the cSHB index for processing a range query workload.