Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The omega-6/omega-3 fatty acid ratio in chronic diseases: animal models and molecular aspects.

Polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), including omega-6 (n–6) and omega-3 (n–3) fatty acids, are essential nutrients that function as important modulators of multiple biological pathways that affect health and disease. n–6 and n–3 PUFA are metabolically and functionally distinct and often have important opposing physiological functions. They are precursors of lipid mediators that regulate the inflammatory response. Chronic inflammation has been considered as a common mechanism of modern diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, and neurodegenerative disease. Generally, n–6 fatty acids promote inflammation, whereas n–3 fatty acids have anti-inflammatory properties. Modern western diets are deficient in n–3 fatty acids, but are abundant in n–6 fatty acids, resulting in an n–6/n–3 fatty acid ratio >10:1, which is highly imbalanced compared to the 1:1 ratio our genetic profile was established upon [1, 2]. A high tissue n–6/n–3 ratio has been thought to be a risk factor for many life-threatening diseases [1, 2]. The importance of this ratio in disease development remains to be validated in well-qualified experimental models. Transgenic fat-1 mice, generated recently by our laboratory [3], were engineered to express a fat-1 gene from Caenorhabditis elegans, which is absent in most animals, including mammals. This gene encodes an n–3 fatty acid desaturase that catalyzes conversion of n–6 to n–3 fatty acids. When both fat-1 transgenic mice and wildtype littermates are fed an identical diet high in n–6 but low in n–3 fatty acids (e.g. n–6:n–3 = approx. 30:1), the fat-1 transgenic mice show a lower or balanced ratio of n–6/n–3 fatty acids (approx. 1:1) in their organs and tissues relative to that of their wild-type littermates. Thus, use of the fat1 transgenic mouse allows us to create two different fatty acid profiles (high vs. low n–6/n–3 ratio) with a single diet, and thereby eliminates the need for two different diets for a comparative study. Furthermore, fat-1 transgenic mouse lines can be used to genetically cross with established disease models (transgenic or knockout animals, such as an ob/ob obesity model and an apolipoprotein E-deficient atherosclerosis model) to generate compound (fat-1 plus a diseased gene) models, which allows the effects of n–3 fatty acids and/or the n–6/n–3 ratio on the development and progression of the disease to be addressed. This genetic approach is highly effective in modification of the n–6/n–3 ratio by converting n–6 to n–3 PUFA without altering the total quantity of
Transport of celiprolol across human intestinal epithelial (Caco‐2) cells: mediation of secretion by multiple transporters including P‐glycoprotein

1 The transepithelial transport of the β‐adrenoceptor blocking drug, celiprolol, was investigated in monolayers of the well differentiated human intestinal epithelial cell line, Caco‐2. 2 The basal‐to‐apical transport (secretion) of [14C]‐celiprolol (50 μm) was 5 times higher than apical‐to‐basal transport (absorption). In the presence of an excess (5 mm) of unlabelled celiprolol the basal‐to‐apical transport was reduced by more than 80%, whereas the apical‐to‐basal transport remained unchanged. 3 Net celiprolol secretion obtained in the concentration range 0.01 to 5 mm displayed saturable kinetics with an apparent Km of 1.00 ± 0.23 mm and Vmax of 113 ± 11 pmol/106 cells min−1. These results are consistent with saturable active secretion and provide an explanation for the dose‐dependent bioavailability of celiprolol. 4 The secretion of celiprolol was sensitive to pH, and decreased in the absence of sodium and in the presence of ouabain, suggesting that transport was coupled to proton and sodium gradients. 5 The secretion of celiprolol was inhibited by substrates for P‐glycoprotein (vinblastine, verapamil and nifedipine) and either inhibited or stimulated by typical substrates for the renal organic cation‐H+ exchanger (cimetidine, N1‐methylnicotinamide, tetraethylammonium and choline), suggesting that there are at least two distinct transport systems. 6 The secretion of celiprolol was also inhibited by other β‐adrenoceptor blocking drugs (acebutolol, atenolol, metoprolol, pafenolol and propranolol) and by the diuretics, acetazolamide, chlorthalidone and hydrochlorothiazide, suggesting that the clinically observed effect of chlorthalidone on the bioavailability of celiprolol occurs at the level of the intestinal epithelium.
Studying phenotypic evolution using multivariate quantitative genetics

Quantitative genetics provides a powerful framework for studying phenotypic evolution and the evolution of adaptive genetic variation. Central to the approach is G, the matrix of additive genetic variances and covariances. G summarizes the genetic basis of the traits and can be used to predict the phenotypic response to multivariate selection or to drift. Recent analytical and computational advances have improved both the power and the accessibility of the necessary multivariate statistics. It is now possible to study the relationships between G and other evolutionary parameters, such as those describing the mutational input, the shape and orientation of the adaptive landscape, and the phenotypic divergence among populations. At the same time, we are moving towards a greater understanding of how the genetic variation summarized by G evolves. Computer simulations of the evolution of G, innovations in matrix comparison methods, and rapid development of powerful molecular genetic tools have all opened the way for dissecting the interaction between allelic variation and evolutionary process. Here I discuss some current uses of G, problems with the application of these approaches, and identify avenues for future research.
Do Fund Investors Know that Risk is Sometimes Not Priced

Previous research suggests that investor sentiment has an influence on the market s risk-return trade-off. Noise traders demand for assets is considered to be risk independent and, as a result, risky assets do not offer a risk premium when demand is high. We show that market risk is only a priced factor of expected fund returns when investor sentiment is low. Furthermore, fund investors seem aware that risk is sometimes not priced. During high sentiment periods, (smart) investors buy safe funds that subsequently outperform and sell risky funds that subsequently underperform. Our results are statistically and economically significant.
Energy-aware fault-tolerant clustering scheme for target tracking wireless sensor networks

Over the last few years, the deployment of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) has been fostered in diverse applications. WSN has great potential for a variety of domains ranging from scientific experiments to commercial applications. Due to the deployment of WSNs in dynamic and unpredictable environments, these applications must have potential to cope with variety of faults. This paper proposes an energy-aware fault-tolerant clustering protocol for target tracking applications termed as the Fault-Tolerant Target Tracking (FTTT) protocol. The identification of redundant nodes (RNs) makes sensor node (SN) fault tolerance plausible and the clustering endorsed recovery of sensors supervised by a faulty cluster head (CH). The FTTT protocol intends two steps of reducing energy consumption: first, by identifying RNs in the network; secondly, by restricting the numbers of SNs sending data to the CH. Simulations validate the scalability and low power consumption of the FTTT protocol in comparison with LEACH protocol.
Aroma-Active Compounds in Jinhua Ham Produced With Different Fermentation Periods

The aroma-active compounds in Jinhua ham processed and stored for 9, 12, 15 and 18 months were extracted by dynamic headspace sampling (DHS) and solvent-assisted flavor evaporation (SAFE) and analyzed by gas chromatography-olfactometry-mass spectrometry (GC-O-MS). In GC-O-MS, volatile compounds were identified based on their mass spectrum, linear retention index (LRI), odor properties, or reference compound comparisons. The results showed that a total number of 81 aroma-active compounds were identified by GC-O-MS. Among them, acids (such as acetic acid, butanoic acid and 3-methylbutanoic acid), saturated aldehydes (such as hexanal, heptanal, octanal and 3-methylbutanal), benzene derivatives (such as benzeneacetic acid), ester and lactone (such as γ-nonalactone and γ-decalactone) were identified as critical compounds in Jinhua ham aroma. The results also indicated that the type and content of the odorants increased significantly with the duration of the fermentation period.
Accounting for Risk: developing a new research agenda for risk appraisal in high-technology ventures

This work concerns the development of new methods of accounting for risk in high-technology ventures. The paper enquires into attitudes to risk and skills at risk management, in the relationship between high-technology firms and their venture capital backers. The basic prescription behind the proposed approach, building on work by the authors and co-workers [Reid (1996,1999), Reid, Terry and Smith (1997)], and other recent developments [e.g. Fiet (1995a,b)], is that as the venture capital industry matures, so should the techniques which high-technology firms and their venture capital backers use for risk management. If total risk is split up into innovation risk, business risk and agency risk, the main category of risk which hitherto the venture capitalist has sought to attenuate is agency risk. This has been addressed through improved management accounting systems, post-investment, and pre-commitment to the installation of such systems, pre-investment. However, success in this area has been incomplete, and attention to business and innovation risk has been severely limited. Lack of overall success in risk handling has, as a consequence, been a major cause of failure to provide adequate levels of outside finance for high-technology ventures, if appropriate yardstick comparison is made with US practise. This paper proposes a new research agenda, and a corresponding methodology, for investigating methods used for managing innovation, business and agency risks in investor-investee relations.
Factors influencing the family planning method usage among married males in Turkey

'In this study, we aimed to determine the influencing factors on family planning methods usage of married males enrolled in the Turkish Population and Health Survey, which was conducted in 1998. Eight thousand and fifty nine (94%) out of 8596 houses selected for exampling were accessed. There were 3043 married men appropriate for interviewing, and 1971 (64.8%) of these responded the questionnaire. The ratio of using a modern method among family planning methods was 67.6%. These ratios were 58.5% and 61.5% for 'urban' and 'rural' regions, respectively. Using any method by males decreased by the increase in the duration of marriage, and increased by the age, educational status, number of child(ren), having social insurance (Social Insurance Organization, Retirement fund, and Bag-Kur), and hearing any information about AIDS. Using any modern method by males also decreased by the increase in the duration of marriage, and increased by the number of child(ren), living in the south part of the country, having social insurance, and hearing any information about AIDS. The ratio of condom using decreased by the duration of marriage and increased by the educational status. The use of withdrawal method increased by living in the western, southern and eastern parts of the country; and decreased by hearing any information about AIDS and by talking with friends about family planning. Results of the present study demonstrates the insufficiency of male involvement in family planning usage. 'Consultation services on family planning' presented by Ministry of Health is highly recommended to become widespread. Equalizing the women's role with men in terms of gender issues is one of the additional basic solutions. '
Tagging Malayalam Text with Parts of Speech-TnT and SVM Tagger Comparison

Parts of Speech Tagger (POS) also called, as grammatical tagging or word category disambiguation, is the task of assigning to each word of a text the proper POS tag in its context of appearance in sentences. The importance of the problem focuses from the fact that the POS is one of the first stages in the process performed by various natural language related process. There are different approaches to the problem of assigning a part of speech (POS) tag to each word of a natural language sentence. Here we present a tag set for the Indian language Malayalam, a relatively free word order morphologically productive and agglutinative language. The paper is about performing Part of speech tagging for the Indian language Malayalam using SVM Tool, which was implemented using support vector machines and TnT tagger, which was built using Hidden Markov Model. The SVMTool is giving accuracy of 87.5% and TnT tagger is giving an accuracy of about 80 %. Keywords— Supervised and unsupervised, statistical method, disambiguation and prepositional phrase, TNT Tagger, SVM Tagger, pos tagging, Malayalam Computing.
Emerging Logistics Strategies

Looks, in depth, at corporate logistics strategy, particularly with regard to the USA. Discusses strategy referring to a general concept of operations guiding all activities towards an ultimate goal – global rather than local. Itemizes some major American firms and their attitudes and considers their policies and results. Shows supply chain management and cycle time compression to be complementing logistics strategies for progressive US firms.
Biotic Interactions in the Rhizosphere: A Diverse Cooperative Enterprise for Plant Productivity1[C]

Roots and microbes secrete organic compounds into the rhizosphere that influence plant productivity. Microbes and plants have evolved biochemical mechanisms to communicate with each other. The molecules responsible for such communication are secreted during beneficial or harmful interactions. Hundreds of these molecules secreted into the rhizosphere have been identified, and their functions are being studied in order to understand the mechanisms of interaction and communication among the different members of the rhizosphere community. The importance of root and microbe secretion to the underground habitat in improving crop productivity is increasingly recognized, with the discovery and characterization of new secreting compounds found in the rhizosphere. Different omic approaches, such as genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics, have expanded our understanding of the first signals between microbes and plants. In this review, we highlight the more recent discoveries related to molecules secreted into the rhizosphere and how they affect plant productivity, either negatively or positively. In addition, we include a survey of novel approaches to studying the rhizosphere and emerging opportunities to direct future studies.
The effect of economic factors on the performance of the Australian stock market

Portfolio theory, created by economists, was a breakthrough in financial economics. This theory looks at the stock market as a whole and analyses how, for a given rate of expected return, assets can be invested efficiently and how risk can be minimized. An effectively diversified portfolio minimizes the unsystematic risk which is affected by factors that are specific to the individual firms and, to some extent, the industry in which the firm operates. The unsystematic risk is, therefore, manageable by diversification. The systematic risk, however, cannot be managed by a simple approach of diversification. Despite the fact that there are many other factors contributing to the systematic risk of a portfolio, the risk and return of a diversified portfolio is mainly affected by domestic and overseas economic factors.
Virus‐specific CD8 T cells: activation, differentiation and memory formation

CD8 T cells are pivotal for the control of many intracellular pathogens, and besides their role in immediate control of infections, CD8 T cells have the capacity to differentiate into long‐lived antigen‐independent memory CD8 T cells, at least in situations of acute and resolved infections. The population of memory cells is heterogeneous with respect to their phenotype, their anatomical localization and their functional capacities in order to afford optimal protection against secondary infections. In the past years, it has become clear that multiple in vivo parameters are involved in shaping the composition of the memory CD8 T cell population, including antigen load, duration and strength of CD8 T cell stimulation, the level of inflammation, availability of CD4 T cell help and CD8 T cell precursor frequencies. With respect to the timing when CD8 T cells are committed to become memory cells, several models have been proposed. In contrast to acute, resolved infection, the continued in vivo exposure to high levels of antigen during persistent chronic viral infection precludes the development of long‐lived antigen‐independent memory CD8 T cells and might even result in severe dysfunction of virus‐specific CD8 T cells.
Myocardial adrenergic dysfunction in rats with transgenic, human renin-dependent hypertension

Objectives We investigated cardiac function in rats transgenic for the human renin and angiotensinogen genes (TGR) to test the hypothesis that elevated local angiotensin II precipitates adrenergic dysfunction and abnormal contractile function. Methods Hearts from TGR and Sprague–Dawley control rats, aged 6 weeks, were studied using the Langendorff model and papillary muscle preparations (n = 6–10 per group). Incremental isoproterenol (1–1000 nmol/l) and external Ca2+-concentrations (0.75–6.0 mmol/l) were tested. Cardiac protein and mRNA expression levels were determined by Western blot and RNAase protection assay. Results TGR rats showed left ventricular hypertrophy (54%), higher blood pressures (76 mmHg), and elevated plasma renin activity (seven-fold) compared to controls (P < 0.01). The effect of isoproterenol on TGR rat systolic and diastolic left ventricular performance was decreased in both in-vitro models compared to controls (two- to three-fold, P < 0.01) . TGR rat papillary muscles showed impaired force generation with abnormal basal and Ca2+-dependent relaxation. Giα2 and Giα3 protein levels were increased (20–30%) and SERCA2a and adenylyl cyclase protein levels were decreased (23 and 37%, respectively) in TGR hearts compared to controls, while Gsα or β1 and β2-receptor levels were unchanged. Cardiac angiotensin converting enzyme and atrial natriuretic peptide mRNA levels were increased more than four-fold in TGR with no differences for the angiotensin type1 receptor, β1-receptor, SERCA2a, phospholamban, adenylyl cyclase V and angiotensinogen genes. Conclusions TGR rat hearts develop severe adrenergic dysfunction with decreased adenylyl cyclase and abnormal intracellular Ca2+-homeostasis. Our findings emphasize angiotensin II as a major risk factor promoting early functional decline in cardiac hypertrophy. The data may have implications for patients with activating polymorphisms of the renin–angiotensin system and support the need for an early therapeutic intervention.
On Generating Gadget Chains for Return-Oriented Programming

With the increased popularity of embedded devices, low-level programming languages like C and C++ are currently experiencing a strong renewed interest. However, these languages are, meaning that programming errors may lead to undefined behaviour, which, in turn, may be exploited to compromise a system's integrity. Many programs written in these languages contain such programming errors, most infamous of which are buffer overflows. In order to fight this, there exists a large range of mitigation techniques designed to hinder exploitation, some of which are integral parts of most major operating systems' security concept. Even the most sophisticated mitigations, however, can often be bypassed by modern exploits, which are based on the principle of code reuse: they assemble, or chain, together existing code fragments (known as gadgets) in a way to achieve malicious behaviour. This technique is currently the cornerstone of modern exploits. In this dissertation, we present ROPocop, an approach to mitigate code-reuse attacks. ROPocop is a configurable, heuristic-based detector that monitors program execution and raises an alarm if it detects suspicious behaviour. It monitors the frequency of indirect branches and the length of basic blocks, two characteristics in which code-reuse attacks differ greatly from normal program behaviour. However, like all mitigations, ROPocop has its weaknesses and we show that it and other similar approaches can be bypassed in an automatic way by an aware attacker. To this end, we present PSHAPE, a practical, cross-platform framework to support the construction of code-reuse exploits. It offers two distinguishing features, namely it creates concise semantic summaries for gadgets, which allow exploit developers to assess the utility of a gadget much quicker than by going through the individual assembly instructions. And secondly, PSHAPE automatically composes gadgets to construct a chain of gadgets that can invoke any arbitrary function with user-supplied parameters. Invoking a function is indeed the most common goal of concurrent exploits, as calling a function such as mprotect greatly simplifies later steps of exploitation. For a mitigation to be viable, it must detect actual attacks reliably while at the same time avoiding false positives and ensuring that protected applications remain usable, i.e., do not crash or become very slow. In the tested sample set of applications, ROPocop detects and stops all twelve real attacks with no false positives. When executed with ROPocop, real-world programs exhibit only some slight input lag at startup but otherwise remain responsive. Yet, we further show how PSHAPE can be used to fully automatically create exploits that bypass various mitigations, for example, ROPocop itself. We also show gadgets PSHAPE found easily, that have great relevance in real exploits, and which previously required intense manual searches to find. Lastly, using PSHAPE, we also discovered a new and very useful gadget type that greatly simplifies gadget chaining.
A theoretical link between lenticular absorbance and fluorescence

The age-related variation of the fluorescence of the human eye lens was calculated from published data for lenticular absorbance. Only the nucleus was assumed to be involved. Simplifying assumptions for nuclear geometry yielded axial point-by-point data of absorbance for the exciting and fluorescent beam intensities. The resulting fluorescence profiles and their variation with age were computed. The model was tested on two assumptions: yellowing of the lens involves a pigment (a) already present at, or (b) one accumulating from, birth. Agreement between theory and experiment follows from hypothesis (b), and supports an earlier suggestion that the lens may yellow owing to a lifelong exposure to light.
Improved molecular diagnostic tools for human hookworms

Blood-feeding hookworms are parasitic roundworms (i.e., nematodes) of major socioeconomic importance, affecting millions of people worldwide. Despite their impact on human health, little attention has been paid to improving practical methods of diagnosis. The genetic characterization of hookworms and specific diagnosis of their infections are central to elucidating the ecology and epidemiology of these parasites as well as the control of the disease they cause. Traditional coprodiagnostic methods have major limitations. This article summarizes progress in the development of molecular-analytical and -diagnostic tools, and discusses the need to establish practical ‘laboratory’ and ‘field’ assays for use in integrated hookworm prevention and control programs.