Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Deletion of the aquaporin-4 gene alters expression and phosphorylation of protective kinases in the mouse heart

Abstract Aim. Aquaporins are channel-forming proteins highly permeable to water and some small molecular solutes. We have previously shown that aquaporin-4 knockout mice have increased tolerance to ischemia. However, the mechanism of cardioprotection was unclear. The aim of the current study was to investigate the effects of aquaporin-4 deletion on baseline expression and phosphorylation of some cardioprotective protein kinases. Methods. Proteins were extracted from hearts of aquaporin-4 knockout mice and littermate wild-type controls and analyzed with Western blot. Samples were taken from young (≤ 6 months of age), and old (≥ 1 year) mice. Results. Western blots showed three different isoforms of aquaporin-4 in wild types, likely representing M1, M23, and Mz. Total AMP-dependent kinase expression was decreased in aquaporin-4 knockout hearts by 18 ± 13% (p = 0.02), while the expression of Akt kinase, extracellular signal regulated kinase 1/2, protein kinase C-epsilon, mitogen-associated kinase P38 and C-Jun N-terminal kinase was unchanged. The phosphorylation of Akt kinase was reduced in hearts from knockout mice by 41 ± 16% (p = 0.01). No other alterations in phosphorylation were found. These effects were only detected in young mice. Conclusion. Deletion of the aquaporin-4 gene decreased AMP-dependent kinase expression and Akt kinase phosphorylation in the heart. These changes may influence energy metabolism and endogenous cardioprotection.
Jointly optimizing task granularity and concurrency for in-memory mapreduce frameworks

Recently, in-memory big data processing frameworks have emerged, such as Apache Spark and Ignite, to accelerate workloads requiring frequent data reuse. With effective in-memory caching these frameworks eliminate most of I/O operations, which would otherwise be necessary for communication between producer and consumer tasks. However, this performance benefit is nullified if the memory footprint exceeds available memory size, due to excessive spill and garbage collection (GC) operations. To fit the working set in memory, two system parameters play an important role: number of data partitions (Npartitions) specifying task granularity, and number of tasks per each executor (Nthreads) specifying the degree of parallelism in execution. Existing approaches to optimizing these parameters either do not take into account workload characteristics, or optimize only one of the parameters in isolation, thus yielding suboptimal performance. This paper introduces WASP, a workload-aware task scheduler and partitioner, which jointly optimizes both parameters at runtime. To find an optimal setting, WASP first analyzes the DAG structure of a given workload, and uses an analytical model to predict optimal settings of Npartitions and Nthreads for all stages based on their computation types. Taking this as input, the WASP scheduler employs a hill climbing algorithm to find an optimal Nthreads for each stage, thus maximizing concurrency while minimizing data spills and GCs. We prototype WASP on Spark and evaluate it using six workloads on three different parallel platforms. WASP improves performance by up to 3.22× and reduces the cluster operating cost on cloud by up to 40%, over the baseline following Spark Tuning Guidelines and provides robust performance for both shuffle-heavy and shuffle-light workloads.
The Acute Effect of Drop Jump Protocols With Different Volumes and Recovery Time on Countermovement Jump Performance

Abstract Chen, ZR, Wang, YH, Peng, HT, Yu, CF, and Wang, MH. The acute effect of drop jump protocols with different volumes and recovery time on countermovement jump performance. J Strength Cond Res 27(1): 154–158, 2013—The aim of this study was to investigate the acute effect of (a) a drop jump (DJ) protocol with 1 set per 5 repetitions and (b) a DJ protocol with 2 sets per 5 repetitions on countermovement jump (CMJ) height performance in volleyball players at recovery times of (a) 2 minutes, (b) 6 minutes, and (c) 12 minutes. The subjects were 10 male Division I college volleyball players. They were instructed to perform a pretest of 3 CMJs and then randomly assigned to perform (a) a DJ protocol with 1 set per 5 repetitions and (b) a DJ protocol with 2 sets per 5 repetitions. After the DJ, 3 CMJs were completed in 2, 6, and 12 minutes. A 2-way repeated-measures analysis of variance was used to examine the differences between training volumes and recovery times in CMJ height (HCMJ) and maximum ground reaction force. Both DJ training volumes significantly increased the HCMJ. The HCMJ at post 2 minutes was greater than those at the pretest (p = 0.008), post 6 minutes (p = 0.004), and post 12 minutes (p = 0.002). In addition, the HCMJ at post 6 minutes was significantly greater than that at post 12 minutes (p = 0.018). Drop jumps in lower volume (e.g., within 10 repetitions) and short recovery time (e.g., within 2 minutes) can produce a positive acute effect on CMJ performance.
Comparative study of ripe and unripe banana flour during storage.

Banana flour is an excellent alternative to minimize postharvest losses and to retain the nutritive value of fresh bananas. Unripe banana flour is rich in resistant starch, dietary fiber, and aids in colon health. Ripe banana flour contains high amount of iron calcium, potassium and reducing sugars which helps in better blood circulation and also aids in curbing the craving for nicotine, caffeine. Comparative effect on physico-chemical, re-constitutional and sensory qualities of prepared unripe and ripe banana pulp flour were evaluated during the storage of sixty days at ambient conditions. Water absorption capacity of unripe banana flour was greater than ripe banana flour. From FTIR spectroscopy it was cleared that ripe banana flour was more dried than unripe banana flour. Due to presence of sugars in ripe banana flour, its hygroscopicity was much higher than unripe banana flour. Potential value added products such as cookies from unripe banana flour and bread from ripe banana flour were prepared to determine the utilization of banana flour as functional food ingredient.
Tissue angiotensin‐converting enzyme inhibitors for the prevention of cardiovascular disease in patients with diabetes mellitus without left ventricular systolic dysfunction or clinical evidence of heart failure: a pooled meta‐analysis of randomized placebo‐controlled clinical trials

Aim: The aim of this study was to determine the role of tissue angiotensin‐converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors in the prevention of cardiovascular disease in patients with diabetes mellitus without left ventricular systolic dysfunction or clinical evidence of heart failure in randomized placebo‐controlled clinical trials using pooled meta‐analysis techniques.
Plasma disposition and tissue residue of Moxifloxacin in Japanese quails (Coturnix japonica) following different routes of administration

Abstract 1. The disposition kinetics and the plasma availability of moxifloxacin were investigated in Japanese quails (Coturnix japonica) following different routes of administration at 5 mg/kg body weight. 2. Tissue residue profiles (liver, kidney, lung and muscle) and plasma were also studied after multiple intramuscular and oral administrations of 5 mg/kg body weight, once daily for 5 consecutive days. 3. Following intravenous injection, plasma concentration–time curves were best described by a two-compartment open model. 4. After intramuscular and oral administration of moxifloxacin, the peak plasma concentrations (Cmax) were 2.14 and 1.94 μg/ml and were obtained at 1.40 and 1.87 h (Tmax), post administration, respectively. 5. The systemic bioavailabilities following intramuscular and oral administration, respectively, of moxifloxacin were 92.48 and 87.94%. 6. Tissue concentrations following i.m. and p.o. administration were highest in liver and kidney, respectively, and decreased in the following order: plasma, lung and muscle. No moxifloxacin residues were detected in tissues and plasma after 120 h after i.m. or oral administration.
Introduction to the Cyber-of-Things: Cyber-crimes and Cyber-Security Mini-track

The continuous amalgamation of technology into the ever increasing facets of everyday life are conducive to encouraging cyber-crimes and cybersecurity evolution and diversification. Hence, responses that address resulting concerns presented in this mini-track include ‘A Synchronized Shared Key Generation Method for Maintaining End-to-End Security of Big Data Streams’, ‘A ThreatVulnerability Based Risk Analysis Model for Cyber Physical System Security’ and an analysis of ‘How Espoused Culture Influences Misuse Intention: A Micro-Institutional Theory Perspective’. These contributions highlight the growing need to highlight, investigate and address cyber-security vulnerabilities in the broad context of cyber-of-things.
Education and Inequality in India : A Microeconometric Decomposition Analysis

What effect has educational expansion had on income inequality in India? This study uses household survey data to measure how education affected the distribution of household consumption expenditures in the periods 1987-1993 and 1993-2004. The first results indicate that changes in educational attainment increased inequality in the first period, but decreased inequality in the latter. The returns to education had the opposite effect, namely to reduce inequality in the first period but raise it in the latter. The total direct effect of education was therefore very small in both periods. Changes in fertility, however, contributed to a substantial rise in inequality in both periods.
Uma abordagem descentralizada para encurtamento de URLs

Microblogs, como o Twitter, sao sistemas sociais voltados unicamente para a postagem de mensagens com no maximo 140 caracteres. Com o grande uso de mensagens curtas na Web, o usode encurtadores de URLs esta se tornando cada vez mais comum. Esses encurtadores traduzem uma URL em uma nova, com poucos caracteres. Apesar de eficientes, esses servicos podemintroduzir atrasos e tem sido amplamente utilizado para ofuscar spam. Esse trabalho apresenta o BeShort, um algoritmo para encurtamento de URLs de forma descentralizada capaz deevitar tais problemas. De forma descentralizada e transparente ao usuario. Os resultados contidos no trabalho mostram que o BeShort consegue taxas de encurtamento tao eficientesquanto as taxas praticadas por arquiteturas centralizadas.
Combinaison de fonctions de préférence par boosting pour la recherche de passages dans les systèmes de question/réponse

Nous proposons une methode d'apprentissage automatique pour la selection de passages susceptibles de contenir la reponse a une question dans les systemes de Question-Reponse (QR). Les systemes de RI ad hoc ne sont pas adaptes a cette tâche car les passages recherches ne doivent pas uniquement traiter du meme sujet que la question mais en plus contenir sa reponse. Pour traiter ce probleme les systemes actuels re-ordonnent les passages renvoyes par un moteur de recherche en considerant des criteres sous forme d'une somme ponderee de fonctions de scores. Nous proposons d'apprendre automatiquement les poids de cette combinaison, grâce a un algorithme de reordonnancement defini dans le cadre du Boosting, qui sont habituellement determines manuellement. En plus du cadre d'apprentissage propose, l'originalite de notre approche reside dans la definition des fonctions allouant des scores de pertinence aux passages. Nous validons notre travail sur la base de questions et de reponses de l'evaluation TREC-11 des systemes de QR. Les resultats obtenus montrent une amelioration significative des performances en terme de rappel et de precision par rapport a un moteur de recherche standard et a une methode d'apprentissage issue du cadre de la classification.
Small-world features of real-world networks

It is well known that there are a large number of complex networks that have vertex-degree distributions in a power-law form of ck−γ, where k is the degree variable and c and γ are scaling and exponent constants. Recently, we found that it is effective to reveal the underlying mechanism of power-law formation in real-world networks by analyzing their vertex-degree sequences. We showed before that, for a scale-free network of size N, if its vertex-degree sequence is k2 < k2 < … < kl, where {k1, k2, …, kl} is the set of all non-equal vertex degrees in the network, and if its power exponent satisfies γ > 1, then the length l of the above vertex-degree sequence is of order log N. We underline that this conclusion is important, which proves that the length of the vertex-degree sequence is a fundamental characteristic of a scale-free network. In this paper, we further investigate complex networks with more general distributions and we prove that the same conclusion about the vertex-degree sequences holds even for non-network type of complex systems. We thereby conclude that real-world networks typically possess small-world features. We support this conclusion by verifying a large number of real-world networks and systems. To that end, we discuss some potential applications of the new finding in various fields of science, engineering and society, demonstrating that the conclusion is important with many real applications.
Correction: Involvement of Protein Tyrosine Phosphatases BcPtpA and BcPtpB in Regulation of Vegetative Development, Virulence and Multi-Stress Tolerance in Botrytis cinerea

Some images in this PLOS ONE paper are duplicated in the following article published in the journal Environmental Microbiology: Yang, Q. , Jiang, J., Mayr, C. , Hahn, M. and Ma, Z. (2013), Involvement of two type 2C protein phosphatases BcPtc1 and BcPtc3 in the regulation of multiple stress tolerance and virulence of Botrytis cinerea. Environ Microbiol, 15: 2696–2711. doi:10.1111/1462-2920.12126 [2] Control plates shown in the Environmental Microbiology article Figure 2A and in the PLOS ONE article Fig 4A for 38B1 + 50ug are the same. Control plates shown in the Environmental Microbiology article Figure 7 Panel C and in the PLOS ONE Figure 11 Panel C for 38B1 and CK are the same. The authors would like to clarify that the mutants BcPtc1/3 (described in Environmental Microbiology) and the mutants BcPtpA/B (described in PLOS ONE) were generated from the same parental strain 38B1; since the mutants were characterised at the same times, the same control plates were used. There is an error in Fig 4A of the PLOS ONE paper that arose due to a mistake in photographing the plates. The plates shown in the Environmental Microbiology article Figure 2A for ΔBcPtc1-C1–50μg tricyclazole and in the PLOS ONE article Fig 4A for ΔBcPtpA-5–50μg tricyclazole are the same. In order to address this error, the authors have reactivated the strains to repeat the experiments. Here we provide a revised Fig 4 using the newly generated plates.
Who Uses the Roth 401(K), and How Do They Use it?

Using administrative data from twelve companies that added a Roth 401(k) option between 2006 and 2010, we describe the characteristics of Roth contributions. Approximately one year after the Roth is introduced, 9% of 401(k) participants have positive Roth balances. Roth participation is more than twice as high among 401(k) participants who were hired after the Roth introduction than among 401(k) participants who were hired before the Roth introduction. In essence, once an employee joins a 401(k) she becomes passive/inattentive, thereby reducing the likelihood of reacting to the introduction of a new Roth option. Conditional on contributing to the Roth, 66% of employee contributions go to the Roth, and half of employees contribute to both the Roth and another 401(k) account, consistent with a tax diversification motive. Roth usage is decreasing in age, less likely among women, and only weakly correlated with salary and tenure once we control for other employee characteristics.
Removing redundancy from lattices

In this work we present a novel word lattice ﬁltering al-gorithm which removes redundancy from lattices. We use the ﬁltering algorithm to analyze lattices obtained from dynamic network and transducer-based LVCSR decoders from several sites regarding size, coverage, and redundancy. We show that our ﬁltering algorithm reduces the size of lattices by 30 to 90% without degrading the oracle word error rate.
Quality of Drinking Water Treated at Point of Use in Residential Healthcare Facilities for the Elderly

Municipal tap water is increasingly treated at the point of use (POU) to improve the acceptability and palatability of its taste. The aim of this study was to assess the bacteriologic and nutritional characteristics of tap water treated at the point of use in residential healthcare facilities for the elderly. Two types of POU devices were used: microfiltered water dispensers (MWDs) and reverse-osmosis water dispensers (ROWDs). All samples of water entering the devices and leaving them were tested for the bacteriological parameters set by Italian regulations for drinking water and for opportunistic pathogens associated with various infections in healthcare settings; in addition, the degree of mineralization of the water was assessed. The results revealed widespread bacterial contamination in the POU treatment devices, particularly from potentially pathogenic species. As expected, the use of ROWDs led to a decrease in the saline content of the water. In conclusion, the use of POU treatment in healthcare facilities for the elderly can be considered advisable only if the devices are constantly and carefully maintained.
The bias corrected weighted bipower variation on high-frequency financial data

It is important to construct precise estimator of financial volatility theoretically and empirically. Calendar effects are dominant character of high-frequency data and realized volatility is biased for microstructure noise in high frequency financial data. This paper make use of realized bipower variation which is robust to get rid of calendar effects by the method of being weighted and then to correct its bias, at last we have an unbiased and efficient financial volatility estimator named bias corrected weighted realized bipower variation.
What is an Epileptic Seizure? Unifying Definitions in Clinical Practice and Animal Research to Develop Novel Treatments

After the great successes of the mid-20th century in the development of drug treatments for epilepsy, subsequent attempts to identify more efficacious therapies have led to incremental improvements but have not had an impact on the problem of medically intractable epilepsy. Indeed, one-third of epilepsy patients still continue to have uncontrolled seizures (1,2), and no method has been found to prevent the development of epilepsy in those at risk (3). Many investigators have proposed that further progress in creating new epilepsy treatments might be made using models with chronic recurrent spontaneous seizures (epilepsy), as opposed to acute evoked seizures. In addition, seizure semiologies and etiologies that approximate those of human epilepsy syndromes better than models currently used for drug discovery, are more likely to involve mechanisms of ictogenesis and epileptogenesis that are relevant to the corresponding human syndrome (4–8). Therefore, substantial efforts have recently been made to introduce into basic and translational research epilepsy models with realistic etiologies that more closely mimic human syndromes, such as stroke (9,10), head injury (11,12), early-life febrile seizures (13), and hypoxia–ischemia (14,15). These new models have a variety of types of spontaneous seizures, including short nonconvulsive partial seizures. Because these seizures differ from the typical motor seizures currently employed in drug development, there could be controversy among investigators as to their significance and whether they are truly seizures. Although there is general agreement that epileptic seizures consists of occasional, sudden, hypersynchronous discharges of gray matter (16), the operational definitions of seizures and the endpoints used to assess treatment results still vary widely in clinical practice and experimental research. Thus, a clarification of the definitions of seizures is needed, because this determines the preclinical endpoints used to test novel therapies for seizure control and epilepsy prevention. This review will first discuss the differences among clinical and experimental definitions of seizures and the detrimental consequences of this disparity to the understanding of mechanisms of epilepsies and the development of better treatments. It will then propose an operational definition of seizures that apply equally well to both humans and animals. Adoption of these definitions could facilitate comparisons of data across laboratories and the translation of new therapies to the bedside.
ILEUS DUE TO EXTENSIVE AIR INSUFFLATION WITH ENDOSCOPIC RETROGRADE CHOLANGIO-PANCREATOGRAPHY.

Endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) is a widely used procedure for diagnosis and particularly for treatment of biliary tract and pancreatic disorders ( Baron, et al., 2006 ). The procedure-related complication rate may be as high as 5.4%–23% and the mortality rate is about 0.1%–1% ( Christensen, Matzen, Schulze, & Rosenberg, 2004 ). Biliary and intestinal perforation, pancreatitis, hemorrhage, and cholangitis are the most common complications. Intestinal obstruction following large biliary stone extraction has been reported rarely. Peritonitis secondary to perforation and acute pancreatitis may also be complicated with ileus. Here, we report an unusual case of nonobstructive ileus after ERCP procedure without those underlying etiologies. ILEUS DUE TO EXTENSIVE AIR INSUFFLATION WITH ENDOSCOPIC RETROGRADE CHOLANGIOPANCREATOGRAPHY
A Taxonomy of Factors to Promote Quality Web-Supported Learning.

This paper reports on a case study of the e-learning production unit at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. Phase 1 of the study, completed in 2003, was the design and development of a process-based quality management system for web-supported learning (WSL) using a basic ISO 9000 approach (University of Pretoria, 2003). The second phase, reported in this paper, investigated what factors directly affect the quality of the web-supported learning opportunities (products) produced. A taxonomy of critical success factors for quality web-supported learning was derived from a comparative analysis of the literature. It was refined and validated by critical colleagues within the case study. It has three components: • underlying assumptions and exogenous factors; • refined taxonomy of factors in six categories; • graphic interpretation based on Ingwersen's (1996) model of information retrieval. The taxonomy emphasizes the dynamic nature of the teaching and learning process and non-negotiable factors such as staff and student training, technical support, accessibility and reliability of the technology.