Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Recruitment of Apoptotic Cysteine Proteases (Caspases) in Influenza Virus‐Induced Cell Death

Influenza virus infection induces apoptosis in cultured cells with an augmented expression of Fas (APO‐1/CD95). Caspases, a family of cysteine proteases structurally related to interleukin‐1‐β‐eonverting enzyme (ICE), play crucial roles in apoptosis induced by various stimuli, including Fas. However, activation of the caspase‐cascade seems to be different in various pathways of apoptotic stimuli. We therefore examined the involvement of caspases in influenza virus‐induced apoptosis using caspase inhibitors. We found that z‐VAD‐fmk and z‐IETD‐fmk effectively inhibited virus‐induced apoptosis, whereas Ac‐DEVD‐CHO and Ac‐YVAD‐CHO showed partial and little effect on virus‐induced cell death, respectively. Consistently, caspase‐3‐like activity, but not caspase‐1‐like activity, was increased in the virus‐infected cells. The transfection of plasmids encoding viral inhibitors of caspase (v‐FLIP or crmA) into HeLa cells inhibited apoptosis by virus infection. The peptide inhibitors of caspases used in this study did not inhibit viral replication. We conclude that influenza virus infection activates some caspases, and that this activation may be downstream of viral replication.
Participation and Achievement in Enterprise MOOCs for Professional Learning.

This paper presents initial results of an empirical study describing participation and achievement in Enterprise MOOCs for professional learning. In a case study, five courses from openSAP, the MOOC offering of SAP SE, with a total sample of n = 9994 have been surveyed. The results indicate a strong solution-market fit for Enterprise MOOCs in the context of professional learning and development. Detailed information about socio-demographics, the educational and professional background, as well as participants ́MOOC experiences are presented. The second focus is on participants ́ intentions with regard to their self-set learning objectives and their actual achievement at the end of a course. Results indicate that achievement patterns might provide more reliable performance indicators for Enterprise MOOCs than traditional academic drop-out concepts. Implications for future research are discussed.
Estudio de la Efectividad de Tres Técnicas de Evaluación de Código: Resultados de una Serie de Experimentos.

Hasta la fecha se han evaluado distintas tecnicas de verificacion y validacion teorica y empiricamente. La mayoria de las evaluaciones empiricas se han llevado a cabo sin sujetos, abstrayendo el efecto del sujeto sobre la tecnica a la hora de aplicarla. Hemos evaluado mediante un experimento con sujetos la efectividad de tres tecnicas de verificacion y validacion de codigo: particion en clases de equivalencia, cobertura de decision y lectura de codigo mediante abstracciones sucesivas, estudiando la capacidad de las tecnicas para la deteccion de fallos en tres programas distintos. Hemos replicado el experimento ocho veces en cuatro entornos distintos. Los resultados arrojan diferencias entre las tecnicas y senalan variables contextuales del proyecto software que deberian considerarse cuando se quiera elegir o aplicar una tecnica de verificacion y validacion.
Modeling Turbulent Air-Sea Exchange in High Winds

Abstract : The goal is to investigate, theoretically and through analyzing existing data, the role that sea spray plays in transferring heat, moisture, and momentum across the air-sea interface, especially in high winds. Ultimately, I plan to develop simple, fast, physics-based parameterizations for these air-sea fluxes for use in large-scale models, especially those simulating tropical and extratropical storms.
The effect of distance to primary care physician on health care utilization and disease burden.

BACKGROUND The relationship of distance to care with total health care utilization and disease burden is not well understood among the managed care population. PURPOSES The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between the distance from a patient's home to his or her primary care physician (PCP) and the patient's health characteristics. METHODOLOGY This was a population-based study of commercial health maintenance organization (HMO) members enrolled in one medium-sized health plan in Michigan in 2001. This study measured health care utilization from all settings (per member per year [PMPY]). Disease burden measure was based on the Adjusted Clinical Group (ACG) system. Distance was defined as straight-line distance between a member's residency and his or her PCP. Both direct standardization and regression modeling were used to assess the effect of distance on utilization. FINDINGS Both utilization and disease burden increased as distance increased, especially among members selecting PCPs in an academic health system (AHS). The difference in observed utilization between local (0-10 miles) and distant (>30 miles) members was 973 dollars (PMPY) for the AHS and 193 dollars (PMPY) for the community independent practice associations (IPA). Compared with age-sex adjustment, ACG adjustment reduced local-distant difference within the same practice group to a greater extent (281 dollars and 59 dollars remaining for the academic and community groups, respectively). Distance as a whole exerted a statistically significant positive effect on either disease burden score or utilization in regression modeling. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS HMO members consume more health care and had higher disease burden as their distance from their PCPs increased. The distance traveled by the individuals to their PCPs could be incorporated when adjusting managed care financial risk models. Other remedies include negotiating higher capitation rates for distant patients, carving out distant patients from any financial risk model, or excluding such patients from provider performance assessment.
The effect of actinomycin D on RNA metabolism in human cells

Terms to be familiar with before you start to solve the test: pre‐mRNA (hnRNA); 45 S pre‐rRNA; 28 S and 18 S rRNA; pulse‐chase labeling; [3H]uridine; RNA isolation; separation methods; centrifugation methods; chromatography methods; tRNA; 5 S rRNA; RNA synthesis; RNA processing; RNA transport; polyadenylation.
Using Twitter and the mobile cloud for delivering medical help in emergencies

Emergency events require a fast response and decisions based on first‐hand information. This paper presents a mobile cloud service that makes the best use of social media applications, such as Twitter, in emergency and risk management. Here, risk and emergency teams can receive data that can inform their decisions in a matter of seconds when an emergency has affected areas under their management. The proposed service allows users to provide on‐the‐ground information regarding such an event, as well as early notification to people who are in the vicinity of an emergency situation. The service matches users' requests to a set of predefined labels that will help rescuers to understand the situation more clearly. The service was implemented and tested with Android devices and a cloud‐computing instance hosted on an Amazon platform. A cloud‐based tool is also provided for risk and emergency management teams to interact with users' requests. The experimental results show that the proposed mobile cloud service enhanced the early detection of emergencies. This paper also provides a review of research papers on the use of social media in risk and emergency management and the benefits of integrating social media with mobile cloud computing to provide a better healthcare service in emergencies.
Heterogeneous Risk Attitudes in a Continuous-Time Model

We prove that every continuous-time model in which all consumers have time-homogeneous and time-additive utility functions and share a common probabilistic belief and a common discount rate can be reduced to a static model. This result allows us to extend some of the existing results of the representative consumer and risk-sharing rules in static models to continuous-time models. We show that the equilibrium interest rate is lower and more volatile than in the standard representative consumer economy, and that the individual consumption growth rates are more dispersed than in the absence of uncertainty.
Characterization of Vancomycin-Resistant Enterococcus faecium Isolates from Broiler Poultry and Pig Farms in England and Wales

ABSTRACT This study aimed to investigate the occurrence and molecular epidemiology of vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium (VREF) isolates on poultry and pig farms in England and Wales. A total of 217 VREF isolates were obtained from fresh feces and environmental swabs collected from conventional and organic farms. A predominant pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) profile was found for each VREF-positive farm, together with less frequent types. All isolates presented the vanA genotype and were esp negative. Seventy-six percent of the VREF isolates were additionally resistant to nine or more antimicrobials, presenting a diverse range of resistance phenotypes. The multiresistance traits did not appear to be specific to individual farms or sample types (i.e., environmental or fecal), nor did they correlate with any specific PFGE type. Ninety-three percent of the isolates were resistant to penicillin, 89% were resistant to tetracycline, 87.5% were resistant to erythromycin, and 50% were resistant to quinupristin-dalfospristin (Synercid). The lack of clonality among these populations may suggest the horizontal transfer of resistance genes and/or a dynamic replacement of clonal lines rather than persistence.
Modelling the determinants of the business performance of small and micro accommodation enterprises in the formal sector in South Africa

This study investigated the nature and the extent of the inter-relationships between the Kirznerian and Schumpeterian entrepreneur types and decision styles, decision context prioritisations, strategic orientations as determinants of small accommodation enterprise performance within the formal South African accommodation enterprise sector. The study distinguished between two decision styles, namely cognitive and emotive decision making. Quality, customer satisfaction, impact on the natural environment, speed of reaction, ethical conduct and profit maximisation were considered as decision context prioritisations. Market and relationships strategic orientations were considered as alternative strategic alignments. The small tourism enterprise performance construct was assessed by considering the number of customers, amount of customer spending, profit margin, number of employees, number of loyal customers, sales revenue, total costs and total employee costs of the accommodation enterprises. The demographic profiles of the accommodation enterprise owner-managers were explored and characterised according to the age of the venture, age of the owner-manager, the owner-manager’s experience in the tourism industry, number of employees, gender, language, motivation to be in the tourism industry and the location of the enterprise in South Africa. The various associations between the demographic profile variables and entrepreneur types, decision styles, decision context priorities, strategic orientations and small tourism enterprise performance were additionally determined. Techniques such as exploratory factor analysis, correlation analyses, multiple regression analyses, Chi-square analyses, analyses of variance and partial least squares structural equation modelling were applied to analyse the data. The main determinants to small accommodation enterprise performance, as modelled by this study, were found to be the possession of a growth-oriented mindset, the utilisation of a cognitive decision style and the application of a market strategic orientation. The link between Kirznerian and Schumpeterian entrepreneur types and small accommodation enterprise performance was additionally found to be through the mediating role of a market strategic orientation. Significant associations between some demographic variables and small enterprise performance, market strategic orientation and decision context variables were described. Schumpeterian entrepreneur type was found to rank profit maximisation as decision priority low relative to quality, customer satisfaction and ethical orientation. Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za
Phylogeography and biogeography of the lower Central American Neotropics: diversification between two continents and between two seas

Lower Central America (LCA) provides a geologically complex and dynamic, richly biodiverse model for studying the recent assembly and diversification of a Neotropical biota. Here, we review the growing literature of LCA phylogeography studies and their contribution to understanding the origins, assembly, and diversification of the LCA biota against the backdrop of regional geologic and climatic history, and previous biogeographical inquiry. Studies to date reveal that phylogeographical signal within taxa of differing distributions reflects a diversity of patterns and processes rivalling the complexities of LCA landscapes themselves. Even so, phylogeography is providing novel insights into regional diversification (e.g. cryptic lineage divergences), and general evolutionary patterns are emerging. Congruent multi‐taxon phylogeographic breaks are found across the Nicaraguan depression, Chorotega volcanic front, western and central Panama, and the Darién isthmus, indicating that a potentially shared history of responses to regional‐scale (e.g. geological) processes has shaped the genetic diversity of LCA communities. By contrast, other species show unique demographic histories in response to overriding historical events, including no phylogeographic structure at all. These low‐structure or incongruent patterns provide some evidence for a role of local, ecological factors (e.g. long‐distance dispersal and gene flow in plants and bats) in shaping LCA communities. Temporally, comparative phylogeographical structuring reflects Pliocene–Pleistocene dispersal and vicariance events consistent with the timeline of emergence of the LCA isthmus and its major physiographic features, e.g. cordilleras. We emphasise the need to improve biogeographic inferences in LCA through in‐depth comparative phylogeography projects capitalising on the latest statistical phylogeographical methods. While meeting the challenges of reconstructing the biogeographical history of this complex region, phylogeographers should also take up the critical service to society of applying their work to the conservation of its fascinating biodiversity.
A comparison of synchronous and asynchronous FSMD designs

This paper presents a comparison of asynchronous and synchronous standard cell implementations for finite state machine with data-path (FSMD) ASICs. The comparison is made through independent parallel designs of a 16-bit factoring ASIC. A common functional specification, standard cell library, and suite of EDA tools for layout and simulation are used to provide a common basis for comparison. To clarify design goals and provide more data for comparison each design is separately optimized for speed and for area. Timing and area information for each design is tabulated and discussed to illustrate the specific advantages and disadvantages of each approach. <<ETX>>
Acessibilidade educacional com realidade aumentada

Resumo. O presente artigo vem propor uma ferramenta diferenciada de ensino para portadores de necessidades educacionais especiais, visando tanto o aprendizado de uma forma mais atrativa, quanto a viabilizacao do acesso deste grupo de pessoa a mecanismos de inovacao tecnologica aplicada ao ensino. O software proposto e denominado AREA e faz uso de interfaces mais interativas propostas pela Realidade Aumentada.
Phase II study of docetaxel for advanced or metastatic platinum-refractory non-small-cell lung cancer.

PURPOSE We conducted a phase II study to determine the response to and toxicity of docetaxel (Taxotere; Rhône-Poulenc Rorer Pharmaceuticals, Inc, Collegeville, PA) in patients with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer refractory to prior platinum-containing chemotherapy (PCC) regimens. PATIENTS AND METHODS Forty-four patients with stage IIIb or IV platinum-refractory non-small-cell lung cancer were treated with 100 mg/m2 of docetaxel intravenously over 1 hour every 3 weeks. The responses of 42 of 44 patients were assessable. Most patients had a Zubrod performance status of 1; the predominant histologic type was adenocarcinoma (61%), and 91% of patients had stage IV disease. RESULTS Nine of 42 assessable patients (21%) achieved a partial response to treatment. The median response duration (from response to progression) was 17 weeks, and the projected median survival duration of all patients is 42 weeks (51 weeks for adenocarcinoma and 22 weeks for nonadenocarcinoma). Grade 3/4 neutropenia occurred in 85% of patients and was associated with fever that required intravenous antibiotics in 16% of patients (3% of cycles). Other acute side effects included easily treated hypersensitivity reactions and dermatitis. Cumulative side effects included fluid retention and neuropathy. CONCLUSION Docetaxel administered at 100 mg/m2 intravenously every 3 weeks has notable activity against platinum-refractory non-small-cell lung cancer, with a 21% major response rate. Primary side effects were neutropenia, hypersensitivity, and fluid retention.
Exploring the contribution of mobile money to well‐being from a capability perspective

This study considered the impact of mobile money on well‐being and development from a capability perspective using data from the Upper East Region of Northern Ghana. The evidence suggests varied capability enhancing benefits of mobile money use, ranging from empowerment to participate in the financial system, to choice, and agency to meet various functionings that contribute to better well‐being outcomes in employment, health, and education. Erratic power supply and a poor network signal in some communities are unfreedoms that need removing for people to take advantage of the huge well‐being and human development potential of mobile money. The long‐term dependency on family and social networks for monetary support is a capability diminishing feature of mobile money. The study findings support the necessity to adopt a multifaceted and pragmatic conceptualisation of development in information and communication technology for development research.
Landstuhl Regional Medical Center: Traumatic Brain Injury Screening Program

T Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 1.4 million Americans sustain a traumatic brain injury (TBI) annually. These injuries lead to 1.1 million emergency department visits, 235,000 hospitalizations, and 50,000 deaths. Falls account for 28%, motor vehicle-related incidents for 20%, and “struck by or against” objects for 19% of all reported TBIs in the civilian sector. Traumatic brain injuries are also commonly
Antihypertensive effects of crude extracts from leaves of Echinodorus grandiflorus

The antihypertensive action of a crude ethanolic extract (EEEG) from leaves of Echinodorus grandiflorus (Alismataceae) was investigated in spontaneously hypertensive rats. The intraperitoneal injection of increasing doses of EEEG (300–1000 mg/kg) elicited dose‐dependent reductions in mean arterial pressure (MAP) that were paralleled by reductions of cardiac output and systemic vascular resistance, reaching the maximum of 23 ± 5%, 13 ± 3% and 18 ± 4%, respectively (n = 5, P < 0.05). Comparable reductions of MAP were obtained upon i.v. administration of EEEG (3–100 mg/kg), reaching the maximum decrease of 51 ± 6% (n = 7; P < 0.001). The blockade of nitric oxide synthesis significantly reduced the hypotension induced by i.v. administration of EEEG. Moreover, the pre‐treatment of the animals with a selective antagonist of cholinergic muscarinic receptors or of platelet‐activating factor (PAF) receptors partially blunted the cardiovascular effects of EEEG. The i.v. pre‐treatment with the selective B2 bradykinin receptor antagonist HOE 140 or with indomethacin, an inhibitor of the enzyme cyclooxygenase, did not prevent the hypotensive effects induced by EEEG. Finally, the chronic oral treatment with EEEG presented a significant antihypertensive effect that was comparable to that of reference antihypertensive drugs currently used to treat arterial hypertension. It is concluded that EEEG elicits significant acute antihypertensive effects through the release of nitric oxide and the stimulation of cholinergic muscarinic and PAF receptors. Moreover, our results suggest that EEEG may be appropriate to chronic oral treatment of arterial hypertension.
Buckwheat Grains and Buckwheat Products - Nutritional and Prophylactic Value of their Components - a Review

Buckwheat is introduced into the diet as an alternative crop of renewed interest due to its nutritive and health-promoting value. Experiments with animal models have demonstrated that buckwheat flour may alleviate diabetes, obesity, hypertension, and hypercholesterolemia. A number of nutraceutical compounds exist in buckwheat grains and other tissues. These are a rich source of starch, proteins, antioxidants, and dietary fibre as well as trace elements. The biological value (BV) of buckwheat proteins is comparable to BV of other protein sources. Besides high-quality proteins, buckwheat grains contain some components with prophylactic value: flavonoids, fagopyrins, or thiamin-binding proteins. For the food industry, buckwheat grains are a valuable raw material to be used for the production of functional foods. Buckwheat flour may be a valuable and important ingredient in diets or food products, taking into consideration its nutritive value and potential promotion of human health.
Animals as sentinels of chemical terrorism agents: An evidence-based review

Objectives.The goal of this systematic review was to identify evidence that animals could serve as sentinels of an attack with a chemical terrorism agent. Methods.The biomedical literature was systematically searched for evidence that wild or domestic animals exposed to certain chemical weapons of terrorism had either greater susceptibility, shorter latency period, or increased exposure risk versus humans. Additionally, we searched for documented reports of such animals historically serving as sentinels for chemical warfare agents. Results.For a small number of agents, there was limited evidence that domestic and/or wild animals could provide sentinel information to humans following an airborne attack with chemical agents, usually related to increased potential for environmental exposure. Some of this evidence was based on anecdotal case reports, and in many cases high quality chemical terrorism agent evidence regarding comparative susceptibility, exposure, and latency between humans and sentinel animal species was not found. Conclusion.Currently, there is insufficient evidence for routine use of animals as sentinels for airborne chemical warfare agents. At the same time, Poison Center surveillance systems should include animal calls, and greater communication between veterinarians and physicians could help with preparedness for a chemical terrorism attack. Further analysis of comparative chemical warfare agent toxicity between sentinel animal species and humans is needed.
Emotions and Purchasing Satisfaction in a Situation of Crowding: Capital City Versus Small City

This study aims to investigate consumer behavior under retail crowding conditions, related to crowding perception, emotions, and consumer satisfaction in two cities with different cultural aspects. A research was performed with 401 consumers in real store environments and the results showed, as was expected, the influence of culture on the constructs of crowding perception, emotions, and shopper satisfaction. In the small city, where the human and spatial agglomerations are seen positively, the crowding perception was lower, satisfaction and positive emotions, higher. In the big city, where the negative aspects of high density are more intense, there was higher crowding perception, lower shopper satisfaction, and more negative emotions.