Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Opportunities to Improve Gut Health in Ruminant Production Systems

In the past decade there have been a large number of publications describing how the gastrointestinal tract (GIT) plays a pivotal role in health and disease (Spor et al., 2011). These findings coincide with the advancement of molecular based sequencing techniques that have allowed researchers to investigate the expression of genes in gut tissues and the microbial communities with great efficiency and specificity. This highly advanced branch of molecular research has recently been applied in livestock studies (Frank et al., 2011), leading to the term “gut-health” becoming a buzzword in the animal nutrition industry. This is an interesting turn of events given that the industry has traditionally been rooted in highly quantitative research. In spite of the evolving interest in this field, the term “gut-health” remains loosely defined, even scientifically, thus careful consideration of what the gut-health promoting action of a particular nutrient or feeding strategy requires close consideration. In this review, the main principles of gut health will be defined, and a description of the key target areas for future advancement in ruminant production will be provided. Furthermore, we will examine what has been done thus far in the ruminant sector with respect to the development of nutritional additives that positively impact gut health.
Trusted distributed log services

Establishing trust is a key challenge in mobile applications or wherever interactions are volatile and a-priori trust cannot be reasonably assumed. Trustworthy log services could grant several benefits in this context. In the attempt to formalise this class of security services, we have uncovered that their safe design require specific trust assumptions and tamper-resistant hardware. These requirements are met by commodity cryptographic equipment, but at the cost of serious scalability limits in practical applications. Additional cryptographic tools can be exploited to overcome these limitations. In particular, we have compared several implementation options based on the TPM, a security chip installed on most PC-like devices. We have highlighted that TPM standard features actually allow implementing trusted log services but with serious scalability constraints. We have thus discussed some solutions to overcome these limitations by adding minimal new features to the TPM.
p53 at the endoplasmic reticulum regulates apoptosis in a Ca2+-dependent manner

Significance Accumulating evidence has underscored the role of cytosolic p53 in promoting cell death. Different reports have revealed that p53 participates in apoptosis induction by acting directly at mitochondria. However, because p53 can mediate apoptosis without its DNA-binding domain (the domain proposed to be fundamental for the targeting of p53 to mitochondria), the mitochondrial localization of p53 is likely not the only transcription-independent mechanism by which p53 promotes apoptosis. Here we demonstrate that p53 at the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and at mitochondria-associated membranes, interacting with sarco/ER Ca2+-ATPase pumps, modulates ER–mitochondria cross-talk and, in turn, Ca2+-dependent apoptosis. The tumor suppressor p53 is a key protein in preventing cell transformation and tumor progression. Activated by a variety of stimuli, p53 regulates cell-cycle arrest and apoptosis. Along with its well-documented transcriptional control over cell-death programs within the nucleus, p53 exerts crucial although still poorly understood functions in the cytoplasm, directly modulating the apoptotic response at the mitochondrial level. Calcium (Ca2+) transfer between the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and mitochondria represents a critical signal in the induction of apoptosis. However, the mechanism controlling this flux in response to stress stimuli remains largely unknown. Here we show that, in the cytoplasm, WT p53 localizes at the ER and at specialized contact domains between the ER and mitochondria (mitochondria-associated membranes). We demonstrate that, upon stress stimuli, WT p53 accumulates at these sites and modulates Ca2+ homeostasis. Mechanistically, upon activation, WT p53 directly binds to the sarco/ER Ca2+-ATPase (SERCA) pump at the ER, changing its oxidative state and thus leading to an increased Ca2+ load, followed by an enhanced transfer to mitochondria. The consequent mitochondrial Ca2+ overload causes in turn alterations in the morphology of this organelle and induction of apoptosis. Pharmacological inactivation of WT p53 or naturally occurring p53 missense mutants inhibits SERCA pump activity at the ER, leading to a reduction of the Ca2+ signaling from the ER to mitochondria. These findings define a critical nonnuclear function of p53 in regulating Ca2+ signal-dependent apoptosis.
CORPORATE NETWORKS PROTECTION AGAINST ATTACKS USING CONTENT-ANALYSIS OF GLOBAL INFORMATION SPACE

Urgency of the research. Further improvement of the security corporate networks in the conditions of massive influence of computer attacks requires an increase in the probability of detection of new computer attacks and a decrease in the recognition time for the signs of known attacks. Target setting. Analysis of the texts of the global information space reduces the time of detection of possible threats. Actual scientific researches and issues analysis. Recent publications about systems of defense from attacks and use of text analysis in detecting threats were considered. Uninvestigated parts of general matters defining. It is necessary to improve the methods of working out the data sets of the body of network packets, content of Internet pages, information of mass media and social networks, which in turn raises the problem of semantic and syntactic processing of natural language texts. The research objective. The aim of the paper is organization collective protection of corporate networks via the introduction of threat monitoring systems, active intelligence activities in the global information space in order to search collect and analyze data about attacks, abnormal behavior, and content of Internet resources. The statement of basic materials. The requirements of security systems to reduce the time of a threat detection lead to the need for active intelligence assessment aimed at continuous monitoring of the surrounding cyberspace that consists of a variety of individual users and organizations’ computer networks. The purpose of such monitoring is to determine the characteristics, interests, features of the security policy of a particular corporate network in the global information space. In this context, particular importance attaches to the analysis of text information from both fully and partially open digital sources. A rational solution to this task is the establishment of threat monitoring centers aimed at the organization of collective protection for corporate networks related to them. Conclusions. The proposed method of protection allows both to detect cyber threats in the global information space and to customize their own corporate network security systems in accordance with their characteristic threat vectors.
A modified positive-real type stability condition

Lightly damped structures with colocated (position) sensors and (force) actuators can typically be modeled by a (possibly infinite) sum of second order transfer functions. Since the relative degree of these systems is more than unity, they are not directly amenable to standard positive real analysis and since these systems are highly resonant, application of the small gain theorem would be usually very conservative. However, a condition for the internal stability of a positive feedback interconnection of two such systems has been available in the theory of positive position control. This result has important implications on stability robustness due to spill-over dynamics. In this paper, we propose a new stability analysis result which generalizes the positive position control stability result to the feedback interconnection of systems satisfying a certain modified positive-real type condition. Broadly speaking, the result states that a necessary and sufficient condition for the internal stability of the feedback interconnection of such systems is that the DC loop gain is less than unity.
Hybrid Integrated Optical Phase-Lock Loops for Photonic Terahertz Sources

We present the first hybrid-integrated optical phase-lock loop (OPLL) for use in high spectral purity photonic terahertz sources. We have achieved the necessary short loop delay to lock a 1-MHz linewidth slave laser by hybrid integration of the slave laser and photodetector on a silicon motherboard with silica optical waveguides and combining this with a custom-designed low-delay electronic loop filter circuit. The laser and photodetectors are InP-based and are flip chip bonded to silicon daughter boards, which are in turn attached to the motherboard. Delay between the slave laser and photodiode was approximately 50 ps. The heterodyne between slave and master sources has a linewidth of less than 1 kHz and achieved phase noise less than -80 dBc/Hz at an offset of 10 kHz. The slave laser can be offset from the master source by 2-7 GHz, using a microwave oscillator. This integrated OPLL circuit was used with an optical comb source and an injection-locked laser comb filter to generate high spectral purity signals at frequencies up to 300 GHz with linewidths <;1 kHz and powers of about -20 dBm, while the two integrated lasers could deliver a tunable heterodyne signal at frequencies up to 1.8 THz.
Investment Decision-Making Process between Different Groups of Investors: A Study of Indian Stock Market

This article attempts to identify differences in perception for the seven most prominent behavioural biases between two groups of individual investors: (a) experienced and (b) new to the market investors in investment decision-making. Primary data have been collected from the active individual stock market participants from the four states of India, namely, Jharkhand, Bihar, Odisha and West Bengal. Findings of this study suggest that respondents have a similar perception for availability bias, representativeness and emotional contagion while the other four factors such as herding, informational cascades, anchoring and overconfidence show significant discrimination in investment decision-making between the two groups of investors. Herding is identified as the most discriminatory factor for investor groups.
The effect of iron and transferrin on the killing of Escherichia coli in fresh serum.

Iron in excess of the binding capacity of transferrin allows Escherichia coli to grow in fresh serum. This appears to be due to two mechanisms. Firstly iron stimulates growth as it is an essential metabolite which is not available to E. coli in serum. Secondly, it interferes with bacterial killing, a process normally mediated by natural antibody and complement.
Analog and RF Interference Mitigation for Integrated MIMO Receiver Arrays

Over the past decade, we have witnessed the maturation of silicon-based phased array technology, which has started to make an impact on commercial and military wireless applications. Over the next decade, driven by the development of next-generation wireless communication networks, we will see the maturation and impact of large-scale multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) technology. MIMO receiver arrays exploit digital array signal processing, and consequently are exposed to interference in the analog and radio-frequency (RF) front ends. The absence of analog/RF interference mitigation in traditional digital MIMO receiver arrays results in designs with high-dynamic-range and power-hungry analog and RF receiver front ends and analog-to-digital converters. This paper describes recently developed techniques for spatio-spectral interference mitigation in the analog and RF domain for digital MIMO receivers. The techniques proposed are flexible; tunable across operating frequency; scalable; present low cost, size, and power consumption overheads; and are experimentally validated through a 0.1-1.7-GHz four-element receiver front-end array integrated circuit (IC) prototype in 65-nm complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology.
Biological detoxification of fungal toxins and its use in plant breeding, feed and food production.

Enzymatic inactivation of fungal toxins is an attractive strategy for the decontamination of agricultural commodities and for the protection of crops from phytotoxic effects of fungal metabolites. This review summarizes research on the biological detoxification of fungal toxins by microorganisms and plants and its practical applications. Some mycotoxins are detoxified during ensiling and other fermentation processes (aflatoxins, alternariol, mycophenolic acid, patulin, PR toxin) while others are transformed into toxic products or survive fermentation unchanged. Plants can detoxify fomannoxin, fusaric acid, HC-toxin, ochratoxin A and oxalate but the degradation of deoxynivalenol has yet to be proven. Microflora of the digestive tract of vertebrates and invertebrates exhibit detoxification activities towards aflatoxins, ochratoxin A, oxalate and trichothecenes. Some toxin-producing fungi are able to degrade or transform their own products under suitable conditions. Pure cultures of bacteria and fungi which detoxify mycotoxins have been isolated from complex microbial populations by screening and enrichment culture techniques. Genes responsible for some of the detoxification activities have been cloned and expressed in heterologous hosts. The detoxification of aflatoxins, cercosporin, fumonisins, fusaric acid, ochratoxin A, oxalic acid, patulin, trichothecenes and zearalenone by pure cultures is reviewed. Finally, current application of these results in food and feed production and plant breeding is summarized and expected future developments are outlined.
The Impact of Loyalty Cards in Retaining Customers: A Study with Reference to Mega Mart Retail Outlet in Mangalore City

Fierce competition and complexity of modern business has prompted organizations to strive for creative and innovating strategies to retain customers. As attracting new customers in the business is far more costly than retaining existing customers; business organizations have started offering lucrative loyalty programmes to retain existing customers. The current study is empirical research that focuses on the effect of loyalty programs on customer retention with reference to Mega Mart Retail outlet. The data for the study was collected from Mangalore region from the customers who physically visited Mega Mart retail outlet for buying their products. The results indicated that loyalty card programme has resulted in an increase in their purchases from the outlet and customers use loyalty cards most of the time while making their purchases.
ANTIFEEDING DEFENSE IN BALTIC MACROALGAE: INDUCTION BY DIRECT GRAZING VERSUS WATERBORNE CUES 1

The prevalence of antigrazing defense induction and the cues triggering induction in marine macroalgae are generally not well understood. We examined the capacity of defense and the mechanisms of regulation in five common perennial macroalgal species from the Baltic Sea, Furcellaria lumbricalis (Huds.) J. V. Lamour. , Delesseria sanguinea (Huds.) J. V. Lamour. , Phyllophora pseudoceranoides (S. G. Gmel.) Newroth et A. R. A. Taylor, Fucus serratus L. , and Fucus evanescens C. Agardh. Specifically, we investigated whether direct feeding and/or waterborne cues from feeding on neighboring conspecifics decreased the palatability of the tested algae. Direct feeding by the local isopod Idotea baltica triggered the induction of chemical defense in Fur. lumbricalis, D. sanguinea, P. pseudoceranoides, F. serratus, and F. evanescens. Conversely, we did not find any evidence for waterborne cues associated with feeding to trigger defense induction in neighboring conspecifics.
Pulmonary cryptococcosis: CT findings in immunocompetent patients.

PURPOSE To evaluate retrospectively the computed tomographic (CT) findings in immunocompetent patients with pulmonary cryptococcosis. MATERIALS AND METHODS Institutional review board approval was obtained with a waiver of informed consent, and the study complied with requirements of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. Chest CT scans of 10 immunocompetent patients with clinically proved pulmonary cryptococcosis were retrospectively reviewed by four reviewers in consensus. Criterion for diagnosis of pulmonary cryptococcosis was (a) the histopathologic presence of the organism at lung biopsy or (b) a positive culture of a respiratory specimen or positive serum cryptococcal antigen test with clinical or radiographic evidence of active pulmonary infection. Patients included six women and four men ranging in age from 46 to 73 years (mean, 59 years). Scans were evaluated for nodules, masses, areas of ground-glass attenuation or of hazy increased attenuation, areas of consolidation, areas of cavitation, pleural effusions, linear opacities, septal thickening, lymphadenopathy, extent of parenchymal involvement, and distribution. RESULTS The most common CT finding was pulmonary nodules (n = 9). Multiple nodules (n = 7) were more common than solitary nodules (n = 2). Nodules most commonly occupied less than 10% of the pulmonary parenchyma (n = 7), measured less than 10 mm in diameter (n = 7), and had middle and upper lung predominance (n = 6). The majority of the nodules were well defined with smooth margins (n = 7). Multiple nodules were usually bilaterally distributed (n = 5). Masses (n = 2), lymphadenopathy (n = 2), areas of consolidation (n = 2), areas of hazy increased attenuation (n = 1), pleural effusion (n = 1), and areas of cavitation (n = 1) were uncommon. CONCLUSION CT most commonly demonstrated pulmonary nodules in immunocompetent patients with pulmonary cryptococcosis. The nodules were most often multiple, small, well defined, and smoothly marginated with middle and upper lung predominance.
Endorsement of the CONSORT statement by high impact medical journals: survey of instructions for authors

The CONSORT (Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials) statement of 1996, updated in 2001,1 2 gives recommendations for reporting randomised controlled trials and has been endorsed by the World Association of Medical Editors, the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), and the Council of Science Editors. Studies indicate that it has helped to improve the quality of reporting of trials.3–5 I sought to determine the extent to which leading medical journals had incorporated the CONSORT recommendations into their instructions for authors. Using citation impact factors for 2001, I identified the top five journals from each of 33 medical specialties and the top 15 journals for general and internal medicine. I excluded selected journals that did not publish clinical research (based on explicit statement, inspection of journal contents, or PubMed search) and replaced them by the next on the list. The final sample of 167 journals was obtained after examining 232 journals. …
Two Level Principal-Agent Analysis in Farmland Transfer

With the acceleration of urbanization, a large number of rural labor forces have been transferred. As the basic means of production, land circulation is becoming more and more frequent. Scale management and land circulation have become the necessary trend of agricultural modernization. Based on the purpose of maximizing the interests of the participants and further optimizing the allocation efficiency of land resources in the process of land transfer, this paper constructs a dual principal-agent model of farmers and intermediary organizations, intermediary organizations and scale operators, which is multi-to-one and one-to-many principal-agent relationship respectively, and finds out the optimal level of effort. Finally, it analyses the influence of different factors on the interests, and puts forward some suggestions to the principal and agent based on the analysis results, in order to promote the further development of the land circulation market.
Muscle directly meets the vast power demands in agile lizards

Level locomotion in small, agile lizards is characterized by intermittent bursts of fast running. These require very large accelerations, often reaching several times g. The power input required to increase kinetic energy is calculated to be as high as 214 W kg−1 muscle (±20 W kg−1 s.e.; averaged over the complete locomotor cycle) and 952 W kg−1 muscle (±89 W kg−1 s.e.; instantaneous peak power). In vitro muscle experiments prove that these exceptional power requirements can be met directly by the lizard's muscle fibres alone; there is no need for mechanical power amplifying mechanisms.
Overexpression of the human tissue kallikrein genes KLK4, 5, 6, and 7 increases the malignant phenotype of ovarian cancer cells

Abstract The human tissue kallikrein family of serine proteases (hK1–hK15 encoded by the genes KLK1–KLK15) is involved in several cancer-related processes. Accumulating evidence suggests that certain tissue kallikreins are part of an enzymatic cascade pathway that is activated in ovarian cancer and other malignant diseases. In the present study, OV-MZ-6 ovarian cancer cells were stably co-transfected with plasmids expressing hK4, hK5, hK6, and hK7. These cells displayed similar proliferative capacity as the vector-transfected control cells (which do not express any of the four tissue kallikreins), but showed significantly increased invasive behavior in an in vitro Matrigel invasion assay (p<0.01; Mann-Whitney U-test). For in vivo analysis, the cancer cells were inoculated into the peritoneum of nude mice. Simultaneous expression of hK4, hK5, hK6, and hK7 resulted in a remarkable 92% mean increase in tumor burden compared to the vector-control cell line. Five out of 14 mice in the ‘tissue kallikrein overexpressing’ group displayed a tumor/situs ratio greater than 0.198, while this weight limit was not exceeded at all in the vector control group consisting of 13 mice (p=0.017; χ2 test). Our results strongly support the view that tumor-associated overexpression of tissue kallikreins contributes to ovarian cancer progression.
Heart Rate Responses to Social Interactions in Free-Moving Rhesus Macaques ( Macaca mulatto ) : A Pilot Study Filippo Aureli

Heart rate telemetry was explored as a means to access animal emotion during social interactions under naturalistic conditions. Heart rates of 2 middle-ranking adult females living in a large group of rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatto) were recorded along with their behavior. Heart rate changes during 2 types of interactions were investigated, while controlling for the effects of posture and activity. The risk of aggression associated with the approach of a dominant individual was expected to provoke anxiety in the approachee. This prediction was supported by the heart rate increase after such an approach. No increase was found when the approacher was a kin or a subordinate individual. The tension-reduction function of allogrooming was also supported. Heart rate decelerated faster during the receipt of grooming than in matched control periods.