Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Horizontal and vertical movements of phlebotomine sandflies in a Panamanian rain forest.

A study of horizontal and vertical movements of phlebotomine sandflies in tropical forest was conducted by means of the mark-release-recapture method utilizing fluorescent pigments. Approximately 20,000 flies were marked and released at ground level and on a canopy platform (30 m high). The median recapture rate of marked flies was 8.6% in the ground release and 1.8% in the canopy release. Analysis of data demonstrated the tendency of flies to remain localized; approximately 90% of marked specimens were captured within a radius of 57 m. The maximum radius of the experimental area was 200 m and 4 marked flies flew to this distance, 1 of them within 1 day after release. The canopy fly population was dominated by Lutzomyia trapidoi (Fairchild & Hertig). This species moved upward at dusk from a number of diurnal resting sites, mainly the forest leaf-litter and the lower parts of tree trunks.
EVALUACIÓN DEL EFECTO DE LA SELENOMETIONINA SOBRE LA REPARACIÓN DEL DAÑO EN EL ADN

En este estudio se han evaluado los efectos de la selenometionina (SeMet), un derivado organico de selenio, sobre la induccion, reparacion y persistencia del dano en el ADN inducido por la bleomicina (BLM) sobre leucocitos humanos. Se empleo el ensayo del cometa para determinar las roturas de cadena en el ADN, y el tratamiento con la enzima de reparacion hOGG1 para el estudio especifico del dano oxidativo. La SeMet fue anadida a los leucocitos durante el cultivo (A), la exposicion a BLM (B) y/o durante el periodo de reparacion (C). El ensayo del cometa se realizo al termino de cada una de las fases. Los resultados obtenidos describen un posible papel antigenotoxico de la SeMet sobre el dano en el ADN inducido por la BLM, y tambien sobre la reparacion y la persistencia de este dano, cuando se aplica antes o junto con la BLM.
Energetics of swimming of a sea turtle.

Young (mean mass 735 g) green turtles (Chelonia mydas) were able to swim in a water channel at sustained speeds between 0-14 and 0-35 m.s-1. Oxygen consumption at rest was was 0-07 l.kg-1.h-1; at maximum swimming speed oxygen consumption was 3-4 times greater than at rest for a given individual. In comparison with other animals of the same body mass the cost of transport for the green turtle (0.186lO2.kg-1.km-1) is less than that for flying birds but greater than that for fish. From drag measurements it was calculated that the aerobic efficiency of swimming was between 1 and 10%; the higher efficiencies were found at the higher swimming speeds. Based upon the drag calculations for young turtles, it is estimated that adult turtles making the round-trip breeding migration between Brazil and Ascension Island (4800 km) would require the equivalent of about 21% of their body mass in fat stores to account for the energetic cost of swimming.
The economics of active surveillance for prostate cancer

Purpose of review To review the economics of managing low-risk prostate cancer with active surveillance compared with other standard therapies. Recent findings The expenses of caring for men with prostate cancer vary depending on treatment modality chosen and appear to be escalating. Costs are generally lowest with traditional watchful waiting and highest with radiation therapy. Compared with immediate treatment, active surveillance can result in a net per-patient savings of $12 194 at 5 years and $4329 at 10 years. Active surveillance demonstrates lower 5-year costs over other initial treatments as long as fewer than 70% exit active surveillance in any given year and at least 12% of men remain on active surveillance at year 5. Yearly surveillance biopsy reduces the average simulated cost savings at 10 years by $4951 per patient. Summary Active surveillance represents a cost-effective strategy for managing low-risk prostate cancer, as the majority of men remain without additional treatment over time. Prostate biopsy is the highest expenditure associated with active surveillance, and increasing the frequency of prostate biopsy will reduce the cost-effectiveness of this approach.
Insulin and insulin‐like growth factor type‐I up‐regulate the vanilloid receptor‐1 (TRPV1) in stably TRPV1‐expressing SH‐SY5Y neuroblastoma cells

The capsaicin receptor, transient receptor potential, vanilloid type 1 (TRPV1), is a Ca2+‐permeable ion channel activated by noxious stimuli eliciting pain. Several reports have shown modulation of TRPV1 activity and expression by neuronal growth factors. Here, we study the long‐term effects on TRPV1 expression mediated by insulin‐like growth factor type‐I (IGF‐I) and insulin in a stably TRPV1‐expressing SH‐SY5Y neuroblastoma cell line. We show that, after 72 hr of 10 nM IGF‐I or insulin exposure, the TRPV1 protein level was up‐regulated 2.5‐ and 2‐fold, respectively. By blocking phosphatidylinositol‐3‐kinase [PI(3)K] or mitogen‐activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling, we concluded that the increase in total TRPV1 protein content induced by IGF‐I was controlled by PI(3)K signaling, whereas insulin seemed to regulate TRPV1 protein expression via both PI(3)K and MAPK pathways. Inhibiting protein kinase C (PKC) blocked the effects of both IGF‐I and insulin. Furthermore, the concentrations causing a 50% Ca2+ increase (EC50) after insulin and IGF‐I treatments were significantly lowered compared with untreated cells. We conclude that IGF‐I and insulin enhance TRPV1 protein expression and activity, and impaired pain sensation might result from distorted TRPV1 regulation in the peripheral nervous system. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Looking Through Cross-Border Positions in Investment Funds: Evidence from Italy

Motivated by the increasingly large weight of foreign investment funds on the portfolio of Italian residents, this paper provides an estimate of the composition, by instrument and by issuer country, of Italy’s portfolio assets after “looking through” cross-border positions in investment funds. Our main findings suggest that removing the statistical opacity arising from cross-border positions in investment funds has a significant impact on the composition of Italy’s portfolio investments. After “looking through” foreign funds’ holdings, the share of debt securities on portfolio assets, which is equal to 40 per cent in the unadjusted data, rises to 75 per cent. The country composition of external portfolio assets also fundamentally changes in the direction of increasing its geographical diversification. The United States becomes Italy’s main destination country; the shares of France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Spain also increase, while that of Luxembourg, where most of the foreign investment funds are domiciled, drastically falls.
Antero‐ventral internal pallidum stimulation improves behavioral disorders in Lesch–Nyhan disease

The Lesch–Nyhan syndrome is an X‐linked recessive disorder caused by a deficiency in hypoxanthine–guanine phosphoribosyl transferase, a purine salvage enzyme. Affected individuals exhibit a characteristic neurobehavioral disorder with delayed acquisition of motor skills, dystonia, severe self‐mutilations, and aggressive behavior. Deep brain stimulation has been previously proposed for controlling isolated involuntary movements and psychiatric disorders. We applied a double bilateral simultaneous stimulation to limbic and motor internal pallidum in one patient for controlling both behavioral and movement disorders, respectively. The injurious compulsions disappeared; dystonia and dyskinesia were decreased at 28 months follow‐up. © 2007 Movement Disorder Society
Sex differences in antiretroviral treatment outcomes among HIV-infected adults in an urban Tanzanian setting

Objective:To determine the relationship between sex and antiretroviral therapy (ART) outcomes in an urban Tanzanian setting. Design:Longitudinal analysis of a cohort of HIV-infected adult men and women on ART enrolled at the Management and Development for Health (MDH)-President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) HIV care and treatment program in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Methods:Clinical and immunologic responses to ART were compared between HIV-infected men and women enrolled from November 2004 to June 2008. Cox regression analyses were used to study sex differences with regard to mortality, immunologic failure (WHO, 2006) and loss to follow-up, after adjusting for other risk factors for the outcomes. Results:Four thousand, three hundred and eighty-three (34%) men and 8459 (66%) women were analyzed. Men were significantly more immunocompromised than women at enrollment in terms of stage IV disease (27 vs. 23%, P < 0.001) and mean CD4+ cell count (123 vs. 136 cells/μl, P < 0.001). In multivariate analyses, men had a significantly higher risk of overall mortality [hazard ratio 1.19, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.05–1.30, P < 0.001], immunologic nonresponse defined as CD4 cell count less than 100 cells/μl after at least 6 months of initiating ART (hazard ratio 1.74, 95% CI 1.44–2.11, P < 0.001) and loss to follow-up (hazard ratio 1.19, 95% CI 1.10–1.30, P < 0.001) than that in women. Associations did not change significantly when restricting analyses to the period of good adherence for all patients. Conclusion:Nonadherence to care and advanced immunodeficiency at enrollment explained only 17% of the inferior mortality in HIV-infected men in this resource-limited setting. Additional study of behavioral and biologic factors that may adversely impact treatment outcomes in men is needed to reduce these sex disparities.
Host-induced changes in the mouse mammary tumor agent from transplanted tumors as determined by neutralization studies.

The mouse mammary tumor agent (MTA), normally transferred in the milk of females of cancerous strains, has the properties of an infectious agent or virus (1, 8-6). Antisera produced against agent-containing mouse mammary tissues, either normal or cancerous, in rabbits, rats, or guinea pigs have been found to neutralize the MTA in vivo and in vitro (1, 15, 24). The studies to be reported (8) were initiated in an at tempt to corroborate previously published data in which it was observed that (15): "The neutralizing effects of the agent-antisera were dependent, in most tests, upon the source of the agent used to prepare the antiserum and agent-suspension. "An antigenic difference was noted between the MTA of a cancerous strain (A stock) and that of the F, hybrids. "Evidence was obtained that the antigenic properties of the agent in a transplanted tumor may become altered with continued passage of the tumor in agent-free animals. "
The value of reserve for plug-in electric vehicle parking lots

The introduction of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) in the electrical system is bringing various challenges. One of the recent solutions to deploy the potentials of PEVs in the system is through PEV parking lots (PL). The PLs not only provide a place for the PEVs charging requirements, but also give the possibility of exploiting the vehicle-to-gird (V2G) potential of PEVs in a more efficient manner comparing to PEV aggregators. On the other hand, the V2G mode gives the reserve market possibility to the PL operator, which can be a source of income other than selling energy to the PEV owners. However, the willingness of participating in the V2G mode may be low due to exposing battery degradation and not sufficient departure state of charge (SOC). As a result, this study investigates the behavior of PL on deploying the V2G mode of PEVs in reserve market participation considering the PEVs' traffic behavior.
A Correlated Topic Model Using Word Embeddings

Conventional correlated topic models are able to capture correlation structure among latent topics by replacing the Dirichlet prior with the logistic normal distribution. Word embeddings have been proven to be able to capture semantic regularities in language. Therefore, the semantic relatedness and correlations between words can be directly calculated in the word embedding space, for example, via cosine values. In this paper, we propose a novel correlated topic model using word embed-dings. The proposed model enables us to exploit the additional word-level correlation information in word embeddings and directly model topic correlation in the continuous word embedding space. In the model, words in documents are replaced with meaningful word embeddings, topics are modeled as multivariate Gaussian distributions over the word embeddings and topic correlations are learned among the continuous Gaussian topics. A Gibbs sampling solution with data augmentation is given to perform inference. We evaluate our model on the 20 Newsgroups dataset and the Reuters-21578 dataset qualitatively and quantitatively. The experimental results show the effectiveness of our proposed model.
Comparing behavioral and chronic endpoints to evaluate the response of Lumbriculus variegatus to 3,4,3′,4′‐tetrachlorobiphenyl sediment exposures

The response of Lumbriculus variegatus to 3,4,3′,4′‐tetrachlorobiphenyl (TCBP) was examined with feeding behavior and changes in carbon assimilation by using stable carbon isotopes at 22 and 10°C. The classical measure of feeding behavior determined on a subset of sediment for which the biological burial rate was determined in a companion study allowed direct method comparison. This comparison helped address relationships between biological burial rate, feeding rate, and bioaccumulation. The change in stable isotope composition reflects the total metabolic activity by measuring carbon assimilation rate and was compared to feeding rate, biological burial rate (as determined in the companion study), and reproduction. Decreasing the temperature from 22 to 10°C resulted in a twofold reduction in feeding rate and carbon assimilation. The fractional decline in feeding rate relative to the control mimicked the decline in the biological burial rate with increasing TCBP concentration that was found in the companion study. The bioaccumulation factor declined with increasing TCBP sediment concentration, tracking the feeding rate decline. Stable isotope measures showed differences in metabolic rates between the exposure temperatures but did not distinguish a metabolic rate change at 22°C among TCBP treatments. Likewise, reproduction declined from 22 to 10°C, with no reproduction at 10°C. Like the stable isotope measure, no dose response was found among TCBP treatments at 22°C. The reduction in carbon assimilation rate tracked the reduction in reproduction with lower temperature.
Psychological Distress and Burden Among Female Partners of Combat Veterans With PTSD

Psychological distress among cohabitating female partners of combat veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was examined in a cross-sectional study using a modified version of the Health Belief Model. A convenience sample of 89 cohabitating female partners of male veterans in outpatient PTSD treatment was interviewed by telephone using a structured interview. Partners endorsed high levels of psychological distress with elevations on clinical scales at or exceeding the 90th percentile. Severe levels of overall psychological distress, depression, and suicidal ideation were prevalent among partners. Multivariate analyses revealed that perceived threat, recent mental health treatment, and level of involvement with veterans predicted global partner psychological distress. Partner burden was predicted by partner self-efficacy, perceived threat, barriers to mental health treatment, and partner treatment engagement. These findings are compelling since they demonstrate that partners of veterans with combat-related PTSD experience significant levels of emotional distress that warrant clinical attention. Psychological distress and partner burden were each associated with a unique combination of predictors, suggesting that although these constructs are related, they have distinct correlates and potentially different implications within the family environment. Future research should examine these constructs separately using causal modeling analyses to identify modifiable targets for interventions to reduce psychological distress among partners of individuals with PTSD.
Price and Welfare Effects of the Food Safety Modernization Act Produce Safety Rule

Implementation of the U.S. Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) Produce Safety Rule is ex- pected to cost about 1.1 percent of revenue for covered farms producing raw and minimally pro- cessed fruits and vegetables in the United States. To simulate the price and welfare effects of the rule, we develop an equilibrium displacement model for 18 fruits and 20 vegetable commodities, drawing on recent estimates of the rule's commodity-level cost of compliance. We nd that con- sumer and farm prices increase by 0.49 and 1.46 percent respectively for fruits and 0.14 and 0.55 percent respectively for vegetables. Costs associated with the rule's implementation across these commodities are estimated to reduce producer welfare by 0.86 percent for fruits and 0.59 percent for vegetables and these estimates would not change substantially if only individual commodity groups were to enact the rule's measures unilaterally. We also compare our estimates of the cost to producers of implementing the rules with potential benets to producers from the avoidance of outbreak costs. Acknowledgement :
Coping with compassion fatigue.

Helping others who have undergone a trauma from a natural disaster, accident, or sudden act of violence, can be highly satisfying work. But helping trauma victims can take a toll on even the most seasoned mental health professional. Ongoing exposure to the suffering of those you are helping can bring on a range of signs and symptoms -including anxiety, sleeplessness, irritability, and feelings of helplessness -that can interfere, sometimes significantly, with everyday life and work. In clinicians, including therapists, counselors, and social workers, this response is often referred to as “compassion fatigue” or “secondary post-traumatic stress. ”
Scheduling Algorithms for Real-time Sound Generation in Virtual Environments

Current tools for integrating spatial sound into Virtual Environment interfaces have not adequately addressed the problem of resource management in the sound generation process. Such systems place a hard limit on the number of sounds they support or in some cases they fail to maintain real-time evaluation rates when computational resources are exceeded. The research described in this dissertation addresses this problem. In order to establish a rigorous approach to resource management, a real-time scheduling strategy is employed. The sound generation process is expressed in terms of the hard real-time periodic job model and because the process is monotonic, the imprecise computation model is used. Three components are necessary in order to utilize the imprecise computation model: first an ordering scheme is established so that the active sounds in the environment can be rated according to their importance. Secondly, a method for iteratively evaluating sounds is devised. Finally a scheduling algorithm which minimizes the perceptible effects of degradation is established. The Least Utilization (LU) algorithm minimizes the average error given the characteristics of this problem. The behavior of the algorithm however produces perceptible discontinuities in the quality of the sounds during overload conditions. This behavior is quantified using a fairness index that was formulated. The scheduling algorithm must minimize both the average error and the fairness index. These two factors however are inversely related; reducing the fairness index raises the average error. The Priority Allocation (PA) algorithm developed in this research minimizes the fairness index while raising the average error somewhat. A listener study that was conducted in order to examine the effectiveness of these algorithms. It shows that under overload conditions, sounds generated using the PA algorithm were rated higher than those generated by the LU algorithm.
Preparation, Characterization and In-vitro Evaluation of Microcapsules for Controlled Release of Diltiazem Hydrochloride by Ionotropic Gelation Technique

The problems of frequent administration and variable low bioavailability after oral administration of conventional dosage forms of diltiazem can be attenuated by designing it in the form of microcapsules which would facilitate intimate contact with the absorption surface and thereby improve and enhance the bioavailability. Diltiazem-loaded microcapsules were successfully prepared by ionotropic gelation technique employing Sodium carboxy methylcellulose, Xanthan gum as rate controlling polymers and Aluminium chloride as cross linking agent. Microcapsules obtained were discrete, spherical, free flowing and showed a maximum encapsulation efficiency of 91.20 ± 0.08%. Particle size of the microcapsules was found to be in the range of 1009 – 1311 µm. Interaction studies performed using FTIR spectroscopy revealed that there were no drug and polymer interactions. The drug remained dispersed in the polymer matrix in amorphous state, which was confirmed by X-ray diffraction analysis. The in vitro drug release follows matrix-diffusion controlled release and the release mechanism was non-Fickian type controlled by swelling and relaxation of polymer. There was no significant change in drug content and cumulative drug release of drug-loaded microcapsules stored at different storage condition after 90 days. From the study, it was concluded that diltiazem loaded microcapsules could be successfully prepared by ionotropic gelation technique with high entrapment efficiency and prolonged release characteristics.
Expression, characterization, and crystallization of a member of the novel phospholipase D family of phosphodiesterases

A family of phospholipase D (PLD) proteins has recently been identified (Koonin, 1996; Ponting & Kerr, 1996) based upon amino acid sequence identity. This family includes human and plant PLDs, proteins encoded by open reading frames in pathogenic viruses and bacteria, as well as an endonuclease. The endo‐nuclease, known as Nuc, is encoded by the IncN plasmid, pKM101, present in Salmonella typhimurium. The recombinant Nuc protein has been expressed and purified from Escherichia coli. The amino‐terminal sequencing of the purified protein indicated that the mature protein started from the 23rd residue of the predicted sequence, suggesting that the protein is proteolytically processed during export to the periplasmic space. The recombinant enzyme was able to hydrolyze both double and single‐strand DNA and an artificial substrate, bis(4‐nitrophenyl) phosphate, which contains a phosphodiester bond. The enzyme activity was not inhibited in the presence of EDTA and was not regulated by divalent cations. The purified protein has been crystallized by hanging drop vapor diffusion methods, and those crystals diffract to 1.9 Å resolution.