Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A train set of 208 and test set of 104 whole blood samples were used for model training and evaluation

The use of DNA methylation (DNAm) to obtain additional information in forensic investigations showed to be a promising and increasing field of interest. Prediction of the chronological age based on age-dependent changes in the DNAm of specific CpG sites within the genome is one such potential application. Here we present an age-prediction tool for whole blood based on massive parallel sequencing (MPS) and a random forest machine learning algorithm. MPS allows accurate DNAm determination of pre-selected markers and neighboring CpG-sites to identify the best age-predictive markers for the age-prediction tool. 15 age-dependent markers of different loci were initially chosen based on publicly available 450K microarray data, and 13 finally selected for the age tool based on MPS (DDO, ELOVL2, F5, GRM2, HOXC4, KLF14, LDB2, MEIS1-AS3, NKIRAS2, RPA2, SAMD10, TRIM59, ZYG11A). Whole blood samples of 208 individuals were used for training of the algorithm and a further 104 individuals were used for model evaluation (age 18-69). In the case of KLF14, LDB2, SAMD10, and GRM2, neighboring CpG sites and not the initial 450K sites were chosen for the final model. Crossvalidation of the training set leads to a mean absolute deviation (MAD) of 3.21 years and a root-mean square error (RMSE) of 3.97 years. Evaluation of model performance using the test set showed a comparable result (MAD 3.16 years, RMSE 3.93 years). A reduced model based on only the top 4 markers (ELOVL2, F5, KLF14, and TRIM59) resulted in a RMSE of 4.19 years and MAD of 3.24 years for the test set (cross validation training set: RMSE 4.63 years, MAD 3.64 years). The amplified region was additionally investigated for occurrence of SNPs in case of an aberrant DNAm result, which in some cases can be an indication for a deviation in DNAm. Our approach uncovered well-known DNAm age-dependent markers, as well as additional new age-dependent sites for improvement of the model, and allowed the creation of a reliable and accurate epigenetic tool for age-prediction without restriction to a linear change in DNAm with age.
Aspirinresistenz Aspirinresistenz – Klinische Relevanz eines komplexen Phänomens

Aspirin Resistance – Clinical Relevance of a Complex Phenomenon. Aspirin is the most frequently prescribed antiplatelet agent today. It exerts its antiplatelet effect by irreversible inactivation of the platelet cyclooxygenase-1, resulting in an irreversible inhibition of thromboxane-A2 formation. The clinical benefit of antiplatelet therapy with acetylsalicylacid in high-risk patients has been convincingly demonstrated through the results of multi-
Multi-agent PID and fractional PID control of the three-tank benchmark system

This paper addresses the development of a multi-agent system to control the three-tank benchmark plant with PID and fractional PID controllers. Each tank was controlled using an agent implemented in a different computer; under normal circumstances, agents are expected to communicate to exchange information and cooperate to achieve their goals; if there should be a communication failure, each agent is able to pursue control on its own, attempting to keep performance as good as possible by using simulations to supply unavailable data. Furthermore agents are able to identify the plant and change the control laws accordingly. Simulation and experimental results are given showing the control system's robustness properties.
The effect of the epigenome on the Vitamin D Receptor target genes

Background. Humans produce vitamin D3 by exposure to sunlight that includes ultraviolet B (UVB) radiation, but also via the intake of nutrients. In the body, the Vitamin D3 is converted to its active form, which is called 1, 25(OH)2D3. This can bind to the Vitamin D Receptor (VDR), which is located on several genes which are called the VDR target genes. Objective. The present study investigated which genes are regulated by the 1, 25(OH)2D3 and checked whether the epigenetic modifications are measured in two cell lines within the ENCODE project. The data of the epigenetic modifications will be linked to the promoter regions of the VDR target genes. In this way the epigenetic control of the VDR target genes could be investigated in more detail. Methods. The human VDR target genes were identified with an extensive literature search. The promoter regions of the VDR target genes were found with Genomatix. Two types of epigenetic modifications, DNA methylation and histone modification, which were determined in two cell lines, IMR90 and H1ESC, in the ENCODE project were linked to the promoter regions of the VDR target genes. In the network analysis program Cytoscape the VDR target genes and the measured epigenetic modifications were integrated and visualized in an epigenetics-VDR target genes network. Results. In total 185 VDR target genes were found in 25 literature papers. There were 528 promoter regions in the 185 VDR target genes identified. In the H1ESC were 445 histone modifications linked to the VDR target gene promoters and in the IMR90 were 259 histone modifications linked to the VDR target gene promoters. In the IMR90 were 158 promoter regions with a DNA methylation region and in the H1ESC were this 177 promoter regions with a DNA methylation region. In the combined network of DNA methylation and histone modifications were in the IMR90 99 genes and in the H1ESC 111 genes selected. Conclusion. The epigenetics-VDR target genes network can be used in further research to understand the role of the epigenetic control of the VDR target genes.
Growth performance and survival of Clarias gariepinus hatchlings fed different starter diets

A feeding trial, involving the use of five different starter diets for the feeding of C. gariepinus fry, was carried out in the laboratory. The diets consist of decapsulated Artemia (D1), cultured live Moena micrura (D2), mixed cultured live M. micrura/Artemia (D3), fishmeal (D4) and powdered milk (D5). Each treatment was applied to 50 post yolkabsorbed fry, in triplicate bowls, for eight days. Even though the length gain, condition factor and specific growth rate were not significantly different (p 0.05) from the other dietary treatments. The use of M. micrura (treatment D2) is highly recommended as live food in the hatchery production of the Clarias gariepinus fish.The zooplankton is easily cultivable in freshwater, its bio-nutrients are readily available/utilizable by the fry and the procurement is highly economical. This technology also reuses livestock wastes for production thus contributing towards climate change mitigation and making aquaculture sustainable.
Integrative Cancer Therapies简介

Integrative Cancer Therapies（《癌症综合治疗》。 ISSN：1534—7354；e—ISSN：1552—695X）是由美国SAGE出版公司出版发行的一本国际性癌症治疗杂志。 杂志的现任主编为美国芝加哥伊利诺斯大学癌症综合治疗研究所的Keith I．Block博士。 该杂志为季刊，每年3、6、9、12月各出版一期。
Detecting capability leaks in Android-based smartphones

Recent years have witnessed increased popularity and adoption of smartphones partially due to the functionalities and convenience offered to their users (e.g., the ability to run third-party applications). To manage the amount of access given to smartphone applications, Android provides a permission-based security model, which requires each application to explicitly request permissions before it can be installed to run. In this paper, we systematically analyze eight flagship Android smartphones from leading manufacturers, including HTC, Motorola, and Samsung and found out that the stock phone images do not properly enforce the permission model. Several privileged permissions that protect the access to sensitive user data and dangerous features on the phones are unsafely exposed to other applications which do not need to request them for the actual use, a security violation termed capability leak in this paper. To facilitate identifying these capability leaks, we take a static analysis approach and have accordingly developed a system called Woodpecker. Our results with eight phone images show that among 13 privileged permissions examined so far, 11 were leaked, with individual phones leaking up to eight permissions. By exploiting these leaked capabilities, an untrusted application can manage to wipe out the user data, send out SMS messages (e.g., to premium numbers), record user conversation, or obtain user geo-locations on the affected phones – all without the need of asking for any permission.
Does financial VAT affect the size of the financial sector?

Abstract The influence of VAT applied to financial services on the size of the financial sector is analyzed empirically. The authors use data from 36 European Union and OECD countries for the period from 1961 to 2012. Dynamic panel data techniques are used, concretely the GMM System. An unbalanced panel is handled. The results allow the authors to support the theoretical analysis that financial VAT has no significant effect on financial sector development. Results are robust to the specifications of the dependent and target variables and to the econometric method applied.
Quality Culture: understandings, boundaries and linkages

As part of the process of enhancing quality, quality culture has become a taken-for-granted concept intended to support development and improvement processes in higher education. By taking a theoretical approach to examining quality culture, starting with a scholarly examination of the concept of culture, and exploring how it is related to quality, quality improvement and quality assurance, the aim of this paper is to create a better understanding of how one can make sense of quality culture, its boundaries but also its links to the fundamental processes of teaching and learning.
Fly ash based geopolymer concrete

Cement industries is the major contributor to GDP. Now a day the demand of infrastructure is increasing. From recent years man is facing problem like increasing population, change in environment and reduction of natural resources. A part from this there is need of infrastructure development. Main part of infrastructure is cement, but it has some environment related problem so t o reduce these kinds of problems there is need of alternate building material like geopolymer concrete, which bring development economically, socially, environmentally. Cost of geopolymer concrete is less than cement concrete and it is also safe to environment, with these views we are attempt to replace the cement. Thus paper presents the study of geopolymer concrete.
Cyclooxygenase Inhibition and P 2 Y 12 Antagonism

Aspirin is perhaps the most cost-effective therapy in medicine. Its evolution as a mainstay of cardioprotection illustrates interlocking contributions of industry and academia, the importance of astute clinical observation, and the pivotal integration of basic and clinical pharmacology in drug repurposing, prompting hypotheses then addressed by large, placebo-controlled, randomized trials. The analgesic potential of salicylate variously had been appreciated by the ancient Egyptians, Hippocrates, Pliny the Elder, Jesuits in South America, and a Protestant pastor in Chipping Norton. These interlocking trails of discovery eventually led to a dye manufacturer in Leverkusen in the late 19th century. This story, together with the personalities and politics surrounding the synthesis of acetyl salicylic acid at Bayer by Felix Hoffmann and its marketing in mid 1899 as aspirin, is nicely told by Mueller and Scheidt. We pick up the story with the uncontrolled though astute observations of a private practitioner, L. L. Craven, in the late 1940s, that the gingival bleeding of his tonsillectomy patients treated with aspirin suggested an aspect of drug action that could be exploited for cardioprotection. His uncontrolled observations, suggesting protection from myocardial infarction (MI) by aspirin, were buried in obscurity until the development of light-transmission platelet aggregometry and standardized approaches to measuring the bleeding time by Quick, Weiss, O’Brien, and Born in the 1960s focused attention on hemostasis and the platelet in particular as a target of aspirin action. In the mean time, Vane, Moncada, Ferrara, Gryglewski, and their colleagues at the Royal College of Surgeons and the Wellcome Laboratories in Beckenham had been using an ingenious technique, superfusion bioassay (dripping blood over a mesmerizing sequence of animal tissues), to elucidate, by their distinct effects, the contrasting biology of a diverse family of lipid mediators, the prostaglandins (PGs), first described as products of ram seminal vesicle PG G/H synthase by von Euler. PG synthase possesses both cyclooxygenase (COX) and peroxidase activity to generate sequentially the endoperoxide intermediates, PGG 2 and PGH 2 , that are then acted on by specific PG synthases that are expressed in a relatively cell-specific fashion so that most cells make 1 or 2 dominant products (Figure 1). Colloquially, the PG G/H synthase enzyme is referred to as COX. Vane’s group showed that nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), including aspirin, acted to prevent PG synthesis by blocking COX and discovered a platelet inhibitory vasodilator PG product of endothelial COX, confirmed through a collaboration with scientists at Upjohn as prostacyclin, also known as PGI 2 . Elegant structural elucidation using mass
An Assessment of Capital Requirements under Basel II: The Portuguese Case

Capital requirements for banks are of foremost importance for financial stability in the sense that they are intended to minimise the probability of bank failure at reasonable cost. In fact, past episodes of widespread bank insolvency turned out to be very costly in terms of taxpayers’ money and highly disruptive to the real economy reflected, for example, in output losses and steep rises in unemployment. The role of capital requirements works at least in two ways: it provides a loss absorbing cushion for unexpected events and, if properly designed, introduces incentives for banks to limit the risk of their activities. Given that capital is the most expensive source of banks’ funding, capital requirements have an impact on the return on equity while potentially influencing the competitive stance in the financial sector. Against this background and given growing international capital mobility, global harmonization of prudential supervision, ensuring a level playing field among banks in different countries, is crucial. The 1988 Basel Accord (Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (1988)) was the beginning of the convergence of the rather different approaches that countries adopted. In June 2004 a revision of this framework, commonly denominated Basel II, was published by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (2006b)). These new rules were then laid down in EU legislation and subsequently transposed into Portuguese national law, coming into force in 2007. 1
LIBIDO AND EJACULATE TRAITS OF PERFORMANCE TESTED BOARS

The main objective of this study was to score v ariability of fertility traits of boars as influenced by breed, age at first ejaculation/collection (AFE), the lean meat content (LM), lifetime average daily gain (ADG) and age of boars. The following fertility traits were analysed: libido, duration of eja culation (DE), ejaculate volume (VOL), the density of the ejaculate (DEN) and sperm motility (MO) of boars. Boars' libido was assessed on the basis of duration of prepar ing to collection (DPC). The study included 7987 ejaculates from 105 boars of three breeds: Swedish Landrace (SL; n=34), Large White (LW; n=39) and Duroc (n=32). Impact assessment was carried out using the GLM procedure of the statistical package SAS 9.1. 3 (SAS Inst. Inc., 2002-2003). Of all the traits analysed, only the DPC and VOL varied under the influence of all investigated impacts . Boars of SL and LW breeds demonstrated superiority in the trait VOL (+12.53 and +11.25 ml) compared to Duroc. Ejaculates of boars with AFE from 23 to 27 weeks had the highest VOL, but with the lowest qualitative properties. Contrary to the negative trend in the manifestation of libido, increas e of LM and ADG indicated the trend of increasing DE and VOL. Boars with LM of 61% and higher had the highest VOL, and the differences in relation to the first and second class were +6.32 ml (P<0.01) and +5.18 ml (P<0.05), respectively. The ejaculate volume of the boars with the highest ADG compared to the other classes was higher (P<0.001) by 10.88 and 9.81 ml. Boars in different ADG classes produced ejaculate with differing qualitative property DEN. Correlations between production traits and fertility traits were negligible, and unlike the ADG, only the correlation between LM and DPC was statistically significant ( P<0.001).
Using satellite data for soil cation exchange capacity studies

Abstract This study was planned to examine the use of LandSat ETM+ images to develop a model for monitoring spatial variability of soil cation exchange capacity in a semi-arid area of Neyshaboor. 300 field data were collected from specific GPS registered points, 277 of which were error free, to be analysed in the soil laboratory.The statistical analysis showed that therewas a small R-Squared value, 0.17, when we used the whole data set. Visual interpretation of the graphs showed a trend among some of the data in the data set. Forty points were filtered based on the trends, and the statistical analysis was repeated for those data. It was discovered that the 40 series were more or less in the same environmental conditions; most of them were located in disturbed soils or abandoned lands with sparse vegetation cover. The soil was classified into high and medium salinity, with variable carbon (1.0 to 1.6%), heavy textured and with high silt and clay. Finally it was concluded that two different models could be fitted in the data based on their spatial dependency. The current models are able to explain spatial variability in almost 45 to 65% of the cases.
INFRASTRUCTURE AS IMPORTANT DETERMINANT OF TOURISM DEVELOPMENT IN THE COUNTRIES OF SOUTHEAST EUROPE

Tourism infrastructure is the basis of tourism development and utilization of existing destination resources. Tourism infrastructure includes a large number of services, necessary to meet the needs of tourists and increase satisfaction during their stay at the destination. The subject of this paper is the consideration of relationship between the available infrastructure and the achieved level of tourism development. The paper suggests that future tourism development depends on intensive investment in infrastructure and its modernization, as an important factor of development of the tourism sector. The aim of the paper is to analyze the correlation between tourism competitiveness in the Southeast Europe (SEE) countries and the level of competitiveness of tourism infrastructure. It is noted that increase in the number of hotel rooms is a factor that largely contributes to increase in the level of tourism competitiveness of the observed group of countries.
I. Turinese1 · P. Marinelli1 · M. Bonini1 · M. Rossetti1 · G. Statuto1 · T. Filardi2 · A. Paris3 · A. Lenzi2 · S. Morano2 · P. Palange1

Conclusions Patients affected by T1DM have a worse exercise tolerance than normal subjects. The two groups differed by RER which can be greatly influenced by the substrate type utilized to produce energy. Because of the impaired carbohydrate utilization, T1DM subjects may use a larger amount of lipid substrates, such hypothesis could be strengthened by the lower lactate levels found in T1DM group at peak exercise. The lack of correlation between exercise tolerance and disease-related variables suggests that the alterations found could be independent from the glycemic levels.
Evaluation of protective efficacy of selected immunodominant B-cell 1 epitopes within virulent surface proteins of S . Pneumoniae 2 3 Running Title : Protective efficacy of pneumococcal B-cell epitopes

23 24 Four previously identif ied immunodominant B -cell epitopes, located within known 25 virulent pneumococcal proteins CbpD, PhtD, PhtE and ZmpB, had shown promising in 26 vivo immunological characterist ics indicating their potential to be used as vaccine 27 antigens. In this study we further evaluated the opsonophagocytic activi ty of 28 antibodies against these epitopes and their capacity to protect mice from 29 pneumococcal sepsis. An Opsonophagocytic Kil ling Assay (OPKA) revealed that 30 OPKA ti ters of human anti -peptide antibodies against Pneumococcal Serotypes 1, 3 31 and 19A were significantly higher (p<0.001) than those of the control sera suggesting 32 their functional potential against virulent cl inical isolates. Data obtained from mice 33 actively immunized with any of the selected epitope analogues or with a mixture of 34 these (G_Mix group) showed compared to controls enhanced survival against the 35 highly virulent pneumococcal serotype 3 (p<0.001). Moreover, passive transfer of 36 hyperimmune serum from G_Mix to naïve mice also conferred protection to a lethal 37 challenge with serotype 3, which demonstrates that the observed protection was 38 antibody-mediated. All immunized murine groups elici ted gradually higher antibody 39 t i ters and avidity, suggesting a maturation of immune response overt ime. Among the 40 tested peptides, PhD_pep19 and PhtE_pep40 peptides which r eside within the zinc41 binding domains of PhtD and PhtE proteins exhibited superior immunological 42 characterist ics. Recently it has been shown that zinc uptake is of high importance for the 43 virulence of S. pneumoniae , thus our findings suggest that these epi topes deserve 44 further evaluation as novel immunoreactive components for the development of a 45 polysaccharide-independent pneumococcal vaccine . 46 47 48 on D ecem er 4, 2017 by C A IF O R N IA IN S T IT U T E O F T E C H N O LO G Y http/iai.asm . rg/ D ow nladed fom
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Determining molecular mechanisms of human embryo implantation is an extremely challenging task due to the limitation of materials and significant differences underlying this process among mammalian species. Recently, L-selectin and its ligand carbohydrate have been proposed as a system that mediates initial adhesion of human blastocysts to the uterine epithelia. We have also identified trophinin as a unique apical cell adhesion molecule potentially involved in the initial adhesion of trophectoderm of the human blastocyst to endometrial surface epithelia. In the mouse, the binding between ErbB4 on the blastocyst and heparin-binding epidermal growth factor-like growth factor on the endometrial surface enables the initial step of the blastocyst implantation. The evidence suggests that L-selectin and trophinin are included in human embryo implantation. This review summarizes findings relevant to the functions of L-selectin and trophinin in human embryo implantation, and proposes a model that reconciles these cell adhesion mechanisms.