Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Adenosine A receptors are necessary for protection of the murine heart by remote, delayed adaptation to ischaemia.

AIMS Adenosine is involved in classic pre-conditioning (PC) in most species, acting through especially adenosine A1 and A3 receptors. We studied whether the adenosine A1 receptor (A1R) was important for remote, delayed adaptation to ischaemia using a mouse with targeted deletion of the A1R gene. METHODS Remote, delayed adaptation was evoked by brain ischaemia (BIPC) through bilateral ligation of the internal carotid arteries. Through microdialysis probes placed in the brain and the abdominal aorta, we found that plasma adenosine increased following carotid artery ligation. Twenty-four hours after ligation, hearts were isolated, Langendorff perfused and subjected to 40 min global ischaemia and 60 min reperfusion. Hearts from sham operated and BIPC animals either with (A1R+/+) or without (A1R-/-) the gene for the adenosine A(1)R were compared with each other. RESULTS In wild types, BIPC reduced infarct size and improved functional recovery during reperfusion, but BIPC did not protect hearts of A1R-/- mice. There were no significant differences between sham-operated A1R+/+ and A1R-/- in recovery of function or infarct size. The mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs) extracellular signal-regulated protein kinase1/2 (ERK1/2), p38 and c-jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) were phosphorylated during reperfusion of sham treated hearts. The increase in ERK1/2 and p38 phosphorylation detected was attenuated in hearts of BIPC or A1R-/- animals. CONCLUSION During BIPC adenosine acting on the A1R appears necessary for myocardial protection. MAPK signalling may possibly be involved in organ protection during the delayed phase of remote, delayed adaptation.
Comparison of Rally Time in XXIX Beijing (2008) and XXVIII Athens (2004) Olympic Table Tennis Tournaments

The XXIX Olympic games of Beijing (2008) are the second Olympic tournaments organized under the modification of Table Tennis regulations (series of two serves, 11 th points set). The purpose of this study was to compare the rally time of the Beijing (2008) and Athens (2004) Olympic tournaments. Rally time differences for Men and Women in both Olympic tournaments concerning the first round up to the quarter finals were also studied. The sample of the study was the total number of single games that were held during the Olympic Games in Beijing (n=119, male=60 & female=59). The results showed that rally time oscillated from 4:48'' to 7:31''in total. Men's rally time in set fluctuated from 4:48" to 5:33" and Women's from 5:00" to 7:31". The two factors repeated measures analysis of variance (Olympic tournaments x rounds) was used in order to determine if significant variance existed between Olympic tournaments. The analysis of data revealed that Women's set rally time increased in Beijing (2008). Significant differences were found for Women in Olympic tournaments (p<0.05) and also in the first three rounds of the Beijing Olympic Tournament (p<0.05). These findings indicate that longer rally time in table tennis should be taken in consideration and should be examined more in next high level tournaments especially after the prohibition of speed glue. Thus, knowledge of the above characteristics can help coaches to provide the appropriate methods for table tennis training.
Polychlorinated Biphenyls- A Review

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) are highly toxic compounds which persist for a long period of time in the environment. It is hazardous to various life forms including humans as it can easily accumulate in the body. The present review discusses on the various sources and actions of PCBs in the environment; remediation techniques, biological and chemical degradation, which can reduce the amount of PCBs; and the mode of transfer, level of toxicity and exposure level of the various chemicals produced by the PCBs. In addition, the future of several countries that had been affected by the PCBs and upcoming situations are been discussed. Remediation, Toxicity, Degradation, Persistance.
Leaf volatile isoprenoids: an important defensive armament in forest tree species

Abstract: Current knowledge on the ecological impact of the emission of volatile isoprenoids by plants is reviewed. This trait is common to many terrestrial species but is scattered across different taxonomic groups; it appears to be related to other ecological traits rather than to phylogenetic relationships. Plants invest high resources to produce volatile isoprenoids, which are likely to play multiple roles in the defence against biotic and abiotic stressors. We describe how constitutive and induced volatile isoprenoids may directly or indirectly defend plants, and briefly address how indirect defence may involve communication with other trophic levels beyond the simple plant-herbivory interaction. It is discussed that, as metabolically costly defensive mechanisms are only activated after attacks, induced volatile isoprenoids may also prime other biochemical pathways that are involved in stress resistance responses. It is also surmised that attacked plants may also use volatiles as an airborne communication to signal the attack to other leaves or other plant organs, or even other plants, eliciting defence responses.
Il ruolo emergente dell’edutainment nella fruizione del patrimonio culturale

Nella realta “liquida” della post-modernita l’educazione tende a diventare edutainment, cioe un mix, piu o meno articolato, di educazione e intrattenimento. Cio emerge, fra l’altro, nella pratiche ormai presenti (anche in Italia) in molti musei e in molti siti archeologici. L’edutainment non va demonizzato, come spesso si fa per snobismo culturale, parlando ad esempio di disneyization della cultura, ma va utilizzato nelle sue significative potenzialita, non solo nell’educazione, scolastica e no, rivolta ai piu giovani, ma anche nell’educazione permanente, e in particolare in quella che concerne la fruizione del patrimonio culturale. In questo contesto particolare attenzione e dedicata al re-enactment e alla living history, di cui esistono forme seriali (specialmente nei festival proliferati in molte citta e in molti borghi storici), ma anche forme piu meritevoli di apprezzamento, per il loro impegno almeno tendenzialmente scientifico. In ogni caso, si tratta di processi da governare.
INDEPENDENT AND VERTEX COVERING NUMBER ON KRONECKER PRODUCT OF $C_n$

Let α(G) and β(G) be the independent number and vertex covering number of G, respectively. The Kronecker Product G1 ⊗ G2 of graph of G1 and G2 has vertex set V (G1 ⊗ G2 )= V (G1) × V (G2) and edge set E(G1 ⊗ G2 )= {(u1v1)(u2v2)|u1u2 ∈ E(G1) and v1v2 ∈ E(G2)}. In this paper, let G is a simple graph with order p, we prove that, α(Km,n ⊗G)= max {(m+n)α(G),p max{m, n}} and β(Km,n ⊗G) =min {(m + n)β(G) ,p min{m, n}}. Mathematics Subject Classification: 05C69 , 05C70 , 05C76
Efectos sobre microdureza y grado de conversión de dos tipos de resinas sometidas a tratamientos de pospolimerización

Objetivo :evaluar la microdureza y el grado de conversion despues de diferentes tecnicas poscurado en dos tipos de resinas compuestas. Materiales y metodos: se realizaron 36 cuerpos de prueba con 12 mm de diametro y 4 mm de altura, con dos resinas: Filtek z350 y Ena Miscerium. Despues de la confec-cion, los cuerpos de prueba se llevaron al microduremetro y a espectroscopia de infrarrojo, y fueron sometidos a cuatro procesos de pospolimerizacion: agua en ebullicion, microonda, calor seco, autoclave y horno gradia. Resultados: se hizo analisis estadistico por medio de Anova de dos factores con postest Tukey por resina evaluada, se presentan media y desviacion estandar, los valores de grado de conversion muestran un gran aumento en la resina Ena comparado con el grupo control (63,81%), cuando es realizado pospolimerizacion con calor seco (89,02%) y una gran disminucion cuando es realizado con agua en ebullicion (36,41%). Con-clusiones: el proceso de curado posterior por microondas y autoclave aumenta los valores de microdureza y grado de conversion, y el agua destilada a temperaturas altas disminuye la microdureza de la superficie de las resinas compuestas
Physiology of Aging Selected Contribution: Effects of aging on cerebrovascular tone and [Ca ]i

Geary, Greg G. , and John N. Buchholz. Selected Contribution: Effects of aging on cerebrovascular tone and [Ca2 ]i. J Appl Physiol 95: 1746–1754, 2003. First published June 20, 2003; 10.1152/japplphysiol.00275. 2003. —The lower limits of cerebral blood flow autoregulation shift toward high pressures in aged compared with young rats. Intraluminal pressure stimulates contractile mechanisms in cerebral arteries that might, in part, cause an age-dependent shift in autoregulation. The present project tested two hypotheses. First, cerebral artery tone is greater in isolated arteries from aged compared with mature adult rats. Second, aging decreases the modulatory effect of endothelium-derived nitric oxide (NO) and increases vascular smooth muscle Ca2 sensitivity. Isolated segments of middle cerebral arteries from male 6-, 12-, 20-, and 24-mo-old Fischer 344 rats were cannulated and loaded with fura-2. Diameter and Ca2 responses to increasing pressure were measured in HEPES, during NO synthase inhibition [NG-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester (L-NAME)], and after removal of the endothelium. Cerebral artery tone (with endothelium) increased with age. Only at the lowest pressure (20 and 40 mmHg) was intracellular Ca2 concentration ([Ca2 ]i) greater in arteries from 24-mo-old rats compared with the other age groups. L-NAME-sensitive constriction increased significantly in arteries from 6to 20-mo-old rats but declined significantly thereafter in arteries from 24-mo-old rats. [Ca2 ]i was less in arteries from 24-mo-old rats compared with the other groups after treatment with L-NAME. Another endothelial-derived factor, insensitive to L-NAME, also decreased significantly with age. For example, at 60 mmHg, the L-NAME-insensitive constriction decreased from 47 10, 42 5, 21 2, and 3 1 m in 6-, 12-, 20-, and 24-mo-old rats, respectively. Our data suggest that aging alters cerebral artery tone and [Ca2 ]i responses through endothelial-derived NO synthasesensitive and -insensitive mechanisms. The combined effect of greater cerebral artery tone with less endothelium-dependent modulation may in part contribute to the age-dependent shift in cerebral blood flow autoregulation.
Do Parents Matter? Examining the Role of Parental Influences on the Degree Aspirations of First-Generation Students

This study investigated the role of parent involvement on the degree aspirations and confidence in completing a bachelor’s degree of ninth grade first-generation students. The data source for this study was the High School Longitudinal Study of 2008 administered by the National Center for Education Statistics, which provided information related to students’ degree aspirations after they finish high school. An adapted model of Perna’s (2006) proposed conceptual model of college choice was used as the theoretical framework for this study. Descriptive statistics, cross tabulations, and multivariate regression techniques were utilized to examine individual factors associated with first-generation students’ degree aspirations and confidence in completing a bachelor’s degree based on a nationally representative sample. The results suggest that particular student demographic, cultural capital, social capital, and school context variables influenced first-generation students’ degree aspirations and confidence in completing a bachelor’s degree. Namely, Black/AfricanAmerican students are more likely to be certain to complete a bachelor’s degree, while students who have limited conversations about college, have parents who do not have information about college, come from a family earning a low income, and attend a high school without a counselor focused on college readiness are less likely to be confident in completing a bachelor’s degree. Additionally, women are more likely to indicate a preference to earn a college degree, while American Indian students, students who have no discussions with others about college, and students from a family earning a low income are more likely to indicate a preference to earn only a high school diploma. Findings from this study highlight that the first-generation student population is not a monolithic group but rather a heterogeneous population. Researchers and administrators must recognize this finding and develop policies that meet the diverse characteristics present in the first-generation student population. Furthermore, future studies must be cognizant to treat first-generation students as a diverse population and continue to expand on the literature examining within group differences of first-generation students. Finally, the role of parents should continue to be examined with a heightened focus on understanding how first-generation students’ parental involvement may differ from non-first-generation students. ( en )
Influencia de la Antigüedad y del total de Horas de Investigación en la Producción Científica de Docentes Universitarios

espanolSe analiza, mediante un estudio longitudinal, la produccion cientifica en docentes universitarios de la Facultad de Ciencias de la Educacion, Humanas y Tecnologias de la Universidad Nacional de Chimborazo (UNACH), en Ecuador. Especial atencion se presta a la relacion entre la experiencia en la docencia (antiguedad) y al total de horas dedicadas a la investigacion. La recogida de datos se realizo entre junio del 2015 y junio del 2017. Se efectuaron analisis descriptivos y correlacionales entre las variables recogidas. Se llevaron a cabo analisis multivariados de varianza para examinar las relaciones bivariantes existentes entre las variables dependientes: experiencia en la docencia universitaria y el total de horas dedicadas a la investigacion y la variable independiente, produccion cientifica. Ademas, se exploro su capacidad predictiva sobre la produccion cientifica, a traves del analisis de regresion lineal multiple. Este trabajo constituye un primer acercamiento a trazar el perfil general del investigador idoneo y de los factores que lo afectan. Se constato que el personal academico con un mayor numero de publicaciones, tiene alrededor de 15 y 30 horas semanales asignadas para proyectos de investigacion y produccion cientifica. EnglishThrough a longitudinal study, the scientific production in university professors of the Faculty of Educational Sciences, Humanities and Technologies of the Universidad Nacional de Chimborazo (UNACH), in Ecuador is analyzed. Special attention is paid to the relation between the teaching experience (seniority) and the total hours dedicated to research. The data collection was carried out between June 2015 and June 2017. Descriptive and correlational analyzes were carried out among the chosen variables. Multivariate analysis of variance was carried out to examine the bivariate relationships between the dependent variables: experience in university teaching and total hours dedicated to research and the independent variable, scientific production. In addition, the predictive capacity of the model on scientific production was explored through multiple linear regression analysis. This work is a preliminary approach to trace the ideal researcher profile and the factors that affect it. It was found that academic staff with higher number of publications, has about 15 and 30 hours assigned to research projects and scientific production.
Deep PDF parsing to extract features for detecting embedded malware.

The number of PDF files with embedded malicious code has risen significantly in the past few years. This is due to the portability of the file format, the ways Adobe Reader recovers from corrupt PDF files, the addition of many multimedia and scripting extensions to the file format, and many format properties the malware author may use to disguise the presence of malware. Current research focuses on executable, MS Office, and HTML formats. In this paper, several features and properties of PDF Files are identified. Features are extracted using an instrumented open source PDF viewer. The feature descriptions of benign and malicious PDFs can be used to construct a machine learning model for detecting possible malware in future PDF files. The detection rate of PDF malware by current antivirus software is very low. A PDF file is easy to edit and manipulate because it is a text format, providing a low barrier to malware authors. Analyzing PDF files for malware is nonetheless difficult because of (a) the complexity of the formatting language, (b) the parsing idiosyncrasies in Adobe Reader, and (c) undocumented correction techniques employed in Adobe Reader. In May 2011, Esparza demonstrated that PDF malware could be hidden frommore » 42 of 43 antivirus packages by combining multiple obfuscation techniques [4]. One reason current antivirus software fails is the ease of varying byte sequences in PDF malware, thereby rendering conventional signature-based virus detection useless. The compression and encryption functions produce sequences of bytes that are each functions of multiple input bytes. As a result, padding the malware payload with some whitespace before compression/encryption can change many of the bytes in the final payload. In this study we analyzed a corpus of 2591 benign and 87 malicious PDF files. While this corpus is admittedly small, it allowed us to test a system for collecting indicators of embedded PDF malware. We will call these indicators features throughout the rest of this report. The features are extracted using an instrumented PDF viewer, and are the inputs to a prediction model that scores the likelihood of a PDF file containing malware. The prediction model is constructed from a sample of labeled data by a machine learning algorithm (specifically, decision tree ensemble learning). Preliminary experiments show that the model is able to detect half of the PDF malware in the corpus with zero false alarms. We conclude the report with suggestions for extending this work to detect a greater variety of PDF malware. « less
Los trabajadores autónomos dependientes en Europa

En los ultimos anos se han producido cambios rapidos y profundos en la organizacion del trabajo y el contenido del trabajo, lo que ha contribuido a la aparicion de los trabajadores autonomos dependientes, que realizan una nueva forma de trabajo que se encuentra dentro de una "zona gris" entre el trabajo por cuenta ajena y el autoempleo. El concepto de trabajadores autonomos dependientes tambien se ha utilizado para referirse a diferentes situaciones y, aunque la terminologia empleada varia, se trata de una realidad conocida en toda Europa aunque existe poca evidencia empirica sobre sus caracteristicas. En este trabajo se estudian las principales caracteristicas de los trabajadores dependientes por cuenta propia comparando su perfil con los empleados por cuenta ajena y los trabajadores por cuenta propia “tradicionales”. Ademas, se analizan las condiciones de trabajo de los tres grupos para mostrar las diferencias entre ellos. Los datos utilizados se han obtenido a partir de la V Encuesta Europea de Condiciones de Trabajo. Los resultados obtenidos muestran que existe un tronco comun en cuanto a los factores que discriminan a los autonomos de los asalariados, pero que existen algunos matices que diferencian y definen a cada grupo de autonomos con respecto a los empleados por cuenta ajena.
Dams and the fish fauna of the Neotropical region: impacts and management related to diversity and fisheries

Reservoirs have been built in almost all of the hydrographic basins of Brazil. Their purposes include water supply for cities, irrigation and mainly, generation of electricity. There are more than 700 large dams and associated reservoirs in the large rivers of the country. These reservoirs favor local and regional economic development, but they also bring serious and irreversible alterations in the natural hydrologic regime of rivers, affecting habitat quality and the dynamics of the biota. In the impounded area, the main impact is the change from lotic to lentic water, which influences aquatic fauna, including fishes. Impacts of reservoirs present relevant spatiotemporal variations. Immediately after reservoir formation, fish species richness usually increases due to incorporation of surrounding habitats, but richness decreases as reservoirs age. However, impacts downstream of dams appear to be similar or stronger than those that occur within the reservoir. Dams promote discharge control, altering the seasonal cycles of floods. These effects are augmented when dams are constructed in cascades. Therefore, dams profoundly influence composition and structure of fish assemblages. Most affected species are the rheophilics and long distance migratory that require distinct habi tats to fulfill their life cycles. Populations of migratory species may collapse or even disappear in intensely regulated stretches. Management actions taken to minimize impacts of dams in Brazil historically considered construction of fish passages, fishery control and stocking. The results of these actions are questionable and/or with clear failures. In this paper, we give emphasis to the Parana River basin, the most affected by dams in Brazil. We describe some patterns in the alteration and decline in fish diversity in areas influenced by dams. We also discuss negative consequences in the fishery and ecosystems functioning. Finally, we argue the relevance and the success of the management actions taken and present some suggestions to improve conservation of the ichthyofauna in South American basins influenced by dams.