bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
A A ATUALIDADE DOS DEZ PRINCÍPIOS DA MAFALDA DE “QUINO” PARA UMA EDUCAÇÃO ÉTICA E DA RAZÃO CRIATIVA
Authors: Silva Luzia Batista De Oliveira , Agostini Nilo
Published: August 2019

Objetiva-se discutir nesse artigo a atualidade dos Dez princípios da Mafalda, como princípios norteadores de uma ética e uma razão criativa na infância, uma contribuição de “Quino” – Joaquín Salvador Lavado Tejón (1968) para a Educação. Esses Dez princípios são relevantes no aprendizado coletivo das crianças e no processo de sensibilização dos adultos. As críticas ao mundo do adulto são críticas de uma personagem criança, envolvida nas discussões diárias, nos problemas e dilemas dos adultos, causados por eles mesmos. Destaca-se valores como fundamentais nos dez princípios: direito à vida de criança cidadã, respeito ao ser humano e à criança e sua infância, direito ao cuidado, à inserção social, cultural e educacional, proteção, cidadania, direito para expressar criatividade e curiosidade, obter conhecimento de saberes com qualidade para garantir emancipação e autonomia, educar-se sem constrangimentos, discriminação, preconceito de classe, étnico, cultural, aprender a cultivar valores pessoais e coletivos sem imposição e sem dogmatismo. Enfim, Quino parece assinalar para uma educação que preze por uma construção de conhecimentos de modo aberto e que o despertar da curiosidade e da razão criativa sejam valorizados no processo formativo, um processo de mimesis, de troca e de revide entre as crianças e os adultos. A infância em Quino permite discutir sobre comportamentos sociais e educação ética mediante exercícios e posicionamentos críticos e criativos respaldados por uma sensibilidade e uma razão criativa, como elementos formadores e norteadores de uma educação para o pensar e para a valorização da vida.
Methane Emissions and the Use of Desmanthus in Beef Cattle Production in Northern Australia
Authors: Suybeng Bénédicte , Charmley Edward , Gardiner Christopher P. , Malau-Aduli Bunmi S. , Malau-Aduli Aduli E. O.
Published: August 2019

The Australian beef industry is a major contributor to the economy with an estimated annual revenue generation of over seven billion dollars. The tropical state of Queensland accounted for 48% of Australian beef and veal production in 2018. As the third biggest beef exporter in the world, Australia supplies 3% of the world’s beef exports and its agricultural sector accounts for an estimated 13.2% of its total greenhouse gas emissions. About 71% of total agricultural emissions are in the form of methane and nitrous oxide. In this review, an overview of the carbon footprint of the beef cattle production system in northern Australia is presented, with emphasis on the mitigation of greenhouse gases. The review also focuses on the tropical legume, Desmanthus, one of the more promising nutritional supplements for methane abatement and improvement of animal growth performance. Among the review’s findings is the need to select environmentally well-adapted and vigorous tropical legumes containing tannins that can persistently survive under the harsh northern Australian conditions for driving animal performance, improving meat quality and reducing methane emissions. The paper argues that the use of appropriate legumes such as Desmanthus, is a natural and preferred alternative to the use of chemicals for the abatement of methane emanating from tropical beef cattle production systems. It also highlights current gaps in knowledge and new research opportunities for in vivo studies on the impact of Desmanthus on methane emissions of supplemented tropical beef cattle.
Antimicrobial Drug Interactions: Systematic Evaluation of Protein and Nucleic Acid Synthesis Inhibitors
Authors: Yilancioglu Kaan
Published: August 2019

Antimicrobial multidrug resistance and its transmission among strains are serious problems. Success rate is decreased and treatment options are narrowed due to increasing bacterial multidrug resistance. On the other hand, the need for long-term efforts to discover new antibiotics and difficulties finding new treatment protocols make this problem more complex. Combination therapy, especially with synergistic use of antimicrobials is a rational treatment option with huge benefits. Thus, screening antibiotic interactions is crucial for finding better treatment options. Clinicians currently use combinatorial antibiotic treatment as an effective treatment option. However, antibiotics can show synergistic or antagonistic interactions when used together. In our study, we aimed to investigate interactions of antibiotics with different mechanisms of action. Antibiotics, which act as protein synthesis inhibitors (P) and nucleic acid synthesis inhibitors (N) were used in our study. We tested 66 (PN), 15 (NN), and 55 (PP) drug pairs on the Escherichia coli strain. The Loewe additivity model was used and alpha scores were calculated for analysis of interactions of drug combinations. Drug interactions were categorized as synergistic or antagonistic. Accordingly, pairwise combinations of protein synthesis inhibitors (PP) showed stronger synergistic interactions than those of nucleic acid synthesis inhibitors (NN) and nucleic acid synthesis–protein synthesis inhibitors (PN). As a result, the importance of mechanisms of action of drugs is emphasized in the selection of synergistic drug combinations.
Antioxidants: Terminology, Methods, and Future Considerations
Authors: Brainina Khiena , Stozhko Natalia , Vidrevich Marina
Published: August 2019

Unreliable terminology and incompatible units of antioxidant activity/concentration expression lead to the failure of antioxidant clinical trials, ambiguity of conclusions about the effect of a chosen therapy in medicine and evaluation of food quality, diet, difficulties using information in monitoring the training process in sports, etc. Many different terms (antiradical activity, antioxidant activity, antioxidant capacity, antioxidant power, antioxidant ability) and methods: Trolox equivalent capacity assay (TEAC), Ferric Reducing Antioxidant Power assay (FRAP), Cupric Reducing Antioxidant Capacity assay (CUPRAC), antioxidative activity assay (ABTS), the oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC), and different options of electrochemical ones) proposed for the determination of antioxidants are described. Possible approaches to the development of this field of science and practice are considered.
Modeling of Temperature Time-Lag Effect for Concrete Box-Girder Bridges
Authors: Yang Kang , Ding Youliang , Sun Peng , Zhao Hanwei , Geng Fangfang
Published: August 2019

It is common to assume the relationship between temperature and temperature response is instantaneous in bridge health monitoring systems. However, a time-lag effect between temperature and thermal strain response has been documented by the analysis of monitored field data of concrete box-girder s. This effect is clearly reflected by the ring feature in the temperature-strain correlation curve. Inevitably, the time-lag effect has an adverse impact on the accuracy and reliability of state assessment and real-time warning for structural health monitoring (SHM) systems. To mitigate the influence of the time-lag effect, a phase-shifting method is proposed based on the Fourier series expansion fitting method. The time-domain signal is firstly converted into the frequency domain signal to compute the phase difference between temperature data and response strain data at each decomposed order. Subsequently, the total phase difference can be obtained by weighted summation. The signal processing effectively reduces the hysteresis loop area and enhances the correlation between the structural response data and the temperature data. When processing the daily data in different seasons, it is found that after subtraction by the proposed method, the linear feature becomes dominant in the relationship between temperature and the strain during long-term observation.
Multivariate Statistical Analysis of Surface Enhanced Raman Spectra of Human Serum for Alzheimer’s Disease Diagnosis
Authors: Ryzhikova Elena , Ralbovsky Nicole M. , Halámková Lenka , Celmins Dzintra , Malone Paula , Molho Eric , Quinn Joseph , Zimmerman Earl A. , Lednev Igor K.
Published: August 2019

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia worldwide and is characterized by progressive cognitive decline. Along with being incurable and lethal, AD is difficult to diagnose with high levels of accuracy. Blood serum from Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients was analyzed by surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) coupled with multivariate statistical analysis. The obtained spectra were compared with spectra from healthy controls (HC) to develop a simple test for AD detection. Serum spectra from AD patients were further compared to spectra from patients with other neurodegenerative dementias (OD). Colloidal silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) were used as the SERS-active substrates. Classification experiments involving serum SERS spectra using artificial neural networks (ANNs) achieved a diagnostic sensitivity around 96% for differentiating AD samples from HC samples in a binary model and 98% for differentiating AD, HC, and OD samples in a tertiary model. The results from this proof-of-concept study demonstrate the great potential of SERS blood serum analysis to be developed further into a novel clinical assay for the effective and accurate diagnosis of AD.
Special Issue on “Wind Energy Conversion Systems”
Authors: Chen Zhe
Published: August 2019

A single paragraph of about 200 words maximum. For research articles, abstracts should give a pertinent overview of the work. We strongly encourage authors to use the following style of structured abstracts, but without headings: (1) Background: place the question addressed in a broad context and highlight the purpose of the study; (2) Methods: describe briefly the main methods or treatments applied; (3) Results: summarize the article’s main findings; and (4) Conclusions: indicate the main conclusions or interpretations. The abstract should be an objective representation of the article; it must not contain results that are not presented and substantiated in the main text and should not exaggerate the main conclusions.
In Vitro Targeting and Imaging of Neurogenic Differentiation in Mouse Bone-Marrow Derived Mesenchymal Stem Cells with Superparamagnetic Iron Oxide Nanoparticles
Authors: Kim Sung-Kyu , Lee Dong-Kyu , Lim Hyung-Ju , Sim Uk
Published: August 2019

Spinal cord injuries (SCI) are well thought to be a crucial issue that roots various side effects for a patient during their entire lifetime. Although therapeutical methods to resolve the SCI are limited, stem cell therapy is determined to be a resolving factor since it possesses the ability to induce the neurogenic differentiation and the paracrine effect. However, stem cells are difficult to inject directly into the lesion, so they must be carefully guided through the spinal canal. Therefore, superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) are introduced as an instigator that makes the cells respond to the applied magnetic field. This study intends to report the synthesis strategy to develop SPIONs that could be used to treat the injury site by an applied magnetic field. SPION-internalized D1 Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are observed consistently using a confocal fluorescence microscope to analyze the toxicity, maintenance, and monitoring points of intracellular SPIONs. The prepared SPIONs are much anticipated to increase the migration efficiency using magnetism, which was not cytotoxic. Hence, the prepared SPIONs can adeptly target the damaged neural tissue to promote tissue regeneration and treat nervous system disorders. This primary study stands as a focal point to solve SCI by stem cell migration effectively.
Boosted Transformer for Image Captioning
Authors: Li Jiangyun , Yao Peng , Guo Longteng , Zhang Weicun
Published: August 2019

Image captioning attempts to generate a description given an image, usually taking Convolutional Neural Network as the encoder to extract the visual features and a sequence model, among which the self-attention mechanism has achieved advanced progress recently, as the decoder to generate descriptions. However, this predominant encoder-decoder architecture has some problems to be solved. On the encoder side, without the semantic concepts, the extracted visual features do not make full use of the image information. On the decoder side, the sequence self-attention only relies on word representations, lacking the guidance of visual information and easily influenced by the language prior. In this paper, we propose a novel boosted transformer model with two attention modules for the above-mentioned problems, i.e., “Concept-Guided Attention” (CGA) and “Vision-Guided Attention” (VGA). Our model utilizes CGA in the encoder, to obtain the boosted visual features by integrating the instance-level concepts into the visual features. In the decoder, we stack VGA, which uses the visual information as a bridge to model internal relationships among the sequences and can be an auxiliary module of sequence self-attention. Quantitative and qualitative results on the Microsoft COCO dataset demonstrate the better performance of our model than the state-of-the-art approaches.
Multi-Scale Heterogeneous 3D CNN for False-Positive Reduction in Pulmonary Nodule Detection, Based on Chest CT Images
Authors: Xiao Zhitao , Du Naichao , Geng Lei , Zhang Fang , Wu Jun , Liu Yanbei
Published: August 2019

Currently, lung cancer has one of the highest mortality rates because it is often caught too late. Therefore, early detection is essential to reduce the risk of death. Pulmonary nodules are considered key indicators of primary lung cancer. Developing an efficient and accurate computer-aided diagnosis system for pulmonary nodule detection is an important goal. Typically, a computer-aided diagnosis system for pulmonary nodule detection consists of two parts: candidate nodule extraction and false-positive reduction of candidate nodules. The reduction of false positives (FPs) of candidate nodules remains an important challenge due to morphological characteristics of nodule height changes and similar characteristics to other organs. In this study, we propose a novel multi-scale heterogeneous three-dimensional (3D) convolutional neural network (MSH-CNN) based on chest computed tomography (CT) images. There are three main strategies of the design: (1) using multi-scale 3D nodule blocks with different levels of contextual information as inputs; (2) using two different branches of 3D CNN to extract the expression features; (3) using a set of weights which are determined by back propagation to fuse the expression features produced by step 2. In order to test the performance of the algorithm, we trained and tested on the Lung Nodule Analysis 2016 (LUNA16) dataset, achieving an average competitive performance metric (CPM) score of 0.874 and a sensitivity of 91.7% at two FPs/scan. Moreover, our framework is universal and can be easily extended to other candidate false-positive reduction tasks in 3D object detection, as well as 3D object classification.
A Real-Time Numerical Decoupling Method for Multi-DoF Magnetic Levitation Rotary Table
Authors: Xu Xianze , Zheng Chenglin , Xu Fengqiu
Published: August 2019

Magnetic levitation technology shows promise for realizing multiple degrees of free precision motion for modern manufacturing, as the bearing and guiding parts are not used. However, motion decoupling in a magnetically levitated (maglev) system is difficult because it is hard to derive accurate magnetic force and a torque model considering the translation and rotation in all axes. In this work, a magnetic levitation rotary table that has the potential to realize unlimited rotation around the vertical axis and a relatively long stroke in the horizontal plane is proposed and analyzed, and the corresponding real-time numerical decoupling method is presented. The numerical magnetic force and torque model solves the current to magnetic force and torque transformation matrix, and the matrix is used to allocate the exact current in each coil phase to produce the required motion in the magnetically levitated (maglev) system. Next, utilizing a high-level synthesis tool and hardware description language, the proposed motion-decoupling module is implemented on a field programmable gate array (FPGA). To realize real-time computation, a pipelined program architecture and finite-state machine with a strict timing sequence are employed for maximum data throughput. In the last decoupling module of the maglev system, the delay for each sampling point is less than 200 μ s. To illustrate and evaluate real-time solutions, they are presented via the DAC adapter on the oscilloscope and stored in the SD card. The error ratios of the force and torque results solved by the numerical wrench model were less than 5 % and 10 % using the solutions from the boundary element method (BEM) program package RadiaTM as a benchmark.
Demand Side Management Effects on Substation Transformer Capacity Limits
Authors: McBee Kerry D. , Chong Jacquelyn , Rudraraju Prasanth
Published: August 2019

In high penetrations, demand side management (DMS) applications augment a substation power transformer’s load profile, which can ultimately affect the unit’s capacity limits. Energy storage (ES) applications reduce the evening peaking demand, while time-of-use rates incentivize end-users to charge electric vehicles overnight. The daily load profile is further augmented by high penetrations of photovoltaic (PV) systems, which reduce the midday demand. The resulting load profile exhibits a more flattened characteristic when compared to the historical cyclic profile. Although the initial impact of PV and ES applications may reduce a unit’s peak demand, long-term system planning and emergency conditions may require operation near or above the nameplate rating. Researchers have already determined that a flattened load profile excessively ages a unit’s dielectrics more rapidly. The focus of this research was to identify an approach for establishing new transformer capacity limits for units serving flattened load profiles with a high harmonic content. The analysis utilizes IEEE standards C57.91 and C57.110 to develop an aging model of a 50 MVA SPX Waukesha transformer. The results establish a guideline for determining transformer capacity limits for normal operation, long-term emergency operation, and short-term emergency operation when serving systems with high penetrations of DSM applications.
Assessment of Failure Occurrence Rate for Concrete Machine Foundations Used in Gas and Oil Industry by Machine Learning
Authors: Ziolkowski Patryk , Demczynski Sebastian , Niedostatkiewicz Maciej
Published: August 2019

Concrete machine foundations are structures that transfer loads from machines in operation to the ground. The design of such foundations requires a careful analysis of the static and dynamic effects caused by machine exploitation. There are also other substantial differences between ordinary concrete foundations and machine foundations, of which the main one is that machine foundations are separated from the building structure. Appropriate quality and the preservation of operational parameters of machine foundations are essential, especially in the gas and oil industry, where every disruption in the technological process is costly. First and foremost, there are direct repair costs from damage to foundations, but there are also indirect costs associated with blockages of the production process. Foundation repairs can temporarily shut down a given part of the refining process from operation. Thanks to cooperation from our partner, we obtained data from 510 concrete machine foundations from a refinery. Our database included many parameters, such as concrete cover thickness, machine gravity center distortion, the angular frequency of vertical self-excited vibrations, the angular frequency of horizontal self-excited vibrations, amplitudes of oscillation, foundation area, foundation volume, and information on occurring failures. Concrete machine foundation failure is not yet fully understood. In our study, we assessed what affects the failure occurrence rate of concrete machine foundations and to what extent. We wanted to find out whether there are correlations between the foundation failure occurrence rate and the mentioned parameters. To achieve this goal, we utilized state-of-the-art machine learning techniques.
Heuristics for Spreading Alarm throughout a Network
Authors: Šimon Marek , Huraj Ladislav , Dirgová Luptáková Iveta , Pospíchal Jiří
Published: August 2019

This paper provides heuristic methods for obtaining a burning number, which is a graph parameter measuring the speed of the spread of alarm, information, or contagion. For discrete time steps, the heuristics determine which nodes (centers, hubs, vertices, users) should be alarmed (in other words, burned) and in which order, when afterwards each alarmed node alarms its neighbors in the network at the next time step. The goal is to minimize the number of discrete time steps (i.e., time) it takes for the alarm to reach the entire network, so that all the nodes in the networks are alarmed. The burning number is the minimum number of time steps (i.e., number of centers in a time sequence alarmed “from outside”) the process must take. Since the problem is NP complete, its solution for larger networks or graphs has to use heuristics. The heuristics proposed here were tested on a wide range of networks. The complexity of the heuristics ranges in correspondence to the quality of their solution, but all the proposed methods provided a significantly better solution than the competing heuristic.
Cyclodextrins Can Entrap Zearalenone-14-Glucoside: Interaction of the Masked Mycotoxin with Cyclodextrins and Cyclodextrin Bead Polymer
Authors: Faisal Zelma , Fliszár-Nyúl Eszter , Dellafiora Luca , Galaverna Gianni , Dall’Asta Chiara , Lemli Beáta , Kunsági-Máté Sándor , Szente Lajos , Poór Miklós
Published: August 2019

Zearalenone (ZEN) is a Fusarium-derived xenoestrogenic mycotoxin. In plants, zearalenone-14-O-β-d-glucoside (Z14G) is the major conjugated metabolite of ZEN, and is a masked mycotoxin. Masked mycotoxins are plant-modified derivatives, which are not routinely screened in food and feed samples. Cyclodextrins (CDs) are cyclic oligosaccharides built up from D-glucopyranose units. CDs can form stable host–guest type complexes with lipophilic molecules (e.g., with some mycotoxins). In this study, the interaction of Z14G with native and chemically modified β- and γ-CDs was examined employing fluorescence spectroscopy and molecular modeling. Furthermore, the removal of Z14G from aqueous solution by insoluble β-CD bead polymer (BBP) was also tested. Our results demonstrate that Z14G forms the most stable complexes with γ-CDs under acidic and neutral conditions (K ≈ 103 L/mol). Among the CDs tested, randomly methylated γ-CD induced the highest increase in the fluorescence of Z14G (7.1-fold) and formed the most stable complexes with the mycotoxin (K = 2 × 103 L/mol). Furthermore, BBP considerably reduced the Z14G content of aqueous solution. Based on these observations, CD technology seems a promising tool to improve the fluorescence analytical detection of Z14G and to discover new mycotoxin binders which can also remove masked mycotoxins (e.g., Z14G).
KDR (VEGFR2) Genetic Variants and Serum Levels in Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis
Authors: Paradowska-Gorycka Agnieszka , Stypinska Barbara , Pawlik Andrzej , Malinowski Damian , Romanowska-Prochnicka Katarzyna , Manczak Malgorzata , Olesinska Marzena
Published: August 2019

We investigated kinase insert domain-containing receptor (KDR) polymorphisms and protein levels in relation to susceptibility to and severity of Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA). 641 RA patients and 340 controls (HC) were examined for the rs1870377 KDR variant by the polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) method and for rs2305948 and rs2071559 KDR single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) by TaqMan SNP genotyping assay. KDR serum levels were determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The rs1870377 KDR variant has shown association with RA under the codominant (p = 0.02, OR = 1.76, 95% CI = 1.09–2.85) and recessive models (p = 0.019, OR = 1.53, 95% CI = 1.07–2.20). KDR rs2305948 was associated with RA under the dominant model (p = 0.005, OR = 1.38, 95% CI = 1.10–1.73). Under the codominant model, the frequency of the rs2071559 TC and GG genotypes were lower in RA patients than in controls (p < 0.001, OR = 0.51, 95% CI = 0.37–0.69, and p = 0.002, OR = 0.57, 95% CI = 0.39–0.81). KDR rs2071559 T and rs2305948 A alleles were associated with RA (p = 0.001, OR = 0.60, 95% CI = 0.45–0.81 and p = 0.008, OR = 1.71, CI = 1.15–2.54). KDR rs2305948SNP was associated with Disease Activity Score (DAS)-28 score (p < 0.001), Visual Analog Scale (VAS) score (p < 0.001), number of swollen joints (p < 0.001), mean value of CRP (p < 0.001). A higher KDR serum level was found in RA patients than in HC (8018 pg/mL versus 7381 pg/mL, p = 0.002). Present results shed light on the role of KDR genetic variants in the severity of RA.
Peer Status Position within School-Based Hierarchies and Excessive Fat Accumulation in Adulthood—A 30 Year Follow up of a Stockholm Cohort
Authors: Rojas Yerko , Almquist Ylva B.
Published: August 2019

Disadvantaged socioeconomic status is arguably the one exposure that has most consistently been linked to obesity, even more strongly so than diet and physical inactivity, which are the two main perceived root causes of weight gain. However, we still know very little about the relationship between having a disadvantaged social position and excessive fat accumulation, particularly when it comes to whether the relationship in question can also be seen as a long-term one, i.e., spanning from childhood to adulthood. By making use of the unique Stockholm Birth Cohort Multigenerational Study, the present study uses generalized ordered logistic regressions to examine the association between sociometrically assessed peer status position in school at age 13 and excessive fat accumulation at age 32. The results suggest that the odds of having excessive fat accumulation are about 0.5 times lower among popular and accepted children (ORs = 0.52 and 0.56, respectively), compared to those with a marginalized peer status position, independent of other obesogenic risk factors measured both prior and subsequent to peer status position. Our results give support to the notion that improved weight status may be another positive consequence of policies aiming to increase social inclusion within schools.
BRCA1 and BRCA2 Gene Expression: Diurnal Variability and Influence of Shift Work
Authors: Bracci Massimo , Ciarapica Veronica , Eléxpuru Zabaleta Maria , Tartaglione Maria Fiorella , Pirozzi Silvia , Giuliani Letizia , Piva Francesco , Valentino Matteo , Ledda Caterina , Rapisarda Venerando , Stevens Richard G. , Santarelli Lory
Published: August 2019

BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes are involved in DNA double-strand break repair and related to breast cancer. Shift work is associated with biological clock alterations and with a higher risk of breast cancer. The aim of this study was to investigate the variability of expression of BRCA genes through the day in healthy subjects and to measure BRCA expression levels in shift workers. The study was approached in two ways. First, we examined diurnal variation of BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes in lymphocytes of 15 volunteers over a 24-hour period. Second, we measured the expression of these genes in lymphocytes from a group of shift and daytime workers. The change in 24-hour expression levels of BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes was statistically significant, decreasing from the peak at midday to the lowest level at midnight. Lower levels for both genes were found in shift workers compared to daytime workers. Diurnal variability of BRCA1 and BRCA2 expression suggests a relation of DNA double-strand break repair system with biological clock. Lower levels of BRCA1 and BRCA2 found in shift workers may be one of the potential factors related to the higher risk of breast cancer.
MicroRNAs in Obesity and Related Metabolic Disorders
Authors: Landrier Jean-François , Derghal Adel , Mounien Lourdes
Published: August 2019

Metabolic disorders are characterized by the inability to properly use and/or store energy. The burdens of metabolic disease, such as obesity or diabetes, are believed to arise through a complex interplay between genetics and epigenetics predisposition, environment and nutrition. Therefore, understanding the molecular mechanisms for the onset of metabolic disease will provide new insights for prevention and treatment. There is growing concern about the dysregulation of micro-RNAs (miRNAs) in metabolic diseases. MiRNAs are short non-coding RNA molecules that post-transcriptionally repress the expression of genes by binding to untranslated regions and coding sequences of the target mRNAs. This review aims to provide recent data about the potential involvement of miRNAs in metabolic diseases, particularly obesity and type 2 diabetes.
Androgen Receptor-Activated Enhancers Simultaneously Regulate Oncogene TMPRSS2 and lncRNA PRCAT38 in Prostate Cancer
Authors: Chen Zikai , Song Xuhong , Li Qidong , Xie Lingzhu , Guo Tangfei , Su Ting , Tang Chang , Chang Xiaolan , Liang Bin , Huang Dongyang
Published: August 2019

Prostate cancer is a common carcinoma in males, the development of which involves the androgen receptor (AR) as a key regulator. AR transactivation induces the high expression of androgen-regulated genes, including transmembrane protease serine 2 (TMPRSS2) and long noncoding RNA prostate cancer-associated transcript 38 (PRCAT38). PRCAT38 and TMPRSS2 are both located on chromosome 21, separated by a series of enhancers. PRCAT38 is a prostate-specific long noncoding RNA that is highly expressed in cancer tissue as compared to normal tissue. Here, we show chromatin looping by enhancers E1 and E2 with the promoters for PRCAT38 and TMPRSS2, indicating the co-regulation of PRCAT38 and TMPRSS2 by the same enhancers. The knockout of enhancer E1 or E2 simultaneously impaired the transcription of PRCAT38 and TMPRSS2 and inhibited cell growth and migration. Moreover, the loop formation and enhancer activity were mediated by AR/FOXA1 binding and the activity of acetyltransferase p300. Our findings demonstrate the utilization of shared enhancers in the joint regulation of two oncogenes in prostate cancer cells.
Construction and Comprehensive Analysis of a Molecular Association Network via lncRNA–miRNA–Disease–Drug–Protein Graph
Authors: Guo Zhen-Hao , Yi Hai-Cheng , You Zhu-Hong
Published: August 2019

One key issue in the post-genomic era is how to systematically describe the associations between small molecule transcripts or translations inside cells. With the rapid development of high-throughput “omics” technologies, the achieved ability to detect and characterize molecules with other molecule targets opens the possibility of investigating the relationships between different molecules from a global perspective. In this article, a molecular association network (MAN) is constructed and comprehensively analyzed by integrating the associations among miRNA, lncRNA, protein, drug, and disease, in which any kind of potential associations can be predicted. More specifically, each node in MAN can be represented as a vector by combining two kinds of information including the attribute of the node itself (e.g., sequences of ncRNAs and proteins, semantics of diseases and molecular fingerprints of drugs) and the behavior of the node in the complex network (associations with other nodes). A random forest classifier is trained to classify and predict new interactions or associations between biomolecules. In the experiment, the proposed method achieved a superb performance with an area under curve (AUC) of 0.9735 under a five-fold cross-validation, which showed that the proposed method could provide new insight for exploration of the molecular mechanisms of disease and valuable clues for disease treatment.
Structural and Reactivity Analyses of Nitrofurantoin–4-dimethylaminopyridine Salt Using Spectroscopic and Density Functional Theory Calculations
Authors: Khan Eram , Shukla Anuradha , Srivastava Karnica , Gangopadhyay Debraj , Assi Khaled H. , Tandon Poonam , Vangala Venu R.
Published: August 2019

Pharmaceutical salt, nitrofurantoin–4-dimethylaminopyridine (NF-DMAP), along with its native components NF and DMAP are scrutinized by FT-IR and FT-Raman spectroscopy along with density functional theory so that an insight into the H-bond patterns in the respective crystalline lattices can be gained. Two different functionals, B3LYP and wB97X-D, have been used to compare the theoretical results. The FT-IR spectra obtained for NF-DMAP and NF clearly validate the presence of C33–H34⋅⋅⋅O4 and N23–H24⋅⋅⋅N9 hydrogen bonds by shifting in the stretching vibration of –NH and –CH group of DMAP+ towards the lower wavenumber side. To explore the significance of hydrogen bonding, quantum theory of atoms in molecules (QTAIM) has been employed, and the findings suggest that the N23–H24⋅⋅⋅N9 bond is a strong intermolecular hydrogen bond. The decrement in the HOMO-LUMO gap, which is calculated from NF → NF-DMAP, reveals that the active pharmaceutical ingredient is chemically less reactive compared to the salt. The electrophilicity index (ω) profiles for NF and DMAP confirms that NF is acting as electron acceptor while DMAP acts as electron donor. The reactive sites of the salt are plotted by molecular electrostatic potential (MEP) surface and calculated using local reactivity descriptors.
Thin Film Transistor
Authors: Horng Ray-Hua
Published: August 2019

The special issue is "Thin Film Transistor". There are eight contributed papers. They focus on organic thin film transistors, fluorinated oligothiophenes transistors, surface treated or hydrogen effect on oxide-semiconductor-based thin film transistors, and their corresponding application in flat panel displays and optical detecting. The present special issue on “Thin Film Transistor” can be considered as a status report reviewing the progress that has been made recently on thin film transistor technology. These papers can provide the readers with more research information and corresponding application potential about Thin Film Transistors.
Aspect Extraction from Bangla Reviews Through Stacked Auto-Encoders
Authors: Bodini Matteo
Published: August 2019

Interactions between online users are growing more and more in recent years, due to the latest developments of the web. People share online comments, opinions, and reviews about many topics. Aspect extraction is the automatic process of understanding the topic (the aspect) of such comments, which has obtained huge interest from commercial and academic points of view. For instance, reviews available in webshops (like eBay, Amazon, Aliexpress, etc.) can help the customers in purchasing products and automatic analysis of reviews would be useful, as sometimes it is almost impossible to read all the available ones. In recent years, aspect extraction in the Bangla language has been regarded more and more as a task of growing importance. In the previous literature, a few methods have been introduced to classify Bangla texts according to the aspect they were focused on. This kind of research is limited mainly due to the lack of publicly available datasets for aspect extraction in the Bangla language. We take into account the only two publicly available datasets, recently published, collected for the task of aspect extraction in the Bangla language. Then, we introduce several classification methods based on stacked auto-encoders, as far as we know never exploited in the task of aspect extraction in Bangla, and we achieve better aspect classification performance with respect to the state-of-the-art: the experiments show an average improvement of 0.17 , 0.31 and 0.30 (across the two datasets), respectively in precision, recall and F1-score, reported in the state-of-the-art works that tackled the problem.
High-Pressure and Automatized System for Study of Natural Gas Hydrates
Authors: Rodrigues Luiz F. , Ramos Alessandro , de Araujo Gabriel , Silveira Edson , Ketzer Marcelo , Lourega Rogerio
Published: August 2019

Due to the declining of oil reserves in the world in the coming decades, gas hydrate (GH) is seen as the great promise to supply the planet’s energy demand. With this, the importance of studying the behavior of GH, several researchers have been developing different systems that allow greater truthfulness in relation to the conditions where GH is found in nature. This work describes a new system to simulate formation (precipitation) and dissociation of GH primarily at natural conditions at deep-sea, lakes, and permafrost, but also applied for artificial gas hydrates studies (pipelines, and transport of hydrocarbons, CO2, and hydrogen). This system is fully automated and unique, allowing the simultaneous work in two independent reactors, built in Hastelloy C-22, with a capacity of 1 L and 10 L, facilitating rapid analyses when compared to higher-volume systems. The system can operate using different mixtures of gases (methane, ethane, propane, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, ammonia), high pressure (up to 200 bar) with high operating safety, temperature (−30 to 200 °C), pH controllers, stirring system, water and gas samplers, and hyphenated system with gas chromatograph (GC) to analyze the composition of the gases formed in the GH and was projected to possibility the visualizations of experiments (quartz windows).
Research on Harmonic Current Amplification Effect of Parallel APF Compensating Voltage Source Nonlinear Load
Authors: Wei Xueliang , Li Cunzhong , Qi Mingxuan , Luo Bingyang , Deng Xiangtian , Zhu Guorong
Published: August 2019

A parallel active power filter (APF) is generally used to suppress dynamic harmonic current and compensate reactive power in the grid. However, parallel APF may have a negative effect on the load current when compensating the nonlinear load of a voltage source type, which may lead to the amplification effect of the load harmonic current. In this paper, the fundamental causes of harmonic current amplification were analyzed by studying the harmonic current amplification effect when a parallel APF compensates a nonlinear load. According to the results of the theoretical derivation, a feasible method to limit this current amplification effect by changing the system structure and the APF’s own control was proposed, and the corresponding design scheme is given. Finally, the correctness of the theoretical derivation of the harmonic current amplification effect and the feasibility of the proposed solution were proven through simulation and experiment.
Adaptive Frequency-Based Reference Compensation Current Control Strategy of Shunt Active Power Filter for Unbalanced Nonlinear Loads
Authors: Chen Cheng-I , Lan Chien-Kai , Chen Yeong-Chin , Chen Chung-Hsien
Published: August 2019

The shunt active power filter (SAPF) is an effective means for the modification of power quality. However, the compensation performance of SAPF would be deteriorated when the unbalanced nonlinear loads are present in the power system. To enhance the compensation performance of SAPF, the adaptive frequency-based reference compensation current control strategy is proposed in this paper. The proposed solution procedure can be divided into three stages including adaptive frequency detection, phase synchronization, and adaptive compensation. With the tracking of power system frequency, the phase synchronization for the SAPF compensation can be effectively modified under the power variation of unbalanced nonlinear loads. Based on the correct synchronization phase angle, the reference compensation current of SAPF can be accurately obtained with the adaptive linear neural network (ALNN) in the stage of adaptive compensation. In addition, the direct current (DC)-link voltage of SAPF can also be effectively regulated to maintain the compensation performance. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed adaptive frequency-based reference compensation current control strategy, the comprehensive case studies implemented with the hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) mechanism are performed to examine the compliance with the specification limits of IEEE Standard 519-2014. The experimental results reveal that the performance of proposed SAPF control strategy is superior to that of the traditional instantaneous reactive power compensation control technique (p-q method) and sliding discrete Fourier transform (DFT).
An Immune Firefly Algorithm for Tracking the Maximum Power Point of PV Array under Partial Shading Conditions
Authors: Zhang Mingrui , Chen Zheyang , Wei Li
Published: August 2019

Photovoltaic (PV) string exhibits complex multiple-peak characteristics under various partial shading conditions (PSC). If the maximum power point tracking cannot be achieved quickly and accurately, it will lead to a large amount of energy loss. Therefore, it has become a hot topic to study a reliable maximum power tracking control algorithm to ensure the PV system can still output maximum power under PSC. This paper proposes an immune firefly algorithm (IFA), which utilizes vaccine data-base to shorten the convergence time, eliminates the influence of bad individuals in time by immune replenishment operation, and reduces the steady-state oscillation by the improving iteration formula. The simulations in static and dynamic environments verify that the immune firefly algorithm can track the maximum power point under various partial shading conditions. Compared with conventional firefly algorithm (FA), IFA has faster convergence speed, and can effectively restrain the oscillation of voltage and power.
Shirley Jackson’s ‘The Lottery,’ and William Empson’s Seven Types of Ambiguity
Authors: Hakaraia Teresa
Published: August 2019

Shirley Jackson’s, ‘The Lottery,’ is without doubt her most famous work. It is one of the most anthologized short stories in America. However, despite the popularity of the short story, very few critics have attempted to delve deeper into the story’s meaning. Those few critics who have attempted to prove the story’s message have done well in the sense that they have picked up on ‘a’ pattern, but have failed to see that there are also contrasting patterns which cross over and cut through each other. Shirley Jackson deserves far more praise than what she has received for the intricacies, the small details and the well thought out design of the story. When one discovers that Jackson admired William Empson’s, Seven Types of Ambiguities, in which he argues the best authors (such as William Shakespeare) purposely create ambiguities in their writing so that the reader questions and wonders what the author might have meant, one can begin to understand that there is more to Jackson than what critics have argued, and even she herself has said about the story. It is clear that she had an admiration for Empson, as two years before ‘The Lottery,’ she wrote, ‘Seven Types of Ambiguity,’ in which Empson’s book is the coveted object of desire. This 1946 story can be read in two opposing ways. I would argue that ‘The Lottery,’ can be read in five opposing ways. The three-legged stool of the story represents the three pillars or legs of society: economics, politics, and religion. Her story can be read as being anti-capitalist, anti-communist and anti-religious, most specifically making references to Judaism, Islam and Christianity. Jackson has done this to critique the idea that these economic, political and religious traditions were created to benefit humanity. However, over time, these systems have become corrupted by their leaders, so that rather than protecting their people, these structures of society are used to both punish their people and to invoke violence upon each other in the name of that tradition.
Exploiting Olive Mill Byproducts and Other Waste for Organic Weed Management
Authors: Tubeileh Ashraf M. , Schnorf Justin T. , Mondragon Israel , Gray Gary A.
Published: August 2019

Weed management represents one of the most serious and costly challenges in organic crop production systems. Agricultural waste/byproducts might present phytotoxicity that can be exploited to control weeds. Two experiments were designed to study the effects of four concentrations of olive vegetation water (OVW) and a control water treatment (with no OVW) on cheeseweed (Malva parviflora L.) seed germination in petri dishes and pots. In a third experiment, two rates of four composts (crop residue mix (CR), olive pomace (OP), dairy/horse manure (DM), and an OP/DM mix) were mixed into a clay‒loam soil at 0.10 or 0.20 L L−1, to assess their effects on weed number and biomass, in addition to bell pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) growth. In the petri dish experiment, the three highest OVW concentrations completely prohibited germination during the five-week duration of the study. For the pot experiment, 25 mL application of OVW significantly delayed and reduced cheeseweed germination, with the reduction being proportional to the concentration of OVW. In the third experiment, composts reduced weed dry matter (composed mostly of purslane (Portulaca oleracea L.)), with the CR compost being the most effective, reducing total weed biomass by 67% compared to the control. CR10 and DM10 tended to increase bell pepper yields, although none of the plant parameters was significantly affected by the compost treatments.
Evaluation and Bias Correction of CHIRP Rainfall Estimate for Rainfall-Runoff Simulation over Lake Ziway Watershed, Ethiopia
Authors: Goshime Demelash Wondimagegnehu , Absi Rafik , Ledésert Béatrice
Published: August 2019

In Lake Ziway watershed in Ethiopia, the contribution of river inflow to the water level has not been quantified due to scarce data for rainfall-runoff modeling. However, satellite rainfall estimates may serve as an alternative data source for model inputs. In this study, we evaluated the performance and the bias correction of Climate Hazards Group InfraRed Precipitation (CHIRP) satellite estimate for rainfall-runoff simulation at Meki and Katar catchments using the Hydrologiska Byråns Vattenbalansavdelning (HBV) hydrological model. A non-linear power bias correction method was applied to correct CHIRP bias using rain gauge data as a reference. Results show that CHIRP has biases at various spatial and temporal scales over the study area. The CHIRP bias with percentage relative bias (PBIAS) ranging from −16 to 20% translated into streamflow simulation through the HBV model. However, bias-corrected CHIRP rainfall estimate effectively reduced the bias and resulted in improved streamflow simulations. Results indicated that the use of different rainfall inputs impacts both the calibrated parameters and its performance in simulating daily streamflow of the two catchments. The calibrated model parameter values obtained using gauge and bias-corrected CHIRP rainfall inputs were comparable for both catchments. We obtained a change of up to 63% on the parameters controlling the water balance when uncorrected CHIRP satellite rainfall served as model inputs. The results of this study indicate that the potential of bias-corrected CHIRP rainfall estimate for water balance studies.