We compare Temporal Difference Learning (TDL) with Coevolutionary Learning (CEL) on Othello. Apart from using three popular single-criteria performance measures: i) generalization performance or expected utility, ii) average results against a hand-crafted heuristic and iii) result in a head to head match, we compare the algorithms using performance profiles. This multi-criteria performance meas...

The goal of the study reported in the paper was to determine whether rendering style (non-photorealistic versus realistic) has an effect on perception of American Sign Language (ASL) finger spelling animations. Sixty-nine (69) subjects participated in the experiment; all subjects were ASL users. The participants were asked to watch forty (40) sign language animation clips representing twenty (2...

Thrombospondin (TSP) binds to its cellular receptor, CD36 (glycoprotein IV or IIIb), and participates in many adhesive cell interactions. We have shown that the CD36-TSP interaction occurs in a stepwise, conformation-dependent process. CD36 sequence 139-155 binds TSP and induces a second CD36-binding site, which binds CD36 sequence 93-110 with high affinity. To characterize this high affinity C...

Diabetic nephropathy (DN) is one of the most common complications of diabetes mellitus (DM). However, the exact mechanism is not clearly understood. In this study, our results showed that 24 h urinary protein, kidney index, and glomerular area were decreased, while creatinine clearance ratio was increased in DN rats when the rats were treated with NAR 50 mg/d for 6 weeks. Mesangial cell (MMCs) ...

Picture 1. Biopsy of the neck lymph node. (A) Difuse medium cel lymphoma (mantle cel lymphoma) (HE stain). (B) Positive immunostaining of lymphoma cels with anti-cyclin D1 antibody. Picture 2. Formalin-fixed (A) right and (B) left lungs showing major bronchi with marked thickening of the wal and a pencil lead caliber. MB, main bronchus; ULB, upper lobe bronchus; MLB, middle lobe bronchus; LLB, ...

aLaboratório de Dinâmicas Ecológicas, Departamento de Zoologia, Universidade Federal do Paraná – UFPR, Av. Cel. Francisco Heráclito dos Santos, s/n, Jardim das Américas, CP 19020, CEP 81530-980, Curitiba, PR, Brazil bLaboratório de Biologia Comparada de Hymenoptera, Departamento de Zoologia, Universidade Federal do Paraná – UFPR, Av. Cel. Francisco Heráclito dos Santos, s/n, Jardim das Américas...

BACKGROUND Thermochemical pretreatment of lignocellulose is crucial to bioconversion in the fields of biorefinery and biofuels. However, the enzyme inhibitors in pretreatment hydrolysate make solid substrate washing and hydrolysate detoxification indispensable prior to enzymatic hydrolysis. Sulfite pretreatment to overcome recalcitrance of lignocelluloses (SPORL) is a relatively new process, bu...

The impact of colonic fermentation on postileal absorption of Ca, Mg, P, Cu, Fe, Mn, and Zn was investigated in 8 ileally cannulated grower pigs (initial BW = 29.1 ± 1.6 kg) according to a double 4 × 4 Latin square. A semi-purified diet was supplemented with 5.20% low viscous, low fermentable cellulose (CEL), 6.25% high viscous, low fermentable carboxymethylcellulose (CMC), 8.95% low viscous, h...

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) regulate cell proliferation and differentiation by silencing gene expression at the post-transcriptional level; moreover, by binding to the complementary sequences within mRNAs in cancer cells, these small non-coding RNA molecules can function as tumor suppressors or oncogenes. Recently, the dysregulation of miRNA expression has been found to be associated with increased tumo...

Starting from theophylline (1,3-dimethylxanthine) new thiazolidin-4-one derivatives 7a₁₋₇, 7b₁₋₇ have been synthesized as potential antidiabetic drugs. The structure of the new derivatives was confirmed using spectral methods (FT-IR, ¹H-NMR, ¹³C-NMR). The in vitro antioxidant potential of the synthesized compounds was evaluated according to the ferric reducing power, the total antioxidant activ...