Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Response of rice varieties to water limit conditions in North Iran.

2 Abstract: For Study of effect irrigation method on growth and yield of rice varieties, factorial experiment was conducted in 2008, on pot conditions. 8 varieties include local varieties, breeding varieties and hybrid variety, 4 irrigation management include submerge irrigation with 5, 8 and 11 day interval were studied in three replications. In maturity time, yield measurement, plant height, panicle length, unfilled grain weight, Weight of 100 grain, amount of irrigation, number of grains per panicle, total biomass and number of tillers in pot were done. Results show that there are significant difference in probability level, all measured properties between rice varieties and all measured properties, except amount of Weight of 100 grain, in irrigation management. results of mean comparison between irrigation management show that yield, plant height, panicle length, Weight of 100 grain and number of grains per panicle in submerge and 5 day interval irrigation management are placed to one group, therefore it can be recommended that 5 day interval irrigation are placed on submerge irrigation.
The effect of iliac crest autograft on the outcome of fusion in the setting of degenerative spondylolisthesis: a subgroup analysis of the Spine Patient Outcomes Research Trial (SPORT).

BACKGROUND There is considerable controversy about the long-term morbidity associated with the use of posterior autologous iliac crest bone graft for lumbar spine fusion procedures compared with the use of bone-graft substitutes. The hypothesis of this study was that there is no long-term difference in outcome for patients who had posterior lumbar fusion with or without iliac crest autograft. METHODS The study population includes patients enrolled in the degenerative spondylolisthesis cohort of the Spine Patient Outcomes Research Trial who underwent lumbar spinal fusion. Patients were divided according to whether they had or had not received posterior autologous iliac crest bone graft. RESULTS There were 108 patients who had fusion with iliac crest autograft and 246 who had fusion without iliac crest autograft. There were no baseline differences between groups in demographic characteristics, comorbidities, or baseline clinical scores. At baseline, the group that received iliac crest bone graft had an increased percentage of patients who had multilevel fusions (32% versus 21%; p=0.033) and L5-S1 surgery (37% versus 26%; p=0.031) compared with the group without iliac crest autograft. Operative time was higher in the iliac crest bone-graft group (233.4 versus 200.9 minutes; p<0.001), and there was a trend toward increased blood loss (686.9 versus 582.3; p=0.057). There were no significant differences in postoperative complications, including infection or reoperation rates, between the groups. On the basis of the numbers available, no significant differences were detected between the groups treated with or without iliac crest bone graft with regard to the scores on Short Form-36, Oswestry Disability Index, Stenosis Bothersomeness Index, and Low Back Pain Bothersomeness Scale or the percent of patient satisfaction with symptoms averaged over the study period. CONCLUSIONS The outcome scores associated with the use of posterior iliac crest bone graft for lumbar spinal fusion were not significantly lower than those after fusion without iliac crest autograft. Conversely, iliac crest bone-grafting was not associated with an increase in the complication rates or rates of reoperation. On the basis of these results, surgeons may choose to use iliac crest bone graft on a case-by-case basis for lumbar spinal fusion.
A Randomized Pharmacokinetic Study of Generic Tacrolimus Versus Reference Tacrolimus in Kidney Transplant Recipients

Pharmacokinetic analyses comparing generic tacrolimus preparations versus the reference drug in kidney transplant patients are lacking. A prospective, multicenter, open‐label, randomized, two‐period (14 days per period), two‐sequence, crossover and steady‐state pharmacokinetic study was undertaken to compare twice‐daily generic tacrolimus (Sandoz) versus reference tacrolimus (Prograf®) in stable renal transplant patients. AUC0–12h and peak concentration (Cmax) were calculated from 12 h pharmacokinetic profiles at the end of each period (days 14 and 28). Of 71 patients enrolled, 68 provided evaluable pharmacokinetic data. The ratios of geometric means were 1.02 (90% CI 97–108%, p = 0.486) for AUC0–12h and 1.09 (90% CI 101–118%, p = 0.057) for Cmax. Mean (SD) C0 was 7.3(1.8) ng/mL for generic tacrolimus versus 7.0(2.1) ng/mL for reference tacrolimus based on data from days 14 and 28. Correlations between 12 h trough levels and AUC were r = 0.917 for generic tacrolimus and r = 0.887 for reference drug at day 28. These data indicate that generic tacrolimus (Sandoz) has a similar pharmacokinetic profile to the reference drug and is bioequivalent in kidney transplant recipients according to US Food and Drug Administration and European Medicines Agency guidelines.
Assessment on the Effect of Climate Change on Streamflow in the Source Region of the Yangtze River, China

Tuotuo River basin, known as the source region of the Yangtze River, is the key area where the impact of climate change has been observed on many of the hydrological processes of this central region of the Tibetan Plateau. In this study, we examined six Global Climate Models (GCMs) under three Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) scenarios. First, the already impacted climate change was analyzed, based on the historical data available and then, the simulation results of the GCMs and RCPs were used for future scenario assessments. Results indicated that the annual mean temperature will likely be increased, ranging from −0.66 °C to 6.68 °C during the three future prediction periods (2020s, 2050s and 2080s), while the change in the annual precipitation ranged from −1.18% to 66.14%. Then, a well-known distributed hydrological soil vegetation model (DHSVM) was utilized to evaluate the effects of future climate change on the streamflow dynamics. The seasonal mean streamflows, predicted by the six GCMs and the three RCPs scenarios, were also shown to likely increase, ranging from −0.52% to 22.58%. Watershed managers and regulators can use the findings from this study to better implement their conservation practices in the face of climate change.
Exacerbated experimental arthritis in Wiskott–Aldrich syndrome protein deficiency: Modulatory role of regulatory B cells

Patients deficient in the cytoskeletal regulator Wiskott–Aldrich syndrome protein (WASp) are predisposed to varied autoimmunity, suggesting it has an important controlling role in participating cells. IL‐10‐producing regulatory B (Breg) cells are emerging as important mediators of immunosuppressive activity. In experimental, antigen‐induced arthritis WASp‐deficient (WASp knockout [WAS KO]) mice developed exacerbated disease associated with decreased Breg cells and regulatory T (Treg) cells, but increased Th17 cells in knee‐draining LNs. Arthritic WAS KO mice showed increased serum levels of B‐cell‐activating factor, while their B cells were unresponsive in terms of B‐cell‐activating factor induced survival and IL‐10 production. Adoptive transfer of WT Breg cells ameliorated arthritis in WAS KO recipients and restored a normal balance of Treg and Th17 cells. Mice with B‐cell‐restricted WASp deficiency, however, did not develop exacerbated arthritis, despite exhibiting reduced Breg‐ and Treg‐cell numbers during active disease, and Th17 cells were not increased over equivalent WT levels. These findings support a contributory role for defective Breg cells in the development of WAS‐related autoimmunity, but demonstrate that functional competence in other regulatory populations can be compensatory. A properly regulated cytoskeleton is therefore important for normal Breg‐cell activity and complementation of defects in this lineage is likely to have important therapeutic benefits.
In-Vitro Selection for Stress Tolerant Spearmint *

Hussein Al-Amier and Lyle E. CrakerMedicinal and aromatic plant species are important sources of secondary metabolites with therapeutic, cosmetic, and food processing applications. The quality of the metabolites, however, frequently varies due to inconsistencies in secondary metabolite composition of plant extracts, especially within the family Lamiaceae. A major contributing factor to these metabolite inconsistencies is undoubtedly due to plant heterogeneity, a characteristic of open-pollinated species. Thus, various genotypes occur within a plant population, differing in physical and metabolic traits that control plant growth, chemistry, and environmental susceptibility. Spearmint (
Moral impasses in sustainability education? Empirical results from school geography in Austria and Germany

Abstract The expert-driven and normative character of sustainability education aims to promote societal transformation and global change. While some authors underline the ethical claims of education, others have criticized that there is a problematic tendency to prescribe certain actions beyond ethical education. The article aims to provide an empirical contribution, including students’ and teachers’ perspectives, and geography textbooks, to the debate. Based on the results of an empirical study with 1001 secondary school students in Austria and Germany, we discuss the “ethical turn” and the moral code in sustainability education. The questionnaires are completed with students’ drawings, qualitative interviews with geography teachers and an analysis of geography textbooks. We argue that most students have a precise idea what sustainability and sustainable behavior means, but they harbor right-wrong binary perceptions of sustainable lifestyles. Many students lack knowledge of the interdependence of consumption and production networks, which impedes the understanding of complex sustainability patterns. Therefore, we recommend pluralistic and interconnected perspectives in sustainability, in the frame of school geography. A more democratic classroom contributes to develop an own moral compass. Additionally, passion and participatory approaches can help students reflect on their affective relationships with consumer goods and consider alternative consumption-production paradigms.
Ethanolic extract of Commiphora mukul gum resin attenuates streptozotocin-induced alterations in carbohydrate and lipid metabolism in rats

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of Commiphora mukul gum resin ethanolic extract (CMEEt) administration against altered activities of key enzymes of carbohydrate metabolism, lipid metabolism and changes in glycogen content (liver and muscle) and lipids (liver and heart) in streptozotocin (STZ) induced insulin deficient diabetic Wistar albino rats. Diabetes was induced by intraperitoneal injection of STZ (55 mg/kg body wt) to male Wistar rats. The animals were divided into four groups: Control (C), control-treated (C+CM), diabetic (D) and diabetic-treated group (D+CM). Diabetic-treated and control-treated rats were treated with C. mukul gum resin ethanolic extract (CMEEt) in 2 ml distilled water, orally (200 mg/kg body weight/day for 60 days). At the end of the experimental period, biochemical parameters related to carbohydrate and lipid metabolism were assayed. The significant enhancement in tissue lipids (heart and liver) total cholesterol, triglycerides, phospholipids and free fatty acids of diabetic rats were nearer to normalized in diabetic treated rats (D+CM). Alterations in the activities of enzymes of glucose metabolism (hexokinase, phosphofructokinase, pyruvate kinase, and glucose-6-phosphatase, fructose-1,6-bisphosphatase and glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase) and lipid metabolism (fatty acid synthase, malic enzyme and lipoprotein lipase) as observed in diabetic (D) rats were prevented with CMEEt administration. In conclusion, our findings indicate improvement of glucose and lipid metabolisms in STZ induced diabetic rats by treatment with Commiphora mukul and suggest that the plant can be used as an adjuvant for the prevention and/or management of insulin deficiency and disorder related to it.
Lexical Simplification with Neural Ranking

We present a new Lexical Simplification approach that exploits Neural Networks to learn substitutions from the Newsela corpus - a large set of professionally produced simplifications. We extract candidate substitutions by combining the Newsela corpus with a retrofitted context-aware word embeddings model and rank them using a new neural regression model that learns rankings from annotated data. This strategy leads to the highest Accuracy, Precision and F1 scores to date in standard datasets for the task.
REPLICA : Relational Policies Learning in Planning

REPLICA is a relational instance based learning module for solving STRIPS planning problems described in PDDL. REPLICA learns a reduced policy represented by a set of pairs <meta-state,action>. The meta-state represents the current planning state and the goal; the action represents the operator to execute in such meta-state. Both are described in terms of predicate logic. The next action to execute by the policy is computed as the action associated to the closest meta-state in that set. First, we extract an initial policy composed of a set of tuples (meta-state, action) from a set of solution plans. Second, we reduce this policy to obtain a subset of these tuples that generalizes the complete set. This learning proccess is done using relational nearest prototype classification. Finally, we use this policy for ordering the actions of the relaxed plans in a lookahead strategy for heuristic and forward
Foundations of access control for secure storage

Formal techniques have played a significant role in the study of secure communication in recent years. Specifically, there has been much research in developing process calculi, type systems, logics, and other foundations for the rigorous design and analysis of secure communication protocols. In comparison, the study of secure storage has received far less formal attention. Yet, over the years storage has assumed a pervasive role in modern computing. Now storage is a fundamental part of most networked computer systems that we rely on—and understanding secure storage is as important as understanding secure communication. One might wonder whether the foundations of secure communication already provide those of secure storage—after all, storage is a form of communication. Certainly it would be nice if techniques developed for the study of secure communication can also be applied to study secure storage. We propose to make these connections explicit. On the other hand, some distinctive features of storage pose problems for security that seem to go beyond those explored in the context of communication protocols. Perhaps the most striking of these features is access control. Indeed, storage systems typically feature access control on store operations, for various reasons that are informally linked with security. We see an intriguing and challenging research opportunity in understanding the foundations of access control for security in such systems. Therefore we propose a thorough investigation of formal techniques for the purposes of specifying, implementing, verifying, and exploiting access control in storage systems. We envisage two complementary lines of work: one that focuses on correctness proofs for various implementations of access control, and another that assumes correct “black-box” access control in proofs of end-to-end security properties. More specifically, we are interested in articulating and justifying precise security properties of several complex cryptographic access controls that appear in a variety of distributed storage designs. We are also interested in proof techniques that combine access control with static analysis for more concrete guarantees like secrecy and integrity. We report some preliminary work along these lines and outline related ongoing work. We also discuss work that remains to be done within the scope of this thesis—including work on consolidating and organizing the state of the art—and sketch a tentative plan of action that roughly spans the next two years. Finally, we summarize what we expect to be the main contributions of this thesis, and speculate on its likely impact on system security.
Modeling Texas Hold'em Poker Strategies with Bayesian Networks

Poker is an exciting game of chance, psychology and skill. Development of an algorithm for playing poker (a pokerbot) has long been a beloved research topic for procrastinating computer scientists. In this work we join their ranks by presenting an example of a Bayesian network–driven approach to modeling strategy for a pokerbot. This approach is, naturally, not new – a well-known Bayesian poker player dates from 1999 [3] with improvements and variations being developed ever since [4, 5]. Nonetheless, we believe there are still numerous paths to be explored in this area. For example, it is only recently that the possibility of exhaustively enumerating all the 52! /43! = 1 335 062 881 152 000 nine-card combinations defining the states of two-player Texas holdem has become commonly accessible. Although the approaches we are going to discuss might be applicable, with small modifications, to a wide variety of poker games, we fix our goal here to the game of two player fixed limit Texas hold’em. Besides being one of the most popular poker variations in existence, it is also simple enough to fit nicely into the limited scope of this project.
Universality in Polytope Phase Transitions and Message Passing Algorithms

We consider a class of nonlinear mappings FA,N in R N indexed by symmetric random matrices A ∈ R N×N with independent entries. Within spin glass theory, special cases of these mappings correspond to iterating the TAP equations and were studied by Erwin Bolthausen. Within information theory, they are known as ‘approximate message passing’ algorithms. We study the high-dimensional (large N) behavior of the iterates of F for polynomial functions F, and prove that it is universal, i.e. it depends only on the first two moments of the entries of A, under a subgaussian tail condition. As an application, we prove the universality of a certain phase transition arising in polytope geometry and compressed sensing. This solves –for a broad class of random projections– a conjecture by David Donoho and Jared Tanner.
Effect of Eucaloric High- and Low-Sucrose Diets With Identical Macronutrient Profile on Insulin Resistance and Vascular Risk

The long-term impact of dietary carbohydrate type, in particular sucrose, on insulin resistance and the development of diabetes and atherosclerosis is not established. Current guidelines for the healthy population advise restriction of sucrose intake. We investigated the effect of high- versus low-sucrose diet (25 vs. 10%, respectively, of total energy intake) in 13 healthy subjects aged 33 ± 3 years (mean ± SE), BMI 26.6 ± 0.9 kg/m2, in a randomized crossover design with sequential 6-week dietary interventions separated by a 4-week washout. Weight maintenance, eucaloric diets with identical macronutrient profiles and fiber content were designed. All food was weighed and distributed. Insulin action was assessed using a two-step euglycemic clamp; glycemic profiles were assessed by the continuous glucose monitoring system and vascular compliance by pulse-wave analysis. There was no change in weight across the study. Peripheral glucose uptake and suppression of endogenous glucose production were similar after each diet. Glycemic profiles and measures of vascular compliance did not change. A rise in total and LDL cholesterol was observed. In this study, a high-sucrose intake as part of an eucaloric, weight-maintaining diet had no detrimental effect on insulin sensitivity, glycemic profiles, or measures of vascular compliance in healthy nondiabetic subjects.
Please Scroll down for Article Acta Oto-laryngologica Radical Scavengers for Elderly Patients with Age-related Hearing Loss Radical Scavengers for Elderly Patients with Age-related Hearing Loss

This article may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution , reselling , loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material. Abstract Conclusion. The results of this study suggest that treatment with radical scavengers has the potential to become an effective new therapy for age-related hearing loss. Obective. To assess the efficacy of treatment with radical scavengers for age-related hearing loss. Subjects and methods. Rebamipide (300 mg/day), a-lipoic acid (60 mg/day), and vitamin C (600 mg/day) were given orally for at least 8 weeks to 46 elderly patients with age-related hearing loss. Results. Hearing levels after treatment were significantly improved at all frequencies.
“Policies, Institutions and the Euro: Dilemmas of Legitimacy and Democratic Control”

Accepting the underlying political nature of the monetary union project, this paper seeks to question the foundations of its legitimacy, and investigate the problems connected with democratic control under an EMU regime. In doing so, we suggest that current and future problems of legitimation of the single currency can be explained as follows. On the one hand, EMU rests on the creation of a set of powerful institutions with direct and executive authority in an area of policy-making, i.e. monetary policy, which is generally regarded as elementary to the governance of modern economy and society. On the other hand, the establishment of important and autonomous institutions at the European level precedes the emergence of a political community in which such decisions, or, more significantly, the procedures for the taking of such decisions, can be grounded. Indeed, as remarked at the outset, EMU is specifically designed to contribute to the emergence of such a polity.