Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Systematic Study of the Content of Phytochemicals in Fresh and Fresh-Cut Vegetables

Vegetables and fruits have beneficial properties for human health, because of the presence of phytochemicals, but their concentration can fluctuate throughout the year. A systematic study of the phytochemical content in tomato, eggplant, carrot, broccoli and grape (fresh and fresh-cut) has been performed at different seasons, using liquid chromatography coupled to triple quadrupole mass spectrometry. It was observed that phenolic acids (the predominant group in carrot, eggplant and tomato) were found at higher concentrations in fresh carrot than in fresh-cut carrot. However, in the case of eggplant, they were detected at a higher content in fresh-cut than in fresh samples. Regarding tomato, the differences in the content of phenolic acids between fresh and fresh-cut were lower than in other matrices, except in winter sampling, where this family was detected at the highest concentration in fresh tomato. In grape, the flavonols content (predominant group) was higher in fresh grape than in fresh-cut during all samplings. The content of glucosinolates was lower in fresh-cut broccoli than in fresh samples in winter and spring sampling, although this trend changes in summer and autumn. In summary, phytochemical concentration did show significant differences during one-year monitoring, and the families of phytochemicals presented different behaviors depending on the matrix studied.
Validity and reliability of isometric muscle strength measurements of hip abduction and abduction with external hip rotation in a bent-hip position using a handheld dynamometer with a belt

[Purpose] This study aimed to investigate the relatedness, reliability, and validity of isometric muscle strength measurements of hip abduction and abduction with an external hip rotation in a bent-hip position using a handheld dynamometer with a belt. [Subjects and Methods] Twenty healthy young adults, with a mean age of 21.5 ± 0.6 years were included. Isometric hip muscle strength in the subjects’ right legs was measured under two posture positions using two devices: a handheld dynamometer with a belt and an isokinetic dynamometer. Reliability was evaluated using an intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC); relatedness and validity were evaluated using Pearson’s product moment correlation coefficient. Differences in measurements of devices were assessed by two-way ANOVA. [Results] ICC (1, 1) was ≥0.9; significant positive correlations in measurements were found between the two devices under both conditions. No main effect was found between the measurement values. [Conclusion] Our findings revealed that there was relatedness, reliability, and validity of this method for isometric muscle strength measurements using a handheld dynamometer with a belt.
13C-NMR Data of Diterpenes Isolated from Aristolochia Species

The genus Aristolochia, an important source of physiologically active compounds that belong to different chemical classes, is the subject of research in numerous pharmacological and chemical studies. This genus contains a large number of terpenoid compounds, particularly diterpenes. This work presents a compilation of the 13C-NMR data of 57 diterpenoids described between 1981 and 2007 which were isolated from Aristolochia species. The compounds are arranged skeletonwise in each section, according to their structures, i.e., clerodane, labdane, and kaurane derivatives. A brief discussion on the 13C chemical shifts of these diterpenes is also included.
Characterizing the Common Prior Assumption

Logical characterizations of the common prior assumption (CPA) are investigated. Two approaches are considered. The first is called frame distinguishability, and is similar in spirit to the approaches considered in the economics literature. Results similar to those obtained in the economics literature are proved here as well, namely, that we can distinguish finite spaces that satisfy the CPA from those that do not in terms of disagreements in expectation. However, it is shown that, for the language used here, no formulas can distinguish infinite spaces satisfying the CPA from those that do not. The second approach considered is that of finding a sound and complete axiomatization. Such an axiomatization is provided; again, the key axiom involves disagreements in expectation. The same axiom system is shown to be sound and complete both in the finite and the infinite case. Thus, the two approaches to characterizing the CPA behave quite differently in the case of infinite spaces.
Working Memory Neurons in Pigeons

Working memory, the ability to temporarily store and manipulate currently relevant information, is required for most cognitive faculties. In humans and other mammals, the prefrontal cortex (PFC) provides the underlying neural network for these processes. Within the PFC, working memory neurons display sustained elevated activity while holding active an internal representation of the relevant stimulus during its physical absence or retaining a motor plan for the forthcoming response. Working memory, however, is not a hallmark of higher vertebrates endowed with a neocortex. Birds also master complex cognitive problems invoking working memory, but they lack a laminated neocortex. Behavioral studies in pigeons show that the neostriatum caudolaterale (NCL) plays a central role in executive functions, such as working memory and response control. For neurons in the NCL of pigeons, we show activity changes during the delay of a working memory task, which were similar to those observed in PFC neurons and were related to the successful holding of information in memory and to the subsequent behavior. Thus, although the anatomical and morphological structure of the neuronal substrate in birds is radically different from the mammalian neocortical architecture, the neuronal mechanisms evolved to master equivalent cognitive demands seem to be very similar.
New SX Phoenicis Stars in the Globular Cluster M53

Through time-series CCD photometry of the metal-poor globular cluster M53 we have discovered eight new SX Phoenicis–type stars (labeled "SXP1" to "SXP8"). All the new SX Phoenicis stars are located in the blue straggler star region of the color-magnitude diagram of M53. One of these stars (SXP2) is found to have very closely separated pulsation frequencies: f1/f2 = 0.9595, where f1 and f2 are the primary and secondary frequencies, respectively. This may be due to excitation of nonradial modes. Six of these SX Phoenicis stars are considered to be pulsating in the fundamental mode. They show a tight linear correlation between the period and luminosity. We derive a period-luminosity relation for the fundamental mode for the period range of -1.36 < log P(days) < -1.15: ⟨V⟩ = -3.010(±0.262) log P + 15.310(±0.048) with an rms scatter of 0.038, corresponding to ⟨MV⟩ = -3.010 log P - 1.070 for an adopted distance modulus of (m - M)V = 16.38.
In Vitro Tumor Models: Advantages, Disadvantages, Variables, and Selecting the Right Platform

In vitro tumor models have provided important tools for cancer research and serve as low-cost screening platforms for drug therapies; however, cancer recurrence remains largely unchecked due to metastasis, which is the cause of the majority of cancer-related deaths. The need for an improved understanding of the progression and treatment of cancer has pushed for increased accuracy and physiological relevance of in vitro tumor models. As a result, in vitro tumor models have concurrently increased in complexity and their output parameters further diversified, since these models have progressed beyond simple proliferation, invasion, and cytotoxicity screens and have begun recapitulating critical steps in the metastatic cascade, such as intravasation, extravasation, angiogenesis, matrix remodeling, and tumor cell dormancy. Advances in tumor cell biology, 3D cell culture, tissue engineering, biomaterials, microfabrication, and microfluidics have enabled rapid development of new in vitro tumor models that often incorporate multiple cell types, extracellular matrix materials, and spatial and temporal introduction of soluble factors. Other innovations include the incorporation of perfusable microvessels to simulate the tumor vasculature and model intravasation and extravasation. The drive toward precision medicine has increased interest in adapting in vitro tumor models for patient-specific therapies, clinical management, and assessment of metastatic potential. Here, we review the wide range of current in vitro tumor models and summarize their advantages, disadvantages, and suitability in modeling specific aspects of the metastatic cascade and drug treatment.
Stress response pathways in protozoan parasites

Diseases caused by protozoan parasites have a dramatic impact on world health. Emerging drug resistance and a general lack of experimental understanding has created a void in the medicine cabinet used to treat these widespread infections. A novel therapeutic idea that is receiving more attention is centred on targeting the microbe's response to the multitude of environmental stresses it encounters. Protozoan pathogens have complex life cycles, often having to transition from one host to another, or survive in a cyst form in the environment until a new host arrives. The need to respond to environmental cues and stress, and endure in less than optimal conditions, is paramount to their viability and successful progression through their life cycle. This review summarizes the research on parasitic stress responses for Apicomplexa, kinetoplastids and anaerobic protozoa, with an eye towards how these processes may be exploited therapeutically.
Cyclical modulation of sphingosine-1-phosphate receptor 1 surface expression during lymphocyte recirculation and relationship to lymphoid organ transit

Sphingosine-1-phosphate receptor 1 (S1P1) was recently shown to be required for lymphocyte egress from lymphoid organs. Here we have examined the relationship between S1P1 abundance on the cell and egress efficiency. Using an integrin neutralization approach to separate the processes of entry and exit, we show that pertussis toxin treatment reduces lymphocyte egress from lymph nodes. Retrovirally mediated S1P1 overexpression is sufficient to reduce B cell accumulation in the splenic white pulp and to promote egress of activated T cells from lymph nodes, whereas S1P1 +/ −cells have reduced lymph node exit efficiency. Furthermore, lymphocyte S1P1 is down-regulated in the blood, up-regulated in lymphoid organs, and down-regulated again in the lymph. We propose that cyclical ligand-induced modulation of S1P1 on circulating lymphocytes contributes to establishing their lymphoid organ transit time.
Putting Business Students in the Shoes of an Executive: An Applied Learning Approach to Developing Decision Making Skills.

Students often struggle with how to translate textbook concepts into real-world applications that allow them to personally experience the importance of these concepts. This is an ongoing challenge within all disciplines in higher education. To address this, faculty design their courses using methods beyond traditional classroom lectures to facilitate and reinforce student learning. The authors believe that students who are given hands-on problem-solving opportunities are more likely to retain such knowledge and apply it outside the classroom, in the workplace, volunteer activities, and other personal pursuits. In an attempt to engage students and provide them with meaningful opportunities to apply course concepts, the authors have initiated a number of experiential learning methods in the classroom. Since fall of 2008, elements of problem-based learning were integrated in the authors’ business courses. Specifically, real-world consulting projects were introduced into their classrooms. This paper focuses on the authors’ experiences implementing problem-based learning processes and practical project assignments that actively engage students in the learning process. The experiences and the feedback gathered from students and executives who participated in the “realworld” project are reported in this paper. Experiential Learning Theory (ELT) is based on the work of Dewey, Lewin, and Piaget (Kolb, 1984). This approach is an established, integrative, holistic learning process that combines experience, perception, cognition, and behavioral learning approaches that optimize student learning and retention. Kolb and Kolb (2005) define experiential learning as a process that relies primarily on creating an environment in which students have direct experiences using concepts and theories presented in class. The goals of adopting experiential learning in the classroom include engaging students at a higher level of cognitive complexity, involving students in an active learning environment, demonstrating the application of theories in real-world situations, and developing students’ ability to make business decisions that are based on analytical approaches. Experiential learning has become a significant educational pedagogy that has influenced the teaching and learning process for faculty and instructors at many educational institutions and in and across disciplines (Daly, 2001). Common forms of experiential learning include case studies, computer simulations, service learning projects, travel study courses, internships, and real-life consulting projects. Instructors who wish to pursue experiential learning pedagogies can avail themselves of a wide range of teaching methods and approaches. Each method has distinct advantages and disadvantages. These approaches can be ranked on a continuum representing increasing levels of cognitive complexity and linkages to real-world outcomes and processes. Table 1 below summarizes various experiential
Cigarette smoking, occupational exposure to noise, and self reported hearing difficulties

Aims: To explore the interaction of smoking and occupational exposure to noise as risk factors for hearing difficulty in the general population. Methods: A questionnaire was mailed to 21 201 adults of working age, selected at random from the age-sex registers of 34 British general practices, and to 993 members of the armed services, randomly selected from pay records. Questions were asked about smoking habits, years spent in a noisy occupation, difficulty in hearing conversation, and wearing of a hearing aid. Associations of hearing difficulty with smoking habit were examined by logistic regression and compared across strata of noise exposure, with adjustment for potential confounders. Results: Around half of the respondents had ever smoked, and half of these still smoked. Among 10 418 who provided details on hearing, 348 were classed as having moderate and 311 as having severe hearing difficulty. Risk of hearing difficulty was 3–5-fold higher in those employed for >5 years in noisy work compared with those never employed in a noisy job. Within strata of noise exposure (including those who had never worked in a noisy job), ex- and current smokers had a higher risk of hearing difficulty than lifetime non-smokers. The additional risks were small compared with those of long term noise exposure, and the combination of effects was more consistent with an additive than a multiplicative interaction. Conclusions: Smoking may adversely affect hearing, and workers should be encouraged to refrain from both smoking and exposure to noise. However, the extra risk to hearing incurred by smoking in high ambient noise levels is small relative to that from the noise itself, which should be the main target for preventive measures.
The impacts of drift and selection on genomic evolution in insects

Genomes evolve through a combination of mutation, drift, and selection, all of which act heterogeneously across genes and lineages. This leads to differences in branch-length patterns among gene trees. Genes that yield trees with the same branch-length patterns can be grouped together into clusters. Here, we propose a novel phylogenetic approach to explain the factors that influence the number and distribution of these gene-tree clusters. We apply our method to a genomic dataset from insects, an ancient and diverse group of organisms. We find some evidence that when drift is the dominant evolutionary process, each cluster tends to contain a large number of fast-evolving genes. In contrast, strong negative selection leads to many distinct clusters, each of which contains only a few slow-evolving genes. Our work, although preliminary in nature, illustrates the use of phylogenetic methods to shed light on the factors driving rate variation in genomic evolution.
Action Recognition Based on Spatio-temporal Log-Euclidean Covariance Matrix

In this paper, we handle the problem of human action recognition by combining covariance matrices as local spatio-temporal (ST) descriptors and local ST features extracted densely from action video. Unlike traditional methods that separately utilizing gradient-based feature and optical flow-based feature, we use covariance matrix to fuse the two types of feature. Since covariance matrices are Symmetric Positive Definite (SPD) matrices, which form a special type of Riemannian manifold. To measure the distance of SPDs while avoid computing the geodesic distance between them, covariance features are transformed to log-Euclidean covariance matrices (LECM) by matrix logarithm operation. After encoding LECM by Locality-constrained Linear Coding method, in order to provide position information to ST-LECM features, spatial pyramid is used to partition the video frames, and the average-pooling-on-absolute-value function is implemented over each sub-frames. Finally, non-linear support vector machine is used as classifier. Experiments on public human action datasets show that the proposed method obtains great improvements in recognition accuracy, in comparison to several state-ofthe-art methods.
Conceptual dimensions of compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma

Compassion Fatigue and Vicarious Trauma are diagnostic labels sometimes applied to therapists who become traumatized following their work with victims of trauma. Four distinct conceptual frameworks are offered to better understand Compassion Fatigue and Vicarious Trauma: (1) The analysis of the Wounded-Healer metaphor and its connection to the topic of the use of self in therapy, (2) Contextual family therapy (Boszormenyi- Nagy) and the theory of systems, (3) Theravada and Zen Buddhism, with an emphasis on the concept of self and, 4) an exploration of the concept of suggestibility in relation to the "contagion" of symptoms phenomenon in CF and VT. These four approaches appear useful to formulate distinct models for Compassion Fatigue and Vicarious Trauma, to offer suggestions on the way these disorders might arise and develop, as well as to propose mechanisms underlying the "contagion" of trauma symptoms between therapists and their traumatized clients.
Absolute motions of globular clusters - II. HST astrometry and VLT radial velocities in NGC 6397

In this paper we present a new, accurate determination of the three components of the absolute space velocity of the Galactic globular cluster NGC 6397 (l � 338 ◦ , b �− 12 ◦ ). We used three HST/WFPC2 fields with multi-epoch observations to obtain astrometric measurements of objects in three different fields in this cluster. The identification of 33 background galaxies with sharp nuclei allowed us to determine an absolute reference point and measure the absolute proper motion of the cluster. The third component was obtained from radial velocities measured from spectra from the multi-fiber spectrograph FLAMES at UT2-VLT . W e fi nd (µα cos δ, µδ)J2000.0 = (+3.39 ± 0.15, −17.55 ± 0.15) mas yr −1 and Vrad =+ 18.36 ± 0.09 (±0.10) km s −1 . Assuming a Galactic potential, we calculate the cluster orbit for various assumed distances and briefly discuss the implications.
Examining Rater Bias in Elicited Imitation Scoring: Influence of Rater's L1 and L2 Background to the Ratings

Examining Rater Bias: An Evaluation of Possible Factors Influencing Elicited Imitation Ratings Minhye Son Department of Linguistics and English Language Master of Arts Elicited Imitation (EI), which is a way of assessing language learners’ speaking, has been used for years. Furthermore, there have been many studies done showing rater bias (variance in test ratings associated with a specific rater and attributable to the attributes of a test taker) in language assessment. In this project, I evaluated possible rater bias, focusing mostly on bias attributable to raters’ and test takers’ language backgrounds, as seen in EI ratings. I reviewed literature on test rater bias, participated in a study of language background and rater bias, and produced recommendations for reducing bias in EI administration. Also, based on possible rater bias effects discussed in the literature I reviewed and on results of the research study I participated in, I created a registration tool to collect raters’ background information that might be helpful in evaluating and reducing rater bias in future EI testing. My project also involved producing a co-authored research paper. In that paper we found no bias effect based on rater first or second language background.
Physical abuse of street and slum children of Kolkata.

Over the years children from all societies have been neglected maltreated and abused intentionally or otherwise by their parents. To investigate the extent and type of physical abuse and its associated factors among the street and slum dwellers of the city of Kolkata India a study was conducted during April 1998- May 1999. Data from 751 children aged 4-15 years enlisted from 190 families were analyzed by age working status family size income nature and type of physical abuse. Overall although results show a high frequency of physical abuse the severity of the abuse was of mild nature short term with only a few incidents regarded as violent. It was revealed that the abusers used belts cords or ropes which was also recognized by the characteristic skin injuries such as bruising abrasions lacerations and hematoma. The most common sites of injury were the buttocks and hips. Fractures were detected in 4.5% children and were limited to upper and lower extremities. There is also a lower percentage of physical abuse between 4-5 years children but higher and about equal percentages among the age group 6-10 years and 11-15 years. Apart from the physical injury the psychological impact of physical abuse is also a very important dimension sometimes severely impeding the psychological development of the growing child.
Dietary survey in a Chinese population.

OBJECTIVES To assess food pattern and nutrition profile aiming at planning population-based nutrition intervention for chronic diseases control. DESIGN A randomized survey. SETTING The survey was carried out in Tianjin, one of the three largest cities in China. SUBJECTS 3683 subjects aged 15-64 years old were selected by a random stratified multilevel cluster sampling. INTERVENTION The diet was assessed by food weighing plus consecutive individual 3 day food records. RESULTS Distinct differences in dietary pattern and nutrient intakes were found between subjects living in urban and rural areas. The diet of urban people was richer in fat and high quality protein compared with the diet of rural people. Low intakes of vitamin A, calcium, riboflavin, and zinc were found in both areas, the situation being worse in the rural areas. The sodium intake and sodium:potassium ratio was very high in both areas. Cholesterol intake was much higher among the urban people. CONCLUSION The study suggests that integrated nutrition intervention is needed to prevent insufficient intake of some nutrients and control dietary risk factors related to chronic diseases.