Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Folate deficiency in rat pups during weaning causes learning and memory deficits

Folate is essential for fetal development, and its deficiency during gestation causes behavioural deficits in the offspring. The present study investigated its influence during weaning on brain function in the pups of rats that were put on a folate-deficient (FD) diet on postnatal day (PND) 1. Systemic folate deficiency in pups on the FD diet (n 15) was evident from the dramatically lower hepatic folate concentrations (median 23·7, range 8·1–48·4 ng/mg protein) and higher homocysteine concentrations (median 27·7, range 14·7–45·5 pmol/mg protein), respectively, compared with those of pups on the normal diet (ND; n 9) (median 114·5, range 64·5–158·5 ng/mg protein and median 15·5, range 11·6–18·9 pmol/mg protein) on PND 23. Brain folate concentrations although low were similar in pups on the FD diet (median 10·5, range 5·5–24·5 ng/mg protein) and ND (median 11·1, range 7·1–24·2 ng/mg protein). There was a high accumulation of homocysteine in the brain of FD pups, mostly in the hippocampus (median 58·1, range 40·8–99·7 pmol/mg protein) and cerebellum (median 69·1, range 50·8–126·6 pmol/mg protein), indicating metabolic folate deficiency despite normal brain folate concentrations. Developmental deficits or autistic traits were more frequent in the FD group than in the ND group and repetitive self-grooming occurred, on average, three times (range 1–8) v. once (range 0–3) during 5 min, respectively. Long-term memory or spatial learning and set-shifting deficits affected 12 to 62 % of rats in the FD group compared with none in the ND group. Post-weaning folic acid supplementation did not correct these deficits. These observations indicate that folate deficiency during weaning affects postnatal development even when gestational folate supply is normal.
Natural phenolic materials treated by a wet path: synthesis of bioresourced carbons highly porous and applications

Renewable resources are considered as sustainable, and sometimes cheaper, alternatives to substitute raw materials of petrochemical origin. We used tannins extracted from Mimosa barks. Tannin is an attractive precursor to synthesize new organic porous materials due to the presence of highly reactive phenolic molecules. The synthesis of these new carbon materials from tannin comprises a two-step process: the first step is a hydrothermal carbonization at moderate temperatures, 180-200°C, which allows obtaining a hydrochar, richer in carbon, and fixing other heteroatoms. These hydrochars present different morphologies as powder or gel. The second step is a carbonization at higher temperature (900°C), which allows increasing surface area (SBET), porosity as well as improving conductivity. The preparation of a porous carbon presenting mesopores perfectly defined in size and in their organization was realized by associating tannin, as carbon precursor, with a surfactant for porosity templating, the copolymer Pluronic F127. These new carbon materials were tested as electrodes of supercapacitor
Adsorption Kinetics and Evaluation Study of Iron Oxide Nanoparticles Impregnated in Polyurethane Matrix for Water Filtration Application

A polyurethane (PU) foam composite, loaded with iron oxide nanoparticles (IONPs), was developed for arsenic removal from drinking water at low concentrations. The effect of various synthesis parameters such as the size of IONPs and the foam shape, on the performance of the adsorbents in removing arsenic was investigated. To examine the surface adsorption of arsenic species, Energy Dispersive X-ray Microscopy (EDX) was utilized. Mercury Porosimetry was used to analyze the porosity and density of the PU-IONPs nanocomposites. Atomic Absorption Spectrometry (AAS) was conducted to measure the arsenic concentration in the treated solutions. Kinetic models were applied to determine the mechanisms which control the adsorption process. A pseudo-second-order model was found to be the best fit model for the adsorption data. Experimental results revealed that decreasing the size of IONPs from 50 - 100 nm to 15 - 20 nm yields a higher removal capacity. In addition, granular adsorbents exhibit higher removal capacity compared to cubical shaped adsorbents in the order of 20% - 100%.
Blind Image Quality Assessment via Vector Regression and Object Oriented Pooling

This paper presents an effective method based on vector regression and object oriented pooling for blind image quality assessment. Unlike previous models that map the extracted features directly to a quality score, the proposed vector regression framework yields a vector of belief scores for the input image. We explore the uncertainty factors in quality assessment and design the belief scores to measure the confidences of an image to be assigned to the corresponding quality grades. Moreover, we propose an object oriented pooling strategy to further improve the performance by incorporating semantic information of image contents. According to this strategy, regions occupied by objects will be assigned more weights in the pooling phase, leading to a more accurate quality assessment. Extensive experiments on benchmark datasets demonstrate that our approach achieves state-of-the-art performance and shows a great generalization ability.
A study of initial stages for formation of carbon condensates on copper

In the CVD method, samples of carbon condensates were obtained under special conditions (low substrate temperature and short growth times). The use of special technological conditions makes it possible to study the initial stages of growth of graphene layers. To analyze the influence of the microinhomogeneities of the copper substrate on growth conditions, various modes of its electrochemical polishing were used in the study. The structural state of the surface was studied using computer processing of digital images of a surface with color segmentation. A metallographic analysis of more than 70 samples was carried out and three main structural elements of the initial stage of growth of graphene layers were identified on the basis of computer image processing during condensation. These are graphene layers, sections of a copper substrate and a cluster of atoms with a structural state different from the graphene (presumably amorphous). It has been established that preparation of the substrate surface should be attributed to the most important technological operations for obtaining a high-quality graphene coating. It has been found that the use of multicomponent electrolytes during the polishing of the copper substrate makes it possible to increase the uniformity in the dimensions of the structural elements of the surface roughness. This leads to an increase in the surface area of the formation of graphene layers already during the initial stages of growth (at a relatively low process temperature of 700 °C). The obtained results testify to the prospects of using multistage image analysis (using the clustering method) to optimize the technological regimes for obtaining the “carbon condensate/substrate” systems, taking into account the initial roughness of the latter
Characteristics of concentrated flow hydraulics for rangeland ecosystems: implications for hydrologic modeling

Concentrated flow is often the dominant source of water erosion following disturbance on rangelands. Because of the lack of studies that explain the hydraulics of concentrated flow on rangelands, cropland‐based equations have typically been used for rangeland hydrology and erosion modeling, leading to less accurate predictions due to different soil and vegetation cover characteristics. This study investigates the hydraulics of concentrated flow using unconfined field experimental data over diverse rangeland landscapes within the Great Basin Region, United States. The results imply that the overall hydraulics of concentrated flow on rangelands differ significantly from those of cropland rills. Concentrated flow hydraulics on rangelands are largely controlled by the amount of cover or bare soil and hillslope angle. New predictive equations for concentrated flow velocity (R2 = 0·47), hydraulic friction (R2 = 0·52), and width (R2 = 0·4) representing a diverse set of rangeland environments were developed. The resulting equations are applicable across a wide span of ecological sites, soils, slopes, and vegetation and ground cover conditions and can be used by physically‐based rangeland hydrology and erosion models to estimate rangeland concentrated flow hydraulic parameters. Published in 2011. This article is a US Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.
A survey of social media users privacy settings & information disclosure

This research utilises a comprehensive survey to ascertain the level of social networking site personal information disclosure by members at the time of joining the membership and their subsequent postings to the sites. Areas examined are the type of information they reveal, their level of knowledge and awareness regarding how their information is protected by SNSs and the awareness of risks that over-sharing may pose. Additionally, this research studies the effect of gender, age, education, and level of privacy concern on the amount and kind of personal information disclosure and privacy settings applied. A social experiment was then run for 3 months that tested SNSs users’ reaction to a profile access request by a stranger. The research focused on four different social networks: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,and Snapchat. The results of the survey and experiment found that there is a significant amount of personal information disclosure, but that the level differs between social networks. It is reveals that gender, age, and education have significant influences on information disclosure and user’s privacy settings and that on most sites over 50% of friend requests were readily accepted. These results are a selection from a comprehensive study of some of the more revealing facts about SNS user ship covering 3 months of data collection and almost 500 responses.
Altered Structural and Functional Connectivity of Juvenile Myoclonic Epilepsy: An fMRI Study

The aim of this study was to investigate the structural and functional connectivity (FC) of juvenile myoclonic epilepsy (JME) using resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI). High-resolution T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and rs-fMRI data were collected in 25 patients with JME and in 24 control subjects. A FC analysis was subsequently performed, with seeding at the regions that demonstrated between-group differences in gray matter volume (GMV). Then, the observed structural and FCs were associated with the clinical manifestations. The decreased GMV regions were found in the bilateral anterior cerebellum, the right orbital superior frontal gyrus, the left middle temporal gyrus, the left putamen, the right hippocampus, the bilateral caudate, and the right thalamus. The changed FCs were mainly observed in the motor-related areas and the cognitive-related areas. The significant findings of this study revealed an important role for the cerebellum in motor control and cognitive regulation in JME patients, which also have an effect on the activity of the occipital lobe. In addition, the changed FCs were related to the clinical features of JME patients. The current observations may contribute to the understanding of the pathogenesis of JME.
Predicting and managing sepsis in burn patients: current perspectives

Modern burn care has led to unprecedented survival rates in burn patients whose injuries were fatal a few decades ago. Along with improved survival, new challenges have emerged in the management of burn patients. Infections top the list of the most common complication after burns, and sepsis is the leading cause of death in both adult and pediatric burn patients. The diagnosis and management of sepsis in burns is complex as a tremendous hypermetabolic response secondary to burn injury can be superimposed on systemic infection, leading to organ dysfunction. The management of a septic burn patient represents a challenging scenario that is commonly encountered by providers caring for burn patients despite preventive efforts. Here, we discuss the current perspectives in the diagnosis and treatment of sepsis and septic shock in burn patients.
The Spindle of Oocytes Observed by Polarized Light Microscope Can Predict Embryo Quality

Besides inducing biochemical alteration, oocyte activation is associated with several morphologic changes, including cortical granule exocytosis, reorganization of the fine structure of the zona pellucida, extrusion of the second polar body, and pronuclear formation. However, most of these morphological changes are difficult to observe without fixation, immunostaining, and fluorescence microscopy. Spindle movements or subtle changes in the meiotic spindle occurring in living oocytes might not be observed by the light microscopy.
Assessing the implications of human land-use change for the transient climate response to cumulative carbon emissions

Recent researchhas shown evidence of a linear climate response to cumulativeCO2 emissions,which implies that the source, timing, and amount of emissions does not significantly influence the climate response per unit emission. Furthermore, these analyses have generally assumed that the climate response to land-useCO2 emissions is equivalent to that of fossil fuels under the assumption that, once in the atmosphere, the radiative forcing inducedbyCO2 is not sensitive to the emissions source.However, landcover change also affects surface albedo and the strength of terrestrial carbon sinks, bothofwhichhave an additional climate effect. In this study,weuse a coupled climate-carbon cyclemodel to assess the climate response tohistorical and future cumulative land-useCO2 emissions, in order to compare it to the response to fossil fuel CO2.Wefind thatwhenwe isolate theCO2-induced (biogeochemical) temperature changes associatedwith land-use change, then the climate response to cumulative land-use emissions is equivalent to that of fossil fuelCO2.We show further that the globally-averaged albedo-induced biophysical cooling from land-use change is non-negligible andmaybeof comparablemagnitude to the biogeochemicalwarming,with the result that thenet climate response to land-use change is substantially different froma linear response to cumulative emissions.However, ournew simulations suggest that the biophysical cooling from land-use change follows its own independent (negative) linear response to cumulative net land-useCO2 emissions,whichmayprovide a useful scaling factor for certain applications when evaluating the full transient climate response to emissions.
Reserve requirements and optimal Chinese stabilization policy

We build a two-sector DSGE model of the Chinese economy to study the role of reserve requirement policy for capital reallocation and business cycle stabilization. In the model, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) have lower average productivity than private firms, but they have superior access to bank loans because of government guarantees. Private firms rely on ? shadow? bank financing. Commercial banks are subject to reserve requirement regulations but shadow banks are not. Our framework implies a tradeoff for reserve requirement policy: Increasing the required reserve ratio acts as a tax on SOE activity and reallocates resources to private firms, raising aggregate productivity. This reallocation is supported by empirical evidence. However, raising reserve requirements also increases the incidence of costly SOE failures. Under our calibration, reserve requirement policy can be complementary to interest rate policy for stabilizing macro fluctuations and improving welfare.
Purification and characterisation of a quorum quenching AHL-lactonase from the endophytic bacterium Enterobacter sp. CS66

&NA; The quorum quenching (QQ) activity of endophytic bacteria associated with medicinal plants was explored. Extracts of the Gram‐negative Enterobacter sp. CS66 possessed potent N‐acylhomoserine lactone (AHL) hydrolytic activity in vitro. Using degenerate primers, we PCR‐amplified an open reading frame (denoted aiiE) from CS66 that was 96% identical to the well‐characterised AHL‐lactonase AiiA from Bacillus thuringiensis, but only 30% was identical to AHL‐lactonases from other Gram‐negative species. This confirms that close AiiA homologs can be found in both Gram‐positive and Gram‐negative bacteria. Purified AiiE exhibited potent AHL‐lactonase activity against a broad range of AHLs. Furthermore, aiiE was able to reduce the production of secreted plant cell wall‐degrading hydrolytic enzymes when expressed in trans in the economically important plant pathogen, Pectobacterium atrosepticum. Our results indicate the presence of a novel AHL‐lactonase in Enterobacter sp. CS66 with significant potential as a biocontrol agent.
No evidence for long‐term carrier status of pigs after African swine fever virus infection

This study targeted the assessment of a potential African swine fever virus (ASFV) carrier state of 30 pigs in total which were allowed to recover from infection with ASFV "Netherlands'86" prior exposure to six healthy sentinel pigs for more than 2 months. Throughout the whole trial, blood and swab samples were subjected to routine virological and serological investigations. At the end of the trial, necropsy of all animals was performed and viral persistence and distribution were assessed. Upon infection, a wide range of clinical and pathomorphological signs were observed. After an initial acute phase in all experimentally inoculated pigs, 66.6% recovered completely and seroconverted. However, viral genome was detectable in blood samples for up to 91 days. Lethal outcomes were observed in 33.3% of the pigs with both acute and prolonged courses. No ASFV transmission occurred over the whole in-contact phase from survivors to sentinels. Similarly, infectious ASFV was not detected in any of the tissue samples from ASFV convalescent and in-contact pigs. These findings indicate that the suggested role of ASFV survivors is overestimated and has to be reconsidered thoroughly for future risk assessments.
Measuring the influence of hypercapnia on absolute CMRO 2 in humans

Purpose: Hypercapnia induced by CO2 inhalation is often used in calibrated BOLD techniques to determine the maximum possible BOLD response (usually denoted as M) [1,2]. The assumption is that an increase in arterial CO2 tension which results in an increase in CBF does not affect CMRO2 (cerebral metabolic rate of oxygen). This assumption has been called into question with several studies showing conflicting results including increases [3,4], decreases [4,5] and no change [6] in CMRO2 with hypercapnia. The current study seeks to identify potential changes in absolute CMRO2 at two different levels of hypercapnia compared to normocapnia.
Extremely High-Speed GaAs Growth by MOVPE for Low-Cost PV Application

Epitaxial growth of GaAs in a horizontal metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy reactor was investigated to realize ultrafast growth rate, which has been demonstrated to be 90 μm/h at maximum. The GaAs growth rate had more or less a linear relationship with the amount of trimethylgallium supply. With extremely fast deposition >70 μm/h, slight saturation of growth rate was observed, which is most likely due to parasitic gas-phase reactions and/or limitation in bubbling. The impact of growth rates was examined using GaAs p-n solar cells, with the 2-μm-thick n-GaAs base layers grown at 20, 60, and 80 μm/h. The studies have not evidenced a significant change in performance as a function of growth rate. The base thickness was expanded to 3.5 μm with the growth rate of 80 μm/h to increase light absorption. The growth rate of 80 μm/h did not induce significant degradation in the efficiency of the cells as compared with the ones grown at 20 and 60 μm/h. The average efficiency of 23.6% (16.3% on the basis of a mesa area) under AM1.5G was realized in the cells with 3.5-<italic>μ</italic>m-thick bases grown at 80 μm/h.
Optimal Placement and Sizing of Distributed Battery Storage in Low Voltage Grids Using Receding Horizon Control Strategies

In this paper, we present a novel methodology for leveraging Receding Horizon Control, also known as Model Predictive Control (MPC) strategies for distributed battery storage in a planning problem using a Benders decomposition technique. Longer prediction horizons lead to better storage placement strategies but also higher computational complexity that can quickly become computationally prohibitive. The MPC strategy proposed here in conjunction with a Benders decomposition technique effectively reduces the computational complexity to a manageable level. We use the CIGRE low voltage benchmark grid as a case study for solving an optimal placement and sizing problem for different control strategies with different MPC prediction horizons. The objective of the MPC strategy is to maximize the photovoltaic utilization and minimize battery degradation in a local residential area, while satisfying all grid constraints. For this case study, we show that the economic value of battery storage is higher when using MPC-based storage control strategies than when using heuristic storage control strategies, because MPC strategies explicitly exploit the value of forecast information. The economic merit of this approach can be further increased by explicitly incorporating a battery degradation model in the MPC strategy.
A Noise Resistant Correlation Method for Period Detection of Noisy Signals

This paper develops a novel method called the noise resistant correlation method for detecting the hidden period from the contaminated (noisy) signals with strong white Gaussian noise. A novel correlation function is proposed based on a newly constructed periodic signal and the contaminated signal to effectively detect the target hidden period. In contrast with the conventional autocorrelation analysis (AUTOC) method, this method demonstrates excellent performance, especially when facing strong noise. Fault diagnoses of rolling element bearings and gears are presented as application examples and the performance of the proposed method is compared with that of the AUTOC method.