Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Vernonia condensata Baker (Asteraceae): A Promising Source of Antioxidants

The present study evaluated the antioxidant potential of Vernonia condensata Baker (Asteraceae). Dried and powdered leaves were exhaustively extracted with ethanol by static maceration followed by partition to obtain the hexane, dichloromethane, ethyl acetate, and butanol fractions. Total phenols and flavonoids contents were determined through spectrophotometry and flavonoids were identified by HPLC-DAD system. The antioxidant activity was assessed by DPPH radical scavenging activity, TLC-bioautography, reducing power of Fe+3, phosphomolybdenum, and TBA assays. The total phenolic content and total flavonoids ranged from 0.19 to 23.11 g/100 g and from 0.13 to 4.10 g/100 g, respectively. The flavonoids apigenin and luteolin were identified in the ethyl acetate fraction. The IC50 of DPPH assay varied from 4.28 to 75.10 µg/mL and TLC-bioautography detected the antioxidant compounds. The reducing power of Fe+3 was 19.98 to 336.48 μg/mL, while the reaction with phosphomolybdenum ranged from 13.54% to 32.63% and 56.02% to 135.00% considering ascorbic acid and rutin as reference, respectively. At 30 mg/mL, the ethanolic extract and fractions revealed significant effect against lipid peroxidation. All these data sustain that V. condensata is an important and promising source of bioactive substances with antioxidant activity.
Existence of Equilibria in Financial Markets With Restricted Participation

Investors facing restrictions on the portfolios that they can trade, is more of a norm than an exception. We consider a model in which investors’ portfolio sets are constrained. As in Balasko, Cass and Siconolfi (1990) these constraints are exogenously given (possibly arising due to some institutional reasons). Moreover, we consider very general restrictions on portfolio sets as in Siconolfi (1986), where each agent’s portfolios set is assumed to be convex and containing zero. In two date (one period) models without restrictions on portfolio sets, the existence issue has been extensively studied. Cass (1984) and Werner (1985, 1989) showed existence with nominal assets. Duffie and Shafer (1985) showed a generic existence result with real assets. This second approach has been extensively used as surveyed in Magill and Shafer [14]. This paper primarily examines the characterization of equilibrium asset prices with arbitrage free asset prices, in a multiperiod model when investors face such general portfolio restrictions. In the absence of such portfolio constraints the approach initiated by Cass (1984), has been extensively used to characterize equilibrium asset prices with arbitrage free asset prices. See Cass (1984), Duffie (1987) and Florenzano and Gourdel (1994). Moreover this approach is also useful in showing the existence of an equilibrium. See Magill and Shafer (1991), Florenzano and Gourdel (1994), Magill and Quinzii (1996) and Angeloni and Cornet (2006) among others. Another approach to prove existence in a differentiable economy is to show existence in a numeraire asset economy and infer the existence in the nominal asset economy (See Villanacci et al. 2002 and Magill and Quinzii 1996). In the approach of Cass (1984), one agent is assumed to be unrestricted and hence behaves as in an Arrow-Debreu world. This assumption breaks the symmetry of the problem and thus the proof is not symmetric with respect to the agents. Hahn and Won (2003) are able to avoid this Cass approach, albeit with monotonic preferences and a more involved notion of ‘projective’ arbitrage. In a recent working paper, DaRocha and Triki (2005) have been able to show this characterization in a symmetric manner. We follow this approach, but with a more general notion of absence of market arbitrage and a more general compatibility condition.
Financial Depth – Financial Repression Linkage

The impact of financial repression on financial depth is one of important issues for monetary authorities. Hence, this study examines the empirical relationship between financial repression and financial depth based on McKinnon-Shaw hypothesis in two set of countries, Including 43 lower middle income and 33 upper middle income countries during 1990 to 2008. Real interest rate and reserve ratio is used to measures financial repression and the method that is used in empirical analysis is Dynamic Panel Data (DPD) technique. The results show that reserve requirement and inflation have the negative and significant effect on financial depth in two set of countries. Also, the results indicate that nominal interest rate and economic development positively affect the level of financial depth. Thus, financial repression is an obstacle to financial depth and increase in nominal interest rate and reduce reserve ratio and inflation is suggested to encourage financial depth in two set of countries.
A Study Conception about Language Similarities

The present study contains a suitable literature material about linguistic similarities between English and Spanish languages. The linguistic components chosen from both languages to conduct the study research are as follows: 1) Pronunciation. 2) Vocabulary. 3) Grammar. The study contextualizes throughout its collected works data based on alphabetical-phonology, wordlist-cognates, adjectives-adverbs-verbs-patterns as well as an oriented-methodology. At present, there is a need to continue making available methodology-inputs and learning materials to support the acquisition of Spanish as Second Foreign Language (ELE). Therefore, the research article aimed to provide a manuscript through which Spanish/English bilingual Spanish language teachers and English speaking learners of Spanish know about language analogies and the advantages of doing so to enhance and empower cognitive domains and language competences regarding to the target language.
Relationships between Age, Morning-Type and Rigidity Sleeping Habits with Shiftwork Tolerance

Shiftwork is now a major feature of working life across a broad range of industries and circadian rhythms play an important role in shiftwork tolerance. So, the aim of this study was examine the relationships between age, morning-type and rigidity sleeping habits with shiftwork tolerance among shiftworkers of Karun Oil and Gas Exploitation Company. The sample consisted of 295 shiftworkers of Ahvaz, Iran, selected according to the stratified random sampling. Survey of Shiftworkers (SOS) was used to measure the variables of this study. The results indicate that correlation coefficients between the shiftwork tolerance with age, morning-type and rigidity sleeping habits were negative and significant ( p <.0001). Stepwise multiple regression analyses yielded R1=0.449, R2=0.532 and R3=0.547 between shiftwork tolerance and independent variable. The results showed the importance of age, morning-type and rigidity as predictors of shiftwork tolerance. At a more practical level the main implication would be that we should attempt to select people for shiftwork systems according to their circadian rhythms (morningness /eveningness), sleeping habits (flexibility/rigidity) and demographic variables (such as age).
A Smoothing Regularizer for Feedforward and Recurrent Neural Networks

We derive a smoothing regularizer for dynamic network models by requiring robustness in prediction performance to perturbations of the training data. The regularizer can be viewed as a generalization of the first-order Tikhonov stabilizer to dynamic models. For two layer networks with recurrent connections described by the training criterion with the regularizer is where = {U, V, W} is the network parameter set, Z(t) are the targets, I(t) = {X(s), s = 1,2, , t} represents the current and all historical input information, N is the size of the training data set, is the regularizer, and is a regularization parameter. The closed-form expression for the regularizer for time-lagged recurrent networks is where is the Euclidean matrix norm and is a factor that depends upon the maximal value of the first derivatives of the internal unit activations f(). Simplifications of the regularizer are obtained for simultaneous recurrent nets ( 0), two-layer feedforward nets, and one layer linear nets. We have successfully tested this regularizer in a number of case studies and found that it performs better than standard quadratic weight decay.
Characterizing User Behavior in Weibo

Online social networks (OSNs) have become the most popular services on the Internet, and such systems have become part of users' life all over the world. They visit such systems every day and spend more and more time on them. So understanding users' behavior is important to understand such systems. This paper presents results from our measurement on the large-scale OSN spanned by Weibo, the most prevalent and largest microblog system in China at present. Here we talked about two topics: (I) who use Weibo, and (II) what is the users' behavior. We spend one year to persistently observe Weibo, and using API to collect more than 20 million users' profiles to find out that they are and what is their behavior, which is rarely discussed by other researchers. Our studies reveal the users' behavior in Weibo, and we believe our findings make opportunities for in-depth studies of online social network and improve design of such systems.
Knowledge Acquisition and Assimilation in Tourism-Innovation Processes

Abstract The paper develops a framework and an understanding of the external knowledge absorption in nature-based tourism companies. The concept of potential absorptive capacity is the starting point for exploring how external knowledge (tacit and explicit) is absorbed and assimilated in tourism-innovation processes. Although knowledge is the engine that drives innovation, tourism firms can have problems and challenges when trying to absorb external knowledge for innovation. The main challenge is to access and absorb tacit knowledge. This type of knowledge is personal and sticky and therefore difficult to acquire and assimilate into the existing knowledge pool of organizations. Tacit knowledge is also difficult to imitate and is therefore important for developing original and competitive innovations. In this study, knowledge acquisition and assimilation processes and how knowledge challenges are handled are investigated by adopting a multiple, qualitative case-study strategy that focuses on three Icelandic whale-watching firms. This study contributes to the tourism-innovation discussion by identifying tourism-specific abilities for the acquisition and assimilation of knowledge. The sense-making and strategic interpretation of this knowledge are considered to be important subsequent steps in the innovation process.
The Relationship between Intrinsic/Extrinsic Motivation and Medical Students’ L2 Writing

Writing skill has an important role in demonstrating the students’ learning (Coffin et al., 2003). Although students are evaluated by what they write, writing is generally regarded as a difficult skill and a complex task (Graham, Harris, & Mason, 2005). Tan (2011) argues that writing is a difficult skill for native and nonnative speakers because writers should balance various issues, such as content, organization, purpose, audience, vocabulary, punctuation, spelling, and mechanics. According to Nunan (2001), writing is a very complex procedure in which a great number of cognitive and meta-cognitive activities take place. Scarcella and Oxford (1992) state that writing in a second language (L2) helps L2 learners to improve their grammatical, strategic, socio-linguistic, and discourse competence in a foreign language. Manchón (2011) claims that L2 writing contributes to second language development; it helps the learners to perceive and understand new linguistic knowledge and improve automatism, knowledge integration and hypothesis testing. It is a facility in which students take power to create meaning as well as share their meaning. As a consequence, writing is more than just transferring one’s thought to paper but it helps us to shape and refine our thinking.
Capsaicin activates a nonselective cation channel in cultured neonatal rat dorsal root ganglion neurons

Capsaicin (CAP), a neurotoxin, has been reported to activate a nonselective cation current in dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurons. In this paper, we identify and describe the properties of CAP-activated single channels in cultured neonatal rat DRG neurons. We first identified CAP-sensitive whole-cell currents that reversed near 0 mV in physiological solution. In solution containing 140 mM Na+, extracellular application of CAP to outside-out patches caused activation of an ion channel in a concentration-dependent manner (EC50 = 1.1 microM). The channel was blocked by the CAP antagonist capsazepine (10 microM). The channel was also activated by 2–10 nM resiniferatoxin, a potent analog of CAP. In symmetrical 140 mM Na+, the single-channel slope conductances were 45.3 +/- 1.0 and 80.0 +/- 4.2 pS at -60 and +60 mV, respectively, showing outward rectification (n = 9). The reversal potential did not shift significantly when Na+ was replaced by K+, Cs+, Rb+, or Li+, showing that the channel discriminated poorly among cations. The channel was also permeable to Ca2+. Although acid (pH < 6.2) was suggested to be an endogenous activator of the CAP receptor, an acid solution (pH 5.9–6.0) failed to activate the channels in outside-out patches. This is the first clear demonstration of the presence of the CAP-activated ion channel in DRG neuron. Opening of these ligand-gated, cation-selective channels gives rise to the whole-cell CAP-activated current in DRG neurons and may underlie the neurotoxic effects of CAP.
Completion pneumonectomy and chemoradiotherapy as treatment options in local recurrence of non-small-cell lung cancer

Introduction The selection of treatment for local recurrence in patients with non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) depends on the possibility of performing a radical tumor resection, the patient's performance status, and cardiopulmonary efficiency. Compared with chemoradiotherapy, surgical treatment offers a greater chance of long-term survival, but results in completion pneumonectomy and is associated with a relatively high rate of complications. Aim of the study Aim of the study was to evaluate early and long-term results of surgery and conservative treatment (chemoradiotherapy) in patients with local NSCLC recurrence. Material and methods Between 1998 and 2011, 1697 NSCLC patients underwent lobectomy or bilobectomy at the Department of Thoracic Surgery in Poznań. Among them, 137 patients (8.1%) were diagnosed with cancer recurrence; chemotherapy or chemoradiotherapy was provided to 116 patients; 21 patients (15.3%) were treated with completion pneumonectomy. The median time from primary surgery to recurrence was 13.4 months. No metastases to N2 lymph nodes were observed among the patients undergoing surgery; in 7 patients N1 lymph node metastases were confirmed. Results The rate of complications after surgery was significantly higher in comparison with conservative therapy (80.9% vs. 48.3%). Patients treated with surgery were most likely to suffer from complications associated with the circulatory system (80.9%), while hematologic complications were dominant in the group undergoing oncological treatment (41.4%). There were no perioperative deaths after completion pneumonectomy. The age of the patients was the only factor which significantly influenced the incidence of complications in both groups of patients. Analysis of the survival curves demonstrated statistically significant differences in survival between the groups treated with surgery, chemoradiotherapy, and chemotherapy (p = 0.00001). Five-year survival probability was significantly higher among patients treated surgically as compared to patients undergoing systemic therapy. Conclusions Despite the significant rate of postoperative complications (mostly circulatory), the long-term results of the surgical treatment of local NSCLC recurrence are more favorable than those achieved with chemoradiotherapy. The success of surgical treatment is conditioned on the exclusion of metastasis in N2 lymph nodes.
Knockdown of long non-coding RNA CCAT2 suppressed proliferation and migration of glioma cells

Long non-coding RNA colon cancer-associated transcript 2 (CCAT2) is commonly investigated in a number of cancers. However, little is known of its expression and biological function in glioma biology. In the current study, we used quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) to determine the expression of CCAT2 in glioma tissues. We found that expression of CCAT2 was up-regulated in glioma tissues and significantly correlated with the advanced tumor stage (III/IV). Functional assays in vitro and in vivo demonstrated that knockdown of CCAT2 could inhibit proliferation, cell cycle progression and migration of glioma cells. Further analysis indicated the effect of CCAT2 knockdown on glioma cell phenotype through inhibiting Wnt/β-catenin signal pathway activity. Thus, our study provides evidence that CCAT2 may function as a potential biomarker for glioma.
Religious practice versus subjective religiosity: Catholics and those with ‘no religion’ in the French 2017 presidential election

Since the 1930s, the frequency of mass attendance has been the most widely used indicator of involvement in Catholicism in France. Yet its validity is sometimes debated: to what extent can subjective religiosity constitute an alternative measure? Both indicators seem closely related. However, the social distributions they perform diverge at the margin. And the large sample on which this research is based reveals changes in contemporary Catholicism – particularly with regard to the urban rather than rural character of today’s practitioners. Electoral behaviour is also used in this article as a touchstone for the comparison of the two indicators. Previous research has established the strong link between Catholic religious practice and right-wing – but not far-right – voting. Despite the singularity of the 2017 election, the analysis establishes that this still holds true – and that the combination of these two indicators allows for subtler insight into this link.
Robust MIMO Precoding for Several Classes of Channel Uncertainty

The full potential of multi-input multi-output (MIMO) communication systems relies on exploiting channel state information at the transmitter (CSIT), which is, however, often subject to some uncertainty. In this paper, following the worst-case robust philosophy, we consider a robust MIMO precoding design with deterministic imperfect CSIT, formulated as a maximin problem, to maximize the worst-case received signal-to-noise ratio or minimize the worst-case error probability. Given different types of imperfect CSIT in practice, a unified framework is lacking in the literature to tackle various channel uncertainty. In this paper, we address this open problem by considering several classes of uncertainty sets that include most deterministic imperfect CSIT as special cases. We show that, for general convex uncertainty sets, the robust precoder, as the solution to the maximin problem, can be efficiently computed by solving a single convex optimization problem. Furthermore, when it comes to unitarily-invariant convex uncertainty sets, we prove the optimality of a channel-diagonalizing structure and simplify the complex-matrix problem to a real-vector power allocation problem, which is then analytically solved in a waterfilling manner. Finally, for uncertainty sets defined by a generic matrix norm, called the Schatten norm, we provide a fully closed-form solution to the robust precoding design, based on which the robustness of beamforming and uniform-power transmission is investigated.
Optimal Structure, Market Dynamism, and the Strategy of Simple Rules

Using computational and mathematical modeling, this study explores the tension between too little and too much structure that is shaped by the core tradeoff between efficiency and flexibility in dynamic environments. Our aim is to develop a more precise theory of the fundamental relationships among structure, performance, and environment. We find that the structure-performance relationship is unexpectedly asymmetric, in that it is better to err on the side of too much structure, and that different environmental dynamism dimensions (i.e., velocity, complexity, ambiguity, and unpredictability) have unique effects on performance. Increasing unpredictability decreases optimal structure and narrows its range from a wide to a narrow set of effective strategies. We also find that a strategy of simple rules, which combines improvisation with low-to-moderately structured rules to execute a variety of opportunities, is viable in many environments but essential in some. This sharpens the boundary condition between the strategic logics of positioning and opportunity. And juxtaposing the structural challenges of adaptation for entrepreneurial vs. established organizations, we find that entrepreneurial organizations should quickly add structure in all environments, while established organizations are better off seeking predictable environments unless they can devote sufficient attention to managing a dissipative equilibrium of structure (i.e., edge of chaos) in unpredictable environments.
A Study on Threshold Selection for Multi-label Classification

Multi-label classification is useful for text categorization, multimedia retrieval, and many other areas. A commonly used multi-label approach is the binary method, which constructs a decision function for each label. For some applications, adjusting thresholds in decision functions of the binary method significantly improves the performance, but few studies have been done on this subject. This article gives a detailed investigation on the selection of thresholds. Experiments on real-world data sets demonstrate the usefulness of some simple selection strategies.
Novel combination of mitochondrial division inhibitor 1 (mdivi-1) and platinum agents produces synergistic pro-apoptotic effect in drug resistant tumor cells

Overcoming platinum drug resistance represents a major clinical challenge in cancer treatment. We discovered a novel drug combination using cisplatin and a class of thioquinazolinone derivatives including mdivi-1 (mitochondrial division inhibitor-1), that induces synergistic apoptosis in platinum resistant tumor cells, including those from cisplatin-refractory endstage ovarian cancer patients. However, through study of the combination effect on Drp1 (the reported target of mdivi-1) knockout MEF cells and the functional analysis of mdivi-1 analogs, we revealed that the synergism between mdivi-1 and cisplatin is Drp1-independent. Mdivi-1 impairs DNA replication and its combination with cisplatin induces a synergistic increase of replication stress and DNA damage, causing a preferential upregulation of a BH3-only protein Noxa. Mdivi-1 also represses mitochondrial respiration independent of Drp1, and the combination of mdivi-1 and cisplatin triggers substantial mitochondrial uncoupling and swelling. Upregulation of Noxa and simultaneous mitochondrial swelling causes synergistic induction of mitochondrial outer membrane permeabilization (MOMP), proceeding robust mitochondrial apoptotic signaling independent of Bax/Bak. Thus, the novel mode of MOMP induction by the combination through the “dual-targeting” potential of mdivi-1 on DNA replication and mitochondrial respiration suggests a novel class of compounds for platinum-based combination option in the treatment of platinum as well as multidrug resistant tumors.