Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
EFFECT OF PROCESSING METHODS ON SOME NUTRIENTS, ANTINUTRIENTS AND TOXIC SUBSTANCES IN AMARANTHUS CRUENTUS.

The presence of antinutrients and toxic substances severely limits the nutritional benefits of vegetables. The objective of this study was to assess the effects of processing methods on some of these substances. Effects of boiling and sun drying on oxalate, cyanide and nitrate, vitamin C, β-carotene, and the mineral elements Fe, Cu, Mg, Na and K in Amaranthus cruentus were investigated. Both methods significantly (p < 0.05) reduced oxalate, cyanide and nitrate levels. Vitamin C content was significantly (p < 0.05) decreased. β-carotene level increased on boiling but was reduced in sundried vegetable. Boiling exceeding 5 minutes significantly (p < 0.05) reduced β-carotene level. The mineral elements decreased upon boiling but sun drying had no significant effect on their levels. We conclude that both methods are effective means of reducing the levels of antinutrients and toxic substances in Amaranthus cruentus to Many antinutrients (oxalate, phytate, etc) and toxic substances (cyanide, nitrate, phenols, etc) are present in many plants and vegetables. Vegetables are believed to be the most important source of nitrate in human nutrition. The nutritional quality of plants and vegetables are therefore severely limited by the presence of these substances. Cassava for example is known to contain high levels of cyanide, a respiratory poison. Consumption of vegetables in their fresh form which is believed to contain more micronutrients than processed vegetables becomes a major health concern because of the high levels of antinutrients and toxic substances that might be ingested with the associated health problems. Economically, this is a serious problem for vegetable farmers and grocery shop owners. The findings that boiling and sun drying reduce the levels of toxic substances and antinutrients to tolerable levels without dangerously compromising the micronutrients contents of vegetables are a plus for vegetable farmers.
Network Churn: The Effects of Self-Monitoring Personality on Brokerage Dynamics

The apparent stability of social network structures may mask considerable change and adjustment in the ties that make up the structures. In this study, we theorize and test—using longitudinal data on friendship relations from a radiology department located in the Netherlands—the idea that the characteristics of this “network churn” and the resultant brokerage dynamics are traceable to individual differences in self-monitoring personality. High self-monitors were more likely than low self-monitors to attract new friends and to occupy new bridging positions over time. In comparison to low self-monitors, the new friends that high self-monitors attracted tended to be relative strangers, in the sense that they were unconnected with previous friends, came from different functions, and more efficiently increased the number of structural holes in the resultant network. Our study suggests that dispositional forces help shape the dynamic structuring of networks: individuals help (re)create the social network structures they inhabit.
Towards Independence: A BCI Telepresence Robot for People With Severe Motor Disabilities

This paper presents an important step forward towards increasing the independence of people with severe motor disabilities, by using brain-computer interfaces to harness the power of the Internet of Things. We analyze the stability of brain signals as end-users with motor disabilities progress from performing simple standard on-screen training tasks to interacting with real devices in the real world. Furthermore, we demonstrate how the concept of shared control-which interprets the user's commands in context-empowers users to perform rather complex tasks without a high workload. We present the results of nine end-users with motor disabilities who were able to complete navigation tasks with a telepresence robot successfully in a remote environment (in some cases in a different country) that they had never previously visited. Moreover, these end-users achieved similar levels of performance to a control group of 10 healthy users who were already familiar with the environment.
Stock Returns and Monetary Policy: Are There Any Ties?

This paper empirically investigates the following three questions: (i) Do stock returns respond to monetary policy shocks? (ii) Do stock returns alter the transmission mechanism of monetary policy? and (iii) Does monetary policy systematically react to stock returns? Unlike existing empirical research on these topics, we use a structural vector auto-regression that relaxes the restrictions commonly imposed in earlier studies and identify monetary policy shocks by exploiting the conditional heteroskedasticity of the structural innovations. Applying this method to US data, we find that the interaction between monetary policy and stock returns is much weaker than suggested by earlier empirical studies.
Roombots: Reconfigurable Robots for Adaptive Furniture

Imagine a world in which our furniture moves around like legged robots, interacts with us, and changes shape and function during the day according to our needs. This is the long term vision we have in the Roombots project. To work towards this dream, we are developing modular robotic modules that have rotational degrees of freedom for locomotion as well as active connection mechanisms for runtime reconfiguration. A piece of furniture, e.g. a stool, will thus be composed of several modules that activate their rotational joints together to implement locomotor gaits, and will be able to change shape, e.g. transforming into a chair, by sequences of attachments and detachments of modules. In this article, we firstly present the project and the hardware we are currently developing. We explore how reconfiguration from a configuration A to a configuration B can be controlled in a distributed fashion. This is done using meta-modules-two Roombots modules connected serially-that use broadcast signals and connections to a structured ground to collectively build desired structures without the need of a centralized planner. We then present how locomotion controllers can be implemented in a distributed system of coupled oscillators-one per degree of freedom-similarly to the concept of central pattern generators (CPGs) found in the spinal cord of vertebrate animals. The CPGs are based on coupled phase oscillators to ensure synchronized behavior and have different output filters to allow switching between oscillations and rotations. A stochastic optimization algorithm is used to explore optimal CPG configurations for different simulated Roombots structures.
Transactional and Transformational Leadership Impacts on Organizational Learning

This study empirically relates two important areas of management research: the full-range theory of leadership and the organizational learning process. Specifically, this contribution addresses three issues: (1) the impact of transformational leadership and (2) of transactional leadership on the organizational learning process and (3) whether the influence of transformational leadership is stronger than of a transactional type of leadership. The results show that transformational leadership has a strong impact on all four constructs of organizational learning. A direct impact is evident only regarding information acquisition and behavioural and cognitive changes.
Analyzing Learners' Relationship to Improve the Quality of Recommender System for Group Learning Support

Recommender systems are now a popular research area and have become powerful tools to present personalized offers to users in many domains (e.g. e-commerce, e-learning). In this paper, we introduced an approach of personalization which extracts learners’ relationship based on learning processes and learning activities (e.g. note taking) to provide more authenticity, personalized recommendations for group learning support. Base on learners’ learning activities some interaction factors are extracted by using natural language process technologies and data mining automatically. Then, extracted interaction factors are utilized to generate some relationship indicators for inferring the learners’ directive relationship. These indicators are as symbols in order to describe a situation and relative degree which knowledge and understanding are socially distributed among group learners. Thirdly, we use a machine learning approach for acquiring a learner relationship identify module according to the relationship indicators. The experimental result shows that the proposed approach can give a more satisfying and qualified recommendation.
GNSS observations of deep convective time scales in the Amazon

[1] In the tropics, understanding the shallow-to-deep transition and organization of convection on the mesoscale is made difficult due the paucity of long-term high spatial/temporal resolution data. In this paper, data from the world's first long-term equatorial Global Navigational Satellite System meteorological station in Manaus (Central Amazon) is used to create a new metric, a water vapor convergence time scale, to characterize the temporal evolution of deep convection over a tropical continental region. From 3.5 years of data, 320 convective events were analyzed using a compositing analysis. Results reveal two characteristic time scales of water vapor convergence; an 8 h time scale of weak convergence and 4 h timescale of intense water vapor convergence associated with the shallow-to-deep convection transition. The 4 h shallow-to-deep transition time scale is particularly robust, regardless of convective intensity, seasonality, or nocturnal versus daytime convection. This new result provides a useful metric for both high resolution and global climate models to replicate.
Celiac Disease in Adult Patients: Specific Autoantibodies in the Diagnosis, Monitoring, and Screening

The increasing prevalence of celiac disease (CD), especially in adults, its atypical clinical presentation, and the strict, lifelong adherence to gluten-free diet (GFD) as the only option for healthy state create an imperative need for noninvasive methods that can effectively diagnose CD and monitor GFD. Aim. Evaluation of anti-endomysium (EmA) and anti-tissue transglutaminase IgA (tTG-A) antibodies in CD diagnosis, GFD monitoring, and first degree relatives screening in CD adult patients. Methods. 70 newly diagnosed Greek adult patients, 70 controls, and 47 first degree relatives were tested for the presence of EmA and tTG-A. The CD patients were monitored during a 3-year period. Results. EmA predictive ability for CD diagnosis was slightly better compared to tTG-A (P = 0.043). EmA could assess compliance with GFD already from the beginning of the diet, while both EmA and tTG-A had an equal ability to discriminate between strictly and partially compliant patients after the first semester and so on. Screening of first degree relatives resulted in the identification of 2 undiagnosed CD cases. Conclusions. Both EmA and tTG-A are suitable markers in the CD diagnosis, in the screening of CD among first degree relatives, having also an equal performance in the long term monitoring.
A Survey on Different Fusion Techniques of Visual and Thermal Images for Human Face Recognition

In this paper we do a survey on different f usion techniques of visual and thermal images for human face recognition. Image fusion constructs a single image by combining information from a set of source images together using different techniques. It is quite simpler to extract and locate facial features in visual images. Another advantage of using visual image is that it works well under controlled illumination condition. Infrared (IR) imaging is especially useful to determine the location and shape of objects in darkness and provides information about the degree of heating of individual segment of complex surfaces. Now a days, researchers have explored the use of fusion of thermal infrared and visual face images for person identification to combine the good aspects of visual and thermal images and to overcome the negative aspects of individual thermal and visual images. The aim of fusion is to produce a fused result or image that offers the more detailed and reliable information than the source images. In our paper we discussed the different fusion te chniques which is used to combine visual and thermal images for human face recognition.
Intelligent offline charging for a blended mobile non-SIP gaming service in IMS network

Gaming market is gaining rapid significance and recognized as one of the most revenue generating futuristic services. With IMS(IP Multimedia Subsystem) networks coming in to reality a new gaming experience can be provided to the subscribers by blending the gaming service with IMS service enablers such as presence, location etc. An intelligent service broker element like Service Capability Interaction Manager (SCIM) can deliver such blended services to the end users. Efficient charging of these services is very important and a real challenge since most of the interactive mobile gaming servers may not support standard 3GPP defined offline or online charging interfaces. Thus integrating these gaming servers requires lot of customization which may delay in rolling out new blended gaming services. Furthermore we propose a novel idea to charge such blended gaming services offline that are delivered through SCIM. We also propose a new offline charging interface Cf between SCIM and gaming application servers that enable exchange of charging information for the blended gaming service. We also discuss a typical IMS use case and its implementation details with a detailed call flow.
Household Ownership of Variable Annuities

Variable annuities have been one of the most rapidly growing financial products of the last two decades. Between 1996 and 2004, nominal sales of variable annuities in the United States more than doubled, from $51 billion to $130 billion. Variable annuities now account for almost two-thirds of annuity sales. The investment returns associated with variable annuities resemble those from mutual funds, and variable annuity buyers can select among a range of asset allocation options. Variable annuities are considered insurance products under the tax law, so buyers are not taxed on their investment returns until they make withdrawals from their variable annuity accounts. This paper describes the tax treatment of variable annuities, presents summary information on their ownership patterns, and explores the importance of several distinct motives for household purchase of variable annuities. The discussion of tax treatment examines the impact of the 2001 and 2003 tax bills on the relative tax treatment of variable annuities and other financial products. Household data from the 1998 and 2001 Survey of Consumer Finances show that variable annuity ownership is highly concentrated among high-income and high net wealth sub-groups of the population. Variable annuity ownership is less concentrated, however, than ownership of several other types of financial assets. Evidence on the role of tax incentives in encouraging ownership of variable annuities is mixed. The probability of owning a variable annuity rises with the marginal tax rate throughout most of the income distribution, but it is lower for households in the top tax bracket than for those with slightly lower tax rates.
Aniseikonia Tests: The Role of Viewing Mode, Response Bias, and Size-Color Illusions.

PURPOSE To identify the factors responsible for the poor validity of the most common aniseikonia tests, which involve size comparisons of red-green stimuli presented haploscopically. METHODS Aniseikonia was induced by afocal size lenses placed before one eye. Observers compared the sizes of semicircles presented haploscopically via color filters. The main factor under study was viewing mode (free viewing versus short presentations under central fixation). To eliminate response bias, a three-response format allowed observers to respond if the left, the right, or neither semicircle appeared larger than the other. To control decisional (criterion) bias, measurements were taken with the lens-magnified stimulus placed on the left and on the right. To control for size-color illusions, measurements were made with color filters in both arrangements before the eyes and under binocular vision (without color filters). RESULTS Free viewing resulted in a systematic underestimation of lens-induced aniseikonia that was absent with short presentations. Significant size-color illusions and decisional biases were found that would be mistaken for aniseikonia unless appropriate action is taken. CONCLUSIONS To improve their validity, aniseikonia tests should use short presentations and include control conditions to prevent contamination from decisional/response biases. If anaglyphs are used, presence of size-color illusions must be checked for. TRANSLATIONAL RELEVANCE We identified optimal conditions for administration of aniseikonia tests and appropriate action for differential diagnosis of aniseikonia in the presence of response biases or size-color illusions. Our study has clinical implications for aniseikonia management.
Response of Human Thalamic Neurons to High-Frequency Stimulation

Thalamic deep brain stimulation (DBS) is an effective treatment for tremor, but the mechanisms of action remain unclear. Previous studies of human thalamic neurons to noted transient rebound bursting activity followed by prolonged inhibition after cessation of high frequency extracellular stimulation, and the present study sought to identify the mechanisms underlying this response. Recordings from 13 thalamic neurons exhibiting low threshold spike (LTS) bursting to brief periods of extracellular stimulation were made during surgeries to implant DBS leads in 6 subjects with Parkinson's disease. The response immediately after cessation of stimulation included a short epoch of burst activity, followed by a prolonged period of silence before a return to LTS bursting. A computational model of a population of thalamocortical relay neurons and presynaptic axons terminating on the neurons was used to identify cellular mechanisms of the observed responses. The model included the actions of neuromodulators through inhibition of a non-pertussis toxin sensitive K+ current (IKL), activation of a pertussis toxin sensitive K+ current (IKG), and a shift in the activation curve of the hyperpolarization-activated cation current (Ih). The model replicated well the measured responses, and the prolonged inhibition was associated most strongly with changes in IKG while modulation of IKL or Ih had minimal effects on post-stimulus inhibition suggesting that neuromodulators released in response to high frequency stimulation are responsible for mediating the post-stimulation bursting and subsequent long duration silence of thalamic neurons. The modeling also indicated that the axons of the model neurons responded robustly to suprathreshold stimulation despite the inhibitory effects on the soma. The findings suggest that during DBS the axons of thalamocortical neurons are activated while the cell bodies are inhibited thus blocking the transmission of pathological signals through the network and replacing them with high frequency regular firing.
Cultural issues and ethical dilemmas in palliative and end-of-life care in Spain.

BACKGROUND The concept of palliative care differs according to cultures and traditions. In Spain, palliative care programs have expanded in recent years. The European Commission Research Project in Palliative Care Ethics has sponsored ongoing research to analyze and clarify the conceptual differences in providing palliative care to patients in European countries with diverse cultures and backgrounds. METHODS The authors present key ethical issues in clinical practice in palliative and end-of-life care in Spain and how these issues are influenced by Spanish culture. They discuss typical characteristics of the Spanish conceptual approach to palliative care, which might be relevant in an even larger Latin palliative care context. RESULTS The cultural tradition in Spain influences attitudes toward euthanasia, sedation, the definition of terminality, care in the last 48 hours of life, diagnosis disclosure, and information. The overall care of terminally ill patients with an Hispanic background includes not only the treatment of disease, but also the recognition and respect of their traditions and culture. CONCLUSIONS The Spanish palliative care movement has shifted its focus from starting new programs to consolidating and expanding the training of the professionals already working in the existing programs. Although there is a general consensus that a new philosophy of care is needed, the interpretation and application of this general philosophy are different in diverse sociocultural contexts.
The individual preference effect revisited Beyond group-level explanations for the failure of groups to solve hidden profiles :

The individual preference effect supplements the predominant group-level explanations for the failure of groups to solve hidden profiles. Even in the absence of dysfunctional group-level processes, group members tend to stick to their suboptimal initial decision preferences due to preference-consistent evaluation of information. However, previous experiments demonstrating this effect retained two group-level processes, namely (a) social validation of information supporting the group members’ initial preferences and (b) presentation of the additional information in a discussion format. Therefore, it was unclear whether the individual preference effect depends on the co-occurrence of these grouplevel processes. Here, we report two experiments demonstrating that the individual preference effect is indeed an individual-level phenomenon. Moreover, by a comparison to real interacting groups, we can show that even when all relevant information is exchanged and when no coordination losses occur, almost half of all groups would fail to solve hidden profiles due to the individual preference effect.
And in the Darkness Bind Them: Equatorial Rings, B[e] Supergiants, and the Waists of Bipolar Nebulae

We report the discovery of two new circumstellar ring nebulae in the western Carina Nebula, and we discuss their significance in stellar evolution. The brighter of the two new objects, SBW 1, resembles a lidless staring eye and encircles a B1.5 Iab supergiant. Although seen in Carina, its luminosity class and radial velocity imply a larger distance of ∼7 kpc in the far Carina arm. At that distance its size and shape are nearly identical to the equatorial ring around SN 1987A, but SBW 1's low N abundance indicates that the ring was excreted without its star passing through a red supergiant phase. The fainter object, SBW 2, is a more distorted ring, is N-rich, and is peculiar in that its central star seems to be invisible. We discuss the implications of these two new nebulae in context with other circumstellar rings such as those around SN 1987A, Sher 25, HD 168625, RY Scuti, WeBo 1, SuWt 2, and others. The ring bearers fall into two groups: Five rings surround hot supergiants, and it is striking that all except for the one known binary are carbon copies of the ring around SN 1987A. We propose a link between these B supergiant rings and B[e] supergiants, where the large spatially resolved rings derive from the same material that would have given rise to emission lines during the earlier B[e] phase, when it was much closer to the star. The remaining four rings surround evolved intermediate-mass stars; all members of this ring fellowship are close binaries, hinting that binary interactions govern the forging of such rings. Two-thirds of our sample are found in or near giant H II regions. We estimate that there may be several thousand more dark rings in the Galaxy, but we are scarcely aware of their existence—either because they are only illuminated in precious few circumstances or because of selection effects. For intermediate-mass stars, these rings might be the preexisting equatorial density enhancements invoked to bind the waists of bipolar nebulae.