Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Physico-chemical, microbial and sensory properties of kunu zaki beverage sweetened with black velvet tamarind (Dialium guineense)

This work determined the physicochemical, microbial and sensory characteristics of kunu zaki sweetened with black velvet tamarind (Dialium guinnense) flour. The outer covering and seed of black velvet was removed while the pulp was pulverized to obtain the flour. The tamarind pulp was analysed for its proximate and sugar contents. Kunu zaki was prepared according to standard method and 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 g of the black velvet pulp was added to 1000 ml each of kunu zaki along with a control sample. The kunu zaki samples were stored at refrigeration temperature (4 oC) for a period of 5 days. The physicochemical properties (pH, obrix, total titratable acidity), color, beta-carotene and vitamin C, microbial load and sensory attributes of the kunu zaki were analysed. The black velvet tamarind pulp had 42.01 g/100 g of total solid. The addition of black velvet tamarind (Dialium guinnense) to kunu zaki lowered the pH, thereby improving the keeping quality of the kunu zaki samples. The pH of kunu zaki ranged from 2.69-4.15 while the titratable acidity ranged from 5.44-10.06 %, the betacarotene and vitamin C content were high with a range of 3.10–36.6 mg/100 g and 4.73–47.25 mg/100 g respectively. The bacterial count ranged from 1-8.8 × 10 cfu/mL and a fungal count of 1-4.9 × 10 cfu/mL. Kunu zaki with 50 g of black velvet tamarind was the most preferred in terms of taste, appearance, aroma and general acceptability.
Cyclooxygenase-1 and -2-dependent prostacyclin formation in patients with atherosclerosis.

BACKGROUND The formation of prostacyclin (PGI(2)), thromboxane (TX) A(2), and isoprostanes is markedly enhanced in atherosclerosis. We examined the relative contribution of cyclooxygenase (COX)-1 and -2 to the generation of these eicosanoids in patients with atherosclerosis. METHODS AND RESULTS The study population consisted of 42 patients with atherosclerosis who were undergoing surgical revascularization. COX-2 mRNA was detected in areas of atherosclerosis but not in normal blood vessel walls, and there was evidence of COX-1 induction. The use of immunohistochemical studies localized the COX-2 to proliferating vascular smooth muscle cells and macrophages. Twenty-four patients who did not previously receive aspirin were randomized to receive either no treatment or nimesulide at 24 hours before surgery and then for 3 days. Eighteen patients who were receiving aspirin were continued on a protocol of either aspirin alone or a combination of aspirin and nimesulide. Urinary levels of 11-dehydro-TXB(2) and 2,3-dinor-6-keto-PGF(1alpha), metabolites of TXA(2) and PGI(2), respectively, were elevated in patients with atherosclerosis compared with normal subjects (3211+/-533 versus 679+/-63 pg/mg creatinine, P<0.001; 594+/-156 versus 130+/-22 pg/mg creatinine, P<0.05, respectively), as was the level of the isoprostane 8-iso-PGF(2alpha). Nimesulide reduced 2, 3-dinor-6-keto-PGF(1alpha) excretion by 46+/-5% (378.3+/-103 to 167+/-37 pg/mg creatinine, P<0.01) preoperatively and blunted the increase after surgery. Nimesulide had no significant effect on 11-dehydro-TXB(2) before (2678+/-694 to 2110+/-282 pg/mg creatinine) or after surgery. The levels of both products were lower in patients who were taking aspirin, and no further reduction was seen with the addition of nimesulide. None of the treatments influenced urinary 8-iso-PGF(2alpha) excretion. CONCLUSIONS Both COX-1 and -2 are expressed and contribute to the increase in PGI(2) in patients with atherosclerosis, whereas TXA(2) is generated by COX-1.
Tools used for evaluation of Brazilian children's quality of life

OBJECTIVE: To review the available tools to evaluate children's quality of life validated for Brazilian language and culture. DATA SOURCES: Search of scientific articles in Medline, Lilacs and SciELO databases using the combination of descriptors "quality of life", "child" and "questionnaires" in Portuguese and English. DATA SYNTHESIS: Among the tools designed to assess children's quality of life validated for the Brazilian language and culture, the Auto questionnaire Qualité de Vie Enfant Imagé (AUQEI), the Child Health Questionnaire - Parent Form 50 (CHQ-PF50), the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL(tm)) version 4.0 and the Kidscreen-52 are highlighted. Some tools do not include all range of ages and some lack domains that are currently considered relevant in the context of childhood, such as bullying. Moreover, due to the cultural diversity of Brazil, it may be necessary to adapt some instruments or to validate other tools. CONCLUSIONS: There are validated instruments to evaluate children's quality of life in Brazil. However, the validation or the adaptation of other international tools have to be considered in order to overcome current deficiencies.
Migraine and incidence of ischemic stroke: A nationwide population-based study

Background The association between migraine and the incidence of ischemic stroke varies in different subgroups of patients. We aimed to clarify this association using a population-based database. Method A nationwide cohort study was conducted using data from the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database. Two cohorts were extracted: a neurologist-diagnosed migraine cohort, and a non-headache, propensity score-matched comparison cohort. All participants were enrolled in this study between 2005 and 2009, and were followed through the end of 2010, death, or the occurrence of ischemic stroke. Adjusted hazard ratios (aHRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated with a Cox proportional hazards model to compare the between-group risks. Results Both cohorts (n = 119,017 each) were followed for a mean period of 3.6 ± 1.3 years. A total of 744 migraine patients (429,741 person-years) and 617 matched comparison individuals (436,141 person-years) developed ischemic stroke during the research period. Compared to the comparison cohort, patients with migraine were at an increased risk of ischemic stroke (aHR: 1.24, 95% CI: 1.12–1.38, p < 0.001). Subgroup analysis by age and sex revealed the highest risk in women aged ≤ 45 years (aHR: 3.44, 95% CI: 2.20–5.39, p < 0.001), especially among those with migraine with aura (aHR: 4.58, 95% CI: 2.45 – 8.56, p < 0.001). A trend for increased stroke risk was observed in men aged ≤ 45 years (aHR: 1.54, 95% CI: 0.96–2.48, p = 0.075). Conclusion Migraine is associated with an increased risk of ischemic stroke, especially in younger (age ≤ 45 years) women with migraine with aura. The trend toward ischemic stroke in younger men merits further exploration.
Compulsory Generic Switching of Antiepileptic Drugs: High Switchback Rates to Branded Compounds Compared with Other Drug Classes

Summary: Purpose: Compulsory generic substitution of antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) may lead to adverse effects in epilepsy patients because of seizure recurrence or increased toxicity. The study objectives were (a) to quantify and compare the switchback rates from generic to brand‐name AEDs versus non‐AEDs, and (b) to assess clinical implications of switching from branded Lamictal to generic lamotrigine (LTG) and whether signals exist suggesting outcome worsening.
Cross Sections for Neutron–Deuteron Elastic Scattering in the Energy Range 135–250 MeV

We report new measurements of the neutron–deuteron elastic scattering cross section at energies from 135 to 250 MeV and center-of-mass angles from 80◦ to 130◦. Cross sections for neutron-proton elastic scattering were also measured with the same experimental setup for normalization purposes. Our nd cross section results are compared with predictions based on Faddeev calculations including three-nucleon forces, and with cross sections measured with charged particle and neutron beams at comparable energies.
Improved incremental randomized Delaunay triangulation

We propose a new data structure to compute the Delaunay triangulation of a set of points in the plane. It combines good worst case complexity, fast behavior on real data, and small memory occupation. The location structure is organized into several levels. The lowest level just consists of the triangulation, then each level contains the triangulation of a small sample of the levels below. Point location is done by marching in a triangulation to determine the nearest neighbor of the query at that level, then the march restarts from that neighbor at the level below. Using a small sample (3 %) allows a small memory occupation; the march and the use of the nearest neighbor to change levels quickly locate the query.
The Role Of Linguistic Properties In Online Dating Communication - A Large-Scale Study Of Contact Initiation Messages

For people who look for a partner, online dating largely increases the pool of potential mates. At the same time, users of online dating platforms have to cope with a large number of approaches and, therefore, need to choose selectively who they decide to engage in a conversation with. Especially, since the costs of rejection are low on online dating platforms, it is a common strategy to spam others with superficial approaches. With this in mind, and in the absence of nonverbal cues, targets base their decision of whether or not to respond to a message on (a) their impression of the sender’s pictures, and (b) cues which they extract from the content of the message. The purpose of this study is to hypothesize on which linguistic properties of a message in computer-mediated communication may signal various qualities of its sender, to predict how those properties determine a target’s decision of whether to respond or to ignore an initial message. Employing the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) text analysis, relevant variables are operationalized from a corpus of 167,276 initial messages of an online dating platform. Regression analysis is performed in order to test the hypotheses. Results are discussed with respect to design implications for online dating platforms.
Dissociation between mental fatigue and motivational state during prolonged mental activity

Mental fatigue (MF) is commonly observed following prolonged cognitive activity and can have major repercussions on the daily life of patients as well as healthy individuals. Despite its important impact, the cognitive processes involved in MF remain largely unknown. An influential hypothesis states that MF does not arise from a disruption of overused neural processes but, rather, is caused by a progressive decrease in motivation-related task engagement. Here, to test this hypothesis, we measured various neural, autonomic, psychometric and behavioral signatures of MF and motivation (EEG, ECG, pupil size, eye blinks, Skin conductance responses (SCRs), questionnaires and performance in a working memory (WM) task) in healthy volunteers, while MF was induced by Sudoku tasks performed for 120 min. Moreover extrinsic motivation was manipulated by using different levels of monetary reward. We found that, during the course of the experiment, the participants’ subjective feeling of fatigue increased and their performance worsened while their blink rate and heart rate variability (HRV) increased. Conversely, reward-induced EEG, pupillometric and skin conductance signal changes, regarded as indicators of task engagement, remained constant during the experiment, and failed to correlate with the indices of MF. In addition, MF did not affect a simple reaction time task, despite the strong influence of extrinsic motivation on this task. Finally, alterations of the motivational state through monetary incentives failed to compensate the effects of MF. These findings indicate that MF in healthy subjects is not caused by an alteration of task engagement but is likely to be the consequence of a decrease in the efficiency, or availability, of cognitive resources.
Cephalopod origin and evolution: A congruent picture emerging from fossils, development and molecules

Cephalopods are extraordinary molluscs equipped with vertebrate‐like intelligence and a unique buoyancy system for locomotion. A growing body of evidence from the fossil record, embryology and Bayesian molecular divergence estimations provides a comprehensive picture of their origins and evolution. Cephalopods evolved during the Cambrian (∼530 Ma) from a monoplacophoran‐like mollusc in which the conical, external shell was modified into a chambered buoyancy apparatus. During the mid‐Palaeozoic (∼416 Ma) cephalopods diverged into nautiloids and the presently dominant coleoids. Coleoids (i.e. squids, cuttlefish and octopods) internalised their shells and, in the late Palaeozoic (∼276 Ma), diverged into Vampyropoda and the Decabrachia. This shell internalisation appears to be a unique evolutionary event. In contrast, the loss of a mineralised shell has occurred several times in distinct coleoid lineages. The general tendency of shell reduction reflects a trend towards active modes of life and much more complex behaviour.
Lung function in white children aged 4 to 19 years: II--Single breath analysis and plethysmography.

OBJECTIVE--A study was performed to determine reference ranges for whole body plethysmographic gas volumes and single breath gas transfer in healthy prepubertal and pubertal schoolchildren. METHODS--The study was performed in 772 white London schoolchildren (455 male) who were clinically examined, assessed auxologically and, in 63% of cases, pubertally staged. Regression equations for the calculation of standard deviation scores were derived. RESULTS--Male lung function variables showed a discontinuous pattern of increase with standing height. Linear increases until puberty were followed by a sudden pubertal rise and a further increase with height which was more marked than before puberty. Correction for varying thoracic dimensions eliminated these changes. In females a smoother curvilinear relationship was observed with no correction possible for thoracic size. CONCLUSIONS--Male puberty leads to profound changes in pulmonary function mostly related to thoracic size, an effect not observed in females.
Towards a robust smartphone-based 2,5D pedestrian localization

Automatic real-time localization of people inside buildings is a huge challenge. For demanding applications in building services, different sensors (e.g. WLAN, RFID, UWB, or ultrasound) are currently used for the real-time indoor positioning. Most systems are only suitable for specific applications or are used under certain conditions, e.g. additional infrastructures and/or sensory mechanisms are needed. Smartphones, as widespread low-cost multi sensor systems, seem to be a promising platform for mass-market indoor localization applications. In this paper we present an approach for a smartphone-based pedestrian positioning inside of buildings. The novelty of this approach refers to further investigations towards a robust smartphone-based 2.5D pedestrian localization inside of buildings. Therefore, comprehensive analyses concerning barometric height estimations were carried out to expand the predominant 2D position into the third dimension. The 2D position is estimated according to the principle of dead reckoning. Furthermore an extended algorithm based on Sequential Monte Carlo methods for sensor fusion is presented which also integrates building models and a magnetic indoor positioning system.
Efficient SOM-Based ATR Method for SAR Imagery With Azimuth Angular Variations

The microwave imaging technique, especially for synthetic aperture radar (SAR), has significant advantages in providing high-resolution complex target images, even in darkness or adverse weather conditions. Nevertheless, it is still difficult for human operators to identify targets on SAR images because they are generated using radio signals with wavelengths at the order of cm. To deal with this, various approaches for efficient automatic target recognition (ATR), based on neural networks or support vector machines (SVM), have been developed. Previously we proposed a promising ATR method using a supervised self-organizing map (SOM), where a binarized SAR image is accurately classified by exploiting the unified distance matrix (U-matrix) metric. Although this method enhances ATR performance considerably, even with SAR images heavily contaminated by random noise, the calculation burden is enormous under expansions of scale and then cannot maintain the ATR performance, especially in cases with azimuth angle variations. In this letter, we propose a constrained learning scheme for generating the SOM and introduce the A-star algorithm to handle SOM scale expansion. Experimental investigations demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed method.
Improving developer participation rates in surveys

Doing high quality research about the human side of software engineering necessitates the participation of real software developers in studies, but getting high levels of participation is a challenge for software engineering researchers. In this paper, we discuss several factors that software engineering researchers can use when recruiting participants, drawn from a combination of general research on survey design, research on persuasion, and our experience in conducting surveys. We study these factors by performing post-hoc analysis on several previously conducted surveys. Our results provide insight into the factors associated with increased response rates, which are neither wholly composed of factors associated strictly with persuasion research, nor those of conventional wisdom in software engineering.
Kohonen’s Map Approach for the Belief Mass Modeling

In the framework of the evidence theory, several approaches for estimating belief functions are proposed. However, they generally suffer from the problem of masses attribution in the case of compound hypotheses that lose much conceptual contribution of the theory. In this paper, an original method for estimating mass functions using Kohonen's map derived from the initial feature space and an initial classifier is proposed. Our approach allows a smart mass belief assignment, not only for simple hypotheses but also for disjunctions and conjunctions of hypotheses. Thus, it can model at the same time ignorance, imprecision, and paradox. The proposed method for a basic belief assignment (BBA) is of interest for solving estimation mass functions problems where a large quantity of multivariate data is available. Indeed, the use of Kohonen's map simplifies the process of assigning mass functions. The proposed method has been compared with the state-of-the-art BBA technique on benchmark database and applied on remote sensing data for image classification purpose. Experimentation shows that our approach gives similar or better results than other methods presented in the literature so far, with an ability to handle a large amount of data.
Regulatory network of acid resistance genes in Escherichia coli

Overexpression of the response regulator EvgA confers an acid‐resistant phenotype to exponentially growing Escherichia coli. This acid resistance is partially abolished by deletion of ydeP, yhiE or ydeO, genes induced by EvgA overexpression. Microarray analysis identified two classes of operons (genes). The first class contains seven operons induced by EvgA overexpression in the absence of ydeO, an AraC/XylS regulator gene. The second class contains 12 operons induced by YdeO overexpression. Operons in the second class were induced by EvgA overexpression only in the presence of ydeO. EvgA is likely to directly upregulate operons in the first class, and indirectly upregulate operons in the second class via YdeO. Analysis using the motif‐finding program alignace identified an 18 bp inverted repeat motif in six upstream regions of all seven operons directly regulated by EvgA. Gel mobility shift assays showed the specific binding of EvgA to the six sequences. Introduction of mutations into the inverted repeats upstream of ydeP and b1500‐ydeO resulted in reduction in EvgA‐induced ydeP and ydeO expression and acid resistance. These results suggest that EvgA binds to the inverted repeats and upregulates the downstream genes. Overexpression of YdeP, YdeO and YhiE conferred acid resistance to exponentially growing cells, whereas GadX overexpression did not. Microarray analysis also identified several GadX‐activated genes. Several genes induced by overexpression of YdeO and GadX overlapped; however, yhiE was induced only by YdeO. The acid resistance induced by YdeO overexpression was abolished by deletion of yhiE, gadC, slp‐yhiF, hdeA or hdeD, genes induced by YdeO overexpression, suggesting that several genes orchestrate YdeO‐induced acid resistance. We propose a model of the regulatory network of the acid resistance genes.
Abstractive Summarization of Product Reviews Using Discourse Structure

We propose a novel abstractive summarization system for product reviews by taking advantage of their discourse structure. First, we apply a discourse parser to each review and obtain a discourse tree representation for every review. We then modify the discourse trees such that every leaf node only contains the aspect words. Second, we aggregate the aspect discourse trees and generate a graph. We then select a subgraph representing the most important aspects and the rhetorical relations between them using a PageRank algorithm, and transform the selected subgraph into an aspect tree. Finally, we generate a natural language summary by applying a template-based NLG framework. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of the results, based on two user studies, show that our approach significantly outperforms extractive and abstractive baselines.
of Statistical Mechanics : Theory and Experiment Non-equilibrium steady states : fluctuations and large deviations of the density and of the current

These lecture notes give a short review of methods such as the matrix ansatz, the additivity principle or the macroscopic fluctuation theory, developed recently in the theory of non-equilibrium phenomena. They show how these methods allow us to calculate the fluctuations and large deviations of the density and the current in non-equilibrium steady states of systems like exclusion processes. The properties of these fluctuations and large deviation functions in non-equilibrium steady states (for example, non-Gaussian fluctuations of density or non-convexity of the large deviation function which generalizes the notion of free energy) are compared with those of systems at equilibrium.