Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Interplay between chemistry and dynamics in embedded protostellar disks

Context. A fundamental part of the study of star formation is to place young stellar objects in an evolutionary sequence. Establishing a robust evolutionary classification scheme allows us not only to understand how the Sun was born but also to predict what kind of main sequence star a given protostar will become. Traditionally, low-mass young stellar objects are classified according to the shape of their spectral energy distributions. Such methods are, however, prone to misclassification due to degeneracy and do not constrain the temporal evolution. More recently, young stellar objects have been classified based on envelope, disk, and stellar masses determined from resolved images of their continuum and line emission at submillimeter wavelengths. Aims. Through detailed modeling of two Class I sources, we aim at determining accurate velocity profiles and explore the role of freeze-out chemistry in such objects. Methods. We present new Submillimeter Array observations of the continuum and HCO + line emission at 1.1 mm toward two protostars, IRS 63 and IRS 43 in the Ophiuchus star forming region. The sources were modeled in detail using dust radiation transfer to fit the SED and continuum images and line radiation transfer to produce synthetic position-velocity diagrams. We used a 2 search algorithm to find the best model fit to the data and to estimate the errors in the model variables. Results. Our best fit models present disk, envelope, and stellar masses, as well as the HCO + abundance and inclination of both sources. We also identify a ring structure with a radius of about 200 AU in IRS 63. Conclusions. We find that freeze-out chemistry is important in IRS 63 but not for IRS 43. We show that the velocity field in IRS 43 is consistent with Keplerian rotation. Owing to molecular depletion, it is not possible to draw a similar conclusion for IRS 63. We identify a ring-shaped structure in IRS 63 on the same spatial scale as the disk outer radius. No such structure is seen in IRS 43.
The Antifibrotic Effect of A2B Adenosine Receptor Antagonism in a Mouse Model of Dermal Fibrosis

Systemic sclerosis (SSc; scleroderma) is a chronic disease that affects the skin and various internal organs. Dermal fibrosis is a major component of this disease. The mechanisms that promote dermal fibrosis remain elusive. Elevations in tissue adenosine levels and the subsequent engagement of the profibrotic A2B adenosine receptor (ADORA2B) have been shown to regulate fibrosis in multiple organs including the lung, kidney, and penis; however, the role of ADORA2B in dermal fibrosis has not been investigated. We undertook this study to test our hypothesis that elevated expression of ADORA2B in the skin drives the development of dermal fibrosis.
Aging-related trajectories of lung function in the general population—The Doetinchem Cohort Study

The objective of this study was to explore trajectories of lung function decline with age in the general population, and to study the effect of sociodemographic and life style related risk factors, in particular smoking and BMI. For this purpose, we used data from the Doetinchem Cohort Study (DCS) of men and women, selected randomly from the general population and aged 20–59 years at inclusion in 1987–1991, and followed until the present. Participants in the DCS are assessed every five years. Spirometry has been performed as part of this assessment from 1994 onwards. Participants were included in this study if spirometric measurement of FEV1, which in this study was the main parameter of interest, was acceptable and reproducible on at least one measurement round, leading to the inclusion of 5727 individuals (3008 females). Statistical analysis revealed three typical trajectories. The majority of participants followed a trajectory that closely adhered to the Global Lung Initiative Reference values (94.9% of men and 96.4% of women). Two other trajectories showed a more pronounced decline. Smoking and the presence of respiratory complaints were the best predictors of a trajectory with stronger decline. A greater BMI over the follow-up period was associated with a more unfavorable FEV1 course both in men (β = -0.027 (SD = 0.002); P < 0.001) and in women (β = -0.008 (SD = 0.001); P < 0.001). Smokers at baseline who quit the habit during follow-up, showed smaller decline in FEV1 in comparison to persistent smokers, independent of BMI change (In men β = -0.074 (SD = 0.020); P < 0.001. In women β = -0.277 (SD = 0.068); P < 0.001). In conclusion, three typical trajectories of age-related FEV1 decline could be distinguished. Change in the lifestyle related risk factors, BMI and smoking, significantly impact aging-related decline of lung function. Identifying deviant trajectories may help in early recognition of those at risk of a diagnosis of lung disease later in life.
Tensile Properties, Water Uptake, and Thermal Properties of Polypropylene/Waste Pulverized Tire/Kenaf (PP/WPT/KNF) Composites

The effects of kenaf (KNF) loading and 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTES) on the tensile properties, water uptake, and thermal properties of KNF-filled polypropylene (PP)/waste pulverized tire (WPT) composites were investigated. The composites were prepared using a Thermo Haake Polydrive internal mixer, where KNF loadings (0, 5, 10, 15, 20 phr) and constant PP/WPT (70/30) were used. The results showed that the tensile modulus and water uptake increased, but tensile strength and elongation at break decreased, with increased KNF loading. The composites with APTES exhibited a higher tensile strength and tensile modulus, but lower elongation at break and water uptake than composites without APTES. The presence of APTES enhanced the interfacial adhesion between PP/WPT matrices and KNF. Thermal stability of PP/WPT/KNF composites increased with KNF loading, and was found slightly higher, but insignificant for composites with APTES. Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectra analysis was performed to study the interactions among the PP, WPT, KNF, and the ethoxy functional groups in APTES.
The role of tax policy in times of fiscal consolidation

The paper consists in the proceedings of the workshop organised by the Directorate General for Economic and Financial Affairs held in Brussels on 18 October 2012. Against the background of severe consolidation needs in many EU Member States, the workshop addressed the macroeconomic impact and redistributive effects of consolidation measures on the revenue side, two topics ranking high on the current taxation policy agenda. The proceedings gather together the views of academics, national policy-makers and international institutions expressed during the conference. The presentations and discussions in the first session touched upon the balance between current consolidation measures and their medium-term effects. It also provided insights from macroeconomic modelling to design tax consolidation policy and looked into ways to measure consolidation efforts on the tax side. The second session discussed the best tax bases to be used to safeguard social equity and considered income and capital tax options to make the richest contribute to meeting fiscal adjustment needs. Country-specific presentations showed how tax measures were used for consolidation purposes and looked into various experiences in distributing income through the tax system.
Hypertonic Saline Versus Isotonic Saline Nasal Irrigation: Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Background Saline nasal lavage is one of the treatments of sinonasal diseases. Evidence from basic research favors hypertonic saline (HS) over isotonic saline (IS) for mucociliary clearance, but evidence from clinical studies is controversial. Conversely, HS may carry greater side effects. Objective To compare the effects of HS and IS nasal irrigation in treating sinonasal diseases. Methods Systematic search with Ovid MEDLINE, Scopus, PubMed, Google Scholar, and Manual additional sources was conducted. Randomized controlled trials comparing HS with IS nasal irrigation in treating any sinonasal diseases, including rhinitis and rhinosinusitis, were included. Data were pooled for meta-analyses. Outcomes were symptom scores, sinonasal outcome test (SNOT), and adverse events. Heterogeneity was explored by subgroup analyses. Results Nine studies (740 patients) were included. HS nasal irrigation brought greater benefits over IS in symptom reduction (standardized mean difference (SMD) −0.58; 95% confidence interval [CI]: −0.76, −0.40); however, no difference was shown in SNOT-20 improvement (mean difference 1.81; 95% CI: −0.68, 4.30). In subgroup analyses, effects favoring HS on symptoms were larger in 4 subgroups. These were (1) patients with rhinitis (SMD −1.09; 95% CI: −1.42, −0.76) compared with rhinosinusitis (SMD −0.37; 95% CI: −0.58, −0.15), P < . 01; (2) patients under the age of 18 years (SMD −1.22; 95% CI: −1.53, −0.91) compared with patients over the age of 18 years (SMD −0.26; 95% CI: −0.49, −0.04), P < . 01; (3) saline irrigation using high volume (SMD −0.89; 95% CI: −1.18, −0.60) compared with low volume (SMD −0.39; 95% CI: −0.62, −0.16), P < . 01; and (4) saline irrigation with hypertonicity of <3% (SMD −1.09; 95% CI: −1.42, −0.76) and hypertonicity of 3%–5% (SMD −1.20; 95% CI: −1.61, −0.78) compared with hypertonicity of >5% (SMD 0.20; 95% CI: −0.15, 0.55), P < . 01. Buffered saline and operative status did not have impact. HS brought greater minor adverse effects. No major adverse effects were reported. Conclusion HS improves symptoms over IS nasal irrigation in treating sinonasal diseases. There is no difference in disease-specific quality of life. However, HS brings greater minor side effects than IS.
CLRPL: Context-Aware and Load Balancing RPL for Iot Networks Under Heavy and Highly Dynamic Load

The IPv6 routing protocol for low power and lossy networks (RPL) was accepted as the standard routing protocol for Internet of Things (IoT) by Internet engineering task force on March 2012. Since then, it has been used in different IoT applications. Though RPL considerably deals with IoT network requirements, there are still some open problems to solve, since it was not initially designed for IoT applications. In this paper, we address the problem of packet loss and power depletion in an RPL-based network under heavy and highly dynamic load. We address this problem in three steps: First, we present a context-aware objective function (CAOF), which computes the rank, considering the context of the node. CAOF also avoids thundering herd phenomenon by gradual shifting from a high rank value toward the real rank value. Second, we present a new routing metric, known as context-aware routing metric (CARF) which considers the status of remaining power and queue utilization of parent chain toward the root in a recursive manner while lessening the effect of upstream parents as it gets farther down the path. Through comprehensive evaluations, we show that this metric leads to a better decision about the proper parent in a network with high traffic dynamicity, rather than deciding merely based on the parent rank. Third, we present a new parent selection mechanism, which selects the best parent based on CARF and some other metrics while avoiding routing loops by a simple yet effective countermeasure. Evaluation results reveal improvements in network lifetime while decreasing packet loss in comparison with standard specification of RPL.
Enhancing Modern Supervised Word Sense Disambiguation Models by Semantic Lexical Resources

Supervised models for Word Sense Disambiguation (WSD) currently yield to state-of-the-art results in the most popular benchmarks. Despite the recent introduction of Word Embeddings and Recurrent Neural Networks to design powerful context-related features, the interest in improving WSD models using Semantic Lexical Resources (SLRs) is mostly restricted to knowledge-based approaches. In this paper, we enhance"modern"supervised WSD models exploiting two popular SLRs: WordNet and WordNet Domains. We propose an effective way to introduce semantic features into the classifiers, and we consider using the SLR structure to augment the training data. We study the effect of different types of semantic features, investigating their interaction with local contexts encoded by means of mixtures of Word Embeddings or Recurrent Neural Networks, and we extend the proposed model into a novel multi-layer architecture for WSD. A detailed experimental comparison in the recent Unified Evaluation Framework (Raganato et al., 2017) shows that the proposed approach leads to supervised models that compare favourably with the state-of-the art.
LINKING DENSE GAS FROM THE MILKY WAY TO EXTERNAL GALAXIES

In a survey of 65 galaxies, Gao & Solomon found a tight linear relation between the infrared luminosity (LIR, a proxy for the star formation rate) and the HCN(1–0) luminosity ( ). Wu et al. found that this relation extends from these galaxies to the much less luminous Galactic molecular high-mass star-forming clumps (∼1 pc scales), and posited that there exists a characteristic ratio LIR/ for high-mass star-forming clumps. The Gao–Solomon relation for galaxies could then be explained as a summation of large numbers of high-mass star-forming clumps, resulting in the same LIR/ ratio for galaxies. We test this explanation and other possible origins of the Gao–Solomon relation using high-density tracers (including HCN(1–0), N2H+(1–0), HCO+(1–0), HNC(1–0), HC3N(10–9), and C2H(1–0)) for ∼300 Galactic clumps from the Millimetre Astronomy Legacy Team 90 GHz (MALT90) survey. The MALT90 data show that the Gao–Solomon relation in galaxies cannot be satisfactorily explained by the blending of large numbers of high-mass clumps in the telescope beam. Not only do the clumps have a large scatter in the LIR/ ratio, but also far too many high-mass clumps are required to account for the Galactic IR and HCN luminosities. We suggest that the scatter in the LIR/ ratio converges to the scatter of the Gao–Solomon relation at some size-scale ≳1 kpc. We suggest that the Gao–Solomon relation could instead result from of a universal large-scale star formation efficiency, initial mass function, core mass function, and clump mass function.
Effect of Joyful Teaching on Grade IV Students ‟ Academic Performance in Science

The purpose of the study is to investigate the effect of joyful teaching on students’ academic performance in general science at primary level. A quantitative (experimental) research design was used to achieve the purpose of this study. A classroom experiment was conducted where participants were 40 students from grade IV in one school of Dhaka city. The data gathering procedure included a test question. Findings revealed that joyful teaching instructed students had higher scores on the posttest compared to those exposed to conventional (lecture) method of teaching. In addition, this investigation explores some vital teaching techniques and strategies for teachers to make their classes joyful. It was suggested that if science teachers could implement joyful teaching into their teaching methods, there would be an improvement in academic performance of primary school students in science learning. Finally, further implications were presented on joyful teaching to create an easier way to promote excellent performance of students’ in general science at primary level. This study can help teachers and other stakeholders in education to develop strategies for supporting school teachers in the effective use of joyful teaching methods.
A Group Decision Making Model for Integrating Heterogeneous Information

This paper proposes a group decision-making (GDM) method for integrating heterogeneous information. To avoid information loss, instead of transforming heterogeneous information into a single form, the proposed method integrates heterogeneous information using a weighted-power average operator. The consensus degree between the individual-decision matrix and the group-decision matrix is then calculated based on the deviation degree. In addition, the feedback mechanism with the iterative algorithm is used to adjust the individual decision matrix, which does not reach the consensus. Furthermore, a ranking formula with heterogeneous technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution is adopted to select the best alternative. A numerical example of supplier selection is introduced to validate the proposed model and compare it with other similar GDM models. The results illustrate that the proposed method cannot only avoid information loss, but also effectively integrate heterogeneous information in heterogeneous GDM environment.
What Do Older People Do When Sitting and Why? Implications for Decreasing Sedentary Behavior

Abstract Background and Objectives Sitting less can reduce older adults’ risk of ill health and disability. Effective sedentary behavior interventions require greater understanding of what older adults do when sitting (and not sitting), and why. This study compares the types, context, and role of sitting activities in the daily lives of older men and women who sit more or less than average. Research Design and Methods Semistructured interviews with 44 older men and women of different ages, socioeconomic status, and objectively measured sedentary behavior were analyzed using social practice theory to explore the multifactorial, inter-relational influences on their sedentary behavior. Thematic frameworks facilitated between-group comparisons. Results Older adults described many different leisure time, household, transport, and occupational sitting and non-sitting activities. Leisure-time sitting in the home (e.g., watching TV) was most common, but many non-sitting activities, including “pottering” doing household chores, also took place at home. Other people and access to leisure facilities were associated with lower sedentary behavior. The distinction between being busy/not busy was more important to most participants than sitting/not sitting, and informed their judgments about high-value “purposeful” (social, cognitively active, restorative) sitting and low-value “passive” sitting. Declining physical function contributed to temporal sitting patterns that did not vary much from day-to-day. Discussion and Implications Sitting is associated with cognitive, social, and/or restorative benefits, embedded within older adults’ daily routines, and therefore difficult to change. Useful strategies include supporting older adults to engage with other people and local facilities outside the home, and break up periods of passive sitting at home.
Efficacy of Firocoxib in Preventing Urate-Induced Synovitis , Pain , and Inflammation in Dogs *

This positive-control study evaluated the efficacy of firocoxib versus carprofen, deracoxib, and meloxicam for the prevention of pain and inflammation in a urate crystal synovitis model of lameness. Lameness scoring and force plate gait analysis were used to assess efficacy. The resulting lameness scores and force plate ground reaction forces after urate crystal injection were not significantly different among the groups. Relative to each group’s baseline (nonlame) score, only the firocoxib group was not significantly lame, based on lameness score, at the model’s peak effect. Efficacy of Firocoxib in Preventing Urate-Induced Synovitis, Pain, and Inflammation in Dogs*
Researchers' Influence, Resources and Autonomy in Different Managerial Systems within the Public Research Sector in Denmark

Research autonomy and academic freedom are refereed to as core elements of the university culture when university management is discussed and under change: research management is, by some researchers at universities and other research institutions, seen as self-evident contradiction. Original research depends on the researchers’ insight and knowledge, a necessary precondition for a productive and effective outcome of the research process. Therefore it is argued that the researchers need to have a direct influence within the research process, on the research projects, on the allocation of resources, etc. Consequently the individual researchers as well as the research institutions need to have a large degree of autonomy. This large degree of autonomy within research management forms a special type of management: Autonomous Management. A central question in this context is: Can other knowledge organisations learn from Autonomous Management as it has been functioning at universities and other research organisations; does the Autonomous Management culture belong to the future? And what lies behind the tales of research autonomy and freedom? In this paper the managerial culture and the formal structure at the Danish universities (UNI) and the government research institutes (GRI) are described and then compared to researchers’ perception of influence on their working conditions and access to resources for research. The discussion is partly based on results from three surveys: one study on researchers at GRIs from 1998 (n=959), one study on university researchers in 2000/2001 (n=2209) and one study on 15 subgroups that were characterised as dynamic and innovative (DYN) within the universities and the GRIs (n=231). The results are that research management and autonomy of research turn out to be two sides of the same coin instead of a contradiction and that knowledge managers in general can learn from ‘dynamic research managers’: That (knowledge) management based on respect, clear strategies on products, and clear human resource policy are likely to produce knowledge workers, that report that they have influence on their working assignments
Hydrogen inhalation improves mouse neurological outcomes after cerebral ischemia/reperfusion independent of anti-necroptosis

This study aimed to investigate the role of necroptosis in the neuroprotection of hydrogen in a mouse model of cerebral ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury. C57BL mice were randomly divided into sham group, I/R group, hydrogen/oxygen group (HO), nitrogen/oxygen group (NO). Middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) for 1 hour followed by reperfusion was introduced to animals which were allowed to inhale 66.7% hydrogen/33.3% oxygen for 90 minutes since the beginning of reperfusion. Mice in NO group inhaled 66.7% nitrogen/33.3% oxygen. 24 hours after MCAO, brain infarction, brain water content and neurological function were evaluated. The protein expression of mixed lineage kinase domain like protein (MLKL) was detected at 3, 6, 12, 24 and 72 hours after reperfusion in HO group and the protein and mRNA expression of MLKL at 24 hours after MCAO in four groups. Hydrogen inhalation significantly reduced infarct volume, attenuated brain edema and improved neurobehavioral deficit in MCAO mice. The MLKL expression increased after MCAO and peaked at 6–24 hours after reperfusion. However, hydrogen inhalation had no significant effect on the MLKL expression at transcriptional and translational levels after MCAO. This study indicates high concentration hydrogen improves mouse neurological outcome after cerebral I/R injury independent of anti-necroptosis.
Validating the Loop Mediated Isothermal Amplification (LAMP) technique to detect tuberculosis in a Sri Lankan laboratory setting

1Faculty of Medicine, General Sir John Kotelawala Defence University, 2British College of Applied Sciences, Colombo, 3Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ruhuna,4Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo, 5Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, University of Colombo, 6Central Chest Clinic and Hospital, Welisara, Sri Lanka. Correspondence: CLG, e-mail: <charithalg@kdu.ac. lk>. Received 10 November 2017 and revised version accepted 05 January 2018 Ceylon Medical Journal 2018; 63: 40-42