Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Protective effects of exercise on endotoxin-induced acute lung injuries in obese rats

Background: The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of exercise on endotoxin-induced acute lung injuries in obese rats. Methods: Male Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly divided into three groups: normal diet (N), high fat diet (HF), and high fat diet + exercise (HF+E). N group rats were fed with a normal diet. HF group and HF+E group rats were fed with a high fat diet for 10 weeks, while HF+E group rats were trained with daily exercise for 6-10 weeks. ALI model was established by intratracheal administration of LPS after the last physical test. Pulmonary function and histopathology were performed to evaluate the severity of ALI. Serum levels of lipid metabolism parameters and inflammatory factors were measured by automatic analyzer and ELISA, respectively. TREM1 and TREM2 expression was detected by real-time PCR and Western blot. NF-κB activation was also measured by Western blot. Results: LPS instillation resulted in severe acute lung injuries in obese rats, compared with the N group, as impaired pulmonary resistance and elastane function increased lung wet-to-dry weight ratios and histopathological injuries and elevated inflammatory factors. Exercise resulted in the decrease of lung injuries in obese rats. TREM1 expression was significantly increased in the HF group, whereas TREM2 was decreased. Exercise reversed TREMs expression. NF-κB was activated in the HF group and inhibited by exercise. Conclusion: Present findings suggest that obesity aggravated the severity of ALI, which could be protected by exercise. Exercise might be a potential preventive approach for ALI through regulating TREMs expression, NF-κB activation, and inflammatory factor release.
Invariance of the BLUE under the linear fixed and mixed effects models

We consider the estimation of the parametric function X1β1 under the partitioned linear fixed effects model y=X1β1+X2β2+ε and the linear mixed effects model y=X1β1+X2γ2+ε, where γ2 is considered to be a random vector. Particularly, we consider when the best linear unbiased estimator, BLUE, of X1β1 under the linear fixed effects model equals the corresponding BLUE under the linear mixed effects model.
Kalman Filter : Tuning and Steady-State Performance

This letter deals with the Kalman filter (KF) based on a third-order integrated random walk model (RW3). The resulting filter, noted as RW3-KF, is well suited to track slow time-varying parameters with strong trend behaviour. We first prove that the RW3-KF in steady-state admits an equivalent structure to the third-order digital phase-locked loops (DPLL). The approximate asymptotic mean-squared-error (MSE) is obtained by solving the Riccati equations, which is given in a closedform expression as a function of the RW3 model parameter: the state noise variance. Then, the closed-form expression of the optimum state noise variance is derived to minimize the asymptotic MSE. Simulation results are given for the particular case where the parameter to be estimated is a Rayleigh channel coefficient with Jakes’ Doppler spectrum.
A NEW LEVEL SET METHOD FOR MOTION IN NORMAL DIRECTION BASED ON A FORWARD-BACKWARD DIFFUSION FORMULATION

Abstract. We introduce a new level set method for motion in normal direction. It is based on a formulation in the form of a second-order forward-backward diffusion equation. The equation is discretized by the finite volume method. We propose a semi-implicit time discretization taking into account the forward diffusion part of the solution in an implicit way, while the backward diffusion part is treated explicitly. When forward diffusion dominates, a straightforward reconstruction of the solution is used while larger (smoothing) stencils are used when backward diffusion dominates. The method is precise on coarse grids and is second order accurate for smooth solutions. Numerical experiments show an optimal coupling of time and space steps with τ = h and no stronger CFL condition is required. Numerical tests with the scheme are discussed on representative examples.
Evaluation of Online Learning in a First-year Engineering Design Course

This evidence based practice paper evaluates an online project-based design engineering course. Because of increasing enrollments in engineering courses, class facilities on campus cannot accommodate for additional students. Adding to this problem is that universities may simply not have enough instructors to offer additional course sections to accommodate class growth. Therefore, online learning may be one pathway to address this problem. We examined a first-year engineering course, which consisted of both lecture and lab sections. In this course, students designed, built and tested a remote controlled and an autonomous device over the duration of two quarters. The online course used pre-recorded lectures and covered all theoretical content related to the design project. A traditional/in-person lecture course was simultaneously offered to a separate cohort of students who had attended all lectures in-person. Students from the online and the in-person lecture course both participated in lab sessions, instructed by teaching assistants. We evaluated the online class by student self-assessed surveys to gauge what course features students valued in an experiential-learning engineering design course, and whether a similar learning experience could be provided in comparison to the in-person class. Student performance was also measured by comparing the overall grades between the in-person and online sections.
MAGNETIC FIELD TRANSIENTS IN SUPERCONDUCTIVE UNDULATORS

The use of superconductive wires instead of permanent magnets allows building undulators with shorter periods or higher magnetic fields. The photon wavelength can be tuned electrically without mechanically moving the magnets. Electrical tuning however causes dynamic effects which are seen as a temporal drift of the beam orbit, requiring in principle a fast orbit correction scheme. The first systematic time resolved measurements of such drifts have been performed at ANKA. The orbit displacement during several different ramping cycles, for different ramp rates and relaxation times, has been investigated. In this contribution, the measurement results are summarized and the persistent current effects in the superconductive wires, as well as eddy currents in the yoke are discussed as possible sources for the transients.
EFFECTS OF CADMIUM ( Cd ) ON THE LYSOSOMAL MEMBRANE STABILITY AND RESPIRATION RATE OF TWO FRESHWATER MOLLUSKS UNDER ex situ EXPOSURE : PRELIMINARY DATA

The aim in the present study was to give some preliminary data on the effects of Cd, which is considered as priority toxic substance in surface waters according to Directive 2008/105/EO (2008) on the lysosomal membrane stability and respiration rate in two invasive and resilient to changes in the surrounding media freshwater mollusks − Chinese pond mussel (Synanodonta woodiana) and zebra mussel (Dreissena polymorpha) in laboratory conditions for 72 hours. Significant decrease in the lysosomal destabilization indices with lower retention time and increase in the respiration rate index were observed in the treated with Cd mussels, compared with the control. In general, the tested species proved to be sensitive to Cd exposure in terms of the two studied biomarkers.
(NASl^CE-149108) SUPPORTING STUDIES IN CLOUD IMAGE 5BOCBSSING FOB PLAMETABY JLYBYS

A synoptic scale wind field has been measured in the stratosphere of Venus by observation of the motion of 100-300 km size UV cloud features in four Mariner 10 TV images. The cloud features are estimated to lie primarily in the 60-70 km altitude range. The UV images have an effective wavelength of 355 nm, cover a time interval of 3 1/2 hours, and were made about 2 1/2 days after Venus encounter. Major features of the wind field include: a) a vortex structure in each hemisphere with probable widespread upwelling at low latitudes and convergence at the poles; b) an equatorial zonal velocity of 92 + 7 m/s increasing to 120 + 10 m/s near 45° latitude; c) a mean meridional velocity gradient of 0.12 m/s/deg; d) a widespread longitudinal velocity gradient comparable to the meridional gradient in magnitude and observed at all latitudes below 60°; e) vertical wind shear in the zonal flow at low latitudes, with a mean value of 10-15 m/s rms. Considerable space is devoted to summarizing previous data in a dynamical context, and to explaining the measuring process and analysis techniques before full details of the measurements are presented. (Note: Pictures for Figure 10 were not available at this time and have been omitted.)
Effects of Art Therapy on Dissociation Related to a Veteran’s Experience with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

This paper depicts a U.S. veteran and graduate student’s experience using meditation, artmaking, and journaling to target the effects of trauma and its symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and dissociation. This is a self-study utilizing art as the main method for communication and knowing. The data was gathered by using a combination of Pat Allen’s Open Studio Process and elements of the Art Therapy Trauma Protocol using bilateral artmaking in a five-session process conducted in a local art studio in San Diego. The meditation was conducted as a contemplative practice with attention and intention focusing on traumatic experiences. Fragmented memories and phenomenological experiences were stimulated during the research process through metaphoric content in the art and archetypal visualizations during meditation. These were explored through the multiple phases of meditation, artmaking, observing, and journaling. This process allowed for integration and healing through meaning making, bilateral stimulation, and somatic experiencing. EFFECTS OF ART THERAPY ON DISSOCIATION IV
Internal vs External Green Supply Chain Management at Petrochemical Industry Economic Performance in Indonesia

Indonesia's petrochemical sector contributes to 3% of Indonesia GDP and its demand should soon grow by 5% per year due to Indonesia's economic expansion. This is correlated with the economic expansion of Indonesia, since petrochemical derivative products are utilized in the production process of plastic products, pharmaceuticals, and textile. The Indonesia government put high effort on the integrated petrochemical industry development toward green industry in order to achieve better economic performance. The overall objective of this study is to draw the relationship between internal green supply chain management (GSCM) and external GSCM practices on economic performance of petrochemical industry in Indonesia. Internal GSCM consist of eco design and internal environment management. Whilst external GSCM consist of green purchasing and reverse logistic. This study was conducted among petrochemical olefin manufactures based in Banten Province Indonesia. The result showed that Internal GSCM has no direct effect on economic performance, but external GSCM has a positive effect on economic performance. The external GSCM practice implementation not only reduce any cost from waste treatment, environment accidents, and energy consumption toward profit achievement as well as profit growth over the years, but also generate sales and earnings.
Working Paper Series 2015-15 The political economy of climate policy

This paper analyzes the political economy of climate policy in a simple framework with asymmetric information between voters and politicians. Two parties are engaged in electoral competition and announce policy platforms. An environmental catastrophe (e.g., a tipping point in the climate system) is approaching with some probability that depends on the state of nature. Climate policy can reduce this probability. Each party receives a private signal about the true state of nature, whereas voters possess little information and only know the prior probability distribution. We analyze under what conditions parties can reveal their private signals truthfully to the voters under electoral competition, and when the implemented policy is optimal, given the available information. ∗Department of Economics, Humboldt University Berlin, Spandauer Str. 1, 10178 Berlin, Germany; E-mail: robert.schmidt. 1@wiwi.hu-berlin.de
Polygyny and Poverty

Countries where polygyny (one man married to several wives) is allowed differ from monogamous countries in several demographic characteristics: Women marry extremely early, the age-gap between husbands and wives is large, fertility is high, and typically a brideprice is paid at marriage. In monogamous countries, on the other hand, parents traditionally gave a dowry (negative brideprice) to their daughters at marriage. Polygynous countries are also on average poorer than monogamous countries. This paper analyzes whether the marriage system can account for these observations. I present an overlapping generations model with a marriage market and endogenous fertility. Two different marriage systems are analyzed, one in which polygyny is allowed and one in which it is not (monogamy). I find that polygyny leads to higher fertility and age gaps than monogamy, and to a positive price for women, while the equilibrium brideprice under monogamy is negative. I also find that the capital-output ratio is lower under polygyny. The reason is that under polygyny investing in wives and selling children is an alternative investment strategy that crowds out investment in physical assets. To derive quantitative results, I calibrate the model to the average of polygynous countries. I find that banning polygyny decreases fertility by 30%, compared to a 40% difference in the data. The investment-output ratio roughly doubles and output per capita triples, which is close to the observed empirical differences. ∗I am especially grateful to Larry Jones for his advice and encouragement. I would also like to thank Michele Boldrin, V.V. Chari, Adam Copeland, Margaret Ledyard, Jim MacGee, Felipe Meza, Edward Prescott, Aloysius Siow, Juan Solé, and seminar participants at the University of Minnesota, the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Humboldt University at Berlin, University of Vienna, University Carlos III in Madrid, the 2001 SED meeting in Stockholm, the 2002 AEA meeting in Atlanta, the 2002 Summer School in Economic Theory in Venice, and the 2002 Villa Mondragone Workshop for helpful comments. The usual disclaimer applies. Comments are welcome: michele@econ.umn. edu
Isolation of Fungi from Various Habitats and their Possible Bioremediation

Fungi are the most diverse and adaptable group of living organisms. The literature highlights that colonization density and fungal diversity can be affected by factors such as salinity, pH, temperature, altitude and availability of nutrients. The present article discusses isolation and characterization of fungi from different ecosystems like forests, mangroves and coastal areas. Fungal interaction with ecosystems is reported to play an important role in the biodiversity, survivability, propagation and productivity of plants. Fungi have established a beneficial association with numerous hosts and have the capability to degrade environmental pollutants such as hydrocarbons and by-products. Hence, fungi and fungal products like extracellular hydrolytic and lignin-degrading enzymes, and surfactants offer eco-friendly and cost-effective strategies to address pollution, especially with respect to bioremediation of oil spills and polyaromatic hydrocarbons.
Serendipities of Acquired Immunity

Humanity has been plagued by infectious diseases since ancient times. A relief on an Egyptian stela depicting a priest believed to have lived in the latter half of the 14th century BC shows a thin, apparently paralyzed right foot (Fig. 1). This probably illustrates that humanity was af flicted by paralysis from poliovirus infection at that time. But although the affected person would remain paralyzed, they would fortunately not lose their life due to the power of immunity. Immunity remains indispensable for human survival even today. Until very recently, infectious diseases were the leading cause of human death. Life forms that were able to avoid death from infectious diseases won the competition for existence and flourished on the earth. At the same time, this battle with pathogens is what accelerated the evolution of immune systems. According to Thucydides, a Greek historian famous for writing “The History of the Peloponnesian War,” this long war fought between the Greek colony of Syracuse on the island of Sicily and the Phoenician city-state of Carthage in Africa around the 4th to 5th century BC was interrupted when smallpox broke out on the battlefield. He writes that when the war resumed, the Carthaginian army consisting mostly of new recruits suffered greatly, while the soldiers of Syracuse avoided infection due to having previously recovered from smallpox and won the war. Through a succession of these kinds of experiences, humanity became familiar with the phenomenon of immunity. The word “immunity” comes from the Latin word “immunitas”. “Munitas” means social obligations of Roman society, which included taxation and conscription, and “im” means to avoid those obligations. Therefore, “immunity” essentially means avoiding something that is supposed to happen sometime in the future. The human immune system possesses acquired immunity that enables it to remember antigens, which makes it a mechanism for never getting the same disease twice. The mechanism called acquired immunity that produces immunological memory is present in all animals from vertebrates onward, and is the reason why mammals and other vertebrates have been able to escape infectious diseases, live long lives, and flourish on the earth (Fig. 2). Innate immunity, or immunity without memory, is present in all animals. Serendipities of Acquired Immunity
Asian soybean rust in Brazil: past, present, and future

– Asian soybean rust, caused by the fungus Phakopsora pachyrhizi , is the most severe disease of the crop and can cause yield losses of up to 90%. The disease was first reported in Brazil in 2001. Epidemics of the disease are common in the country, where the fungus can survive year‑round. Regulatory measures to reduce the inoculum between seasons and avoid late‑season soybean have been adopted to manage the disease. Disease control has relied mainly on chemical control, but a lower sensibility of the fungus to fungicides has been reported in Brazil. Major‑resistance genes have been mapped and incorporated into the cultivars. With the reduced efficacy of the fungicides, the adoption of integrated measures to control the disease will be important for the sustainability of the crop. This review presents the main changes in the soybean crop system caused by the introduction of the fungus in Brazil, the current management strategies adopted to avoid losses, and the new trends that, together with biotechnological strategies, can improve management in the future. , biotecnologia, controle químico, resistência genética, perdas, manejo.
DIMENSIONS OF SCOUR HOLES AND EFFECTIVENESS OF GRADE-CONTROL STRUCTURES IN TWO COBBLE-GRAVEL BED RIVERS

This paper analyses scour dimensions and grain size distributions surveyed in the Maè and Cordevole Rivers (Italian Alps), two steep (2-7 %) cobble/gravel bed mountain streams controlled by check-dams and bed sills. In particular, non-dimensional maximum scour depth and longitudinal grain size sorting are addressed. It also presents an assessment of the degree of stability of these structures in relation with their spacings.
Semantic Parser and Natural Language Generator via Dual Information Maximization

Semantic parsing aims to transform natural language (NL) utterances into formal meaning representations (MRs), whereas an NL generator achieves the reverse: producing a NL description for some given MRs. Despite this intrinsic connection, the two tasks are often studied separately in prior work. In this paper, we model the duality of these two tasks via a joint learning framework, and demonstrate its effectiveness of boosting the performance on both tasks. Concretely, we propose the method of dual information maximization (DIM) to regularize the learning process, where DIM empirically maximizes the variational lower bounds of expected joint distributions of NL and MRs. We further extend DIM to a semisupervision setup (SEMIDIM), which leverages unlabeled data of both tasks. Experiments on three datasets of dialogue management and code generation (and summarization) show that performance on both semantic parsing and NL generation can be consistently improved by DIM, in both supervised and semi-supervised setups1.
Vegetative growth and nutrient uptake of salinity stressed Cherry tomato in different calcium and potassium level

Cherry tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum var. cerasiforme) is one of the most important fruit vegetables that produce in vast area. Many crop plants including tomatoes are susceptible to high salinity. Addition of supplemental Ca 2+ and K + can ameliorate negative impact of high salinity. In this study salinity treatments were applied by a modified Hoagland solution (60 mM NaCl) with four K + (0.2, 2, 7, 12 mM) and Ca 2+ (0.2, 2, 4, 8 mM) levels to evaluate vegetative and generative growth parameters and mineral elements in different salinity conditions. Increase in K + concentration caused increase in leaf area. In calcium and potassium treatments, yield increased up to 7 mM K + and 4 mM Ca 2+ levels. In salinity conditions, nitrogen concentration increased as Ca 2+ and K + level went up. Rising in calcium level in the salinity conditions contributed to increase phosphorus concentration in leaf significantly but supplemental potassium showed contrary results. Rise in calcium and potassium level in nutrient solution elevated K + /Na + ratio significantly. Increase in calcium and potassium level escalated K + concentration in tomato fruits. Addition of supplemental calcium enhanced calcium concentration but supplemental potassium reduced calcium concentration in leaves and fruits significantly. According to results, a strategy that can be attempted for coping with salinity is adding Ca 2+ and K + to salty growth medium.
Infrastructure and Human Development in Nigeria: A Study of the South- South Geo-Political Zone

The current global economy indicates that human development is fast becoming central issue in the area of sustainable development due to its indispensable nature in enhancement of sustainability developmental goals. In this case, developing countries including Nigeria now saw the reason to align their infrastructural growth with human development growth which is particularly crucial in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. Adopting a descriptive research design, this study therefore examined the level of infrastructural development in relation to human development growth in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. 284 respondents selected through purposive sampling technique were draw from 6 communities in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. The questionnaires were distributed via self-administered and also analyzed using descriptive analysis technique. The finding among others revealed that the community people believed that the projects/programmes carried out by NDDC can transform the lives and conditions of community members. In other words, the community believed that their lives and living conditions can be transformed if NDDC is able to execute some of their projects and programmes in the communities surveyed while the study concluded that adequate infrastructure is a key to human development in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. In other words, infrastructure and human development exist in a state of dynamic interdependence with each influencing the other. On this note, the study therefore, recommends that Nigerian government should invest in human capital in the Niger Delta through the rebuilding of infrastructure and by so doing, the economy would gain expected power of productivity.