Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Synthesis of terbium(III) complex with a biscoumarin derivative and its immobilization in PMMA-based composite thin films with fluorescent properties

AbstractAn amorphous complex of Tb(III) with the biscoumarin derivative 3,3′-[(4-hydroxyphenyl)methylene)]bis-(4-hydroxy-2H-1-benzopyran-2-one), Tb(H2L)3, was successfully synthesized and characterized. IR- and 1H-NMR-spectroscopy were used to investigate the coordination of the ligand around the Tb(III) ion. Values for the quantum yield and the life time of the excited state of the complex were obtained. The complex was immobilized in transparent and flexible PMMA-based films by a simple casting technique. PMMA/chloroform solutions were used in synthetic procedures that resulted in both glass-supported and self-supporting nanocomposite films. The morphology of the films was studied by scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy and transmission electron microscopy, showing the formation of crack-free films. The presence of the Tb(III) complex in the matrix was proven by the presence of characteristic bands in the IR spectra. Fluorescence microscopy and fluorescence spectroscopy demonstrated the promising optical properties of the films showing the characteristic emission bands of the Tb(III) ions. The longer life time of the excited state of the immobilized complex confirmed the protective role of the PMMA matrix on the optical properties of the complex. The composite films possessing optical properties have the potential for application as active components in optical devices.
Tin-porphyrin sensitized TiO2 for the production of H2 under visible light

Hydrogen was successfully produced under visible light irradiation in a tin porphyrin (SnP)-sensitized TiO2 system in the wide pH range (pH 3–11) although SnP hardly adsorbs on TiO2. The number of H2 produced in the SnP/TiO2 system after 9 h irradiation corresponds to the turnover number of 410. The apparent photonic efficiency for H2 evolution was estimated to be 35% with the monochromatic radiation of 550 ± 10 nm. The photochemical production of hydrogen is mediated through the formation of the π-radical anion (SnP˙−) that subsequently transfers electron to TiO2. The photogenerated SnP˙− was monitored by transient absorption spectroscopy and its lifetime is long enough to survive the slow diffusion from the solution bulk to the TiO2 surface, which makes the adsorption of SnP on TiO2 not required for hydrogen production. This is clearly contrasted with the common ruthenium complex-sensitized TiO2 system where the adsorption of the sensitizer complex is essentially required and the hydrogen production is limited to the acidic condition where the adsorption of the sensitizers on TiO2 is allowed. The photocatalytic activity of SnP was mainly attributed to the Q-band (500–650 nm), not to the Soret band (420–430 nm) of which absorption intensity is much higher.
The Role of Melanotransferrin (CD228) in the regulation of the differentiation of Human Bone Marrow-Derived Mesenchymal Stem Cells (hBM-MSC)

Melanotransferrin (CD228), firstly reported as a melanoma-associated antigen, is a membrane-bound glycoprotein of an iron-binding transferrin homolog. CD228 was found to be expressed significantly higher in human bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (hBM-MSC) than in human embryonic fibroblasts (FB) by RT-PCR, western blotting and flow cytometry. The expression of CD228 declined in aged hBM-MSC as osteogenesis-related genes did. We examined a possible role for CD228 in the regulation of osteogenesis and adipogenesis of hBM-MSC. Surprisingly, siRNA-mediated CD228 knockdown increased the expression of the transcription factor DLX5 and enhanced osteogenesis of hBM-MSC evidenced by an increased expression of the runt-related transcription factor 2 (RUNX2), osterix (Osx), and osteocalcin (OC), as well as higher alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity and extracellular calcium deposition. Interestingly, hBM-MSC transfected with CD228 siRNA also showed an increase in intracellular lipid level during adipogenesis, indicated by oil red O staining of differentiated adipocytes. Overall, our study unveils CD228 as a cell surface molecule expressed by young hBM-MSC, but not by FB. It also provides evidence to suggest a role for CD228 as a negative regulator of osteogenesis and of lipid accumulation during adipogenesis in hBM-MSC in vitro.
THE FINANCIALIZATION OF BIG PHARMA LA FINANCIARIZACIÓN DE LAS GRANDES EMPRESAS FARMACÉUTICAS

In this article, we employ a Veblenian framework to analyze three dimensions of corporate financialization: the expansion of the balance sheet, the rising importance of intangible assets and the growing levels of financial payouts. Our focus is the pharmaceutical sector, which is strongly dominated by a handful of large corporations known as Big Pharma. In our empirical analysis of the financial accounts of 27 of the largest global pharmaceutical corporations for the years 2000–2018, we find evidence of a shift in Big Pharma’s business model from one focused on productive capacity (reflected by fixed capital and R&D) to one focused on intangible assets (reflected by patents, brands and goodwill). The modus operandi of Big Pharma is one which increasingly resembles that of a private equity fund which generates returns for shareholders that are supported by monopolized knowledge through intellectual property rights, capitalized future earnings potential and rising debt burdens. Our framework facilitates the study of the different elements of financialization and how they do (or do not) co-evolve over time, within and between industries, and between countries or global regions.
Machining learning predicts the need for escalated care and mortality in COVID-19 patients from clinical variables

Objective: This study aimed to develop a machine learning algorithm to identify key clinical measures to triage patients more effectively to general admission versus intensive care unit (ICU) admission and to predict mortality in COVID-19 pandemic. Materials and methods: This retrospective study consisted of 1874 persons-under-investigation for COVID-19 between February 7, 2020, and May 27, 2020 at Stony Brook University Hospital, New York. Two primary outcomes were ICU admission and mortality compared to COVID-19 positive patients in general hospital admission. Demographic, vitals, symptoms, imaging findings, comorbidities, and laboratory tests at presentation were collected. Predictions of mortality and ICU admission were made using machine learning with 80% training and 20% testing. Performance was evaluated using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) area under the curve (AUC). Results: A total of 635 patients were included in the analysis (age 60±11, 40.2% female). The top 6 mortality predictors were age, procalcitonin, C-creative protein, lactate dehydrogenase, D-dimer and lymphocytes. The top 6 ICU admission predictors are procalcitonin, lactate dehydrogenase, C-creative protein, pulse oxygen saturation, temperature and ferritin. The best machine learning algorithms predicted mortality with 89% AUC and ICU admission with 79% AUC. Conclusion: This study identifies key independent clinical parameters that predict ICU admission and mortality associated with COVID-19 infection. The predictive model is practical, readily enhanced and retrained using additional data. This approach has immediate translation and may prove useful for frontline physicians in clinical decision making under time-sensitive and resource-constrained environment.
Studies on metal hydroxy compounds. IV. Infrared spectra of cadmium derivatives Cd(OH)2, CdOHCl, and CdOHF

Infrared spectra of hexagonal Cd(OH)2, CdOHCl, and CdOHF, along with deuterated analogues CdODCl and CdODF, in the range 2.5–16 μ are reported for the first time. The effects of substituting a halogen for an OH group in Cd(OH)2 are (i) shift of OH stretching vibration to a lower frequency and (ii) appearance of strong absorption bands in the region 8–16 μ. All the observed bands in the deuterated analogues are displaced to lower frequencies with νH/νd ratios between 1.35–1.37. The spectra of CdOHCl and CdOHF show a high correlation with their zinc analogues and although both spectra appear consistent with a simple molecule of Cs or C1 symmetry, an alternate interpretation is given in terms of OH lattice vibrations.
Ethnobotanical Survey and Antibacterial Activity of African Plants used Against Diarrhea

Context: In Africa, medicinal plants are usually used to treat diarrhea but few data are available concerning their identification and their antidiarrheal activities. Aims: This study aims to record some antidiarrhoea plants in the Medoneu locality (Gabon), describe their modalities of use and assess the chemical composition and antibacterial activities of four most commonly used plants. Methods and Material: Plants and their modalities of use were recorded through ethnobotanical survey. Four commonly used plants were harvested; their extracts and the essential oils (EO) were prepared from the leaves by maceration and hydrodistillation. The chemical compositions of EO were determined by Gas Chromatography while, the antibacterial activities of extract and EO were assessed using both agar diffusion and micro-dilution methods. Results: The most represented families of plant used to treat diarrhea were Euphorbiaceae. Leaves and barks were the most used organs. Decoction and maceration appeared as the most common preparation methods and oral administration the most used route of administration. The EO of Psidium guajava, Lantana camara and Ageratum conyzoïdes were mainly composed of (E) -β-caryophyllene (26.5%), (E) nerolidol (26.4%) and germacrene D (41.6%) respectively. The EO inhibited the growth of bacterial species with the smallest MIC of 6.25 obtained with P. guajava EO. Plant extracts were more active compared to EO, the smallest MICs of 0.19 to 6.25 mg / mL were obtained with P. guajava extracts Conclusions: These results explain the use of different plants in Africa medicinal to treat diarrheal infections and present four of them as potential source of antimicrobial compounds. Key Messages: A great diversity of African medicinal plants is used in the treatment of diarrhea. Some of these plants included in the study are Psidium guajava, Lantana camara, S. acuta and Ageratum conyzoïdes have shown to have antimicrobial activities on the growth of some bacterial species causing diarrhea. Author α ¥: University of Yaoundé I, Department of Microbiology, PO Box 812 Yaoundé-Cameroon. e-mails: maxy_nyegue@yahoo.fr, fxetoa@yahoo.fr Author α: University of Yaoundé I, Department of Biochemistry, PO Box 812 YaoundéCameroon. Corresponding Author σ: University of Douala, University Institute of Technology; PO Box 8698 Douala. e-mail: voundisteve@yahoo.fr Author ρ Ѡ : Université des Sciences et Techniques de Masuku (USTM); Unité de Recherche Agrobiologie, Laboratoire de Phytopathologie, B.P. 901; Franceville, Gabon. e-mails: lepengue_nicaise@yahoo.fr, rodriguendong570@yahoo.fr
Ultimate Pit Limit Optimization using Boykov-Kolmogorov Maximum Flow Algorithm

The ultimate pit limit optimization (UPLO) serves as an important step in the mine planning process. Various approaches of maximum flow algorithms such as pseudo-flow and push-relabel have been used for pit optimization, and have given good results. The Boykov-Kolmogorov (BK) maximum flow algorithm has been used in solving the computer vision problems and has given great practical results but it has never been applied in UPLO. In this work, we formulate and use the BK maximum flow algorithm and the push-relabel maximum flow algorithm in MATLAB Boost Graph Library within the MATLAB software in order to perform UPLO in two case studies. Comparing both case studies for the BK maximum flow algorithm and push-relabel maximum flow algorithm gives the same maximum pit values but the BK maximum flow algorithm reduces the time consumed by 12% in the first case and 16% in the second case. This successful application of the BK maximum flow algorithm shows that it can also be used in UPLO.
Electronics-free pneumatic circuits for controlling soft-legged robots

Pneumatic circuits without electronic components enable automatic control of the walking gait of a soft-legged robot. Pneumatically actuated soft robots have recently shown promise for their ability to adapt to their environment. Previously, these robots have been controlled with electromechanical components, such as valves and pumps, that are typically bulky and expensive. Here, we present an approach for controlling the gaits of soft-legged robots using simple pneumatic circuits without any electronic components. This approach produces locomotive gaits using ring oscillators composed of soft valves that generate oscillating signals analogous to biological central pattern generator neural circuits, which are acted upon by pneumatic logic components in response to sensor inputs. Our robot requires only a constant source of pressurized air to power both control and actuation systems. We demonstrate this approach by designing pneumatic control circuits to generate walking gaits for a soft-legged quadruped with three degrees of freedom per leg and to switch between gaits to control the direction of locomotion. In experiments, we controlled a basic walking gait using only three pneumatic memory elements (valves). With two oscillator circuits (seven valves), we were able to improve locomotion speed by 270%. Furthermore, with a pneumatic memory element we designed to mimic a double-pole double-throw switch, we demonstrated a control circuit that allowed the robot to select between gaits for omnidirectional locomotion and to respond to sensor input. This work represents a step toward fully autonomous, electronics-free walking robots for applications including low-cost robotics for entertainment and systems for operation in environments where electronics may not be suitable.
Phytochemical Screening And Biocidial Studies Of Stem Bark Chrysophyllum Albidum (Linn) And Straw Aristolochia Ringens

Correspondence *Moses S. Owolabi Department of Chemistry, Lagos State , University, PMB 001, Ojo, Lagos, Nigeria Sunnyconcept2007@yahoo.com Abstract: Introduction: Medicinal plants play a significant role in the health maintenance in underdeveloped countries, herbs and spices continue to serve as a new sources for herbal medicines . Aims: The objective was to investigate phytochemical screening and biocidal activity on stem bark Chrysophyllum albidum (Linn) and straw Aristolochia ringens using chloroform. Materials and Methods: Chloroform extracts of C. albidum and A. ringens were obtained and screened for phytochemical constituents. The colour intensity or the precipitate formation was used as analytical responses to different tests. The Antimicrobial activities of the crude extracts were evaluated against some microorganisms with broth microdilution test. The extracts were screened for in-vitro cytotoxic activity against liver tumour and breast tumour cells. Results: The results of the phytochemical screening revealed the presence of alkaloids, saponins, steroids, anthraquinone and glycosides. C. albidum and A. ringens chloroform extracts showed high quantities of alkaloid and flavonoid respectively. While cardiac glycoside and anthraquinone were found with low quantity in C. albidum and A. ringens respectively. C. albidum showed promising bacterial activity against Escherichia coli and cytotoxic activity to liver tumour cells. While A. ringens, showed excellent bacterial activity against Bacillus cereus and good fungal activity against Candida albicans. A. ringens also showed good cytotoxic to breast tumour and liver tumour cells. The observed antimicrobial and cytotoxic effects may be due to the antagonist or synergistic effect of the secondary metabolites identified in the chloroform extracts. Conclusion: The secondary metabolites of C. albidum and A. ringens shows promising potential which support their consistent use in herbal medicines.
A Sum-of-Ratios Multi-Dimensional-Knapsack Decomposition for DNN Resource Scheduling

In recent years, to sustain the resource-intensive computational needs for training deep neural networks (DNNs), it is widely accepted that exploiting the parallelism in large-scale computing clusters is critical for the efficient deployments of DNN training jobs. However, existing resource schedulers for traditional computing clusters are not well suited for DNN training, which results in unsatisfactory job completion time performance. The limitations of these resource scheduling schemes motivate us to propose a new computing cluster resource scheduling framework that is able to leverage the special layered structure of DNN jobs and significantly improve their job completion times. Our contributions in this paper are three-fold: i) We develop a new resource scheduling analytical model by considering DNN’s layered structure, which enables us to analytically formulate the resource scheduling optimization problem for DNN training in computing clusters; ii) Based on the proposed performance analytical model, we then develop an efficient resource scheduling algorithm based on the widely adopted parameter-server architecture using a sum-of-ratios multi-dimensional-knapsack decomposition (SMD) method to offer strong performance guarantee; iii) We conduct extensive numerical experiments to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed schedule algorithm and its superior performance over the state of the art.
Depression, anxiety, stress, and satisfaction with life: Moderating role of interpersonal needs among university students

Depression, anxiety, and stress are ranked among the top mental health concerns faced by university students in recent times perpetuated by the proliferation of digitalization. Thus, this study was performed to assess the relationship between depression, anxiety, stress, and satisfaction with life, with interpersonal needs (perceived burdensomeness and thwarted belongingness) as moderators. A cross-sectional study using a convenient sampling method was conducted among 430 Malaysian private university students (Mean aged= 20.73 years; SD = 1.26 years). A self-administered questionnaire comprising the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21), Satisfaction with Life Scale, and Interpersonal Needs Questionnaire were used. Students who experienced lower depression and anxiety reported higher satisfaction with life under the influence of low perceived burdensomeness. Perceived burdensomeness, when coupled with depression (β = 0.76, p < 0.01) and anxiety (β = 0.79, p < 0.01), contributed 15.8% of variance in satisfaction with life. Students who experienced stress reported higher satisfaction with life under the influence of high thwarted belongingness (β = 0.73, p < 0.01), contributing 17.3% of the variance in satisfaction with life. For university students who experienced depression and anxiety symptoms, mental health practitioners may need to be cognizant of how to support students' education and management of their perceived burdensomeness perceptions.
Deep Compression for Dense Point Cloud Maps

Many modern robotics applications rely on 3D maps of the environment. Due to the large memory requirements of dense 3D maps, compression techniques are often necessary to store or transmit 3D maps efficiently. In this work, we investigate the problem of compressing dense 3D point cloud maps such as those obtained from an autonomous vehicle in large outdoor environments. We tackle the problem by learning a set of local feature descriptors from which the point cloud can be reconstructed efficiently and effectively. We propose a novel deep convolutional autoencoder architecture that directly operates on the points themselves so that we avoid voxelization. Additionally, we propose a deconvolution operator to upsample point clouds, which allows us to decompress to an arbitrary density. Our experiments show that our learned compression achieves better reconstructions at the same bit rate compared to other state-of-the-art compression algorithms. We furthermore demonstrate that our approach generalizes well to different LiDAR sensors. For example, networks learned on maps generated from KITTI point clouds still achieve state-of-the-art compression results for maps generated from nuScences point clouds.
Assessment Method for Potential Educational Technology Competency Standard based on TPCK in Malaysian Higher Education Institutions

Technology in education is purposely designed to help both educators and students in knowledge transfer and knowledge gain simultaneously. In many aspects, technology in education is supposed to prove that education can be delivered effectively and efficiently. However, there are cases in which technology in education can be frustrating and annoying for both parties. Government and university management have invested a lot of money to ensure that educators and students can really benefit from the technology. In spite of huge investment on educational technology tools (hardware and software) over the past decades in various education initiatives, the potential of technology usage at university level has not reached the desired level among educators and students. What is the missing link for the realisation of the expected return-of-investment? Recent researches (C Akarawang, 2015; Bibi, 2017; Hersh, 2014) indicate that the problem is due to the gap between technical ICT skills and the knowledge of good pedagogical practice among educators. The outcome of this study proposes an Educational Technology standard to be applied in university setting using TPCK (Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge) as the basic framework. However, this paper will only discuss a part of our standard development highlighting the assessment method that was used during the implementation of ETC 68 standard in our institutions. Overall, the descriptive result using pre and post means scores as assessment method towards proposed standard shows that the educators’ acceptance score in our institutions are mostly good. However the element within the standard least accepted are TCK (Technology Content Knowledge) and TPK (Technology Pedagogical Knowledge). The assessment and finding in this study nevertheless are suggested to be used as a guidance for ETC Standard implementation in university setting in order to stress the importance of considering technological possibilities in light of developmentally appropriate practices and specific learning goals in ICT/ET training provided for educators in HEI in Malaysia. Keywords: educational technology; TPCK, ICT standard, university, educators, student
Towards a Platform for Smart City-Scale Cognitive Assistance Applications

This position paper describes CognitiveAR, a system that seamlessly interfaces AR devices with smart city environments. Edge computing nodes distributed throughout the city enable multi-user cognitive assistance applications that require (1) real-time sensor data from the environment, such as approaching cars, and (2) computing resources for low-latency video processing. We discuss three such applications to elicit requirements for a platform to support them, and present our system design.