Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Supplementary material to "Benefits and challenges of dynamic sea-ice for weather forecasts"

Abstract. The drive to develop environmental prediction systems that are seamless across both weather and climate timescales has culminated in the development and use of Earth system models, which include a coupled representation of the atmosphere, land, ocean and sea ice, for medium-range weather forecasts. One region where such a coupled Earth system approach has the potential to significantly influence the skill of weather forecasts is in the polar and sub-polar seas, where fluxes of heat, moisture and momentum are strongly influenced by the position of the sea ice edge. In this study we demonstrate that using a dynamically coupled ocean and sea ice model in ECMWF Integrated Forecasting System, results in improved sea ice edge position forecasts in the northern hemisphere in the medium-range. Further, this improves forecasts of boundary layer temperature and humidity downstream of the sea ice edge in some regions during periods of rapid change in the sea ice compared to forecasts in which the sea surface temperature anomalies and sea ice concentration do not evolve throughout the forecasts. Challenges and limitations, such as the quality of ocean and sea ice initial conditions or analyses, and the inability of the coupled system to capture the rate of sea ice concentration change during periods of ice advance and retreat will also be discussed.
Communication with relatives on prognosis of critically ill patients

Most patients admitted to the intensive care unit are unable to participate in decisions relating to their care. Therefore, physicians have to inform relatives on the condition of the patient, his evolution and the estimated prognosis. Numerous studies have shown that relatives commonly have inaccurate expectations of the patient’s prognosis, due to either misunderstanding of oral information by the physicians and/or overly optimistic beliefs. This may lead to undue prolongation of an ICU stay in the case of a poor prognosis. Several methods have been proposed in order to align relatives with the estimation of the patient’s prognosis by the physicians. The use of visual tools, added to oral information seems beneficial. Moreover, communication with relatives on the prognosis has to convey support and empathy.
A Molecular-Wide and Electron Density-Based Approach in Exploring Chemical Reactivity and Explicit Dimethyl Sulfoxide (DMSO) Solvent Molecule Effects in the Proline Catalyzed Aldol Reaction

Modelling of the proline (1) catalyzed aldol reaction (with acetone 2) in the presence of an explicit molecule of dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) (3) has showed that 3 is a major player in the aldol reaction as it plays a double role. Through strong interactions with 1 and acetone 2, it leads to a significant increase of energy barriers at transition states (TS) for the lowest energy conformer 1a of proline. Just the opposite holds for the higher energy conformer 1b. Both the ‘inhibitor’ and ‘catalyst’ mode of activity of DMSO eliminates 1a as a catalyst at the very beginning of the process and promotes the chemical reactivity, hence catalytic ability of 1b. Modelling using a Molecular-Wide and Electron Density-based concept of Chemical Bonding (MOWED-CB) and the Reaction Energy Profile–Fragment Attributed Molecular System Energy Change (REP-FAMSEC) protocol has shown that, due to strong intermolecular interactions, the HN-C-COOH (of 1), CO (of 2), and SO (of 3) fragments drive a chemical change throughout the catalytic reaction. We strongly advocate exploring the pre-organization of molecules from initially formed complexes, through local minima to the best structures suited for a catalytic process. In this regard, a unique combination of MOWED-CB with REP-FAMSEC provides an invaluable insight on the potential success of a catalytic process, or reaction mechanism in general. The protocol reported herein is suitable for explaining classical reaction energy profiles computed for many synthetic processes.
Fluid-structure interaction analysis of a lightweight sandwich composite structure for solar central receiver heliostats

Abstract Central tower concentrating solar power systems are moving to the forefront to become the technology of choice for generating renewable electricity, but their widespread implementation is limited by cost. Heliostats contribute almost 50% to the plant’s cost and are thus the most significant element in central tower systems. For both large and small-area heliostats, the drive elements demonstrate the largest cost element in these systems. While large-area heliostats (>100 m2) have proven offer the best economy compared to other sizes, they require high-torque drives due to the heavy steel-based support structure. Heliostat costs could be reduced by decreasing the support structure’s weight, avoiding large drive units and reducing energy consumption. However, the structure must be able to cope with the aerodynamic loads imposed upon them during operation. Although honeycomb sandwich composites have been widely used where high structural rigidity and low weight are desired, there is an absence of studies that rigorously investigated their suitability as the structure for heliostat mirror. Here, a fluid-structure interaction study investigated, for several loading conditions at various tilt and wind incidence angles, the aero-structural behavior characteristics of honeycomb sandwich composites used as a heliostat support structure. The honeycomb sandwich panel showed markedly different behavior characteristics at various operational conditions. The effect of tilt orientation on the sandwich panel’s maximum deflection and stresses became more pronounced as wind velocity increased above 10 m/s, and increasing wind incidence angle reduced their magnitudes at different rates. The supporting components and torque tube had a noticeable wind-shielding effect, causing pronounced changes in the deflection and stresses experienced by the heliostat. The worst operational condition was at a tilt angle of 30° with wind flow of 20 m/s at 0° to the heliostat surface. However, the heliostat maintained its structural integrity according to relevant optical and material failure standards.
Barriers Limiting the Use of Google Classroom for Learning Vocational and Entrepreneurship Courses

The dream of every undergraduate is to get a fascinated well-paid Job after school. One of the courses that could aid students’ employment is the vocational and entrepreneurship courses. Due to the high number of students who partake in this course, some technologies were employed for the instructional process. One of such is the Google classroom. However, there are some complains from students on these learning technological platforms. This study therefore investigates the barriers limiting the use of google classroom for learning vocational and entrepreneurship courses. This study employs the survey method, and 250 undergraduates were purposively sampled. The findings established that Poor power supply, loss of class control, High cost of purchasing relevant materials, Lack of adequate support system and laziness encouragement are barriers that hinder students’ use of google classroom for learning vocational and entrepreneurship courses. The study concluded that some barriers which hinders students from using Google classroom for learning should be resolved. It was however recommended that the use of google classroom should be encouraged in schools, not only for learning vocational and entrepreneurship courses but for other courses.
Flow resistance in channels with large emergent roughness elements

Reducing uncertainty in flow resistance estimation in natural channels requires elucidation of contributing influences. Surface shear and form drag are the major contributors in channels containing large roughness elements under emergent flow conditions. The two effects can be accounted for in the Darcy-Weisbach and Manning equations by adding their associated, separate friction factors or taking the square root of the sum of the squares of the corresponding Manning coefficients. The friction factor for form drag can be estimated from the drag coefficient and areal density of the roughness elements and the flow depth. Predictions of the combined effect are tested against results of laboratory experiments with different arrangements of emergent cylinders on smooth and rough beds, using experimentally determined drag coefficients for the cylinders. The variation of the overall resistance coefficient with flow condition depends on the dominant influence, decreasing with flow depth when surface shear dominates, and increasing with depth when form drag dominates.
Incident Colorectal Cancer in Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Simple Summary The sequence chronic inflammation-dysplasia-cancer is involved in the development of several gastrointestinal cancers, including colorectal cancer (CRC) in Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD). Several risk factors for CRC are recognized in Ulcerative Colitis (UC) and Crohn’s Disease (CD) colitis. The combined role of IBD characteristics and incident CRC, including CRC-related symptoms at onset, in determining the long-term outcome needs further investigation. These issues were addressed in our multicenter study in IBD patients with incident CRC. CRC was more frequently diagnosed by colonoscopy in UC and by imaging in CD. CRC occurred in one fourth of patients at a young age (≤40 years), and a high rate of CRC-related mortality was observed, particularly in patients with CRC diagnosed at an older age. The present findings from incident CRC in IBD support the need to focus the attention on surveillance programs in subgroups of patients at higher risk for CRC and CRC-related death. Abstract Colorectal cancer (CRC) risk is increased in Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) and surveillance needs to be tailored according to individual risk. The open issues include the role of the characteristics of IBD and CRC in determining the long-term outcome. These issues were assessed in our multicenter study, including a cohort of 56 IBD patients with incident CRC. The clinical and histopathological features of IBD patients and of CRC were recorded. Incident CRC in IBD occurred at a young age (≤40 years) in 25% of patients (median age 55.5 (22–76)). Mucinous signet-ring carcinoma was detected in 6 out of the 56 (10.7%) patients, including 4 with Ulcerative Colitis (UC) and 2 with Crohn’s disease (CD). CRC was more frequently diagnosed by colonoscopy in UC (85.4% vs. 50%; p = 0.01) and by imaging in Crohn’s Disease CD (5.8% vs. 31.8%; p = 0.02). At onset, CRC-related symptoms occurred in 29 (51.9%) IBD patients. The time interval from the diagnosis of IBD to CRC was shorter in UC and CD patients with >40 years (p = 0.002; p = 0.01). CRC-related death occurred in 10 (29.4%) UC and in 6 (27.2%) CD patients (p = 0.89), with a short time interval from CRC to death (UC vs. CD: 6.5 (1–68) vs. 14.5 (8–40); p = 0.85; IBD: 12 months (1–68)). CRC occurring at a young age, a short time interval from the diagnosis of IBD to CRC-related death in the elderly, CRC-symptoms often mimicking IBD relapse and the observed high mortality rate may support the need of closer surveillance intervals in subgroups of patients.
Experimental on acoustic emission during compression rupture procedure of coal sample

Acoustic emission experiment under uniaxial compression of coal samples was carried out.Calculation of the maximum Lyapunov exponent of energy counting frequency proved that there is no chaos in rupture process of coal,and the process of compression rupture can be predicted through acoustic emission information.Through wavelet coefficient decomposition of energy count rate and further calculation obtaining various Lipschitz index α. The results show that the time when α first become negative can be used as the prediction time of rupture of coal sample.
Different Ectopic Hoxa2 Expression Levels in Mouse Cranial Neural Crest Cells Result in Distinct Craniofacial Anomalies and Homeotic Phenotypes

Providing appropriate positional identity and patterning information to distinct rostrocaudal subpopulations of cranial neural crest cells (CNCCs) is central to vertebrate craniofacial morphogenesis. Hox genes are not expressed in frontonasal and first pharyngeal arch (PA1) CNCCs, whereas a single Hox gene, Hoxa2, is necessary to provide patterning information to second pharyngeal arch (PA2) CNCCs. In frog, chick and mouse embryos, ectopic expression of Hoxa2 in Hox-negative CNCCs induced hypoplastic phenotypes of CNCC derivatives of variable severity, associated or not with homeotic transformation of a subset of PA1 structures into a PA2-like identity. Whether these different morphological outcomes are directly related to distinct Hoxa2 overexpression levels is unknown. To address this issue, we selectively induced Hoxa2 overexpression in mouse CNCCs, using a panel of mouse lines expressing different Hoxa2 ectopic expression levels, including a newly generated Hoxa2 knocked-in mouse line. While ectopic Hoxa2 expression at only 60% of its physiological levels was sufficient for pinna duplication, ectopic Hoxa2 expression at 100% of its normal level was required for complete homeotic repatterning of a subset of PA1 skeletal elements into a duplicated set of PA2-like elements. On the other hand, ectopic Hoxa2 overexpression at non-physiological levels (200% of normal levels) led to an almost complete loss of craniofacial skeletal structures. Moreover, ectopic Hoxa5 overexpression in CNCCs, while also resulting in severe craniofacial defects, did not induce homeotic changes of PA1-derived CNCCs, indicating Hoxa2 specificity in repatterning a subset of Hox-negative CNCCs. These results reconcile some discrepancies in previously published experiments and indicate that distinct subpopulations of CNCCs are differentially sensitive to ectopic levels of Hox expression.
Bitcoin speculation, investor attention and major events. Are they connected?

ABSTRACT We use a time-varying vector autoregressive model to investigate the dynamic effect of investor attention on Bitcoin speculation and then examine the association of this effect with five types of events in the Bitcoin market. The results indicate that investor attention has a positive effect on Bitcoin speculation and this effect changes with time and decays as lag phases increase. Policy-related events are the key factors that make this effect time-varying, while safety events have no obvious impact. Besides, our results find the existence of contrarian strategy in the Bitcoin market.
New Evidence of the Importance of Weak Interactions in the Formation of PML-Bodies

In this work, we performed a comparative study of the formation of PML bodies by full-length PML isoforms and their C-terminal domains in the presence and absence of endogenous PML. Based on the analysis of the distribution of intrinsic disorder predisposition in the amino acid sequences of PML isoforms, regions starting from the amino acid residue 395 (i.e., sequences encoded by exons 4–6) were assigned as the C-terminal domains of these proteins. We demonstrate that each of the full-sized nuclear isoforms of PML is capable of forming nuclear liquid-droplet compartments in the absence of other PML isoforms. These droplets possess dynamic characteristics of the exchange with the nucleoplasm close to those observed in the wild-type cells. Only the C-terminal domains of the PML-II and PML-V isoforms are able to be included in the composition of the endogenous PML bodies, while being partially distributed in the nucleoplasm. The bodies formed by the C-terminal domain of the PML-II isoform are dynamic liquid droplet compartments, regardless of the presence or absence of endogenous PML. The C-terminal domain of PML-V forms dynamic liquid droplet compartments in the knockout cells (PML−/−), but when the C-terminus of the PML-V isoform is inserted into the existing endogenous PML bodies, the molecules of this protein cease to exchange with the nucleoplasm. It was demonstrated that the K490R substitution, which disrupts the PML sumoylation, promotes diffuse distribution of the C-terminal domains of PML-II and PML-V isoforms in endogenous PML knockout HeLa cells, but not in the wild-type cells. These data indicate the ability of the C-terminal domains of the PML-II and PML-V isoforms to form dynamic liquid droplet-like compartments, regardless of the ordered N-terminal RBCC motifs of the PML. This indicates a significant role of the non-specific interactions between the mostly disordered C-terminal domains of PML isoforms for the initiation of liquid–liquid phase separation (LLPS) leading to the formation of PML bodies.
Applicability of Willems model of dental age estimation in a sample of southern Saudi Arabian children

ABSTRACT This study aimed to validate the Willems model in a southern Saudi Arabian sample to develop and validate an age estimation model specific for the southern Saudi Arabian population and compare both models’ age estimation performance. This cross-sectional study involved retrospective evaluation of orthopantomographs of 1206 children (658 males, 548 females) aged four to fourteen years. Initially, the Willems model was validated on the pooled sample. Next, this sample was split to develop a new Saudi-specific model using Willem’s approach. The age estimation performance of both models was compared. Differences between chronological age (CA) and estimated dental age (EDA) were calculated and expressed in mean error (ME), mean absolute error (MAE), and root mean square error (RMSE). The ME for the verified Willems model was 0.391 ± 1.479 years, whilst for the Saudi-specific model, it was 0.131 years ± 1.606 years. The difference in ME, MAE, and RMSE between the two models was 0.259, −0.113, and −0.082 years, respectively, and statistically significant (p < 0.05). However, clinically, these differences are trivial. Both the Willems model and the Saudi-specific model were similar in estimating CA. The use of the Willems model is recommended for estimating CA in the southern Saudi population.
Distribution of Drug Substances in Solid Lipid Microparticles (SLM)—Methods of Analysis and Interpretation

The incorporation of drug substances into the matrix of solid lipid microparticles (SLM) is critical to providing effects such as prolonged release, taste masking, and protection of the labile API. Currently, a commonly used method of characterizing multi-compartment lipid systems, such as SLM, is to determine entrapment efficiency (EE) and drug loading (DL) parameters, but this is not sufficient for understanding the localization of API either in the core or on the surface of the microspheres. The main objective of the research was to study the distribution of API in an aqueous dispersion of SLM in order to distinguish between the API incorporated in the lipid matrix and localized in the superficial region (interphase) and to refer the obtained results to the EE and DL parameters. SLM dispersions (10–30% of the lipid) with four model drug substances, i.e., cyclosporine, clotrimazole, diclofenac sodium and hydrocortisone, were prepared and investigated. In the first stage, the experiments were designed to optimize the method of extracting the API fraction localized on the SLM surface by shaking the dispersions with methanol. The fraction dissolved in the aqueous phase was obtained by ultrafiltration of SLM dispersions. Total drug content and the concentration in the separated phases were determined by the HPLC method. The obtained results were compared with the EE and DL parameters. Selected SLM dispersions were tested both before and after thermal sterilization. Short-term shaking of SLM dispersion with methanol does not damage the lipid matrix and allows the API fraction localized on the SLM surface to be extracted, the result of which was the determination of API distribution between lipid matrix, interphase and aqueous phase. It was found that the majority of API represented by EE value was localized on the surface of SLM. Only for cyclosporine was the incorporation of drug molecules in the lipid core very effective (up to 48%), while for other drug substances only 1–21% was found in the lipid core of SLM. A clear influence of the sterilization process on the distribution of API within the microparticles was found. The presented studies showed that the characterization of multi-compartment SLM dispersions solely on the basis of EE and DL values, is insufficient. The proposed new distribution test method enables the localization of API to be demonstrated within the microspheres, with the quantitative characteristics of the drug fraction incorporated in the lipid matrix and the fraction associated with the surface of the lipid matrix. The proposed new method allows the influence of the sterilization process on the changes in the API distribution within the lipospheres to be evaluated. Such characteristics provide new opportunities for the development and use of this dosage form as a carrier providing prolonged release and other aforementioned advantages.
Pathogenic Mechanism of Autoimmune Diabetes Mellitus in Humans: Potential Role of Streptozotocin-Induced Selective Autoimmunity against Human Islet β-Cells

Human type 1 diabetes mellitus is a chronic autoimmune disease characterized by the selective loss of insulin-producing β-cells in pancreatic islets of genetically susceptible individuals. In this communication, a new hypothesis is postulated which is based on the observations that streptozotocin (STZ), a chemically reactive and cytotoxic compound produced by certain gram-positive bacteria, can be preferentially taken up into islet β-cells and induce cytotoxicity and autoimmunity. It is hypothesized that humans might be occasionally exposed to STZ through opportunistic infections with the STZ-producing bacteria and/or through ingestion of certain food products that contain STZ. In addition, the potential presence of the STZ-producing bacteria in the gut microbiota of some individuals might be another source of long-term STZ exposure. Because of the high chemical reactivity of STZ and its breakdown products, these chemicals can covalently modify certain cellular macromolecules (e.g., DNA and proteins), and the covalently modified cellular components would serve as new antigens, potentially capable of inducing both humoral and cellular autoimmune responses in the islets of certain individuals. In addition to STZ exposure, the eventual development of autoimmunity against STZ-exposed islet β-cells also depends critically on the genetic predisposition of the susceptible individuals plus the opportunistic presence of a conducive, strong environmental trigger, which often is presented as severe febrile viral infections subsequently inducing strong aberrant reactions of the body’s immune system. The proposed pathogenic hypothesis is supported by a considerable body of direct and indirect evidence from laboratory animal studies and clinical observations. Certainly, more experimental and clinical studies are needed to carefully further examine each of the key components of the proposed pathogenic hypothesis.
Global thrombosis test for assessing thrombotic status and efficacy of antithrombotic diet and other conditions

Because of the high mortality from myocardial infarction and stroke, there is a great demand for finding novel methods of diagnosis, prevention and treatment of these diseases. Most of the current tests measure important determinants of thrombosis such as platelet function, coagulation and fibrinolysis in isolation; therefore, a global test measuring the actual thrombotic status would be more useful in clinical conditions. We obtained considerable experience by using the global thrombosis test, which determines the actual thrombotic status by taking into account the measured platelet reactivity, coagulation and fibrinolytic activities. In animal experiments, we found significant correlation between the ex vivo global thrombosis test measurements and the in vivo thrombotic status. The published evidence for the benefit of an antithrombotic diet with regular physical exercise is also described.