Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Modulation of the Bile Acid Enterohepatic Cycle by Intestinal Microbiota Alleviates Alcohol Liver Disease

Reshaping the intestinal microbiota by the ingestion of fiber, such as pectin, improves alcohol-induced liver lesions in mice by modulating bacterial metabolites, including indoles, as well as bile acids (BAs). In this context, we aimed to elucidate how oral supplementation of pectin affects BA metabolism in alcohol-challenged mice receiving feces from patients with alcoholic hepatitis. Pectin reduced alcohol liver disease. This beneficial effect correlated with lower BA levels in the plasma and liver but higher levels in the caecum, suggesting that pectin stimulated BA excretion. Pectin modified the overall BA composition, favoring an augmentation in the proportion of hydrophilic forms in the liver, plasma, and gut. This effect was linked to an imbalance between hydrophobic and hydrophilic (less toxic) BAs in the gut. Pectin induced the enrichment of intestinal bacteria harboring genes that encode BA-metabolizing enzymes. The modulation of BA content by pectin inhibited farnesoid X receptor signaling in the ileum and the subsequent upregulation of Cyp7a1 in the liver. Despite an increase in BA synthesis, pectin reduced BA serum levels by promoting their intestinal excretion. In conclusion, pectin alleviates alcohol liver disease by modifying the BA cycle through effects on the intestinal microbiota and enhanced BA excretion.
Performance evaluation of fly ash and ground granulated blast furnace slag‐based geopolymer concrete: A comparative study

Nowadays, geopolymers, which are more environmentally friendly than cement due to the high energy requirements and high carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of cement production, emerge as alternative binders. In this study, the mechanical and durability properties of geopolymer concrete (GC) based on ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS) (100GGBS), 50% fly ash (FA) and 50% GGBS (50FA50GGBS), and FA (100FA) with two different water/geopolymer solids ratios (W/GP) of 0.33 and 0.35 were investigated. Slump, compressive strength, splitting tensile strength, unit weight, water absorption, elevated temperature resistance, abrasion resistance, modulus of elasticity, and drying shrinkage tests were carried out. As the percentage of FA in the mixture increased, the slump of the concrete increased, while the cohesion of the concrete decreased and the setting time was delayed. The addition of GGBS increased the compressive strength and the splitting tensile strength of the GC by up to 377% and 278%, respectively. Under the effect of elevated temperature, the 100FA concrete showed less strength loss and weight loss than other concrete. After the abrasion test, 100GGBS concrete lost about 2.5 times less weight than 100FA concrete. The drying shrinkage of geopolymer mortar reached a maximum of 100 microstrains. Among all concrete, 50FA50GGBS‐0.33 showed the highest performance in terms of overall performance.
Estrangement Between Siblings in Adulthood: A Qualitative Exploration

Relationships between siblings have been described as the longest lasting an individual can have, yet siblings both can and do become estranged from one another in adulthood. An online survey was disseminated to individuals who had sought support from the charity Stand Alone, which supports individuals who are experiencing family estrangement. Individuals estranged from one full genetic sister and/or brother were asked to describe the relationship in their own words. Open-text responses were thematically analysed from 291 respondents. Family systems were described as being characterised by estrangements, alliances and conflicts; there was variation in the participant’s preferences regarding reconciliation; and most respondents focused on describing their sibling’s challenging or disappointing characteristics and behaviour. The fact that siblings both can and do become estranged challenges commonly held assumptions about family relationships, confirming that they are not necessarily or always life-long, significant or supportive.
Formation Control of Multiple Nonholonomic Wheeled Mobile Robots

This work is based on the multi-agent system / multi-vehicles. This thesis especially focuses on formation control of multiple nonholonomic mobile robots. The objective is to design suitable controllers for each robot according to different control tasks and different constraint conditions, such that a group of mobile robots can form and maintain a desired geomantic pattern and follow a desired trajectory. The leader-follower formation control for multiple nonholonomic mobile robots is investigated under the backstepping technology, and we incorporate a bioinspired neurodynamics scheme in the robot controllers, which can solve the impractical velocity jumps problem. The distributed formation control problem using consensus-based approach is also investigated. Distributed kinematic controllers are developed, which guarantee that the multi-robots can at least exponentially converge to the desired geometric pattern under the assumption of "perfect velocity tracking". However, in practice, "perfect velocity tracking" doesn’t hold and the dynamics of robots should not be ignored. Next, in consideration of the dynamics of robot with unknown parameters, adaptive torque controllers are developed such that the multi-robots can asymptotically converge to the desired geometric pattern under the proposed distributed kinematic controllers. Furthermore, When the partial knowledge of dynamics is available, an asymptotically stable torque controller has been proposed by using robust adaptive control techniques. When the dynamics of robot is unknown, the neural network controllers with the robust adaptive term are proposed to guarantee robust velocity tracking
Function of Nuclear Pore Complexes in Regulation of Plant Defense Signaling

In eukaryotes, the nucleus is the regulatory center of cytogenetics and metabolism, and it is critical for fundamental biological processes, including DNA replication and transcription, protein synthesis, and biological macromolecule transportation. The eukaryotic nucleus is surrounded by a lipid bilayer called the nuclear envelope (NE), which creates a microenvironment for sophisticated cellular processes. The NE is perforated by the nuclear pore complex (NPC), which is the channel for biological macromolecule bi-directional transport between the nucleus and cytoplasm. It is well known that NPC is the spatial designer of the genome and the manager of genomic function. Moreover, the NPC is considered to be a platform for the continual adaptation and evolution of eukaryotes. So far, a number of nucleoporins required for plant-defense processes have been identified. Here, we first provide an overview of NPC organization in plants, and then discuss recent findings in the plant NPC to elaborate on and dissect the distinct defensive functions of different NPC subcomponents in plant immune defense, growth and development, hormone signaling, and temperature response. Nucleoporins located in different components of NPC have their unique functions, and the link between the NPC and nucleocytoplasmic trafficking promotes crosstalk of different defense signals in plants. It is necessary to explore appropriate components of the NPC as potential targets for the breeding of high-quality and broad spectrum resistance crop varieties.
The effect of project-based learning model on PGSD students’ critical thinking skill

This study aims to determine the effect of the project-based learning learning model on the thinking skills of PGSD students in the Social Sciences 1 course. The method used in this research is an experiment. The subjects in this study were PGSD students. There are two classes in this research design, namely the experimental class and the control class. The experimental class consisted of 37 students and the control class also consisted of 37 students. Data collection techniques used observation and document analysis. The data analysis technique used in this research is descriptive analysis calculated by comparing the average value of each variable with the standard curve criteria. The analysis prerequisite test uses the normality test. The hypothesis test used is the t-test. The results showed that the project-based learning model has a significant effect in improving students' critical thinking skills.
Groundwater potential evaluation and aquifer characterization using resistivity method in Southern Obubra, Southeastern Nigeria

Geo-electric soundings were made in 18 different locations in Southern Obubra area to obtain depth to aquifer units, and thickness of aquifer units. The simulated results of the 18 VES points reveal the presence of 4–5 geo-electric layers. The top layer comprises clay, sand, siltstone intercalations. Layers underneath the top soil are the silty shale, shale, water saturated shaly sandstone and sandstone aquifer. The area is also characterized with high depth to sandstone aquifer which varies from 100m to 240m. This can be attributed to the thick water saturated shaly sandstone in the area. However, at the extreme of North Eastern part of the study area, depths to aquifer are at about 3m to 40m, with VES location 15 having a thickness of about 17m. Aquifer thickness in the study area varies from 17m to 120m. VES No.12 has the highest aquifer resistivity value (689Ωm) in the study area, with depth to aquifer and aquifer thickness of about 200m and 100m respectively. VES 12 is along the Cross section CC1. Therefore, Aquifer resistivity value along the cross section varies from 689Ωm to 66. 94Ωm. The transmissivity varies between 3.5x10−2m2/s to 4.68x100m2/s, above the aquifer units in the study area is a widely distributed thick saturated shaly sandstone layer. Borehole construction in the area must be preceded by a detailed geophysical survey with current electrode spacing of at least 600m to 800m.
Evaluation of Nausea and Vomiting Severity in Pregnancies Conceived Through Assisted Reproduction

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to evaluate the severity of nausea vomiting of pregnancy in assisted reproductive technologies pregnancies using the Pregnancy-Unique Quantification of Emesis scoring system which is a validated, clinically relevant method to assess nausea vomiting of pregnancy severity. STUDY DESİGN: A total of 101 pregnant women between 8+0-14+6 weeks of gestation were enrolled in this case-control study. Of these women, 53 had pregnancies conceived via assisted reproductive technologies (study group) and 48 had pregnancies conceived naturally (control group). The Pregnancy-Unique Quantification of Emesis-24 scale was utilized to evaluate nausea vomiting of pregnancy severity in both groups. Weight change during pregnancy and hospital admission due to nausea vomiting of pregnancy were also compared to assess severe nausea vomiting of pregnancy. RESULTS: According to the Pregnancy-Unique Quantification of Emesis scale, 67.9% of patients with assisted reproductive technologies pregnancies experienced mild nausea vomiting of pregnancy while 24.5% had moderate and 7.5% had severe nausea vomiting of pregnancy. In the spontaneous pregnancies group, 60.4% experienced mild nausea vomiting of pregnancy, 33.3% had moderate nausea vomiting of pregnancy and only 6.3% had severe nausea vomiting of pregnancy. The overall Pregnancy-Unique Quantification of Emesis score was 5 (3-8.5) in assisted reproductive technologies pregnancies and 5 (3-10) in spontaneous pregnancies (p=0.650). There was no statistically significant difference regarding hospitalization history due to nausea vomiting of pregnancy between assisted reproductive technologies and naturally-conceived pregnancies (p=0.619). CONCLUSION: Conception using assisted reproductive technologies does not increase nausea vomiting of pregnancy severity. Furthermore, weight change during pregnancy and hospitalization rates due to nausea vomiting of pregnancy were comparable between women conceived with assisted reproductive technologies and women with natural conception.
A new bohaiornithid-like bird from the Lower Cretaceous of China fills a gap in enantiornithine disparity

Abstract. A new enantiornithine, Musivavis amabilis n. gen. n. sp. , is reported from the Lower Cretaceous Jehol Biota in western Liaoning, China. The new taxon is similar to the bohaiornithids in the robust subconical teeth, bluntly expanded omal ends of the furcula, caudolaterally oriented lateral trabeculae with triangular distal ends of the sternum, and a robust second pedal digit. Yet it differs from members of Bohaiornithidae in several features recalling other enantiornithine lineages, such as the acuminate rostral ramus of maxilla, the shape of the coracoid lateral margin, the presence of craniolateral processes on the sternum, the proportions of the manual phalanges, and the unspecialized third pedal ungual phalanx. A comprehensive phylogenetic analysis of Mesozoic birds shows that homoplasy significantly affects the reconstruction of enantiornithine relationships. When all phylogenetic characters are considered of equal weight, Musivavis is reconstructed in a lineage related to a radiation of large-bodied enantiornithines including Bohaiornithidae and Pengornithidae. Alternative scenarios based on progressive downweighting of the homoplastic characters support more basal placements of the pengornithids among Enantiornithes, but do not alter the affinity of Musivavis as a member of the “bohaiornithid-grade” group.
Prevalence and Pattern of Cancer in the Northern Border Region of Saudi Arabia-Arar

Introduction: There is a substantial rise in the incidence of cancer in Saudi Arabia. The aim of this study was conducted to determine the demographic, prevalence, and pattern of cancer in the Northern Border region of Saudi Arabia-Arar. Methods: The record of 88 histologically confirmed cancer cases was retrieved and studied from files of the oncology department, Prince Abdul-Aziz Ibn Musaad hospital, Arar, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). Results: The most common cancers in the whole population irrespective of sex were carcinoma of the leukemia, breast, lymphoma and leukemia combined and colorectal cancer. The most common cancers in females in Northern Border region were those of the breast, thyroid, and lymphomas and leukemia combined. Comparative findings for males were lymphomas and leukemias combined colorectal cancers. Conclusion: The present study showed a high prevalence and pattern of cancer in Northern Border region, Saudi Arabia according to gender, age, frequency, and type of cancer.
5-Aminolevulinic Acid and 24-Epibrassinolide Improve the Drought Stress Resilience and Productivity of Banana Plants

Plant growth, development, and productivity are adversely affected under drought conditions. Previous findings indicated that 5-aminolevulinic acid (ALA) and 24-epibrassinolide (EBL) play an important role in the plant response to adverse environmental conditions. This study demonstrated the role of ALA and EBL on oxidative stress and photosynthetic capacity of drought-stressed ‘Williams’ banana grown under the Egyptian semi-arid conditions. Exogenous application of either ALA or EBL at concentrations of 15, 30, and 45 mg·L−1 significantly restored plant photosynthetic activity and increased productivity under reduced irrigation; this was equivalent to 75% of the plant’s total water requirements. Both compounds significantly reduced drought-induced oxidative damages by increasing antioxidant enzyme activities (superoxide dismutase ‘SOD’, catalase ‘CAT’, and peroxidase ‘POD’) and preserving chloroplast structure. Lipid peroxidation, electrolyte loss and free non-radical H2O2 formation in the chloroplast were noticeably reduced compared to the control, but chlorophyll content and photosynthetic oxygen evolution were increased. Nutrient uptake, auxin and cytokinin levels were also improved with the reduced abscisic acid levels. The results indicated that ALA and EBL could reduce the accumulation of reactive oxygen species and maintain the stability of the chloroplast membrane structure under drought stress. This study suggests that the use of ALA or EBL at 30 mg·L−1 can promote the growth, productivity and fruit quality of drought-stressed banana plants.
Long-Term Aging of Concentrated Aqueous Graphene Oxide Suspensions Seen by Rheology and Raman Spectroscopy

Today, graphene oxide (GO) has gained well-deserved recognition, with its applications continuing to increase. Much of the processing of GO-based devices occurs in a dispersed form, which explains the commercialization of GO suspensions. Aging of these suspensions can, however, affect the shelf life and thus their application potential. Aging of GO preparations is often acknowledged, but no longer-term systematic study has been reported on the alteration of GO suspensions. This paper investigates high-concentration (10 mg/mL) aqueous GO suspensions over a 2-year time scale. In addition to steady shear tests, the dynamic behavior of the suspensions was studied in more detail by transient shear and frequency sweep measurements. Both the viscosity and the dynamic moduli increased with age, particularly within the first year. The results of the complementary Raman spectroscopic studies indicate that the change in the rheological behavior with aging results from a slow oxidation process occurring in the highly acidic aqueous medium during the relatively long-term storage. The (over)oxidized layers peel off spontaneously or are removed by high shear stress, resulting in increased viscosity, as it was corroborated by XRD and XPS.
Investigating Nutrient Supply Effects on Plant Growth and Seed Nutrient Content in Common Bean

Low soil fertility commonly limits growth and yield production of common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) in tropical regions. Impacts of nutrient limitations on production volume are well studied and are a major factor in reducing crop yields. This study characterised the impact of reduced nutrient supply on carbon assimilation and nutrient content of leaf, phloem sap and reproductive tissues of common bean grown in a controlled environment in order to detect chemical markers for changes in nutritional content. Leaf gas exchange measurements were undertaken over plant development to characterise changes to carbon assimilation under reduced nutrient supply. Samples of leaf, phloem sap and pod tissue of common bean were analysed for carbon isotope discrimination, mineral nutrient content, and amino acid concentration. Despite declines in nutrient availability leading to decreased carbon assimilation and reductions in yield, amino acid concentration was maintained in the pod tissue. Common bean can maintain the nutritional content of individual pods under varying nutrient availabilities demonstrating the resilience of processes determining the viability of reproductive tissues.
Combined TPEF and SHG Imaging for the Microstructural Characterization of Different Wood Species Used in Artworks

The morphological and chemical conformation of wood microstructures is characteristic of individual species and strongly influences the macromechanical properties of the material, as well as its sensitivity to deterioration factors. Noninvasive techniques enabling the visualization of wood microstructures, while simultaneously providing compositional information, can significantly facilitate the analysis of wooden artworks for conservation purposes. In this paper, we present the application of combined two-photon excited fluorescence (TPEF) and second-harmonic generation (SHG) imaging as a versatile diagnostic tool for the microcharacterization of three hardwood species never analyzed by this method. Multimodal mapping of the molecular constituents based on the detected nonlinear signals provides useful information for studying the biological and biochemical deterioration of wood, opening a new field of application for a well-established and widely used imaging technology.
DOCSNet: a dual-output and cross-scale strategy for pan-sharpening

ABSTRACT Pan-sharpening aims to obtain a multi-spectral image of high resolution from inputs of a high spatial resolution panchromatic image and a low spatial resolution multi-spectral image. In recent years, pan-sharpening methods based on supervised learning have achieved superior performance over traditional methods. However, all these supervised pan-sharpening methods rest upon the assumption that performance of model trained on a coarse scale can generalize well on a finer one, which is not always the case. To address this problem, we propose a novel dual-output and cross-scale learning strategy DOCSNet for pan-sharpening. DOCSNet consists of two sub-networks, ReducedNet1 and FullNet2, which are both adapted from simple three convolutional layers and progressively cascaded. ReducedNet1 is first trained on the reduced-scale training set, its parameters are frozen, and then the whole network (fixed ReducedNet1 cascaded with FullNet2) adopts a cross-scale training strategy which involves simultaneously reduced and full resolution training samples. Each sub-network has an output terminal for reduced-scale and target-scale results, respectively. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt to introduce a dual-output architecture to pan-sharpening framework. Extensive experiments on GaoFen-2 and WorldView-3 satellite images demonstrate that DOCSNet outperforms other state-of-the-art pan-sharpening methods in terms of qualitative visual effects and quantitative metrics evaluations.
The Curious Case of Centrality Measures: A Large-Scale Empirical Investigation

There has been extensive research using centrality measures in educational settings. One of the most common lines of such research has tested network centrality measures as indicators of success. The increasing interest in centrality measures has been kindled by the proliferation of learning analytics. Previous works have been dominated by single-course case studies that have yielded inconclusive results regarding the consistency and suitability of centrality measures as indicators of academic achievement. Therefore, large-scale studies are needed to overcome the multiple limitations of existing research (limited datasets, selective and reporting bias, as well as limited statistical power). This study aims to empirically test and verify the role of centrality measures as indicators of success in collaborative learning. For this purpose, we attempted to reproduce the most commonly used centrality measures in the literature in all the courses of an institution over five years of education. The study included a large dataset (n=3,277) consisting of 69 course offerings, with similar pedagogical underpinnings, using meta-analysis as a method to pool the results of different courses. Our results show that degree and eigenvector centrality measures can be a consistent indicator of performance in collaborative settings. Betweenness and closeness centralities yielded uncertain predictive intervals and were less likely to replicate. Our results have shown moderate levels of heterogeneity, indicating some diversity of the results comparable to single laboratory replication studies.