Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Enhanced coloration reveals high antioxidant potential in new sweetpotato cultivars

Sweetpotato is one of the world's most important food crops, particularly in developing countries. The storage roots have high carbohydrate and vitamin A contents and possess strong antioxidant potential, previously attributed to their hydroxycinnamic acid content. We report on several new purple sweetpotatoes developed for their high anthocyanin content. Although the antioxidant activity of purple sweetpotato extracts was greater than that of sweetpotato lacking anthocyanins, anthocyanins alone could not account for all the activity. Extract components were separated by 2D paper chromatography, and their relative contributions to antioxidant activity were determined. The antioxidant activity of the extracts from sweetpotato was shown to be due to both anthocyanins and hydroxycinnamic acids, additively. Neither the anthocyanin content nor the antioxidant activity of sweetpotato flesh was affected by common cooking methods. These findings may be important in the light of the health-protective properties attributed to both antioxidants and anthocyanins. Copyright © 2003 Society of Chemical Industry
Daily Chlorhexidine Bathing-Effect on Healthcare-associated BSI and MDRO Acquisition

BACKGROUND—Results of previous single center observational studies suggest that daily bathing of patients with chlorhexidine may prevent hospital-acquired bloodstream infections (HABSIs) and acquisition of multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs). METHODS—We conducted a multicenter, cluster randomized, non-blinded crossover trial to evaluate the effect of daily bathing with chlorhexidine impregnated washcloths on the acquisition of MDROs and incidence of HABSIs. Nine intensive care and bone marrow transplant units in 6 hospitals were randomly assigned to bathe patients with either 2% no-rinse chlorhexidineimpregnated or non-antimicrobial washcloths for a six-month period, exchanged for the alternate product during the subsequent six months. The incidence rates of acquisition of MDRO and HABSI rates were compared between the two time periods by Poisson regression analysis. RESULTS—A total of 7735 patients were enrolled during the study. The overall MDRO acquisition rate was 21% lower when chlorhexidine bathing was used (5.10 cases per 1000 patient days) than when non-antimicrobial washcloths were used (6.60 cases per 1000 patient days, p=0.028). The overall HABSI rate was 31% lower when chlorhexidine was used (4.45 cases per 1000 patient days) than when non-antimicrobial cloths were used (6.60 cases per 1000 patient days, p=0.007) No serious skin reactions were noted in either study period. CONCLUSIONS—Daily bathing with chlorhexidine-impregnated washcloths significantly reduced the risk of acquiring MDROs and developing HABSI. Corresponding Author: Michael Climo, M.D., McGuire VAMC, 1201 Broad Rock Boulevard, Section 111-C, Richmond, Virginia 23236, Telephone (804) 675-5018, Fax (804) 675-5437, michael.climo@va.gov. Alternate Corresponding Author: Edward Wong, McGuire VAMC, 1201 Broad Rock Boulevard, Section 111-C, Richmond, Virginia 23236, Telephone (804) 675-5000 ext 6792, Fax (804) 675-5437, Edward.wong@va.gov. HHS Public Access Author manuscript N Engl J Med. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2017 November 27. Published in final edited form as: N Engl J Med. 2013 February 07; 368(6): 533–542. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa1113849. A uhor M anscript
Massive Cross-Platform Simulations of Online Social Networks

As part of the DARPA SocialSim challenge, we address the problem of predicting behavioral phenomena including information spread involving hundreds of thousands of users across three major linked social networks: Twitter, Reddit and GitHub. Our approach develops a framework for data-driven agent simulation that begins with a discrete-event simulation of the environment populated with generic, flexible agents, then optimizes the decision model of the agents by combining a number of machine learning classification problems. The ML problems predict when an agent will take a certain action in its world and are designed to combine aspects of the agents, gathered from historical data, with dynamic aspects of the environment including the resources, such as tweets, that agents interact with at a given point in time. In this way, each of the agents makes individualized decisions based on their environment, neighbors and history during the simulation, although global simulation data is used to learn accurate generalizations. This approach showed the best performance of all participants in the DARPA challenge across a broad range of metrics. We describe the performance of models both with and without machine learning on measures of cross-platform information spread defined both at the level of the whole population and at the community level. The best-performing model overall combines learned agent behaviors with explicit modeling of bursts in global activity. Because of the general nature of our approach, it is applicable to a range of prediction problems that require modeling individualized, situational agent behavior from trace data that combines many agents.
Thermodynamics of oligodeoxyribonucleotide-directed triple helix formation: an analysis using quantitative affinity cleavage titration

The free energy for oligodeoxyribonucleotide-directed triple helix formation at a single site on a DNA plasmid fragment has been analyzed using quantitative affinity cleavage titration. Measurement of the amount of site-specific cleavage of a 339-bp radiolabeled DNA duplex produced at 24-degrees-C (100 mM Na+, 1 mM spermine-4HCl, 50 mM Tris-acetate, pH 7.0) over a concentration change of four orders of magnitude for oligodeoxyribonucleotide-EDTA.Fe 1.Fe, (5'-T*TTTTCTCTCTCTCT-3') yields an equilibrium binding constant, K(T) = 3.7 +/- 1.1 x 10(6) M-1 (DELTA-G(T) = -9.0 +/- 0.2 kcal.mol-1). Quantitative affinity cleavage titration affords association constants that are identical within experimental uncertainty with those obtained from quantitative DNase I footprint titration of the same oligonucleotide with and without EDTA.In (1.In and 6, respectively). Removal of one thymidine and one cytidine residue from the 3' end of 1.Fe reduces the free energy of binding by 0.5 kcal.mol-1, and removal of two thymidine and two cytidine residues from its 3' terminus decreases the binding free energy by 1.1 kcal.mol-1 at pH 7.0. Single internal base triplet mismatches result in a destabilization of the local triple-helical structure by 2.5-3.0 kcal.mol-1. Quantitative affinity cleavage titration is a general method which should allow for the measurement of equilibrium constants for the association of many DNA-binding molecules to single sites on relatively large DNA under a broad range of solution conditions.
Impact of antiviral therapy on quality of life in hepatitis C patients measured using short form-36 questionnaire: A prospective observational study

The global prevalence of viremic hepatitis C virus (HCV) is estimated to be 1.0%, whereas the reported prevalence in India is 0.9–1.9%. [1,2] Early detection of cases occurs during routine investigations, screening camps, and blood donation but 60–90% of HCV infection in India remains undiagnosed until the late stages of the disease. [3,4] Directly acting antivirals (DAA) have revolutionized the treatment of HCV due to their ease of administration, shorter duration of therapy, fewer side effects, and higher cure rates.
Parameterized Complexity of Shift Bribery in Iterative Elections

In an iterative voting system, candidates are eliminated in consecutive rounds until either the set of remaining candidates does not change or a fixed number of rounds is reached. In this paper, we consider four prominent iterative voting systems, which are all based on positional scoring rules. The Hare and Coombs systems are based on the plurality and veto rules, respectively, while the Baldwin and Nanson systems are based on the Borda rule. We study the resistance of these four systems against shift bribery. Hereby, we consider both constructive and destructive settings. It is known that all four iterative voting systems are resistant to shift bribery, that is, both constructive and destructive shift bribery problems are NP-hard for these voting systems. We complement these NP-hardness results by examining parameterized complexity of the shift bribery problems with respect to some natural parameters. Our results provide further evidence for the observation that shift bribery problems for iterative voting systems are computationally harder than for the corresponding non-iterative cases. In addition, our reductions apply several techniques which might be useful for proving hardness results for other iterative voting systems.
Development characteristics of the box‐tree moth Cydalima perspectalis and its potential distribution in Europe

The box‐tree moth Cydalima perspectalis (Walker) is an invasive pest causing severe damage to box trees (Buxus spp.). It is native to Japan, Korea and China, but established populations have been recorded in a number of locations across Europe since 2007 and the spread of the insect continues. The developmental investigations suggest that larvae overwinter mainly in their 3rd instar in Europe and that diapause is induced by a day length of about 13.5 h. One and a half to 2 months in the cold are necessary to terminate diapause. Threshold temperatures for development and number of degree‐days to complete a generation are slightly different from those calculated in previous studies in Japan. A bioclimatic (CLIMEX®) model for C. perspectalis in Europe was developed, based on climate, ecological and developmental parameters from the literature and new field and laboratory studies on diapause termination, thermal requirements and phenology. The model was then validated with actual distribution records and phenology data. The current distribution and life history of C. perspectalis in Europe were consistent with the predicted distribution. The climate model suggests that C. perspectalis is likely to continue its spread across Europe, except for Northern Fenno‐Scandinavia, Northern Scotland and high mountain regions. The northern distribution of C. perspectalis is expected to be limited by a number of degree‐days above the temperature threshold insufficient to complete a generation, whereas its southern range is limited by the absence of a cold period necessary to resume diapause. The model predicts relatively high Ecoclimatic Indices throughout most of Europe, suggesting that the insect has the potential of becoming a pest in most of its predicted range. However, damage is likely to be higher in Southern and Central Europe where the moth is able to complete at least two generations per year.
Optimal Temporal Plan Merging

Agents can individually devise plans and coordinate to achieve common goals. Methods exist to factor planning problems into separate tasks and distribute the plan synthesis process, while reducing the overall planning complexity. However, merging distributedly generated plans becomes computationally costly when task plans are tightly coupled, and conflicts arise due to dependencies between plan actions. Existing methods either scale poorly as the number of agents and tasks increases, or do not minimize makespan, the overall time necessary to execute all tasks. A new algorithm, the Temporal Optimal Conflict Resolution Algorithm (TCRA ∗ ), is introduced to merge independently generated plans and optimally minimize the resulting makespan. A proof of optimality is provided and the algorithm is empirically evaluated across two heterogeneous multiagent domains against two baseline algorithms. The TCRA ∗ results in better makespan across the problems solved, and a search relaxation constant allows the TCRA ∗ to generate better plans with competitive processing time and memory usage.
The Goal Bias in Language and Memory: Explaining the Asymmetry

In language, speakers are more likely to mention the goals, or endpoints, of motion events than they are to mention sources, or starting points (e.g. Lakusta & Landau, 2005). This phenomenon has been explained in cognitive terms, but may also be affected by discourse-communicative factors: For participants in prior work, sources can be characterized as given, already-known information, while goals are new, relevant information to communicate. We investigate to what extent the goal bias in language (and memory) is affected when the source is or is not in common ground between speaker and hearer, and thus whether it is discourse-given or -new. We find that the goal bias in language is severely diminished when source and goal are discourse-new. We suggest that the goal bias in language can be attributed to discourse-communicative factors in addition to any cognitive goal bias. Discourse factors cannot fully account for the bias in memory.
Changes of soil enzyme activities by simulated acid and nitrogen deposition

Abstract Effects of acid and nitrogen depositions on soil microbial activities were studied in a laboratory-based experiment. Five treatments were added to forest soil for five weeks, and soil enzyme activities were determined along with chemical properties. There was little change in pH and nitrogen availability. Dehydrogenase, phosphatase and arylsulphatase activities were decreased by all the acidic treatments compared to the control, while urease activity was increased by the pH 4 treatment. at the same pH treatment, different nitric acid contents induced different urease activities. the results suggest that acid deposition would inhibit microbial activities and that more study is needed to elucidate the impact on nitrogen cycling in forests.
Multilevel Governance and Development

The current ascendancy of right-wing populists across western democracies is a concerning trend, and so far, the left has not managed to mount an effective counterstrategy to arrest its momentum. Much of the rhetoric of these right-wing populists has focused on evoking fear and suspicion, verging on hatred, of outsiders and fellow countrymen and women with opposing political ideologies, to great effect. The importance of understanding why certain rhetoric is effective cannot be understated, and the works of George Lakoff, Jonathan Haidt, and Drew Westen that illuminate the moral and emotional factors behind how individuals interpret and respond to inputs of a political nature are reviewed and synthesised. Individuals’ underlying moral mental structures and the emotional responses that they can trigger must be understood in order to generate political messaging that resonates strongly with its target audience and consequently increases the likelihood of their actuation to vote. The recent phenomenon of individualisation, stemming from the current era of reflexive modernity is analysed within the context of divergent conservative and liberal moral matrices, and is found to be disproportionately ailing the liberal side of politics. In delineating the key elements of liberal and conservative morality, the existence of liberal moral tenets that are discordant with longstanding liberal communitarian ideals were revealed. In contrast, conservative morality appears to exhibit an inherent coherence that may contribute to conservatism’s resilience in the face of reflexive modernity and disparate policy priorities of its constituents. The importance of understanding the moral and emotional foundations of political cognition is emphasised not only for its potential to bolster the efficacy of left-wing political parties, but also to provide an avenue by which the increasing hostility across the political spectrum can be subdued.
Effect of irrigation and biofertilizer on water use, nodulation, growth and yield of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.)

The field experiment studied the effect of irrigation [irrigation 15 days before sowing (DBS), irrigation 15 DBS + rice straw mulch, irrigation 7 DBS and irrigation 7 DBS + one irrigation at flower initiation] and biofertilizers [no biofertilizer (control), Rhizobium inoculation and Rhizobium inoculation + phosphate-solubilizing bacteria (PSB)] on chickpea growth. In mulch treatment, paddy straw mulch was applied at 4 t ha−1 one day after pre-sowing irrigation and was retained until sowing. Pre-sowing irrigation at 15 DBS showed 28.7 and 30.0% less plant stand than irrigation applied 15 DBS + straw mulch and irrigation applied 7 DBS, respectively. Nodulation was significantly higher with irrigation 15 DBS + mulch and irrigation 7 DBS than with irrigation applied 15 DBS. The grain yield was 16.6, 20.3 and 44.0% higher in irrigation 15 DBS + mulch, irrigation 7 DBS and irrigation 7 DBS + irrigation at flowering treatments, respectively, over irrigation at 15 DBS. Rhizobium inoculation significantly improved the number of nodules and nodule dry weight compared with no treatment. Grain yield was significantly higher with Rhizobium than in untreated plots. Water use efficiency was highest when irrigation was applied 7 DBS.
Drawing a Map of Elections in the Space of Statistical Cultures

We consider the problem of forming a testbed of elections to be used for numerical experiments (such as testing algorithms or estimating the frequency of a given phenomenon). We seek elections that come from well-known statistical distributions and are as diverse as possible. To this end, we define a (pseudo)metric over elections, generate a set of election instances, and measure distances between them, to assess how diverse they are. Finally, we show how to use these elections to test election-related algorithms
The dietary ecology of Australian desert rodents

Very little systematic information has been collected on the diets of Australian rodents in arid and semiarid regions. The information that is available is restricted generally to short periods of sampling and small sample sizes. Here we review the diets of 15 extant and one extinct species of Australian desert rodents, and provide new results of dietary analyses for (1) Leggadina forresti, Pseudomys desertorand Rattus villosissimus from the Simpson Desert, south-western Queensland, (2) P. albocinereus and P. bolami from the western goldfields of Western Australia, and (3) Notomys alexis, P. desertor and P. hermannsburgensis from the Tanami Desert, Northern Territory. Overwhelmingly, omnivory is the predominant dietary strategy, with most species (11) taking substantial amounts of invertebrate, seed and green plant material. Of the other five species, four can be considered herbivores and one a granivore. Of the four herbivores, however, one is extinct (Leporillus apicalis), one is restricted to an offshore island (Lep. conditor), while another (P. fieldi) is classified as a herbivore from a diet sample of four individuals only. Similarly, P. occidentalis is classified as a granivore on the basis of dietary sampling of two individuals alone. These findings indicate that omnivory, over and above any other dietary strategy including granivory, is predominant among rodents inhabiting Australian deserts.
Incorporating prior information to overcome complete separation problems in discrete choice model estimation

We describe a modified maximum likelihood method that overcomes the problem of complete or quasicomplete separation in multinomial logistic regression for discrete choice models with finite samples. The modification consists of augmenting the observed data set with artificial observations that reflect a prior distribution centered on equal choice probabilities. We demonstrate through Monte Carlo simulations of data sets as small the minimum degrees of freedom case that the modified maximum likelihood approach leads to superior parameter recovery and out of sample prediction compared to conventional maximum likelihood. We explore the role the prior weight plays on parameter recovery and out of sample prediction by varying the weight given to the prior versus the weight given to the data in the likelihood function. We demonstrate a numerical procedure to search for an appropriate weight for the prior. One application for the proposed approach is to estimate discrete choice models for single individuals using data from discrete choice experiments. We illustrate this approach with Monte Carlo simulations as well as four data sets collected using online discrete choice experiments.
Geographical variation in the determinants of seed dispersal success of a myrmecochorous herb

1 This paper draws together geographical variation and various correlates of individual seed dispersal success to evaluate spatial variation in major determinants of seed removal rates of the myrmecochore Helleborus foetidus, whose ant assemblages and diaspores vary geographically. 2 We censused seed removal by ants directly from individual plants in 12 populations and four regions across the Iberian Peninsula, and measured the elaiosomed seed, plant fecundity, and the biotic and abiotic environment in the close vicinity of each plant. The relative effect of these three groups of variables on seed removal was then modelled at each region using structural equation models and path analyses. 3 We found a pervasive effect of the close surroundings of each plant on dispersal. We also found a geographically variable influence of diaspore traits on dispersal. Such variable influence of the diaspore was closely related to the compositional and functional variation in ant guilds. 4 Synthesis: The appearance of an effect of diaspore and plant traits on dispersal depended on the surroundings of the plant, the identity of the ant visitors and ant abundance. This dependence itself might lead to different directions of selection among populations, a conclusion that has not emerged from seed offerings to ants, which is the usual protocol in myrmecochory research.
Approximate Nash Equilibria of Imitation Games: Algorithms and Complexity

A two-player finite game is represented by two payoff matrices ( 𝐴,𝐵 ) , one for each player. Imitation games are a subclass of two-player games in which 𝐵 is the identity matrix, implying that the second player gets a positive payoff only if she “imitates" the first. Given that the problem of computing a Nash equilibrium (NE) is known to be provably hard, even to approximate, we ask if it is any easier for imitation games. We show that much like the general case, for any 𝑐 > 0, computing a 1 𝑛 𝑐 -approximate NE of imitation games remains PPAD-hard, where 𝑛 is the number of moves available to the players. On the other hand, we design a polynomial-time algorithm to find 𝜖 -approximate NE for any given constant 𝜖 > 0 (PTAS). The former result also rules out the smooth complexity being in P, unless PPAD ⊂ RP.