Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Molecular Basis of the Anti-Inflammatory Property of Astragaloside IV for the Treatment of Diabetes and Its Complications

Abstract Astragali Radix is a significant traditional Chinese medication, and has a long history of clinical application in the treatment of diabetes mellitus (DM) and its complications. AS-IV is an active saponin isolated from it. Modern pharmacological study shows that AS-IV has anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant and immunomodulatory activities. The popular inflammatory etiology of diabetes suggests that DM is a natural immune and low-grade inflammatory disease. Pharmacological intervention of the inflammatory response may provide promising and alternative approaches for the prevention and treatment of DM and its complications. Therefore, this article focuses on the potential of AS-IV in the treatment of DM from the perspective of an anti-inflammatory molecular basis. AS-IV plays a role by regulating a variety of anti-inflammatory pathways in multiple organs, tissues and target cells throughout the body. The blockade of the NF-κB inflammatory signaling pathway may be the central link of AS-IV’s anti-inflammatory effect, resulting in a reduction in the tissue structure and function damage stimulated by inflammatory factors. In addition, AS-IV can delay the onset of DM and its complications by inhibiting inflammation-related oxidative stress, fibrosis and apoptosis signals. In conclusion, AS-IV has therapeutic prospects from the perspective of reducing the inflammation of DM and its complications. An in-depth study on the anti-inflammatory mechanism of AS-IV is of great significance for the effective use of Chinese herbal medicine and the promotion of its status and influence on the world.
Feedback control in flashing ratchets

A flashing ratchet uses a time‐dependent, spatially periodic, asymmetric potential to rectify thermal motion of Brownian particles. Here we review approaches to improve the particle flux in this type of Brownian motor by feedback strategies that switch the potential based on the instantaneous particle distribution. We review strategies that are based on the force experienced by the particles, and introduce a new feedback strategy that is based on the expected displacement that can be achieved. Langevin dynamics simulations show that this maximum net displacement strategy performs better than force‐based strategies in the limit of very small particle numbers and not too high temperatures. We also review the effects of time delay and noisy channels on feedback control, and perform a feasibility analysis of an experimental system that can realize feedback control using a computer‐controlled, scanning‐line optical trap and suspended microspheres.
High-accuracy deep ANN-to-SNN conversion using quantization-aware training framework and calcium-gated bipolar leaky integrate and fire neuron

Spiking neural networks (SNNs) have attracted intensive attention due to the efficient event-driven computing paradigm. Among SNN training methods, the ANN-to-SNN conversion is usually regarded to achieve state-of-the-art recognition accuracies. However, many existing ANN-to-SNN techniques impose lengthy post-conversion steps like threshold balancing and weight renormalization, to compensate for the inherent behavioral discrepancy between artificial and spiking neurons. In addition, they require a long temporal window to encode and process as many spikes as possible to better approximate the real-valued ANN neurons, leading to a high inference latency. To overcome these challenges, we propose a calcium-gated bipolar leaky integrate and fire (Ca-LIF) spiking neuron model to better approximate the functions of the ReLU neurons widely adopted in ANNs. We also propose a quantization-aware training (QAT)-based framework leveraging an off-the-shelf QAT toolkit for easy ANN-to-SNN conversion, which directly exports the learned ANN weights to SNNs requiring no post-conversion processing. We benchmarked our method on typical deep network structures with varying time-step lengths from 8 to 128. Compared to other research, our converted SNNs reported competitively high-accuracy performance, while enjoying relatively short inference time steps.
Optimal Vector Smoothing Splines with Coupled Constraints

This paper considers the problem of designing optimal vector smoothing spline curves with equality and/or inequality constraints. The constraints are assumed to be cross-coupled among the element curves imposed at some time instant as well as over some time interval. The vector splines are constituted employing normalized uniform B-splines as the basis functions. Then various types of constraints are formulated as linear function of the so-called control points, and the problem is re-duced to convex quadratic programming problem. The performance is examined by some numerical examples.
Orally disintegrating tablets containing famotidine nanoparticles provide high intestinal absorbability via the energy-dependent endocytosis pathway

The permeability of the Biopharmaceutics Classification System (BCS) class III drugs are low, and their oral bioavailability needs to be improved. In this study, we attempted to design oral formulations containing famotidine (FAM) nanoparticles to overcome the limitations of BCS class III drugs. Dispersions containing FAM nanoparticles with a particle size of approximately 50–220 nm were produced by the bead-milling treatment. Moreover, we succeeded in preparing an orally disintegrating tablet containing FAM nanoparticles using the dispersions described above, additives (D-mannitol, polyvinylpyrrolidone, and gum arabic), and freeze-dry treatment (FAM-NP tablet). The FAM-NP tablet was disaggregated 3.5 s after addition to purified water, and the FAM particles in the redispersion of the FAM-NP tablet stored for 3 months were nano-sized (141 ± 6.6 nm). The ex-vivo intestinal penetration and in vivo absorption of FAM in rats applied with the FAM-NP tablet were significantly higher than those in rats applied with the FAM tablet containing microparticles. In addition, enhanced intestinal penetration of the FAM-NP tablet was attenuated by an inhibitor of clathrin-mediated endocytosis. In conclusion, the orally disintegrating tablet containing FAM nanoparticles improved low mucosal permeability and low oral bioavailability and overcame these issues of BCS class III drugs as oral formulations.
Assessment of assembly process complexity using material coefficients for handling and insertion

Complexity principles are very important for reducing difficulty while at the same time continuously attaining the requirements of the product, process, and system. A crucial factor affecting the complexity of assembly is material selection. The material used for a product will be closely linked to the handling and insertion process. In a previous study, the methods used to select materials and assembly processes have been developed separately. In this study, those methods will be developed together into a single entity with respect to the complexity of each process. Scientific information about this matter has yet to be revealed, so it still requires intensive study. Hence, the study aims to promote a new way to measure the complexity of parts assembly by examining the material selection parameters. The proposed method involves material coefficients in establishing an assembly complexity index and consists of two phases. Numerical examples are provided to illustrate the suggested design comprehensively, which uses three material variants in piston products to calculate the complexity index of the assembly process. Variants with a small complexity index are ideal and facilitate the assembly process. The study creates a material coefficient model to specify the assembly process, where each component has various coefficient values. The material coefficient describes the value of material characteristics related to the assembly method, namely the process of handling and insertion. The material selection requires a clear understanding of the assembly requirements for each component. The related material characteristics are density, fracture toughness, Young’s modulus, elastic limit, tensile strength, elongation, and hardness. Assessment of the complexity index using methods from previous studies obtained 6.02. Using the present method, 5.777 were obtained for variant 1 and 5.769 for the second variant. The mean complexity value is compatible with the material coefficient and assembly time
Promoting research-based parenting strategies through U.S. local television news: An experimental evaluation of the Positive Parenting Newsfeed project

ABSTRACT Research finds that parents’ knowledge and practices exert significant influence on the developmental outcomes of children and youth. Formal parenting programs that improve parenting knowledge and practices can positively impact children’s development and behavior; however, these programs tend to be limited in terms of their scope and size of the populations they serve. We conducted an experimental study to evaluate the effectiveness of the Positive Parenting Newsfeed project – a wide-reaching parenting initiative that features rigorous research-based strategies and recommendations for parents through monthly TV news reports in English and Spanish. In a sample of 381 parents, we evaluated outcomes such as parents’ knowledge about the topics covered in the reports, intent to adopt, and adoption of research-based parenting behaviors. Compared to a control group, we find that parents exposed to the 1–1.5-minute Positive Parenting TV news segments report higher knowledge about research-based parenting topics, are more likely to report intention to adopt the behaviors featured in the segments, and implement more behaviors that follow the featured advice, one week and one month after watching the segments. IMPACT SUMMARY Prior State of Knowledge. Public education campaigns, specifically public health education campaigns, have found success in modifying mass population opinions and behaviors, but rarely focus on child development topics. Novel Contributions. This study is the first experimental evaluation to examine the effectiveness of communicating research-based parenting strategies to parents through videos displayed in local TV news segments, on parents’ knowledge, intent to adopt, and adoption of behaviors. Practical Implications. News producers and policymakers need to address global challenges and promote positive child outcomes, and television news can be an effective medium to provide important information to parents – the most important adults in children’s lives
Secrecy Performance Analysis for MIMO-DF Relay Systems With MRT/MRC and TZF/MRC Schemes

Transmit beamforming is a diversity technique in multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems. It improves the diversity order and enhances the information security of the MIMO systems. In this paper, we mathematically analyze the secure performance of a MIMO decode-and-forward (DF) relay system under the presence of an eavesdropper and with the imperfect channel state information (CSI) of the eavesdropping channel. To enhance the secrecy performance, we employ multiple antennas at all legitimate nodes and utilize two linear beamforming schemes, i.e., maximal ratio transmission (MRT) and transmission zero-forcing (TZF), at the transmitter and maximal ratio combining (MRC) scheme at the receiver. The probability density function (PDF) of the output SNR for different numbers of antennas at the transmitter and receiver is plotted and discussed. After that, we apply this PDF to derive the closed-form expressions of the secrecy outage probability (SOP) and ergodic secrecy capacity (ESC) of the considered MIMO-DF relay system over Rayleigh fading channels for MRT/MRC and TZF/MRC schemes. In addition, based on the obtained analysis results, we provide the location of the relay that minimizes the system SOPs. All the analysis results are validated by Monte-Carlo simulations. The results show that the TZF/MRC scheme provides better SOP and ESC than the MRT/MRC scheme. Moreover, the number of antennas at the legitimate nodes and the location of the eavesdropper significantly impact the secrecy performance.
Does commodity price volatility harm financial development? Evidence from developing commodity exporting countries*

Abstract This paper examines the effect of commodity price volatility on financial development in primary commodity-exporting countries. For this purpose, we collected data on 73 developing countries that are primary commodities exporters, from 2000 to 2018 and employed a two-step GMM methodology in dynamic panel data. Our results show evidence that commodity price booms promote financial development, and the volatility in commodity price negatively affects the path of financial development in developing countries. Our findings also suggest that markets are the main channel through which the volatility in commodity prices affects financial development. We then conclude that volatility in commodity prices is the main reason for the resource curse in the financial sector and not the resource abundance.
Human Resource Management Practices and their potential relationship with Organizational Citizenship Behavior in educational institutes.

The current trends in technology and globalization has encouraged Human resource management practices to adopt optimized strategies in dealing with challenges face by the educational institutions. In order to achieve the desired results and outcomes in educational institutions in a definite timeframe, valuable policies, capabilities and values need to be implemented. For creating a sustainable organizational environment, the organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) has been developed for supportive and cooperative interaction and relationship between the employer and employee by cooperating with each other for effective running of the schools. The current study is aimed to investigate the relationship between HRM practices and OCB in higher secondary schools in Dir Lower& Upper. This study is quantitative in nature and data was collected through closed ended questionnaire. The collected data was analyzed with person correlation techniques. It is found that HRM practices has a notable relationship with organizational citizenship behavior in higher secondary schools in Pakistan and results further speak out that performance appraisal has a high relationship with OCB while the rest of practices have low relationship with OCB. After discussion in light of available literature, recommendations has been framed for educational institutions and policy maker.
Digital Twin (DT)-CycleGAN: Enabling Zero-Shot Sim-to-Real Transfer of Visual Grasping Models

Deep learning has revolutionized the field of robotics. To deal with the lack of annotated training samples for learning deep models in robotics, Sim-to-Real transfer has been invented and widely used. However, such deep models trained in simulation environment typically do not transfer very well to the real world due to the challenging problem of “reality gap”. In response, this letter presents a conceptually new Digital Twin (DT)-CycleGAN framework by integrating the advantages of both DT methodology and the CycleGAN model so that the reality gap can be effectively bridged. Our core innovation is that real and virtual DT robots are forced to mimic each other in a way that the gaps or differences between simulated and realistic robotic behaviors are minimized. To effectively realize this innovation, visual grasping is employed as an exemplar robotic task, and the reality gap in zero-shot Sim-to-Real transfer of visual grasping models is defined as grasping action consistency losses and intrinsically penalized during the DT-CycleGAN training process in realistic simulation environments. Specifically, first, cycle consistency losses between real visual images and simulation images are defined and minimized to reduce the reality gaps in visual appearances during visual grasping tasks. Second, the grasping agent's action consistency losses are defined and penalized to minimize the inconsistency of the grasping agent's actions between the virtual states generated by the DT-CycleGAN generator and the real visual states. Extensive experiments demonstrated the effectiveness and efficiency of our novel DT-CycleGAN framework for zero-shot Sim-to-Real transfer.
Implementation of an Urban Parameterization Scheme into the Regional Climate Model COSMO-CLM

As the nonhydrostatic regional model of the Consortium for Small-Scale Modelling in Climate Mode (COSMO-CLM) is increasingly employed for studying the effects of urbanization on the environment, the authors extend its surface-layer parameterization by the Town Energy Budget (TEB) parameterization using the ‘‘tile approach’’ for a single urban class. The new implementation COSMO-CLM1TEB is used for a 1-yr reanalysis-driven simulation over Europe at a spatial resolution of 0.118 (;12km) and over the area of Berlin at a spatial resolution of 0.0258 (;2.8km) for evaluating the new coupled model. The results on the coarse spatial resolution of 0.118 show that the standard and the new models provide 2-m temperature and daily precipitation fields that differ only slightly by from 20.1 to 10.2K per season and 60.1mmday 21 , respectively, with very similar statistical distributions. This indicates only a negligibly small effect of the urban parameterization on the model’s climatology. Therefore, it is suggested that an urban parameterization may be omitted in model simulations on this scale. On the spatial resolution of 0.0258 the model COSMOCLM1TEB is able to better represent the magnitude of the urban heat island in Berlin than the standard model COSMO-CLM. This finding shows the importance of using the parameterization for urban land in the model simulations on fine spatial scales. It is also suggested that models could benefit from resolving multiple urban land use classes to better simulate the spatial variability of urban temperatures for large metropolitan areas on spatial scales below ;3km.
Warm Season Lightning Distributions over the Northern Gulf of Mexico Coast and Their Relation to Synoptic-Scale and Mesoscale Environments

Abstract Cloud-to-ground lightning data from the National Lightning Detection Network are used to create a warm season (May–September) lightning climatology for the northern Gulf of Mexico coast for the 14-yr period 1989–2002. Each day is placed into one of five flow regimes based on the orientation of the low-level flow with respect to the coastline. This determination is made using the vector mean 1000–700-hPa wind data at Lake Charles and Slidell, Louisiana. Flash densities are calculated for daily, hourly, and nocturnal periods. Spatial patterns of composite 24-h and nocturnal flash density indicate that lightning decreases in an east-to-west direction over the region. Flash densities for the 24-h period are greatest over land near the coast, with relative maxima located near Houston, Texas; Lake Charles, Baton Rouge, and New Orleans, Louisiana; Biloxi, Mississippi; and Mobile, Alabama. Flash densities during the nocturnal period are greatest over the coastal waters. Lightning across the northern Gulf.
Some Aspects of the Aggregation Problem in the Dividend-Earnings Relationship

Abstract Four models of the relationship between dividends and earnings are estimated to study the effects of different types of aggregation. The data indicate that the adjustment process is probably discrete. One of the models implies a discrete adjustment process, while the other three imply a continuous process. All of the models are estimated using two different but equally reasonable proxies for normal earnings. Temporal and cross-sectional aggregation, and changes in assumptions about the adjustment process, affect the estimated speeds of adjustment more than the target payout ratios. Temporal aggregation produces a bigger information loss than aggregation across firms.
Approximation in Large-Scale Circuit-Switched Networks

The most probable equilibrium configuration in a circuit-switched network is determined, in the limit of very large scale, by a primal optimization problem whose dual determines the blocking probabilities. This approximation can be inadequate for moderate scale, and so the blocking probabilities are usually determined by the Erlang fixed-point principle. In this paper, it is shown that there is a “softened” form of the dual natural to the problem. This gives determinations of the blocking probabilities agreeing with those derived from the Erlang principle as far as terms of order (scale)-1. It is more attractive than the Erlang principle, however, in that it has a mathematical basis, provides an extremal principle by its nature, yields immediately the geometric distribution of the numbers of free circuits, and clearly agrees with the “hard” dual in the limit of large scale.
The stability of three-dimensional time-periodic flows with spatially uniform strain rates

Unbounded incompressible fluid in solid-body rotation is subjected to spatially uniform strain rates that are sinusoidal in time and of arbitrarily large amplitude. The exact governing equations for the evolution of plane-wave disturbances to this time-periodic flow are linear, as for related steady flows. Attention focuses mainly on the in viscid problem, since incorporation of viscosity is straightforward. Plane-wave disturbances to axisymmetric flows are governed by a Hill's equation, or equivalently, a pair of first-order equations, to which Floquet theory is applied. Analytical and computational results show several instability bands, the first few of which can exhibit large growth rates. The exact governing equations for plane-wave disturbances to non-axisymmetric flows are similarly derived; but, as these are not singly periodic, results are given only for small-amplitude periodic forcing. As the non-axisymmetric strain produces a periodic elliptical distortion of the flow, a modified elliptical-instability mechanism joins that present in axisymmetric cases. Despite necessary idealizations, the analysis and results shed light on the stability of periodically strained vortices in a turbulent environment and in geophysical contexts.
Magnetic Properties of Australasian Tektites From South China

South China, the northern part of the Australasian strewn field (AASF) of tektites and microtektites is located at the uprange of the hypothesized source crater that is still unconfirmed. Magnetic properties of impact glasses are an important indicator of their source materials and thermal history. Extensive magnetic investigations have been performed on various AASF tektites sampled from both the Indochina Peninsula and further south, but such information remains sparse for those sampled from South China. Here, we present a detailed rock magnetism study for both Muong Nong‐type and splash‐form AASF tektites from South China, showing that all the tektites have rather weak remanent magnetization, but ferromagnetic information can be extracted from their dominating paramagnetic signal. Signals caused by superparamagnetic particles are elusive, but those of single domain magnetite are detected in the splash‐form tektites, and signals of pseudo‐single domain magnetite are discovered in the Muong Nong‐type tektites. Each morphological type of tektites from a same geographic area exhibits large dispersions in their magnetic properties. Across the entire AASF, the Muong Nong‐type tektites from South China exhibit the lowest average magnetic susceptibility, and the splash‐form tektites exhibit the smallest average natural remanent magnetization and ratio of equivalent magnetization. The observed heterogeneous magnetic properties are mainly caused by the different contents and sizes of magnetic particles, which can be explained by the different shock level and/or cooling history of the tektite melts. Micro‐sized immiscible Fe‐S spherules in the Muong Nong‐type tektites from South China were likely originated from the pre‐impact target.