Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Influence of Long-Distance Transportation Under Various Crating Densities on Broiler Meat Quality During Hot and Humid Weather

The objective of the study was to investigate the effect of transportation distance and crating density on broiler meat quality during hot and humid weather. Breast meat samples were collected from broilers (Ross-308) after transportation for 80, 160, and 240 km at crating densities of 10, 12, and 15 birds per crate. The broilers were transported in plastic crates of 0.91 × 0.55 × 0.31 m (length × width × height) in summer at an ambient temperature of 27.2–33.6°C and relative humidity of 52.7–62.9%. The birds were then slaughtered, and the meats' physicochemical characteristics, marination and cooking attributes were measured. Meat pH at 2 hours (h) postmortem (PM) was significantly higher in birds transported for 80 and 160 km compared to those transported for up to 240 km, while meat pH at 24 h PM was higher in birds transported for up to 160 km compared to the other treatments; however, no effect of different crating densities on meat pH and drip loss was observed. Meat losses such as drip loss, thaw loss, cooking loss in raw and marinated breast, and meat shear force were significantly higher in birds transported for up to 240 km compared to the other treatments. An increase in crating density above 12 birds per crate also increased thaw loss, whereas crating density of 12 birds per crate and higher increased cooking loss and meat shear force. Meat lightness also increased significantly with the increase in transportation distance above 160 km and crating density above 12 birds per crate. In conclusion, transportation of broilers for more than 80 km with crating density higher than 12 birds per crate during summer was associated with severe losses in yield and deterioration in physical appearance and functional characteristics of meat.
Ramet demography of Aechmea distichantha (Bromeliaceae) in two contrasting years in the understory and open areas of a South American xerophytic forest

The Schinopsis balansae forests of the Wet Chaco are characterized by convex areas with woody vegetation and plain areas with herbaceous vegetation. In the Wet Chaco, Aechmea distichantha is a terrestrial bromeliad that forms dense colonies in the understory and open areas of these forests. The aim of this study was to analyze the spatial and temporal variations in population dynamics of this bromeliad species. We monitored ramets growing in sun and shade conditions during two contrasting years. We analyzed the spatial and temporal variations in survival, flowering, and ramet production. Variations in survival, flowering, and ramet production were more marked between years than between habitats. During the year with wetter and milder temperature conditions, survival and ramet production were higher than during the drier year with more extreme temperatures. Survival of vegetative ramets was less variable than survival of young and reproductive ramets. In the colder year, lower winter temperatures reduced the populations in all stages, being more important in the open areas. Our results highlight the importance of low temperatures on A. distichantha demography at this xerophytic forest located at the southernmost distribution range of this
Vaginal Fibrosarcoma in a Brown Swiss Cow

The presented case includes the vaginal fibrosarcoma hanging out through the lips of vulva of a 3-year old, brown Swiss cow and removal of the mass with operative intervention. In the clinical examination of the cow, no disorder other than the mass was detected. A hemorrhagic, necrotic, lobular mass spreading to various regions of vagina and hanging out through the lips of vulva was identified in clinical examination. The mass with the diameter of 15 x 12.5 x 13 cm was removed from the site by operative intervention. Histopathological and immunohistochemical examinations revealed that the mass was vaginal fibrosarcoma. The cow has been followed up for 6 months postoperatively. No complication or recurrence was observed. In conclusion, we believe that the vaginal fibrosarcoma in the presented case which was diagnosed as a result of histopathological and immunohistochemical examinations in a -3 year old cow will contribute to the scientific literature.
Angular Correction with Chevron-Akin Double Osteotomy in Mild, Moderate, and Severe Hallux Valgus

Category: Bunion Introduction/Purpose: Hallux valgus affects a substantial number of patients requiring foot and ankle orthopaedic surgery. Chevron osteotomy is commonly used in mild hallux valgus for angular correction, and the chevron-Akin double osteotomy is a more powerful tool, with presumed usefulness in moderate and severe deformity. The objective of this study was to use radiographic analysis to determine the average and maximum corrections achievable with the chevron-Akin double osteotomy. Methods: This retrospective study included a total of 30 patients and a total of 33 feet. Pre- and postoperative hallux valgus angles (HVA) and intermetatarsal angles (IMA) were evaluated using standard weight-bearing AP plain x-rays and the differences pre- to post- were calculated. Patients were grouped based on the severity of preoperative hallux valgus into mild, moderate, and severe pathology. The pre- to post- changes of HVA and IMA, and the postoperative values of each angle, were compared between severity groups by using ANOVA, and means and standard deviation were reported at each level of severity. The rate of correction to normal was noted in each severity group. The study was approved by our institutional review board. Results: Of the 33 feet, 3 were categorized as mild, 19 as moderate, and 11 as severe. In the mild group, average improvement was 13 in HVA and 6 in IMA; maximum correction achieved was 14 in HVA and 9 in IMA; and 3 of 3 (100%) were corrected to the normal range. In the moderate group, average improvement was 16.5 in HVA and 5.2 in IMA; maximum correction achieved was 29 in HVA and 9 in IMA; and 18 of 19 (95%) were corrected to the normal range. In the severe group, average improvement was 28.5 in HVA and 8.8 in IMA; maximum correction achieved was 43 in HVA and 20 in IMA; and 9 of 11 (82%) were corrected to the normal range. Conclusion: This study demonstrates that the combined chevron-Akin double osteotomy is capable of both small and large degrees of angular correction in hallux valgus. It shows that the use of the chevron-Akin double osteotomy can be expanded to cases of moderate to severe angular deformity.
Improvement in sensitivity of an indirect-type organic X-ray detector using an amorphous IGZO interfacial layer

To improve the power conversion efficiency (PCE) and sensitivity of indirect-type organic X-ray detectors, we examined the role of amorphous indium-gallium-zinc-oxide (a-IGZO) as an interfacial layer placed between the PBDB-T: PCBM active layer and the LiF/Al cathode. By RF magnetron sputtering, a-IGZO films with different thicknesses were deposited on a PBDB-T: PCBM active layer at room temperature. The optimized detector with a 10.1 nm a-IGZO layer achieved the highest PCE of 7.45% under artificial solar illumination, which was higher than the PCE (5.43%) of the detector without an a-IGZO layer. Furthermore, the highest sensitivity of 2.82 mA/Gy⋅cm2 under X-ray exposure was achieved for the detector with the 10.1 nm a-IGZO layer, which was an improvement of 26% over the X-ray detector without an a-IGZO layer.
Neonatal morbidity and care-seeking behaviour in two rural areas of Bangladesh

This study assessed the patterns of reported neonatal morbidity and care-seeking behavior in rural Bangladesh. Data were collected from 1404 women who had live births during May 1995 to April 1998 in selected households of four rural subdistricts of Chittagong and Jessore districts in Bangladesh. A structured questionnaire was used to collect information from mothers who were interviewed at their homes. In this study 48% of the neonates were reported to have suffered from some kind of morbidity. Fever was the most commonly reported morbidity (20%) in the study population followed by breathing difficulty (11%). Birth order mothers education complications during pregnancy and/or delivery and death of a sibling were found to be significantly associated with reporting of neonatal morbidity. 87% of the mothers sought care for their newborns. Among those who had problems 37% consulted homeopaths and another 37% went to village doctors. Moreover 17% went to the trained providers and only 5% went to health facilities. Seeking care from the trained providers was found to be positively associated with male gender and antenatal care of the mothers from the trained personnel. The results of the study suggest that efforts should be made to raise awareness regarding neonatal morbidity its prevention and the importance of seeking care from trained personnel. However further studies are required to confirm the reported patterns of neonatal morbidity found in this study.
The timing of adrenarche in Maya girls, Merida, Mexico

Adrenarche involves maturation of the hypothalamic‐pituitary‐adrenal axis and increased production of dehydroepiandrosterone and its sulfate ester, dehydroepiandrosterone‐sulfate (DHEA‐S). It occurs at ages 6 to 8 in industrialized populations, marking the transition from childhood to juvenility and cognitive development at middle childhood. Studies in subsistence level populations indicate a later age (8‐9) for adrenarche, but only two such studies currently exist for comparison.
Smart Transformer-Enabled Meshed Hybrid Distribution Grid

Renewable energy sources (RES) induce problems such as voltage and current limit violations, absence of inertia and consequent stability problems, and poor power quality. Smart transformer (ST) is a promising solution for avoiding such a changing grid scenario leading to strong grid reinforcements. This article proposes an ST-enabled meshed hybrid distribution grid to achieve voltage and power flow control simultaneously with a centralized controller. In this configuration, a low-voltage dc (LVdc) line is proposed which connects the ST LVdc link with the dc bus of distributed generation (DG) converters. This introduces various active power flow paths to support the loads. The DG converters supply active power near the load points which ensures that line losses are reduced significantly while achieving improved voltage regulation as compared to conventional microgrid. Moreover, the DG converters can draw active power from ST LVdc link during absence of RES to support the load, resulting in improved utilization of these converters. The control complexity of the DG converters is reduced as the ST controls both the LVac and LVdc line voltages. Further, the newly developed power flow path allows reverse power flow from DG plants more efficiently. Performance of the proposed system is verified with simulation and experimental results.
STRESS RELATED ORAL DISEASES- A RESEARCH STUDY

Stress is defined as a physical, mental or emotional response to events that causes bodily or mental tension. Every organ in the human body is affected by various types of diseases like infection caused by microbes, immunological, metabolic, endocrinal disturbances etc., Etiopathogenesis of many diseases are discovered and managed at any early stage, still some diseases are considered as idiopathic, hence diagnosis and treatment plan of such diseases always becomes controversial. Stress is one such etiology or predisposing factor in many diseases. Many authors have proved stress in relation to hypertension, gastric ulcer and diabetes mellitus. Similarly this research study aims in identifying and proving the role of stress as one of the etiological factor in few oral lesions such as Oral lichen planus, Apthous ulcers, Burning mouth syndrome and Myofacial pain Dysfunction syndrome.
Study of prevalence and determinants of hypertension among the urban school going children aged 10–15 years

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as the author is credited and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms. Cite this article as: Sukkaromdee P, Wiwanitkit V. Positive stool occult blood among dengue patients with abdominal pain. Ann Trop Med Public Health 2016;9:420-1.
Correlation of Dental Caries, Total Proteins, Total Antioxidant Capacity, Immunoglobulin A and G in Children At The Age from 4-6 Years

This study is aimed to : assess the level of total proteins in the saliva; to assess the level of the immunoglobulin’s IgA and IgG in the saliva; to assess the antioxidant capacity of the saliva; to analyze the correlation of the dental status and the level of activity of the dental caries in every examined parameter separately. Materials and methods: For the realization of our goals weincluded 74 preschool children (35 female and 39 male), picked randomly, at the age from 4-6 years, from the elementary schools in Shtip which were divided into two groups: experimental and control. Every examinee was clinically examined (dmft and intensity of dental caries) and laboratory investigations were carries out (total protein levels, antioxidant capacity, IgA and IgG in the saliva). Results: The results from our study that referred to the total amount of proteins in the saliva of children with primary teeth, from the control group, were significantly greater in correlation to the value of the same in children from the experimental group (p<0,01); we established a negative medium strong significant correlation (p<0,05) between the values of the total protein in the saliva of children with primary teeth and the presence of dental caries; the values of the total antioxidant capacity of the saliva in children with a primary dentition from the control group are significantly greater in correlation to the values of the same in the saliva of children from the experimental group (p<0,001); The examined correlation between the total antioxidant capacity of the saliva in children with primary dentition and the presence of dental caries, showed that there is a negative medium strong significant correlation (p<0,05; the levels of IgA and IgG in the saliva in children from the control group with primary dentition is significantly greater in correlation to the values of IgA and IgG in the saliva in children from the experimental group (p<0,001); the correlation between the values of the immunoglobulin A and G in the saliva of children with primary dentition and the presence of dental caries, showed that there is a negative medium strong significant correlation (p<0,05). Key words: dmft, saliva, total proteins, antioxidant capacity, IgA and IgG.
Gaussian Process Emulation for Big Data in Data-Driven Metamaterials Design

Our main contribution is to introduce a novel method for Gaussian process (GP) modeling of massive datasets. The key idea is to build an ensemble of independent GPs that use the same hyperparameters but distribute the entire training dataset among themselves. This is motivated by our observation that estimates of the GP hyperparameters change negligibly as the size of the training data exceeds a certain level, which can be found in a systematic way. For inference, the predictions from all GPs in the ensemble are pooled to efficiently exploit the entire training dataset for prediction. We name our modeling approach globally approximate Gaussian process (GAGP), which, unlike most largescale supervised learners such as neural networks and trees, is easy to fit and can interpret the model behavior. These features make it particularly useful in engineering design with big data. We use analytical examples to demonstrate that GAGP achieves very high predictive power that matches or exceeds that of state-of-the-art machine learning methods. We illustrate the application of GAGP in engineering design with a problem on data-driven metamaterials design where it is used to link reduced-dimension geometrical descriptors of unit cells and their properties. Searching for new unit cell designs with desired properties is then accomplished by employing GAGP in inverse optimization.
An Attitudinal Study of Pakistani English

Defining the status of non-native variety of English depends more on sociolinguistic, political, geographical and economic factors than merely on linguistic grounds. Hence intra-national and international attitudes towards the variety are considered major factors in defining the status of a language and its varieties. The status of Pakistani English has been discussed by many researchers, Kachru (1982, 1985, 1986, 1987), Rahman (2002), Baumgardner (1993), Crystal (1988, 1997, 2004), Baker (1988, 1992) etc. There are a number of studies on attitudes towards English but there is almost no research on attitudes of English language users in Pakistan. The present research focuses on the attitudes of English language learners towards the status of Pakistani English. A questionnaire survey of 100 participants was conducted focusing on their attitude towards English as a lingua franca and the empowerment of non-native speakers. The results of the survey indicate that Pakistanis have both positive and negative attitudes about the usage of English in Pakistan which shows that English language in Pakistan has progressed beyond the EFL status.
Non-invasive diagnostic tests for renal osteodystrophy

Chronic Kidney Disease – Mineral Bone Disorder (CKD-MBD) is a common complication of advanced chronic kidney disease (CKD). Bone abnormalities of CKD-MBD are known as renal osteodystrophy (ROD) and are characterised by abnormal bone turnover and mineralization. ROD results in bone microstructural and mechanical changes which increases bone fragility. Thus, fracture risk is increased and subsequent mortality is high in these patients. Correct diagnosis of ROD is required before potential treatment to reduce fracture risk can be commenced. This can only be done with bone biopsy which is the gold standard test but this is an invasive and painful procedure. We conducted a cross sectional study with the primary aim of testing new non-invasive tests to diagnose and classify ROD as shown on bone biopsy. Sixty-nine advanced CKD stages 4-5D and their age and gender-matched healthy controls were recruited. All participants had blood samples collected for bone turnover markers (BTMs) analysis and had bone scan using high resolution peripheral quantitative computed tomography (HR-pQCT). Forty-three CKD patients had trans-iliac bone biopsy samples evaluable for histomorphometry. We also used a new technique using HR-pQCT to simultaneously assess bone and vascular calcification (VC) relationship in CKD. We found that advanced CKD patients have worse bone microstructure compared to controls. Importantly, BTMs such as bone alkaline phosphatase (bALP), intact procollagen type 1 N-terminal propeptide (intact PINP) and tartrate-resistant acid phosphatase 5b (TRAP5b), and bone imaging of radius using HR-pQCT were able to discriminate low bone turnover in advanced CKD patients. These non-invasive tests are robust diagnostic tools and have the potential to be translated into clinical practice. We also found that ankle arteries VC was associated with worse bone microstructure of cortical bone at the tibia. These non-invasive tests could be instrumental in further research into treatment to reduce fracture risk in advanced CKD.
On the macro-drivers of realized volatility: the destabilizing impact of UK policy uncertainty across Europe

ABSTRACT This paper studies the bivariate HEAVY system of daily and intra-daily volatility equations and its macro-augmented asymmetric power extension. We focus on economic drivers that exacerbate stock market volatility and can be proved to be major threats for financial stability. Our study proves the inflammatory effects of UK Policy Uncertainty alongside global credit and commodity factors that spread across European financial markets. This UK-led spillover phenomenon should be considered by world market participants and recognized, monitored and mitigated by policymakers amid the Brexit fears and the associated highly probable harm for Europe. Other findings are as follows. First, once we allow for power transformations, asymmetries, and macro-effects in the benchmark specification, it is found that both powered conditional variances are significantly affected by the powers of squared negative returns and realized measure, further improving the HEAVY framework's forecasting accuracy. Second, the structural breaks applied to the bivariate system capture the time-varying behavior of the parameters, in particular during the global financial crisis of 2007/08. Third, higher UK uncertainty levels increase the leverage and global macro-effects from credit and commodity markets on all European stock markets' realized volatilities.
A Simple Resonant Switched-Capacitor LED Driver Employed as a Fast Pulse-Based Transmitter for VLC Applications

This article presents a resonant switched-capacitor (RSC) dc–dc converter for visible light communication (VLC) applications operating as both high-efficiency power converter and fast-response data transmitter. By operating under soft switching, the topology allows for higher switching frequency and higher slew rate so that the VLC functionality can be embedded into the power stage without an auxiliary switch. In the literature, this additional switch has been presented as a viable implementation of on–off-keying (OOK) and variable pulse position modulation (VPPM) for data transmission yet, at the same time, is a major efficiency bottleneck for higher transmission rates due to its inherent hard-switching operation. This justifies new efforts in enabling pulse-based transmission (PBT) without this additional switch. A 10-W prototype was built to demonstrate such feasibility, operating at a switching frequency of 500 kHz, resulting in nominal efficiency of 85% during data transmission under the VPPM scheme, achieving up to 100 kb/s for various brightness levels, over a distance up to 1m.
Combining molecular dynamics simulations with small-angle X-ray and neutron scattering data to study multi-domain proteins in solution

Many proteins contain multiple folded domains separated by flexible linkers, and the ability to describe the structure and conformational heterogeneity of such flexible systems pushes the limits of structural biology. Using the three-domain protein TIA-1 as an example, we here combine coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations with previously measured small-angle scattering data to study the conformation of TIA-1 in solution. We show that while the coarse-grained potential (Martini) in itself leads to too compact conformations, increasing the strength of protein-water interactions results in ensembles that are in very good agreement with experiments. We show how these ensembles can be refined further using a Bayesian/Maximum Entropy approach, and examine the robustness to errors in the energy function. In particular we find that as long as the initial simulation is relatively good, reweighting against experiments is very robust. We also study the relative information in X-ray and neutron scattering experiments and find that refining against the SAXS experiments leads to improvement in the SANS data. Our results suggest a general strategy for studying the conformation of multi-domain proteins in solution that combines coarse-grained simulations with small-angle X-ray scattering data that are generally most easy to obtain. These results may in turn be used to design further small-angle neutron scattering experiments that exploit contrast variation through 1H/2H isotope substitutions.