Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Essential Oils as Natural Antimicrobial and Antioxidant Products in the Agrifood Indus

Consumers are aware of the dangers arising from the use of synthetic antioxidants and antimicrobials in the agrifood industry, demanding safer and “greener” alternatives. In this study, the antioxidant activity of commercial essential oils through DPPH method, their antimicrobial effects against the bacterium Pseudomonas syringae and the phytopathogenic fungus Fusarium oxysporum by means of the standardized disk method were determined. Clove along with winter savory, cinnamon and oregano essential oils as well as carvacrol showed the highest antioxidant activity comparable to reference standards. Wintergreen essential oil was the most potent inhibitor against P. syringae growth at the highest doses (20 and 10 μL). Oregano essential oil and its main component carvacrol were able to stop the bacterium growth even at the lowest treatment (1 μL). Cinnamon, oregano and peppermint essential oils inhibited F. oxysporum development at all doses (20, 10 and 5 μL) assayed. In general, most of the essential oils displayed more antifungal than antibacterial and antioxidant activities.
Among Family Variation in Tadpole (Rana catesbeiana) Responses to Density

onset of spasms as the definitive end point. Can. J. Zool. 75:1553-1560. , AND . 1997b. The critical thermal maximum: history and critique. Can. J. Zool. 75:15611574. MONGOLD, J. A. , BENNETT, A. E, AND R. E. LENSKI. 1996. Experimental investigations of evolutionary adaptation to temperature. In I. A. Johnston and A. F Bennett (eds.), Animals and Temperature; Phenoptypic and Evolutionary Adaptation, pp. 239-264, Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge. PETERSON, C. R. , GIBSON, A. R. , AND M. E. DORCAS. 1993. Snake thermal ecology: the causes and consequences of body-temperature variation. In R. A. Seigel and Collins, J. T. (eds.), Snakes, Ecology and Behavior, pp. 241-314, McGraw-Hill New York. SANDERS, J. S. , AND J. S. JACOB. 1981. Thermal ecology of the copperhead (Agkistrodon contortrix). Herpetologica 37:264-270. SPELLERBERG, I. F. 1972a. Thermal ecology of allopatric lizards (Sphenomorphus) in southeast Australia. I. The environment and lizard critical temperatures. Oecologia 9:371-383. 1972b. Thermal ecology of allopatric lizards (Sphenomorphus) in southeast Australia. III. Behavioural aspects of thermoregulation. Oecologia 11: 1-16.
INTERLOCKING DIRECTORSHIP AND FIRMS PERFORMANCE: EVIDENCE FROM MALAYSIA

This study was carried out to apply regression analysis in the prediction of corporate performance in Malaysia. Its focus is on one of the corporate governance issues which is on interlocking directorship. This study is to appraise whether the interlocking directorship and other factors like turnover, quick ratio and total debt to equity ratio can be good predictors for corporate performance. This study defines interlocking directorship as a situation where directors (executive or non-executive) sit on more than one board. There are top 100 companies listed under FTSE Bursa Malaysia Top 100 Index designated as samples in this study. Using two measures of corporate performance; earning per share (EPS) and return on equity (ROE). Two regression models have been developed in this study. Results show no significant relationship between both corporate performance measures EPS and ROE and interlocking directorship. This seems to suggest that the interlocking directorships in Malaysian firms have no implication on corporate performance. This might be due to the enforcement by Malaysia Code of Corporate Governance (MCCG) to all listed companies to form audit committee to monitor the board of directors independently. In addition, Bursa Malaysia Listing Requirement permits a director to hold up to 25 directorships at a one time, of which 10 directorships are in public listed companies and 15 directorships in unlisted companies.
Effects of Curcumin on Stability and Efficacy of Neem Leaves Extract as Botanical Insecticides

Botanical insecticides are considered biodegradable, environmentally compatible, and less toxic to non-target organisms than synthetic insecticides. Unfortunately, they are not attractive to Indonesian farmers due to its instability against light, temperature, and microbes, as well as they, have short storage time. This research was intended to produce a distinctive botanical insecticide that is resilient against the light, microbes, and durable. The role of curcumin in the stability and efficacy of neem (Azadirachta indica) leaves extract as a botanical insecticide against soybean pod sucking bug, Riptortus linearis was evaluated in the laboratory. This research was conducted at the Organic Chemistry Laboratory of Chemistry Department, Faculty of Science and Technology Airlangga University and the Plant Protection Laboratory, Faculty of Agriculture University of Wijaya Kusuma Surabaya, Indonesia, from March to October 2016. The results explained that curcumin is no effect on increase the stability of neem leaves extract solution towards UV light irradiation. However, it can increase the insecticide activity of neem leaves extract solution up to 96% mortality against soybean pod sucking bug, R. linearis. The increase of the bioactivity refers to the anti insecticidal activity of ferulic acid formed from the degradation of curcumin.
Liquid Levothyroxine Formulation Taken during Lunch in Italy: A Case Report and Review of the Literature

Levothyroxine (L-T4) is among the most widely prescribed medications in the world, and it is considered by the World Health Organization an essential medicine for basic health care. Replacement therapy has always been considered straightforward although different factors may interfere with intestinal absorption of L-T4, including food, dietary fibre, coffee, drugs, and gastrointestinal diseases. For these reasons, current guidelines recommend that L-T4 should be taken in a fasting state because its absorption is maximised when it is taken on an empty stomach, reflecting the importance of gastric acidity in the absorption process. In addition to sodium L-T4 in tablet form, various formulations (soft-gel capsules and liquid solutions) have become available for clinical use in the last years promising improved absorption. We described a 31-year-old Italian man who took liquid levothyroxine formulation during lunch. He was under replacement therapy with liquid levothyroxine 75 mcg daily for hypothyroidism due to Hashimoto thyroiditis for three years. During confirmation of the L-T4 replacement therapy, the patient stated that he was going to continue to “take liquid levothyroxine during (his) lunch every day. ” We recommended taking the medication correctly in the morning at least thirty minutes before breakfast and repeating TSH, fT4, and fT3 after three months. The thyroid hormonal profiles taken after 3 and 6 months were comparable to those when the patient was taking the medication during lunch. In conclusion, liquid levothyroxine formulation should be preferred in case of malabsorption or potential malabsorption. Liquid formulation should be preferred due to the possibility of taking it during breakfast, which significantly improves the compliance of patients. Further studies are needed to evaluate the possibility of taking liquid L-T4 during lunch.
Application of heterogeneous catalytic ozonation process for treatment of high toxic effluent from a pesticide manufacturing plant

Background: The discharge of untreated wastewater containing toxic and resistant compounds into the environment is a serious threat for ecosystems. Therefore, this study was conducted to evaluate the treatment of poison production factory wastewater using heterogeneous catalytic ozonation process (COP). Methods: Magnetic carbon nanocomposite was used as a catalyst at concentrations of 1, 2, and 4 g/L. Its effect on improving the treatment process was evaluated at reaction time of 30, 60, 90, and 120 minutes. At the end of each experiment, parameters including total organic carbon (TOC), chemical oxygen demand (COD), biological oxygen demand (BOD5), pH, electrical conductivity (EC), and turbidity were measured. Results: It was revealed that in single ozonation process (SOP), the maximum removal efficiencies of TOC, COD, and BOD5 were achieved at reaction time of 120 minutes as 56%, 40%, and 11.7%, respectively. By adding the catalyst to the wastewater, the treatment process was improved, so that the maximum removal efficiencies of COD (91%), TOC (73%), and BOD5 (74%) were obtained at catalyst concentration of 4 g/L. Under this condition, BOD5/COD ratio increased from 0.22 to 0.64. Also, the results of analysis of ozone consumption per each mg of reduced COD showed that its amount sharply decreased from 2.1 mgO3/ mg COD removal in the SOP, to 0.34 mgO3/mg COD removal in the COP. The results of kinetic reaction analysis also revealed that the rate constant increased from 0.007 to 0.02 min-1. Conclusion: According to the results, it can be concluded that the COP at a catalyst concentration of 4 g/L, by decomposing resistant compounds and increasing the biodegradability, can be used as a suitable pretreatment method for biological processes.
Pre-reproductive Movements of Leatherback Sea Turtles (Dermochelys coriacea) Nesting in the Caribbean

The temporal pattern of colonization by epibionts on leatherback sea turtles (Dermochelys coriacea) nesting at Sandy Point, St. Croix, provides unique insight into the pre-reproductive movements of the turtles. Recruitment of the pantropical pelagic cirriped, Conchoderma virgatum, was rapid and continuous once the turtles arrived at the nesting grounds. The date at which individual turtles arrived at the nesting grounds was extrapolated from a von Bertalanffy growth model estimating the age of barnacles present during a turtle's first nesting. The data suggest that gravid turtles do not arrive from temperate latitudes until just prior to nesting, and that they go directly to a preferred nesting beach rather than nesting opportunistically en route. The Sandy Point nesters apparently arrive at the nesting beach asynchronously over a period of 4 mo and, irrespective of date, individuals commence nesting within relatively few days of arrival. Mating presumably occurs prior to or during the migration and not in tropical waters. The occurrence of five additional species of epibiotic cirripeds and the presence of a parasitic isopod, Excorallana antillensis, are documented.
Characterization of Fusarium oxysporum causing wilt disease in groundnut

Richard’s agar and carrot dextrose agar supported the maximum mycelial growth of 9.00 cm at 7 DAI. Richard’s broth yielded the maximum mycelial dry weight of 914.00 mg. when carbon sources glucose ranked first in solid as well as liquid broth to promote the fungal growth with a mean mycelial diameter of 9.00 cm and mycelial dry weight of 453.40 mg respectively. In nitrogen sources, ammonium nitrate was found to be effective for the growth of F. oxysporumin solid and liquid media. The fungus grew well in pH 6.5 to 7.0.
Mass Multiplication of Vanilla planifolia with Pure Genetic Identity Confirmed by ISSR

A novel protocol was developed for Vanilla planifolia to enhance in vitro cloning through multiple shoot induction. Bud induction was recorded from nodal explants as compared to the shoot tip within 10 days in MS with 0.5 mg l NAA and 1.0 mg l BAP. A maximum of 5 buds from a single explant appeared within 11 days after the first bud induction. MS with 2.0 mg l BAP only proved best for multiple shoot proliferation resulting in 7 shoots per inoculated shoot bud within 55 days. Maximum roots per plantlet were observed in MS with 0.25 mg l IAA and 2 g l activated charcoal. Autoclaved sand and intermittent water spraying optimized the primary acclimatization period of 12 days and then larger pots filled with sand, soil, charcoal and coconut fibre ensured 86% acclimatization in next 20 days. Selected ISSR primers were used to ensure genetic clonality of these in vitro-generated propagules. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Arthroscopic Brostrom technique

Objective: To present the clinical and functional results of surgical treatment of patients with chronic instability of the ankle using the arthroscopic Brostrom technique. Methods: This is a case series of patients who underwent surgical treatment for chronic instability of the lateral ligament of the ankle using the arthroscopic Brostrom technique. Clinical assessments of ankle stability were performed preoperatively and at the last follow-up using the American Orthopedic Foot and Ankle Score (AOFAS), a visual analog scale (VAS) for pain, and the anterior drawer and talar inversion tilt tests. Surgical complications and patient satisfaction ratings were also analyzed. Results: A total of 16 patients were analyzed, with a mean follow-up of 14 months. There was a statistically significant (p<0.001) improvement in mean AOFAS, which increased from 67.2 to 90.8 points and the mean VAS for pain score reduced from 6.5 to 1.5 points. All ankles were stable and had normal results for the anterior drawer test and the talar inversion tilt test. Three patients (19%) reported that resumption of sporting activities provoked subjective pain in the ankle, which improved progressively during follow-up. Two patients (12.5%) exhibited neurapraxia of the superficial peroneal nerve. A majority of the patients (81%) rated treatment as good or excellent. Conclusion: Treatment of chronic instability of the ankle ligament using the arthroscopic Brostrom technique restored ankle stability and achieved good clinical results. There was a high rate of early complications, but the majority were transitory and underwent complete remission during follow-up. Level of Evidence IV; Therapeutic Studies; Case Series.
More Embeddings, Better Sequence Labelers?

Recent work proposes a family of contextual embeddings that significantly improves the accuracy of sequence labelers over non-contextual embeddings. However, there is no definite conclusion on whether we can build better sequence labelers by combining different kinds of embeddings in various settings. In this paper, we conduct extensive experiments on 3 tasks over 18 datasets and 8 languages to study the accuracy of sequence labeling with various embedding concatenations and make three observations: (1) concatenating more embedding variants leads to better accuracy in rich-resource and cross-domain settings and some conditions of low-resource settings; (2) concatenating contextual sub-word embeddings with contextual character embeddings hurts the accuracy in extremely low-resource settings; (3) based on the conclusion of (1), concatenating additional similar contextual embeddings cannot lead to further improvements. We hope these conclusions can help people build stronger sequence labelers in various settings.
A new front-tracking Lagrangian model for the modeling of dynamic and post-dynamic recrystallization

A new method for the simulation of evolving multi-domains problems has been introduced in previous works and further developed in parallel in the context of isotropic grain growth (GG) with no consideration for the effects of the stored energy (SE) due to dislocations. The methodology consists in a new front-tracking approach where one of the originality is that not only interfaces between grains are discretized but their bulks are also meshed and topological changes of the domains are driven by selective local remeshing operations performed on the finite element (FE) mesh. In this article, further developments and studies of the model will be presented, mainly on the development of a model taking into account grain boundary migration (GBM) by SE. Further developments for the nucleation of new grains will be presented, allowing to model dynamic recrystallization (DRX) and post-dynamic recrystallization (PDRX) phenomena. The accuracy and the performance of the numerical algorithms have been proven to be very promising in Florez et al (2020). Here the results for multiple test cases will be given in order to validate the accuracy of the model taking into account GG and SE. The computational performance will be evaluated for the DRX and PDRX mechanisms and compared to a classical FE framework using a level-set formulation.
Bacterial communities in sediments of Lake Baikal from areas with oil and gas discharge

#1 a-g, #2 a, b, #3, #4, #5 a-f, #6 2 8933 Unc. Acidimicrobiales bacterium D7N82 KC006228 99 downstream along river ban Jiulong River, Longhai, China Unc. bacterium 6016A3 H2 HF558719 99 diesel (petroleum hydrocarbon), the Baltic Sea, Askainen #1 a-g, #2 a, b, #3, #4, #5 a-f, #6 5 5665 Unc. actinobacterium AB920866 100 Lake Kanagawa, Japan Unc. bacterium clone AK4b2 JN626885 100 Methane seep, ice-free, Lake Qalluuraq, Alaska #1 a-g, #2 a, b, #3, #4, #5 a-f, #6 6 1930 Unc. actinobacterium DSH4C1-46 KF543148 100 harbor water Duluth-Superior Harbor, USA Unc. bacterium BT3900DF 09B JX448574 100 drilling fluid, Ontario, Canada #1 a-g, #2 a, b, #4, #5 a-f, #6 9 1724 Unc. Propionibacterium sp. O-22 KF786767 100 deepwater Horizon cofferdam (oil sheens), USA Unc. bacterium GS6 E25 KF720836 100 oil reservoirs of Diyarbakir ,Turkey #1 a-d, f, g, #2, #3, #4, #5 b-f, #6 14 1095 Actinobacterium SCGC AAA044-F19 HQ663471 100 epilimnion of freshwater Lake Damariscotta, isolate (0.5-1 m depth), USA Unc. bacterium SD 1 G05 JX564520 100 sediment wastewaters, Germany #1 a-g, #2 a, b, #3, #4, #5 a-e, #6 15 1108 Unc. Acidimicrobineae bacterium clone YL116 HM856482 100 Lake Yellowstone, USA
Self-supervised pre-training and contrastive representation learning for multiple-choice video QA

Video Question Answering (VideoQA) requires fine-grained understanding of both video and language modalities to answer the given questions. In this paper, we propose novel training schemes for multiple-choice video question answering with a self-supervised pre-training stage and a supervised contrastive learning in the main stage as an auxiliary learning. In the self-supervised pre-training stage, we transform the original problem format of predicting the correct answer into the one that predicts the relevant question to provide a model with broader contextual inputs without any further dataset or annotation. For contrastive learning in the main stage, we add a masking noise to the input corresponding to the ground-truth answer, and consider the original input of the ground-truth answer as a positive sample, while treating the rest as negative samples. By mapping the positive sample closer to the masked input, we show that the model performance is improved. We further employ locally aligned attention to focus more effectively on the video frames that are particularly relevant to the given corresponding subtitle sentences. We evaluate our proposed model on highly competitive benchmark datasets related to multiple-choice video QA: TVQA, TVQA+, and DramaQA. Experimental results show that our model achieves state-of-the-art performance on all datasets. We also validate our approaches through further analyses.
Finding Subgraphs in Highly Dynamic Networks

In this paper we consider the fundamental problem of finding subgraphs in highly dynamic distributed networks -- networks which allow an arbitrary number of links to be inserted / deleted per round. We show that the problems of k-clique membership listing (for any k≥ 3), 4-cycle listing and 5-cycle listing can be deterministically solved in O(1)-amortized round complexity, even with limited logarithmic-sized messages. To achieve k-clique membership listing we introduce a very useful combinatorial structure which we name the robust 2-hop neighborhood. This is a subset of the 2-hop neighborhood of a node, and we prove that it can be maintained in highly dynamic networks in O(1)-amortized rounds. We also show that maintaining the actual 2-hop neighborhood of a node requires near linear amortized time, showing the necessity of our definition. For 4-cycle and 5-cycle listing, we need edges within hop distance 3, for which we similarly define the robust 3-hop neighborhood and prove it can be maintained in highly dynamic networks in O(1)-amortized rounds. We complement the above with several impossibility results. We show that membership listing of any other graph on k≥ 3 nodes except k-clique requires an almost linear number of amortized communication rounds. We also show that k-cycle listing for k≥ 6 requires Ømega(√/log n) amortized rounds. This, combined with our upper bounds, paints a detailed picture of the complexity landscape for ultra fast graph finding algorithms in this highly dynamic environment.
Counterfactual Generation and Fairness Evaluation Using Adversarially Learned Inference

Recent studies have reported biases in machine learning image classifiers, especially against particular demographic groups. Counterfactual examples for an input---perturbations that change specific features but not others---have been shown to be useful for evaluating explainability and fairness of machine learning models. However, generating counterfactual examples for images is non-trivial due to the underlying causal structure governing the various features of an image. To be meaningful, generated perturbations need to satisfy constraints implied by the causal model. We present a method for generating counterfactuals by incorporating a known causal graph structure in a conditional variant of Adversarially Learned Inference (ALI). The proposed approach learns causal relationships between the specified attributes of an image and generates counterfactuals in accordance with these relationships. On Morpho-MNIST and CelebA datasets, the method generates counterfactuals that can change specified attributes and their causal descendants while keeping other attributes constant. As an application, we apply the generated counterfactuals from CelebA images to evaluate fairness biases in a classifier that predicts attractiveness of a face.
A Time To Event Framework For Multi-touch Attribution

Multi-touch attribution (MTA) estimates the relative contributions of the multiple ads a user may see prior to any observed conversions. Increasingly, advertisers also want to base budget and bidding decisions on these attributions, spending more on ads that drive more conversions. We describe two requirements for an MTA system to be suitable for this application: First, it must be able to handle continuously updated and incomplete data. Second, it must be sufficiently flexible to capture that an ad’s effect will change over time. We describe an MTA system, consisting of a model for user conversion behavior and a credit assignment algorithm, that satisfies these requirements. Our model for user conversion behavior treats conversions as occurrences in an inhomogeneous Poisson process, while our attribution algorithm is based on iteratively removing the last ad in the path.
Tasty Burgers, Soggy Fries: Probing Aspect Robustness in Aspect-Based Sentiment Analysis

Aspect-based sentiment analysis (ABSA) aims to predict the sentiment towards a specific aspect in the text. However, existing ABSA test sets cannot be used to probe whether a model can distinguish the sentiment of the target aspect from the non-target aspects. To solve this problem, we develop a simple but effective approach to enrich ABSA test sets. Specifically, we generate new examples to disentangle the confounding sentiments of the non-target aspects from the target aspect's sentiment. Based on the SemEval 2014 dataset, we construct the Aspect Robustness Test Set (ARTS) as a comprehensive probe of the aspect robustness of ABSA models. Over 92% data of ARTS show high fluency and desired sentiment on all aspects by human evaluation. Using ARTS, we analyze the robustness of nine ABSA models, and observe, surprisingly, that their accuracy drops by up to 69.73%. We explore several ways to improve aspect robustness, and find that adversarial training can improve models' performance on ARTS by up to 32.85%. Our code and new test set are available at this https URL