Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Magic in the machine: a computational magician's assistant

A human magician blends science, psychology, and performance to create a magical effect. In this paper we explore what can be achieved when that human intelligence is replaced or assisted by machine intelligence. Magical effects are all in some form based on hidden mathematical, scientific, or psychological principles; often the parameters controlling these underpinning techniques are hard for a magician to blend to maximize the magical effect required. The complexity is often caused by interacting and often conflicting physical and psychological constraints that need to be optimally balanced. Normally this tuning is done by trial and error, combined with human intuitions. Here we focus on applying Artificial Intelligence methods to the creation and optimization of magic tricks exploiting mathematical principles. We use experimentally derived data about particular perceptual and cognitive features, combined with a model of the underlying mathematical process to provide a psychologically valid metric to allow optimization of magical impact. In the paper we introduce our optimization methodology and describe how it can be flexibly applied to a range of different types of mathematics based tricks. We also provide two case studies as exemplars of the methodology at work: a magical jigsaw, and a mind reading card trick effect. We evaluate each trick created through testing in laboratory and public performances, and further demonstrate the real world efficacy of our approach for professional performers through sales of the tricks in a reputable magic shop in London.
Effect of microbial consortium on plant growth and improvement of alkaloid content in Withania somnifera (Ashwagandha)

The effect of microbial consortium consisting Plant Growth Promoting Rhizobacteria (PGPR) like Azospirillum, Azotobacter, Pseudomonas and Bacillus were tested separately and in combination on Withania somnifera for two consecutive years (2009 and 2010). The combinations of above mentioned PGPR strains significantly increased plant height, root length, and alkaloid content in Withania somnifera when compared to the uninoculated control. Plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) exhibit direct and indirect mechanisms as plant growth promoters and biological control agents. Direct mechanism by PGPR, include the provision of bio-available phosphorus for plant uptake, nitrogen fixation for plant. The results of this study suggest that the PGPR applied in combination have the potential to increase the plant growth, alkaloid content of Withania somnifera .
Evaluation of Antibacterial Potentiation of Crude Extracts of Phyllant h u s amarus , Tamarindus indica and Cleo me viscosa and Their Formulation

Acetone crude extracts of Phyllanthus amarus and Tamarindus indica, acetone/methanol crude extracts of Cleome viscosa and crude extracts-Poly(ethylene glycol)ointment formulation of the plants were screened for antibacterial activity on clinical isolates; Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus which are associated with wound infection.Crude extracts of Phyllanthus amarus and its formulation showed no inhibition on both bacteria. Crude extracts of Tamarindus indica showed potency against Pseudomonas aeruginosa at varying concentrations and was dose dependent recording a maximum zone of inhibition of 12 ± 0.15 mm at 200 mg L-1 and zone of inhibition of 6 ± 0.25 mm at 25 mg L-1 but its formulation was not potent against both bacteria. Crude extracts of Cleome viscosa was potent against P. aeruginosa but was not significantly dose dependent at 95% confidence level with zone of inhibition of 8 ± 0.35 mm at 200 mg L-1 and 25 mg L-1 concentrations of the crude extracts. Its formulation showed an increased potency against P. aeruginosa that was highly significant with maximum zone of inhibition 14 ± 0.50 mm at 100 mg g-1 of Cleome viscosa crude extracts-PEG ointment formulation compared with chloramphenicol (positive control) Cleome viscosa crude extract-PEG ointment has therefore emerged a novel formulation against P. aeruginosa hence signifying their potential in treating Pseudomonas infections.
Graphical Abstract CG 18-3-MS

DOI: 10.2174/138920291866617021512 5048 Abstract: Background: Alternative splicing (AS) is a posttranscriptional process that produces different transcripts from the same gene and is important to produce diverse protein products in response to environmental stimuli. AS occurs at specific sites on the mRNA sequence, some of which have been defined. Multiple bioinformatics tools have been developed to detect AS from experimental data. Objectives: The goal of this review is to help researchers use specific tools to aid their research and to develop new AS detection tools based on these previously established tools. Method: We selected 15 AS detection tools that were recently published; we classified and delineated them on several aspects. Also, a performance comparison of these tools with the same starting input was conducted. Result: We reviewed the following categorized features of the tools: Publication information, working principles, generic and distinct workflows, running platform, input data requirement, sequencing depth dependency, reads mapped to multiple locations, isoform annotation basis, precise detected AS types, and performance benchmarks. Conclusion: Through comparisons of these tools, we provide a panorama of the advantages and shortcomings of each tool and their scopes of application.
IPOL: A new journal for fully reproducible research; analysis of four years development

After four years of development of the Image Processing On Line journal (IPOL), this article presents a first analysis and overview of its scientific and technical development. The main issues met and overcome from the beginning of the journal are described with a focus on the purpose of the journal to establish a state of the art on the main Image Processing topics. The evolution of the online demonstration is also presented with a first analysis of author/publisher criticism, which led to a proposal for a new modular architecture of its demo system.
Abstract. Ginsenoside Rg3, a bioactive constituent isolated from Panax ginseng, exhibits antitumorigenic, antioxidative, antiangiogenic, neuroprotective and other biological activities are associated with the regulation of multiple genes. DNA methylation patterns, particularly those in the promoter 

Ginsenoside Rg3, a bioactive constituent isolated from Panax ginseng, exhibits antitumorigenic, antioxidative, antiangiogenic, neuroprotective and other biological activities are associated with the regulation of multiple genes. DNA methylation patterns, particularly those in the promoter region, affect gene expression, and DNA methylation is catalyzed by DNA methylases. However, whether ginsenoside Rg3 affects DNA methylation is unknown. High performance liquid chromatography assay, MspI/HpaII polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and reverse transcription-quantitative PCR were performed to assess DNA methylation. It was demonstrated that 20(S)-ginsenoside Rg3 treatment resulted in increased inhibition of cell growth, compared with treatment with 20(R)-ginsenoside Rg3 in the human HepG2 hepatocarcinoma cell line. It was additionally revealed that treatment with 20(S)-ginsenoside Rg3 reduced global genomic DNA methylation, altered cystosine methylation of the promoter regions of P53, B cell lymphoma 2 and vascular endothelial growth factor, and downregulated the expression of DNA methyltransferase (DNMT) 3a and DNMT3b more than treatment with 20(R)-ginsenoside Rg3 in HepG2 cells. These results revealed that the modulation of DNA methylation may be important in the pharmaceutical activities of ginsenoside Rg3.
PKC-?-associated CK2 participates in the turnover of free I?Ba 1 1 Edited by M. Yaniv

Abstract The atypical PKC isoenzymes, ζ and ι, activate NF-κB, a mechanism thought to mediate the anti-apoptotic and proliferative features of these kinases. PKC-ζ has been shown to be associated with an IκBα kinase in resting cells. In this study, we have sought to identify the PKC-ζ associated kinase and understand how PKC-ζ mediates basal IκBα turnover in vivo. We demonstrate that the PKC-ζ-associated IκBα kinase is CK2. This kinase, previously shown to phosphorylate the PEST domain of IκB molecules, co-precipitates with PKC-ζ in resting cells. In vitro, PKC-ζ interacts with CK2-β. The in vivo PKC-ζ-associated CK2 preferentially phosphorylates S293 of IκBα as compared to non-associated CK2. The functional relevance of this observation is supported by the fact that the turnover of free IκBα in resting cells is S293-dependent. Moreover, overexpressing PKC-ζ results in lower steady-state protein levels of free IκBα, which is dependent on S293. Lastly, it is shown that PKC-ζ wt but not kinase dead leads to the in vitro phosphorylation of both CK2-α and β. These studies demonstrate that the association between CK2 and PKC-ζ may play a major role in the control of the basal turnover of free IκBα, in the absence of extracellular stimuli.
The role of parental factors in the mental health problems experienced by refugee children

Refugee children have high rates of complex mental health needs and a range of associated risk factors. There has been, however, limited research on the role of family-related factors and the impact of family-oriented interventions. This thesis comprises two interlinked studies to address this knowledge gap. Study I aimed to establish the role of parental factors in the development of mental health problems among Syrian refugee children residing in Turkey. A cross-sectional design involved 322 children aged 8-18 years and 263 parents in Istanbul. Children completed questionnaires on traumatic experiences (SLE), mental health problems (CRIES-8; SDQ), perceived attachment relationships (SS) and parenting styles (EMBU-C); whilst parents reported on their psychopathology (GHQ-12). The results revealed that parenting variables increased the risk of children having PTSD and general mental health problems (GMHP) after the controlling for the effects of pre-migratory trauma. The perceived lower availability of, and higher dependency on, the attachment figure uniquely explained both PTSD and GMHP. Lack of perceived warm and rejecting parenting styles predicted PTSD, whereas parental psychopathology explained GMHP. Study II aimed to evaluate the feasibility of an attachment-focussed intervention, Group Theraplay. Thirty children with possible reactive attachment disorder (RAD) and their mothers were randomly allocated to Group Theraplay or a control group. Five feasibility criteria were assessed using the same measures as in Study I at the pre- and post-intervention stages. In addition, parenting style was assessed by parents and children (PPI), RAD symptoms by parents (RPQ), and feasibility by all participants through open-ended questions. Group Theraplay was, overall, found to be feasible for application with refugee children, showing significant improvement in RPQ scores, although there was limited parental engagement. The findings have implications for practice and service development, in engaging refugee families and integrating child- and parent-focussed interventions. Future research should actively involve parents before designing a substantive evaluation.
Trigonometric variable-form taper equations for Australian eucalypts.

This article introduces a new variable-form taper model that is stable in specification yet flexible in its ability to fit data for species and trees with different stem forms. The base function is constructed from trigonometric volume-ratio equations following the geometry of a tree stem. The specification for the exponent includes variables for depicting changes in stem form along a stem and variables for taking into account differences in stem form among trees of different sizes. This model is fitted to data from 25 species of Australian eucalypts and is compared with Kozak's taper model to demonstrate its characteristics: stability in specification, flexibility in fitting data for species and trees with varying stem forms and accurate predictions of taper and merchantable height.
Randomized Study of Basal-Bolus Insulin Therapy in the Inpatient Management of Patients With Type 2 Diabetes Undergoing General Surgery (RABBIT 2 Surgery)

OBJECTIVE The optimal treatment of hyperglycemia in general surgical patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus is not known. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS This randomized multicenter trial compared the safety and efficacy of a basal-bolus insulin regimen with glargine once daily and glulisine before meals (n = 104) to sliding scale regular insulin (SSI) four times daily (n = 107) in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus undergoing general surgery. Outcomes included differences in daily blood glucose (BG) and a composite of postoperative complications including wound infection, pneumonia, bacteremia, and respiratory and acute renal failure. RESULTS The mean daily glucose concentration after the 1st day of basal-bolus insulin and SSI was 145 ± 32 mg/dL and 172 ± 47 mg/dL, respectively (P < 0.01). Glucose readings <140 mg/dL were recorded in 55% of patients in basal-bolus and 31% in the SSI group (P < 0.001). There were reductions with basal-bolus as compared with SSI in the composite outcome [24.3 and 8.6%; odds ratio 3.39 (95% CI 1.50–7.65); P = 0.003]. Glucose <70 mg/dL was reported in 23.1% of patients in the basal-bolus group and 4.7% in the SSI group (P < 0.001), but there were no significant differences in the frequency of BG <40 mg/dL between groups (P = 0.057). CONCLUSIONS Basal-bolus treatment with glargine once daily plus glulisine before meals improved glycemic control and reduced hospital complications compared with SSI in general surgery patients. Our study indicates that a basal-bolus insulin regimen is preferred over SSI in the hospital management of general surgery patients with type 2 diabetes.
Examining Literacy Specialist Candidates' Self-Efficacy Beliefs in Leadership Competencies before and after Internships in Schools.

The purpose of this study was to examine differences in the self-efficacy beliefs of 25 literacy specialist candidates in three leadership areas before and after 15week internships in schools. The three leadership areas, identified by university faculty as important to the leadership role of literacy specialists in schools today, were (1) serving as a resource to classroom teachers, administrators, and parents; (2) conducting staff development; and (3) engaging in literacy program development and coordination. Paired-sample t-tests used to evaluate preand postsurvey scores at the end of the 15 weeks suggest self-efficacy beliefs in all three categories grew significantly over the course of the internships. Using Bandura’s (1986, 1997) framework and the leadership competencies to code and analyze interviews, electronic communications, and reflective papers, the author shares examples of how candidates at the top and bottom of the group in self-efficacy growth compared in interpreting self-efficacy-related information during the course of the internships. Implications for graduate literacy programs are discussed
EHPnet: A Well-planned Site

An immunoperoxidase technique has been utilised for the demonstration of follicle stimulating hormone (FSH), luteinising hormone (LH) and prolactin (PRL) binding sites in normal human ovaries and in a wide range of benign and malignant epithelial tumours of the ovary. The incidence of FSH, LH and PRL binding was, respectively, 32%, 41% and 39% in normal ovaries, 30%, 18.5% and 22.5% in benign epithelial tumours and 51%, 32% and 43% in malignant epithelial neoplasms. The incidence of FSH binding was significantly higher in malignant epithelial neoplasms than in either normal ovaries or benign epithelial tumours but otherwise no correlation was found between hormone binding capacity and the degree of malignancy of epithelial ovarian tumours, the histological type of the tumour, the degree of differentiation of the malignant epithelial tumours or the presence or absence of metastatic disease. Well differentiated malignant tumours did, however, tend to stain more strongly than did poorly differentiated neoplasms, thus suggesting that the number of binding sites per cell tends to decrease with decreasing degrees of differentiation.
Efeito do ácido indolbutírico e raizon no enraizamento de estacas herbáceas e lenhosas de umbuzeiro - DOI: 10.4025/actasciagron.v29i3.468

The umbu tree can be propagated assexually, but few information are had that the species can be propagation by cutting. The objective of the present research was to evaluate the effect of different concentrations of IBA (indolbutiric acid) and Raizon 05 ® in the rooting of cuttings herbaceous and hardwoody of umbu tree. The experimental design used was block at random, with four concentrations of IBA (0; 500; 1000 and 2000 mg L -1 ) and one of Raizon 05 ® and two types of cuttings (herbaceous and hardwoody). After the treatment of the cuttings with Metiltiofan (Thiophanate methyl a 0,05% i.a.) for one minute, these were immersed in the solutions of IBA by ten minutes, or in contact with Raizon 05 ® , soon afterwards took place the planted in plastic tubets containing medium vermiculite. The material was transported for greenhouse with 50% of light reduction with overhead irrigation of the type under intermittent mist, with intervals of 5 minutes and duration of 10 seconds. The analyzed variables were: rooting percentage and surviving cuttings and mass of the matter dries of the root. It can be ended that: the woody cutting presented better results in relation to the herbaceous cuttings for the survival; the percentage largest of rooting was verified in herbaceous cuttings with the application of 500 mg L -1 of IBA, providing 33.33% of rooted cuttings.
Intermediate Pretrained Contextual Embedding Models With Applications in Question Answering

The goal of this research is to explore deep learning techniques for question answering on the Stanford Question Answering Dataset (SQuAD 2.0). This project builds on current state-of-the-art techniques using pretrained contextual embed-dings (PCEs) from ALBERT, which is a deep transformer-based Language Model. Most ﬁne-tuned models for downstream tasks such as question answering use the ﬁnal layer of language models as PCEs [1]. This paper presents intermediate models that take as input all hidden layer representations of deep transformer LMs and produce a combined token representation as the output. The focus of this paper is to describe how these intermediate PCE models affect performance on the question answering SQuAD 2.0 task. All models are trained and tested on a custom subset of the ofﬁcial SQuAD 2.0 data. We ﬁnd that adding an intermediate Dot Product Attention model leads to a small increase in performance over the last-layer-only baseline, improving F1 by 0.32% in a model ﬁne-tuned for 2 epochs, and 0.66% in a model ﬁne-tuned for 5 epochs.
The role of virus neutralisation in immunity to feline immunodeficiency virus infection

Feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) is an important veterinary pathogen with comparative significance because of its similarities to its human counterpart HIV. Since FIV is the only non-primate lentivirus which induces AIDS-like symptoms in its natural host, it serves as a valuable animal model for both prophylactic and therapeutic studies of HIV. It is accepted that the induction of neutralising antibodies (NAbs) is a key element in the control of lentiviral infection, since T-cell based vaccines alone failed to prevent infection in most experimental animal model systems. In this project a robust and reproducible in vitro neutralisation assay was developed and optimised, permitting the assessment of the NAb response in naturally infected cats and with the potential to evaluate candidate vaccines. It was demonstrated that, in general, primary FIV strains in the UK belong to subtype A, and therefore the development of a regional, subtype A-specific, FIV vaccine could be considered for use in the UK. The identification of a neutralisation resistant isolate of FIV led to the finding that a linear neutralisation determinant was located within the V5 region of Env and mutations in this region may lead to immune evasion in vivo. In addition, a second neutralisation determinant was identified in the C3/V4 region of Env. Finally, it was observed that a small proportion of naturally infected cats generated NAbs against FIV. Of these, only a very small proportion of the cats had antibodies with the potential to cross neutralise strains within the same subtype as the homologous isolate. Nonetheless, a plasma sample from a single cat was identified that neutralised all strains tested, including strains from different subtypes and geographical regions. It is likely that studies of the homologous isolate that induced the broad NAb response may be capable of inducing a similar broad response in vaccinated cats. Such a finding would have important implications for the design of potential novel lentiviral immunogens.
Unconventional Monetary Policy and Auction Cycles of Eurozone Sovereign Debt

We provide evidence that the ECB’s unconventional monetary policy dampens yield cycles in secondary Eurozone sovereign debt markets around new sovereign debt auctions. This eﬀect increases in market volatility. Cycles caused by domestic auctions and the role of market volatility are largest for countries with low credit ratings. Auctions by these countries generate highly-signiﬁcant auction cycles in other countries. Auction cycles can have a non-negligible eﬀect on debt-servicing costs, but these may be contained by concentrating debt issuance in tranquil periods, and by coordinating auction calendars among countries, so as to maximize the dispersion of auction activity in time.
Non-stomatal processes reduce gross primary productivity in temperate forest ecosystems during severe edaphic drought

Severe drought events are known to cause important reductions of gross primary productivity (GPP) in forest ecosystems. However, it is still unclear whether this reduction originates from stomatal closure (Stomatal Origin Limitation) and/or non-stomatal limitations (Non-SOL). In this study, we investigated the impact of edaphic drought in 2018 on GPP and its origin (SOL, NSOL) using a dataset of 10 European forest ecosystem flux towers. In all stations where GPP reductions were observed during the drought, these were largely explained by declines in the maximum apparent canopy scale carboxylation rate VCMAX,APP (NSOL) when the soil relative extractable water content dropped below around 0.4. Concurrently, we found that the stomatal slope parameter (G1, related to SOL) of the Medlyn et al. unified optimization model linking vegetation conductance and GPP remained relatively constant. These results strengthen the increasing evidence that NSOL should be included in stomatal conductance/photosynthesis models to faithfully simulate both GPP and water fluxes in forest ecosystems during severe drought. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Impacts of the 2018 severe drought and heatwave in Europe: from site to continental scale’.
Relativistic Newtonian Gravity Makes Dark Energy Superfluous

This paper shows that a simple and relativistic extension of Newtonian gravity leads to predictions that fits supernova observations of magnitude versus redshift very well without having to rely on the hypothesis of dark energy. In order to test the concept, we look at 580 supernova data points from the Union2 database. Some relativistic extensions of Newtonian gravity have been investigated in the past, but we have reason to believe the efforts were rejected prematurely, before their full potential was investigated. Our model suggests that mass, as related to gravity, is also affected by standard relativistic velocity effects, something that is not the case in standard gravity theory, and this adjustment gives supernova predictions that fit the observations. Our findings are reflected in several recent research papers that follow the same approach; that work will also will be discussed in this paper.