Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Antisickling agent in an extract of unripe pawpaw (Carica papaya): Is it real?

Investigations into antisickling and reversal of sickling activities of an aqueous extract of unripe pawpaw (Carica papaya) were carried out on blood from sickle cell patients (Haemoglobin SS, HbSS) using 2% sodium metabisulphite in a sickling test. The minimum concentration of the extract that achieved maximum antisickling in vitro and the fraction of the extract where the antisickling agent resides were determined. Our findings confirmed both antisickling and reversal of sickling activities of the extract. It was established that 1.0 g of unripe pawpaw in 1.0 ml of physiological saline was the minimum concentration that achieved maximum antisickling. Solvent partitioning of the extract with ethyl acetate and butanol revealed that the antisickling agent in the extract of unripe pawpaw resides in the ethyl acetate fraction as this fraction prevented sickling of Hb SS red cells and reversed sickled Hb SS red cells in 2% sodium metabisulphite whereas the butanol and aqueous fractions had none of these properties. We concluded that extract of unripe pawpaw really has antisickling agent and that this antisickling agent lies in the ethyl acetate fraction of the extract.
Food habits of the coypu, Myocastor coypus, and its impact on aquatic vegetation in a freshwater habitat of NW Italy

A b s t r a c t . From September 1994 to August 1995 we studied the diet of coypus, Myocastor coypus, in a freshwater habitat located in the Ticino regional park (NW Italy). Adult and young coypus were directly observed foraging in and near water. Aquatic macrophytes (81.8%) represented the staple food all year round. Common reeds (Phragmites australis) and Elodea spp. were the main components of the overall diet. A complementary seasonal consumption of submersed/floating-leaved macrophytes and emergent macrophytes was observed, the former ones reaching the highest value in summer (65.7%) when the latter ones were at their minimum (16.2%). Differences in diet composition of adult and young coypus were recorded in summer, when adults consumed more submersed/floating-leaved plants (mainly Callitriche stagnalis and Myriophyllum spicatum) and young coypus more terrestrial plants, predominantly black locust Robinia pseudoacacia leaves. Terrestrial vegetation was a usual integrative resource of the coypu diet all year round, particularly for young coypus in summer. Slight damage to the plant community was observed in small areas over-grazed by coypus. Nevertheless, 7 out of 12 threatened Italian hygrophilic species were eaten by coypus, suggesting that particularly sensitive aquatic plants could suffer from long–term foraging. Selective control of coypus in natural ecosystems of particular conservation concern is suggested, in order to limit damage to native plant communities of freshwater habitats.
Neurobiology of Recovery of Motor Function after Stroke: The Central Nervous System Biomarker Effects of Constraint-Induced Movement Therapy

Recovery of motor function after stroke involves many biomarkers. This review attempts to identify the biomarker effects responsible for recovery of motor function following the use of Constraint-Induced Movement Therapy (CIMT) and discuss their implications for research and practice. From the studies reviewed, the biomarker effects identified include improved perfusion of motor areas and brain glucose metabolism; increased expression of proteins, namely, Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF), Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor (VEGF), and Growth-Associated Protein 43 (GAP-43); and decreased level of Gamma-Aminobutyric Acid (GABA). Others include increased cortical activation, increased motor map size, and decreased interhemispheric inhibition of the ipsilesional hemisphere by the contralesional hemisphere. Interestingly, the biomarker effects correlated well with improved motor function. However, some of the biomarker effects have not yet been investigated in humans, and they require that CIMT starts early on poststroke. In addition, one study seems to suggest the combined use of CIMT with other rehabilitation techniques such as Transcortical Direct Stimulation (tDCs) in patients with chronic stroke to achieve the biomarker effects. Unfortunately, there are few studies in humans that implemented CIMT during early poststroke. Thus, it is important that more studies in humans are carried out to determine the biomarker effects of CIMT especially early on poststroke, when there is a greater opportunity for recovery. Furthermore, it should be noted that these effects are mainly in ischaemic stroke.
Universality for the Conjugate Gradient and MINRES Algorithms on Sample Covariance Matrices

We present a probabilistic analysis of two Krylov subspace methods for solving linear systems. We prove a central limit theorem for norms of the residual vectors that are produced by the conjugate gradient and MINRES algorithms when applied to a wide class of sample covariance matrices satisfying some standard moment conditions. The proof involves establishing a four‐moment theorem for the so‐called spectral measure, implying, in particular, universality for the matrix produced by the Lanczos iteration. The central limit theorem then implies an almost‐deterministic iteration count for the iterative methods in question. © 2022 Wiley Periodicals LLC.
Optimization of 1, 3-Propanediol production by Klebsiella pneumoniae 141B using Taguchi methodology: Improvement in production by cofermentation studies

In this study, 1,3-Propanediol production by isolated Klebsiella pneumoniae 141B strain using glycerol as a substrate has been investigated. Initial experiments were carried for the screening of nitrogen sources and yeast extract was found to be the optimum source. The impact of vitamin B12 on 1,3-PDO production was evaluated by growing the strain in vitamin B12 supplemented medium. One interesting phenomenon noticed that 1,3-PDO production was not increased by vitamin B12 supplementation, which aided in lowering the cost of fermentation process. Further optimization studies were carried out with six selected fermentation parameters such as pH, yeast extract, glycerol, calcium carbonate, inoculum size and temperature at three different levels. 1,3-PDO production has improved to 67% in Taguchi statistical optimization method. To further increase the 1,3-PDO production, cofermentation studies were carried out with the optimized medium having glucose and sucrose as co substrates.
Life History and Population Characteristics of the Mantid Stagmomantis carolina (Mantodea: Mantidae)

Abstract We investigated the life history and populations characteristics of the Carolina mantid,. Stagmomantis carolina (Johannson), in central Arkansas. Unlike several studies on other mantid species found in the United States, this species was found at very low densities in the field as measured by adult abundance and ootheca density. We found that mortality was high during the egg stage because of developmental failure or egg parasitism. In replicated field plots, mortality and emigration was high during the 1st and 2nd stadia, resulting in very low numbers of in-plot survivors (<1%) by the 3rd stadium of development. Synchronous versus asynchronous hatching had statistically significant effects on emigration and in-plot mortality but a nonsignificant effect on in-plot survival, although the trend was for increased survival in asynchronous plots. Although arthropod abundance tended to be lower in mantid plots, S. carolina had no significant effects on total arthropod abundance, total arthropod biomass, or the abundance and biomass of any arthropod order. Laboratory experiments indicated that this species has slower development during the egg stage and slower development during the nymph stages compared with related mantid species. This slow growth may in part explain the high mortality rate and therefore explain the low density of S. carolina found in this population. However, this growth strategy seems necessary for survival because it allows for proper timing of oviposition for a univoltine life cycle in central Arkansas. Comparative studies of this species in other portions of its range would be interesting in determining the generalities of our findings.
Theta Burst Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation of Fronto-Parietal Networks: Modulation by Mental State

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) treats neuropsychiatric disorders, but effects of stimulation are highly state-dependent and in most therapeutic applications, mental state is not controlled. This exploratory proposal will test the broad hypothesis that when TMS, specifically intermittent theta burst stimulation (iTBS), is applied during a controlled mental state, network changes will be facilitated, compared to stimulation when mental state is uncontrolled. We will focus on the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) and the associated fronto-parietal network (FPN), which subserves cognitive control, an important neural and behavioral target of therapeutic TMS. After a baseline functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) session, iTBS will be administered to 40 healthy subjects in three sessions over three days in a within-subjects, cross-over design: (1) dlPFC stimulation by iTBS alone, (2) dlPFC stimulation by iTBS while simultaneously performing a cognitive task, and (3) vertex (control) iTBS stimulation. Immediately after each iTBS session, we will measure blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) activation during a cognitive control task (“n-back” task) and during the resting state, using BOLD connectivity and arterial spin labeling (ASL). We will test hypotheses that persisting neural changes and performance enhancement induced by iTBS to the dlPFC, compared to iTBS to the vertex, will affect the FPN, and these effects will be modulated by whether or not subjects receive iTBS when they are engaged in a cognitive control task. Demonstrating this interaction between iTBS and mental state will lay critical groundwork for future studies to show how controlling mental state during TMS can improve therapeutic effects. Trial Registration Clinicaltrials.gov NCT04010461.
Short- and long-term impacts of spatial restrictions on harvest scheduling with reference to riparian zone planning

Owing to the significance of shade, wildlife habitat, soil stabilization, and water-filtering effects of streamside vegetation on the riparian zone, spatial restrictions are imposed on both public and private harvesting areas along the stream by state and federal agencies. Analysis of both short– and long–term impacts of the riparian zone spatial restrictions as well as spatial restrictions on harvest units is presented. The heuristic model called SSMART, for spatially constrained harvest scheduling problems, is used to solve the proposed problems. The Green River sub-basin on the Alsea Ranger District, Siuslaw National Forest, Oregon, is used for the analysis. Our computational experiments show that the marginal reduction of the total present net worth in dollars is about 6.2% per 100-foot (1 foot = 0.305 m) width of the riparian management area, and about 6.7% for the average annual harvest flow. It is also shown that increasing the exclusion period to two or three periods could cause major reduction (2.
Histological comparison of different compressive forces on particulate grafts during alveolar ridge preservation: a prospective proof-of-concept study

Purpose The aim of this study was to determine the impact of different compressive forces on deproteinized bovine bone mineral (DBBM) particles covered by native bilayer collagen membrane (NBCM) during alveolar ridge preservation (ARP) in the molar area, and to identify any histomorphometric and clinical differences according to the compressive force applied. Methods Sockets were filled with DBBM after tooth extraction, and different compressive forces (30 N and 5 N, respectively) were applied to the graft material in the test (30 N) and control (5 N) groups. The DBBM in both groups was covered with NBCM in a double-layered fashion. A crossed horizontal mattress suture (hidden X) was then made. A core biopsy was performed using a trephine bur without flap elevation at the implant placement site for histomorphometric evaluations after 4 months. The change of the marginal bone level was measured using radiography. Results Twelve patients completed the study. The histomorphometric analysis demonstrated that the mean ratios of the areas of new bone, residual graft material, and soft tissue and the implant stability quotient did not differ significantly between the groups (P>0.05). However, the mean size of the residual graft material showed a significant intergroup difference (P<0.05). Conclusions The application of 2 compressive forces (5 N, 30 N) on particulate DBBM grafts during open-healing ARP in the posterior area led to comparable new bone formation, implant feasibility and peri-implant bone level.
Decentralized Stochastic Gradient Langevin Dynamics and Hamiltonian Monte Carlo

Stochastic gradient Langevin dynamics (SGLD) and stochastic gradient Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (SGHMC) are two popular Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms for Bayesian inference that can scale to large datasets, allowing to sample from the posterior distribution of a machine learning (ML) model based on the input data and the prior distribution over the model parameters. However, these algorithms do not apply to the decentralized learning setting, when a network of agents are working collaboratively to learn the parameters of an ML model without sharing their individual data due to privacy reasons or communication constraints. We study two algorithms: Decentralized SGLD (DE-SGLD) and Decentralized SGHMC (DE-SGHMC) which are adaptations of SGLD and SGHMC methods that allow scaleable Bayesian inference in the decentralized setting. We show that when the posterior distribution is strongly log-concave, the iterates of these algorithms converge linearly to a neighborhood of the target distribution in the 2-Wasserstein metric. We illustrate the results for decentralized Bayesian linear regression and Bayesian logistic regression problems.
All in the Exponential Family: Bregman Duality in Thermodynamic Variational Inference

The recently proposed Thermodynamic Variational Objective (TVO) leverages thermodynamic integration to provide a family of variational inference objectives, which both tighten and generalize the ubiquitous Evidence Lower Bound (ELBO). However, the tightness of TVO bounds was not previously known, an expensive grid search was used to choose a "schedule" of intermediate distributions, and model learning suffered with ostensibly tighter bounds. In this work, we propose an exponential family interpretation of the geometric mixture curve underlying the TVO and various path sampling methods, which allows us to characterize the gap in TVO likelihood bounds as a sum of KL divergences. We propose to choose intermediate distributions using equal spacing in the moment parameters of our exponential family, which matches grid search performance and allows the schedule to adaptively update over the course of training. Finally, we derive a doubly reparameterized gradient estimator which improves model learning and allows the TVO to benefit from more refined bounds. To further contextualize our contributions, we provide a unified framework for understanding thermodynamic integration and the TVO using Taylor series remainders.
The role of galactic dynamics in shaping the physical properties of giant molecular clouds in Milky Way-like galaxies

We examine the role of the large-scale galactic-dynamical environment in setting the properties of giant molecular clouds in Milky Way-like galaxies. We perform three high-resolution simulations of Milky Way-like discs with the moving-mesh hydrodynamics code Arepo, yielding a statistical sample of $\sim 80,000$ giant molecular clouds and $\sim 55,000$ HI clouds. We account for the self-gravity of the gas, momentum and thermal energy injection from supernovae and HII regions, mass injection from stellar winds, and the non-equilibrium chemistry of hydrogen, carbon and oxygen. By varying the external gravitational potential, we probe galactic-dynamical environments spanning an order of magnitude in the orbital angular velocity, gravitational stability, mid-plane pressure and the gradient of the galactic rotation curve. The simulated molecular clouds are highly overdense ($\sim 100\times$) and over-pressured ($\sim 25\times$) relative to the ambient interstellar medium. Their gravo-turbulent and star-forming properties are decoupled from the dynamics of the galactic mid-plane, so that the kpc-scale star formation rate surface density is related only to the number of molecular clouds per unit area of the galactic mid-plane. Despite this, the clouds display clear, statistically-significant correlations of their rotational properties with the rates of galactic shearing and gravitational free-fall. We find that galactic rotation and gravitational instability can influence their elongation, angular momenta, and tangential velocity dispersions. The lower pressures and densities of the HI clouds allow for a greater range of significant dynamical correlations, mirroring the rotational properties of the molecular clouds, while also displaying a coupling of their gravitational and turbulent properties to the galactic-dynamical environment.
Long-term performance of white clover varieties grown with perennial ryegrass under rotational grazing by sheep with different nitrogen applications

Three experiments were carried out to investigate the dry matter production of nine white clover (Trifolium repens L.) varieties grown with the same variety of perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.) and subjected to rotational grazing by sheep over a period of 10 years. The experiments differed only in the nitrogen fertilizer added: no nitrogen, 100 kg/ha per year and 200 kg/ha per year. Dry matter (DM) yields of white clover and perennial ryegrass components of the sward were recorded at approximately 6-week intervals during the growing season. Without applied nitrogen, 10-year mean white clover annual DM yields ranged from 2·89–4·54 t/ha. Mean clover content for all varieties ranged from 31–50% for the first 9 years, declining to 20% in the 10th year. The most consistently high yielding variety, AberVantage, gave yields greater than 3·5 t/ha in every year. Similar results were observed for the variety Aran. The 10-year mean annual DM yield of the perennial ryegrass companion (variety Talbot) ranged from 4·41–5·57 t/ha depending on the white clover variety in the mixture. Variation in perennial ryegrass DM yield was of a similar range and pattern as for white clover. In the experiment in which 100 kg N/ha per year was added, 10-year mean white clover annual DM yields ranged from 2·27–3·87 t/ha. The varieties AberVantage and Aran showed yields that fell below 3 t/ha per year in only 1 or 2 years, respectively. Mean clover content for all varieties ranged from 26–38% for the first 9 years, declining to 17·5% in the 10th year. There was no consecutive annual decline in white clover DM yields. The 10-year mean annual DM yields of the perennial ryegrass companion ranged from 6·03–7·57 t/ha. With applied nitrogen fertilizer of 200 kg N/ha per year (Experiment 3), 10-year mean white clover annual DM yields ranged from 1·21–2·67 t/ha. Mean clover content ranged from 12–27% for the 10 years. AberVantage and Aran showed yields consistently above 2 t/ha. No general decline in white clover DM yields was observed although some varieties showed consecutive annual reductions in years 8, 9 and 10. The 10-year mean annual DM perennial ryegrass yields ranged from 7·27–8·68 t/ha. The results show that, under rotational grazing by sheep, white clover can give reliably high yields over a 10-year period. With moderate to high applications of nitrogen fertilizer white clover yields were lower than without nitrogen but they were consistent and sufficient to make a considerable impact on forage quality. There was no evidence for a general decline in clover content until the 10th year of the experiment and no cyclical pattern of annual variation in white clover yield was observed. The implications of these results for the role of white clover in UK agriculture are discussed.
The Price of Competition: Effect Size Heterogeneity Matters in High Dimensions

In high-dimensional sparse regression, would increasing the signal-to-noise ratio while fixing the sparsity level always lead to better model selection? For high-dimensional sparse regression problems, surprisingly, in this paper we answer this question in the negative in the regime of linear sparsity for the Lasso method, relying on a new concept we term effect size heterogeneity. Roughly speaking, a regression coefficient vector has high effect size heterogeneity if its nonzero entries have significantly different magnitudes. From the viewpoint of this new measure, we prove that the false and true positive rates achieve the optimal trade-off uniformly along the Lasso path when this measure is maximal in a certain sense, and the worst trade-off is achieved when it is minimal in the sense that all nonzero effect sizes are roughly equal. Moreover, we demonstrate that the first false selection occurs much earlier when effect size heterogeneity is minimal than when it is maximal. The underlying cause of these two phenomena is, metaphorically speaking, the “competition” among variables with effect sizes of the same magnitude in entering the model. Taken together, our findings suggest that effect size heterogeneity shall serve as an important complementary measure to the sparsity of regression coefficients in the analysis of high-dimensional regression problems. Our proofs use techniques from approximate message passing theory as well as a novel technique for estimating the rank of the first false variable.
The IKEA ASM Dataset: Understanding People Assembling Furniture through Actions, Objects and Pose

The availability of a large labeled dataset is a key requirement for applying deep learning methods to solve various computer vision tasks. In the context of understanding human activities, existing public datasets, while large in size, are often limited to a single RGB camera and provide only per-frame or per-clip action annotations. To enable richer analysis and understanding of human activities, we introduce IKEA ASM—a three million frame, multi-view, furniture assembly video dataset that includes depth, atomic actions, object segmentation, and human poses. Additionally, we benchmark prominent methods for video action recognition, object segmentation and human pose estimation tasks on this challenging dataset. The dataset enables the development of holistic methods, which integrate multi-modal and multi-view data to better perform on these tasks.
Traffic Delay Reduction at Highway Diverges Using an Advance Warning System Based on a Probabilistic Prediction Model

This paper presents an on-board advance warning system for vehicles based on a probabilistic prediction model that advises them on when to change lanes to reach a highway diverge on time. The system is based on a model that estimates the probability of reaching a goal state on the road using one or multiple lane changes. This estimate is based on several traffic-related parameters such as the distribution of inter-vehicle headway distances as well as driver-related parameters like lane change duration. For an upcoming diverge, the advance warning system uses the model to continuously calculate the probability of reaching it and advise the driver to change lanes when the probability dips below a certain threshold. To evaluate the performance of the proposed system in reducing traffic delay at highway diverges, it was used on a segment of a four-lane highway to advise vehicles taking an off-ramp on when to change lanes. Results show that using the proposed system reduces average delay up to 6% and maximum delay up to 16%, depending on traffic flow and the ratio of vehicles taking the off-ramp.