Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS OF MEDICINAL PLANTS USING SYSTEMS BIOLOGY APPROACHES

Plant derived medicine is an important source of life saving drugs, but the genome information of most important medicinal plants is still unavailable. The need of the hour is to identify more functional genes and enzymes that control secondary metabolite production in medical plants, develop new methods for systematics, engineer resistance to number of biotic and abiotic stresses, and develop new conservation strategies, more genomics, proteomics and metabolomics information needs to be produced. In this review, a brief overview of various omic technologies and its applications to medicinal and aromatic plants are discussed.
Food insecurity: consequences for the household and broader social implications.

A conceptual framework showing the household and social implications of food insecurity was elicited from a qualitative and quantitative study of 98 households from a heterogeneous low income population of Quebec city and rural surroundings; the study was designed to increase understanding of the experience of food insecurity in order to contribute to its prevention. According to the respondents' description, the experience of food insecurity is characterized by two categories of manifestations, i.e., the core characteristics of the phenomenon and a related set of actions and reactions by the household. This second category of manifestations is considered here as a first level of consequences of food insecurity. These consequences at the household level often interact with the larger environment to which the household belongs. On a chronic basis, the resulting interactions have certain implications that are tentatively labeled "social implications" in this paper. Their examination suggests that important aspects of human development depend on food security. It also raises questions concerning the nature of socially acceptable practices of food acquisition and food management, and how such acceptability can be assessed. Guidelines to that effect are proposed. Findings underline the relevance and urgency of working toward the realization of the right to food.
Model selection based on resampling approaches for cluster longitudinal data with missingness in outcomes

In medical and health studies, longitudinal and cluster longitudinal data are often collected, where the response variable of interest is observed repeatedly over time and along with a set of covariates. Model selection becomes an active research topic but has not been explored largely due to the complex correlation structure of the data set. To address this important issue, in this paper, we concentrate on model selection of cluster longitudinal data especially when data are subject to missingness. Motivated from the expected weighted quadratic loss of a given model, data perturbation and bootstrapping methods are used to estimate the loss and then the model that has the smallest expected loss is selected as the best model. To justify the proposed model selection method, we provide various numerical assessments and a real application regarding the asthma data set is also analyzed for illustration.
Sex-Typed Social Development in Lemur catta

Strong chemical control of strepsirrhine mating behaviour when compared to haplorhines might suggest that strepsirrhine behavioural development, generally, is under stronger somatic control. A comparative lack of reported behavioural sex differences in immature strepsirrhines would seem to support this hypothesis, but the recent discovery of sex differences in juvenile foraging behaviour in Lemur catta suggests that this difference might be an artefact of undersampling in strepsirrhines. Here, I document in wild L. catta the temporal development of a wider repertoire of social behaviours than have been studied in captivity over a longer developmental duration than has been studied in the wild to identify which behaviours might be and which cannot be linked to puberty. Sex differences in proximity and agonism did not appear before 2 years, consistent with previous reports and suggestions that they are linked to somatic or social changes at puberty. Immature females exhibited adult female-typical interest in infants; immature males demonstrated elements of adult male scent-marking behaviour, and immature males demonstrated marked attraction to adult males – sex differences that cannot be dependent on gonadal maturation. Immature L. catta exhibited some sex differences common in immature haplorhines, which are thought to be strategic choices by immatures to increase their later reproductive success.
Long-term location pattern based forwarding scheme in opportunistic networks

While smart objects begin to permeate our environment, enabling interaction between smart objects in the Internet of Things (IoT) becomes a challenge. Opportunistic networks (OPPNET) are a form of mobile ad-hoc networks. In OPPNET, the communications between smart objects intermittently occur when an object contacts another. OPPNET plays an important role as an enabler for communication in IoT. In OPPNET, in order for nodes to forward message to destination, they not only need to transfer messages but also store and carry messages as relay nodes. The forwarding algorithms in opportunistic networks need to exploit human and social characteristics such as mobility pattern and social relationship. In this paper, we propose long-term location patterns based forwarding scheme (LTLP) which utilizes long-term movement pattern for predicting future location probability. In the proposed scheme, each nodes records its own location pattern and analyze the pattern of its movement. After the analysis of movement pattern is finished, we create location tree of nodes to forward the message to destination. We analyze the proposed scheme on the NS-2 network simulator with the home-cell community-based mobility model (HCMM). Experimental results show that the proposed scheme outperforms most known forwarding schemes in balancing network traffic and transmission delay.
On Semantic Segmentation

The meaning of a word is built in relationship. Only when a word has a certain relationship with another one, can it have meaning. In the same semantic field, meaning is established in the relationship of each member, which is relevant to one another, respectively. Semantic field is in a dynamic balance and when the member changes, which will arouse the semantic segmentation of semantic field. In this article, the author investigates the phenomenon of semantic segmentation that changes of members bring about from the dynamic perspective and tries to give an explanation.
Prior Precision, Prior Accuracy, and the Estimation of Disease Prevalence Using Imperfect Diagnostic Tests

Estimates of disease prevalence in any host population are complicated by uncertainty in the outcome of diagnostic tests on individuals. In the absence of gold standard diagnostics (tests that give neither false positives nor false negatives), Bayesian latent class inference can be applied to batteries of diagnostic tests, providing posterior estimates of the sensitivity and specificity of each test, alongside posterior estimates of disease prevalence. Here we explore the influence of precision and accuracy of prior information on the precision and accuracy of posterior estimates of these key parameters. Our simulations use three diagnostic tests, yielding eight possible diagnostic outcomes per individual. Seven degrees of freedom allow the estimation of seven parameters: sensitivity and specificity of each test, and disease prevalence. We show that prior precision begets posterior precision but only when priors are accurate. We also show that analyses without gold standard can use imprecise priors as long as they are initialised with accuracy. Imprecise priors risk the divergence of MCMC chains towards inaccurate posterior estimates, if inaccurate initial values are used. We note that inaccurate priors can yield inaccurate and imprecise inference. Bounded priors should certainly not be used unless their accuracy is well established. Inaccurate estimates of sensitivity or specificity can yield wildly inaccurate estimates of disease prevalence. Our analyses are motivated by studies of bovine tuberculosis in a wild badger population.
Patients’ perception of dignity in Iranian general hospital settings

Background: Dignified care is one of the main objectives of holistic care. Furthermore, paying attention to dignity as one of the fundamental rights of patients is extremely important. However, in many cases, the dignity of hospitalized patients is not considered. Dignity is an abstract concept, and comprehensive studies of the dignity of Iranian patients hospitalized in general hospital settings are limited. Objective: The aim of this study was to explore the concept of dignity from the perspective of patients hospitalized in general hospital settings in Iran. Research design: This study takes a qualitative approach. Data were gathered using individual, semi-structured interviews. Qualitative content analysis was the method used to analyse and interpret the data. The criteria suggested by Guba and Lincoln were used ensure the trustworthiness of the study. Participants and research context: A total of 14 hospitalized patients in general hospital settings in Shiraz participated in this study. Ethical considerations: The Research Ethics Committee of the Shiraz University of Medical Sciences approved the protocol of the study and the ethical principles were followed throughout. Findings: The findings of this study revealed four main themes – ‘respectful atmosphere’, ‘patient privacy’, ‘preservation of authority’ and ‘receiving attention’ – and 10 categories. Discussion: Patients need to be hospitalized in a respectable environment in which their privacy is preserved and paid attention, providing them with sufficient authority in terms of medical decisions and their life-related issues. The dignity of hospitalized patients will be preserved under these conditions. Conclusion: Patients hospitalized in general hospital settings need to retain their dignity. This can contribute to the optimal therapeutic outcomes for them. Therefore, it is suggested that a cultural, professional and institutional background, in which all components of the patient’s dignity are protected and emphasized, should be provided.
Option Pricing with Linear Market Impact and Non-Linear Black-Scholes Equations

We consider a model of linear market impact, and address the problem of replicating a contingent claim in this framework. We derive a non-linear Black-Scholes Equation that provides an exact replication strategy. This equation is fully non-linear and singular, but we show that it is well posed, and we prove existence of smooth solutions for a large class of final payoffs, both for constant and local volatility. To obtain regularity of the solutions, we develop an original method based on Legendre transforms. The close connections with the problem of hedging with it gamma constraints studied by Cheridito, Soner and Touzi and with the problem of hedging under it liquidity costs are discussed. We also derive a modified Black-Scholes formula valid for asymptotically small impact parameter, and finally provide numerical simulations as an illustration.
Control method of a personal vehicle on cooperation movement with a companion: Second report: Inducing its companion to take a suitable path for cooperative movement

One of the important tasks for a personal vehicle is accompanying a human partner. In our previous works, we discussed how the vehicle should lead its partner, or follow its partner according to their relative position and environmental conditions for a cooperative movement when they entered into narrow space. This study, next, aims to develop a method of a path planning in the case that the personal vehicle cooperatively moves with a human partner in a position where they can communicate comfortably after they passed a narrow environment, where only one person can go through at once. To achieve this objective, we propose the model that enables a personal vehicle and its partner to move cooperatively based on a Social Force Model and installs it in our prototype robotic wheelchair. To realize this model, we analyzed the relative position of couples of pedestrians through preliminary experiment and investigated the condition which is necessary to estimated partner's intention from their position. Its effectiveness is verified by experiments with our prototype.
Descriptive Complexity for counting complexity classes

Descriptive Complexity has been very successful in characterizing complexity classes of decision problems in terms of the properties definable in some logics. However, descriptive complexity for counting complexity classes, such as FP and #P, has not been systematically studied, and it is not as developed as its decision counterpart. In this paper, we propose a framework based on Weighted Logics to address this issue. Specifically, by focusing on the natural numbers we obtain a logic called Quantitative Second Order Logics (QSO), and show how some of its fragments can be used to capture fundamental counting complexity classes such as FP, #P and FPSPACE, among others. We also use QSO to define a hierarchy inside #P, identifying counting complexity classes with good closure and approximation properties, and which admit natural complete problems. Finally, we add recursion to QSO, and show how this extension naturally captures lower counting complexity classes such as #L.
PHYSICOCHEMICAL CHARACTERIZATION OF THE LULO (Solanum quitoense Lam.) CASTILLA VARIETY IN SIX RIPENING STAGES

Background: Lulo (Solanum quitoense Lam) is considered a fruit with a high potential for exportation due to its exotic aroma, its bittersweet taste and the bright green color of its pulp. As a climacteric fruit is harvested when the fruit has reached full development, and 75% of the ripening is apparent by its characteristic yellow color with some small green points. However, this parameter is not enough to decide the right time for the crop, due to the irregularity of the fruits, especially for selling purposes in international markets, hence studies have been conducted to establish the changes during ripening and postharvest. Objectives: The aim of this work was to determine the relationship between color measurement and the other physicochemical parameters in the six ripening stages of lulo Castilla variety, in order to define the optimal harvesting time. Methods: Three fruits were studied for each stage, and were analyzed in the fresh state: ° Brix, pH, titratable acidity and color changes in the cortex, according to CIELab system. Results: The ranges obtained for the six evaluated stages were: ° Brix: 4.2 - 10.3, pH: 3.67 - 3.90, acidity: 2.63 - 3.00 and color (ΔE): 0 - 53. We found that the epicarp of the fruit varies from green to yellow intense, indicating the maturity for consumption. Total soluble solids increased with fruit maturation and the tritatable acidity decreased reaching a minimum values at stage 3, which was considered optimum for harvesting. The pH increased in stage 5 due to the drop of vacuolar H+ ion concentration. Conclusion: By measuring color parameters, 3 ripening stages were defined: green (0, 1, 2); semi ripe (3, 4) and ripe (5).
Trying to prosume: toward a perspective on prosumption

This study explores the motivational mechanisms underlying people's prosumption tendency. Prosumption refers to people producing goods and services for their own consumption. Although prosumption experiences are omnipresent in our daily life, few empirical and theoretical studies have addressed this phenomenon. In the current study, a theoretical framework that incorporates values and attitude-behavior relation theories has been developed and tested in the empirical context offood prosumption. It was hypothesized that the influence flows from global values to domain-specific values and then to specific attitudes and behavior in food prosumption. Domain-specific values are values people attach to a specific domain. Three groups of hypotheses are proposed for the situation of preparing a dinner for friends for Norwegians. These address the relationships among global values, domain-specific values, and attitudes, the relationship between domainspecific values and the theory of trying, and the relationship within the theory of trying, respectively. Moreover, open questions were raised for the possible influence of situational differences and cultural variation on the predictability of the theory of trying. A survey design was chosen; questionnaires were obtained from Norwegian and Chinese household members. The findings provide insights about why people prosume. The results show that global values affect domain-specific values in food prosumption. Further, domain-specific values have stronger impact on attitudes than global values and mediate the influence of global values on attitudes. The results also support that domain-specific values are the powerful explanatory factor behind prosumption tendency, evidenced by their strong impact on intention antecedents such as attitudes, self-efficacy, social norms, and past behavior. The hypothesized effects of these antecedents on prosumption intention occurred as predicted. Moreover, food prosumption is shown to be habitual in another situation of preparing a dinner for oneself Finally, a cross-cultural validation of the theory of trying shows that the model predicts differently for Norwegian and Chinese in the situation of preparing a dinner for friends, but predicts similarly in the situation ofpreparing a dinner for oneself. This dissertation contributes both theoretically and empirically to several existent streams of research such as value research and attitude-behavior-relation theories. Especially, this study is the first attempt (to our best knowledge) to systematically investigate prosumption behavior in general and food prosumption in particular. The managerial implications are discussed.
An Herbal Drug, Gongjin-dan, Ameliorates Acute Fatigue Caused by Short-Term Sleep-Deprivation: A Randomized, Double-Blinded, Placebo-Controlled, Crossover Clinical Trial

Introduction: Gongjin-dan (GJD) is an herbal drug commonly used in Korea and China to combat fatigue, but there are only few clinical studies on its effectiveness and experimental studies on its mechanism of action, and no randomized controlled trial of GJD on the efficacy and mechanism of action has been reported. Here, we performed an exploratory study to evaluate both questions regarding GJD use in humans. Methods: A randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled, crossover clinical trial was conducted in the Republic of Korea. Healthy male participants were recruited and randomly allocated to groups receiving GJD-placebo or placebo-GJD in sequence. Fatigue was artificially induced by sleep deprivation for 2 nights. The primary outcome was a change in serum cortisol level; levels of biomarkers for stress hormones as well as oxidative stress and immunologic factors were also assessed, and questionnaires on fatigue and sleep quality were conducted. Results: Twelve and 11 participants were assigned to the GJD-placebo and placebo-GJD groups, respectively. Of all 23 participants, depending on crossover design, we analyzed a total of 20 participants for GJD, and 21 for placebo. An increase in serum cortisol appeared to be attenuated by GJD administration (p = 0.25), but the effect was not statistically significant; a similar pattern was observed in salivary cortisol levels (p = 0.14). Overall, GJD showed a tendency to reduce fatigue according to the Brief Fatigue Inventory (BFI, p = 0.07) and the Fatigue Severity Scale (FSS, p = 0.13) questionnaires. BFI and FSS scores in the first stage (before the crossover), however, were significantly improved (BFI, p = 0.02; FSS, p = 0.05) after GJD treatment (relative to placebo). GJD also seemed to improve sleep quality as assessed by the Leeds Sleep Evaluation Questionnaire (p = 0.06), with a significant improvement specifically in the condition “Getting To Sleep” (p = 0.02). Five participants experienced minor adverse events, but no adverse events were specific to the GJD administration period. Conclusions: This trial produced the first clinical evidence that GJD might have anti-fatigue properties, especially under sleep deprivation; however, the investigation of cortisol-mediated mechanisms requires further larger-scale studies in the future. Trial registration: World Health Organization International Clinical Trials Registry Platform KCT0001681 (http://apps.who.int/trialsearch/Trial2.aspx? TrialID=KCT0001681).
Comparative Transcriptomic Response of Primary and Immortalized Macrophages to Murine Norovirus Infection

Murine norovirus (NoV) is genetically similar to human NoV and offers both an efficient in vitro cell culture system and an animal model by which to investigate the molecular basis of replication. In this study, we present a detailed global view of host alterations to cellular pathways that occur during the progression of a NoV infection. This was accomplished for both Mus musculus BALB/c–derived RAW264.7 (RAW) cells, an immortalized cell line widely used in in vitro replication studies, and primary bone marrow–derived macrophages (BMDM), representing a permissive in vivo target cell in the host. Murine NoV replicated in both cell types, although detected genome copies were approximately one log lower in BMDM compared with RAW cells. RAW and BMDM cells shared an IRF3/7-based IFN response that occurred early in infection. In RAW cells, transcriptional upregulation and INF-β expression were not coupled in that a significant delay in the detection of secreted INF-β was observed. In contrast, primary BMDM showed an early upregulation of transcripts and immediate release of INF-β that might account for lower virus yield. Differences in the transcriptional pathway responses included a marked decrease in expression of key genes in the cell cycle and lipid pathways in RAW cells compared with that of BMDM. Our comparative analysis indicates the existence of varying host responses to virus infection in populations of permissive cells. Awareness of these differences at the gene level will be important in the application of a given permissive culture system to the study of NoV immunity, pathogenesis, and drug development.
Effective Use of Dilated Convolutions for Segmenting Small Object Instances in Remote Sensing Imagery

Thanks to recent advances in CNNs, solid improvements have been made in semantic segmentation of high resolution remote sensing imagery. However, most of the previous works have not fully taken into account the specific difficulties that exist in remote sensing tasks. One of such difficulties is that objects are small and crowded in remote sensing imagery. To tackle with this challenging task we have proposed a novel architecture called local feature extraction (LFE) module attached on top of dilated front-end module. The LFE module is based on our findings that aggressively increasing dilation factors fails to aggregate local features due to sparsity of the kernel, and detrimental to small objects. The proposed LFE module solves this problem by aggregating local features with decreasing dilation factor. We tested our network on three remote sensing datasets and acquired remarkably good results for all datasets especially for small objects.