Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Ultrasound-Assisted Extraction of Total Polyphenols from Black Poplar ( Populus nigra ) and Evaluation of Antioxidant Potential

The main objective of this work was to investigate the extraction of total polyphenols from black poplar (BP) (Populus nigra) and their antioxidant activity by 2,2-diphenylpicrylhydrazyl radical scavenging assay. Was evaluated the following variables on extraction step: Temperature, plant-to-solvent ratio, ethanol percentage, ultrasound power, and posteriorly obtained a model to represent total polyphenols content extracted. Total polyphenols reached a maximum value of 103.6 mg gallic acid equivalents. (g of BP) and we concluded that ethanol percentage, plant-to-solvent ratio, and ultrasound power presented significant effect on yield these compounds. On the other hand, temperature had no significant effect indicating energetic relevance and preservation of compounds. Polyphenols-enriched extracts showed antioxidant ranging from 30% up to 90%. P. nigra is an important source of polyphenols suggesting various benefits to human health and use in food products.
Serum bile acid: an alternative liver function marker in the obstructive jaundice patient.

AIM to confirm the role of bile acid value as single marker for liver function test as compared to the conventional liver function tests on obstructive jaundice patients. METHODS before and after study on severe obstructive jaundice patients was performed from December 2007 until January 2009. The liver function markers were measured before, 7th day and 14th day after bile duct decompression (BDD). Open Cholecystostomy as BDD was used as a model to observe the markers changes. Samples were collected by trained medical professionals and Automated clinical chemistry analyzer (ACA) TRX 7010 was used to measure the markers value. All continuous data were presented as mean (SD) and the variables were compared and analyzed by t-test and multiple measurements test using SPSS v.16 with a p-value of <0.05 considered to be statistically significant. RESULTS twenty one patients were included. All patients suffered bile acid accumulation and impairment of all conventional liver functions tests. After decompression, the average serum bile acid decreased significantly (p<0.05). Significant decrease after decompression happened to serum total bilirubin (p<0.05) and serum ALP (p<0.05). A trend towards improvement in coagulation function was evident by the shortening of PT and APTT. The albumin level increased slightly from 2.8 to 2.9 mg/dL while CHE activity was fixed at low level. A decrease in average activity of transaminase enzyme (AST (p<0.05) and ALT) was also observed. CONCLUSION the sBA level follow the pattern of changes of classic liver function markers. Serum bile acid could be considered to be used as alternative marker to evaluate liver function, which is simple and applicable.
When stakeholder pressure drives the circular economy

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of stakeholder pressures on firm’s circular economy (CE) initiatives. The organizational responses are quite heterogeneous even when the firms face similar pressure. The authors have tried to explain this heterogeneity by using innovative capability as mediating variables. Design/methodology/approach Empirical survey data from Indian manufacturing firms are obtained to test the proposed hypotheses. The hypotheses are grounded in resource-based view of the firm. The authors used structural equation modeling approach with maximum likelihood methods of approximation. Findings The results indicate that exploratory innovation positively influences the firms to adopt CE practices. Whereas, exploitative innovation capability inhibits the adoption of CE practices. Practical implications This study guides business managers to focus on develop exploratory innovative capabilities before the adoption of CE practices. This study also provides guidance to policy maker about the role of regulatory mechanism plays to encourage/inhibits firms for adoption of CE practices. Originality/value This is first study to analyze the idiosyncratic behavior of the firms when subjected to stakeholder pressure for CE practices adoption. Innovative capabilities (exploratory/exploitative) are able to explain the reason for diverse response to stakeholder response.
The Relationship among Gross Barter Terms of Trade, Exchange Rates, and Economic Growth: A Case in Turkey

The terms of trade are related to the measurement of foreign trade performance in open economies and are based on the comparison of export and import price ratios of a country. Since the definition of terms of trade lacks an interpretation regarding export and import volumes, calculation of gross barter terms of trade which takes the amounts into account is brought out. In this study, the relationship of gross barter terms of trade with foreign exchange rates and Industrial Production Index representing economic growth is analyzed in Turkey between 2005: 01 - 2015: 06 by using the ARDL Boundary Test approach.
Investigations into electronically controlled rings with arc stubs phasing elements for reconfigurable microstrip reflectarrays

The paper presents new electronically controlled phasing elements for a beam steered single-layer microstrip reflectarray operating at 4.0GHz. The phasing elements are formed by printed circular rings equipped with variable length arc stubs. Two phasing methods are considered, one when all elements are individually controlled, and two, when gathered elements are controlled. In the gathered configuration, two adjacent elements are used to obtain two different phase compensation values. The two phasing methods are demonstrated in the design examples of reflectarrays having their main beams steered between 20° and 30° from the broadside direction. Full wave simulations with CST Microwave Studio are performed to investigate the resulting radiation patterns. The obtained results show that the two phasing methods produce similar radiation patterns around the desired directions. However, the reflectarray using gathered elements suffers from an increased level of grating lobe.
Abnormal liver phosphatidylcholine synthesis revealed in patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome

Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is associated with a severe pro-inflammatory response; although decreased plasma cholesterol concentration has been linked to systemic inflammation, any association of phospholipid metabolic pathways with ARDS has not been characterized. Plasma phosphatidylcholine (PC), the major phospholipid of circulating lipoproteins, is synthesized in human liver by two biologically diverse pathways: the cytidine diphosphocholine (CDP):choline and phosphatidylethanolamine N-methyltransferase (PEMT) pathways. Here, we used ESI-MS/MS both to characterize plasma PC compositions and to quantify metabolic fluxes of both pathways using stable isotopes in patients with severe ARDS and in healthy controls. Direct incorporation of methyl-D9-choline estimated CDP:choline pathway flux, while PEMT flux was determined from incorporations of one and two methyl-D3 groups derived from methyl-D9-choline. The results of MS/MS analysis showed significant alterations in plasma PC composition in patients with ARDS versus healthy controls. In particular, the increased overall methyl-D9-PC enrichment and, most importantly, the much lower methyl-D3-PC and methyl-D6-PC enrichments suggest increased flux through the CDP:choline pathway and reduced flux through the PEMT pathway in ARDS. To our knowledge, this study is the first to demonstrate significant plasma PC molecular compositional changes combined with associated alterations in the dynamics of PC synthetic pathways in patients with ARDS.
Pneumonia Prevention to Decrease Mortality in Intensive Care Units.

TO THE EDITOR—Roquilly et al conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of 157 randomized, controlled trials that examined the efficacy of multiple strategies for the prevention of hospital-acquired pneumonia (HAP) [1]. Although their analysis yielded some important findings for clinicians, a cautious interpretation is required from a methodological viewpoint. First, conclusions of systematic reviews should not be derived from exploratory subgroup analyses. Roquilly et al first conducted a meta-analysis of all trials, which used different methods for the prevention of HAP. The authors subsequently conducted exploratory subgroup analyses by some potential effect modifiers in the subgroup of selective digestive decontamination (SDD), the efficacy of which was found to be statistically significant. Based on such an exploratory subgroup analysis, they concluded that SDD with systemic antimicrobial therapy reduced mortality. However, unplanned, exploratory subgroup analyses are observational in nature. These analyses can also increase the chance for multiplicity and the potential for spurious findings; they should not be used for definitive conclusions [2]. Systematic reviews need to base conclusions on prespecified analyses. Second, the number of trials and number of participants for SDD were much larger than numbers for other options. Roquilly et al admitted that this could have resulted in a higher power for SDD than for other strategies in the limitations section of their study. Given that SDD was a statistically significant option and other methods were not, an analysis to examine the interaction of SDD trials is worthy of consideration. Finally, we wonder if the authors’ research question can be answered in a meta-analysis. Roquilly et al set out to determine which HAP prevention strategy was the most effective in reducing mortality in intensive care units. The authors pooled trials using different methods for HAP prevention and also conducted pairwise comparisons between the HAP prevention measures and usual care as subgroups. Among these measures, only SDD was a statistically significant HAP prevention measure, which led to their conclusion. However, given the variety of the numbers of the trials for each HAP prevention, the original question was unanswered. A potential study design for their research question could be a network meta-analysis. This approach is reasonable only when the included studies use similar methodologies. We all know that the designs of the studies on HAP prevention measures were diverse across studies, and many of HAP prevention strategies were examined in only a single or a few trials. Thus, a network metaanalysis on this issue is not realistic at this moment either. We need more research on each HAP prevention strategy before any firm conclusions can be made. Notes
Title Effects of structured testing versus routine testing of blood glucose in diabetes self-management : A randomized controlled trial

Right © 2016. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/; The fulltext file will be made open to the public at 01 January 2018 in accordance with publisher's 'Terms and Conditions for SelfArchiving'. ; This is not the published version. Please cite only the published version. この論文は出版社版でありません。 引用の際には出版社版をご確認ご利用ください。
Electron microscopic visualization of protein‐DNA interactions at the estrogen responsive element and in the first intron of the Xenopus laevis vitellogenin gene.

Stable protein‐DNA complexes can be assembled in vitro at the 5′ end of Xenopus laevis vitellogenin genes using extracts of nuclei from estrogen‐induced frog liver and visualized by electron microscopy. Complexes at the three following sites can be identified on the gene B2: the transcription initiation site, the estrogen responsive element (ERE) and in the first intron. The complex at the transcription initiation site is stabilized by dinucleotides and thus represents a ternary transcription complex. The formation of the complexes at the two other sites is enhanced by estrogen and is reduced by tamoxifen, an antagonist of estrogen, while this latter effect is reversed by adding an excess of hormone. No sequence homology is apparent between the site containing the ERE and the binding site in intron I and functional tests in MCF‐7 cells suggest that these two sites are not equivalent. Finally, we made use of previously characterized deletion mutants of the 5′ flanking region of the gene B1, a close relative of the gene B2, to demonstrate that the 13‐bp palindromic core element of the ERE is involved in the formation of the complexes observed upstream of the transcription initiation site.
Community-based interventions to support maternal and child health practices in Upper Egypt PDF version

Methods: The study was conducted between May 2016 and December 2017. The National Population Council (NPC) started communication with Governorate leaders, Directors of Local Unit, Health District and Health Unit to facilitate implementation. A three-day training of trainers (ToT) workshop was held for eight public health universities' staff from two selected governorates. More than 30 NPC coordinators were trained for using an observation checklist. University trainers implemented a four-day workshop attended by 37 Mother and Child Friends (MCF) participants from Fayoum and 38 from Beni-Sweif. The MCF team selected 1200 women to attend the Health education (HE) sessions, and a total of 143 and 121 women participated in the focus group discussions (FGDs) before the first and after the last HE session for evaluation.
Energy and spectrum efficient user association in 5G heterogeneous networks

Due to the dense small cell deployment to cope with the increased data traffic of fifth generation (5G) networks, the direct backhaul (BH) connection of all small cells to the core network becomes challenging. To that end, millimeter wave (mmWave) is a promising solution for cost-efficient high capacity small cell BH links. However, due to the severe signal attenuation at high frequencies, mmWave can provide good coverage only for short distances, thus favoring a multi-hop 5G BH architecture. In this context, user association that impacts both the network and user performance calls for BH-aware strategies. Hence, in this paper, we study the user association problem aiming at the joint energy and spectrum efficiency maximization of the network, without compromising the user quality of service. The problem is formulated as a generalized assignment problem, which considers the capacity and energy consumption both in the access network and BH links. Provided that the considered problem is shown to be NP-hard, we employ optimization techniques to obtain an upper bound on system performance. We also propose a low complexity algorithm, which is shown to outperform the state-of-the-art while achieving near-optimal performance.
Functional and evolutionary analysis of viral proteins containing a Rossmann‐like fold

Viruses are the most abundant life form and infect practically all organisms. Consequently, these obligate parasites are a major cause of human suffering and economic loss. Rossmann‐like fold is the most populated fold among α/β‐folds in the Protein Data Bank and proteins containing Rossmann‐like fold constitute 22% of all known proteins 3D structures. Thus, analysis of viral proteins containing Rossmann‐like domains could provide an understanding of viral biology and evolution as well as could propose possible targets for antiviral therapy. We provide functional and evolutionary analysis of viral proteins containing a Rossmann‐like fold found in the evolutionary classification of protein domains (ECOD) database developed in our lab. We identified 81 protein families of bacterial, archeal, and eukaryotic viruses in light of their evolution‐based ECOD classification and Pfam taxonomy. We defined their functional significance using enzymatic EC number assignments as well as domain‐level family annotations.
IDENTIFICATION OF MISCONCEPTIONS IN LEARNING STATISTICAL POWER WITH DYNAMIC GRAPHICS AS A REMEDIAL TOOL Yu, Chong Ho and John T. Behrens, Arizona State University

Despite Neyman and Pearson's work stressing the role of statistical power in experiments, and the increasing accessibility of power analysis to applied researchers, these concepts continue to be misunderstood and misapplied in the psychology literature (Sedlmeier & Gigerenzer, 1989), the education literature (Brewer, 1972), and the medical epidemiology literature (Freiman, Chalmers, Smith & Kuebler, 1986; Cohen, 1990). While several reasons for the difficulty of power analysis may exist, we have been impressed by the number of misconceptions students have regarding power analysis. The objective of this study was to catalog undergraduate and graduate students' misconceptions in this area, and to examine the efficacy of a computer simulation to remediate these misconceptions. Identification of misconceptions is important because misconceptions often propagate errors through the belief system, misconceptions are more difficult to change than uninformed opinion, and misconceptions can be used to guide instructional goals. Because our knowledge of this area is limited, we sought to spread a wide net in our data collection efforts. First, we prepared a short-answer test based on our previous teaching experiences and pilot work to help in the identification of misconceptions. In addition, we collected more process-oriented data by taping subjects as they used the computer simulation.
Somatic embryogenesis in clonal neem, Azadirachta indica A. Juss. and analysis for in vitro azadirachtin production

SummaryEfficient and highly reproducible induction of somatic embryogenesis was obtained in four out of seven selected clones of neem, Azadirachta indica A. Juss. This was achieved either directly from root and nodal explants or indirectly from callus cultures initiated from leaf explants excised from 1-yr-old axenic plants. Direct induction of somatic embryogenesis was achieved both from nodal and root segments within 8 wk of culture on MS1 medium without growth regulators. However, the addition of 2.3–4.5 μM thidiazuron and 0.5 μM 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid into the medium were necessary to induce somatic embryogenesis via callus phase from leaf explants. Repetitive embryogenesis was observed within 3–4 wk following transfer of somatic embryos to a plant growth regulator-free medium. When somatic embryos of nodal and root segments were left on the induction medium without subculturing, approximately 15% of the somatic embryos developed into whole plantlets after passing through a series of developmental stages. Plantlets thus produced were hardy, lush green, and acclimatized casily under greenhouse conditions. However, somatic embryos derived from leaf explants showed low conversion rates (<5%). HPLC analysis revealed no detectable levels of azadirachtin in somatic embryos.
Development and Maintenance of Practical and In-service Systems for Recording Shadowing Utterances and Their Assessment

We demonstrate two systems, network-based and standalone, for collecting shadowing utterances and their automatic assessment. Since June 2016, these systems have been used in real English classes at several universities in Japan. The following features are highlighted: 1) To avoid pop noises from a speaker and reduce babble noises from other surrounding students, an ear-hook microphone is used with a USB audio device, 2) A network-based system and a standalone system were developed separately because network trafﬁc not rarely causes technical errors when recording, 3) For beginners, easy-to-understand illustrations are prepared for them to get accustomed rapidly to shadowing practices, 4) DNN-based GOP calculation is run and its score is fed back to learners, and 5) To motivate them, the GOP score distribution over the learners are also fed back for them to compare their own scores with others’. In demonstration, each feature will be exhibited and explained in detail.
Belief Changes and Expectation Heterogeneity in Buy- and Sell-Side Professionals in the Japanese Stock Market

We document the determinants of the expectation heterogeneity of stock price forecasters on the TOPIX. Monthly panel data surveyed by QUICK Corporation in the Nikkei Group is utilized in the process. We examine the determinants of expectation heterogeneity by categorizing our sample into buy-side and sell-side professionals, and demonstrate that expectation heterogeneity arises as a result of the co-existence of different types of professionals within the same market. We show that the buy-side and the sell-side professionals, who have different business goals, differentiate the information contents as well as their interpretations of the same information in their forecasts, contributing to the expectation heterogeneity. In addition, we investigate the interactive expectations formulation of buy-side and sell-side professionals. We find that buy-side professionals incorporate the sell side’s ideas regarding the future stock prices into their own forecasts, although they exclusively refer to their own ideas when relating foreign exchange rates to the future stock prices. Meanwhile, sell-side professionals tend to utilize buy-side professionals’ ideas about future prices in order to improve their research and ingratiate themselves to their clients, i.e., the buy-side professionals. We demonstrate that this interactive expectations formulation also contributes to the generation of the expectation heterogeneity.
A Batch Learning Framework for Scalable Personalized Ranking

In designing personalized ranking algorithms, it is desirable to encourage a high precision at the top of the ranked list. Existing methods either seek a smooth convex surrogate for a non-smooth ranking metric or directly modify updating procedures to encourage top accuracy. In this work we point out that these methods do not scale well in a large-scale setting, and this is partly due to the inaccurate pointwise or pairwise rank estimation. We propose a new framework for personalized ranking. It uses batch-based rank estimators and smooth rank-sensitive loss functions. This new batch learning framework leads to more stable and accurate rank approximations compared to previous work. Moreover, it enables explicit use of parallel computation to speed up training. We conduct empirical evaluations on three item recommendation tasks, and our method shows a consistent accuracy improvement over current state-of-the-art methods. Additionally, we observe time efficiency advantages when data scale increases.
Do heterogeneous beliefs diversify market risk?

It is believed that diversity is good for our society, but is it good for financial markets? In particular, does the diversity with respect to beliefs among investors reduce the market risk of risky assets? The current paper aims to answer this question. Within the standard mean–variance framework, we introduce heterogeneous beliefs not only in risk preferences and expected payoffs but also in variances/covariances. By aggregating heterogeneous beliefs into a market consensus belief, we obtain capital asset pricing model-like equilibrium price and return relationships under heterogeneous beliefs. We show that the market aggregate behaviour is in principle a weighted average of heterogeneous individual behaviours. The impact of heterogeneity on the market equilibrium price and risk premium is examined in general. In particular, we give a positive answer to the question in the title by considering some special structure in heterogeneous beliefs. In addition, we provide an explanation of Miller's long-standing hypothesis on the relation between a stock's risk and the divergence of opinions.