Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Antifungal Activity of Black Tea Polyphenols (Catechins and Theaflavins) against Candida Species

Background/Aims: The polyphenols catechins and theaflavins in black tea have been shown to possess many medicinal properties, including anticancer activity and some antifungal characteristics, but there have been few studies of their anti-Candida activity. In this paper we report the results of our study of the anti-Candida activity of tea polyphenols. Methods: The effects of 4 different concentrations of catechins and theaflavins were evaluated on 5 isolates each of 5 Candida species employing an agar diffusion growth inhibition assay. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of the polyphenols against C. albicans was determined. The post-antifungal effect (PAFE) of the polyphenols for C. albicans was investigated. C. albicans cells exposed to polyphenols were studied using a scanning electron microscope (SEM). Results: Both polyphenols showed anti-Candida activity against all tested Candida species and demonstrated a MIC of 6.25 mg/ml for C. albicans. C. glabrata was found to be the most sensitive species followed by C. parapsilosis, C. albicans, C. krusei and C. tropicalis (p < 0.05 for all). Significant intraspecies variations in sensitivity were noted among C. parapsilosis and C. tropicalis (p < 0.001) for both polyphenols. Theaflavins displayed standard PAFE while catechins showed a paradoxical PAFE with all isolates of C. albicans. SEM revealed considerable cell wall damage of C. albicans cells exposed to the polyphenols. Conclusion: The study reveals for the first time the anti-Candida properties of black tea polyphenols that may find therapeutic applications in future.
Analysis of Simultaneous Ground and Phase Faults on a Six Phase System

Multiphase transmission lines are a serious contender to the conventional three phase lines. The variety of faults on multiphase systems is far greater than on 3 phase systems. From the operational point of view the subject of fault analysis or multiphase systems assumes great importance. Two matrices called 'phase fault co-efficient matrix' and 'ground fault co-efficient matrix' have been defined. Their elements can be written for each type of fault. With the help of these two matrices a single algebraic equation is sufficient for calculating all sequence currents following any sustained simultaneous ground and phase fault. From the single equation the sequence currents are written in the format ## with unity as the second element on the RHS. Here z and e1 are the first sequence impedance and e.m. f. , respectively. An inspection of a0, a2 . a5 and z' at once suggests the manner in which the sequence networks must be connected to simulate a given fault.
LAMIS-MSHD: A Multi-script Offline Handwriting Database

This paper introduces a new offline handwriting database that was developed to be employed in performance evaluation, result comparison and development of new methods related to handwriting analysis and recognition. The database can particularly be used for signature verification, writer recognition and writer demographics classification. In addition, the database also supports isolated digit recognition, digit/text segmentation and recognition and similar related tasks. The database comprises 600 Arabic and 600 French text samples, 1300 signatures and 21,000 digits. 100 Algerian individuals coming from different age groups and educational backgrounds contributed to the development of database by providing a total of 1300 forms. The database is also accompanied with ground truth data supporting the evaluation of the aforementioned tasks. The main contribution of the database is providing a multi-script platform where same authors contributed samples in French and Arabic. It would be interesting to explore applications like writer recognition and writer demographics classification in a multi-script environment.
Researches on Dynamic Load Balancing Algorithms and hp-Adaptivity in 3-D Parallel Adaptive Finite Element Computations

This work is related to PHG (Parallel Hierarchical Grid). PHG is a toolbox for developing parallel adaptive finite element programs, which is under active development at the State Key Laboratory of Scientific and Engineering Computing. The main results of this work are as follows. 1) For the tetrahedral meshes used in PHG, under reasonable assumptions, we proved the existence of through-vertex Hamiltonian paths between arbitrary two vertices, as well as the existence of through-vertex Hamiltonian cycles, and designed an efficient algorithm with linear complexity for constructing through-vertex Hamiltonian paths. The resulting algorithm has been implemented in PHG, and is used for ordering elements in the coarsest mesh for the refinement tree mesh partitioning algorithm. 2) We designed encoding and decoding algorithms for high dimensional Hilbert order. Hilbert order has good locality, and it has wide applications in various fields in computer science, such as memory management, database, and dynamic load balancing. 3) We implemented refinement tree and space filling curve based mesh partitioning algorithms in PHG, and designed the dynamic load balancing module of PHG. The refinement tree based partitioning algorithm was originally proposed by Mitchell, the one implemented in PHG was improved in several aspects. The space filling curve based mesh partitioning function in PHG can use either Hilbert or Morton space filling curve. 4) We studied existing hp-adaptive strategies in the literature, and proposed a new strategy. Numerical experiments show that our new strategy achieves exponential convergence, and is superior, in both precision of the solutions and computation time, to the strategy compared. This part of the work also serves to validate the hp-adaptivity module of PHG.
Evaluation of clinical measurements and development of new diagnostic criteria for Takayasu arteritis in a Chinese population.

OBJECTIVES Takayasu arteritis (TA) is a chronic granulomatous large-vessel vasculitis. When diagnosing TA, the criteria designed by the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) are used commonly but they were just classification criteria. There is an urgent need for a new set of diagnostic criteria. METHODS One hundred and thirty-one TA patients and 132 control patients with other types of vascular disease were enrolled and both groups were distributed into a "training set" and a "validation set". All general information as well as clinical, laboratory and imaging data were collected. After comparing all the medical records of two groups in the training set, logistic regression and clinical judgment were used to form the new criteria for TA. The new criteria were tested by the validation set. RESULTS New TA diagnostic criteria within total score 26 include age (<40 years), female, chest pain/chest distress, amaurosis, vascular bruits, a decreased/absent pulse, involvement of the aortic arch or its major branches, and involvement of the abdominal aorta or its branches. Patients with a score ≥ 8 were diagnosed as TA. The sensitivity and specificity of our new criteria were 91.92% and 93.94%, respectively, higher than those of the ACR criteria (75.76%, 85.86%) and the Ishikawa criteria (56.57%, 94.95%). The areas under the ROC curves of the new criteria and ACR criteria were 0.981 and 0.868, respectively (p<0.001). Sensitivity and specificity tested in the validation set were 90.63% and 96.97%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS The new diagnostic criteria exhibited high sensitivity and specificity and have demonstrated to be feasible in the diagnosis of TA.
Sliding mode control for slosh-free motion using nonlinear sliding surface

The paper presents a method for the design of a sliding mode controller for a class of mismatched uncertain systems. A new state dependent nonlinear switching surface is proposed. A control problem for slosh free-motion of a container is considered as the representative of a typical class of systems. A simple pendulum model is considered to represent the lateral slosh. The validity of the proposed scheme is demonstrated by simulation results.
Optimal Insurance Coverage

Optimal insurance coverage has been analyzed by numerous researchers. Arrow [1963], Mossin [1968] and Smith [1968] describe insurance buying behavior of utility maximizing individuals. Their results, however, as well as those of later authors (e.g., Schlesinger [1981] and Turnbull [1983]) are qualitative in their nature. One of the important findings, for example, is that coverage decreases when the risk premium increases. To what degree coverage decreases is, however, not specified. Raviv [1979] concludes that Pareto optimal insurance policies involve a deductible and coinsurance above the deductible, but specific expressions as to the magnitudes are not treated. This paper extends these analyses by presenting explicit, albeit approximate, expressions for the amount of insurance coverage. Section 2 derives an expression for the expected utility maximizing individual who is free to choose any degree of coverage. Section 3 examines two other types of insurance contracts, and Section 4 summarizes the findings. Throughout, the results will be illustrated numerically for the "average" American household.
Predicting ethnic minority children's vocabulary from socioeconomic status, maternal language and home reading input: different pathways for host and ethnic language*

ABSTRACT When bilingual children enter formal reading education, host language proficiency becomes increasingly important. This study investigated the relation between socioeconomic status (SES), maternal language use, reading input, and vocabulary in a sample of 111 six-year-old children of first- and second-generation Turkish immigrant parents in the Netherlands. Mothers reported on their language use with the child, frequency of reading by both parents, and availability of children's books in the ethnic and the host language. Children's Dutch and Turkish vocabulary were tested during a home visit. SES was related to maternal language use and to host language reading input. Reading input mediated the relation between SES and host language vocabulary and between maternal language use and host language vocabulary, whereas only maternal language use was related to ethnic language vocabulary. During transition to formal reading education, one should be aware that children from low-SES families receive less host language reading input.
Effects of dietary concentrations of methionine on growth performance and oxidative status of broiler chickens with different hatching weight

1. A study was conducted to evaluate the effects of two hatching weight (HW) levels and two dietary concentrations of methionine on the growth performance and oxidative status of broilers. Male Arbor Acres chickens were divided into two groups on their HW (low and high HW, H and L). Each HW group was then distributed into two subgroups, of similar HW, receiving either low or high dietary concentrations of methionine (4.9 g methionine/kg, LM; 5.9 g methionine/kg, HM). Thus, all day-old birds were distributed into 4 treatments (H-LM, H-HM, L-LM, L-HM) × 6 replicates × 10 birds for 21 d. 2. Broilers with high HW were heavier than those with low HW during the 21 d assay, which appeared to result from increased body weight gain rather than improved feed conversion efficiency. A higher dietary concentration of methionine (5.9 g/kg) improved growth performance of broilers with low HW in terms of body weight gain and feed conversion ratio. 3. Broilers with different HW had similar antioxidant status both in serum and liver. 4. Broilers given a diet containing 5.9 g/kg methionine had enhanced serum superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity and decreased hepatic malondialdehyde (MDA) content at day 7. 5. Broilers given a diet containing 5.9 g/kg methionine had a higher hepatic reduced glutathione (GSH):glutathione disulphide (GSSG) ratio than those given a diet containing 4.9 g/kg methionine at day 21. High dietary methionine concentration reduced hepatic GSH content and glutathione peroxidase (GPX) activity of broilers with high HW at day 7 and at day 21, respectively, but increased hepatic GSH content of broilers with low HW at day 7. 6. Although broilers with different HW had similar oxidative status as indicated by several parameters in blood and liver, HW can have positive effects on the subsequent growth performance of broilers, and a higher dietary methionine concentration (5.9 g/kg) can improve growth performance and antioxidant status in broilers exhibiting low HW.
Privacy-Preserving Understanding of Human Body Orientation for Smart Meetings

We present a method for estimating the body orientation of seated people in a smart room by fusing low-resolution range information collected from downward pointed time-of-flight (ToF) sensors with synchronized speaker identification information from microphone recordings. The ToF sensors preserve the privacy of the occupants in that they only return the range to a small set of hit points. We propose a Bayesian estimation algorithm for the quantized body orientations in which the likelihood term is based on the observed ToF data and the prior term is based on the occupants' locations and current speakers. We evaluate our algorithm in real meeting scenarios and show that it is possible to accurately estimate seated human orientation even with very low-resolution systems.
Investigating the impact of organised technology-driven orchestration on teaching

Orchestration of learning involves the real-time management of activities performed by educators in learning environments, with a particular focus on the effective use of technology. While different educational settings present unique problems, the common challenges have been noted to primarily be as a result of multiple heterogeneous activities and their associated intrinsic and extrinsic constraints. In addition to these challenges, this thesis argues that the complexities of orchestration are further amplified due to the ad hoc nature of the approaches and techniques used to orchestrate learning activities. The thesis proposes a streamlined approach to technology-driven orchestration of learning, in order to address these challenges and complexities. Specifically, the thesis proposes an organised approach that focuses on three core aspects of orchestration: activity management, resource management and sequencing of learning activities. Orchestration was comprehensively explored in order to identify the core aspects essential for streamlining technology-driven orchestration. Proof-of-concept orchestration toolkits, based on the proposed orchestration approach, were implemented and evaluated in order to assess the feasibility of the approach, its effectiveness and its potential impact on the teaching experience. Comparative analysis and guided orchestration controlled studies were conducted to compare the effectiveness of ad hoc orchestration with streamlined orchestration and to measure the orchestration load, respectively. In addition, a case study of a course that employed a flipped classroom strategy was conducted to assess the feasibility of the proposed approach. The feasibility was further assessed by integrating a workflow, based on the proposed approach, that facilitates the sharing of reusable orchestration packages. The results from the studies suggest that the streamlined approach is more effective when compared to ad hoc orchestration and has a potential to provide a positive user experience. The results also indicate that the approach imposes acceptable orchestration load during scripting of learning activities. Case studies conducted in authentic educational settings suggest that the approach is feasible, and potentially applicable to useful practical usage scenarios. The long-term implications are that streamlining of technology-driven orchestration could potentially improve the effectiveness of educators when orchestrating learning activities.
Errors in Flash-Memory-Based Solid-State Drives: Analysis, Mitigation, and Recovery

NAND flash memory is ubiquitous in everyday life today because its capacity has continuously increased and cost has continuously decreased over decades. This positive growth is a result of two key trends: (1) effective process technology scaling; and (2) multi-level (e.g., MLC, TLC) cell data coding. Unfortunately, the reliability of raw data stored in flash memory has also continued to become more difficult to ensure, because these two trends lead to (1) fewer electrons in the flash memory cell floating gate to represent the data; and (2) larger cell-to-cell interference and disturbance effects. Without mitigation, worsening reliability can reduce the lifetime of NAND flash memory. As a result, flash memory controllers in solid-state drives (SSDs) have become much more sophisticated: they incorporate many effective techniques to ensure the correct interpretation of noisy data stored in flash memory cells. In this chapter, we review recent advances in SSD error characterization, mitigation, and data recovery techniques for reliability and lifetime improvement. We provide rigorous experimental data from state-of-the-art MLC and TLC NAND flash devices on various types of flash memory errors, to motivate the need for such techniques. Based on the understanding developed by the experimental characterization, we describe several mitigation and recovery techniques, including (1) cell-tocell interference mitigation; (2) optimal multi-level cell sensing; (3) error correction using state-of-the-art algorithms and methods; and (4) data recovery when error correction fails. We quantify the reliability improvement provided by each of these techniques. Looking forward, we briefly discuss how flash memory and these techniques could evolve into the future.
Effects of insecticide exposure on feeding inhibition in mayflies and oligochaetes

The present study examined the effects of pulse exposures of the insecticide imidacloprid on the mayfly, Epeorus longimanus Eaton (Family Heptageniidae), and on an aquatic oligochaete, Lumbriculus variegatus Müller (Family Lumbriculidae). Pulse exposures of imidacloprid are particularly relevant for examination, because this insecticide is relatively soluble (510 mg/L) and is most likely to be at effect concentrations during runoff events. Experiments examined the recovery of organisms after a 24‐h pulse exposure to imidacloprid over an environmentally realistic range of concentrations (0, 0.1, 0.5, 1, 5, and 10 μg/L). Effects on feeding were measured by quantifying the algal biomass consumed by mayflies or foodstuffs egested by oligochaetes. Imidacloprid was highly toxic, with low 24‐h median lethal concentrations (LC50s) in early mayfly instars (24‐h LC50, 2.1 ± 0.8 μg/L) and larger, later mayfly instars (24‐h LC50, 2.1 ± 0.5 μg/L; 96‐h LC50, 0.65 ± 0.15 μg/L). Short (24‐h) pulses of imidacloprid in excess of 1 μg/L caused feeding inhibition, whereas recovery (4 d) varied, depending on the number of days after contaminant exposure. In contrast to mayflies, oligochaetes were relatively insensitive to imidacloprid during the short (24‐h) pulse; however, immobility of oligochaetes was observed during a 4‐d, continuous‐exposure experiment, with 96‐h median effective concentrations of 6.2 ± 1.4 μg/L. Overall, imidacloprid reduced the survivorship, feeding, and egestion of mayflies and oligochaetes at concentrations greater than 0.5 but less than 10 μg/L. Inhibited feeding and egestion indicate physiological and behavioral responses to this insecticide.
Whipping boys: South Africa’s limited reform of judicial corporal punishment in the 1960s and 1970s

ABSTRACT In 1995, South Africa’s Constitutional Court banned judicial corporal punishment of juveniles and soon thereafter legislation ended it for adults as well, marking an end to a practice that had been widespread since colonial times. During the apartheid period there was first a sharp rise in the use of judicial corporal punishment, contra the recommendations of the 1947 Landsdown Commission, and then a gradual decline after 1965, when legislation restored judicial discretion in cases where whipping had been mandatory since the early 1950s. The 1976 Viljoen Commission recommended a number of reforms, partially implemented in subsequent legislation, but continued to endorse the practice for young males. Using court cases, parliamentary debates and the commission reports, this article explores the motivations for redirecting and somewhat restraining apartheid’s whip hand at the height of the system of white supremacy, in the 1960s, and following the 1976 reappearance of a widespread popular challenge spearheaded by youth. Official discussions indicate a tension between aspiring to meet the standards of what South African elites called ‘civilised’ countries and recognition of the state’s need to enforce masculine discipline in what they termed South Africa’s ‘special’ situation of white rule over a black majority termed ‘primitive’. This article will explore the ambivalent reformist tendencies of the apartheid state at its height, while also analysing the gendered and generational hierarchies and tensions inherent in the application of this form of punishment exclusively to boys and young men.
Employers, trade unions and concession bargaining in the Irish recession

The issue of concession bargaining between employers and unions during the Great Recession has received little attention in the research literature. This article presents a systematic analysis of the conduct of concession bargaining during the recession in Ireland in the context of three forms of concession bargaining identified in the international literature: integrative concession bargaining, distributive concession bargaining and ultra concession bargaining – each with different but overlapping sets of institutional foundations and implications for employers and trade unions. Drawing on focus groups of managers and union officials and a representative survey of employers, the article shows that distributive concession bargaining has been the predominant form in the Irish recession. This form of concession bargaining is likely to have few lasting direct effects on employer or union roles in collective bargaining but nevertheless appears to have significant indirect implications for the silent marginalization of unions in workplaces.
Arabidopsis CAPRICE-LIKE MYB 3 (CPL3) controls endoreduplication and flowering development in addition to trichome and root hair formation

CAPRICE (CPC) encodes a small protein with an R3 MYB motif and promotes root hair cell differentiation in Arabidopsis thaliana. Three additional CPC-like MYB genes, TRY (TRIPTYCHON), ETC1 (ENHANCER OF TRY AND CPC 1) and ETC2 (ENHANCER OF TRY AND CPC 2) act in a redundant manner with CPC in trichome and root hair patterning. In this study, we identified an additional homolog, CPC-LIKE MYB 3 (CPL3), which has high sequence similarity to CPC, TRY, ETC1 and ETC2. Overexpression of CPL3 results in the suppression of trichomes and overproduction of root hairs, as has been observed for CPC, TRY, ETC1 and ETC2. Morphological studies with double, triple and quadruple homolog mutants indicate that the CPL3 gene cooperatively regulates epidermal cell differentiation with other CPC homologs. Promoter-GUS analyses indicate that CPL3 is specifically expressed in leaf epidermal cells, including stomate guard cells. Notably, the CPL3 gene has pleiotropic effects on flowering development, epidermal cell size and trichome branching through the regulation of endoreduplication.