Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Activity Planning for the Mars Exploration Rovers

Operating the Mars Exploration Rovers is a challenging, time-pressured task. Each day, the operations team must generate a new plan describing the rover activities for the next day. These plans must abide by resource limitations, safety rules, and temporal constraints. The objective is to achieve as much science as possible, choosing from a set of observation requests that oversubscribe rover resources. In order to accomplish this objective, given the short amount of planning time available, the MAPGEN (Mixed-initiative Activity Plan GENerator) system was made a mission-critical part of the ground operations system. MAPGEN is a mixed-initiative system that employs automated constraint-based planning, scheduling, and temporal reasoning to assist operations staff in generating the daily activity plans. This paper describes the adaptation of constraint-based planning and temporal reasoning to a mixed-initiative setting and the key technical solutions developed for the mission deployment of MAPGEN.
Spinel-Bearing Lherzolite Xenoliths from Hosséré Garba (Likok, Adamawa-Cameroon): Mineral Compositions and Geothermobarometric Implications

Spinel-bearing lherzolite xenoliths from the Hossere Garba (1272 m.a.s.l) volcano on the Adamawa Plateau, is located in Likok village, at about 35 km to WSW of Ngaoundere. These xenoliths (~11 cm size) have been sampled into the host basaltic lava flows from the NE flank of the Hossere Garba volcano. These xenoliths characterized by porphyroclastic texture consisted of olivine (~55 vol.%), orthopyroxene (~19 vol.%) and clinopyroxene (~21 vol.%) crystals. Spinel crystals (~5 vol.%) are red brown and interstitial between the crystals of olivine and pyroxenes. CaO contents are low (<0.08 wt%) in olivine and similar to those estimated (CaO: 0.05 - 0.1 wt%) for the mantle origin. The values of AlVI/AlIV ratio range between 1.1 and 1.3 for the Cr-diopside crystals from Hossere Garba xenoliths. The constant value of the volumes V(Cell) and V(M1) for clinopyroxene compositions, indicates the similar pressures. Hossere Garba represents a residual sequence issued from partial melting of a mantle source. Similar compositions have been recorded in minerals of ultramafic xenoliths from other ultramafic xenoliths domains of the Cameroon Line and the Adamawa Plateau.
Formononetin, an isoflavone, activates AMP-activated protein kinase/ β -catenin signalling to inhibit adipogenesis and rescues C57BL/6 mice from high-fat diet-induced obesity and bone loss

Abstract Balance between adipocyte and osteoblast differentiation is the key link of disease progression in obesity and osteoporosis. We have previously reported that formononetin (FNT), an isoflavone extracted from Butea monosperma, stimulates osteoblast formation and protects against postmenopausal bone loss. The inverse relationship between osteoblasts and adipocytes prompted us to analyse the effect of FNT on adipogenesis and in vivo bone loss, triggered by high-fat diet (HFD)-induced obesity. The anti-obesity effect and mechanism of action of FNT was determined in 3T3-L1 cells and HFD-induced obese male mice. Our findings show that FNT suppresses the adipogenic differentiation of 3T3-L1 fibroblasts, through down-regulation of key adipogenic markers such as PPARγ, CCAAT/enhancer-binding protein alpha (C/EBPα) and sterol regulatory element-binding protein (SREBP) and inhibits intracellular TAG accumulation. Increased intracellular reactive oxygen species levels and AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) activation accompanied by stabilisation of β-catenin were attributed to the anti-adipogenic action of FNT. In vivo, 12 weeks of FNT treatment inhibited the development of obesity in mice by attenuating HFD-induced body weight gain and visceral fat accumulation. The anti-obesity effect of FNT results from increased energy expenditure. FNT also protects against HFD-induced dyslipidaemia and rescues deterioration of trabecular bone volume by increasing bone formation and decreasing bone resorbtion caused by HFD. FNT’s rescuing action against obesity-induced osteoporosis commenced at the level of progenitors, as bone marrow progenitor cells, obtained from the HFD mice group supplemented with FNT, showed increased osteogenic and decreased adipogenic potentials. Our findings suggest that FNT inhibits adipogenesis through AMPK/β-catenin signal transduction pathways and protects against HFD-induced obesity and bone loss.
Symposium 2: Nutrition and health claims: help or hindrance European consumers and health claims: attitudes, understanding and purchasing behaviour

Health claims on food products are often used as a means to highlight scientifically proven health benefits associated with consuming those foods. But do consumers understand and trust health claims? This paper provides an overview of recent research on consumers and health claims including attitudes, understanding and purchasing behaviour. A majority of studies investigated selective product‐claim combinations, with ambiguous findings apart from consumers’ self-reported generic interest in health claims. There are clear indications that consumer responses differ substantially according to the nature of carrier product, the type of health claim, functional ingredient used or a combination of these components. Health claims tend to be perceived more positively when linked to a product with an overall positive health image, whereas some studies demonstrate higher perceived credibility of products with general health claims (e.g. omega-3 and brain development) compared to disease risk reduction claims (e.g. bioactive peptides to reduce risk of heart disease), others report the opposite. Inconsistent evidence also exists on the correlation between having a positive attitude towards products with health claims and purchase intentions. Familiarity with the functional ingredient and/or its claimed health effect seems to result in a more favourable evaluation. Better nutritional knowledge, however, does not automatically lead to a positive attitude towards products carrying health messages. Legislation in the European Union requires that the claim is understood by the average consumer. As most studies on consumers’ understanding of health claims are based on subjective understanding, this remains an area for more investigation. Health claims: Consumer behaviour: Attitude: Understanding: Purchasing
Colours of fruit and vegetables and 10-year incidence of CHD

The colours of the edible part of fruit and vegetables indicate the presence of specific micronutrients and phytochemicals. The extent to which fruit and vegetable colour groups contribute to CHD protection is unknown. We therefore examined the associations between fruit and vegetables of different colours and their subgroups and 10-year CHD incidence. We used data from a prospective population-based cohort including 20 069 men and women aged 20–65 years who were enrolled between 1993 and 1997. Participants were free of CVD at baseline and completed a validated 178-item FFQ. Hazard ratios (HR) for the association between green, orange/yellow, red/purple, white fruit and vegetables and their subgroups with CHD were calculated using multivariable Cox proportional hazards models. During 10 years of follow-up, 245 incident cases of CHD were documented. For each 25 g/d increase in the intake of the sum of all four colours of fruit and vegetables, a borderline significant association with incident CHD was found (HR 0·98; 95 % CI 0·97, 1·01). No clear associations were found for the colour groups separately. However, each 25 g/d increase in the intake of deep orange fruit and vegetables was inversely associated with CHD (HR 0·74; 95 % CI 0·55, 1·00). Carrots, their largest contributor (60 %), were associated with a 32 % lower risk of CHD (HR 0·68; 95 % CI 0·48, 0·98). In conclusion, though no clear associations were found for the four colour groups with CHD, a higher intake of deep orange fruit and vegetables and especially carrots may protect against CHD.
The Finnish Twin Cohort Study: An Update

In 2002 and 2006, review papers have described the Finnish Twin Cohort and studies conducted on these population-based, longitudinal data sets with extensive follow-up data. Three cohorts have been established: the older twin cohort in the 1970s, and the Finntwin12 and Finntwin16 studies initiated in the 1990s. The present review provides on update on the latest data collections conducted since the previous review. These cover the fourth waves of data collection in the older cohort (twins born before 1958) and Finntwin12 (twins born 1983–1987). The fifth wave of data collection in Finntwin16 (twins born 1975–1979) also included assessments of their spouses/partners. An analysis of mortality in the older cohort from 1975 to 2009 indicates that the mortality of adult twins (as individuals) does not differ from the population at large. Based on the cohorts, many sub-studies with more detailed phenotyping and collection of omics data have been conducted or are in progress. We also contribute to numerous national and international collaborations.
Dissipative Finite-Element Formulation Applied to Piezoelectric Materials With the Debye Memory

This work presents a finite-element study of the Debye memory in piezoelectric devices. The memory dependence is due to the spontaneous polarization of the electric dipoles, and it can be understood as a transient viscosity-like effect. The formulation assumes a small strain and rotation hypothesis, and the main contribution is the inclusion of the time-dependent constitutive behavior. For this purpose, a unique numerical formulation that uses convolution integrals is developed to solve the time-dependent electric constitutive equation. A consistent and monolithic finite-element formulation is then obtained and implemented. Finally, a commercial piezoelectric device is simulated for two operational modes, an actuator and a sensor. Several important conclusions on the coupled mechanical and electric fields are reported, and the stability of the time integration scheme is tested by representing the time evolution of the electromechanic energy.
A New Region-Based Active Contour Model with Skewness Wavelet Energy for Segmentation of SAR Images

A new method of segmentation for Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images using the skewness wavelet energy has been presented. The skewness is the third order cumulant which measures the local texture along the region-based active contour. Nonlinearity in intensity inhomogeneities often occur in SAR images due to the speckle noise. In this paper we propose a region-based active contour model that is able to use the intensity information in local regions and to cope with the speckle noise and nonlinear intensity inhomogeneity of SAR images. We use a wavelet coefficients energy distribution to analyze the SAR image texture in each sub-band. A fitting energy called skewness wavelet energy is defined in terms of a contour and a functional so that, the regions and their interfaces will be modeled by level set functions. A functional relationship has been calculated on these level sets in terms of the third order cumulant, from which an energy minimization is derived. Minimizing the calculated functions derives the optimal segmentation based on the texture definitions. The results of the implemented algorithm on the test images from the Radarsat SAR images of agricultural and urban regions show a desirable performance of the proposed method.
Segmenting of Recorded Lecture Videos - The Algorithm VoiceSeg

In the past decade, we have witnessed a dramatic increase in the availability of online academic lecture videos. There are technical problems in the use of recorded lectures for learning: the problem of easy access to the multimedia lecture video content and the problem of finding the semantically appropriate information very quickly. The first step to a semantic lecture-browser is the segmenting of the large video-corpus into a smaller cohesion area. The task of breaking documents into topically coherent subparts is called topic segmentation. In this paper, we present a segmenting algorithm for recorded lecture videos based on their imperfect transcripts. The recorded lectures are transcripted by an out-of-the-box speech recognition software with a accuracy of approximately 70%-80%. Words as well as a time stamp for each word are stored in a database. This data acts as the input to our algorithm. We will show that the clustering of similar words, the generation of vectors with the values from the clusters and the calculation of the cosine-mass of adjacent vectors, leads to a better segmenting result compared to a standard algorithm.
Nucleic Acids Research

We have used yeast strains containing a disrupted positive (GAL4) and/or a disrupted negative (GAL80) regulatory gene to investigate the relationship of these regulatory proteins to the hypersensitive sites upstream of their target genes, GALl-10. We find that neither of these regulatory proteins is required for the formation of the hypersensitive region. There is positive regulatory protein (dependent) binding to a portion of the hypersensitive region when GALl and 10 are expressed. However, similar binding can also occur under conditions in which the genes are not expressed. Thus, such binding is necessary but not sufficient for expression of GALl and 10 and control of GALl-10 expression must also include processes which occur subsequent to GAL4/DNA binding. The negative regulatory protein GAL80 plays a significant role in these processes. INTRODUCTION DNase I hypersensitive sites are a general feature of the 5' upstream regions of eukaryotic genes (1). They appear to reflect functionally interesting regions of the chromosome (2) and often, but not always, are correlated with expression of the genes with which they are associated (3). Proteins have been shown to play a role in the generation of hypersensitive sites (i4). The nature of the proteins involved is not known, although there are indications that they may be regulatory proteins for the associated gene (5). Hypersensitive sites can also be loci for the binding of proteins not involved in generating the hypersensitivity, again presumably a regulatory protein for the associated gene (6). The recent observation of DNase I hypersensitive sites upstream of the GALl-10 genes in yeast (7,8), together with the existence of defined regulatory gene mutations for this system, provides an excellent opportunity to examine the relationship between regulatory proteins and hypersensitive sites. GALl and GAL10 are two of the structural genes required for the utilization of galactose as a carbon source in yeast. They are divergently transcribed from an -600 bp region of DNA (9). Their expression is carbon © I R L Press Limited, Oxford, England. 8409 Nucleic Acids Research Volume 13 Number 23 1985 Nucleic Acids Research source dependent: expressed in galactose; readily inducible, but not yet expressed, in glycerol/ethanol; totally repressed in glucose. When induced, these genes are very actively expressed, at least 1000-fold over the uninduced level (9). Although the hypersensitive sites associated with these genes are not expression dependent, i.e., are present in both the active and inactive states of the gene, the sites occur in a very interesting location (7), near the center of the Upstream Activator Sequence (UAS). This is the control element through which the induction of expression for GAL10 and GALA is mediated, by the action of the positive regulatory protein GAL4 (10,11). We will refer to this region as the Upstream Regulatory Sequence (URS) to denote the possibility that other regulatory proteins could also interact with this
Efficacy of interventions targeting alcohol, drug and smoking behaviors in university and college students: A review of randomized controlled trials

ABSTRACT Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of interventions targeting alcohol consumption, drug use and smoking for college/university students.Participants: College/University students.Methods: Studies were eligible if: (1)included students attending universities/colleges; (2)implemented in a university/college setting; (3)aimed to improve at least one of the following behaviors: alcohol and/or drug use and/or smoking; (4)were RCTs. The effect of the interventions on behaviors was determined by the percentage of studies that reported an effect. Due to the heterogeneity of outcomes meta-analysis was not conducted.Results: 88 studies met criteria. University-based interventions were effective for reducing alcohol-related outcomes (drinking patterns, BAC, consequences, problem drinking). Inconsistent findings for drug and smoking were observed.Conclusions: University-based interventions have the potential to improve health for students. While there is a breadth of research examining the efficacy of interventions to reduce alcohol consumption, further research is needed to determine the best approach for addressing smoking and drug use among students.
Three-dimensional electronic spectroscopy of excitons in asymmetric double quantum wells

We utilize a three-dimensional (3D) visible spectroscopy to reveal and explore coherent coupling between excitons localized to GaAs quantum wells separated by barriers 4 and 6 nm wide. The coupled excitons were energetically separated by 43 meV, close to the longitudinal optical phonon energy, due to the different widths of the quantum wells to which they were localized. The ability to isolate coherence pathways in 3D spectroscopy has made it possible to not only identify weak coherent coupling, but also to explore the nature of the coupling through analysis of the peak shapes. This peak shape analysis showed inhomogeneous broadening of the excitons localized to different wells to be uncorrelated, as expected, while coupling between heavy-hole and light-hole excitons localized to the same well was shown to be correlated. To gain some insight into the coupling mechanism we explored the dependence of the coupling strength on the barrier width and hence spatial separation. Based on these results we discuss the possibility of phonon-assisted dipole coupling.
Agreement between rapid on‐site evaluation and the final cytological diagnosis of salivary gland specimens

Rapid on‐site evaluation (ROSE) has been shown to be beneficial in determining the adequacy and a preliminary diagnosis in multiple organ systems. However, little is known regarding the diagnostic values and agreement of ROSE compared with a final cytological diagnosis in salivary gland fine needle aspiration (FNA). The aim of the present study was to evaluate agreement and compare accuracy between ROSE and a final cytological diagnosis of salivary gland FNA, using a final histological diagnosis as a gold standard.
Evaluation and Comparison of Late Reverberation Power Spectral Density Estimators

Reduction of late reverberation can be achieved using spatio-spectral filters, such as the multichannel Wiener filter. To compute this filter, an estimate of the late reverberation power spectral density (PSD) is required. In recent years, a multitude of late reverberation PSD estimators have been proposed. In this paper, these estimators are categorized into several classes, their relations and differences are discussed, and a comprehensive experimental comparison is provided. To compare their performance, simulations in controlled as well as practical scenarios are conducted. It is shown that a common weakness of spatial coherence-based estimators is their performance in high direct-to-diffuse ratio conditions. To mitigate this problem, a correction method is proposed and evaluated. It is shown that the proposed correction method can decrease the speech distortion without significantly affecting the reverberation reduction.
MASSIVE STAR FORMATION OF THE SGR A EAST H ii REGIONS NEAR THE GALACTIC CENTER

A group of four compact H ii regions associated with the well-known 50 km s−1 molecular cloud is the closest site of on-going star formation to the dynamical center of the Galaxy, at a projected distance of ∼6 pc. We present a study of ionized gas based on the [Ne ii] (12.8 μm) line, as well as multi-frequency radio continuum, Hubble Space Telescope Paα, and Spitzer Infrared Array Camera observations of the most compact member of the H ii group, Sgr A East H ii D. The radio continuum image at 6 cm shows that this source breaks up into two equally bright ionized features, D1 and D2. The spectral energy distribution of the D source is consistent with it being due to a 25 ± 3 M☉ star with a luminosity of 8 ± 3 × 104 L☉. The inferred mass, effective temperature of the UV source, and the ionization rate are compatible with a young O9-B0 star. The ionized features D1 and D2 are considered to be ionized by UV radiation collimated by an accretion disk. We consider that the central massive star photoevaporates its circumstellar disk on a timescale of 3 × 104 years giving a mass flux ∼3 × 10−5 M☉ yr−1 and producing the ionized material in D1 and D2 expanding in an inhomogeneous medium. The ionized gas kinematics, as traced by the [Ne ii] emission, is difficult to interpret, but it could be explained by the interaction of a bipolar jet with surrounding gas along with what appears to be a conical wall of lower velocity gas. The other H ii regions, Sgr A East A-C, have morphologies and kinematics that more closely resemble cometary flows seen in other compact H ii regions, where gas moves along a paraboloidal surface formed by the interaction of a stellar wind with a molecular cloud.
Uptake of HIV Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) in a National Cohort of Gay and Bisexual Men in the United States

Objectives: The HIV care cascade provides milestones to track the progress of HIV-positive people from seroconversion through viral suppression. We propose a Motivational pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) Cascade involving 5 stages based on the Transtheoretical Model of Change. Methods: We analyzed data from 995 men in One Thousand Strong, a longitudinal study of a national panel of HIV-negative gay and bisexual men in the United States. Results: Nearly all (89%) participants were sexually active in the past 3 months and 65% met Centers for Disease Control criteria for PrEP candidacy. Of those identified as appropriate candidates, 53% were Precontemplative (stage 1; unwilling to take or believing they were inappropriate candidates for PrEP) and 23% were in Contemplation (stage 2; willing and self-identified as appropriate candidates). Only 11% were in PrEParation (stage 3; seeing PrEP as accessible and planning to initiate PrEP) and 4% were in PrEP Action (stage 4; prescribed PrEP). Although few of those who were identified as appropriate candidates were on PrEP, nearly all PrEP users (98%) reported adhering to 4 or more doses per week and most (72%) were returning for recommended quarterly medical visits, resulting in 9% of PrEP candidates reaching Maintenance and Adherence (stage 5). Conclusions: The large majority of participants were appropriate candidates for PrEP, yet fewer than 1 in 10 were using and adherent to PrEP. These findings highlight the need for interventions tailored to address the unique barriers men face at each stage of the cascade, particularly at the earliest stages where the most dramatic losses were identified.