Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Caesalpinia Crista Linn. Induces Protection against DNA and Membrane Damage

Background: Caesalpinia crista is a medicinal herb used to cure various ailments in subtropical and tropical regions of Southeast Asia. Objective: The objective of this evaluation of C. crista against free radical induced DNA and erythrocyte damage. Materials and Methods: The profiles of polyphenol and flavonoid were quantified through reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography. Free radical induced DNA and membrane damage were performed using H2O2as oxidative agent. Results: The total polyphenol content of C. crista leaf ethyl acetate extract (CcEA) was 94.5 ± 3.8 mg/gGAE, CcME (C. crista leaf methanol extract) was 52.7 ± 2.8 mg/gGAE, and CcWE (C. crista leaf Water extract) was 31.84 ± 1.8 mg/gGAE. Total flavonoid content of CcEA was 60.46 ± 2.3 mg/gQE, CcME was 46.26 ± 1.8 mg/gQE, and CcWE was 20.47 ± 1.1 mg/gQE. The extracts also exhibited good antioxidant activity as confirmed by 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH), 2,2'-azino-bis (3-ethylbenzthiazoline-6-sulfonic acid), hydroxyl scavenging, reducing power, and total antioxidant assays. Among the three extracts, CcEA and CcME showed better protection against red blood cell (RBC) hemolysis and DNA damage as confirmed by electrophoretic study. Further, Scanning electron micrograph data showed that CcEA revealed the free radical induced structural alterations in RBC. Conclusion: These findings suggest that C. crista contains bioactive molecules and can inhibit oxidative stress and can be source of further study to use this in herbal medicine. Abbreviations used: ABTS: 2,2'-azino-bis (3-ethylbenzthiazoline-6-sulfonic acid); CcEA: C. crista leaf ethyl acetate extract; CcME: C. crista leaf methanol extract; CcWE: C. crista leaf Water extract; DPPH: 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl; GAE: Gallic acid Equivalent; H2O2: Hydrogen Peroxide; QE: Quercetin Equivalent; RNS: Reactive Nitrogen Spevcies; ROS: Reactive Oxygen Species; SEM: Scanning Electron Microscope.
Juggling Functions Inside a Database

We define and study the Functional Aggregate Query (FAQ) problem, which captures common computational tasks across a very wide range of domains including relational databases, logic, matrix and tensor computation, probabilistic graphical models, constraint satisfaction, and signal processing. Simply put, an FAQ is a declarative way of defining a new function from a database of input functions. We present InsideOut, a dynamic programming algorithm, to evaluate an FAQ. The algorithm rewrites the input query into a set of easier-to-compute FAQ sub-queries. Each subquery is then evaluated using a worst-case optimal relational join algorithm. The topic of designing algorithms to optimally evaluate the classic multiway join problem has seen exciting developments in the past few years. Our framework tightly connects these new ideas in database theory with a vast number of application areas in a coherent manner, showing potentially that -- with the right abstraction, blurring the distinction between data and computation -- a good database engine can be a general purpose constraint solver, relational data store, graphical model inference engine, and matrix/tensor computation processor all at once. The InsideOut algorithm is very simple, as shall be described in this paper. Yet, in spite of solving an extremely general problem, its runtime either is as good as or improves upon the best known algorithm for the applications that FAQ specializes to. These corollaries include computational tasks in graphical model inference, matrix/tensor operations, relational joins, and logic. Better yet, InsideOut can be used within any database engine, because it is basically a principled way of rewriting queries. Indeed, it is already part of the LogicBlox database engine, helping efficiently answer traditional database queries, graphical model inference queries, and train a large class of machine learning models inside the database itself.
Wortmannin, a potent antineutrophil agent, exerts cardioprotective effects in myocardial ischemia/reperfusion.

Ischemia followed by reperfusion in the presence of polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMNs) results in a marked cardiac contractile dysfunction. Wortmannin, a specific inhibitor of phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase, suppresses superoxide production from PMNs. Therefore, we hypothesized that wortmannin could attenuate PMN-induced cardiac dysfunction by suppression of superoxide production from PMNs. We examined the effects of wortmannin in isolated ischemic (20 min) and reperfused (45 min) rat hearts perfused with PMNs. Wortmannin at 10, 20, or 40 nM given to hearts during the first 5 min of reperfusion, significantly improved left ventricular developed pressure (P < .01), and the maximal rate of development of left ventricular developed pressure (P < .01) compared with ischemic/reperfused hearts perfused with PMNs in the absence of wortmannin. In addition, wortmannin significantly reduced PMN infiltration into the myocardium by 50 to 75% (P < .001). Superoxide radical release also was significantly reduced in N-formylmethionyl-leucylphenylalanine-stimulated PMNs pretreated with 10 or 40 nM wortmannin by 70 and 95%, respectively (P < .001 versus untreated PMNs). Rat PMN adherence to rat superior mesenteric artery endothelium exposed to 2 U/ml thrombin was significantly attenuated by 10 to 40 nM wortmannin compared with untreated vessels (P < .001). These results provide evidence that wortmannin can significantly attenuate PMN-induced cardiac contractile dysfunction in the ischemic/reperfused rat heart via attenuation of PMN infiltration into the myocardium and suppression of superoxide release by PMNs.
Learning on Process Knowledge : A Technological and Methodological Proposition

The issue of managing individual and organizational knowledge, as a source of sustainable competitive advantage, seems to occupy a great deal of attention in the contemporary business world mainly from a technological point of view. The paper proposition draws upon the need of the management of knowledge, not only in technological but also methodological terms, and presents an innovative learning platform for use in highly knowledge-intensive working environments. The main innovative element of this platform is the convergence of notions coming both from knowledge management and learning domain under the spectrum of the organizational working practices, as they are manifested through business processes. We espoused the “Case Study” learning concept as an efficient way to encapsulate and transfer tacit and explicit knowledge anchored on business processes. The paper discusses the main theoretical issues and outlines in high level the tool-set’s and methodology’s orientation.
A new physics-based compact model for Bilayer Graphene Field-Effect Transistors

In this paper, a new compact model for Dual-Gate Bilayer Graphene Field-Effect Transistors is presented. The model uses a physics-based density of states (DOS) to compute the current and the charge. Moreover, the effect of back-gate biasing on the flatband voltage, residual carrier density and access resistances is implemented in the model for accurate description of the drain current. The developed large-signal compact model has been implemented in Verilog-A and its accuracy has been evaluated by comparison with measurements from the literature.
The influence of electrode fabrication on induced X-ray photocurrents in CVD diamond radiation detectors

The main objective of this project was in to investigate the effect of different metal contacts on the electrical and dosimetric characteristics of semiconductor diamond in an attempt to develop a new type of x-ray dosimeter. This was achieved in a number steps, in the first part of the project the influence of the metal-diamond interfaces as well as the influence of annealing on the electrical and dosimetric characteristics of diamond based solid state radiation detectors was investigated. This allowed identification of the optimum metal contacts and conditions which maximize the detector performance as a dosimeter, in terms of time response, SNR, linearity, stability and reproducibility. For this purpose, three different samples (HPS-Pt, VS-Pt and HPS-Al/Pt) with different metal contacts were fabricated. 2In the second part of the project sensitivity mapping was performed on the sample designated VS-Pt. This sample was chosen due to its special features such as thin nitrogen lines and substrate area. Three different sources of focused x-ray beams were investigated in order to choose suitable conditions to obtain high resolution images of the nitrogen lines within the sample. Additionally the mapping sensitivity of HPS-Pt and HPS-Al/Pt was investigated to study the effect of certain parameters on the homogeneity of the current response and choose the suitable contact for synchrotron measurements. In the third part of this project three polycrystalline diamond x-ray dosimeters were fabricated. Two of which were fabricated by depositing carbon using a new deposition technique known as Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD), the first with pure amorphous carbon (labelled Poly-C) and the second with amorphous carbon mixed with Nickel (labelled Poly-C/Ni). The third device was metalized by conventional sputtering of Platinum for comparison. The dosimetric characteristics and validity of the samples for potential use in radiation dosimetry was investigated in order to obtain a detector with a high SNR, fast time response, reproducible manner and a response that does not depend on the dose rate. In the fourth part of this project a single crystal CVD diamond x-ray dosimeter (SC-C/Ni) with a C/Ni contact was fabricated using Pulsed Laser Deposition in an attempt to remove the dose rate dependence in polycrystalline samples and a comparison drawn to the previous polycrystalline devices. Finally using alpha particle spectroscopy the electron and hole transport properties were separately investigated for samples SC-C/Ni, HPS-Pt, VS-Pt and HPS-Al/Pt, confirming the results of some of the previous measurements undertaken using x-rays.
An Examination of the Relationship Between Consequence-Specific Normative Belief Patterns and Alcohol-Related Consequences Among College Students.

BACKGROUND Research has previously identified a high-risk subgroup of college students who experience high levels of multiple and repeated alcohol-related consequences (MRC group). The purpose of this study was to examine the association between consequence-specific normative influences and experiencing multiple and repeated drinking-related consequences using a person-centered approach. Normative subgroups were identified using latent profile analysis (LPA), which were then used to predict MRC group status at 6-month follow-up. METHODS First-year college student drinkers (N = 2,024) at a large northeastern university completed online surveys during the fall and spring semesters of their freshman year. Retention was high with 92% of invited participants completing T2, of which the MRC group accounted for 27%. RESULTS Three student profiles were identified from LPA on T1 data: Nonpermissive Parents (77%), Positive Peer and Parent Norms (21%), and Permissive Parents (3%). Logistic regression revealed that both the Positive Peer and Parent Norms and Permissive Parents profiles had significantly higher odds of MRC group membership at follow-up (1.81 and 2.78 times greater, respectively). CONCLUSIONS The results suggest value in prevention efforts that include normative beliefs about alcohol-related consequences. Further, parental norms in particular have the potential to enhance interventions, especially through direct communication of disapproval for experiencing consequences.
Cache Sharing Management for Performance Fairness in Chip Multiprocessors

Resource sharing can cause unfair and unpredictable performance of concurrently executing applications in Chip-Multiprocessors (CMP). The shared last-level cache is one of the most important shared resources because off-chip request latency may take a significant part of total execution cycles for data intensive applications. Instead of enforcing performance fairness directly, prior work addressing fairness issue of cache sharing mainly focuses on the fairness metrics of cache miss numbers or miss rates. However, because of the variation of cache miss penalty, fairness on cache miss cannot guarantee performance fairness. Cache sharing management which directly addresses performance fairness is needed for CMP systems. This paper introduces a model to analyze the performance impact of cache sharing, and proposes a mechanism of cache sharing management to provide performance fairness for concurrently executing applications. The proposed mechanism monitors the actual penalty of all cache misses and dynamically estimates the cache misses with dedicated caches when the applications are actually running with a shared cache. The estimated relative slowdown for each core from dedicated environment to shared environment is used to guide cache sharing in order to guarantee performance fairness. The experiment results show that the proposed mechanism always improves the performance fairness metric, and can provide no worse throughput than the scenario without any management mechanism.
Flexible Mixture Model for Collaborative Filtering

This paper presents a flexible mixture model (FMM) for collaborative filtering. FMM extends existing partitioning/clustering algorithms for collaborative filtering by clustering both users and items together simultaneously without assuming that each user and item should only belong to a single cluster. Furthermore, with the introduction of 'preference' nodes, the proposed framework is able to explicitly model how users rate items, which can vary dramatically, even among the users with similar tastes on items. Empirical study over two datasets of movie ratings has shown that our new algorithm outperforms five other collaborative filtering algorithms substantially.
SmartAlbum: a multi-modal photo annotation system

This demonstration presents a novel application (called SmartAlbum) for photo indexing and retrieval that unifies two different image indexing approaches. The system uses two modalities to extract information about a digital photograph; i.e. content-based and speech annotation for image description. The result is a powerful image retrieval tool that has capabilities beyond what current single-mode retrieval systems can offer. We show on a corpus of 1200 images the interest of our approach.
Collaboration In Software Engineering Projects: A Theory Of Coordination

Coordination of engineering decisions is a central concern of software engineering. We present a theory in which coordination of engineering decisions is modeled as a distributed constraint satisfaction problem (DCSP). We derive six hypotheses, predicting how the distribution of decisions over developers and the density of constraints among decisions will affect development time, probability that a file contains a field defect, and developer productivity. We test these hypotheses using data from a commercial project. We find support for all hypotheses predicting detrimental effects from poor distribution of decisions over developers. The effects of constraint density were mixed, showing that dense constraints slowed development, but did not significantly affect productivity. Dense data dependencies increased the chances that a file contained a field defect, but very surprisingly, dense call dependencies significantly lowered the chances that a file contained a field defect. We discuss the implications of these findings.
Improved consensus algorithms using memory effects

This paper deals with simple integrator consensus problems. The objective is the design of an improved consensus algorithm for continuous-time multi-agent systems using memory effects. The novel algorithm proposes to sample, in an appropriate manner, part of the multi-agent systems information such that the algorithm converges, assuming that at each instant, agent's control laws will also consider the sampled past information of its neighbors. Stability conditions expressed in terms of LMI's and based on algebraic communication matrix structure are provided. The efficiency of the method is tested for different network communication schemes.
The fractionation and characterisation of propylene-ethylene random copolymers

This study involves the fractionation and characterisation of three propyleneethylene random copolymers. The fractionation technique used in the study was temperature rising elution fractionation (TREF). The TREF fractions were subsequently analysed offline by crystallisation analysis fractionation (CRYSTAF), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), C NMR, high-temperature gel-permeation chromatography (HT-GPC), and wide-angle x-ray diffraction (WAXD). The effect of the ethylene comonomer on the crystallisability of the propylene was investigated, along with the effect of the comonomer on the type of crystal phase formed during the crystallisation. The results show that the comonomer inhibits the crystallisation of the copolymer and that as the ethylene content increases, the crystallisation and melting points decrease. It was also shown that the higher the ethylene content, the more of the γ-phase crystal type is formed. The distribution of the comonomer throughout the copolymers was also investigated. The results show that there is an uneven distribution of the comonomer with most of the comonomer accumulating in the amorphous areas, and very little actually being incorporated in the crystalline regions. It was also observed that the fractions eluting at the highest temperatures had considerably higher polydispersities and lower molecular weights than the fractions eluting just before them. The highest temperature fractions also have lower melting and crystallisation temperatures than the preceding fractions. This has been attributed to a nucleation effect by the sand support used during the TREF fractionation.
Grotenhout Virus, a Novel Nairovirus Found in Ixodes ricinus in Belgium

ABSTRACT We report here the draft genome of a novel nairovirus, Grotenhout virus, isolated from deer ticks (Ixodes ricinus) in Belgium. The genome consists of two segments, L and S, and is most similar to the tick-borne South Bay virus, with amino acid identities ranging from 60 to 64%.
Fault classification of waste heat recovery system based on support vector machine

In this paper, the fault classification problem for waste heat recovery system based on support vector machine (SVM) is investigated. Firstly, two-class SVM classification algorithm is reviewed. Then the model and six kinds of faults in waste heat recovery systems (WHRSs) are briefly described. In order to effectively isolate these faults in WHRSs, key features are extracted using principal component analysis (PCA), the multi-class classification problem is then decomposed into five two-class classifiers by using improved one-against-rest approach. Consequently, the SVM classifiers are designed to train and test samples by using collected process variables. The comparison between SVM and back-propagation neural networks applied to a WHRS is discussed. Simulation results demonstrate that SVM can obtain better fault diagnosis performance.
Serial Diffusion Tensor MRI After Transient and Permanent Cerebral Ischemia in Nonhuman Primates

Background and Purpose— We measured the temporal evolution of the T2 and diffusion tensor imaging parameters after transient and permanent cerebral middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAo) in macaques, and compared it to standard histological analysis at the study end point. Methods— Stroke was created in adult male macaques by occluding a middle cerebral artery branch for 3 hours (transient MCAo, n=4 or permanent occlusion, n=3). Conventional MRI and diffusion tensor imaging scans were performed 0 (acute day), 1, 3, 7, 10, 17, and 30 days after MCAo. Animals were euthanized after the final scan and the brains removed for histological analysis. Results— Apparent diffusion coefficient in the lesion was decreased acutely, fractional anisotropy was elevated, and T2 remained normal. Thereafter, apparent diffusion coefficient increased above normal, fractional anisotropy decreased to below normal, T2 increased to a maximum and then declined. Reperfusion at 3 hours accelerated these MRI changes. Only the fractional anisotropy value was significantly different between transient and permanent groups at 30 days. Final MRI-defined fractional lesion volumes were well correlated with corresponding histological lesion volumes. Permanent MCAO animals showed more severe histological damage than their transient MCAO counterparts, especially myelin damage and axonal swelling. Conclusions— Overall, the MRI evolution of stroke in macaques was closer to what has been observed in humans than in rodent models. This work supports the use of serial MRI in stroke studies in nonhuman primates.
Klein River Estuary (South Africa): 2D numerical modelling of estuary breaching

2D numerical modelling of the breaching process of the Klein River Estuary in South Africa was carried out. The model was calibrated on field data and performs reasonably well, and is able to simulate the ebb and flood channels that form upstream of the mouth. The focus of the simulations was to determine the effectiveness of flushing of sediments during breaching, by investigating the breaching process at different water levels in the estuary, as well as at two different areas along the berm. Breaching at higher water levels increases the effectiveness of flushing as the discharge through the mouth increases significantly at higher water levels. Flushing towards the middle or south-east side of the berm is much more effective than towards the north-west side.
On Multi-Start Algorithms for Optimization of High School Timetables

The paper deals with the problem of high-school time-tabling that is important in applications, but hard for solving. The algorithm is presented for timetabling based on Multi-start and Simulated Annealing with parameters adapted using the Bayes approach. The algorithm proposed is compared with other timetabling algorithms using the web-based software. A multi-start algorithm is a simple way to provide the convergence, if the number of uniformly distributed starting points is large. A disadvantage is slow convergence.Therefore, the first aim of this paper is experimental comparisons of the efficiency of different versions of multi-start algorithms in the optimization of timetables. To obtain representative results, the algorithms should be compatible with the Lithuanian high school practice and flexible enough for adaptation to different high schools.The second aim is a web-based implementation of these algorithms in a way convenient for high schools. The web-based software is important for evaluation and comparison of algorithms by independent experts, as well, since the efficiency of algorithms depends on subjective parameters specific to each school, so on-line calculations are needed to obtain representative data. It is useful for scientific cooperation and applications to different schools. In addition, the software for evaluating of real timetables is included to compare with the results of optimization.
Electron Acceleration in Relativistic Gamma-Ray Burst Shocks

The shock model of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) contains two equipartition parameters: the magnetic energy density and the kinetic energy density of the electrons relative to the total energy density of the shock, ϵB and ϵe, respectively. These are free parameters within the model. Whereas the Weibel shock theory and numerical simulations fix ϵB at the level of a few times 10-3 to 10-4, no understanding of ϵe exists so far. Here we demonstrate that it inevitably follows from the theory that ϵe ≃ 1/2. The GRB afterglow data fully agree with this theoretical prediction. Our result explains why the electrons are close to equipartition in GRBs. The ϵe-ϵB relation can potentially be used to reduce the number of free parameters in afterglow models.