Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Acceptability, Safety, and Efficacy of Oral Administration of Extracts of Black or Red Maca (Lepidium meyenii) in Adult Human Subjects: A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Study

The plant maca, grown at 4000 m altitude in the Peruvian Central Andes, contains hypocotyls that have been used as food and in traditional medicine for centuries. The aim of this research was to provide results on some health effects of oral administration of spray-dried extracts of black or red maca (Lepidium meyenii) in adult human subjects living at low (LA) and high altitude (HA). A total of 175 participants were given 3 g of either placebo, black, or red maca extract daily for 12 weeks. Primary outcomes were changes in sexual desire, mood, energy, health-related quality of life score (HRQL), and chronic mountain sickness (CMS) score, or in glycaemia, blood pressure, and hemoglobin levels. Secondary outcomes were acceptability and safety, assessed using the Likert test and side effect self-recording, respectively, and the effect of altitude. At low altitude, 32, 30, and 32 participants started the study receiving placebo, red maca, or black maca, respectively. At high altitudes, 33, 35, and 31 participants started the study receiving placebo, red maca, and black maca, respectively. Consumption of spray-dried extracts of red and black maca resulted in improvement in mood, energy, and health status, and reduced CMS score. Fatty acids and macamides were higher in spray-dried extracts of black maca than in red maca. GABA predominated in spray-dried extracts of red maca. Effects on mood, energy, and CMS score were better with red maca. Black maca and, in smaller proportions, red maca reduced hemoglobin levels only in highlanders with abnormally high hemoglobin levels; neither variety of maca reduced hemoglobin levels in lowlanders. Black maca reduced blood glucose levels. Both varieties produced similar responses in mood, and HRQL score. Maca extracts consumed at LA or HA had good acceptability and did not show serious adverse effects. In conclusion, maca extract consumption relative to the placebo improved quality of life parameters. Differences in the level of improvement between red and black maca are probably due to differences in the composition of these two plant varieties. Both maca extracts were well tolerated and safe.
Locating topics in text processing

In this paper we are concerned with the location of topics in text processing and the determination of the update unit in looking up topic continuations and topic shifts. Using key elements of the Centering Model of local discourse coherence and empirical evidence from Modern Greek and Japanese we argue that the appropriate update unit for topic tracking is the sentence in its traditional sense and not the nite clause, thus providing an account for the status of the subordinate clause in the calculation of topic transitions. We bring forth an argument from English, Modern Greek (MG) and Japanese for keeping topic and information structure distinct. We brie y discuss the signi cance of the current work to automated essay scoring and coreference-based summarization systems.
Optimized power combining technique to design a 20dB gain, 13.5dBm OCP1 60GHz power amplifier using 65nm CMOS technology

Millimeter-wave Distributed Active Transformer (DAT), baluns and zero degree 1-4 splitter have been optimized to design a 60 GHz parallel Power Amplifier (PA). The implementation is based on a thin digital 7 metal layers (1P7M) Back End of Line (BEOL) and Low Power (LP) transistors in 65 nm CMOS technology from STMicroelectronics. A lumped model based analysis is presented to compare pure voltage and mixed voltage and current combining techniques. Simulated and measured results are reported. At 61 GHz, the PA achieves a peak power gain of 20 dB with a 13.5 dBm 1dB-output compression point (OCP1dB), 15.6 dBm output power and a Power Added Efficiency (PAE) of 6.6% from a 1.2 V supply. To the author's knowledge, these results represent the highest linear output power and gain performances among PAs using the same technology.
Missing Mass and Galactic Dust with a Size Greater than 200 Microns, Minimum Size of the Micrometric Dust around the Sun

The studies of the glaciologists show that, since 30,000 years, the Earth receives every year approximately 40,000 tons of dust, dust with an average size about 200 microns. By determining of which volume these 40,000 T come and by showing that the density of this volume is significant within the density of the milky way, I have tried to estimate the mass of dust contained in the Galaxy. To support that this density close to earth is representative, arguments are given: 1) the distribution of great dust is largely homogeneous in the galaxy (what does not exclude the existence of gas or dust clouds with different densities in the milky way); 2) there would be a minimum size that I have calculated for micrometeorites in the solar environment, and so there would be a lack of the micrometeorites with a size between 5 and 50 microns. So the density would not be greater in the solar system. Next, a very simple rough calculation (as the one made by the observatory of Paris in 1910) allows estimating this mass near 4 times that of the dark matter. So, the interstellar dust with a large size (>200 μ) could it be the missing mass? A verification method is proposed to confirm or refute this hypothesis.
A Model of Controlled Acute Hyperglycemia in Rats: Effects of Insulin and Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 Analog

A rodent model of controlled acute hyperglycemia that is sensitive to glucose-lowering agents insulin and glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) analog has been developed. The studies show that anesthesia could be induced in fasted rats with ketamine (100 mg/kg) plus a low dose of xylazine (5 mg/kg) without inducing the acute hyperglycemia typically associated with these agents. Under these conditions, continuous infusion of glucose (10 and 20%) via the jugular vein for 30 to 150 min induced hyperglycemia in a time-dependent fashion. Administration of “loading” boluses of glucose (0.2–0.6 ml of a 20% solution) prior to continuous infusion of 10% glucose produced more immediate and sustained hyperglycemia. Plasma levels of a variety of glucoregulatory and stress hormones such as insulin, growth hormone, glucagon, and corticosterone were determined. Only glucagon levels changed significantly during induction and maintenance of hyperglycemia. The infusion of insulin (0.1 U/kg/h) or GLP-1 analog (10 μg/kg/h) effectively lowered blood glucose from its elevated levels. Insulin produced a significant increase in glucagon levels, and GLP-1 analog produced a significant increase in insulin levels without any change in other glucoregulatory and stress hormone levels. In conclusion, the present studies identified a novel approach for the induction of anesthesia and surgical manipulations without inducing hyperglycemia and further defined an approach for producing acute hyperglycemia in a controlled fashion in rodents. This model will be beneficial to study the influence of hyperglycemia in acute models of critical illness where hyperglycemia develops following the precipitating event. This model was responsive to insulin and GLP-1 analog, both of which were effective in ameliorating hyperglycemia.
A game-theoretic approach to relay selection in cooperative wireless networks

In this paper, distributed relay selection in cooperative wireless networks is modeled as a Chinese restaurant game (CRG). Specifically, the CRG is used to model strategic relay selection decisions of source nodes, taking into account negative network externality due to the potential sharing of relay nodes among source nodes. In turn, a distributed relay selection algorithm is proposed and shown to converge to a Nash Equilibrium grouping. Simulation results verify the efficiency of the proposed distributed algorithm when compared with other relay selection schemes, and demonstrate that it yields a network sum-rate that is comparable with that of centralized relay selection.
The role of motivation in developing autonomy among university EFL students in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq: Students’ Attitudes

This study, which used a mixed-method approach, is an extract from a PhD thesis on the role of motivation in the effort to promote greater learner autonomy among university level EFL students, especially in terms of the Kurdish context in which the research was set. The research used the English Language Departments of the University of Salahaddin — situated in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq‘s capital city Erbil — the University of Sulaimani in Slemani, and the University of Duhok in Duhok as the study site. These were selected, as the subject of learner autonomy has not been regularly included as one of their learning objectives. The sample population was made up of 211 students. After a quantitative and qualitative analysis was conducted, the collected data showed there was a positive attitude toward the role of motivation in developing learner autonomy in principle but that this did not translate into its practical application by the students even though they displayed a strong desire to see themselves become autonomous learners.
Pulsations in the atmosphere of the rapidly oscillating Ap star 10 Aquilae

The rapidly oscillating Ap (roAp) star 10 Aql shows one of the lowest photometric pulsation amplitudes and is characterized by an unusual spectroscopic pulsational behavior compared to other roAp stars. In summer 2006 this star became target of an intense observing campaign, that combined ground-based spectroscopy with space photometry obtained with the MOST satellite. More than 1000 spectra were taken during 7 nights over a time span of 21 days with high-resolution spectrographs at the 8-m ESO VLT and 3.6-m TNG telescopes giving access to radial velocity variations of about 150 lines from different chemical species. A comparison of pulsation signatures in lines formed at different atmospheric heights allowed us to resolve the vertical structure of individual pulsation modes in 10 Aql which is the first time for a multiperiodic roAp star. Taking advantage of the clear oscillation patterns seen in a number of rare-earth ions and using the contemporaneous MOST photometry to resolve aliasing in the radial velocity measurements, we improve also the determination of pulsation frequencies. The inferred propagation of pulsation waves in 10 Aql is qualitatively similar to other roAp stars: pulsation amplitudes become measurable in the layers where Y and Eu are concentrated, increase in layers where the H! core is formed, reach a maximum of 200‐ 300 m s ! 1 in the layers probed by Ce, Sm, Dy lines and then decrease to 20‐50 m s ! 1 in the layers where Nd III and Pr III lines are formed. A unique pulsation feature of 10 Aql is a second pulsation maximum indicated by Tb III lines which form in the uppermost atmospheric layers and oscillate with amplitudes of up to 350 m s ! 1 . The dramatic decline of pulsations in the atmospheric layers probed by the strong Pr III and Nd III lines accounts for the apparent peculiarity of 10 Aql when compared to other roAp stars. The phase-amplitude diagrams and bisector measurements of the Nd III 5102 ˚ A line reveal a rapid change of phase and amplitude with height for all three main pulsation modes, indicating the presence of a pulsation node in the stellar atmosphere. Finally, we report the discovery of a puzzling asymmetry of the strong Nd III lines with their blue wing extending up to ! 50km s ! 1 , which is about 25 times the
SUB-BAND INDEPENDENT SUBSPACE ANALYSIS FOR DRUM TRANSCRIPTION

While Independent Subspace Analysis provides a means of separating sound sources from a single channel signal, making it an effective tool for drum transcription, it does have a number of problems. Not least of these is that the amount of information required to allow separation of sound sources varies from signal to signal. To overcome this indeterminacy and improve the robustness of transcription an extension of Independent Subspace Analysis to include sub-band processing is proposed. The use of this approach is demonstrated by its application in a simple drum transcription algorithm.
Relationship strength estimation in social media using Folksonomy

We propose relationship strength in social media using folksonomy. We concretely estimate similarity between web pages in social bookmarking services using a tag vocabulary. A social bookmarking service is one of the most famous social media on the Internet. Since the web pages are selected according to users' interests but not their contents, in the services the classification of them is different from one in ordinary content-based approaches. In this paper we focus relationship strength estimation among web pages using a tag vocabulary. Avoiding a problem that tags includes some ambiguities among users, a similarity between web pages is defined in each user at first. The similarities are integrated over all users regarding the frequency of evaluation and a variance of the similarities. At last social bookmarking data are represented as a weighted network and it is easy to capture the relationships among all web pages registered in a social bookmarking service. To evaluate our proposed approach we carry out some experiments using real social bookmarking service, Buzzurl social bookmarking service. Then we confirm the proposed approach is superior to some comparative approaches and our proposed approach can capture more related web pages.
Learning Balanced and Unbalanced Graphs via Low-Rank Coding

Graphs have been widely applied in modeling the relationships and structures in real-world applications. Graph construction is the most critical part in these models, while how to construct an effective graph is still an open problem. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to graph construction based on two observations. First, by virtue of recent advances in low-rank subspace recovery, the similarity between every two samples evaluated in the low-rank code space is more robust than that in the sample space. Second, a sparse and balanced graph can greatly increase the performance of learning tasks, such as label propagation in graph based semi-supervised learning. The k-NN sparsification can provide fast solutions to constructing unbalanced sparse graphs, and b-matching constraint is a necessary route for generating balanced graphs. These observations motivate us to jointly learn the low-rank codes and balanced (or unbalanced) graph simultaneously. In particular, two non-convex models are built by incorporating k-NN constraint and b-matching constraint into the low-rank representation model, respectively. We design a majorization-minimization augmented Lagrange multiplier (MM-ALM) algorithm to solve the proposed models. Extensive experimental results on four image databases demonstrate the superiority of our graphs over several state-of-the-art graphs in data clustering, transductive and inductive semi-supervised learning.
Probing the dynamical state of galaxy clusters

We show how hydrostatic equilibrium in galaxy clusters can be quantitatively probed combining X-ray, SZ, and gravitational-lensing data. Our previously published method for recovering three-dimensional cluster gas distributions avoids the assumption of hydrostatic equilibrium. Independent reconstructions of cumulative total-mass profiles can then be obtained from the gas distribution, assuming hydrostatic equilibrium, and from gravitational lensing, neglecting it. Hydrostatic equilibrium can then be quantified comparing the two. We describe this procedure in detail and show that it performs well on progressively realistic synthetic data. An application to a cluster merger demonstrates how hydrostatic equilibrium is violated and restored as the merger proceeds.
International Student Support Groups: Learning from Experienced Group Members and Leaders

ABSTRACT A multisite qualitative study investigated the experiences of six group leaders and 10 group members who participated in seven different university counseling center international student support groups. Analyses of interview data using hermeneutic interpretation resulted in nine major themes and 10 subthemes organized into four sections: (a) recruitment and group design, (b) experiences of group members, (c) experiences of group leaders, and (d) additional considerations.
Targeting of Proteoglycan Synthesis Pathway: A New Strategy to Counteract Excessive Matrix Proteoglycan Deposition and Transforming Growth Factor-β1-Induced Fibrotic Phenotype in Lung Fibroblasts

Stimulation of proteoglycan (PG) synthesis and deposition plays an important role in the pathophysiology of fibrosis and is an early and dominant feature of pulmonary fibrosis. Transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1) is a major cytokine associated with fibrosis that induces excessive synthesis of matrix proteins, particularly PGs. Owing to the importance of PGs in matrix assembly and in mediating cytokine and growth factor signaling, a strategy based on the inhibition of PG synthesis may prevent excessive matrix PG deposition and attenuates profibrotic effects of TGF-β1 in lung fibroblasts. Here, we showed that 4-MU4-deoxy-β-D-xylopyranoside, a competitive inhibitor of β4-galactosyltransferase7, inhibited PG synthesis and secretion in a dose-dependent manner by decreasing the level of both chondroitin/dermatan- and heparin-sulfate PG in primary lung fibroblasts. Importantly, 4-MU4-deoxy-xyloside was able to counteract TGF-β1-induced synthesis of PGs, activation of fibroblast proliferation and fibroblast-myofibroblast differentiation. Mechanistically, 4-MU4-deoxy-xyloside treatment inhibited TGF-β1-induced activation of canonical Smads2/3 signaling pathway in lung primary fibroblasts. The knockdown of β4-galactosyltransferase7 mimicked 4-MU4-deoxy-xyloside effects, indicating selective inhibition of β4-galactosyltransferase7 by this compound. Collectively, this study reveals the anti-fibrotic activity of 4-MU4-deoxy-xyloside and indicates that inhibition of PG synthesis represents a novel strategy for the treatment of lung fibrosis.
Competing for Consumer Inattention

Consumers purchase multiple types of goods but may be able to examine only a limited number of markets for the best price. We propose a simple model that captures these features, conveying new insights. A firm’s price can deflect or draw attention to its market, and consequently, limited attention introduces a new dimension of cross-market competition. We characterize the equilibrium and show that having partially attentive consumers improves consumer welfare. With less attention, consumers are more likely to miss the best offers; but enhanced cross-market competition decreases average price paid, as leading firms try to stay under the consumers’ radar.
Anxiety and Urban Stress for Parking Spots

The lack of a sustainable urban mobility plan for the city of Pristina and its linkage to spatial plans in the future will bring serious problems for the city, which will have a negative impact on the quality of life. Lack of a serious and professional approach to sustainable city planning, uncontrolled expansion and without predetermined criteria, social cohesion and services have brought the city to a critical point of development. It is clear that the factual situation of parking lots in Pristina is problematic. The need for parking spaces and public parking garages in Prishtina are very immediate. There is no parking plan where there are legal, private parking, illegal parking lots. Therefore, it is important to provide data on the basis of which will be the best solution for parking regulation and categorization. Moreover, there is a solution, but we have to pay! Urbanites, both private and commercial, will have to rent out a variety of parking spaces through the urban zone from commercial vehicle parking operators.
Ecological-Economic Analysis and Valuation of Biodiversity Tinbergen Institute Discussion Paper ( code # 00-100 / 3 )

1. Introduction: context and scope of the study In the spirit of the growing environmental awareness in the past decades, we witness nowadays an increasing interest in biodiversity, both locally and worldwide. Biodiversity requires our attention for two reasons. First, it provides a wide range of benefits to mankind and human activities. Second, many human activities have contributed to unprecedented rates of biodiversity loss, which threaten the stability and continuity of ecosystems as well as their provision of goods and services to mankind. Consequently, in recent years much attention has been directed towards the analysis and valuation of the (loss of) biodiversity. The valuation of biodiversity can be approached from an ecological, economic, or combined perspective. This contribution presents an overview of economic and ecological indicators of biodiversity, identifies the underlying valuation approaches, discusses basic concepts and theories, and reviews the respective applications. The organisation of this study is as follows. Section 2 starts with a concise review of the most important frameworks that focus on the conceptualisation of biodiversity and its role in ecological processes. It continues then with the identification and discussion of alternative ecological valuation approaches of biodiversity, including biotic-richness and ecosystem health approaches. Section 3 addresses the economic concepts and methods relevant to the valuation of biodiversity. It starts with a discussion of the reasons why economists are interested in pursuing monetary value assessment of biodiversity and why some scientists disagree with that. A survey of empirical valuation studies is presented. The distinction between 'resource valuation' and 'biodiversity valuation' is discussed. Finally, respective valuation results and measurement methods are discussed. Section 4 identifies a combined economic-ecological valuation perspective. According to this perspective, biodiversity is analysed, modelled and valued from an integrated point of view, combining natural and social-economic aspects, and thus can enable the construction of mutually consistent indicators of biodiversity. Finally, Section 5 presents conclusions and outlines some recommendations for use of valuation methods and findings in environmental policy.
Aspectual Collaborations: Combining Modules and Aspects

Complex behavior often resists clean modularization in object-oriented languages. Aspect-oriented programming tackles this problem by providing ﬂexible module boundaries that can span and partition classes. However, in order to achieve this ﬂexibility, valuable modularity mechanisms, such as encapsulation and external composition, are lost. The ability to separately compile or reason about a modular unit is also compromised. We propose that this tradeoff is not necessary, and that by expressing aspects as part of our modules, we can restore lost modular properties while maintaining aspectual features. As a concrete demonstration, we present the main features of Aspectual Collaborations, and show how these interact to combine modularity with aspectual behavior. The expressiveness of Aspectual Collaborations, AspectJ, and Hyper/J are compared using a challenge problem, allowing us to estimate the effectiveness of the approach.