Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evaluation of Antioxidant Potential of Commercial Cinnamon Samples and Its Vasculature Effects

Growing concerns on free radicals are the oxidative processes associated with physiological damage. The consumption of functional foods and use of plants with antioxidant capacity are widespread. Given the importance of determining antioxidant capacity in relation to the therapeutic effect, this study was aimed at evaluating cinnamon extract (Cinnamomum sp.) in commercial samples by spectrophotometric and voltammetric methods and assessing the vascular activity of some samples. The spectrophotometric methods performed were DPPH (1,1-diphenyl-2-picrihydrazine), ABTS (2,21-azinobis-(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid)), and Folin-Ciocalteu radical sequestration assays. For the electrochemical experiments, a three-electrode system was used, consisting of carbon paste electrode, platinum wire, and Ag/AgCl/KClsat, representing the working, auxiliary, and reference electrodes, respectively. The electroanalytical methods used were differential pulse, square wave, and cyclic voltammetries. The extracts were prepared in hydroalcoholic solution. A calibration curve with gallic acid was calculated to quantify their equivalent amounts in the analyzed extract. The correlation between the electrochemical approach and the total phenols calculated by the ABTS, DPPH, and Folin-Ciocalteu methods was 0.63, 0.7, and 0.73, respectively, with 1 being an ideal directly proportional correlation. The correlation between spectrophotometric methods was 0.83. A biosensor was developed in a carbon paste electrode using the enzyme laccase, obtained by the fungus Marasmiellus colocasiae. It was observed that the antioxidant profile of the cinnamon samples had an analytical sign improvement of up to 4 times when compared with the electrode without the modification. The samples were analyzed by mass spectrometer, and the main chemical markers found were coumarin, cinnamaldehyde, and eugenol. Pharmacological trials showed that these samples also induce a significant vasorelaxant effect associated to antioxidant potential on vascular injury induced by oxidative stress. Thus, cinnamon showed a high antioxidant capacity, in agreement with the results obtained in other studies, emphasizing its importance as a functional food.
Position gauging of welding joints with an FMCW-based mm-wave radar system

This paper presents a position gauging system of welding joints. While the principle measurement concept was already introduced by Schrattenecker et al. in 2014, here it is focused on different types of practically used welding materials. The sensor used is based on the frequency-modulated continuous-wave principle operating in the W-band. Position estimation (PoE) of different welding geometries is carried out with polarimetric scattering effects introduced by geometrical discontinuities. For the real-time calculation of the signal models a field simulation tool we developed is used. Aside from a variety of geometries, we introduce a geometrical optimization approach that increases the achievable accuracy of the measurement concept. The optimization and PoE of the different welding materials were examined in various simulations and the results were verified by measurements in the laboratory and in an industrial environment. Simulation and measurement were in good agreement.
Co-production of knowledge as part of a OneHealth approach to better control zoonotic diseases

There is increased global and national attention on the need for effective strategies to control zoonotic diseases. Quick, effective action is, however, hampered by poor evidence-bases and limited coordination between stakeholders from relevant sectors such as public and animal health, wildlife and forestry sectors at different scales, who may not usually work together. The OneHealth approach recognises the value of cross-sectoral evaluation of human, animal and environmental health questions in an integrated, holistic and transdisciplinary manner to reduce disease impacts and/or mitigate risks. Co-production of knowledge is also widely advocated to improve the quality and acceptability of decision-making across sectors and may be particularly important when it comes to zoonoses. This paper brings together OneHealth and knowledge co-production and reflects on lessons learned for future OneHealth co-production processes by describing a process implemented to understand spill-over and identify disease control and mitigation strategies for a zoonotic disease in Southern India (Kyasanur Forest Disease). The co-production process aimed to develop a joint decision-support tool with stakeholders, and we complemented our approach with a simple retrospective theory of change on researcher expectations of the system-level outcomes of the co-production process. Our results highlight that while co-production in OneHealth is a difficult and resource intensive process, requiring regular iterative adjustments and flexibility, the beneficial outcomes justify its adoption. A key future aim should be to improve and evaluate the degree of inter-sectoral collaboration required to achieve the aims of OneHealth. We conclude by providing guidelines based on our experience to help funders and decision-makers support future co-production processes.
Factors Associated with Unfavorable Functional Outcomes After Intravenous Thrombolysis in Patients with Acute Ischemic Stroke

Purpose Intravenous thrombolysis (IVT) has become a standard treatment for eligible ischemic stroke patients. However, functional outcomes after receiving IVT varied widely. Hence the primary goal of this study is to identify characteristics related to poor outcomes. Patients and Methods The study enrolled acute ischemic stroke patients aged 18 or older who received IVT within 4.5 hours after onset between January 2018 and December 2020. The data were retrospectively collected from medical records. The patients were classified as having an excellent (0–2) or poor (3–6) outcomes based on the 90-day modified Rankin Scale (mRS). Univariable and multivariable logistic regression analyses were used to evaluate the results. The predictive model was determined and developed the score using regression coefficients. The prediction power was validated using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve analysis. Results The study included 138 eligible participants. Forty-eight patients had unfavorable functional outcomes. With multivariable logistic regression analysis, factors significantly associated with poor outcomes were age (adjusted odds ratio (AOR), 1.03; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.99–1.07; P = 0.05), diabetes (3.96; 1.61–9.37; P = 0.003), admission National Institute of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) (1.08; 1.01–1.15; P = 0.02) and initial Alberta Stroke Program Early Computed Tomography Score (ASPECTS) (0.56; 0.37–0.86; P = 0.009). The predictive model developed from the findings demonstrated good discrimination power (AuROC 0.803, 95% CI 0.728–0.877). Conclusion The current study found that older age, diabetes, atrial fibrillation, higher admission NIHSS, and lower ASPECTS on the initial NCCT brain were related to unfavorable functional outcomes following IVT and served as good predictors of patient functional outcomes.
Accessibility to Safe Drinking Water and Diarrheal Diseases: A Quasi-Experiment on a Case of Water Well Drilling in the Village of Kassouala, Municipality of Tchaourou, Benin, January 2018-July 2019

Background: In 2017, 900 million people in the world did not have sustainable access to safe drinking water (SDW). In addition, between 2016 and 2020, the global population with safely managed drinking water at home increased from 70 percent to 74 percent. Drinking water insecurity is the daily situation of people in developing countries. The lack of SDW supply is at the root of many diseases, including diarrheal diseases. Kassouala is a village in the municipality of Tchaourou without access to SDW, but having benefited from the drilling of a well in September 2018. The objective of this study was to study the effect of access to safe drinking water on the frequency of diarrheal diseases in Kassouala between January 2018 and July 2019. Methods: We conducted a quasi-experimental study in Kassouala using the natural experiments of the village of Bérétou as a control group for estimating the effect of a causal nature. There were double temporal (January 2018-July 2019) and geographical (Kassouala-Bérétou) comparisons based on data collected from health care registers. A population-based comparability survey of the two villages was conducted among 170 households in each village (experimental drinking water had increased to 78.88%, whereas it was nil in 2018 before the well drilling, and the frequency of diarrheal diseases decreased significantly from January 2018 before drilling to July 2019 after drilling (57.11% to 44.64%; p < 0.0001). In Bétérou, on the other hand, a control village, used as counterfactual village, a significant increase was noted (31.48% vs. 50%; p < 0.0001). The difference-in-difference was estimated at −30.99% with a degree of statistical significance estimated at p < 0.0001 accounting for the decrease in the frequency of diarrhea in Kassoula relates to SDW accessibility to the population due to the drilling of the well. Conclusion: Access to safe drinking water in Kassouala has a causal effect on the reduction of diarrheal diseases. However, for the supply of drinking water to be integrated into the community development plan of Tchaourou, it is necessary to support the scaling up of this intervention, which would be considered as a pilot, of a community participation program.
A Nonlinear Loop Filter based PLL With Harmonic Filtering Capability for Single-Phase Grid Integrated System With Improved Dynamic Performance

The major concern for the single-phase grid-connected inverter system is the phase and frequency error of the phase-locked loop (PLL) under various grid disturbances. This paper employs an effective cascaded band pass filter (CBPF) to eliminate the effects of the DC offset and harmonics present in the grid voltage. However, the presence of a prefilter slowed the dynamic performance of all-pass filter (APF) based PLL, implied to generate the orthogonal signal in the single-phase system. To improve the dynamic performance along with the harmonics filtering capability, a nonlinear loop filter (LF) based PLL with CBPF is proposed. The nonlinear LF contains a nonlinear function applied in proportional-integral control to improve the dynamic response of the PLL. Under various grid disturbances, the proposed controller has a faster dynamic response with less overshoot. Furthermore, the proposed PLL is capable of eliminating the effects of DC offset and subharmonics. The proposed PLL is compared with different state-of-the-art PLLs to assess the performance under various grid disturbances. The efficacy is validated experimentally as well as through simulation results.
A Communicationless PCC Voltage Compensation Using an Improved Droop Control Scheme in Islanding Microgrids

This paper proposes a point of common coupling (PCC) voltage compensation method for islanding microgrids using an improved power sharing control scheme among distributed generators (DGs) without communication. The PCC voltage compensation algorithm is implemented in the droop control scheme to reduce the PCC voltage deviation produced by the droop controller itself and the voltage drop on the line impedance. The control scheme of each individual DG unit is designed to use only locally measured feedback variables and an obtained line impedance to calculate the PCC voltage. Therefore, traditional voltage measurement devices installed at the PCC as well as communication between the PCC and the DGs are not required. The proposed control scheme can maintain the PCC voltage amplitude within an allowed range even to some extent assuming inaccurate line impedance parameters. In addition, it can achieve proper power sharing in islanding microgrids. Experimental results obtained under accurate and inaccurate line impedances are presented to show the performance of the proposed control scheme in islanding microgrids.
Experimental investigation of a thermally driven pumping system for a potential application with a microgrid system for rural communities

Renewable energy-based microgrid systems are widely being studied as electrification methods for rural communities in developing countries. Waste heat generated by the components of the microgrid systems, such as the biogas driven generators (BDG), presents the potential of utilizing the low-grade heat in a way that can contribute to the sustainability of such energy systems. From the points of view of affordability, local manufacturability, and applicability for agriculture, thermally driven pumps (TDP) may be attractive for coupling with such microgrid systems. Therefore, the current study has focused on the development of a new type of thermally driven pumping system as a potential waste heat utilization component for microgrid applications in rural areas. A liquid piston-type TDP concept without moving parts, except few valves, was developed and parametric experimental investigations were carried out. The performance and characteristics of the system were studied, which revealed that the proposed system has a superior performance compared to the literature. It was also found that the system performance strongly depends on the heat addition rate and delivery capacity of the system, which are suitable characteristics for the intended application. Hence, the experimental data were used to estimate whether the proposed system can pump enough water that needs to be supplied for the biogas production to supply a 10 kW BDG unit of a microgrid. It was found that 87 – 93% of the total pumped water (13 – 27 m 3 ) would be available for agricultural and other purposes while only 6 – 13% would need to be fed to the biogas digester. Generally, the results seem to be promising, and yet there are potentials for the optimization and improvement of the proposed system, hence they have been pointed out.
Research on Badminton Teaching Technology Based on Human Pose Estimation Algorithm

Human pose estimation is an important task in physical education, which can provide a valuable reference for teachers and students. We propose a human pose estimation method based on part affinity field. Firstly, the correlation of position information and orientation information between limb regions is maintained by part affinity field. Then the key points of limb pose are localized by part confidence map, and finally, the part affinity field is integrated to correlate all the acquired feature key points to obtain the human pose estimation. With the aid of computer vision technology, the students’ training movements can be compared with the standard movements. It enables the students to feel the standard movements and badminton hitting points more intuitively. In the experiment, we set up a comparison experiment to compare the teaching mode of the method in this paper with the traditional teaching mode. The experimental results prove that through the teaching mode of our method, students have more standard strokes, more smooth skill switching between badminton serves and strokes, and higher badminton stroke scores. At the same time, such a teaching system adds a lot of fun to the course and makes the students’ participation higher.
Enhancement of LLLIs with improved BCP and matrix completion

The problem of enhancement of low light level images (LLLIs) with the characteristics of extremely low brightness and low contrast is addressed. A coarse-to-fine framework to settle the problem is proposed. First, a point-wise linear relationship is constructed between an LLLI and its enhancement result, and a prior named bright channel prior (BCP) is introduced to guide the enhancement process. The BCP to avoid over enhancement is improved, and the idea of matrix completion to remove the outlier noises in the enhanced image is used. Experimental results on real images demonstrate that the method is effective for the enhancement of LLLIs.
An evaluation of the use different techniques of thethermoplasticized obturators on the coronal seal

Background: The aim of the present study was to evaluate coronal leakage of root canals obturated by various techniques. Methodology: Straight single rooted teeth with mature apices (6 groups of 10 teeth each). Root canals were prepared according to the crown down technique using hand ProTaper system. Endofill root canal sealer and 2.5% sodium hypochlorite was used. Root canals were obturated using cold lateral condensation Thermafil and Soft Core obturation after root canal filling the six groups was divided into two individual groups of 30 teeth. The first group of 30 teeth was kept for 1 week the second 3 week at 37 oC. Teeth were immersed in india ink. Each was split and sectioned longitudinally and the maximum extent of leakage was measured using a stereomicroscope Results: Leakage occurred whatever filling technique was used the number of teeth with gross leakage decreased with time up to 3 weeks. There were significant differences in coronal leakage between the various obturation techniques after 1 week, and after 3 weeks. No statistically significant differences were found between soft-Core and cold lateral condensation after 1 week and statistically significant differences were found after 3 weeks. There were statistically significant differences between Thermafil and lateral condensation after 1 week and no statistically significant differences after 3 weeks. Conclusion: Under the conditions of the present study none of the gutta-percha obturation techniques prevented coronal leakage. Coronal leakage increased during the first week for CLC, Thermafil and Soft-Core obturators, and decreased after 3 weeks. Coronal leakage in the Soft-Core obturators was higher than Thermafil and CLC after one week. Thermafil coronal leakage was lower than others after one week. Coronal leakage in the Soft-Core obturators higher than Thermafil and CLC after three weeks coronal leakage was equal in Thermafil and CLC after three weeks.
Improving Characteristics of FSMs With Mixed Codes of Outputs

Practically, any digital system includes sequential blocks. This paper considers a case when LUT-based sequential blocks are represented by Mealy finite state machines (FSMs). The LUT count is one of the most important characteristics of an FSM circuit. In this paper, a method is proposed which aims at decreasing the LUT counts of FPGA-based Mealy FSMs with mixed encoding of the collections of outputs. To do it, a method of encoding of the fields of compatible states is proposed. The proposed approach leads to LUT-based Mealy FSM circuits having three levels of logic blocks. Each function for any logic level is represented by a circuit including a single LUT. There is given an example of FSM synthesis with the proposed method. The experiments are conducted using standard benchmark FSMs. The results of experiments show that the proposed approach produces LUT-based circuits with fewer LUTs than it is for circuits produced by other investigated methods (Auto and One-hot of Vivado, JEDI, the mixed encoding the collections of outputs). The LUT count is decreased by an average of 6.97 to 62.85 percent. These improvements are accompanied by a slight decrease in the maximum operating frequency. The frequency is decreased by up to 8.09%. The advantages of the proposed method increase as the number of FSM inputs and states increases.
Effects of Foam Rolling vs. Manual Therapy in Patients with Tension-Type Headache: A Randomized Pilot Study

Background: This study compares the effect of foam rolling (FR) vs. manual therapy (MT) on pain, pressure pain threshold (PPT), headache disability (HDI) and impact of headache (HIT-6) in patients with tension-type headache (TTH). Methods: A total of 38 participants with TTH were randomly assigned to an FR group (FRG, n = 13), an MT group (MTG, n = 13) or a control group (CG, n = 12). FRG received FR treatment; MTG received MT techniques; CG received a placebo treatment. The treatment lasted one month. Outcome measures were assessed at baseline, post-intervention and follow-up. Results: Both FRG and MTG showed significant improvements in all variables after the treatment, but the intervention effect was maintained only for functional disability (p = 0.002 and p = 0.005, respectively), overall disability (p = 0.007; p = 0.030) and HIT-6 (p = 0.002; p = 0.001) at follow-up. After treatment, FRG and MTG presented a significantly higher PPT in right (p = 0.044; p = 0.009) and left suboccipital (p = 0.004; p = 0.021). MTG showed a significantly lower HIT-6 than CG (p = 0.008). No differences between FRG and MTG were found in any variable. Conclusions: Both FR and MT are effective treatments for the improvement of clinical symptoms in TTH. Further studies are needed to confirm our findings in a larger population.
Green Synthesis of BPL-NiONPs Using Leaf Extract of Berberis pachyacantha: Characterization and Multiple In Vitro Biological Applications

An eco-friendly biogenic method for the synthesis of nickel oxide nanoparticles (NiONPs) using phytochemically rich Berberis pachyacantha leaf extract (BPL) was established. To achieve this purpose, 80 mL of BPL extract was used as a suitable reducing and capping agent for the synthesis of NiONPs. The synthesis of BPL-based nickel oxide nanoparticles (BPL@NiONPs) was confirmed using different microscopic and spectroscopic techniques: UV Visible spectroscopy (UV-Vis), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), energy dispersive X-ray (EDX), dynamic light scattering (DLS) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis. Spectroscopically, BPL-NiONPs was found with a pure elemental composition (oxygen and nickel), average size (22.53 nm) and rhombohedral structure with multiple functional groups (-OH group and Ni-O formation) on their surface. In the next step, the BPL extract and BPL@NiONPs were further investigated for various biological activities. As compared to BPL extract, BPL@NiONPs exhibited strong biological activities. BPL@NiONPs showed remarkable antioxidant activities in terms of 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (76.08%) and total antioxidant capacity (68.74%). Antibacterial action was found against Pseudomonas aeruginosa (27 mm), Staphylococcus aureus (20 mm) and Escherichia coli (19.67 mm) at 500 µg/mL. While antifungal potentials were shown against Alternaria alternata (81.25%), Fusarium oxysporum (42.86%) and Aspergillus niger (42%) at 1000 µg/mL. Similarly, dose-dependent cytotoxicity response was confirmed against brine shrimp with IC50 value (45.08 µg/mL). Additionally, BPL@NiONPs exhibited stimulatory efficacy by enhancing seed germination rate at low concentrations (31.25 and 62.5 µg/mL). In conclusion, this study depicted that BPL extract has important phytochemicals with remarkable antioxidant activities, which successfully reduced and stabilized the BPL@NiONPs. The overall result of this study suggested that BPL@NiONPs could be used as nanomedicines and nanofertilizers in biomedical and agrarian fields.