Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Preparation, Antioxidant and Immunoregulatory Activities of a Macromolecular Glycoprotein from Salvia miltiorrhiza

Salvia miltiorrhiza has exhibited various bioactive functions due to the existence of polysaccharides, hydrophilic phenolic acids, diterpenoid quinones, and essential oils. However, little research has reported the glycoprotein preparation and corresponding bioactivities. In this study, the water-soluble glycoprotein from S. miltiorrhiza roots was firstly isolated with the extraction process optimized by response surface methodology, and then, the preliminary structural properties, and the antioxidant and immunoregulatory activities were investigated. Results showed that the extraction conditions for higher extraction yields were identified as follows: ultrasonic power of 220 W, ultrasonic time of 2.0 h, extraction temperature of 60 °C, liquid/solid ratio of 20 mL/g, and the glycoprotein yields of 1.63 ± 0.04%. Structural analysis showed that the glycoprotein comprised protein and polysaccharide (contents of 76.96% and 20.62%, respectively), with an average molecular weight of 1.55 × 105 Da. Besides, bioactivities analysis showed that the glycoprotein presented strong scavenging effects on multiple free radicals, and effectively enhanced the antioxidant enzyme activities and immunological indicators in cyclophosphamide-induced immunocompromised mice dose-dependently. These data demonstrated that S. miltiorrhiza glycoprotein presented the potential to be a novel edible functional compound, and could be practically applied in the food industry.
Quality awareness of tap drinking water among Bangkok city residents and implications for sustainable supply management

Although tap water in Bangkok has met international standards, some consumers do not trust that it is safe to drink. The demand for bottled water is still increasing. This may result in infrastructure investments and the production of waste. This study aimed to explore factors that influence the acceptance of drinkable tap water among Bangkok residents. Data for this cross-sectional study were collected via an interview of 374 participants using a structured questionnaire. There was a significant prevalence (51.87%) for the acceptance of drinkable tap water among Bangkok residents. Among them, 82.99% selected tap water to drink and 9.79% drank water directly from the tap. Factors that affected the acceptance of drinkable tap water were occupation, monthly income, campaign perception, personal belief, unacceptable sensory appearance, risk perception, knowledge, and attitude. This study found that drinking water selection was not associated with self-reported diarrhea. While we recognize that the cross-sectional study has some limitations, our data may provide additional insight into factors which affect consumer's behavior and may offer several benefits for water suppliers and public health decision-makers. This would eventually increase public awareness for economic benefits associated with the use of tap water and finally would reduce pollution by plastic waste.
Shuffle & untangle: novel untangle methods for solving the tanglegram layout problem

Abstract Motivation A tanglegram is a plot of two-tree-like diagrams, one facing the other, and having their labels connected by inter-tree edges. These two trees, which could be both phylogenetic trees and dendrograms stemming from hierarchical clusterings, have thus identically labelled leaves but different topologies. As a result, the inter-tree edges of a tanglegram can be intricately tangled and difficult to be analysed and explained by human readers. To better visualize the tanglegram (and thus compare the two dendrograms) one may try to untangle it, i.e. search for that series of flippings of the various branches of the two trees that minimizes the number of crossings among the inter-tree edges. The untanglement problem has received significant interest in the past decade, and several techniques have been proposed to address it. These techniques are computationally efficient but tend to fail at finding the global optimum configuration generating the least tangly tanglegram. Results We leverage the existing results to propose untanglement methods that are characterized by an overall slower convergence method than the ones in the literature, but that produce tanglegrams with lower entanglements. Availability and implementation One of the algorithms is implemented in Python, and available from https://github.com/schlegelp/tanglegram.
Therapeutic Potential of a Combination of Electroacupuncture and Human iPSC-Derived Small Extracellular Vesicles for Ischemic Stroke

This paper aimed to explore the roles of the combination of electroacupuncture (EA) and induced pluripotent stem cell-derived small extracellular vesicles (iPSC-EVs) on mice with ischemic stroke and the underlying mechanisms. A focal cerebral ischemia model was established in C57BL/6 mice through middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO). After 3 days, neurological impairment and motor function were examined by performing behavioral tests. The infarct volume and neuronal apoptosis were examined using TTC staining and TUNEL assays. Flow cytometry was performed to assess the proliferation of T lymphocytes. The changes in the interleukin (IL)-33/ST2 axis were evaluated by immunofluorescence and Western blotting. The combination of EA and iPSC-EVs treatment ameliorated neurological impairments and reduced the infarct volume and neuronal apoptosis in MCAO mice. EA plus iPSC-EVs suppressed T helper (Th1) and Th17 responses and promoted the regulatory T cell (Treg) response. In addition, EA plus iPSC-EVs exerted neuroprotective effects by regulating the IL-33/ST2 axis and inhibiting the microglia and astrocyte activation. Taken together, the study shows that EA and iPSC-EVs exerted a synergistic neuroprotective effect in MCAO mice, and this treatment may represent a novel potent therapy for ischemic stroke and damage to other tissues.
Hand Pronation–Supination Movement as a Proxy for Remotely Monitoring Gait and Posture Stability in Parkinson’s Disease

The Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) is a subjective Parkinson’s Disease (PD) physician scoring/monitoring system. To date, there is no single upper limb wearable/non-contact system that can be used objectively to assess all UPDRS-III motor system subgroups (i.e., tremor (T), rigidity (R), bradykinesia (B), gait and posture (GP), and bulbar anomalies (BA)). We evaluated the use of a non-contact hand motion tracking system for potential extraction of GP information using forearm pronation–supination (P/S) motion parameters (speed, acceleration, and frequency). Twenty-four patients with idiopathic PD participated, and their UPDRS data were recorded bilaterally by physicians. Pearson’s correlation, regression analyses, and Monte Carlo validation was conducted for all combinations of UPDRS subgroups versus motion parameters. In the 262,125 regression models that were trained and tested, the models within 1% of the lowest error showed that the frequency of P/S contributes to approximately one third of all models; while speed and acceleration also contribute significantly to the prediction of GP from the left-hand motion of right handed patients. In short, the P/S better indicated GP when performed with the non-dominant hand. There was also a significant negative correlation (with medium to large effect size, range: 0.3–0.58) between the P/S speed and the single BA score for both forearms and combined UPDRS score for the dominant hand. This study highlights the potential use of wearable or non-contact systems for forearm P/S to remotely monitor and predict the GP information in PD.
Study of Melamine-Formaldehyde/Phase Change Material Microcapsules for the Preparation of Polymer Films by Extrusion

n-Eicosane-melamine formaldehyde microcapsules of an average size of 1.1 μm and latent heat of fusion of 146.2 ± 5.3 J/g have been prepared. They have been characterized by scanning electron microscopy, FTIR spectroscopy, calorimetric techniques, and thermogravimetric analyses. Under processing conditions, the microcapsules apparently preserved their properties, also maintaining their n-eicosane loading and heat storage capacity under washing conditions (water with detergent at 60 °C). The microcapsules synthesis has been scaled up for the fabrication of functional films by extrusion. For that, polymer films containing 10 wt. % of microcapsules were prepared at a pilot plant level. In those films, even though a fraction of the n-eicosane loading was lost during the extrusion process, the microcapsules showed good compatibility within the polyamide. The percentage of PCM in the polyamide 6 films was estimated by TGA, verifying also the heat storage capacity predicted by DSC (2.6 ± 0.7 J/g).
A Novel Deep Learning-based Sentiment Analysis Method Enhanced with Emojis in Microblog Social Networks

ABSTRACT To exactly classify sentiments of microblog reviews with emojis in microblog social networks, this paper first proposes an emoji vectorisation method to achieve emoji vectors. Then, an emoji-text integrated bidirectional LSTM (ET-BiLSTM) model for sentiment analysis is proposed. In this model, review text-based sentence representations are extracted by a bidirectional LSTM network. Emoji-based auxiliary representations are obtained by a new attention mechanism. The two representations are further integrated into final review representation vectors. Finally, experimental results indicate that the proposed ET-BiLSTM model improves the performance of sentiment classification evaluated by macro-P, macro-R and macro-F1 scores in microblog social networks.
Comparison between Janus-Base Nanotubes and Carbon Nanotubes: A Review on Synthesis, Physicochemical Properties, and Applications

Research interest in nanoscale biomaterials has continued to grow in the past few decades, driving the need to form families of nanomaterials grouped by similar physical or chemical properties. Nanotubes have occupied a unique space in this field, primarily due to their high versatility in a wide range of biomedical applications. Although similar in morphology, members of this nanomaterial family widely differ in synthesis methods, mechanical and physiochemical properties, and therapeutic applications. As this field continues to develop, it is important to provide insight into novel biomaterial developments and their overall impact on current technology and therapeutics. In this review, we aim to characterize and compare two members of the nanotube family: carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and janus-base nanotubes (JBNts). While CNTs have been extensively studied for decades, JBNts provide a fresh perspective on many therapeutic modalities bound by the limitations of carbon-based nanomaterials. Herein, we characterize the morphology, synthesis, and applications of CNTs and JBNts to provide a comprehensive comparison between these nanomaterial technologies.
Portable Electrochemical DNA Sensors Based on Gene Amplification Reactions to Screen and Identify Pathogen and SNPs

In this paper, we introduce portable sensors based on genetic measurements that can be used in the field for the diagnosis of infectious diseases and disease risk based on SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms). In particular, the sensors are based on electrochemical measurements that can be performed with printed electrodes and small measuring devices. Indicator molecules that can bind to nucleic acid molecules in various ways are already known, and some of these molecules have electrochemical activity. First, we investigated the change in their electrochemical responses in a solution system. As a result, we searched for nucleic acid-binding molecules whose current value changes in the presence of DNA. In addition, when we measured the change in the current value, associated with the amplification of specific genes, such as PCR (polymerase chain reaction) and LAMP (loop-mediated isothermal amplification), we found that the current value decreased with the number of amplifications, indicating that specific genes can be monitored electrochemically. Based on this principle, we showed that pathogenic microorganisms and viruses, such as Salmonella, O157 E. coli, hepatitis B virus, periodontal disease bacteria, antibiotic-resistant bacteria and influenza virus, were able to be measured. The method was also applied to the diagnosis of SNPs, such as ApoE (apolipoprotein E), which is a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease. Rapid PCR was available with a microfluidic device, and a simple method was also presented with the isothermal amplification of LAMP.
In-House Service Design Roles - A First Look

A sign that the field of service design is maturing is the increase in service design education programs around the world. With this increase in number of students reaching the professional arena, it is important to consider the options for future employment. Service design is currently discussed as an activity by design consultancies. This paper will look at service designers working within organizations and companies. More specifically we want to gain knowledge on the roles service designers have within organizations, what they do, when they are involved in projects, and how they fit with the overall structure of organizations. The research is based on interviews with 9 service designer in 6 different countries. We find that very few seem to have a dedicated service design function within their companies, that they work within a span between design and strategy in many different constellations and that they share the function as interpreters or advocates for customers. Designers working on a strategic level can influence what the organization designs, while roles on the operative design level work with how to deliver service concepts that have already been decided. in-house design; service design; case study; interviews
Verification, Validation and Accreditation (VV&A) for Simulation System: Current Status and Future

This paper presents a general overview of the Verification, Validation and Accreditation (VVA) of the simulation system. Firstly looks back to the history of VVA of simulation system and introduces the great amount of reference of VVA from all kinds of resources. Secondly, discusses the concepts and principles that formed the foundation of VVA science in studying the simulation system. Then, talks about the VVA process in the life cycle of simulation system, as well as the tailoring and optimizing problem of VVA plan. This paper also gives an overview of the verification and validation techniques and the automation tools for VVA practice. Finally, some conclusions of the current status of VVA of simulation system and the future trend are presented.
Scene Graph Generation with Structured Aspect of Segmenting the Big Distributed Clusters

Accurate fruit counting is one of the important phenotypic traits for crucial fruit harvesting decision making. Existing approaches perform counting through detection or regression counting. Detection of fruit instances is very challenging because of the very small fruit size as compared to the whole size image of a tree, while regression-based counting gives impressive results but becomes inaccurate when the number of instances increases. Moreover, most approaches lack scalability and are applicable only on one or two fruit types. In this paper, we propose a fruit counting mechanism that combines loose segmentation and regression counting that works on six fruit types, such as Apple, Orange, Tomato, Peach, Pomegranate and Almond. Through relaxed segmentation, fruit clusters are segmented to extract the small image regions which contain the small cluster of fruits. Extracted regions are forwarded for the regression counting of fruits. Relaxed segmentation is achieved through a state-of-the-art deconvolutional network, while modified Inception Residual Networks (ResNet) based nonlinear regression module is proposed for fruit counting. For segmentation, 4,820 original images, including corresponding mask images, of all six fruit types are augmented to 32,412 images through different augmentation techniques, while 21,450 extracted patches are augmented to 89,120 images used for the regression module training. The proposed approach has superseded the counting accuracy of existing approaches of individual fruit types, but we have achieved an overall 94.71% accuracy.
Home Food Environment Changes and Dietary Intake during an Adolescent Behavioral Weight Loss Intervention Differ by Food Security Status

Behavioral weight loss (BWL) for pediatric obesity includes guidance on improving the home food environment and dietary quality; yet food insecurity presents barriers to making these changes. This study examined if home food environment, dietary quality, energy intake, and body weight changes during adolescent obesity treatment differed by food security status, and if changes in the home food environment were associated with changes in dietary quality and energy intake by food security status. Adolescents (n = 82; 13.7 ± 1.2 years) with obesity participated in a 4-month BWL treatment. Food insecurity, home food environment (Home Food Inventory [HFI]), dietary quality (Healthy Eating Index [HEI]), energy intake, and body mass index (BMI) were assessed at baseline and post-treatment. A reduced obesogenic home food environment and improved dietary quality were observed for food secure (ps < 0.01), but not insecure households (ps > 0.05) (mean difference, HFI: −6.6 ± 6.4 vs. −2.4 ± 7.4; HEI: 5.1 ± 14.4 vs. 2.7 ± 17.7). Energy intake and BMI decreased for adolescents in food secure and insecure households (ps < 0.03) (mean difference; energy intake: −287 ± 417 vs. −309 ± 434 kcal/day; BMI: −1.0 ± 1.4 vs. −0.7 ± 1.4). BWL yielded similar reductions in energy intake and body weight yet did not offer the same benefits for improved dietary quality and the home food environment for adolescents with food insecurity.
Bandit-Based Power Control in Full-Duplex Cooperative Relay Networks With Strict-Sense Stationary and Non-Stationary Wireless Communication Channels

Full-duplex relaying is an enabling technique of sixth generation (6G) mobile networks, promising tremendous rate and spectral efficiency gains. In order to improve the performance of full-duplex communications, power control is a viable way of avoiding excessive loop interference at the relay. Unfortunately, power control requires channel state information of source-relay, relay-destination and loop interference channels, thus resulting in increased overheads. Aiming to offer a low-complexity alternative for power control in such networks, we adopt reward-based learning in the sense of multi-armed bandits. More specifically, we present bandit-based power control, relying on acknowledgements/negative-acknowledgements observations by the relay. Our distributed algorithms avoid channel state information acquisition and exchange, and can alleviate the impact of outdated channel state information. Two cases are examined regarding the channel statistics of the wireless network, namely, strict-sense stationary and non-stationary channels. For the latter, a sliding window approach is adopted to further improve the performance. Performance evaluation highlights a performance-complexity trade-off, compared to optimal power control with full channel knowledge and significant gains over cases considering channel estimation and feedback overheads, outdated channel knowledge, no power control and random power level selection. Finally, it is shown that the sliding-window bandit-based algorithm provides improved performance in non-stationary settings by efficiently adapting to abrupt changes of the wireless channels.
Cooperative Software Testing and Analysis: Advances and Challenges

In recent years, to maximize the value of software testing and analysis, we have proposed the methodology of cooperative software testing and analysis(in short as cooperative testing and analysis) to enable testing and analysis tools to cooperate with their users(in the form of tool-human cooperation), and enable one tool to cooperate with another tool(in the form of tool-tool cooperation). Such cooperations are motivated by the observation that a tool is typically not powerful enough to address complications in testing or analysis of complex real-world software, and the tool user or another tool may be able to help out some problems faced by the tool. To enable tool-human or tool-tool cooperation, effective mechanisms need to be developed 1) for a tool to communicate problems faced by the tool to the tool user or another tool, and 2) for the tool user or another tool to assist the tool to address the problems. Such methodology of cooperative testing and analysis forms a new research frontier on synergistic cooperations between humans and tools along with cooperations between tools and tools. This article presents recent example advances and challenges on cooperative testing and analysis.
Elemental profiling of toxic and modern primers using ICP-MS, SEM-EDS, and XPS: an application in firearm discharge residue investigation

ABSTRACT The characterization of firearm discharge residue (FDR) as a piece of evidence plays an essential role in interpreting the forensic cases involving the use of firearms, such as robberies, murders, suicides, and serious attacks. In the last decade, modern or non-toxic primers have emerged due to environmental issues. Forensic examination of gunshot residue (GSR) has become challenging as primer compositions now vary greatly. The goal of this paper is to provide the elemental profiling of both toxic and lead-free cartridge primers available in the Turkish ammunition market. Inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy-dispersive X-ray analysis (SEM-EDS), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) were used in this investigation. Multivariate statistical methodologies such as principal component analysis (PCA) and Pearson’s correlation coefficient (PCC) analysis were used to interpret the elemental profile data determined in the residue generated after ignition of the cartridge primers. Three components were observed: Ba-Sb-Pb-Cu-Gd, Ti-Sr-Zn, and Al-Ca-Ga, which is also consistent with the PCC analysis. SEM-EDS was employed to confirm the existence of GSR particles. The binding energies, determined using XPS, indicated the chemical state assignments in samples such as Pb(NO3)2, Sb2S3, Ba(NO3)2, CuO, ZnO and MoS2. This research will improve the robustness of the interpretation of GSR-related evidence.
Successful Treatment of Condyloma Acuminata Using Office-Made Topical 60% Betel Leaf Extract

BACKGROUND: Condyloma acuminata (CA), also known as anogenital warts, is a predominantly sexually transmitted disease caused by the Human Papillomavirus (HPV). The most common strains of HPV that causes anogenital warts are Type 6 and 11. This vdisease affects the mucous membrane as well as skin of the external genitalia and perianal areas. There are several therapeutic modalities for CA such as destructive and surgical therapies; however, these therapies can pose side-effects mostly tissue destruction. Alternative modalities such as using betel leaf can be atreatment option for CA. CASE REPORT: In this paper, we report a 31-year-old female with CA who experienced clinical improvement after 3 weeks of office-made 60% topical betel leaf extract therapy, prompting more thorough research on the possible use of herbal treatments for treating CA. CONCLUSION: Office-made betel leaf extract therapy is a promising topical therapy for CA and is relatively simple to prepare. The plant has various mechanisms such as anti-proliferative and cytotoxic properties that can be studied further to prove its efficacy in the treatment of CA to prevent adverse events caused by other conventional destructive treatment modalities.