Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Developing a “benefits of parental feeding behaviors” questionnaire for parents of preschoolers in urban Thailand

PurposeAwareness concerning the benefits of an action is a consistent influential predictor of personal behavior and essential for healthcare providers in assessing the benefits of parental feeding behaviors (BePFB) toward preschoolers. Nevertheless, a valid and reliable measure of assessment has yet to be found. The objective of this study was to develop a questionnaire on the BePFB for preschoolers' parents in urban Thailand.Design/methodology/approachThe instrument development process comprised two phases: scale construction and psychometric property testing. Phase I involved generating an item pool from the literature review and interviews with 17 preschoolers' parents as the measurement format. The items were then reviewed for content validity by five experts, with items selected by evaluating the factor loading and communality score from exploratory factor analysis (n = 310). Phase II involved testing the psychometric properties by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and reliability using internal consistency (n = 303). FindingsThe first draft of the “Benefits of Parental Feeding Behaviors Questionnaire” (BePFBQ) contained 24 items. Five items were deleted by the experts due to redundancy. Six items were then removed after evaluating the item selection process. CFA reported a good fit with the data (χ2/df ratio = 1.70, GFI = 0.97, CFI = 0.99, RMSEA = 0.048). The regression weights ranged from 0.50 to 0.74, at a statistically significant level of 0.05 with an acceptable value for Cronbach's alpha (a = 0.91). Finally, the BePFBQ contained 13 items in one dimension, with the 5-point Likert scale.Originality/valueThe BePFBQ is a reliable and valid instrument for measuring the BePFB in preschoolers' parents in urban Thailand.
Molecular diversity and derivations of populations of Silene acaulis and Saxifraga oppositifolia from the high Arctic and more southerly latitudes

A survey of allozyme diversity within and between populations of Silene acaulis from Spitsbergen, Norway, Iceland and Scotland, showed that populations from the high Arctic (Spitsbergen, > 76°N) contained high levels of diversity and were genetically similar to populations from more southern locations. Indirect measures of gene flow (Nm), calculated from Wrigh's F indicated that there had been extensive gene flow between Spitsbergen and some Norwegian populations. A restriction site analysis of chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) in S. acaulis revealed that all populations contained a single identical cpDNA haplotype, except one population from Norway which also contained a second haplotype. In contrast, five different cpDNA haplotypes were distinguished in a more limited survey of cpDNA variation in Saxifraga oppositifolia, with all five haplotypes present in one of two Spitsbergen populations surveyed. The contrasting cpDNA results for the two species suggest that whereas high‐Arctic populations of Silene acaulis have most likely been derived from immigrants which arrived from the south after the last glacial period, high‐Arctic populations of Saxifraga oppositifolia may be derived, in part, from ancient northern stocks which survived the last glaciation in high‐Arctic refugia.
An enhanced temperature‐dependent model and state‐of‐charge estimation for a Li‐Ion battery using extended Kalman filter

Development of high‐fidelity mathematical models and state‐of‐charge (SOC) estimation of Li‐ion battery becomes a significant challenge when the temperature effects are considered. In this paper, we propose an enhanced temperature‐dependent equivalent circuit model for a Li‐ion battery and applied it for battery parameters estimation and model validation, as well as SOC estimation. First, the new battery model is elaborated, including a newly integrated resistance‐capacitor structure, a static hysteresis voltage and a temperature compensation voltage term. The forgetting factor least square approach is utilized to realize the parameter identification. Next, the proposed battery model is employed to estimate battery SOC by incorporating the extended Kalman filter algorithm. Finally, simulation results are provided to demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed battery model in comparison with the common first‐order Thevenin temperature model. Compared with Thevenin model, the maximal values of relative reconstruction error and root mean squared error with the proposed battery model are decreased by about 33.3% and 50.0%, respectively, for the battery terminal output voltage, 50.0% and 53.0%, respectively, for the SOC estimation, under three different test profiles.
Reproductive Ecology of the Peruvian Earless Toad Rhinella yunga (Amphibia, Bufonidae) with Descriptions of Calls, Tadpole, and Female Competition

Abstract. Rhinella yunga is a poorly studied but locally abundant endemic bufonid toad found only in two habitat islands of the buffer zones surrounding the Yanachaga-Chemillén National Park and the Pui Pui Protected Forest in the Selva Central, Peru. Rhinella yunga is unique because it lacks a complete tympanic ear and is larger than most toads lacking a tympanic ear. Here, we report on the natural history, reproductive behavior, and territorial and release calls of R. yunga following field- and captivity-based observations across two breeding seasons. We also provide a description of tadpole external morphology based on a developmental series of laboratory-reared larvae. We found that R. yunga (1) uses low frequency calls (800–1,100 Hz) that are likely detectable without tympanic middle ears and (2) appears to exhibit an unusual mating system with female competition at breeding ponds prior to male arrival. Under these conditions, the need to hear male advertisement calls might have become unnecessary in this species.
Peroxisomal Proliferator-Activated Receptor-γ Upregulates Glucokinase Gene Expression in β-Cells

Thiazolidinediones, synthetic ligands of peroxisomal proliferator-activated receptor-γ (PPAR-γ), improve peripheral insulin sensitivity and glucose-stimulated insulin secretion in pancreatic β-cells. To explore the role of PPAR-γ in glucose sensing of β-cells, we have dissected the β-cell-specific glucokinase (βGK) promoter, which constitutes glucose-sensing apparatus in pancreatic β-cells, and identified a peroxisomal proliferator response element (PPRE) in the promoter. The βGK-PPRE is located in the region between +47 and +68 bp. PPAR-γ/retinoid X receptor-α heterodimer binds to the element and activates the βGK promoter. The βGK promoter lacking or having mutations in PPRE cannot be activated by PPAR-γ. PPAR-γ activates the βGK promoter in β-cells as well as non-β-cells. Furthermore, troglitazone increases endogenous GK expression and its enzyme activity in β-cell lines. These results indicate that PPAR-γ can regulate GK expression in β-cells. Taking these results together with our previous work, we conclude that PPAR-γ regulates gene expression of glucose-sensing apparatus and thereby improves glucose-sensing ability of β-cells, contributing to the restoration of β-cell function in type 2 diabetic subjects by troglitazone.
Parallelization and I/O Performance Optimization of a Global Nonhydrostatic Dynamical Core using MPI

: The Global-Regional Integrated forecast System (GRIST) is the next-generation weather and climate integrated model dynamic framework developed by Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences. In this paper, we present several changes made to the global nonhydrostatic dynamical (GND) core, which is part of the ongoing prototype of GRIST. The changes leveraging MPI and PnetCDF techniques were targeted at the parallelization and performance optimization to the original serial GND core. Meanwhile, some sophisticated data structures and interfaces were designed to adjust flexibly the size of boundary and halo domains according to the variable accuracy in parallel context. In addition, the I/O performance of PnetCDF decreases as the number of MPI processes increases in our experimental environment. Especially when the number exceeds 6000, it caused system-wide outages (SWO). Thus, a grouping solution was proposed to overcome that issue. Several experiments were carried out on the supercomputing platform based on Intel x86 CPUs in the National Supercomputing Center in Wuxi. The results demonstrated that the parallel GND core based on grouping solution achieves good strong scalability and improves the performance significantly, as well as avoiding the SWOs.
Pustulomyces gen. nov. Accommodated in Diaporthaceae, Diaporthales, as Revealed by Morphology and Molecular Analyses

Abstract A new coelomycetous genus, Pustulomyces, inhabiting decaying bamboo, is introduced based on morpho-molecular studies. Pustulomyces is characterized by immersed, pustule-like, acervular conidiomata, with dark ostiolar necks, enteroblastic, phialidic conidiogenous cells with a small collarette and fusiform, sigmoid, aseptate, guttulate conidia. In morphology it is similar with Bambusicola (Bambusicolaceae), but maximum-likelihood and Bayesian analyses of the combined LSU and TEF-1 alpha sequence data set shows Pustulomyces belongs in Diaporthaceae, Diaporthales. The new fungus is compared with other morphologically and phylogenetically similar genera.
A Polyp Detection Method based on FBnet

: The incidence of colorectal cancer (CRC) in China has increased in recent years. The mortality rate of CRC has become one of the highest among all cancers; CRC increasingly affects the health and quality of people’s lives. However, due to the insufficiency of medical resources in China, the workload on medical doctors has further increased. In the past few decades, the adult CRC mortality and morbidity rate dropped sharply, mainly because of CRC screening and removal of adenomatous polyps. However, due to the differences in polyp itself and the skills of endoscopists, the detection rate of polyps varies greatly. In this paper, we adopt an anchor-free mechanism and introduce a better method to factorize the process of bounding box regression. Firstly, we regress the shape of object by the variant of Faster RCNN. Secondly, we re-define the target function of the location of object. The experimental result shows that our method achieves a mAP of 55.8%, which outperforms other state-of-the-art methods by at least 11.9%. This will greatly help to reduce the missed diagnosis of clinicians during endoscopy and treatment, and provide effective help for early diagnosis, early treatment and prevention of CRC.
Radiosynthesis of a new radioiodinated ligand for serotonin‐5HT2‐receptors, a promising tracer for γ‐emission tomography

4-Amino-N-[1-[3-(4-fluorophenoxy)propyl]-4-methyl-4-piperidinyl]-2-methoxy-benzamide, a compound with high affinity for 5HT2-receptors, was radioiodinated on the 2-position of the phenoxygroup or the 5-position of the methoxybenzamide group. The former (obtained by Cu1+-assisted radioiodo for bromo exchange) showed high lipophilicity and high non-specific binding to rat brain tissue both in vitro and in vivo. The second labelled compound, 125I-4-amino-N-[1-[3-(4-fluorophenoxy)propyl]-4-methyl-4-piperidinyl]-5-iodo-2-methoxybenza-mide, obtained by direct electrophilic substitution, showed high affinity (Kd of 0.11 ± 0.01 nM) and marked selectivity for 5HT2-receptors in vitro. Moreover in vivo studies in rats over the course of 1-3 hrs post i.v. injection of the radioactive ligand, showed steady preferential retention of radioactivity in the frontal cortex, which is enriched in 5HT2 receptors. (Frontal cortex (FC) / Cerebellum ratio of 10 and FC / Blood ratio of 6, amount compound / mg tissue).
Investigation of the quenching efficiency of diatoxanthin in cells of Phaeodactylum tricornutum (Bacillariophyceae) with different pool sizes of xanthophyll cycle pigments

A. Schumann, R. Goss, T. Jakob and C. Wilhelm. 2007. Investigation of the quenching efficiency of diatoxanthin in cells of Phaeodactylum tricornutum (Bacillariophyceae) with different pool sizes of xanthophyll cycle pigments. Phycologia 46: 113–117. DOI: 10.2216/06-30.1 In the present study, the content of diadinoxanthin (Dd) + diatoxanthin (Dt) in the diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum was manipulated by low-light (LL) and high-light (HL) growth conditions. Cells grown in HL almost doubled the pool size of Dd cycle pigments compared to cells from a LL culture. HL-grown cultures exhibited a stronger de-epoxidation and higher amounts of Dt during actinic HL illumination. However, the correlation between Dt and the corresponding nonphotochemical quenching (NPQ) revealed that the quenching efficiency of Dt was drastically decreased in these HL-grown cells compared to cells from the LL cultivation. The correlation between the de-epoxidation state of the Dd cycle and NPQ implied that in HL-grown cells a part of the Dt molecules had lost their ability to contribute to the NPQ. A precise quantification of the amount of free Dd + Dt by anion exchange chromatography and high-performance liquid chromatography showed that only 10% of the additionally synthesized Dd cycle pigments existed as free pigment in the thylakoid membrane and that most of the Dd + Dt was still bound to the light-harvesting proteins. The possible function of the additional free Dt in photo-protection and the antenna-bound Dt in the synthesis of the light-harvesting pigment fucoxanthin is discussed.
Criterion validity of two mobile applications to count the number of steps in older adults with chronic pain

Abstract Aim Mobile applications to count the number of steps can be used to promote physical activity. However, its accuracy is seldom tested in older adults with pain. This study aimed to assess the criterion validity of two mobile applications to measure the number of steps in older adults with pain, and whether it was affected by gait velocity, type of path and smartphone position. Methods Fifty old adults with chronic pain were asked to walk on different paths and at different velocities with two mobile applications (Pedometro – Step Counter and EasyFit Pedometer), running on a smartphone positioned at the arm and the front pocket of the trousers. Mobile applications counting were compared against the manual counting of an observer. Results Correlations between manual counting and app measurements were ≥0.99 for Pedometro and between – 0.35 and 0.24 for EasyFit Pedometer; mean percentage differences were below 10% for the first app and above 10% for 9 out of 10 comparisons for the second. Conclusion Only the Pedometer – Step Counter was able to accurately count the number of steps independently of path and smartphone position. These suggest the need to assess the validity of mobile apps before making them available to the public.
APPLYING MACHINE LEARNING MODELS IN STOCK MARKET PREDICTION

This paper deals with the techniques of attempting to calculate the future value of a company stock or any other financial instrument which is being traded in a stock exchange. This prediction plays a great role in many financing and investing decisions. This calculation can be done by Machine learning by training a model to identify the trend from past data in order to predict the future. The main topic of study here will be the comparative analysis of the SVM and LTSM algorithms. KEYWORDS: Machine learning, Stock price, Stock market, Support vector machine, neural network, long short term memory.
Environmental Effects on Turgor Pressure Response in Range Grasses

The effect of environment on turgor pressure responses was determined over a range of drought stress for the following grass species: Agropyron caninum (L.) Beauv. ; A. desertorum [Fisch. ex Link] Schult. ; A. intermedium (Host) Beauv. ; A. trachycaulum (Link) Malte ex H. Lewis; Elymus cinereus Scribn. & Merr. ; E. junceus Fisch. Plants of each species were started from seed and exposed to environments characterized by three nightday temperature combinations of 5/10, 10/15, and 15/25C. Water potential components of detached leaf samples were determined throughout a drying cycle with a psychrometric technique. Turgor pressure responses changed as environmental conditions changed. Generally, plants in the low-temperature environment maintained turgor over a wider range of leaf water potentials than plants did in the two higher temperature environments. Temperature environments also influenced turgor responses to a larger degree in some species than in others. The effect of environments on the leaf water potential where turgor declined to zero ranged from about 4 bars in E. junceus and A. intermedium to more than 8 bars in E. cinereus. When values of leaf water potential where turgor equals zero were used to rank species for drought resistance, rankings changed in different environments. These resuits suggest that the environments in which plant materials are grown should be carefully considered if maintenance of turgor is used to estimate relative drought resistance.
Differential Nucleocytoplasmic Shuttling of β-Arrestins

β-arrestins (βarrs) are two highly homologous proteins that uncouple G protein-coupled receptors from their cognate G proteins, serve as adaptor molecules linking G protein-coupled receptors to clathrin-coat components (AP-2 complex and clathrin), and act as scaffolding proteins for ERK1/2 and JNK3 cascades. A striking difference between the two βarrs (βarr1 and βarr2) is that βarr1 is evenly distributed throughout the cell, whereas βarr2 shows an apparent cytoplasmic localization at steady state. Here, we investigate the molecular determinants underlying this differential distribution. βarr2 is constitutively excluded from the nucleus by a leptomycin B-sensitive pathway because of the presence of a classical leucine-rich nuclear export signal in its C terminus (L395/L397) that is absent in βarr1. In addition, using a nuclear import assay in yeast we showed that βarr2 is actively imported into the nucleus, suggesting that βarr2 undergoes constitutive nucleocytoplasmic shuttling. In cells expressing βarr2, JNK3 is mostly cytosolic. A point mutation of the nuclear export signal (L395A) in βarr2, which was sufficient to redistribute βarr2 from the cytosol to the nucleus, also caused the nuclear relocalization of JNK3. These data indicate that the nucleocytoplasmic shuttling of βarr2 controls the subcellular distribution of JNK3.
A Divergent Synthesis of Lipid A and Its Chemically Stable Unnatural Analogues

Lipid A and its two chemically stable analogues, wherein the glycosidic phosphoryl groups in lipid A is replaced with 2-(phosphonooxy)ethyl or carboxymethyl groups, have been synthesized by an improved and divergent route via a common allyl glycoside intermediate in which the 4-hydroxy group was protected as a benzyl ether. The total yields were more than 20% for 11 or 12 steps starting from allyl 4,6-O-benzylidene-2-deoxy-2-(trichloroethoxycarbonylamino)-D-glucopyranoside. These synthetic chemically stable analogues induce interleukin-6 and tumor necrosis factor α in human peripheral whole blood cells with potencies comparable to those by natural-type synthetic lipid A. The Limulus activities of both analogues were found to be even stronger than the activity of the natural-type one.
Screening and Evaluation of Antibacterial Metabolites from Entomopathogenic Fungi

Entomopathogenic fungal species have been investigated for their potential use as biological control agents owing to their natural role as insect pathogens. These fungi produce a wide range of secondary metabolites with high therapeutic values, such as antibiotics and cytotoxic substances. To evaluate the antibacterial activity of entomopathogenic fungi, 10 isolates from Korean soil were selected and tested for their activity against Escherichia coli by using fungal culture filtrates. Antibacterial activity was assessed using a two-step process: (1) a screening assay for the selection of fungal isolates and (2) a quantitative assay to evaluate the activity of select fungi. Although 4 fungal isolates were selected through the screening assay, only 3 fungal isolates, from Beauveria bassiana and Metarhizium anisopliae, showed high antibacterial activity according to the quantitative assay. The antibacterial activity of selected fungal culture filtrates was stable when exposed to heat and proteolytic enzyme treatments, which indicated that the antibacterial compound is not a protein. These entomopathogenic fungal metabolites might be useful as a source for bacterial control and in the pharmaceutical industry.
Infestation naturelle de Phlebotomus ariasi et Phlebotomus perniciosus (Diptera-Psychodidae) par Leishmania infantum (Kinetoplastida-Trypanosomatidae) en Catalogne (Espagne)

Deux enquetes successives sur les vecteurs de Leishmania infantum , realisees dans le Priorat (Catalogne, Espagne), ont permis la dissection de 8 329 Phlebotomes ♀ dont 6 775 Larroussius (2 123 Phlebotomus ariasi et 4 652 P. perniciosus ). Au total dix- huit souches ont ete isolees chez ce meme sous-genre et rapportees, par l'analyse enzymatique, a L. infantum MON-1, MON-29, MON-77. Ces souches se repartissent entre P. ariasi (11 souches : quatre MON-1, sept MON-29) et P. perniciosus (sept souches : un MON-1, cinq MON-29, un MON-77). Par ailleurs un chien, originaire du meme foyer, hebergeait un quatrieme zymodeme (MON-105) mis en evidence au laboratoire par gorgement sur P. perniciosus d'elevage.
A Holistic View of Barriers to Innovation in Australian Construction

Innovation in the construction industry has been acknowledged as a challenge. Much of the research has been focused in a particular area of concern such as in the Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) sector or the relationship between the manufacturing supply company and the contractor. This paper describes a holistic approach with the pilot research examining if organisations from across the design and construction business in Australia believe innovation is important for the industry and further explores the forces that hinder innovation. The research findings appear to be consistent with much of the previous research however also reveal the prevailing sources of barriers to innovation adoption. Common themes made salient include the view by participants that rather than offering benefits, innovations were considered sources for potential failure. Construction professionals also see innovation as an expense due to the cost of having an innovation certified for use in Australia and high wages for skilled workers. Such contradictions perpetuate a risk-adverse, conservative approach to construction.