Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Antioxidant activity, xanthine oxidase inhibition and acute oral toxicity of Dillenia philippinensis Rolfe (Dilleniaceae) leaf extract

Context: Hyperuricemia is a metabolic syndrome characterized by a high serum uric acid level with an increased risk of gout, diabetes, cardiovascular and renal disease. Allopurinol is a widely known xanthine oxidase inhibitor that lowers serum uric acid production. Documented adverse effects of the drug raise the need for a natural alternative for xanthine oxidase inhibitor that is safe and effective. This research is driven to address the need by capitalizing on previous studies made on the Dillenia species showing nephroprotective and antihyperuricemic activity. Aims: To evaluate the antioxidant capacity, xanthine oxidase inhibitory activity, and acute toxicity of Dillenia philippinensis; a plant locally known as Katmon and endemic to the Philippines. Methods: The D. philippinensis ethanolic leaf extract (DPELE) was partitioned using solvents of different polarities, hexane, ethyl acetate, and butanol. The antioxidant activity of the DPELE and the sub-extracts was assessed using nitric oxide, hydrogen peroxide, and hydroxyl radical scavenging assays against ascorbic acid, while the xanthine oxidase inhibitory activity was examined against allopurinol as a standard. The acute toxicity was performed using Sprague-Dawley rats following OECD 425 guidelines. Results: The D. philippinensis ethyl acetate fraction (DPEAF) had the highest scavenging activity of nitric oxide, hydrogen peroxide, and hydroxyl (IC50 = 210.00, 70.92 and 59.88 µg/mL) free radicals, respectively. Also, the xanthine oxidase dose-dependent inhibitory activity was observed to be highest in the DPEAF with an IC50 = 23.09 µg/mL. Lastly, neither toxicity nor mortalities were observed in rats treated with the DPELE and the DPEAF for 14 days. The approximate lethal dose for DPELE and DPEAF was higher than 2000 mg/kg BW. Conclusions: This study shows that the DPELE and DPEAF are potential sources of natural antioxidants and xanthine oxidase inhibitors, which may be used in the treatment of hyperuricemia and are presumed safe to be used orally.
Thinning of current sheets and magnetic reconnection

Using three-dimensional particle-in-cell (3DPIC) simulations, we study the formation of a thin current sheet. The processes associated with thin current sheets reported here include its thinning, associated potential well in its central part, ion acceleration into the well, current-driven ion mode instabilities, electron and ion heating, current sheet re- broadening, current disruption in the central part of the current sheet and magnetic reconnection. It is shown that current driven instabilities become explosive when the preferential heating of electrons by the ions make electron temperature higher than that of the ions. This explosive stage is associated with high plasma resistivity, current disruption and bifurcated current sheets. The current disruption is linked to the magnetic reconnection.
Satisfaction as the Moderator Between Discrimination and Stress at Work

Job satisfaction refers to the positive emotions an employee gets from various aspects of their work. Work-related stress is the stress caused because of one's job. Work discrimination is the perception of being treated unfairly at work. Job satisfaction has the chance of being protective against work-related stress caused by discrimination at work. An online survey was developed in Google Forms to test the hypothesis that job satisfaction moderated the relationship between work discrimination and work stress among Nepalese employees. A snowball sample of 278 employees working in various professions was made in the first three months of 2022. Moderation analysis was done and the results showed that highland average but low levels of job satisfaction were protective against the work stress caused by discrimination at work. One-fourth of employees were found to have job satisfaction. Job satisfaction was significantly negatively associated with discrimination and stress at work. The conclusion is that the employers should try to increase job satisfaction of the employees in workplaces where there is more discrimination to protect employees against negative consequences of work-related stress. In the future, studies focused on specific occupations can be carried out to test the same hypothesis.
Impact of changes in climate and CO2 on the carbon storage potential of vegetation under limited water availability using SEIB-DGVM version 3.02

Abstract. Documenting year-to-year variations in carbon storage potential in terrestrial ecosystems is crucial for the determination of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. However, the magnitude, pattern, and inner biomass partitioning of carbon storage potential and the effect of the changes in climate and CO2 on inner carbon stocks remain poorly quantified. Herein, we use a spatially explicit individual-based dynamic global vegetation model to investigate the influences of the changes in climate and CO2 on the enhanced carbon storage potential of vegetation. The modelling included a series of factorial simulations using the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) dataset from 1916 to 2015. The results show that CO2 predominantly leads to a persistent and widespread increase in light-gathering vegetation biomass carbon stocks (LVBC) and water-gathering vegetation biomass carbon stocks (WVBC). Climate change appears to play a secondary role in carbon storage potential. Importantly, with the intensification of water stress, the magnitude of the light- and water-gathering responses in vegetation carbon stocks gradually decreases. Plants adjust carbon allocation to decrease the ratio between LVBC and WVBC for capturing more water. Changes in the pattern of vegetation carbon storage were linked to zonal limitations in water, which directly weaken and indirectly regulate the response of potential vegetation carbon stocks to a changing environment. Our findings differ from previous modelling evaluations of vegetation that ignored inner carbon dynamics and demonstrate that the long-term trend in increased vegetation biomass carbon stocks is driven by CO2 fertilization and temperature effects that are controlled by water limitations.
SECOND-GENERATION STELLAR DISKS IN DENSE STAR CLUSTERS AND CLUSTER ELLIPTICITIES

Globular clusters (GCs) and nuclear star clusters (NSCs) are typically composed of several stellar populations, characterized by different chemical compositions. Different populations show different ages in NSCs, but not necessarily in GCs. The youngest populations in NSCs appear to reside in disk-like structures as observed in our Galaxy and in M31. Gas infall followed by formation of second-generation (SG) stars in GCs may similarly form disk-like structures in the clusters nuclei. Here we explore this possibility and follow the long-term evolution of stellar disks embedded in GCs, and study their effects on the evolution of the clusters. We study disks with different masses by means of detailed N-body simulations and explore their morphological and kinematic signatures on the GC structures. We find that as a SG disk relaxes, the old, first-generation stellar population flattens and becomes more radially anisotropic, making the GC structure become more elliptical. The SG stellar population is characterized by a lower velocity dispersion and a higher rotational velocity compared with the primordial older population. The strength of these kinematic signatures depends both on the relaxation time of the system and on the fractional mass of the SG disk. We therefore conclude that SG populations formed in flattened configurations will give rise to two systematic trends: (1) a positive correlation between GC ellipticity and fraction of SG population and (2) a positive correlation between GC relaxation time and ellipticity. Therefore, GC ellipticities and rotation could be related to the formation of SG stars and their initial configuration.
Evaluation of MWCNT as fuel additive to diesel–biodiesel blend in a direct injection diesel engine

Abstract In this study, effects of multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) addition to waste frying oil biodiesel (B20) on performance, combustion, and exhaust emissions in a direct-injection compression ignition engine were investigated. Experiments were carried out at maximum engine torque speed and four different engine loads. The results show that engine performance has deteriorated somewhat by using B20 fuel without MWCNT additive compared with neat diesel. The addition of MWCNT to B20 improved fuel properties. This occurred because MWCNT additive improved engine performance. By using 100 ppm additive to B20 fuel, the combustion duration has been shortened compared to neat diesel, indicating that thermal efficiency has increased with the decrease of heat losses. The highest indicated thermal efficiency was recorded as 33.16% at 15 Nm engine load using 100 ppm additive to B20 test fuel. Also, 100 ppm additive to B20 test fuel reduced hydrocarbon, CO and soot emissions by 41, 36.4 and 31.8%, respectively, compared to reference neat diesel fuel. The MWCNT additive improved the in-cylinder combustion reactions, thereby increasing engine performance. With the improvement of combustion, in-cylinder gas temperatures increased. For this reason, higher NOx emissions were obtained using MWCNT additive fuels compared to neat diesel.
ECG Signal Features Classification for the Mental Fatigue Recognition

Mental fatigue is a major public health issue worldwide that is common among both healthy and sick people. In the literature, various modern technologies, together with artificial intelligence techniques, have been proposed. Most techniques consider complex biosignals, such as electroencephalogram, electro-oculogram or classification of basic heart rate variability parameters. Additionally, most studies focus on a particular area, such as driving, surgery, etc. In this paper, a novel approach is presented that combines electrocardiogram (ECG) signal feature extraction, principal component analysis (PCA), and classification using machine learning algorithms. With the aim of daily mental fatigue recognition, an experiment was designed wherein ECG signals were recorded twice a day: in the morning, i.e., a state without fatigue, and in the evening, i.e., a fatigued state. PCA analysis results show that ECG signal parameters, such as Q and R wave amplitude values, as well as QT and T intervals, presented with the largest differences between states compared to other ECG signal parameters. Furthermore, the random forest classifier achieved more than 94.5% accuracy. This work demonstrates the feasibility of ECG signal feature extraction for automatic mental fatigue detection.
The Influence of Washing Procedures on Surface Removal and Leaching of Certain Elements from Pecan Leaflets1

Nutrient spray residue can be removed from leaflets of pecan (Carya illinoensis (Wang.) K. Koch for nutrient absorption measurement. The residue can be removed by washing the leaflets in 0.1% Alconox, rinsed in running tap water followed by a 7 liter 1% HCl rinse and three separate 7 liter demineralized distilled water baths. The elimination of some of the solutions resulted in erroneously high results in adsorption of the nutrients. Young leaflets absorbed more zinc than did the old leaflets. Nutrient sprayed pecan leaflets washed in 0.1% Alconox, rinsed in running tap water, 7 liters 1% HCl, and three separate 7 liter demineralized distilled water baths prior to tissue analysis gave more consistent and reliable data than leaflets washed by any other method. This leaf washing procedure does not remove biologically significant amounts of any of the elements analyzed.
What Isn’t Christian Nationalism? A Call for Conceptual and Empirical Splitting

In the years surrounding Donald Trump’s presidency, a burgeoning strand of literature has emphasized the role of Christian nationalism in American political conflict. The authors argue that this literature contains mutually reinforcing theoretical and empirical shortcomings. Theoretically, the concept of Christian nationalism is overextended and conflates multiple conceptualizations of religion in public life. Empirically, the standard scale used to measure Christian nationalism contains survey items that are too ambiguous to adequately inform (or constrain) interpretations of findings. The authors draw from cultural sociology and political science to highlight key questions current Christian nationalism scholarship does not adequately address. The authors present results from a latent class analysis to show how the same survey items allow other interpretations of how Americans think about religion, state, and public life. The authors conclude with a discussion of theoretical and empirical steps that may strengthen the contributions of this scholarship.
Planning with continuous change

This thesis presents scZENO, a computer program that generates plans of action for achieving goals in a continuously changing world. The program searches a space whose nodes are partially completed plans and whose arcs are the modifications that separate one plan from the next. Actions and goals in the world are described in a language combining first-order logic with piecewise linear constraints. Actions occur over extended intervals of time and can update the world at any time during their execution. These properties enable the program to reason about continuous change, metric preconditions, metric effects, deadline goals, and simultaneous action. The planning algorithms are developed, proven sound and complete, then demonstrated through an empirical study of the computer program as it solves simple problems.
Concurrent Assessment of Phthalates/HEXAMOLL® DINCH Exposure and Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children Performance in Three European Cohorts of the HBM4EU Aligned Studies

Information about the effects of phthalates and non-phthalate substitute cyclohexane-1,2-dicarboxylic acid diisononyl ester (HEXAMOLL® DINCH) on children’s neurodevelopment is limited. The aim of the present research is to evaluate the association between phthalate/HEXAMOLL® DINCH exposure and child neurodevelopment in three European cohorts involved in HBM4EU Aligned Studies. Participating subjects were school-aged children belonging to the Northern Adriatic cohort II (NAC-II), Italy, Odense Child Cohort (OCC), Denmark, and PCB cohort, Slovakia. In each cohort, children’s neurodevelopment was assessed through the Full-Scale Intelligence Quotient score (FSIQ) of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale of Children test using three different editions. The children’s urine samples, collected for one point in time concurrently with the neurodevelopmental evaluation, were analyzed for several phthalates/HEXAMOLL® DINCH biomarkers. The relation between phthalates/HEXAMOLL® DINCH and FSIQ was explored by applying separate multiple linear regressions in each cohort. The means and standard deviations of FSIQ were 109 ± 11 (NAC-II), 98 ± 12 (OCC), and 81 ± 15 (PCB cohort). In NAC-II, direct associations between FSIQ and DEHP’s biomarkers were found: 5OH-MEHP+5oxo-MEHP (β = 2.56; 95% CI 0.58–4.55; N = 270), 5OH-MEHP+5cx-MEPP (β = 2.48; 95% CI 0.47–4.49; N = 270) and 5OH-MEHP (β = 2.58; 95% CI 0.65–4.51; N = 270). On the contrary, in the OCC the relation between DEHP’s biomarkers and FSIQ tended to be inverse but imprecise (p-value ≥ 0.10). No associations were found in the PCB cohort. FSIQ was not associated with HEXAMOLL® DINCH in any cohort. In conclusion, these results do not provide evidence of an association between concurrent phthalate/DINCHHEXAMOLLR DINCH exposure and IQ in children.
RESEARCH IN MATHEMATICAL TARGETING. THE PRACTICAL AND RIGOROUS ADJUSTMENT OF LARGE PHOTOGRAMMETRIC NETS

Abstract : The problem of the rigorous simultaneous adjustment of large photogrammetric blocks is reviewed and extensions to an earlier theory are developed. Various matrix iterative approaches to the solution of the very large systems of normal equations characteristic of sizeable photogrammetric nets are investigated. The Method of Block Successive Over Relaxation is found to yield a practical and most satisfactory solution to this problem. Results of an extensive series of numerical simulations are reported. The successful application of the approach to a 23-photo strip of actual photography provides final confirmation of the validity and effectiveness of the solution.
Dynamic Scheduling Strategies for Firm Semi-Periodic Real-Time Tasks

This paper introduces and assesses novel strategies to schedule firm semi-periodic real-time tasks. Jobs are released periodically and have the same relative deadline. Job execution times obey an arbitrary probability distribution and can take either bounded or unbounded values. We investigate several optimization criteria, the most prominent being the Deadline Miss Ratio (DMR). All previous work uses some admission policies but never interrupt the execution of an admitted job before its deadline. On the contrary, we introduce three new control parameters to dynamically decide whether to interrupt a job at any given time. We derive a Markov model and use its stationary distribution to determine the best value of each control parameter. Finally we conduct an extensive simulation campaign with 16 different probability distributions. The results nicely demonstrate how the new strategies help improve system performance compared with traditional approaches. In particular, we show that (i) compared to pre-execution admission rules, the control parameters make significantly better decisions; (ii) specifically, the key control parameter is to upper bound the waiting time of each job; (iii) the best scheduling strategy decreases the DMR by up to 0.35 over traditional competitors.
Building a multi-attribute scale to evaluate factors determinant to the choice of luxury restaurants in Brazil

Objetivo: Testar estatisticamente uma escala multiatributos para identificar os fatores determinantes à escolha de restaurantes de luxo no Brasil. Método: Se configura como de abordagem quantitativa e descritiva. A pesquisa foi realizada por meio de uma survey com uma amostra composta por professores de cursos de pós-graduação de instituições públicas e privadas, de todas as regiões do Brasil. A amostra correspondeu a 272 sujeitos. Como instrumento de coleta de dados utilizou-se um questionário estruturado, baseado em 19 variáveis elencadas por meio da literatura científica especializada. A pesquisa foi realizada por meio de uma survey com uma amostra composta por 272 professores de cursos de pós-graduação de instituições públicas e privadas, de todas as regiões do Brasil. Como instrumento de coleta de dados utilizou-se um questionário estruturado, em escala Likert de cinco itens, baseado em 19 variáveis elencadas por meio da literatura científica especializada.Originalidade/Relevância: O estudo inova ao combinar a influência da dependência entre os construtos "Ambiente e Estrutura", "Meio Ambiente", “Conveniência”, “Status Social” e “Qualidade” (e suas respectivas variáveis) para que sejam determinantes à escolha de um restaurante de luxo pelos consumidores.Resultados: Os resultados evidenciaram que o modelo multiatributos testado pode ser considerado como adequado a fim de avaliar os fatores que determinam a escolha dos restaurantes de luxo e que os principais atributos determinantes são: higiene do ambiente interno e externo, utilização de práticas sustentáveis, conforto, sensação de requinte, de luxo e de prestígio que o restaurante proporciona e a qualidade no atendimento, por meio da prontidão e gentileza dos funcionários. Contribuições sociais/gerenciais: Os resultados oferecem uma contribuição aos gestores de restaurantes de luxo que procuram alternativas para melhorar a atratividade de seus serviços e produtos, alinhando estratégias gerenciais e auxiliando, portanto, no processo de tomada de decisão, a fim de criar um valor superior, atendendo aos desejos e necessidades do público consumidor.
Grade expectations: how well can past performance predict future grades?

ABSTRACT Students in the UK apply to university with teacher-predicted examination grades, rather than actual results. These predictions have been shown to be inaccurate, and to favour certain groups, leading to concerns about teacher bias. We ask whether it is possible to improve on the accuracy of teachers’ predictions by predicting pupil achievement using prior attainment data and machine learning techniques. While our models do lead to a quantitative improvement on teacher predictions, substantial inaccuracies remain. Our models also underpredict high-achieving state school pupils and low socio-economic status pupils, suggesting they have more volatile education trajectories. This raises questions about the use of predictions in the UK system.
Accounting Conservatism and Earnings Quality

Purpose—The study on the relationship between accounting conservatism and earnings quality is not new. However, the results are inconsistent and mixed, and to some degree, even contradictory, which represents a gap in the literature. The purpose of this study is to provide some explanations for these mixed results in the literature by investigating the effect of corporate governance mechanisms, as a moderator variable (which has not been considered in the literature before), on the relationship between accounting conservatism and earnings quality based on the Dechow and Dichev model and the modified Jones model. Design/methodology/approach—The statistical model used in this study is a multivariate regression model; furthermore, the statistical technique used to test the hypotheses is panel data. Findings—The findings reveal that the adopted models (Dechow and Dichev) and the corporate governance mechanisms (such as board independence, large shareholders, and institutional ownership) can have a moderating effect on the relationship between accounting conservatism and earnings quality. These findings are exciting, contribute to the current literature, and explain some of the reasons for mixed results. Practical implications—The findings of the current study provide an important guideline for firms to consider the impact of adopted models (Dechow and Dichev), as well as the corporate governance mechanisms (such as board independence, large shareholders, and institutional ownership) on the relationship between accounting conservatism and earnings quality. Originality/value—Examining the impact of Dechow and Dichev models as well as the corporate governance mechanisms on the relationship between accounting conservatism and earnings quality is new in this paper. It can explain part of the reasons for the mixed and inconsistent results in the literature.
Fast TDOA and FDOA Estimation for Coherent Pulse Signals

Time difference of arrival (TDOA) and frequency difference of arrival (FDOA) have been widely used for localizing temporally continuous signals passively. Temporal sparsity of pulse signals makes their TDOA and FDOA estimation processes much different, and computational complexity is a major concern in this area. This paper addresses the problem of fast TDOA and FDOA estimation of pulse signals and focuses mainly on narrowband coherent pulses. By decoupling the effects of TDOA and FDOA in the cost function of localization approximately, we propose a fast coarse TDOA and FDOA estimation method. The estimates are then refined with the cross-ambiguity function (CAF) algorithm within a small TDOA and FDOA neighborhood. In the simulations, the proposed method is demonstrated to have satisfying TDOA and FDOA estimation precisions, and it exceeds existing counterparts largely in computational efficiency.