Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Computational Study of Natural Phenolic Acid Solubility and Their Interactions with Chitosan

Natural phenolic acids such as gallic, caffeic, ferulic and sinapic acids, have received great attention due to their biological activities, like antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and others. These properties put them as good candidates for the new controlled drug release systems. Among the various types of polymeric materials used in the development of controlled release systems for active drugs and films, chitosan is highlighted because it has many favorable characteristics, such as biocompatibility and biodegradability. To verify the behavior of such phenolic acids in hydrophilic biological fluids and hydrophobic biological barriers aimed at the production of new systems of modified drug release, in the present work it was conducted in silico simulation of solubility in water and in 1-octanol by molecular dynamics. The interaction of these phenolic compounds with chitosan was also investigated by molecular docking. The results showed that all investigated phenolic acids showed adequate solubility and good interaction with chitosan. The results show that the methodology applied in the present work can be well used for the development of pharmacologically active compounds and can aid the understanding of the interaction of such compounds with polymers, saving time and resources. __________________________________________________________________________________
On the Evolution of Noise in Multiple-Span Transmission With Forward Pumped Raman Amplifiers

The evolution of noise in transmission systems with multiple spans featuring forward pumped distributed Raman fiber amplifiers has been investigated experimentally and by numerical simulations. We found evidence that the transfer of relative intensity noise from the pump to the signal reveals characteristics of a nonlinear process, which cannot fully be captured by a Gaussian random variable added to the signal power. Power fluctuations of the pump radiation result in an intensity modulation of the amplified signal by stimulated Raman scattering. We have observed that a concatenation of multiple forward pumped amplifiers can lead to an increase of the bandwidth of the noise added to the signal compared to a single amplifier. A process acting like modulation instability of the pump radiation during propagation through the fiber was identified as a potential source of the bandwidth increase from span to span.
mAb Production Modeling and Design Space Evaluation Including Glycosylation Process

Due to high demand, monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) production needs to be efficient, as well as maintaining a high product quality. Quality by design (QbD) via predictive process modeling greatly facilitates process understanding and can be used to adjust process parameters to further improve the unit operations. In this work, mechanistic and dynamic kriging models are developed to capture the protein productivity and glycan fractions under different temperatures and pH levels. The design of experiments is used to generate input and output data for model training. The dynamic kriging model shows good performance in capturing the dynamic profiles of cell cultures and glycosylation using only limited input data. The developed model is further used for feasibility analysis, and successfully identifies the operating design space, maintaining high productivity and guaranteed product quality.
UTILITARIAN SHOPPING VALUE AND HEDONIC SHOPPING VALUE TO IMPROVE CUSTOMER SATISFACTION AND REPURCHASE INTENTION ON E-COMMERCE BUSINESS

This study aims to examine and analyze the relationships between motivation shopping value, repurchase intention, and customer satisfaction on Lazada Indonesia’s ecommerce consumers in Malang City. The population of this research is Lazada Indonesia consumers who are of productive age (19-34 years old) in Malang City and the number of samples obtained following the research criteria is 100 correspondents. Sample selection is done by the non-probability sampling technique with the purposive sampling method. The research instrument used was a questionnaire that was analyzed using smartPLS 2.0 software. The results of this study indicate that utilitarian shopping value and hedonic shopping value have a direct effect on customer satisfaction and repurchase intention. Meanwhile, indirectly hedonic shopping value did not affect repurchase intention through customer satisfaction.
Hundred years of Botany at the NWU: contributions towards understanding plant and algae function, diversity and restoration in a changing environment

The Department of Botany on the Potchefstroom Campus (formerly Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education) of the North-West University (NWU) had its centenary in 2020. In this paper we celebrate this milestone by giving an overview of the history of the Department at this campus, including its recent establishment and expansion on the NWU Mahikeng Campus (formerly the University of North-West). A brief overview is presented of the advances in teaching and research over the years, and the development and relevance of the important plant collections in the botanical garden, two herbaria and the national diatom collection. The main emphasis of this contribution is, however, a reflection on the advancement and significance of research conducted by various disciplines on plant and algae function, diversity and ecological restoration over the years. The different disciplines in Botany at NWU, from the oldest to the more recent, are Plant Taxonomy, Plant Ecophysiology, Terrestrial Plant Ecology, Aquatic Sciences, Urban and Settlement Ecology, Geoecology, and Proteomics. Different aspects contributing to changes occurring in the environment, such as pollution, land degradation, urbanisation, overexploitation of resources and the subsequent effect of these on plant diversity and function are especially addressed in our current research. The results of our research inter alia led to solutions for problems occurring in the landscape and contribute to the well-being of the people using the land and water by restoring important ecosystem services.
A Comparative Study of Compact Multiband Bio-Inspired Asymmetric Microstrip Fed Antennas (BioAs-MPAs) for Wireless Applications

A comparative analysis of compact multiband bio-inspired Asymmetric microstrip fed antennas (BioAs-MPAs) is presented in this paper for the first time. The proposed antennas are based on semi-Carica papaya-leaf shaped, semi-Monstera deliciosa-leaf shaped, semi-Vitis vinifera shaped, Defected Ground Structure (DGS) and L-slit techniques. The antennas are built on a 33 × 15 mm2 Rogers duroid 5880 substrate. The modelling equations for resonant frequencies of the proposed arbitrarily shaped radiating patch is based on modified circular patch modelling equations. The semi-Carica papaya-leaf antenna operates at 2.4 GHz and 4.4 GHz, Monstera deliciosa-leaf antenna operates at 2.6 GHz, 4.4 GHz and 5.5 GHz, while Vine-leaf antenna operates at 2.5 GHz and 5.4 GHz. The proposed BioAs-MPAs antennas radiation patterns at E-plane are Bi-directional in all the operating frequencies with suitable X-Pol purity and have Omnidirectional radiation patterns at H-Plane in all the operating frequencies. As a result of the analysis, it was found that each of the bio-inspired structures has its unique merit over the others. Owing to the small size, stable radiation pattern, acceptable gain and high radiation efficiency, the proposed BioAs-MPAs antennas are suitable for ISM band, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, WiMAX, LTE, UMTS, Sub6 GHz 5 G band, ZigBee and RF-Altimeter used in unmanned aerial vehicle and Aviation industry.
Dust Explosions: Recent Developments Including Pulverised Biomass Plenary Lecture

Dust explosion minimum explosion concentration, MEC, and mixture reactivity measurement are reviewed in terms of the mixture equivalence ratio, O, rather than the concentration units of g/m3, used in all reported dust explosion data. Existing data for MEC implies that HCO dusts are flammable to O ~ 0.2, which is leaner than pure hydrocarbon dusts or gases where the MEC is O = 0.45. Biomass dusts have a HCO elemental composition and they also show very lean MEC at O~0.2. Peak explosion pressure, Pmax, and the explosion reactivity, Kst, are high for a wide range of very rich O for many dusts including biomass and this behaviour is different to that in gaseous explosions. The laminar burning velocity, UL, of dusts was derived from the measured Kst and the ISO 1m3 explosion vessel can be modified to enable spherical flame speeds to be determined for dusts, which gives two techniques to determine UL. It was shown that Kst and KG are linearly related to UL if both are measured in the same 1 m3 explosion vessel. These laminar burning velocities and Kst show that most St1 cellulose type dusts are not very reactive, with Su less than that for gaseous hydrocarbons. The apparent high reactivity of HCO dusts in the MEC data indicates potential problems in the measurement of MEC for dusts. Part of this problem is that in the ISO 1m3 dust explosions around half of the dust is left on the bottom of the vessel at the end of the explosion. Thus the usual nominal concentration of dust in g/m3 is not the concentration that the flame propagated through. This makes the MEC measurement very difficult as the lower the concentration, the lower the proportion of the dust that burns, so that the concentration in the flame front at the MEC is difficult to determine. The Hartmann equipment is potentially a more reliable method of determining the MEC, but this also has its experimental problems, related to whether the injected dust is mixed at ignition. For woody and plant biomass dusts there are additional problems with the fibrous nature of the dusts: the standard dust pot size will not hold sufficient mass and the fibres block in the standard ‘C’ ring dust injection system. Solutions to both of these problems are demonstrated with new calibrated dust injection systems for fibrous biomass. The wide particle size distribution in biomass dusts is a further problem and experiments show that very coarse woody biomass can explode and a mechanism for this is developed involving the propagation of the flame in the fines with the coarse particles gasifying in the burnt gases of the fine flame. This explains the rich MEC for coarse biomass and the lack of a rich limit.
Cooperative transport control by a multicopter system

Correspondence Zhiqin Guo, Department of System Design Engineering, Keio University, 314-1 Hiyoshi, Kohoku-ku, Yokohama 223-8522, Japan. Email: shikink@nl.sd. keio.ac. jp Abstract To date, multicopters have mainly been used in the entertainment and informationgathering fields, but can potentially be used to transport payloads. Specifically, multicopters are more suited for manoeuvring tough terrains and delivering payloads to areas unaccessible by other means. The authors propose a control method to achieve cooperative transport with a plural multicopter system and address the problem of delivering a payload being suspended via cables from multicopters. In cooperative transport using a multicopter system, disturbance (weight, wind, and inertia force) may cause destabilization. A consensus algorithm is used to coordinate flight of helicopters in a formation and to ensure that the payload follows a virtual leader. Disturbances (such as wind and cable tension) are primary causes of destabilization and, in the multicopter setting, they are suppressed by an adaptive robust control, Robust Integral of Sign of the Error control. It is shown that the proposed control design can achieve not only convergence under the ideal setting but also robust operation under significant disturbances. In addition, additional control objectives such as cable tension, payload attitude, and collision avoidance can be integrated and achieved. As an auxiliary method, cable tension control, maintaining a horizontal payload attitude, and collision avoidance are considered. The usefulness of the proposed method was verified by simulations and laboratory flight testing demonstrations.
Efficacy of Alternative Forms of Creatine Supplementation on Improving Performance and Body Composition in Healthy Subjects: A Systematic Review

Abstract Fazio, C, Elder, CL, and Harris, MM. Efficacy of alternative forms of creatine supplementation on improving performance and body composition in healthy subjects: a systematic review. J Strength Cond Res 36(9): 2663–2670, 2022—Novel forms of creatine have appeared in the marketplace with substantial claims of improved efficacy compared to creatine monohydrate (CrM). The purpose of this study was to conduct a systematic review on alternative forms of creatine to determine (a) whether they are effective ergogenic aids and (b) whether they outperform CrM. A separate comparison was conducted to determine average cost of various forms of creatine. Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), PubMed, Medline, and Google Scholar were systematically reviewed according to PRISMA guidelines. The design of the review was set to answer the PICOS model (subjects, interventions, comparators, outcomes, and study design). Seventeen randomized placebo controlled clinical trials examining exercise performance outcomes and body composition were included in the analysis. Magnesium-creatine chelate and creatine citrate, malate, ethyl ester, nitrate, and pyruvate were the only forms researched in the literature. Of these studies, only 3 studies compared the alternative creatine form to CrM, making it difficult to compare efficacy to CrM. There were no consistent findings of performance enhancement among alternative forms of creatine when compared to placebo. A review of the marketplace shows that CrM is the lowest cost form of creatine. Due to the paucity of studies on alternative forms of creatine as well as high prices on the market of these alternative forms, CrM remains as the most extensively studied form of creatine that shows efficacy, safety, and lowest cost to consumer.
Prognostic significance of preoperative serum inflammation markers in patients with male breast cancer

Background There were no predictive prognosis factors of serum in male breast cancer, while breast cancer is a heterogeneous disease. The purpose of our study was to determine the prognostic implications of the pretreatment neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) and lymphocyte-to-monocyte ratio (LMR) in the serum of patients with male breast cancer. Methods We retrospectively identified a random cohort of male breast cancer patients treated at the Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center between Jan 1, 1996 and Dec 31, 2016. A number of 108 patients had different inflammation markers recorded pre-operation. Survival status was retrieved from our cancer center registry and phone follow-up. Cox proportional hazards regression model was used to analyze the disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS). Results Among these patients in this study, 13 (12.0%) had disease recurrence, and 7 (6.5%) patients appeared distant metastasis. No statistically significant association of the preoperative NLR, PLR or LMR level with patients’ different outcomes was found. Conclusions In short, we were unable to establish a connection between preoperative inflammation biomarkers and male breast cancer patients’ survival. Neither NLR, PLR nor LMR is useful for predicting prognosis in male breast cancer patients, and prospective studies to evaluate the above biomarkers as a simple prognostic trail is necessary.
A cross-sectional study to assess impact of COVID-19 infection amongst patients with chronic kidney disease

Background: In December 2019, a series of unknown origin cases of acute respiratory illness occurred in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China. Although diffuse alveolar damage and acute respiratory failure were the main features of COVID-19, the involvement of other organs needed to be explored. After lung infection, the virus may enter the blood, accumulate in the kidney, and cause damage to resident renal cells. Hence, this study was planned to analyze the potential impact of this pandemic of COVID-19 amongst the chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients. Methods: Cross-sectional observational study was conducted at Seven Hills Dedicated Covid-19 hospital, Andheri, Mumbai. Data was collected from hospital records of CKD patients admitted in the study duration. Results: This study was conducted on 310 patients. Mean age was 53.33+14.21 years, and 191 (61.6%) of patients were male while mean duration of hospitalization was 16.78+10.31. Majority of the patients presented with symptoms like fever 80%, breathlessness 61.3%, and co-morbidities like Diabetes Mellitus 65.5% followed by Hypertension 61.8%. Patients (15.5%) over age of 60 years tested swab report positive for more than 5 times. Recovery rate being 76.1% while mortality rate found to be 23.87%. Conclusions: Early detection and effective intervention may help to reduce deaths among CKD patients with COVID-19.
A predictive replication for multi‐tenant databases using deep learning

The service level agreement (SLA) is an agreement between clients and the service provider, which defines the minimum performance and availability requirements for software. The service provider should have effective strategies for placement, migration, and replication of the tenants to reduce their operational costs, maximize the utilization of their hardware and software resources and accordingly meet the SLA requirements with slight SLA violations. In this research, a clustered‐based multi‐tenant database management system (CB‐MT DBMS) is proposed. Additionally, a dynamic proactive provisioning technique is built using three different prediction models: The Recursive Window Forecasting Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) model, Exponential Moving Average (EMA) model, and the proposed Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) with Long Short‐Term Memory (LSTM) cells model. Various experimental scenarios with different datasets have been conducted to prove that the RNN model with LSTM cells is a promising solution in multi‐tenant environments, where the tenants have irregular workload patterns. Experimental results firstly show that the RNN model accuracy is superior to their counterparts (i.e., ARIMA and EMA models) when applied to multi‐tenant database workloads generated using TPC benchmarks, as it reduces the prediction error value which is computed using the Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE) and the Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) metrics. Secondly, Experimental results prove that the RNN prediction model accuracy is superior to their counterparts for detecting SLA violation values and windows using different SLA values.
Exchange Rate Exposure and International Competition: Evidence from Chinese Industries

ABSTRACT This study analyzes how exchange rate risk exposure and foreign industry competition affect Chinese industries. Using the data from 2005 to 2018, the authors find that industry competition from the US has a statistically significant influence on 33.3 percent of Chinese industries. Unsurprisingly, tradable goods benefit more from depreciation of the Renminbi against the US dollar. Counterintuitively, only 20 percent of the industries supported by the ‘Made in China 2025’ initiative is sensitive to US industrial competition. In addition, on average Chinese industries face international competition from few developed countries, such as the Netherlands; and depreciation of RMB against the Japanese yen is hurting Chinese industries on average. Developing countries, however, exert marginal competition effects on their Chinese counterparts in the sample period.
A Single-Phase Globally Stable Frequency-Locked Loop Based on the Second-Order Harmonic Oscillator Model

This paper presents a novel frequency-locked-loop (FLL) scheme that provides estimates of the in-phase and square-phase fundamental components of a distorted single-phase reference signal and an estimate of its fundamental angular frequency. The main feature of the proposed scheme is that its design is fully based on the dynamical model of a single-phase signal generator, namely, the second-order harmonic oscillator (SOHO), which adds originality to the scheme. In fact, the proposed scheme owns a particular structure involving a set of orthogonal signals, which can be seen as the fixed-frame representation of three-phase balanced signals. Additionally, a plug-in block is included as a mechanism to mitigate the effect of the harmonic distortion. A proof of global stability for the proposed scheme based on nonlinear argumentation is also included, which contributes to the novelty of the work and ensures convergence disregarding the initial conditions of the to-be-estimated signal components. In addition, explicit conditions are presented for the tuning of control parameters. Experimental results corroborate the performance of the proposed scheme under angular frequency variations, phase jumps, voltage sags and harmonic distortion on the reference signal. For comparison purposes, also the state-of-the-art second-order-generalized-integrator-based FLL and the single-phase synchronous-reference frame phase-locked loop are tested.
Application of the multi potential geophysical techniques for groundwater evaluation in a part of Central Sinai Peninsula_ Egypt

This study highlights the groundwater evaluation of the Nubian sandstone aquifers regarding assessing the main structural elements, trends, and depth to the basement rocks that control the groundwater aquifers in Egypt's central Sinai area. Gravity and magnetic data were analyzed using different techniques, such as wavenumber filtering, least-squares separation techniques, and tilt derivatives. Euler deconvolution with different structural indexes (SI), power spectrum analyses, 3-D crustal modeling. The deep-seated structures affecting the study area, and the basement depth, which range between 1170 and 4590 m. , have been utilized. The main structural trends affecting the study area were delineated to control the groundwater aquifer's regional geometry. Moreover, it was found that the NorthWest-SouthEast trend direction – Suez Gulf trend – was caused by primary shear, and the NorthEast-SouthWest trend direction – Aqaba Gulf trend – was caused by the secondary shear. The direction of each trend's lateral movement was to the right and the left, respectively. Meanwhile, the geoelectrical resistivity measurements were also utilized to determine the ground water-bearing formations using eighteen deep vertical electrical soundings (VES) stations. The results revealed the depth to the uppermost part of the Nubian sandstone aquifer ranging between 598 and 1106 m; the combination of the depth to the uppermost part of the Nubian aquifer, the depth of the basement relief map revealed that the aquifer thickness varies from 430 to 3750 m, and the resistivity values ranging between 22 and 214 Ω. m. ARTICLE INFO
Bangla Handwritten Character Recognition Using Extended Convolutional Neural Network

The necessity of recognizing handwritten characters is increasing day by day because of its various applications. The objective of this paper is to provide a sophisticated, effective and efficient way to recognize and classify Bangla handwritten characters. Here an extended convolutional neural network (CNN) model has been proposed to recognize Bangla handwritten characters. Our CNN model is tested on “BanglalLekha-Isolated” dataset where there are 10 classes for digits, 11 classes for vowels and 39 classes for consonants. Our model shows accuracy of recognition as: 99.50% for Bangla digits, 93.18% for vowels, 90.00% for consonants and 92.25% for combined classes.