Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Toxicity and Antiulcer Properties of Ipomoea wightii (Wall.) Choisy Leaves: An In Vivo Approach Using Wistar Albino Rats

Humans have been using herbs to prevent and cure various ailments since antiquity, and Ipomoea wightii is a significant medicinal plant known for its wide ethnobotanical uses. Although the plant is known to treat ulcers, there is no significant scientific validation. The present study aimed to assess the acute toxicity, subacute toxicity, and antiulcer properties of the leaf methanol extract of I. wightii (IWL). In the subacute study, the extracts were given orally at 100, 200, and 400 mg/kg doses for 28 days, and we analyzed the biochemical and histological parameters to evaluate the toxicity of IWL. Two different models were assessed to explore antiulcer properties, such as indomethacin- and ethanol-induced ulcer model. Ulcer areas and ulceration percentage histopathology of the stomach were used to study the efficacy of extracts. The acute toxicity study showed that IWL was safe to the maximum dose of 2000 mg/kg body weight. In a subacute toxicity study, the oral administration of IWL did not produce any mortality in the tested animals. The analysis of haematological, liver biochemical, kidney profile, lipid profile, and in vivo antioxidant parameters depicted that all the values were within the control limits after the experimental period and were considered nontoxic to animals. Additionally, the antiulcer study demonstrated a positive response of IWL in a dose-related manner (indomethacin- and ethanol-induced models). Macroscopic analysis showed that pretreatment with I. wightii leaf methanol extract significantly reduced the gastric lesion and decreased the ulceration area (14.52 mm2), demonstrating superior results to the positive control group (27.71 mm2). The histopathological analysis revealed that pretreatment with a high dose of 400 mg/kg of I. wightii leaf methanol extract and positive control group (omeprazole) markedly protected pathological effects, and the gastric mucosa appeared normal. In conclusion, I. wightii has solid nontoxic potential as a promising native herb for an integral therapy for the treatment of ulcers.
The history of UK weather forecasting: the changing role of the central guidance forecaster. Part 1: the pre‐computer era

We take much for granted in current-day weather forecasts – for example, we accept as normal that major changes in weather regime can be predicted with relative confidence a week or more ahead. In addition, we have come to expect accurate shortperiod predictions for our local area. But this was not always so – the current capabilities were only achieved through cumulative/incremental improvements over the decades, alternating between periods of stagnation and other periods of more rapid progress. This has been described by Bauer et al. (2015) as a ‘quiet revolution’ and that ‘the impact of NWP is one of the greatest of any area of physical science’. Several studies have reviewed how numerical weather prediction (NWP) has advanced during the computer age (e.g. Hinds, 1981; Golding et al., 2004; Persson, 2005). Here, in the first part of a new series of papers, we tell the story of how weather forecasting has evolved, highlighting the importance of the forecaster in the chain and how the skill sets required by the forecaster have also changed fundamentally through this time. A chronological sequence is followed, though the divisions between the epochs are necessarily blurred. Examples are carefully selected to illustrate the capabilities of weather forecasting from an age prior to that of the computer, right through to the modern era, particularly in terms of frontal and cyclonic scenarios but we also include inherently less well defined and sometimes more complex, challenging situations. We bring out the uniquely human (as opposed to computer) skills that remain essential to this day in all aspects of weather forecasting. Compared with the purely subjective approach in the first two-thirds of the last century, the present-day forecaster, by contrast, has access to a huge range of sometimes conflicting NWP products, which have to be evaluated to produce a forecast. To set the context, Figure 1 shows the relative performance of the principal Met Office operational model at various forecast ranges through over 50 years of progress from 1967 to 2020. The overarching message from Figure 1 is that 5-day ahead forecasts now are as accurate as 1-day forecasts in the very early computer age. Much of the information for this study has been drawn from contemporary sources. Met Office National Archive Day (whereby a selection of the working Central Forecasting Office (CFO) charts on 15 January each year from 1960 to 1993 were retained) provided a rich source or material. For the most recent 30–40 year period, most examples will be drawn from events within the authors’ direct forecasting experience.
Downlink Power Control Minimizing Base Station Energy Consumption

We consider single cell multi-user OFDMA downlink resource allocation such that average supply power is minimized while fullling a set of target rates. Available degrees of freedom are transmission power and duration. This paper extends our previous work on power optimal resource allocation in the mobile downlink by detailing the optimal power control strategy investigation and extracting fundamental characteristics of power optimal operation in cellular downlink. The allocation strategy that minimizes overall power consumption requires the transmission power on all links to be increased if only one link degrades. Furthermore, we show that for mobile stations with equal channels but dierent
Key factors of successful JIT integration with IBS – An overview

The Just-In-Time (JIT) philosophy has been used for many decades to increase productivity through waste elimination process. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the knowledge by addressing the transportation and material delivery activities in Industrialized Building System (IBS) and integrating JIT to improve the performance of those activities. The literature review has been conducted through relevant database. It was found that there is a need for more holistic approach to be adopted to integrate JIT in IBS project. This paper discusses the key success factors for effective integration between JIT and IBS in the context of transportation and material delivery activities.
Seismic design of prestressed concrete buildings

The current seismic design procedure for prestressed concrete buildings in Japan is described. The design seismic loads for prestressed concrete buildings provided in NZS 4203:1984 are compared with those in the corresponding Japanese code. Comparisons between prestressed concrete and ordinary reinforced concrete buildings are discussed with regard to design seismic load, dynamic response during earthquake motions and the performance of beam-column joints under reversed cyclic loading. The results of several tests are summarised.
Research on the Influence of Mixed-Ownership Reform on Exploratory Innovation of SOEs: The Mediation Effect of Agency Conflict and Financing Constraint

State-owned enterprises (SOEs) are the leading force in the national economy. The main goal of mixed-ownership reform is to enhance the SOEs’ independent innovation capability, thereby bringing high-quality development of the national economy. Based on the baseline regression and mediation effect model, this study explores the impact of mixed-ownership reform on exploratory innovation of SOEs from ownership structure adjustment and control rights allocation. The results show that the diversity of mixed shareholders, the depth of mixed equity, and the control of mixed equity significantly increase the SOEs’ exploratory innovation investment. And the shareholding ratio of heterogeneous shareholders has a differentiated influence on exploratory innovation. The mediation effect test indicates that the promotion effect of mixed-ownership reform of SOEs in the ownership structure dimension is achieved by reducing the second-type agency conflict and easing the financing constraints. In contrast, the promotion effect in the control rights allocation dimension is achieved by lowering the first-type agency conflict. The findings demonstrate that the mixed-ownership reform have positive effect on the SOEs’ exploratory innovation investment, and the different dimensions of mixed-ownership reform have disparate function routes to exploratory innovation. This study provides guidance for SOEs on how drive national innovation development through mixed-ownership reform. SOEs should guarantee the rights of non-state-owned capital to hold shares and appoint directors, improve internal governance mechanisms, so as to accelerate the development of exploratory innovation activities.
An Empirical Analysis of Energy Consumption, Environmental Emissions, and Economic Growth for Pakistan

The use of energy plays an imperative role in the expansion of the economy so, this study examined the effect of consumption of energy and environment to economic development which derives the economic development of Pakistan’s economy. This study used the famous time series ARDL methodology to empirically determine the impact of energy and environment on Pakistan economic development. Results indicates that in both short and long-run, consumption of energy and GDP level boosts economic development. While on the other hand, FDI and non-renewable-energy (fossil fuel) create hurdles in Pakistan's economic development. Due to these hurdles, increase the demand for renewable energy sources like solar and wind energy and investment in the renewable energy sector. Because it boosts economic development with the decrease in carbon emission. So, Pakistan needs to adopt these renewable energy sources which boost economic development and also mitigate the carbon emission level, which creates the environment clean and healthy.
The Effect of Tourism, Economic Growth and Environment in Developing Countries

The basic purpose of this study is to identify a link concerning tourism, pecuniary expansion, and environmental protection in developing countries. The current research looks at the overall state of emerging economies as well as income comparisons. The study employs the 3sls model. Tourism benefits from economic growth as well. Tourism is attracted by economic prosperity, and tourism will increase tourism. According to the findings, economic growth has a negative impact on the environment, and the environment has an adverse effect on economic growth. As income activity accelerates, so will environmental emissions, and environmental emissions have a detrimental impact on economic growth? Further findings imply that tourism has a favorable impact on the environment, with an increase in tourism causing a depreciation of the ecosystem. Environmental pollution has a favorable effect on tourism, as the majority of people travel to other countries for business and religious reasons. This can be found in all models. The exchange rate has a negative influence on the overall and high-income groups, but a favorable effect in the reduced groups. In all models, the other variable, political instability, has a negative effect on tourism, while trade has a favorable effect. GDP is boosted by the literacy rate and gross capital formation Population increase, urbanization, and energy use all have a favorable impact on environmental emissions, according to the study. According to the findings, host nations should not only encourage tourism, but also guarantee that the environment is not harmed, therefore ecofriendly must be pushed to maintain a seamless and sustainable development process.
Synchronous speech and semantic incongruity: what do outliers tell us about it?

Synchronous speech, considered to be an easily performed task, is investigated in two experimental conditions designated as original (OC) and altered (AC), with focus on the outliers’ behavior. The hypothesis raised is that AC, which offers semantic incongruities, would lead individuals to a poorer synchronization performance, i.e, producing greater lag duration. Divided equally in two groups (A and B), 24 dyads were recorded reading two fables in Brazilian Portuguese, in both original and altered conditions. Asynchrony duration was obtained by extracting the lag between vowel onsets, after aligning speakers’ waveforms in each dyad. Considering results related to the entire dataset, speakers are able to synchronize in both conditions (OC and AC). However, a great number of outliers was observed throughout the dataset. Its distribution in AC is significantly different from the distribution in OC, the former showing greater values for both variance and mean. In this exploratory study, one promising explanation for these results will be discussed taking into account aspects such as the outliers’ location throughout the text. These initial results prompt further investigation, in order to verify a more accurate relation between the outliers’ duration and the semantic incongruities' place of occurrence.
The effect of the availability of technology on teachers' use of technology and student achievement on standardized tests

Educators and policymakers expect to improve student learning by integrating technology in schools and classrooms. It is difficult to measure a direct causal link between the number of computers or Internet connections and student achievement, because computer technologies influence achievement on many levels and many other factors are also involved in producing student achievement. However, we can examine how technology fulfills educators’ and policymakers’ expectations with regard to standardized tests. This is a study of four relationships: (1) between the availability of computers and Internet connections in a school and students’ standardized test scores; (2) between the availability of computers and Internet connections in a school and the percentage of lowincome children in a school and students’ standardized test scores; (3) between the number of computers and Internet connections in a school and the ways teachers are using the technologies available (as reported by school principals and classified according to Bloom’s Taxonomy); and (4) between how teachers use the available technology (as reported by school principals according to Bloom’s Taxonomy) and students’ standardized test scores. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of the availability of technology on teachers’ use of technologies and student achievement as measured by standardized tests. Teachers’ use of technologies was defined as how much time teachers assigned students to use technologies for higher-order skill development and basic skill development. Student achievement was defined as the school’s results on the
In-group bias and social identification: a lab-in-the-field experiment

ABSTRACT We recruit naturally-existing groups of people living in a slum and experimentally test whether they contribute more in favour of their group as compared to another group (‘in-group bias’). We find that the in-group bias decreases the higher the heterogeneity among group members, and when a more inclusive identity is activated.
Shape matters: Machine classification and listeners’ perceptual discrimination of American English intonational tunes

In Autosegmental-Metrical models of intonational phonology, pitch accents, phrase accents and boundary tones may combine freely to create a predicted set of phonologically distinct phrase-final “nuclear” tunes. In this study we ask if an 8-way distinction in nuclear tune shape in American English, predicted from combinations of 2 (monotonal) pitch accents, 2 phrase accents and 2 boundary tones, is manifest in speech production and in speech perception. F0 trajectories from an imitative speech production experiment were analyzed using (i) neural net classification, and (ii) human listeners’ perceptual discrimination of the model utterances. Pairwise classification accuracy of the imitative productions is highest for tune pairs that differ in holistic shape (high-rising vs. rise-fall), and poorest for tunes with the same shape that differ in (higher vs. lower) final f0. Perception results show a similar pattern, with poor pairwise discrimination for tunes that differ primarily, but by a small degree, in final f0. Together the results suggest a hierarchy of distinctiveness among nuclear tunes, with a robust distinction based on holistic tune shape, which only partly aligns with distinctions in tonal specification, and a weak/poorly differentiated distinction between tunes with the same holistic shape but small differences in final f0.
Borders of immersive fieldwork - a methodological critique of entrepreneurship

Gerard McElwee's extensive research is characterised by his unconventional and yet strongly tangible topics in entrepreneurship, encompassing issues of illegality and criminality. In fact, beyond his published work, what has come up from discussions and interactions with him is his boundary-breaking approaches to the field itself, emphasising the collaborative nature of his research work. This contribution alludes to his unconventional and provocative approach to conducting research, crossing boundaries in qualitative research and extends his methodological critiques in entrepreneurship. We set out how the intentional crossing of borders in contrast to non-rigorous methodological mix-ups and empirical faults contributes to the actual innovation in knowledge accumulation and exploration of empirical fields. Giving some exemplary cases of our own empirical fieldworks, we illustrate the methodological, epistemological and systemic issues in entrepreneurship, and encourage more boundary-crossing and ‘breaking out’ of conventions - as entrepreneurs do to gain further market outreach - to enhance innovations in research as much as Ged has shown.
Socio-technical perspective on end-of-life vehicle recovery for a sustainable environment

End-of-life Vehicle (ELV) recovery is a promising strategy to minimize the environmental impact of automotives on environmental sustainability. This study aims to assess the community’s knowledge from a socio-technical perspective on ELV. A survey was conducted in Japan and Malaysia to assess public perception on ELV recovery. The results showed that the communities in both countries have basic knowledge and a reasonably good level of awareness on environmental issues and recovery strategies such as recycling. However, there is a high level of uncertainty on the concept of ELV reuse and remanufacturing, as more than 50% of respondents were unsure of their willingness to participate in ELV initiatives. The respondents agreed that the industry and government should take the necessary steps to support the reuse strategy. The paper concludes with suggestions from a socio-technical perspective, which aim to ensure an effective implementation of ELV recovery through reuse and remanufacturing.
Locally Secreted Semaphorin 4D Is Engaged in Both Pathogenic Bone Resorption and Retarded Bone Regeneration in a Ligature-Induced Mouse Model of Periodontitis

It is well known that Semaphorin 4D (Sema4D) inhibits IGF-1-mediated osteogenesis by binding with PlexinB1 expressed on osteoblasts. However, its elevated level in the gingival crevice fluid of periodontitis patients and the broader scope of its activities in the context of potential upregulation of osteoclast-mediated periodontal bone-resorption suggest the need for further investigation of this multifaceted molecule. In short, the pathophysiological role of Sema4D in periodontitis requires further study. Accordingly, attachment of the ligature to the maxillary molar of mice for 7 days induced alveolar bone-resorption accompanied by locally elevated, soluble Sema4D (sSema4D), TNF-α and RANKL. Removal of the ligature induced spontaneous bone regeneration during the following 14 days, which was significantly promoted by anti-Sema4D-mAb administration. Anti-Sema4D-mAb was also suppressed in vitro osteoclastogenesis and pit formation by RANKL-stimulated BMMCs. While anti-Sema4D-mAb downmodulated the bone-resorption induced in mouse periodontitis, it neither affected local production of TNF-α and RANKL nor systemic skeletal bone remodeling. RANKL-induced osteoclastogenesis and resorptive activity were also suppressed by blocking of CD72, but not Plexin B2, suggesting that sSema4D released by osteoclasts promotes osteoclastogenesis via ligation to CD72 receptor. Overall, our data indicated that ssSema4D released by osteoclasts may play a dual function by decreasing bone formation, while upregulating bone-resorption.
Lack of Major Genome-Wide DNA Methylation Changes in Succinate-Treated Human Epithelial Cells

The tricarboxylic acid (TCA) metabolite, succinate, is a competitive inhibitor of dioxygenase enzymes that require alpha ketoglutarate as a cofactor. One family of dioxygenases are the ten-eleven translocation (TET) proteins, which oxidize 5-methylcytosine to promote DNA demethylation. Inhibition of DNA demethylation is expected to lead to DNA hypermethylation, at least at genomic regions at which TET proteins are engaged. We treated human bronchial epithelial cells with succinate for five days and confirmed its effect on TET protein function by observing diminished formation of 5-hydroxymethylcytosine, the first oxidation product of the TET enzymatic reaction. We then analyzed global DNA methylation patterns by performing whole-genome bisulfite sequencing. Unexpectedly, we did not observe differentially methylated regions (DMRs) that reached genome-wide statistical significance. We observed a few regions of clustered DNA hypomethylation, which was also not expected based on the proposed mechanisms. We discuss potential explanations for our observations and the implications of these findings for tumorigenesis.
Convective‐scale numerical weather prediction and warnings over Lake Victoria: Part I—Evaluating a lightning diagnostic

Recently a new lightning diagnostic was added to convective‐scale configurations of the Met Office Unified Model (UM). The characteristics and skill of the hourly total ‘flash origin density’ in the 4.4 km Tropical Africa UM were evaluated against Earth Network (EN) lightning observations specifically deployed in the greater Lake Victoria region as part of the HIGHWeather impact lAke sYstem (HIGHWAY) project. Lightning poses a significant risk to fishermen on Lake Victoria, and better forecasts over the lake would be advantageous for the development of better warning systems. The model lightning density was evaluated in two ways: a classical gridded categorical data analysis and the spatial coverage–distance–intensity method. Given the spatial sparseness of the observation type, Gaussian kernel dressing was applied for the latter, to increase the horizontal ‘footprint’, partly to reflect that lightning can travel horizontally for more than 10 km, and to reduce the representativeness mismatch between the lightning observations and the model forecast lightning density. Considering hourly forecasts, lightning shows a marked diurnal, geographical and seasonal variation over to the west and east of the lake. The model is not producing enough lightning flashes over the lake, nor does it produce enough spatially, especially overnight. The forecast location of lightning shows little skill, with timing differences in the peak, especially over the lake. For warnings, the removal of timing offsets through the creation of a ‘maximum‐in‐the‐day’ field is considerably less biased and more skilful than using the hourly flash densities.