Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Influence of Nitrogen Fertilization on Chemical Composition of Cultivated Nettle

Stinging nettle (Urtica dioica L.) is a medicinal and edible plant species with a high economic potential. In most European countries nettle is still not produced commercially but is collected from natural habitats. This plant requires large amounts of nitrogen for its improved growth and satisfactory yield, which can result in accumulation of harmful nitrates and reducing of raw material quality. Mentioned problems can be solved by controlling the amount of nitrogen through fertilization, i.e. introduction of stinging nettle into agricultural production. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of three nitrogen fertilization doses (0, 100 and 200 kg N ha-1) on the chemical composition of cultivated nettle in the second year of growing. The harvest of the nettle for consumption in fresh form was carried out before flowering and six harvests were performed. It was found that cultivated nettle is a valuable source of potassium [2.27% K dry weight (dw)], calcium (5.21% Ca dw) and iron (2765 ppm Fe dw). Fresh nettle herb contained high amounts of ascorbic acid [63.75 mg 100 g-1 fresh weight (fw)] and total phenols (732.49 mg GAE 100 g-1 fw), correlated with its high antioxidant capacity (1936.58 mM Trolox L-1 fw). The highest nitrogen dose (200 kg ha-1) increased the content of crude protein and calcium, however resulted in higher nitrate content and lower values of dry matter, iron, total phenols and ascorbic acid. Therefore, fertilization with 100 kg N ha-1 could be recommended in production of nettle with a high nutritional value.
Filamin A Phosphorylation at Serine 2152 by the Serine/Threonine Kinase Ndr2 Controls TCR-Induced LFA-1 Activation in T Cells

The integrin LFA-1 (CD11a/CD18) plays a critical role in the interaction of T cells with antigen presenting cells (APCs) to promote lymphocyte differentiation and proliferation. This integrin can be present either in a closed or in an open active conformation and its activation upon T-cell receptor (TCR) stimulation is a critical step to allow interaction with APCs. In this study we demonstrate that the serine/threonine kinase Ndr2 is critically involved in the initiation of TCR-mediated LFA-1 activation (open conformation) in T cells. Ndr2 itself becomes activated upon TCR stimulation and phosphorylates the intracellular integrin binding partner Filamin A (FLNa) at serine 2152. This phosphorylation promotes the dissociation of FLNa from LFA-1, allowing for a subsequent association of Talin and Kindlin-3 which both stabilize the open conformation of LFA-1. Our data suggest that Ndr2 activation is a crucial step to initiate TCR-mediated LFA-1 activation in T cells.
Comparison of total antioxidant activity between fresh and commercial mango juices available in Bangladesh

Fresh mango and commercial mango juices contain various natural antioxidants which have beneficial health effects. In this study, we compared total antioxidant activity of fresh mango (fazlee, amrapali, mohanvog, langra, and gopalvog) juices with that of commercial mango juices (pran frooto, sezan, frutika, and sundrop mango fruit drink), which are available in Bangladesh. Total antioxidant activity was measured by DPPH method. Enzymatic browning in fresh and commercial mango juices was determined by tyrosinase inhibitory assay. The IC50 values of fazlee, amrapali, mohanvog, langra, gopalvog, pran frooto, sezan, frutika, sundrop mango fruit drink juices, vitamin C, and vitamin E were 1.159, 1.367, 0.575, 1.675, 0.725, 0.435, 1.025, 0.925, 0.678, 0.057, and 0.039 mg/ml, respectively. No sample shows tyrosinase inhibitory activity. In conclusion, commercial mango juices can be considered as a good source of antioxidant.
Enzyme-resistant starch. II, Differential scanning calorimetry studies on heat-treated starches and enzyme-resistant starch residues

Enzymatic assay of heat-treated starches from amylomaize VII, regular maize, wheat, peas, and potatoes indicated that enzyme-resistant starch (RS) was present in all treated starches. The RS residues exhibited an endothermic transition at ∼155 o C in the differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) thermogram, which apparently was due to melting of recystallized amylose. Only after degradable starch structures were removed and enzyme-resistant amylose crystallites were isolated and concentrated, could their dissociation be recorded. Thermoanalytical characteristics of this transition were investigated using RS residues from amylomaize VII starch preparations
Fully Convolutional Network With Densely Feature Fusion Models for Object Detection

We present Fully Convolutional Networks with Densely Feature Fusion Models (DFF-FCN) which is an effective framework for multi-scale object detection. DFF-FCN reuses the inherent convolutional hierarchical features of regular convolutional neural networks from both forward and backward directions so that the highly semantic features incorporate with shallow high-resolution features complementarily. We propose a new fully convolutional network to build feature pyramids to construct semantic features at all levels using a single neural network so that the multi-scale features all have enough detail and semantic information for object detection tasks. We also add another branch to predict objectness in order to reduce the searching space of objects. Our network runs at the speed of 20 FPS (frame per second) which is faster than Faster R-CNN counterpart and our method gets better detection performance.
An Empirical Investigation to Analyze the Brand Equity and Resonance of Banking Services: Evidence from India

This study attempts to verify the determinants of brand equity of services based on consumers’ perception of a banking service. The present study is based on customer-based brand equity called the Brand Resonance model suggested by Keller (2001), which comprises six brand equity constructs, such as: brand resonance; brand judgements; brand feelings; brand performance; brand imagery; brand salience. Exploratory factor analysis was performed to reduce the total number of items to a small number of underlying factors, and the results produced six factors, namely: brand resonance; brand judgements; brand feelings; brand performance; brand imagery; brand salience. These alpha coefficients of the reliability test were found to be ranging from 0.781 to 0.912 for all of the brand equity constructs individually, and for the entire scale the value of alpha was found to be 0.837. Correlation analysis was performed to find out relationships among various components of brand equity. From the findings of multiple regression analysis it is evident that brand performance emerged as the most important determinant of brand resonance, followed by brand feelings (0.427) and brand judgements (0.306).
ASSOCIATION FOR CONSUMER RESEARCH Reward Substitution: Incentivizing Consumers to Choose Smaller Portion Sizes

Through several experiments, this research establishes that offering non-food rewards (lottery tickets, toys) bundled with smaller food portions as an alternative to full-portion meals can substantially decrease chosen portion sizes. A neuroimaging study finds that this effect can be explained by a “common reward currency” at the brain level. currency” brain All four incorporate different and neuropsychological measurements to study imperative questions on consumers’ decision making and well-being. ABSTRACT Deceiving the elderly is not a new problem, but it is one that has been growing in prevalence. To illustrate, financial abuse of elders aged 65 and older has risen from a low of 8% in 1950 to an as-tounding 20% in 2010 (Infogroup / ORC, 2010; Kemp, 2005). These Consumer neuroscience seeks to understand how consumer decisions are shaped by marketing actions. Recent research, guided by formal economic models, has made rapid progress in understanding the neural basis of value representation. These idealized models, however, rely on well-defined and stable preferences in a human that is famously fickle, and prone to influence from subtle like which may be unrelated to intrinsic value. An understanding of these influences is therefore critical for both our understanding of as well as
Portfolio Optimization with Trend Following Strategies

This thesis investigates how the mean-variance framework for portfolio optimization compares against that of risk-parity and the minimum conditional value-at-risk (CVaR) portfolio. Within the risk measure of portfolio variance, we find that the performance of the mean-variance portfolio is highly dependent on a well-conditioned sample covariance matrix while risk-parity appears to offer increased numerical stability. But with a regularized estimate, no method consistently outperforms the other. We suggest a minor extension to the risk-parity allocation objective with a resulting portfolio that exhibits superior properties in several central aspects. The minimum CVaR portfolio is built around the alternative risk measure conditional value-at-risk and we find that while the original problem formulation is prone to overfitting, a regularized version shows promising results worthy of further investigation.
Oral ulceration due to an antirheumatic drug (methotrexate): Report of a case

We report a case of oral ulceration that occurred during the course of rheumatoid arthritis treated with methotrexate. The patient was a 71-year-old man with oral ulceration of the floor of the mouth. The ulcer showed no induration, with a flat, clean surface and no bleeding. Biopsy revealed ulcer formation with marked inflammatory cell infiltration in the submucosa and dysplasia-like changes in epithelium. Topical steroids were ineffective. After reducing the dose of methotrexate, we observed that the lesion had epithelialized. The oral toxicity of low-dose methotrexate therapy is discussed.
Strict definiteness of integrals via complete monotonicity of derivatives

Let k be a nonnegative integer and let φ : (0,∞) → R be a C∞ function with (−)k · φ(k) completely monotone and not constant. If σ 6= 0 is a signed measure on any euclidean space Rd, with vanishing moments up to order k−1, then the integral ∫Rd ∫Rd φ(‖x−y‖2) dσ(x)dσ(y) is strictly positive whenever it exists. For general d no larger class of continuous functions φ seems to admit the same conclusion. Examples and applications are indicated. A section on ”bilinear integrability” might be of independent interest.
Global Dynamics of Infectious Disease with Arbitrary Distributed Infectious Period on Complex Networks

Most of the current epidemic models assume that the infectious period follows an exponential distribution. However, due to individual heterogeneity and epidemic diversity, these models fail to describe the distribution of infectious periods precisely. We establish a SIS epidemic model with multistaged progression of infectious periods on complex networks, which can be used to characterize arbitrary distributions of infectious periods of the individuals. By using mathematical analysis, the basic reproduction number for the model is derived. We verify that the depends on the average distributions of infection periods for different types of infective individuals, which extend the general theory obtained from the single infectious period epidemic models. It is proved that if , then the disease-free equilibrium is globally asymptotically stable; otherwise the unique endemic equilibrium exists such that it is globally asymptotically attractive. Finally numerical simulations hold for the validity of our theoretical results is given.
Ruin Analysis in a Discrete-time Sparre Andersen Model with External Financial Activities and Random Dividends

In this thesis, we consider a risk model which incorporates multiple threshold levels characterizing an insurer’s minimal capital requirement, dividend paying situations, and external financial activities. Our model is based on discrete monetary and time units, and the main quantities of interest are the finite-time ruin probabilities and the expected total discounted dividends paid prior to ruin. We mainly focus on the development of computational methods to attain these quantities of interest. One of the popular methods in the current literature used for studying such problems involves a recursive approach which incorporates appropriate conditioning arguments on the claim times and sizes, and we implement this procedure as well. Furthermore, ruin can occur due to both a claim as well as interest expense accumulation as our model allows the insurer to borrow money from an external fund. In this thesis, we consider only non-stochastic interest rates for both lending and borrowing activities. After constructing appropriate recursive formulae for the finite-time ruin probabilities and the expected total discounted dividends paid prior to ruin, we investigate various numerical examples and make some observations concerning the impact our threshold levels have on finite-time ruin probabilities and expected total discounted dividends paid prior to ruin.
Analysis of Phytochemical Content and Antibacterial Activity of Tapinanthus dodoneifolius Extracts

African mistletoe (Tapinanthus dodoneifolius) (DC), a plant parasite used ethnomedicinally for the treatment of several human and animal ailments including stomach ache, diarrhoea, dysentery, wound, cancer and hypertension was subjected to both phytochemical and antibacterial screening. The result of the phytochemical screening showed the occurrence of anthraquinones, saponins, carbohydrates, tannins, and alkaloids but absence of phlobatannins in the hemi-parasite. The In vitro assaying of the extracts using agar plate-hole and nutrient broth dilution techniques revealed a wide spectrum of antimicrobial activities against certain multiple drug resistant bacteria isolates with Salmonella typhi and Staphylococcus aureus being the most susceptible while Bacillus subtilis was the least. The inhibitory concentration (MIC) of the extracts ranged from 6.25 to 15.6mg/ml while the maximum bactericidal concentration (MBC) ranged from 25.0 to 62.5mg/ml. Interestingly, the antimicrobial activity of these extracts against the growth of Bacillus subtilis, Escherichia coli, Salmonella typhi, Staphilococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa; the bacterial species known to be associated with either crown gall or gastrointestinal tract and wound infections gave credence to the ethno-medicinal usage of the plant. Since the antibacterial activities and the phytochemical constituents of Tapinanthus dodoneifolius could partly be dependent on the host plant species and since the locust beans tree upon which this plant grows has a wide variety of ethno-medicinal applications, the wide traditional applications of this parasitic plant could also be explained on this basis. (Ndamitso, M.M. , Musah, M., Mohammed-Hadi, Z., Idris, S., Tijani, O.J., Shaba E.Y. and Umar, A. Analysis of Phytochemical content and Antibacterial Activity of Tapinanthus dodoneifolius Extracts. Researcher 2013;5(5):54-59). (ISSN: 1553-9865). http://www.sciencepub. net/researcher . 8
Dynamic lock-in compensation for mechanically dithered ring laser gyros

In ring laser gyros (RLGs), dynamic lock-in, which results from information loss in the lock-in region, occurs when a constant sine bias is introduced. However, sampling some signals in the lock-in region for a particular duration allows the retrieval of lost information. It is demonstrated how dynamic lock-in and the flat region in the input-output curve near the zero angle rate can be eliminated after compensation.
A new variable dispersion double-focusing plasma mass spectrometer with performance illustrated for Pb isotopes

A new generation multiple collector plasma source mass spectrometer (PSMS) produced by Nu Instruments Ltd is evaluated. The instrument has a double-focusing Nier–Johnson analyser with laminated magnet and a novel variable dispersion ion optical arrangement, enabling all masses to be located in the centre of the Faraday collectors of a fixed static array. The performance of the instrument has been assessed through the analysis of NBS-981 Pb using a Tl doping technique with Faraday collector efficiencies and amplifier gains determined independently. A second method of analysis involves comparison of interspersed standard and sample Pb measurements with effective gains for each collector determined from the standards. In both cases the repetition of Pb isotope measurement is competetive with the thermal ionization mass spectrometry (TIMS) double-spike method. (Int J Mass Spectrom 181 (1998) 51–58) © 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.
Latin America and Limited Commitment

Latin America has had striking changes in economic performance over time. None more striking than consumption. Consumption per-capita in the year 2004 was roughly the same as it was in 1980. Latin America is also an open economic region, with several international debt crises. This paper studies the time path of consumption using a small open economy real business cycle model with limited commitment. I compare the distortions to the planner’s pareto weights and investment that are generated endogenously by the model, to those that can be recovered from an international extension of a business cycle accounting exercise in the spirit of Chari, Kehoe and McGrattan (2007). I find that the limited commitment model does a good job at explaining the behavior of Latin American consumption and that the endogenous distortions to the planner’s pareto weights are very similar to those recovered from the accounting exercise.
DISTANCE AND SIMILARITY MEASURES FOR SENSORSSELECTION IN HEAVILY INSTRUMENTED BUILDINGS:APPLICATION TO THE INCAS PLATFORM

Energy management in residential buildings is taking an increasing role in the construction workflows. It entails understanding thermal processes at stake in the buildings and quantifying energy consumption, which meets inhabitants comfort requirements. Experimental platforms such as INCAS aim at providing experts with a practical way to study such problems in real conditions. These heavily equipped buildings yield huge amounts of real-time data (sampling rates, number and types of sensors) for which new automatic approaches could be useful to thermal experts. Generic similarity measures from data-mining could therefore provide comprehensive analysis tools to thermal experts. This paper focuses on the ability of some distance and similarity measures to organize millions of data from homogeneous and heterogeneous sensors into coherent clusters. Simplifying data interpretations to thermal experts in highly equipped buildings, this approach could also stand as a basis for studying smart grids of less equipped domestic houses studies. Two types of similarity measures are explored. The first one consists of a set of three distances, and accounts for differences in terms of amplitude scaling and shifting between pairs of measurements. It relies on the comparison of homogeneous sensors by quantifying the relative proximity of their amplitude in terms of mean value, variance and time shift. The second type of similarity measure employs a pre-processing step transforming continuous signals into binary events. The resulting spike trains are then compared by quantifying the amount of unitary transformations (events moves or events deletions/additions) needed to align pairs of events sequences. These proximity measures are computed on real data from experimental buildings of the INCAS platform. It comprises three experimental buildings (with different construction types) dedicated to testing various approaches regarding systems, control and energy-saving policies. These geometrically identical buildings are equipped with hundreds of sensors measuring temperature, humidity, differential pressure, and others data at various positions of the structures with sampling rates of one measurement per minute. Simulation-based temperatures are integrated in the sensors set providing a comparison between real and simulated data. Results illustrate the contribution of the applied methods when dealing with large amounts of measurements related to instrumented buildings behaviors. Actually results show that coherent clusters regarding distinct signal properties are automatically generated. These clusters can be used for dimensionality reduction (clusters of sensors could be summarized by a single virtual measurement), or relative comparisons between sensors or between real and simulated datasets.
Clustering stationary and non-stationary time series based on autocorrelation distance of hierarchical and k-means algorithms

Observing large dimension time series could be time-consuming. One identification and classification approach is a time series clustering. This study aimed to compare the accuracy of two algorithms, hierarchical cluster and K-Means cluster, using ACF’s distance for clustering stationary and non-stationary time series data. This research uses both simulation and real datasets. The simulation generates 7 stationary data models and another 7 of non-stationary data models. On the other hands, the real dataset is the daily temperature data in 34 cities in Indonesia. As a result, K-Means algorithm has the highest accuracy for both data models.
The physical properties of coarse-fragment soils and their effects on permafrost dynamics: a case study on the central Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau

Abstract. Soils on the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau (QTP) have distinct physical properties from agricultural soils due to weak weathering and strong erosion. These properties might affect permafrost dynamics. However, few studies have investigated both quantitatively. In this study, we selected a permafrost site on the central region of the QTP and excavated soil samples down to 200 cm. We measured soil porosity, thermal conductivity, saturated hydraulic conductivity, and matric potential in the laboratory. Finally, we ran a simulation model replacing default sand or loam parameters with different combinations of these measured parameters. Our results showed that the mass of coarse fragments in the soil samples (diameter >2 mm) was ∼55 % on average, soil porosity was less than 0.3 m3 m−3, saturated hydraulic conductivity ranged from 0.004 to 0.03 mm s−1, and saturated matric potential ranged from −14 to −604 mm. When default sand or loam parameters in the model were substituted with these measured values, the errors of soil temperature, soil liquid water content, active layer depth, and permafrost lower boundary depth were reduced (e.g., the root mean square errors of active layer depths simulated using measured parameters versus the default sand or loam parameters were about 0.28, 1.06, and 1.83 m). Among the measured parameters, porosity played a dominant role in reducing model errors and was typically much smaller than for soil textures used in land surface models. We also demonstrated that soil water dynamic processes should be considered, rather than using static properties under frozen and unfrozen soil states as in most permafrost models. We conclude that it is necessary to consider the distinct physical properties of coarse-fragment soils and water dynamics when simulating permafrost dynamics of the QTP. Thus it is important to develop methods for systematic measurement of physical properties of coarse-fragment soils and to develop a related spatial data set for porosity.