Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Variation of skull characteristics of Anderson's red-backed vole Eothenomys andersoni, from Nagano City, central Honshu, Japan

A morphological examination of Japanese Eothenomys voles from Nagano City was carried out in order to re-evaluate the identification criteria of the taxa and to compare them with voles from north-eastern, central and western Honshu. The relationship between hind foot length and tail vertebrae length (HFL-TL) divides Japanese Eothenomys voles into two clusters, one of which has been identified as Anderson's red-backed vole E. andersoni and the other as Smith's red-backed vole E. smithii. However, four cranial and dental characteristics (the projection of the lamdoidal crest (LDC), the distance between the tympanic bullae (BTB), and the width and length of the middle lacerate (MLC-w and MLC-l)) contradict the identification based on the HFL-TL relationship. Four specimens from Nagano were clearly identified as E. andersoni on the basis of the HFL-TL relationship, but whereas three of them exhibited andersoni-type cranial and dental characteristics one showed smithii-type characteristics. Thus, cranial characteristics are necessary in order to re-examine the effectiveness of the species identification. It is possible that one of the individuals from Nagano may have resulted from hybridisation between E. andersoni and E. smithii, as has been suggested by previous genetic studies. Hybridisation may result in the ambiguity of the characteristics shown by the atypical individual from Nagano.
Guanosine Triphosphate Binding to β‐Subunit of Tubulin in Alzheimer's Disease Brain: Role of Microtubule‐Associated Protein τ

Abstract: In Alzheimer's disease, paired helical filaments composed mainly of abnormally phosphorylated τ accumulate in certain selected neurons of the brain, and microtubules are rarely seen in the affected cells. In the present study, the binding of 32P‐labeled 8‐azidoguanosine triphosphate ([γ‐32P]8N3GTP), the photoaffinity analogue of GTP, to the β‐subunit of tubulin in brain homogenates was found to be markedly lower in patients with Alzheimer's disease than in aged control human cases. No significant differences were observed in the levels of the α‐ and β‐subunits of tubulin between Alzheimer's disease and control brains obtained 2–7 h postmortem. In nine of 19 Alzheimer's disease and 11 of 12 control autopsied brains (2–7 h postmortem and stored at −75°C) tubulin was isolated successfully from brain cytosol by in vitro polymerization induced with DEAE‐dextran. The GTP binding was observed in the two cycled assembled microtubule preparations from all the normal control, and in eight of nine Alzheimer's disease cases. Alzheimer's disease microtubule preparations contained varying amounts of abnormally phosphorylated τ, whereas no abnormal τ was detected in the control brain preparations. Addition of bovine τ to bovine, normal human, and Alzheimer's disease brain tubulin preparations markedly increased GTP binding to the β‐subunit. An alkaline phosphatase‐treated paired helical filament‐enriched preparation increased by approximately twofold the GTP binding to bovine brain tubulin. GTP binding to tubulin prepared by phosphocellulose chromatography of two cycled microtubules from three Alzheimer's disease and three normal control brains, revealed insignificant differences between the two groups. These findings have suggested that (1) τ protein promotes the GTP binding to the β‐subunit of tubulin, and (2) the breakdown of the microtubule system in brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease might in part be due to the abnormal phosphorylation of τ which depresses the GTP binding.
Cytotoxic Activities of Snow Lotus Filtrates Against Human Cancer Cell Lines and Origin of Active Factor(s)

Snow Lotus (SL) filtrate was prepared by incubation of SL grains with pasteurized and unboiled 4% milk for 24 h at room temperature and tested on cultured human cancer cells, namely, human colon adenocarcinoma (HCA), HepG2, MCF-7 and compared with a normal mouse (NCTC clone 929) cell line. It was observed that this filtrate exhibited cytotoxic activities in HCA (LD50 16.6 µl/ml) and HepG2 (LD50 17.1 µl/ml) cells and to a lesser extent in MCF-7 (LD50 28.1 µl/ml) and normal mouse cells (LD50 24.3 µl/ml). Different SL filtrates were also prepared by incubation of grains with 2, 1 and 0% fat content milks. These filtrates exhibited moderate to high cytotoxic activities. Interestingly, the filtrate obtained from 2% milk showed significant differential cytotoxic activity in the range of 39 to 44% between human cancer and mouse cell lines. The cytotoxic studies were also carried out with filtrate of shorter incubation period, where no cytotoxic activity observed. Similarly, SL water filtrate was also inactive in all cell cultures. The origin of cytotoxic factor(s) in the filtrates is discussed.
FERCE: Facial Expression Recognition for Combined Emotions Using FERCE Algorithm

Research in facial expression recognition and emotion detection has undergone many developments recently. Human beings express different feelings via facial expressions at different circumstances. Perceiving such type of communication helps us in building a computational human cognition model. There are seven basic emotions: anger, disgust, fear, happy, sad, surprise and neutral. Researchers have stuck to those seven emotions for research into facial expression recognition and emotion detection. Apart from those basic emotions, the existing literature has defined 21 other compound emotions. However, they failed to explore some more emotions and few have been eliminated by claiming them as meaningless. This study proposes an algorithm that offers a new approach for grouping the emotion classes. In this proposed work a total of 37 emotions are identified as combined emotions out of which 16 are newly derived. These derived emotions were unnoticed by the earlier and they are existing in real-time human emotions. Along with exploring new emotions, the claim that certain existing emotions are symmetric is challenged and proved to be asymmetric in nature. This claim is validated by employing the Facial Action Coding System (FACS) and statistical analysis of combined emotions.
The Role of Central Banks

Abstract:L’auteur se penche sur les origines des banques centrales en général, parallèlement à celles qui sont propres à la Banque du Canada. Il établit un cadre de référence politique global ayant pour paramètres les buts, les règles politiques et la mise en œuvre, et il évalue le cadre de maîtrise de l’inflation de la Banque du Canada. L’auteur envisage des solutions de rechange à la maîtrise de l’inflation, notamment la stratégie axée sur le niveau des prix, la stratégie de l’inflation moyenne, le ciblage du produit intérieur brut nominal et le double mandat. Il analyse les enjeux de la politique monétaire associés à la persistance des faibles taux d’intérêt réels. L’auteur conclut que la stratégie de maîtrise de l’inflation s’est révélée efficace au Canada et qu’aucune autre stratégie n’apparaît manifestement supérieure. Abstract:The origins of central banking, in general, are examined, along with the specific origins of the Bank of Canada. A general policy framework is set out, in terms of goals, policy rules, and implementation, and the Bank of Canada’s inflation targeting framework is evaluated. Alternatives to inflation targeting are considered, including price-level targeting, inflation averaging, nominal gross domestic product targeting, and a dual mandate. Monetary policy issues associated with persistent low real interest rates are discussed. The conclusion is that inflation targeting has been a success in Canada, and there are no obviously superior alternative approaches.
Text Age Rating Methods for Digital Libraries

The addressee plays a major role in communication. Text creating involves taking into account the features of the target audience, to which he refers in writing. In this article, the text addressee detection is considered from the point of view of natural language processing. The task of age classification deserves special attention. Its relevance is associated with the development of e-learning systems and digital libraries. Moreover, nowadays all information products in Russia must be marked by age rating. This article describes the first attempt to solve the automatic age rating prediction task by the example of Russian texts. In this work, we analyze the main factors affecting the text age rating and propose the first approximation classifier for determining the age of the textual target audience. Our approach is based on a range of features designed to capture readability, lexical and topic modeling characteristics. We use these features to train a Linear Support Vector Classifier. We trained and tested our classifier on a dataset of 1200 previews of fiction books in Russian annotated for age rating by books’ publishers. Our performance evaluation suggests that proposed features are a good indicator for text age rating. However, in future work, we plan to add and evaluate other types of models and linguistic features.
Perpendicular magnetization switching by large spin–orbit torques from sputtered Bi2Te3

Spin–orbit torque (SOT) effect is considered as an efficient way to switch the magnetization and can inspire various high-performance spintronic devices. Recently, topological insulators (TIs) have gained extensive attention, as they are demonstrated to maintain a large effective spin Hall angle ( θSHeff ), even at room temperature. However, molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), as a precise deposition method, is required to guarantee favorable surface states of TIs, which hinders the prospect of TIs towards industrial application. In this paper, we demonstrate that Bi2Te3 films grown by magnetron sputtering can provide a notable SOT effect in the heterostructure with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy CoTb ferrimagnetic alloy. By harmonic Hall measurement, a high SOT efficiency (8.7 ± 0.9 Oe/(109 A/m2)) and a large θSHeff (3.3±0.3) are obtained at room temperature. Besides, we also observe an ultra-low critical switching current density (9.7×109 A/m2). Moreover, the low-power characteristic of the sputtered Bi2Te3 film is investigated by drawing a comparison with different sputtered SOT sources. Our work may provide an alternative to leverage chalcogenides as a realistic and efficient SOT source in future spintronic devices.
A Single-Pin Antenna Interface RF Front End Using a Single-MOS DCO-PA and a Push–Pull LNA

We propose a simple power-efficient sub-1-V fully integrated RF front end (RFE) for 2.4-GHz transceivers. It introduces the following innovations. First, a function-reuse single-MOS digitally controlled oscillator power amplifier (DCO-PA) with full supply utilization improves antenna-to-DCO isolation for better resilience to jammers. Second, a noninverting transmitter (TX) matching transformer with a zero-shifting capacitor suppresses the second-harmonic emission of the DCO-PA and allows a single-pin antenna interface for both TX and receiver (RX) modes eliminating the transmit/receive (T/R) switches in the signal path. Third, a push–pull low-noise amplifier (LNA) reuses the TX matching transformer for passive gain boosting that reduces power consumption. Fabricated in 65-nm CMOS, the RFE occupies merely 0.17 mm2. Through the functional merge of the oscillator and PA, it can transmit 0 dBm at RF, featuring 10.2% power efficiency when delivering the RF power as low as −10 dBm at a 0.3-V supply. Under a 0.5-V supply, the LNA shows 11-dB gain and 6.8-dB noise figure (NF) while consuming 174 $\mu \text{W}$ .
In vitro proteolysis and functional properties of reductively alkylated β-casein derivatives

Summary β-Casein amino groups were modified with aldehydes and dialdehydes via reductive alkylation at pH 8·0. The degree of alkylation was controlled by the amount of the alkylating reagent applied. The initial rates of α-chymotrypsin-catalysed hydrolysis of alkylated β-casein were inversely related to the size of the modifying group. Proteolysis of modified β-casein with trypsin (18 h) or with α-chymotrypsin (48 h) depended on the nature and size of the substituent applied. The measurements of tryptophan fluorescence indicate that the modifications also induced conformation change. Solubilities of methyl-, ethyl- or benzyl-β-casein slightly increased; solubilities of β-casein dialdehyde derivatives were significantly lower than that of native β-casein. Emulsion stability of methyl- or ethyl- β-casein was higher than that of native β-casein in the acidic pH range. After modification with glyoxal, the emulsifying activity and the emulsion stability of β-casein decreased. The emulsifying activity of benzyl- β-casein was lower than that of native β-casein. Phthalylated β-casein displayed the poorest emulsion stability.
A FIVE-YEAR RETROSPECTIVE STUDY ON THE PREVALENCE OF ECLAMPSIA AMONG PREGNANT WOMEN AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MAIDUGURI TEACHING HOSPITAL, MAIDUGURI, NIGERIA

This study was aimed at finding out the prevalence of eclampsia among pregnant women at the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital. This study is a retrospective study conducted at the Medical Record Department of the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital for the year January 2007 to December 2011. The data collected were of patients admitted within the year of study with no history of hypertension, diabetes, circulatory defect and no history of convulsion. The descriptive statistics of mean, standard deviation, frequencies and percentages were used to summaries the data. The total number of women who delivered within the 5 years period of study were 5191 out of which 294(5.66%) had eclampsia. Eclampsia occurs more among primigravidae 65.3%, those who do not attend antenatal patients 75.9%, during ante-partum 45.6%, women with no formal education 60.3%, those who are resident in high density areas 86.7%, within the age range of 20-29(48.3%), during third trimester 94.8%, more during the raining season 44.2%, and among women with previous history of eclampsia 2.8%. The outcome of this study shows that the prevalence of eclampsia at the University of Maiduguri teaching Hospital is high; it also shows increase in 2008, decrease in 2009 and 2010 and a marked increase in 2011 for the prevalence of eclampsia. It is therefore important that all levels of health care Intuitions be equipped and facilitated for the care and management of eclamptic women, women should also be encouraged and educated about the importance of ante natal care, physiotherapy should also be include as part of the ante natal care program. Article visualizations:
Sexual selection on size and shape in Japanese beetles (Popillia japonica)

The mobility hypothesis argues that species in which males compete for mates in scrambles often exhibit female-biased size dimorphism because smaller male body size should increase male mobility and success in searching for mates. Sexual dimorphism can be further exaggerated if fecundity or sexual selection concurrently selects for larger female size. Scramble competition can select for trait characteristics that optimize locomotion; for example, long and slender wings should be favored if aerial speed is important to mating success. I tested these predictions in the scrambling Japanese beetle (Popillia japonica), a female-biased size dimorphic insect pest that is invasive to North America. Multivariate selection analyses support the prediction that smaller body size and larger wings in males benefit their mating success. My analyses also revealed significant selection for larger wings in females but, contrary to prediction, direct sexual selection favors smaller body size in females. These results support the mobility hypothesis and partially explain the evolution of female-biased size dimorphism in this species. Sexual selection favored rounder bodies in females and more tapered bodies in males, whereas, in both sexes, the effect of wing shape appears less important to fitness than wing size.
Interactive Real-Time Control System for The Artificial Hand

In recent years, the number of researches in the field of artificial limbs has increased significantly in order to improve the performance of the use of these limbs by amputees. During this period, High-Density surface Electromyography (HD-sEMG) signals have been employed for hand gesture identification, in which the performance of the classification process can be improved by using robust spatial features extracted from HD-sEMG signals. In this paper, several algorithms of spatial feature extraction have been proposed to increase the accuracy of the SVM classifier, while the histogram oriented gradient (HOG) has been used to achieve this mission. So, several feature sets have been extracted from HD-sEMG signals such as; features extracted based on HOG denoted by (H); features have been generated by combine intensity feature with H features denoted as (HI); features have been generated by combine average intensity with H features denoted as (AIH). The proposed system has been simulated by MATLAB to calculate the accuracy of the classification process, in addition, the proposed system is practically validated in order to show the ability to use this system by amputees. The results show the high accuracy of the classifier in real-time which leads to an increase in the possibility of using this system as an artificial hand.
Production of protoplasts by autolytic induction in Bacillus thuringiensis: Transformation and interspecific fusion

Abstract A highly efficient method for the production of Bacillus thuringiensis protoplasts was developed. Formation of protoplasts was due to the activation of autolytic factors. In order to achieve induction of this autolytic system in a rapid and efficient manner, the appropriate conditions for growth and treatment were determined and optimized. Protoplast preparations obtained in this way were subjected to transformation with plasmid DNA and to interspecific fusion with a Bacillus subtilis rec− strain. Results indicated that these protoplasts could efficiently take up exogenous plasmid DNA as well as act as DNA donors in fusion experiments.
Increasing Efficiency of Entrepreneurial Potential in Service Sector

The article deals with a functional issue of ensuring an effective utilization of entrepreneurial potential in the service sector. When considering theoretical and methodological bases of forming and ensuring the effective use of entrepreneurial potential in a competitive environment, the emphasis is placed on the essence of the entrepreneurial potential, which is characterized by the ability of a business entity to form all types of economic resources that it can possess or attract from outside and the ability to effectively use it to satisfy needs of consumers and obtain economic benefits, increasing their value in the long run. The main types of entrepreneurial potential include basic means of doing business, commodity resources, labor resources, financial resources. The specifics of potential formation and utilization are considered in the study of economic mechanism of entrepreneurship functioning in the service sector, which aims at maximum satisfaction of consumer needs, formation of a wide range of products, development of flexible pricing policy, quality assurance of services, introduction of modern information technologies, use of economic levers and incentives that encourage entrepreneurial structures to obtain maximum positive results from presence on the market. The efficiency assessment of utilization of entrepreneurial potential with the use of differentiated and generalized indicators has been made. Results of such an assessment made it possible to suggest ways to improve the existing methodological assessment tools and to calculate weight coefficients that adjust the expected real value of the aggregate potential. The proposed assessment methodology for entrepreneurial potential provides two options for estimating value of its elements: pessimistic and realistic.
Unsupervised Deep Joint Segmentation of Multitemporal High-Resolution Images

High/very-high-resolution (HR/VHR) multitemporal images are important in remote sensing to monitor the dynamics of the Earth’s surface. Unsupervised object-based image analysis provides an effective solution to analyze such images. Image semantic segmentation assigns pixel labels from meaningful object groups and has been extensively studied in the context of single-image analysis, however not explored for multitemporal one. In this article, we propose to extend supervised semantic segmentation to the unsupervised joint semantic segmentation of multitemporal images. We propose a novel method that processes multitemporal images by separately feeding to a deep network comprising of trainable convolutional layers. The training process does not involve any external label, and segmentation labels are obtained from the argmax classification of the final layer. A novel loss function is used to detect object segments from individual images as well as establish a correspondence between distinct multitemporal segments. Multitemporal semantic labels and weights of the trainable layers are jointly optimized in iterations. We tested the method on three different HR/VHR data sets from Munich, Paris, and Trento, which shows the method to be effective. We further extended the proposed joint segmentation method for change detection (CD) and tested on a VHR multisensor data set from Trento.
Preparation and characterization of antibacterial dopamine-functionalized reduced graphene oxide/PLLA composite nanofibers

Electrospun poly(l)-lactide (PLLA) ultrafine fibers are a biodegradable and biocompatible scaffold, widely used in tissue engineering applications. Unfortunately, these scaffolds have some limitations related to the absence of bioactivity and antibacterial capacity. In this study, dopamine-functionalized reduced graphene oxide (rGO)/PLLA composite nanofibers were fabricated via electrospinning. The morphology and the physicochemical and biological properties of the composite nanofibers were investigated. The results indicate that incorporating rGO improves the hydrophilic, mechanical, and biocompatibility properties of PLLA nanofibers. Tetracycline hydrochloride (TC)-loaded rGO/PLLA composite nanofibers showed better controlled drug release profiles compared to GO/PLLA and PLLA nanofibrous scaffolds. Drug-loaded nanofibrous scaffolds showed significantly improved antibacterial activity against Gram-negative Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus). Additionally, rGO/PLLA composite nanofibers exhibited enhanced cytocompatibility. Thus, it can be concluded that rGO/PLLA composite nanofibers allow the development of multifunctional scaffolds for use in biomedical applications.