Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Polydopamine‐Graphene Oxide Flame Retardant Nanocoatings Applied via an Aqueous Liquid Crystalline Scaffold

A highly effective flame retardant (FR) nanocoating was developed by conducting oxidative polymerization of dopamine monomer within an aqueous liquid crystalline (LC) graphene oxide (GO) scaffold coating. Due to its high water content, the LC scaffold coating approach facilitated fast transport and polymerization of dopamine precursors into polydopamine (PDA) within the water swollen interlayer galleries. Uniform and periodically stacked (14.5 Å d‐spacing) PDA/GO nanocoatings could be universally applied on different surfaces, including macroporous flexible polyurethane (PU) foam and flat substrates such as silicon wafers. Remarkably, PDA/GO coated PU foam exhibited highly efficient flame retardant performance reflected by a 65% reduction in peak heat release rate at 5 wt% PDA/GO loading in an 80 nm thick coating. While many physically mixed flame retardants are usually detrimental to the mechanical properties of the foam, the PDA/GO coating did not affect mechanical properties substantially. In addition, the PDA/GO coatings were stable in water due to the intrinsic adhesion capability of PDA and the transformation of GO to the more hydrophobic reduced GO form. Given that PDA is produced from dopamine, a molecule prevalent in nature, these findings suggest that significant opportunities exist for new polymeric FRs derived from other natural catechols.
Anti-Cancer Drug Screening with Microfluidic Technology

The up-and-coming microfluidic technology is the most promising platform for designing anti-cancer drugs and new point-of-care diagnostics. Compared to conventional drug screening methods based on Petri dishes and animal studies, drug delivery in microfluidic systems has many advantages. For instance, these platforms offer high-throughput drug screening, require a small number of samples, provide an in vivo-like microenvironment for cells, and eliminate ethical issues associated with animal studies. Multiple cell cultures in microfluidic chips could better mimic the 3D tumor environment using low reagents consumption. The clinical experiments have shown that combinatorial drug treatments have a better therapeutic effect than monodrug therapy. Many attempts have been made in this field in the last decade. This review highlights the applications of microfluidic chips in anti-cancer drug screening and systematically categorizes these systems as a function of sample size and combination of drug screening. Finally, it provides a perspective on the future of the clinical applications of microfluidic systems for anti-cancer drug development.
Polyphenolic Contents, Antioxidant Potential and Antimicrobial Activity Of Satureja boissieri

Antioxidant activities of Satureja boissieri extracts were detected by using specific in vitro techniques. Standard antioxidant compounds such as ascorbic acid, BHA (Butylated Hydroxyanisole) and BHT (Butylated Hydroxytoluene) were used to compare with the results obtained from ethanol and water extracts of the plant samples. Both extracts presented high antioxidant actions on ABTS cation radical and DPPH free radical scavenging methods. Furthermore, the antimicrobial activity of S. boissieri was defined by using three fungi species, three Gram-positive and four Gram-negative bacteria species. The reducing power antioxidant activities of samples were measured by CUPRAC and FRAP techniques. Also, phenolic compounds of S. boissieri leaves were identified by UHPLC-ESI-MS/MS. The high concentration of hesperidin (5051 ± 247 ppb) and rosmarinic acid (4364 ± 214 ppb) was characterized quantitatively. According to the results, high phenolic content can be thought of as one of the responsible parameters for effective biological activity. Also, its flavonoid and phenolic contents are good natural sources for using in the food industry and pharmacological process.
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Este artigo avalia se o grau de especialização das exportações e importações em commodities cria possível não linearidade entre abertura comercial e renda per capita. Em outras palavras se a composição da pauta de exportação e importação pode alterar a eficiência que a abertura comercial possui em explicar o diferencial de renda entre nações. Para isso, aplica-se o modelo de painel com transição suave para 110 países, seguindo o mesmo procedimento de Frankel e Romer (1999), evitando assim problemas de endogeneidade. Os resultados empíricos indicam que a especialização das exportações em commodities pode fazer com que a abertura comercial seja menos eficaz em elevar a renda quando comparada a países que possuem pauta de exportações com vantagens comparativas em manufaturados. Por outro lado, esta situação de menor eficácia associada à especialização em commodities deixa de ser válida, caso a pauta de importações esteja fortemente especializada no setor de manufaturados, que inclui bens intermediários e de capital.
Effect of Environmental Factors on Apricot (Prunus armeniaca L.) Yield in the City of Jerusalem Occupied, Palestine

Apricot is a deciduous perennial tree, which classified within to the Rosacea family, sensitive to climatic factors, and its production has an economic role for many countries of the world, including Palestine. Mean annual temperatures and precipitation were analyzed, using data from a meteorological station of Jerusalem, Palestine, which has recorded between the year (1993-2012), and with the same number of years of apricot production, knowing that production data were taken from the Palestinian Statistics Center for the mentioned period. On the other hand, we used Professor Salvador Ravers Martins' methodology to classify the Earth in the process of analyzing environmental factors, there are two aspects of the factors: The first is climatic, which is the amount of rain or precipitation, mean monthly temperature and soil water reserve, and the second factor is the bioclimatic, which is annual ombrothermic index, simple continentality index, compensated thermicity index, and water deficit. In conclusion, Jerusalem was adversely affected by mean monthly temperature, precipitation, compensated thermicity index, deficit water, annual ombrothermic index during (1997-2002 and 2007-2012), but positively influenced by soil water reserve on apricot production, during (1993-1997 and 2002-2007), with a great rate of the variance in axis F1 (98.8%), axis F2 (0.82%) and symmetrical plot axes F1and F2 (99.8%), when the correspondence analysis was applied. However, humid areas characterized by mild summers are the suitable region for apricot production and productivity, with a temperature ranging between 22-24°C, at which high quality production can be obtained, the amount of rain is between 600 - 800 mm annually. Final, environmental regions in the thermomediterranean and the Mesomediterranean, with simple continentality index is 17 - 22, annual ombrothermic index is 2.5, while the compensated thermicity index is about 250/420, to obtain the highest ideal production of apricots in Jerusalem, Palestine.
Knowledge of Formal and Informal Regulations Affecting Wild Plant Foraging Practices in Urban Spaces in South Africa

Abstract Although foraging wild plants is commonly perceived to be synonymous with rural areas, it is now increasingly recognized in urban areas. Notwithstanding, the regulations conditioning access to and rights to foraging in urban green spaces have seldom been examined. This study explored the formal and informal regulations governing access to and defining rights to forageable plant resources in the towns of Potchefstroom and Thabazimbi, South Africa. A random sample of 374 households was considered for the survey, complemented by in-depth interviews with 26 participants. Foraging occurred in a variety of public and private spaces, with the frequency of access differing with the type of space. The majority of the respondents were unaware of formal and informal regulations governing access to and use of urban landscapes. Recognizing foraging activities in urban landscapes is a fundamental step toward fostering active community involvement in the management and production of urban green spaces.
Fragility Assessment of Pre-Northridge Steel Moment Frames Using Finite-Length Plastic Hinge Elements and Concentrated Plasticity Fracture Elements

Although pre-Northridge earthquake steel moment resisting frame buildings have been shown to be susceptible to brittle connection failures, they still represent a large fraction of the existing steel buildings in the United States of America. In this study, the performance of the 3and 9-story Los Angeles pre-Northridge SAC buildings are analyzed considering ductile and brittle beam-column connection failures, and their uncertainty. This paper contributes to understanding the influence of uncertainty associated with connections brittle fracture on building interstory deformation capacity and its impact on bias and variability of fragility functions and loss assessment. The results show that considering brittle connections leads to significantly larger drift demands and to higher repair costs, particularly under intense ground shaking. New fragility curve parameters are derived that account for the effect of the uncertainty of the strength and deformation capacity of brittle connections.
Evaluation of the First Negative Ion-Based Cloud Seeding and Rain Enhancement Trial in China

Negative ion-based cloud seeding has been shown to be an effective means in the laboratory. China’s first negative ion-based cloud seeding outfield trial was conducted in the northwestern interior. This paper briefly introduces the principle of the ion-based precipitation enhancement, and the trial location is described. The design of the ionization system and meteorological monitoring network are presented. The implementation plan of the outfield trial is explained. In addition, the evaluation of experimental effects is detailed in this paper. We designed various analytical methods to investigate both the overall precipitation variation of the experimental area and the precipitation variation within the experimental area. The overall precipitation of the experimental area was predicted using a neural network, and then the actual precipitation was compared with the predicted precipitation to evaluate the effectiveness of the experiment. The effectiveness of the experiment was also evaluated using historical precipitation data and the result of the randomized comparative trial. This paper also explores the effects of geographic location differences and wind direction differences on the precipitation differences within the trial area. The changes in the number of negative ions and clouds in the sky were also analyzed. From these analyses, we obtained quantitative assessment results. These results could indicate that the outfield trial basically met the expected requirements, which is to increase the rainfall of the trial area by 20%.
Highly Sensitive and Ecologically Sustainable Reversed-Phase HPTLC Method for the Determination of Hydroquinone in Commercial Whitening Creams

Hydroquinone (HDQ) is a natural depigmenting agent, which is commonly used in skin-toning preparations. The safety and greenness of analytical methods of HDQ quantification were not considered in previous literature. Therefore, a highly sensitive and ecologically greener reversed-phase high-performance thin-layer chromatography (RP-HPTLC)-based assay was established for HDQ estimation in four different commercial whitening creams (CWCs). The binary ethanol–water (60:40, v·v−1) mixture was utilized as the green solvent system. The estimation of HDQ was carried out at 291 nm. The present RP-HPTLC-based assay was linear in the 20–2400 ng band−1 range. The present analytical method was highly sensitive based on the detection and quantification data. The other validation parameters, such as accuracy, precision, and robustness, were also suitable for the determination of HDQ. Maximum HDQ quantities were obtained in CWC A (1.23% w·w−1) followed by CWC C (0.81% w·w−1), CWC D (0.43% w·w−1), and CWC B (0.37% w·w−1). The analytical GREEnness (AGREE) score for the present analytical method was estimated as 0.91, indicating the excellent greener characteristics of the present RP-HPTLC assay. These results suggest that the present analytical method is highly sensitive and ecologically sustainable for the quantitation of HDQ in its commercial formulations.
An assessment of statistical interpolation methods suited for gridded rainfall datasets

Accurate spatial distribution information of rainfall is essential to rainfall‐induced hazard predictions and statistical interpolation methods may serve as a useful tool to produce a detailed distribution from coarse data sources. Although numerous comparison studies about different interpolation methods have been conducted on irregular rain‐gauge networks, there is a need to perform such work on the increasingly available gridded rainfall data. Carried out in the Emilia‐Romagna region (Italy) from 2008 to 2018, this study aims to examine accurate and appropriate interpolation methods to produce finer rainfall surface maps based on the 0.25° × 0.25° ERA5 gridded precipitation datasets. Five interpolation techniques, namely Thiessen polygons, Inverse Distance Weighting (IDW), Thin Plate Spline (TPS), Ordinary Kriging (OK) and ordinary Co‐Kriging (CoK), have been selected and compared at different time scales (annual, monthly and annual maximum daily precipitation). To assess the accuracy, the leave‐one‐out‐cross‐validation test was used by using the indexes of Bias, correlation coefficient, the Nash‐Sutcliffe Efficiency, Root Mean Square Error and the Kling‐Gupta Efficiency (KGE). Additionally, visual inspections are employed to evaluate the plausibility of the interpolated maps. Results show: (a) All five interpolation methods have certain capabilities to improve spatial resolution, but they fail on accuracy at the daily scale. The OK generally outperforms the other four methods, while TPS shows better performance through the visual inspection at the monthly scale; (b) Unlike in the case of the interpolation using conventional point‐based rain‐gauge data, the multivariate method CoK is inferior to the univariate ones and the p‐power of the IDW also differs and (c) Winter and spring results are better than those of summer and autumn. This study has provided useful guidance on choosing suitable rainfall interpolation methods for gridded datasets, which can be expanded in other regions and data sources to explore the generality of the conclusions.
Mimicking Bone Anisotropic Structure with Modified Gyroid Scaffolds; A Finite Element Analysis

❖ Scaffolds with anisotropic mechanical and biological properties were designed. ❖ Anisotropic models showed different permeability in longitudinal to transverse. ❖ Gyroid architecture is a good candidate to design anisotropic scaffolds for bone tissue. Graphical Abstract Deformation in the structure of the gyroid architecture caused differences in stiffness and permeability characteristics in the longitudinal and lateral directions.
Power spectral density-based nearinfrared sub-band detection for noninvasive blood glucose prediction in both in-vitro and in-vivo studies

Diabetes is a widespread and serious disease and noninvasive measurement has been in high demand. To address this problem, a power spectral density-based method was offered for determining glucose sensitive sub-bands in the nearinfrared (NIR) spectrum. The experiments were conducted using phantoms of different optical properties in-vitro conditions. The optical bands 1200–1300[Formula: see text]nm and 2100–2200[Formula: see text]nm were found feasible for measuring blood glucose. After that, a photoplethysmography (PPG)-based low cost and portable optical system was designed. It has six different NIR wavelength LEDs for illumination and an InGaAs photodiode for detection. Optical density values were calculated through the system and used as independent variables for multiple linear regression analysis. The results of blood glucose levels for 24 known healthy subjects showed that the optical system prediction was nearly 80% in the A zone and 20% in the B zone according to the Clarke Error Grid analysis. It was shown that a promising easy-use, continuous, and compact optical system had been designed.
Parents, whiteness and sex education: A critical race critique of Parent sex education guides

‘It is difficult to talk to my children about sex’ – this anxiety has long been established in sex education literature, along with the beneficial role of improved parent–child communication for sexual health and relationship outcomes. However, the insights gained from this literature have been under-researched in migrant families, and has resulted in the ‘whitening’ of parent guides that provide ‘tips’ for parents. This article asks critical questions about the politics of race and representation that structure these documents. In the main, these questions rest on concerns about who these guides speak to. On the surface, the documents speak to everyone, through an inclusive terminology and phraseology that references ‘all parents’ and ‘our worries’. However, this paper asks: What does it do, and what is produced, to speak about parents in the general? How does the production of an assumed ‘singular/universal’ parent serve to ‘other’ the experiences a racially diverse parents, and render a broader range of experiences invisible? To explore this question, this article undertakes a critical discourse analysis of parent guides in Australia. It interrogates the normative frameworks that scaffold and structure the guides, and in the main argues that despite gestures toward inclusion, a very particular kind of parent lies at the heart of the documents. In addition, the article moves from deconstruction to think through what parent sex education guides might look like it they were better designed to account for difference.
COMPUTATIONAL STUDY OF GEOMETRIC EFFECTS OF BOTTOM WALL MICROGROOVES ON CELL DOCKING INSIDE MICROFLUIDIC DEVICES

Single cell and regularly cells docking inside the microstructure of microfluidic systems are advantageous in different analyses of single cells exposed to equal drug concentration and mechanical stimulus. In this study, we investigated bottom wall microgrooves with semicircular and rectangular geometries with different sizes which are suitable for single cell docking along the length of the microgroove in x direction and numerous cells docking regularly in one line inside the microgroove in a 3D microchannel. We used computational fluid dynamics to analyze the fluid recirculation area inside different microgrooves. The height of recirculation area in the bottom of microgroove can affect the cell attachment, and also materials delivery to attached cells, so the height of recirculation area has to be optimum amount. In addition, we analyzed the fluid drag force on cell movement toward the microgroove. This parameter was proportional to the fluid velocities in x and y directions changing in different microgrooves geometries. In different microgrooves geometries the fluid velocity in y direction does not change. If the fluid velocity in x direction decreases inside the microgroove, the cell movement time inside the microgroove will increase, and also the drag force in y direction can push the cells toward the bottom due to the lower drag force in x direction. The percentages of negative shear stress and average shear stress on the adhered cell surface were also calculated. The lower average shear stress, and negative shear stress around 50% on the cell surface are against cell detachment from the substrate. The results indicated that at the constant fluid inlet velocity and microchannel height, microgroove geometry and ratio of cell size to the microgroove size play pivotal roles in the cell initial adhesion to the substrate as well as the cell detachment.
Advances of UAVs toward Future Transportation: The State-of-the-Art, Challenges, and Opportunities

The adoption of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in numerous sectors is projected to grow exponentially in the future as technology advances and regulation evolves. One of the promising applications of UAVs is in transportation systems. As the current transportation system is moving towards Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), UAVs will play a significant role in the functioning of ITS. This paper presents a survey on the recent advances of UAVs and their roles in current and future transportation systems. Moreover, the emerging technologies of UAVs in the transportation section and the current research areas are summarized. From the discussion, the challenges and opportunities of integrating UAVs towards future ITS are highlighted. In addition, some of the potential research areas involving UAVs in future ITS are also identified. This study aims to lay a foundation for the development of future intelligent and resilient transportation systems.
Evolution and Forecasting of the Renewable Energy Consumption in the Frame of Sustainable Development: EU vs. Romania

This article is part of the concerns generated by the need to increase the consumption of renewable energy, so that in the European Union (EU) countries, its share in the final energy consumption, to reach 32% by 2030, increases. In the context in which, in the specialized literature, the analysis of renewable energy consumption by activity sectors is approached very little, such an analysis has high utility. The variables of interest are the share of renewable energy in the final energy consumption, and the share of renewable energy sources in the final energy consumption in transport, electricity, and heating and cooling. The study performs a comparative analysis of the evolution of these indicators for the period 2004–2019 for Romania and the EU, an empirical estimate of the evolution of indicators using time regression and autoregressive models, a forecast of the share of renewable energy consumption in the final energy consumption and by the main sectors (transport, electricity, and heating and cooling) for the 2030 horizon, providing appropriate scenarios for achieving the EU established goals, as well as an analysis of the interdependence between the indicators. Through the results obtained, the paper can contribute to improving the framework for the sustainable development of energy consumption.
Effect of different feed ingredients on digestive enzymes activity and on the histology of liver and intestine in Labeo rohita Hamilton, 1822

Present study compared the effect of fishmeal and selected plant-origin feed ingredients on digestive enzymes activity as well as on the histology of liver and intestine in abeo rohita. Guar meal (GM), soybean meal (SBM), cotton seed meal (CSM) and canola meal (CM) were used as experimental feed ingredients in the four treatment diets, while fishmeal (FM) incorporated diet served as control. There were three replicates for each of the treatment and control diets. The experiment was conducted in 15 fiber glass tanks, each having 10 fish. Fish in each tank was fed @ 4% of body weight. Protease activity varied significantly (p<0.05) between anterior and posterior part of the intestine while amylase and lipase activities of whole intestine differed significantly (p<0.05) between the treatments. Maximum lipase activity was observed in fish fed with GM while minimum with CM ingredients. Vacuolation of hepatocytes and some variations in the mid intestine were also observed in response to different feed ingredients. Protease activity was greater throughout the intestinal tract when fish were fed with CSM and FM diets. Results of the present study indicated that CSM and FM are better ingredients for feed formulation for L. rohita.