Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evaluation of an Anthropometric Fast Bowling Machine

The use of bowling machines to train batsmen whether it be indoors or outdoors has increased significantly. In the absence of bowlers, batsmen can bat for hours without any bowlers getting tired. The designs of these machines are often a derivative of ball projection machines used for other sports such as tennis. Reviewed literature highlights the deficit in visual information in the form of an arm and hand when using these machines. Hence a cricket bowling machine was developed with an arm and hand. The usability, functionality, repeatability, and accuracy of the cricket bowling machine with an arm and hand was tested which had been previously designed and built by Loutan Jr. (2016) at The University of Trinidad and Tobago. A trajectory model was developed for an indoor environment and experimentally validated with data collected from extensive testing of the bowling machine using Pitch Vision hardware and software. A design procedure had to be formulated to determine what test had to be done and the method of collecting data. The testing, data collection and validation of the model was done with the cricket bowling machine in its current state with minor changes to the hand. The release angle at which the ball leaves the hand was found to have a significant impact on the length (distance along the pitch the ball bounces) of the delivery. Finally, the bowling machine was able to bowl various lengths and varying speeds consistently. The variation in speed placed the machine in the category of medium-fast, that is, speeds between 120 km/h (75 mph) and 130 km/h (81mph). Doi: 10.28991/HIJ-2021-02-02-04 Full Text: PDF
DC performance improvement of nanochannel AlGaN/AlN/GaN HEMTs with reduced OFF-state leakage current by post-gate annealing modulation

In this work, the effects of a post-gate annealing (PGA) treatment on the electrical performance of AlGaN/AlN/GaN nanochannel high electron mobility transistors (NC-HEMTs) were analyzed, with various channel widths of 200, 400, 600, and 800 nm for a constant fill factor of 0.45. A systematic improvement in the DC parameters was observed in the NC-HEMTs after PGA treatment at 400 °C for 10 min. Secondary ion mass spectroscopy was performed on the 300 °C, 400 °C, and 500 °C for 10 min annealed and as-deposited NC-HEMT to optimize the PGA conditions. It was also verified that annealing at higher temperatures (>400 °C) can cause the diffusion of the gate metal (Ni/Au) into the AlGaN/AlN/GaN active layer, which subsequently degrades the device performance. The removal of shallow traps after the PGA treatment, which were created by ICP dry etching, improved the Schottky barrier height ( ∅B ) from 0.42 eV to 1.40 eV and resulted in a significant reduction in the reverse gate leakage current (I G) of approximately more than three orders of magnitude in the NC-HEMT with a channel width of 200 nm. The reduction in the channel resistance after the PGA treatment, correspondingly improved the drift velocity, resulting in a marked improvement in the maximum transconductance (G MMAX) of 34% and considerable incremental increases in the maximum drain current (I DMAX). The NC-HEMT (W NC = 200 nm) with PGA treatment exhibited decent performance, with an I G of 9 × 10−9 A mm−1, an I DMAX of 470 mA mm−1, a G MMAX of 140 mS mm−1, and an ON/OFF ratio (I ON/I OFF) of approximately 1.1×107 along with improved gate controllability, i.e. lowering of the subthreshold swing to 69 mV dec−1.
Extraction of flavonoids in pomelos’ peels using Box-Behnken response surface design and their biological activities

The objectives of this study were to optimize the extraction conditions of flavonoids from the pomelo peel using the Box-Behnken response surface methodology and to investigate the chemical composition and biological activities of the extracts from three different pomelo species under optimized extraction conditions. Three extraction condition factors of were varied, including the solid-solvent ratio (1/15-1/45 g/ml), temperature (30-60oC), and time (20-60 min), which affected the efficiency of the total flavonoid content (TFC). The high R2 coefficient of 0.93 indicated that the experimental data obtained in this study fit well to a second-order polynomial using multiple regression analysis. The maximum TFC extracted from the pomelo peel was 6.0 mg/g (dried basis, db), which was obtained using Derringer’s desired function methodology under the following optimum conditions: a solid-solvent ratio of 1/44 g/ml, temperature of 30.7oC, and time of 34.6 min. The results also indicated that the Tan Trieu pomelo peel had the highest TFC and naringin concentration followed by the Nam Roi and Duong Hong pomelo peels, whereas the Nam Roi pomelo peel had a higher hesperidin concentration than the others. The extracts of the pomelo peels exhibited strong antioxidant activities with low IC50 values. However, these extracts showed only a slight effect on cancer cells, including lung cancer and breast cancer, when tested at 100 μg/ml.
Research perspectives and further studies on catalyst effects on the stability of different polyethylenes during multiple extrusion: Inter‐relationship of oxidation chemistry and antioxidant activity

The degradation and stabilization of an extensive range of unstabilized and stabilized polyethylenes during multiple extrusions are examined in order to investigate and determine their chemical and structural changes and inter‐relationship with different commercial antioxidant/stabilizer packages including nondust blends. Unsaturation changes were also assessed after each extrusion. Oxidative stability was also evaluated by hydroperoxide analysis and carbonyl index. Metal catalysts residues of the neat polymers were determined and their contribution toward the overall oxidative stability of the polymers assessed along with the activity of the phenolic/phosphite antioxidants (as determined by HPLC). All the chromium‐based HD polyethylenes and the metallocene LLDPE crosslinked during multiple extrusions. The HDPE with high Cr/Ti and Al levels underwent chain scission after the second extrusion. The results indicated that crosslinking reactions during processing were initiated at the unsaturated groups. Melt flow index (MFI) changes observed during processing were accompanied by vinyl disappearance and trans‐vinylene formation. The addition of alkyl radicals to vinyl unsaturations appears to be the main reaction. All stabilized packages effectively inhibited carbonyl growth during multiple extrusions but did not inhibit MFI change due to the crosslinking reactions, except for one LLDPE.
Necessity and Feasibility of 3D Simulations of Steam Cracking Reactors

Using detailed kinetic models in computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations is extremely challenging because of the large number of species that need to be considered and the stiffness of the associated set of differential equations. The high computational cost associated with using a detailed kinetic network in CFD simulations is why one-dimensional simulations are still used, although this leads to substantial differences compared to reference three-dimensional simulations. Therefore, a methodology was developed that allows one to use detailed single-event microkinetic models in CFD simulations by on the fly application of the pseudo-steady-state assumption to the radical reaction intermediates. Depending on the reaction model size, a speedup factor of more than 50 was obtained compared to the standard ANSYS Fluent routines without losing accuracy. As proof of concept, propane steam cracking in a conventional bare reactor and a helicoidally finned reactor was simulated using a reaction model contain.
Chinese Medical Paraphrase Generation: Based on Neural Machine Translation

Background: As people prefer to obtain medical knowledge online, medical intelligence question-answer systems based on question matching have attracted more and more attention, especially in China. However, due to the lack of paraphrase corpus of medical question, the development of this field is limited.Objective: We propose a method for paraphrase generation which suitable for the Chinese medical field and use deep learning models instead of artificial evaluation for the first time. The method is designed to be able to automatically construct high quality Chinese medical paraphrase.Methods: Validation experiments were carried out on two Chinese paraphrase data (one is general data, the other is medical data). Neural machine translation is used to generated paraphrase, that is, translate a sentence into other languages, and then reverse-translate it back to the original language to get the corresponding paraphrase. BLUE, ROUGEs, are used as quantitative evaluation metrics. Three deep text matching models are used to evaluate the generated paraphrase, instead of manual. Precision, Recall, F1 and AUC are used as qualitative evaluation metrics.Results: 49908 and 4062 paraphrases were generated on the two datasets, and the generated efficiency was 97.03% and 98.38%, respectively. For the data in the two fields, the generated and original paraphrase pairs are very similar at the quantitative and qualitative evaluation metrics, especially the medical field. Take medical data as example, BLUE of generated and original paraphrase pairs are 0.556 and 0.626, respectively; the mean difference of AUC between the two groups was 0.015. Conclusions: We first propose a paraphrase generation method based on neural machine translation and use deep text matching model instead of manual evaluation to evaluate the generated paraphrase. By analyzing the evaluation metrics, it can be concluded that：the paraphrase generated method has reached or even exceeded the level of artificial construction at the semantic level, especially in medical field; the deep text matching model can replace manual evaluation and realize automated paraphrase generation. This is of great significance to the development of Chinese medical paraphrase generation.
Leaf Economics of Early- and Late-Successional Plants

The leaf economics spectrum ranges from cheap, short-lived leaves to expensive, long-lived leaves. Species with low leaf mass per area (LMA) and short leaf life span tend to be fast growing and shade intolerant (early successional), whereas species with high LMA and long leaf life span tend to be slow growing and shade tolerant (late successional). However, we have limited understanding of how different leaf mass components (e.g., metabolically active photosynthetic components vs. structural toughness components) contribute to variation in LMA and other leaf economics spectrum traits. Here, we develop a model of plant community dynamics in which species differ in just two traits, photosynthetic and structural LMA components, and we identify optimal values of these traits for early- and late-successional species. Most of the predicted increase in LMA from early- to late-successional species was due to structural LMA. Photosynthetic LMA did not differ consistently between early- and late-successional species, but the photosynthetic LMA to structural LMA ratio declined from early- to late-successional species. Early-successional species had high rates of instantaneous return on leaf mass investment, whereas late-successional species had high lifetime return. Our results provide theoretical support for the primary role of structural (rather than photosynthetic) LMA variation in driving relationships among leaf economics spectrum traits.
Silica Nanoparticles Inhibit ATP Responses of Human Airway Epithelial 16HBE Cells

Because of their low cost and easy production silica nanoparticles (NPs) are amply used in multiple manufactures as anti-caking, densifying and hydrophobic agents. However, this has increased the exposure levels of the general population and has raised concerns about possible toxicity of this nanomaterial. NPs are known to affect the function of the airway epithelium, but the biochemical pathways targeted by these particles remain largely unknown. Here we investigated the effects of NPs on the responses of cultured human bronchial epithelial (16HBE) cells to the damage-associated molecular pattern ATP, using fluorometric measurements of intracellular Ca2+ concentration. Upon stimulation with extracellular ATP these cells displayed a concentration-dependent increase in intracellular Ca2+, which was mediated by release from intracellular stores. Silica NPs inhibited the Ca2+ responses to ATP within minutes of application and at low micromolar concentrations, which are significantly faster and more potent than those previously reported for the induction of cellular toxicity and pro-inflammatory responses. NPs-induced inhibition appeared to be independent from the increase in intracellular Ca2+ they produce, and via a non-competitive mechanism. These findings suggest that NPs reduce the ability of airway epithelial cells to mount ATP-dependent protective responses such as the increase in mucociliary clearance and cough.
Improvised Numerals Rely on 1-to-1 Correspondence

Symbolic representations of number are instrumental to mathematical reasoning and many aspects of social organization. What explains their emergence in human cultures? To understand how functional and cognitive constraints impact people’s communication about number, we used a drawing-based reference game to investigate how human dyads coordinated to form novel number systems. We found a systematic bias towards symbols exploiting 1-to-1 correspondence to objects in visual arrays, and that this strategy was contingent on the communicative relevance of number. Moreover, the meaning of these symbols was transparent to third party observers not present during their production. Finally, model-based analyses of these symbols' visual properties suggest that the ability to decode exact quantity from them may rely on perceptual processing mechanisms beyond those sufficient for object recognition. These findings contribute to our understanding of how both communicative need and capacity for visual abstraction constrain the emergence of iconic representations of exact number.
What is the value and impact of the adaptation process on quality indicators for local use? A scoping review

Background Quality indicators (QIs) are designed for improving quality of care, but the development of QIs is resource intensive and time consuming. Objective To describe and identify the impact and potential attributes of the adaptation process for the local use of existing QIs. Data sources EMBASE, MEDLINE, CINAHL and grey literature were searched. Study selection Literatures operationalizing or implementing QIs that were developed in a different jurisdiction from the place where the QIs were included. Results Of 7704 citations identified, 10 out of 33 articles were included. Our results revealed a lack of definition and conceptualization for an adaptation process in which an existing set of QIs was applied. Four out of ten studies involved a consensus process (e.g., Delphi or RAND process) to determine the suitability of QIs for local use. QIs for chronic conditions in primary and secondary settings were mostly used for adaptation. Of the ones that underwent a consensus process, 56.3 to 85.7% of original QIs were considered valid for local use, and 2 to 21.8% of proposed QIs were newly added. Four attributes should be considered in the adaptation: 1) identifying areas/conditions; 2) a consensus process; 3) proposing adapted QIs; 4) operationalization and evaluation. Conclusion The existing QIs, although serving as a good starting point, were not adequately adapted before for use in a different jurisdiction from their origin. Adaptation of QIs under a systematic approach is critical for informing future research planning for QIs adaptation and potentially establishing a new pathway for healthcare improvement.
Seagrass Metabolomics: A New Insight towards Marine Based Drug Discovery

Metabolomics is one of the new field of “Omics” approach and the youngest triad of system biology, which provides a broad prospective of how metabolic networks are controlled and indeed emerged as a complementary tool to functional genomics with well-established technologies for genomics, transcriptomics and proteomics. Though, metabolite profiling has been carried out for decades, owing to decisive mechanism of a molecule regulation, the importance of some metabolites in human regimen and their use as diagnostic markers is now being recognized. Plant metabolomics therefore aims to highlight the characterization of metabolite pool of a plant tissue in response to its environment. Seagrassses, a paraphyletic group of marine hydrophilous angiosperms which evolved three to four times from land plants back to the sea. Seagrasses share a number of analogous acquired metabolic adaptations owing to their convergent evolution, but their secondary metabolism varied among the four families that can be considered as true seagrasses. From a chemotaxonomic point of view, numerous specialized metabolites have often been studied in seagrasses. Hence, this chapter focus the metabolome of seagrasses in order to explore their bioactive properties and the recent advancements adopted in analytical technology platforms to study the non-targeted metabolomics of seagrasses using OMICS approach.
Strategies for sample labelling and library preparation in DNA metabarcoding studies

Metabarcoding of DNA extracted from environmental or bulk specimen samples is increasingly used to profile biota in basic and applied biodiversity research because of its targeted nature that allows sequencing of genetic markers from many samples in parallel. To achieve this, PCR amplification is carried out with primers designed to target a taxonomically informative marker within a taxonomic group, and sample‐specific nucleotide identifiers are added to the amplicons prior to sequencing. The latter enables assignment of the sequences back to the samples they originated from. Nucleotide identifiers can be added during the metabarcoding PCR and during “library preparation”, that is, when amplicons are prepared for sequencing. Different strategies to achieve this labelling exist. All have advantages, challenges and limitations, some of which can lead to misleading results, and in the worst case compromise the fidelity of the metabarcoding data. Given the range of questions addressed using metabarcoding, ensuring that data generation is robust and fit for the chosen purpose is critically important for practitioners seeking to employ metabarcoding for biodiversity assessments. Here, we present an overview of the three main workflows for sample‐specific labelling and library preparation in metabarcoding studies on Illumina sequencing platforms; one‐step PCR, two‐step PCR, and tagged PCR. Further, we distill the key considerations for researchers seeking to select an appropriate metabarcoding strategy for their specific study. Ultimately, by gaining insights into the consequences of different metabarcoding workflows, we hope to further consolidate the power of metabarcoding as a tool to assess biodiversity across a range of applications.
Effect of different doses of acid milk serum on growth in rice culture and on soil chemical attributes

The culture of rice has great potential to constitute the production systems of annual perennial crops, mainly in small properties. This allows this system to integrate with other activities such as the dairy industry, taking advantage of the milk by-product, reducing the environmental liability for disposal in the environment. Therefore, the objective was to evaluate the growth and productivity of rice grains under different doses of acid milk serum (0 m3 ha-1, 5 m3 ha-1, 10 m3 ha-1, 20 m3 ha-1, 50 m3 ha-1, 100 m3 ha-1, and 150 m3 ha-1), in soil applications with monitoring of fertility and electrical conductivity levels. The rice was sown in the UFLA experimental field, using the BRSMG Esmeralda lineage. Seven different doses were used, divided into two applications via soil. No cover fertilization was carried out. Yield and crop growth variables were determined by monitoring the nutrient content in the soil profile and the sodification and salinization capacity of the residue. It was found that the increase in serum doses increased the electrical conductivity and the percentage of exchangeable sodium by 1.75 and 7.75 compared to the control, but did not cause the process of sodification and salinization of the soil. As acid milk serum is a significant source of potassium, its use in the soil did not promote significant grain yield. It was concluded that the acid milk serum in the doses used did not cause sodification or salinization of the soil. This residue is the safe dose that can be used as potassium and nitrogen. The acid milk serum in the tested conditions did not increase the growth of the culture.
Interactional Justice: The role of Emotions in the Performance of Loyalty. By lisa flower (Routledge, 2020, 220pp. £36.99 pb)

The traditional model of courtroom civility situates legal characters as acting with rationality, impartiality and professionalism, typically contrasted against the emotional feelings, performances and behaviour of the complainant and accused (Craig 2016). Grounded in a training— explicit and otherwise—that teaches courtroom actors to detach, compartmentalize and write emotions out of their work, the false binary between emotionality and objectivity is sustained. Despite being unable to give voice to emotion in a trial, over thirty years of scholarship indicates that emotional work and emotional acuity are integral to the judge’s, prosecutor’s and defence lawyer’s roles, getting them done and ensuring that justice is sustained. Other analyses have brought into focus the wider role of bodily sensations within the court context to show how, through the hair standing up on the back of one’s neck, or the smell of perfume in court, an array of affects also play out—and are part of—the courtroom experience (Dahlberg 2009; Bergman Blix and Wettergren 2018; Bens 2019; Carline et al. 2020; Gunby and Carline 2020; Roach Anleu and Mack 2021). It is in this context that Lisa Flower’s intricate and arguably, intimate, Interactional Justice is situated. Focused on the Swedish courtroom, a unique mix of inquisitorial and adversarial ap-proach—or ‘Scandinavian law’—takes as its focus the role of defence lawyers, honing in on the loyalty work they do. Loyalty has long side-lined from focus and accounts of (emotional) courtroom practice. Flower, however, examining how loyalty of professional obligations,
Bioluminescence of the polychaete Tharyx sp. (Annelida: Cirratulidae) in deep-seawater from Toyama Bay, Japan

Commercially pumped deep-seawater is an easily accessible source of deep-sea animals. In this study, we report the bioluminescence of a cirratulid polychaete, Tharyx sp. , obtained from pipeline seawater pumped up from a depth of 384 m in Toyama Bay. Two living worms collected from the nylon mesh attached to the pump outlet produced greenish light when disturbed. They were identified as Tharyx sp. (Cirratulidae) by morphological examination and DNA sequencing. Bioluminescence of cirratulid worms is not widely reported and, to our knowledge, this is the first report of bioluminescence in the genus Tharyx.