Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Olivine-hosted melt inclusions in Pliocene–Quaternary lavas from the Qorveh–Bijar volcanic belt, western Iran: implications for source lithology and cooling history

ABSTRACT Silicate melt inclusions (SMIs) are small droplets of magma that become trapped in minerals during crystal growth. SMIs in olivine crystals can provide critical information on the range of melt compositions and processes that occur during melt generation, evolution, transport, and eruption. The Pliocene–Quaternary volcanic rocks in the Qorveh–Bijar volcanic belt of western Iran show porphyritic and microlithic textures, with olivine and clinopyroxene being the dominant minerals. Magnesian olivines in these volcanic rocks contain primary SMIs. The composition and characteristic of olivine-hosted SMI of these rocks are investigated to constrain the source lithology for mafic volcanism. Bulk compositions of the SMIs overlap those of their host rocks and extend to higher CaO/Al2O3 values. The estimated entrapment pressures and temperatures of the studied SMIs are 9.1–10.3 kbar and 1220–1355°C. The calculated mafic parental melt contains 42.36 wt. % SiO2, low total alkalis (3.22 wt.%), and high MgO (16.1 wt.%). Exploratory calculations using pMELTS show that this parental composition underwent variable degrees of fractional crystallization, as reflected by the variable compositions of the SMIs. Several lines of evidence including pyroxene xenocrysts and high FeO/MnO, FC3MS (FeO/CaO – 3*MgO/SiO2), and Zn/Fe ratios (14–21), suggest that a metasomatized pyroxenitic source contributed to the genesis of the parental melt. Amphibole in the SMIs indicates a high volatile content in the parental melt, which we conclude was generated from a metasomatized lithospheric mantle source. The pyroxenite source also contained garnet. Our geochemical results lead us to propose a new petrogenetic model. Specifically, we infer that a dense and unstable portion of the lithosphere underwent localized laminar detachment and downward flow, i.e. lithospheric drip. This drip underwent volatile-enhanced partial melting during descent through the underlying hot asthenosphere and generated the studied volcanic rocks.
Transformation-Based Error-Driven Learning and Natural Language Processing: A Case Study in Part-of-Speech Tagging

Recently, there has been a rebirth of empiricism in the field of natural language processing. Manual encoding of linguistic information is being challenged by automated corpus-based learning as a method of providing a natural language processing system with linguistic knowledge. Although corpus-based approaches have been successful in many different areas of natural language processing, it is often the case that these methods capture the linguistic information they are modelling indirectly in large opaque tables of statistics. This can make it difficult to analyze, understand and improve the ability of these approaches to model underlying linguistic behavior. In this paper, we will describe a simple rule-based approach to automated learning of linguistic knowledge. This approach has been shown for a number of tasks to capture information in a clearer and more direct fashion without a compromise in performance. We present a detailed case study of this learning method applied to part-of-speech tagging.
India Hypertension Control Initiative: Blood Pressure Control Using Drug and Dose-Specific Standard Treatment Protocol at Scale in Punjab and Maharashtra, India, 2022

Background: Hypertension treatment coverage is low in India. A stepwise simple treatment protocol is one of the strategies to improve hypertension treatment in primary care. We estimated the effectiveness of various protocol steps to achieve blood pressure (BP) control in public sector health facilities in Punjab and Maharashtra, India, where the India Hypertension Control Initiative (IHCI) was implemented. Methods: We analyzed the records of people enrolled for hypertension treatment and follow-up under IHCI between January 2018 and December 2021 in public sector primary and secondary care facilities across 23 districts from two states. Each state followed a different treatment protocol. We calculated the proportion with controlled BP at each step of the protocol. We also estimated the mean decline in BP pre- and post-treatment. Results: Of 281,209 patients initiated on amlodipine 5 mg, 159,292 continued on protocol drugs and came for a follow-up visit during the first quarter of 2022. Of 33,450 individuals who came for the follow-up in Punjab and 125,842 in Maharashtra, 70% and 76% had controlled BP, respectively, at the first step with amlodipine 5 mg. In Punjab, at the second step with amlodipine 10 mg, the cumulative BP control increased to 75%. A similar 5% (76%–81%) increase was seen in the second step after adding telmisartan 40 mg in Maharashtra. Overall, the mean (SD) systolic blood pressure (SBP) decreased by 16 mmHg from 148 (15) mmHg at the baseline in Punjab. In Maharashtra, the decline in the mean (SD) SBP was about 15 mmHg from the 144 (18) mmHg baseline. Conclusion: Simple drug- and dose-specific protocols helped achieve a high control rate among patients retained in care under program conditions. We recommend treatment protocols starting with a single low-cost drug and escalating with the same or another antihypertensive drug depending on the cost and availability.
Effect of panting frequency on the plethysmographic determination of thoracic gas volume in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

We studied the dependence of the Plethysmographic measurement of thoracic gas volume on the frequency of panting during occlusion in 3 normal subjects and in 10 patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Total lung capacity was derived using changes in both mouth (ΔPm) and esophageal (ΔPes) pressure to reflect changes in alveolar pressure (TLCm and TLCes, respectively). In the normal subjects, both TLCm and TLCes decreased slightly with increasing frequency of panting; the difference between TLCm and TLCes (TLCm—TLCes) was small and did not vary with frequency. In the patients, TLCes also decreased slightly, but, in contrast to the normal subjects, TLCm increased with increasing frequency. At low frequencies (less than 1 Hz), TLCm—TLCes averaged 0.14 ± 0.09 1 (mean ± SE) and was not significantly different from 0. However, TLCm — TLCes increased with frequency, averaging 1.49 ± 0.40 L at frequencies between 2.5 and 3 Hz. At all frequencies tested, cheek support reduced but did not abolish.
Qualitative characteristics of sheep’s and goat's milk in Albania

Cost-effective methods are crucial in small-scale operations to assess the physicochemical properties of milk, identify potential clinical or subclinical mastitis, and test β-lactams in small ruminants. The aim was to evaluate the importance of physicochemical characteristics, somatic cells, and antibacterial substances as factors for monitoring the quality and safety of bulk tank milk from sheep and goats. Furthermore, we aimed to elucidate the influence of grazing capacity on the composition of sheep's milk. The fat content of sheep's milk (n=119) was found to be 7.7%, with a range of 5.3% to 9.9%. The average fat content of dairy goats (n=33) was found to be 4.9%, with a range of 2.8-6.7%. The results indicate that 2.8% of sheep milk samples and 7.8% of goat milk samples exhibited clear positive reactions when assessed using the California mastitis test. β-lactam antibiotics were present in 0.7% of sheep milk samples, but not in any of the goat milk samples using lateral flow strips. This measurement method can be useful to detect adulterated milk and better understand the quality and safety of small ruminant milk before processing.
Connecting the dots with related notes

During visual analysis, users must often connect insights discovered at various points of time to understand implicit relations within their analysis. This process is often called "connecting the dots. " In this paper, we describe an algorithm to recommend related notes from a user's past analysis based on his/her current line of inquiry during an interactive visual exploration process. We have implemented the related notes algorithm in HARVEST, a web based visual analytic system.
Glacial Erratics from the Sea Floor South-East of the Faeroe Islands and the Limit of Glaciation

On the outer shelf and slope south-east of the Faeroe Islands down to 300 meters depth, 82 percent of the erratics consist of basalt and 14 percent of tuff carbonate sediments. At 400 to 700 meters depth these rock types only constitute 54 percent of the erratics, the rest being mainly sandstones and gneisses of distant origin. This sudden increase in the proportion of foreign erratics is probably caused by the front of the Faeroese ice sheet preventing ice-rafting over the shelf during the last glacial epoch.
Bridging the Distance: Effective Communication and Honesty Among College Students in Romantic Long-Distance Relationships

This study aimed to explore how college students in long-distance romantic relationships maintain honesty and effective communication. Stress is a prevalent aspect for students in such relationships, and this research aimed to provide a deeper understanding of their experiences. Data from 7 participants were collected through structured interviews, analyzed using thematic analysis, revealing key themes of visits, communication, honesty, and conflicts. Visitation depended on mutual convenience, while communication in long-distance relationships had both advantages and disadvantages. Honesty emerged as a trust-building factor, enhancing communication. Future research could delve into the impact of academic stress on long-distance relationships and include a larger sample for a comprehensive study.
Handling Syntactic Complex Predicates of Maithili in English Classes

This article attempts to explore the causativized syntactic complex predicates in the southern Saptarian Maithili analysing them within Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG) and also pinpoint show English teachers/learners with Maithili background are facing difficulties for expressing such concepts in English. The data were mostly based on the researcher's own PhD work, his own intuition and experiences and also from the secondary level students/teachers, and presented them using Leipzing glossing rules analyzing under the four interacting structures of LFG. It is found that this variety uses the predicative item lǝga 'cause/force' with another predicative polar to form the causative syntactic complex predicates and such a construction is causing problems for the students learning English. Thus, English teachers in particular area to be conscious about the students' difficulties in learning English, especially while dealing with the concepts of Maithili complex predicates.
Voice Conversion Using GMM with Enhanced Global Variance

The goal of voice conversion is to transform a sentence said by one speaker, to sound as if another speaker had said it. The classical conversion based on a Gaussian Mixture Model and several other schemes suggested since, produce muffled sounding outputs, due to excessive smoothing of the spectral envelopes. To reduce the muffling effect, enhancement of the Global Variance (GV) of the spectral features was recently suggested. We propose a different approach for GV enhancement, based on the classical conversion formalized as a GV-constrained minimization. Listening tests show that an improvement in quality is achieved by the proposed approach.
Mathematica as a powerful and practical tool for displaying animated three‐dimensional structures of the Earth's interior

Seismic tomographic studies have determined three‐dimensional (3‐D) velocity structures, in detail, of the crust and the upper mantle of the Earth. Yet, simple two‐dimensional (2‐D) sections have generally been used to present 3‐D tomographic results. Here we show 3‐D views and animations of the Earth's structure that are made as easy as 2‐D sections, by using Mathematica. As an example, low‐velocity zones in the upper mantle are shown in three dimensions, together with major volcanoes, mid‐crustal reflectors, earthquake hypocenters, the Moho discontinuity and the upper plane of the subducted slab, that are observed in northeastern Japan. Low velocities in volcanic areas generally correspond to high temperatures, and indicate possible presence of magma. The 3‐D animations enable us to investigate the spatial relation between low‐velocity zones, volcanoes, reflectors, earthquakes and the slab, and thus enable us to study magma ascent pathways in detail.
The Effects of Microcrystalline Cellulose Addition on the Properties of Wood–PLA Filaments for 3D Printing

This paper describes the use of microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) as an additive in wood-polylactic acid (PLA) filaments suitable for 3D printing. Filaments prepared with PLA, thermally modified (TM) wood, and three different MCC loadings (1, 3, and 5 wt%) by two-step melt blending in the extruder were characterized with respect to their rheological, thermal, and mechanical response. The analyses demonstrate that a low MCC content (1%) improves the mobility of the polymer chains and contributes to a higher elasticity of the matrix chain, a higher crystallinity, a lower glass transition temperature (by 1.66 °C), and a lower melting temperature (by 1.31 °C) and leads to a higher tensile strength (1.2%) and a higher modulus of elasticity (12.1%). Higher MCC loading hinders the mobility of the polymer matrix and leads to a rearrangement of the crystal lattice structure, resulting in a decrease in crystallinity. Scanning electron micrographs show that the cellulose is well distributed and dispersed in the PLA matrix, with some agglomeration occurring at higher MCC levels. The main objective of this study was to develop and evaluate a filament containing an optimal amount of MCC to improve compatibility between wood and PLA, optimize melt processability, and improve mechanical properties. It can be concluded that a 1% addition of MCC favorably changes the properties of the wood–PLA filaments, while a higher MCC content does not have this effect.
Machine Learning Methods for Chinese Web page Categorization

This paper reports our evaluation of k Nearest Neighbor (kNN), Support Vector Machines (SVM), and Adaptive Resonance Associative Map (ARAM) on Chinese web page classification. Benchmark experiments based on a Chinese web corpus showed that their predictive performance were roughly comparable although ARAM and kNN slightly outperformed SVM in small categories. In addition, inserting rules into ARAM helped to improve performance, especially for small well-defined categories.
Overlapping and Unique Roles for C-Terminal Binding Protein 1 (CtBP1) and CtBP2 during Mouse Development

ABSTRACT The C-terminal binding protein (CtBP) family of proteins has been linked to multiple biological processes through their association with numerous transcription factors. We generated mice harboring mutations in both Ctbp1 and Ctbp2 to address the in vivo function of CtBPs during vertebrate development. Ctbp1 mutant mice are small but viable and fertile, whereas Ctbp2-null mice show defects in axial patterning and die by E10.5 due to aberrant extraembryonic development. Mice harboring various combinations of Ctbp1 and Ctbp2 mutant alleles exhibit dosage-sensitive defects in a wide range of developmental processes. The strong genetic interaction, as well as transcription assays with CtBP-deficient cells, indicates that CtBPs have overlapping roles in regulating gene expression. We suggest that the observed phenotypes reflect the large number of transcription factors whose activities are compromised in the absence of CtBP.
Prevalence, conservation and functional analysis of Yersinia and Escherichia CRISPR regions in clinical Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates

Here, we report the characterization of 122 Pseudomonas aeruginosa clinical isolates from three distinct geographical locations: Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in New Hampshire, USA, the Charles T. Campbell Eye Microbiology Lab at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, USA, and the Aravind Eye Hospital in Madurai, India. We identified and located clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) in 45/122 clinical isolates and sequenced these CRISPR, finding that Yersinia subtype CRISPR regions (33 %) were more prevalent than the Escherichia CRISPR region subtype (6 %) in these P. aeruginosa clinical isolates. Further, we observed 132 unique spacers from these 45 CRISPR that are 100 % identical to prophages or sequenced temperate bacteriophage capable of becoming prophages. Most intriguingly, all of these 132 viral spacers matched to temperate bacteriophage/prophages capable of inserting into the host chromosome, but not to extrachromosomally replicating lytic P. aeruginosa bacteriophage. We next assessed the ability of the more prevalent Yersinia subtype CRISPR regions to mediate resistance to bacteriophage infection or lysogeny by deleting the entire CRISPR region from sequenced strain UCBPP-PA14 and six clinical isolates. We found no change in CRISPR-mediated resistance to bacteriophage infection or lysogeny rate even for CRISPR with spacers 100 % identical to a region of the infecting bacteriophage. Lastly, to show these CRISPR and cas genes were expressed and functional, we demonstrated production of small CRISPR RNAs. This work provides both the first examination to our knowledge of CRISPR regions within clinical P. aeruginosa isolates and a collection of defined CRISPR-positive and -negative strains for further CRISPR and cas gene studies.
Induction of release of tumor necrosis factor from human monocytes by staphylococci and staphylococcal peptidoglycans

The role of cytokines in gram-positive infections is still relatively poorly defined. The purpose of this study was to establish whether or not intact staphylococci and purified peptidoglycans and peptidoglycan components derived from staphylococci are capable of stimulating the release of tumor necrosis factor (TNF) by human monocytes. We show here that intact staphylococci and purified peptidoglycans, isolated from three Staphylococcus epidermidis and three S. aureus strains, were indeed able to induce secretion of TNF by human monocytes in a concentration-dependent fashion. TNF release was detected by both enzyme immunoassay and the L929 fibroblast bioassay. In the enzyme immunoassay, a minimal concentration of peptidoglycan of 1 micrograms/ml was required to detect TNF release by monocytes, whereas in the bioassay a peptidoglycan concentration of 10 micrograms/ml was needed to detect a similar amount of TNF release. Peptidoglycan components such as the stem peptide, tetra- and pentaglycine, and muramyl dipeptide were unable to induce TNF release from human monocytes.
Plant Volatilome in Greece: a Review on the Properties, Prospects, and Chemogeography

Knowing plant volatile chemodiversity and its distribution is essential in order to study biological processes, to estimate the plants' value in use, and to establish sustainable exploitation practices. Yet, attempts to collect and assess data on scent diversity and properties in well‐defined geographical areas are rare. Here, we developed a geo‐referenced database of the plant volatilome in Greece by consolidating the results included in 116 research articles published in the last 25 years. The data set compiled includes 999 volatile organic compounds distributed into 178 plant taxa, 59 genera, and 19 families. Distillation is the acquisition method almost exclusively used, whereas headspace techniques that would allow the study of subtle ecological processes are generally lacking. Sesquiterpenes show the greatest richness of compounds, followed by monoterpenes and aliphatics. We assess the volatility of the compounds using the normal boiling point (nBP) as its reverse indicator, and we present the volatility spectra of the blends of the genera studied. Mean nBPs vary among genera, with maximal differences as wide as 118.4°. Finally, we feature basic chemodiversity maps for three aromatic plants, and discuss their importance and prospects as a special case of natural resources maps.
Web based e-learning in india: the cumulative views of different aspects

In the presence of great social diversity in India, it is difficult to change the social background of students, parents and their economical conditions. Therefore the only option left for us is to provide uniform or standardize teaching learning resources or methods. For high quality education throughout India there must be some nation-wide network, which provides equal quality education to all students, including the student from the rural areas and villages. The one and only simple solution to this is Web Based e-Learning. In this paper we try to give some innovative ideas to spread the Web Based e-Learning (WBeL) concept in to the minds of young India along with various approaches taken or to be taken, associated to it till date besides of instructional design models, different course developmental models, the role of technical writing and merit-demerit of WBeL till date.
Crowd Simulation

Research into the methods and techniques used in simulating crowds has developed extensively within the last few years, particularly in the areas of video games and film. Despite recent impressive results when simulating and rendering thousands of individuals, many challenges still exist in this area. The comparison of simulation with reality, the realistic appearance of virtual humans and their behavior, group structure and their motion, and collision avoidance are just some examples of these challenges. For most of the applications of crowds, it is now a requirement to have real-time simulations which is an additional challenge, particularly when crowds are very large. Crowd Simulation analyses these challenges in depth and suggests many possible solutions. Daniel Thalmann and Soraia Musse share their experiences and expertise in the application of: Population modeling Virtual human animation Behavioral models for crowds The connection between virtual and real crowds Path planning and navigation Visual attention models Geometric and populated semantic environments Crowd rendering The second edition presents techniques and methods developed since the authors first covered the simulation of crowds in 2007. Crowd Simulation includes in-depth discussions on the techniques of path planning, including a new hybrid approach between navigation graphs and potential-based methods. The importance of gaze attention individuals appearing conscious of their environment and of others is introduced, and a free-of-collision method for crowds is also discussed.
Efficient state merging in symbolic execution

Symbolic execution has proven to be a practical technique for building automated test case generation and bug finding tools. Nevertheless, due to state explosion, these tools still struggle to achieve scalability. Given a program, one way to reduce the number of states that the tools need to explore is to merge states obtained on different paths. Alas, doing so increases the size of symbolic path conditions (thereby stressing the underlying constraint solver) and interferes with optimizations of the exploration process (also referred to as search strategies). The net effect is that state merging may actually lower performance rather than increase it. We present a way to automatically choose when and how to merge states such that the performance of symbolic execution is significantly increased. First, we present query count estimation, a method for statically estimating the impact that each symbolic variable has on solver queries that follow a potential merge point; states are then merged only when doing so promises to be advantageous. Second, we present dynamic state merging, a technique for merging states that interacts favorably with search strategies in automated test case generation and bug finding tools. Experiments on the 96 GNU Coreutils show that our approach consistently achieves several orders of magnitude speedup over previously published results. Our code and experimental data are publicly available at http://cloud9.epfl. ch.