Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Nondestructive Methodology for Determining Chemical Composition of Salvia miltiorrhiza via Hyperspectral Imaging Analysis and Squeeze-and-Excitation Residual Networks

The quality assurance of bulk medicinal materials, crucial for botanical drug production, necessitates advanced analytical methods. Conventional techniques, including high-performance liquid chromatography, require extensive pre-processing and rely on extensive solvent use, presenting both environmental and safety concerns. Accordingly, a non-destructive, expedited approach for assessing both the chemical and physical attributes of these materials is imperative for streamlined manufacturing. We introduce an innovative method, designated as Squeeze-and-Excitation Residual Network Combined Hyperspectral Image Analysis (SE-ReHIA), for the swift and non-invasive assessment of the chemical makeup of bulk medicinal substances. In a demonstrative application, hyperspectral imaging in the 389–1020 nm range was employed in 187 batches of Salvia miltiorrhiza. Notable constituents such as salvianolic acid B, dihydrotanshinone I, cryptotanshinone, tanshinone IIA, and moisture were quantified. The SE-ReHIA model, incorporating convolutional layers, maxpooling layers, squeeze-and-excitation residual blocks, and fully connected layers, exhibited Rc2 values of 0.981, 0.980, 0.975, 0.972, and 0.970 for the aforementioned compounds and moisture. Furthermore, Rp2 values were ascertained to be 0.975, 0.943, 0.962, 0.957, and 0.930, respectively, signifying the model’s commendable predictive competence. This study marks the inaugural application of SE-ReHIA for Salvia miltiorrhiza’s chemical profiling, offering a method that is rapid, eco-friendly, and non-invasive. Such advancements can fortify consistency across botanical drug batches, underpinning product reliability. The broader applicability of the SE-ReHIA technique in the quality assurance of bulk medicinal entities is anticipated with optimism.
Novel advances with plant saponins as natural insecticides to control pest insects

Saponins are a class of secondary plant metabolites with diverse biological properties. They occur in a great number of plant species (mainly Angiosperms), both wild plants and cultivated crops. Triterpenoid saponins are mostly found in dicotyledonous species, while many of the major steroidal saponins are synthesized by monocots, such as members of the Liliaceae, Dioscoraceae and Agavaceae families. Many legumes contain saponins, such as soybeans, beans, peas, tea, spinach, sugar beet and quinoa, oats, capsicum peppers, aubergine, tomato seed, alliums and asparagus. Saponins possess clear insecticidal activities: they exert a strong and rapid-working action against a broad range of pest insects that is different from neurotoxicity. The most observed effects are increased mortality, lowered food intake, weight reduction, retardation in development and decreased reproduction. According to the main hypotheses in literature, saponins exert a repellent/deterrent activity, bear digestive problems, provoke insect moulting defects or cause cellular toxicity effects. As a consequence these interesting plant components open new strategies to protect crops in modern agriculture and horticulture with integrated pest management (IPM) programs against pest insects, either by spraying, or by selecting high-saponin varieties of commercial crops. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
MIOCENE MAMMALIAN FAUNAS, OGALLALA GROUP, PAWNEE BUTTES AREA, WELD COUNTY, COLORADO

Abstract The Pawnee Buttes of northeastern Colorado lie within spectacular outcrops of Oligocene (White River Group) and Miocene (Ogallala Group) strata that form part of the Chalk Bluffs, an 150 mile long escarpment near the state line. These deposits were some of the earliest High Plains units to be explored by vertebrate paleontologists (Marsh, 1870; Cope, 1873). Consequently their fossil remains yielded the first information on North American faunas of mid- and late Tertiary time. Many parties subsequently exploited these deposits; their work, and his own investigations, were monographed by Galbreath in 1953. The present paper reviews the literature, a substantial part of the collections, as well as later stratigraphic work to present a revised litho- and biostratigraphy focused on the Pawnee Buttes area of eastern Weld County, Colorado. The oldest post-White River Group unit is the Martin Canyon Formation, the type locality of which is in adjacent Logan County. It contains an early Hemingfordian fauna as at its type section. The overlying Pawnee Creek Formation is restricted to the Weld County outcrops and is here differentiated from the younger Ogallala rocks formerly confused with it. The Pawnee Creek formation yields a latest early to early late Barstovian fauna that partially fills the hiatus between the classic Lower Snake Creek and Valentine faunas of Nebraska. Younger, but still early late Barstovian fauna, occur in the strongly disconformable undifferentiated Ogallala sands and gravels that underpin the High Plains surface. These assemblages have correlatives in the faunas of the lower part of the Valentine Formation of Nebraska.
A Contactless Health Monitoring System for Vital Signs Monitoring, Human Activity Recognition and Tracking

—Integrated sensing and communication technologies provide essential sensing capabilities that address pressing challenges in remote health monitoring systems. However, most of today’s systems remain obtrusive, requiring users to wear devices, interfering with people’s daily activities, and often raising privacy concerns. Herein, we present HealthDAR, a low-cost, contactless, and easy-to-deploy health monitoring system. Specifically, HealthDAR encompasses three interventions: i) Symptom Early Detection (monitoring of vital signs and cough detection), ii) Tracking & Social Distancing, and iii) Preventive Measures (monitoring of daily activities such as face-touching and hand-washing). HealthDAR has three key components: (1) A low-cost, low-energy, and compact integrated radar system, (2) A simultaneous signal processing combined deep learning (SSPDL) network for cough detection, and (3) A deep learning method for the classification of daily activities. Through performance tests involving multiple subjects across uncontrolled environments, we demonstrate HealthDAR’s practical utility for health monitoring.
Ages and Provenance of the Neoproterozoic Dajiangbian Formation and Aiqiling Formation in Southeast Hunan Province: U-Pb Geochronological Evedence of Detrital Zircons

LA-ICP-MS U-Pb dating was carried out on detrital zircons from the argillaceous rocks in upper Dajiangbian Formation of Nanhuan System and the metamorphic mud-ferruginous sandstone in bottom Aiqiling Formation of Sinian(Ediacaran) System,28 and 92 effective U-Pb ages were obtained respectively.The former detrital zircon U-Pb age populations were at 693 ~ 897Ma(account for 67.9%),1810 ~ 1916Ma(account for 17.9%),1974 ~ 2177Ma(account for 14.2%),the youngest concordant age was 734 ± 4Ma(MSWD = 1.07,n = 4);The latter detrital zircon U-Pb age populations were at 570 ~ 699Ma(account for 9.8%),715 ~ 774Ma(account for 7.6%),882 ~1272Ma(account for 67.4%),1300 ~1681Ma(account for 7.6%),1899 ~2490Ma(account for 7.6%),the youngest concordant age was 634 ±7Ma(MSWD =1.09,n =4). It was confirmed that the age of the upper Dajiangbian Formation was 734 ± 4Ma,which can be correlated with the top part of Chengjiang Formation,Niuguping Formaion,Yanmenzhai Formation,Gongdong Formation and Longli Formation,indicated the top boundary age of "Banxi Period"strata and the start age of Jiangkou iceage should be 734 ± 4Ma.The age of the Aiqiling Formation was 634 ± 7Ma,as same as the age of the Doushantuo Formation and Lantian Formation,supported the viewpoint that the end age of Nantuo iceage was at ca.635Ma. Comprehensive research shows that the main provenance of Dajiangbian Formation and Aiqiling Formaion maybe the southeastern part of the Wuyi terrane and the Grenvillian orogenic belt in south of the Nanling-Yunkai terrane respectively.The transition of provenance was speculated to be related to the coalescence or juxtaposition of the Nanling—Yunkai terrane and Wuyi terrane during the deposited period of above two formations,which maybe 734 ~ 634Ma.
Transition-Metal-Free One-Pot Synthesis of Fused Benzofuranamines and Benzo[b]thiophenamines

A series of benzofuran and benzo[b]thiophen derivatives was synthesized via a transition-metal-free one-pot process at room temperature. This one-pot protocol enables the synthesis of compounds with high reaction efficiency, mild conditions, simple methods, and a wide-ranging substrate scope. Regioselective five-membered heterocycles were constructed in good-to-excellent yields.
In vitro regeneration of plantlets from leaf segments of Pupalia lappacea (L.) Juss. for mass propagation

The in vitro study was carried out to standardize the protocol for induction of callus, proliferation of shoots, initiation of roots, and plant regeneration in Pupalia lappacea (L.) Juss. using the artificial nutrient culture medium. Maximum callus induction (76%) from the young leaf explants was achieved by using MS medium supplemented with 0.5 mg L-1 of 2, 4-D and 2.5 mg L-1 of NAA. The maximum shoot induction (78%) was observed on MS medium containing 2.0 mg/L of BAP and 0.8 mg/L of GA3. The highest root initiation (70%) was obtained on MS medium with IBA (1.2 mg L-1) and IAA (0.5 mg L-1). The acclimation process was successfully completed in the garden soil with a better survival rate (72%).
The Conodont Genus Teridontus (Miller, 1980) from the Early Ordovician of Montagne Noire, France

The conodont genus Teridontus was introduced in 1980 by Miller and was based on the Late Cambrian species Oneotodus nakamurai Nogami, 1967 from the Yencho Member of the Fengshan Fm. of northeast China. Teridontus was later reported from either the Upper Cambrian or Lower Ordovician (Landing et al., 1980; Miller, 1980; Landing and Barnes, 1981; Landing, 1983; An et al., 1983, 1985; Ni et al., 1983; Peng et al., 1983; Nowlan, 1985; Landing et al., 1986; Bagnoli et al., 1987; An, 1987; Buggisch and Repetski, 1987; Pohler and Orchard, 1990; An and Zheng, 1990; Seo and Ethington, 1993; Wang, 1993; Lehnen, 1994; Nicoll, 1994; Seo et al., 1994; Ji and Barnes, 1994; Taylor et al., 1996; Lehnert et al., 1997; Jia, 2000; Dubinina, 2000; Pyle and Barnes, 2002; Zeballo et al., 2005) sediments in numerous localities around the world, but a unanimous interpretation of the composition of the Teridontus apparatus organization was far from accepted.
EXPLORING THE POTENTIAL OF 3D PRINTING IN PHARMACEUTICAL DEVELOPMENT

Pharmaceuticals have been transformed by additive manufacturing, often known as three-dimensional printing (3DP) a disruptive technology. The concept of additive manufacturing is examined, with a focus on its potential for quick prototyping, cost savings, and development of customized medicines. In the pharmaceutical industry 3DP is used to develop numerous dosage forms and drug delivery systems including oral films, controlled-release tablets and transdermal patches. It also makes it possible to produce specialized medical prosthetics, implants and gadgets. The applications of various 3DP types such as material extrusion, material jetting, binder jet printing and powder-based procedures like selective laser sintering, are thoroughly covered. This review assesses the compatibility of the common 3DP materials for pharmaceutical applications including hydroxypropyl methylcellulose, hydroxypropyl cellulose, Carbopol and Eudragit. This review article forecasts 3DP prospects and shortcomings. The technology's continued development and use in the pharmaceutical industry and other industries will depend on overcoming regulatory challenges, creating standardized procedures and optimizing material alternatives. By tackling these issues 3DP has a great deal of potential to revolutionize personalized medicine, medical device production and variety of other industries ultimately leading to better patient outcomes and healthcare solutions. Types and principles, materials, applications, scalability, regulatory compliance and potential future challenges are discussed in this review paper.
Working time reduction, mental health, and early retirement among part-time teachers at German upper secondary schools - a cross-sectional study

Objective Many secondary school teachers work part-time in order to cope with the high workload and to remain as healthy as possible until regular retirement. However, due to the acute shortage of teachers, the increase in the teaching obligation for part-time teachers (PTT) has become a topic of discussion in Germany. Whether a reduction in teaching hours is associated with benefits for mental health has not yet become evident. Therefore, this study investigated the relationship between the real working hours of PTT and their mental health as well as individual pension prognosis. Methods The cross-sectional study included 5,905 PTT at German upper secondary schools (female proportion: 81%, average age: 44 ± 9 years) who logged their working hours over four weeks. Four part-time groups (PTG) were formed based on the proportion of a full-time position worked: maximum (<100–90% = PTGmax – reference group – 17%), high (<90–75% = PTGhigh – 34%), medium (<75–50% = PTGmed – 40%) and low (<50% = PTGlow – 9%) teaching commitment. These groups were compared in terms of their average weekly working hours, mental health (inability to recover, risk of burnout) and predicted retirement age. Results The contractually agreed working time is exceeded to a relevant extent for PTT. The extent of unpaid overtime increases significantly the lower the teaching obligation is and lies on average between −0.4 (PTGmax) and 7.3 (PTGlow) hours/week. A reduction in teaching hours is neither related to the mental health of teachers nor to their decision to retire early (42%) or regularly (58%). However, predicted retirement is mainly explained by mental health status, gender and age (variance explanation: 24%, OR of predictors: maximum 2.1). One third of PTT reported inability to recover, 47% burnout symptoms and 3% a burnout syndrome. Conclusion Mental health is also a risk for PTT; reducing teaching hours alone does not improve it. However, good mental health increases the chance of regular retirement. Therefore, instead of a legal obligation, PTT should be encouraged to increase the number of teaching hours voluntarily in order to counteract the general shortage of teachers.
Impact of pollution on macroinvertebrates biodiversity in Ismailia Canal, Egypt

This study was conducted to monitor the adverse effect of the drainage wastewater of three main factories on the macroinvertebrates biodiversity of Ismailia Canal. Water and benthos samples were collected seasonally during 2010 from 10 stations along Ismailia Canal from El-Mezalat to Abu Zaabal city. The results revealed that most of the physico-chemical parameters were within the permissible limits, although, Cairo Power station and Abu Zaabal factory are causing partial pollution. The community of macrobenthic invertebrates was represented by Mollusca (35.20 %), Annelida (33.62 %) and Arthropoda (31.18 %). Limnodrilus hoffmeisteri and Chironomus larvae were dominating the whole studied area (32% and 28.51% of total macrobenthos, respectively) and they are considered to be potential bioindicators for polluted ecosystem. Low species diversity and occurrence of pollution-tolerant species (e.g. Limnodrilus hoffmeisteri and Chironomus larvae) indicate that the water quality of the canal is deteriorated. A regular program for biomonitoring is recommended which will allow future changes and enhancing in this important ecosystem.
Explanations for Individual Secularization: Exploring the Effects of Life Course Events on Religious Decline in the Netherlands Between 2009 and 2020

The process of secularization in Western societies, in terms of the decline of individual religiosity, is often explained by way of cohort and period effects. In addition, there are many studies that focus on micro-level life course events that are considered to change individual religiosity. In this article, we use excellent panel data for the years 2009 to 2020 to distinguish the effects of 10 life course events on individual religiosity from cohort and period effects. Our object of study is the Netherlands, a forerunner in the process of secularization. The analyses, that is, mixed-effect regression models with almost 42,000 observations, reveal that completing an education, getting married or divorced, starting to cohabite, and receiving a higher income all affect individual religiosity. However, period effects and cohort differences are more important for Dutch secularization than life course events.
Absolute neutron and photon flux characterization in the CNESTEN’s TRIGA Mark II research reactor

The National Center for Nuclear Energy, Sciences and Technology (CNESTEN) located in Rabat, Morocco, operates a 2 MW TRIGA Mark II research reactor. This type of reactor is specially designed to effectively implement the various fields of nuclear research such as neutron activation analysis, neutron radiography, detectors testing, radioisotopes production as well as education and training. In the last few years, a collaboration between the French Atomic Energy and Alternative Energies Commission (CEA) and the CNESTEN was established to expand the utilization of the TRIGA computational model by carrying out new in-situ measurements in order to characterize neutron and photon fields within and beyond the TRIGA reactor core. These new measurements will consolidate the knowledge of neutron and photon fluxes in different irradiation and instrumentation channels. The results of these experiments will also be used to extend the experimental validation of the new developed TRIPOLI-4® computational model of the reactor and to quantify the uncertainties and biases. This paper focuses on the neutron and photon flux characterization of two irradiation channels inside the TRIGA reactor core. Neutron measurements are ensured by activation dosimetry whereas photon measurements are ensured by thermo-luminescent detectors (TLD400 – CaF2: Mn). Based on these techniques, the experiments were carried out during an experimental campaign conducted in June 2022. Preceding the implementation of these measurements, two experimental devices were specifically designed and manufactured to ensure a reproducible positioning of the detectors in the selected irradiation channels. This paper presents the experimental results analysis and the associated uncertainty quantification. These results will be then compared to the calculation ones obtained by the computational models of the TRIGA reactor.
Fluoxetine treatment during the postpartal period may have short-term impacts on murine maternal skeletal physiology

Postpartum depression affects many individuals after parturition, and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are often used as the first-line treatment; however, both SSRIs and lactation are independently associated with bone loss due to the role of serotonin in bone remodeling. Previously, we have established that administration of the SSRI fluoxetine during the peripartal period results in alterations in long-term skeletal characteristics. In the present study, we treated mice with either a low or high dose of fluoxetine during lactation to determine the consequences of the perturbation of serotonin signaling during this time period on the dam skeleton. We found that lactational fluoxetine exposure affected both cortical and trabecular parameters, altered gene expression and circulating markers of bone turnover, and affected mammary gland characteristics, and that these effects were more pronounced in the dams that were exposed to the low dose of fluoxetine in comparison to the high dose. Fluoxetine treatment during the postpartum period in rodents had short term effects on bone that were largely resolved 3 months post-weaning. Despite the overall lack of long-term insult to bone, the alterations in serotonin-driven lactational bone remodeling raises the question of whether fluoxetine is a safe option for the treatment of postpartum depression.
Removing 0.5 Hz Baseline Wander From ECG Signal Using Multistage Adaptive Filter

This paper deals with the implementation of software system to remove 0.5 Hz baseline wander noise from the ECG signal using multistage adaptive filter. At start, a single stage adaptive filter has been implemented and the performance of the implemented system has been checked for changing the values of noise levels, the convergence factor of the adaptive algorithm
MMDataLoader: Reusing Preprocessed Data Among Concurrent Model Training Tasks

Data preprocessing plays an important role in deep learning, which directly affects the training efficiency. Data preprocessing is performed on the CPU. The preprocessed data are then fed to the models that are trained on the GPU. We observe that data preprocessing on the CPU can potentially create a bottleneck in the entire process of a model training task. In order to tackle this issue, we have developed MMDataLoader, which enables reusing preprocessed data among multiple model training tasks. MMDataLoader automatically constructs a data preprocessing pipeline based on each task's specific preprocessing workflow, allowing for maximum data reuse and reduced computing workload on the CPU. Unlike conventional data loaders that operate at the task level and provide data provision services to specific training tasks, MMDataLoader operates at the server level and provides data for all concurrently running tasks. We have conducted extensive experiments. The results show that MMDataLoader can significantly increase preprocessing throughput without affecting model convergence when compared to conventional methods where model training tasks are executed concurrently. For instance, with three tasks running, the preprocessing throughput can increase by 1.6x to 3.15x, depending on the tasks being executed and the proportion of preprocessing operations that are shared among them.
Attenuation of vertical peak acceleration

Abstract Peak vertical accelerations from a suite of 585 strong ground motion records from 76 worldwide earthquakes are fit to an attenuation model that has a magnitude dependent shape. The regression uses a two-step procedure that is a hybrid of the Joyner and Boore (1981) and Campbell (1981) regression methods. The resulting vertical attenuation relation is log 10 a v ( g ) = − 1.15 + 0.245 M − 1.096 log 10 ( r + e 0.256 M ) + 0.096 F − 0.0011 E r , where M is magnitude, r is the distance in kilometers to the closest approach of the zone of energy release, F is a dummy variable that is 1 for reverse or reverse oblique events and 0 otherwise, and E is a dummy variable that is 1 for interplate events and 0 for intraplate events. The standard error of log 10 a v is 0.296. Because the vertical to horizontal acceleration ratio is also sought, the attenuation of the horizontal peaks from the same suite of records is also obtained using the same regression procedure. The resulting horizontal attenuation relation is log 10 a H ( g ) = − 0.62 + 0.177 M − 0.982 log 10 ( r + e 0.284 M ) + 0.132 F − 0.0008 E r , where a H is the peak acceleration of the larger of the two horizontal components. The standard error of log 10 a H is 0.277. The expected ratio of peak vertical to peak horizontal strong ground motion predicted by these equations is enveloped by the widely used rule-of-thrumb value of two-thirds for earthquakes with magnitudes less than 7.0 and distances greater than 20 km. The expected ratio exceeds 1.0 for earthquakes with magnitudes greater than 8.0 at very short distances. The standard error of log 10 ( V/H ) is 0.20, which is less than the standard error of either the vertical or horizontal acceleration. Therefore, the peak vertical and horizontal accelerations for a given record are strongly correlated and we can have more confidence in the predicted ratio than in either the predicted vertical or horizontal peaks.