Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Climate-Change Scenarios for Water Planning Studies: Pilot Applications in the Pacific Northwest

NOVEMBER 2003 AMERICAN METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY | espite uncertainties in predictions of the magnitude and timing of anthropogenic climate change, many Pacific Northwest (PNW) water managers now recognize climate change as a significant issue that should be addressed in water resources planning. This represents a significant change over the last several years. These managers are requesting detailed information about potential climate impacts on their systems, in a form suitable for inclusion in planning. Academic climate-change assessments, which have been available since the mid-1980s, often produce information that is inconsistent with the specific periods of the historic streamflow record and/or the internally developed water management models used by individual water management agencies in formal water planning studies. While water managers may find an academic assessment of a system’s sensitivity to climate change (produced by coupling academically developed climate, hydrologic, and water management models) to be perfectly believable in the abstract, they are unlikely to consider such an assessment directly relevant to the decisions they make about the system they manage. This is one reason that water-planning studies have rarely addressed the implications of climate change in any more than a very cursory manner. We therefore believe that water management agencies would be more apt to incorporate climate change in their planning in the short term if they had access to scenarios of future streamflow that could easily and inexpensively be used within the confines of their existing planning frameworks. A few water management agencies in the PNW have taken the lead in incorporating climate change in their planning efforts. The Portland (Oregon) Water Bureau, for example, recently completed a study in partnership with the University of Washington’s Climate Impacts Group (CIG) that evaluated several long-range planning alternatives under four different scenarios of future climate. Seattle Public Utilities (which manages Seattle’s water supply) has begun a similar planning process. This paper describes how we are working to expand the availability of climate-change streamflow scenarios that would allow more planners to assess the impacts of climate change on PNW water systems. In the pilot project described here, streamflow scenarios are being generated to support two large-scale PNW water-planning studies.
Translanguaging and place-making in writing for publication

In this piece, we consider what the concepts of translocality as place-making and translanguaging can add to an understanding of current academic and creative writing. Our quest is informed by sociolinguistic theory and literary studies. We take up Hultgren’s (2020) call for interdisciplinarity in research on multilingual writing for publication and contribute to current debates that question dominant ways of knowledge production. By means of creative conversations between the authors, a sociolinguist in Stockholm, Sweden and a scholar of literature in Bangor, North Wales, we explore how academic and creative writing practices may be enriched by drawing on a broader range of writers’ linguistic repertoires. In contrast to previous research that focused on translocality in terms of writers’ mobility and networking, we pay attention to translocality as a process of place-making in writing. Drawing on narrative methods, we present four instances of condensed and partly fictionalized dialogue informed by our own lived experience. The creative form reveals various layers of translocal and translingual writing practices. Translanguaging is intricately connected to place-making and the evocation of communities in both fictional and academic texts. While limited by “regimes of comprehensibility” (Bodin, Helgesson & Huss, 2020), it carries potential for learning and for political activism. Ultimately, our insights and our writing experiment aim to question what counts as a legitimate text and to suggest alternative ways of meaning-making in academic and creative writing practices.
Spectrophotometry and Stellar Population Models of “E + A” Galaxies

We present long-slit spectrophotometry of eight “E + A” galaxies which have been previously identified in the literature. We use a simple two-parameter modeling scheme to test if their stellar populations can be characterized uniquely by a decaying instantaneous starburst of well-determined age superposed upon a steady state galaxy substrate. Five of the objects are well characterized by burst-plus-elliptical galaxy models; two others are best fit by burst-plus-spiral galaxy models. One object cannot be described by such models, but it does resemble the spectra of some nearby merging galaxies with E + A-like spectra, possibly suggesting a multiple-burst scenario. Significant degeneracies, however, combined with the finite signal-to-noise of the data, severely limit the effectiveness of using optical spectral energy distributions alone to constrain the ages and mass fractions of the starburst components. The interpretation of E + A galaxies, especially at high redshift, must be approached cautiously.
Isocaloric Diets with Different Protein-Carbohydrate Ratios: The Effect on Sleep, Melatonin Secretion and Subsequent Nutritional Response in Healthy Young Men

This study aimed to determine the short-term effect of two isocaloric diets differing in the ratio of protein–carbohydrate on melatonin levels, sleep, and subsequent dietary intake and physical activity in healthy young men. Twenty-four healthy men took part in a crossover design including two sessions of three days on isocaloric diets whether high-protein, low-carbohydrate (HPLC) or low-protein, high-carbohydrate (LPHC) followed by 24-h free living assessments. Sleep was measured by ambulatory polysomnography pre-post-intervention. Melatonin levels were assessed on the third night of each session on eight-point salivary sampling. Physical activity was monitored by accelerometry. On day 4, participants reported their 24-h ad-libitum dietary intake. LPHC resulted in better sleep quality and increased secretion of melatonin compared to HPLC. A significant difference was noted in sleep efficiency (p < 0.05) between the two sessions. This was mainly explained by a difference in sleep onset latency (p < 0.01) which was decreased during LPHC (PRE: 15.8 ± 7.8 min, POST: 11.4 ± 4.5 min, p < 0.001). Differences were also noted in sleep staging including time spent on REM (p < 0.05) and N1 (p < 0.05). More importantly, REM latency (PRE: 97.2 ± 19.9 min, POST 112.0 ± 20.7 min, p < 0.001) and cortical arousals (PRE: 7.2 ± 3.9 event/h, POST 8.5 ± 3.3 event/h) increased in response to HPLC diet but not LPHC. On day 4, 24-h ad-libitum energy intake was higher following HPLC compared to LPHC (+64 kcal, p < 0.05) and explained by increased snacking behavior (p < 0.01) especially from carbohydrates (p < 0.05). Increased carbohydrates intake was associated with increased cortical arousals.
Proposed multiconjugate adaptive optics experiment at Lick Observatory

While the theory behind design of multiconjugate adaptive optics (MCAO) systems is growing, there is still a paucity of experience building and testing such instruments. We propose using the Lick adaptive optics (AO) system as a basis for demonstrating the feasibility/workability of MCAO systems, testing underlying assumptions, and experimenting with different approaches to solving MCAO system issues.
Therapeutic Effect of a Latent Form of Cortistatin in Experimental Inflammatory and Fibrotic Disorders

Cortistatin is a cyclic neuropeptide that recently emerged as an attractive therapeutic factor for treating inflammatory, autoimmune, fibrotic, and pain disorders. Despite of its efficiency and apparent safety in experimental preclinical models, its short half-life in body fluids and its potential pleiotropic effects, due to its promiscuity for several receptors expressed in various cells and tissues, represent two major drawbacks for the clinical translation of cortistatin-based therapies. Therefore, the design of new strategies focused on increasing the stability, bioavailability, and target specificity of cortistatin are lately demanded by the industry. Here, we generated by molecular engineering a new cortistatin-based prodrug formulation that includes, beside the bioactive cortistatin, a molecular-shield provided by the latency-associated protein of the transforming growth factor-β1 and a cleavage site specifically recognized by metalloproteinases, which are abundant in inflammatory/fibrotic foci. Using different models of sepsis, inflammatory bowel disease, scleroderma, and pulmonary fibrosis, we demonstrated that this latent form of cortistatin was a highly effective protection against these severe disorders. Noteworthy, from a therapeutic point of view, is that latent cortistatin seems to require significantly lower doses and fewer administrations than naive cortistatin to reach the same efficacy. Finally, the metalloproteinase-cleavage site was essential for the latent molecule to exert its therapeutic action. In summary, latent cortistatin emerges as a promising innovative therapeutic tool for treating chronic diseases of different etiologies with difficult clinical solutions and as a starting point for a rational development of prodrugs based on the use of bioactive peptides.
Dental Diseases Increase Risk of Aortic Arch Calcification Independent of Renal Dysfunction in Older Adults: Shenzhen Community Cohort Study

Many studies have documented that dental diseases were associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular diseases. Aortic arch calcification (AoAC) is a powerful predictor of cardiovascular diseases. However, whether the status of dental health is associated with AoAC is still unknown. 9463 participants over the age of 60 from Shenzhen community centers were included in the cross-sectional analysis. Physical examination data, blood biochemical tests, and AoAC scores calculated by chest radiography were collected and analyzed. Among them, 2630 participants were followed up for AoAC progression up to 36 months. Participants with AoAC suffered more tooth loss than those without AoAC (77.62% vs. 72.91%; p < 0.001). Association rule analysis suggested a strong association between dental diseases and AoAC. Tooth loss or decay increased the risk of AoAC progression (HR 1.459; 95%CI 1.284–1.658) after adjusting other risk factors including renal dysfunction. Dental diseases are potential predictors for AoAC in elderly people, which are independent of renal dysfunction.
Popular music media literacy: A pilot study

The current study pilot tested a popular music media literacy website that was developed based on the final report of the APA Division 46 Task Force on the Sexualization of Popular Music (2018). The study hypothesized that popular music media literacy education would produce significant differences between the baseline assessment and post-literacy assessment for outcomes related to music reflecting real life, viewing the self as similar to music portrayals, music skepticism, level of engagement with music, and self-reported self-esteem. It was also hypothesized that participants would report favorable attitudes regarding the popular music media literacy website being tested. Participants included 52 emerging adult college students who completed the baseline assessment and the post-literacy assessments after reviewing the popular music media literacy website. At baseline, participants reported moderate levels of music as reflecting real life, viewing themselves as similar to music representations and self-reported self-esteem. Participants also reported high levels of music skepticism and engagement with music at baseline. Results indicated that the popular music media literacy website was effective in increasing general music skepticism. The implications for future research and next directions are discussed.
Creating In-Store Impulse Buying: Physical or Human Cues?

Impulse buying behavior is the ever-concerning interest not only in marketing but in sustainable business management; the scope of in-store impulse buying behavior has increased with increasing online purchasing tendencies of customers. This study examines the role of physical and human cues in stimulating the impulse buying behavior of customers purchasing in-store. This study employed a self-administered questionnaire to collect the data from conveniently available customers at their shopping points at well-known outlets in Kathmandu. Following the explanatory research design, the study has examined the direct and mediating effects of predicting the impulse buying behavior of 270 customers with different socio-demographics. Results revealed a significant positive impact of six dimensions of physical cues and interaction with the staff as human cues in predicting impulse buying behavior. Additionally, the mediating impact of human cues ensured that human cues are more important in creating impulse buying. This study has set its originality by developing a mediating model that provides the managerial and theoretical implications of the S-O-R theory.
Depression Detection Based on Hybrid Deep Learning SSCL Framework Using Self-Attention Mechanism: An Application to Social Networking Data

In today’s world, mental health diseases have become highly prevalent, and depression is one of the mental health problems that has become widespread. According to WHO reports, depression is the second-leading cause of the global burden of diseases. In the proliferation of such issues, social media has proven to be a great platform for people to express themselves. Thus, a user’s social media can speak a great deal about his/her emotional state and mental health. Considering the high pervasiveness of the disease, this paper presents a novel framework for depression detection from textual data, employing Natural Language Processing and deep learning techniques. For this purpose, a dataset consisting of tweets was created, which were then manually annotated by the domain experts to capture the implicit and explicit depression context. Two variations of the dataset were created, on having binary and one ternary labels, respectively. Ultimately, a deep-learning-based hybrid Sequence, Semantic, Context Learning (SSCL) classification framework with a self-attention mechanism is proposed that utilizes GloVe (pre-trained word embeddings) for feature extraction; LSTM and CNN were used to capture the sequence and semantics of tweets; finally, the GRUs and self-attention mechanism were used, which focus on contextual and implicit information in the tweets. The framework outperformed the existing techniques in detecting the explicit and implicit context, with an accuracy of 97.4 for binary labeled data and 82.9 for ternary labeled data. We further tested our proposed SSCL framework on unseen data (random tweets), for which an F1-score of 94.4 was achieved. Furthermore, in order to showcase the strengths of the proposed framework, we validated it on the “News Headline Data set” for sarcasm detection, considering a dataset from a different domain. It also outmatched the performance of existing techniques in cross-domain validation.
Using conversions and treatments to understand students' engagement with problems based on the normal distribution curve : original research

Including probability and statistics in the core curriculum of mathematics in South African schools has made it necessary to train teachers to teach statistics at high school level. This study concentrates on practising mathematics teachers who were students in an in-service programme. The purpose of the study was to investigate students' success rates on different questions of a multi-part task based on the normal distribution curve. The theory that I used to understand the students' difficulties is Duval's theory about movement within and between semiotic representation systems, called treatment transformations and conversion transformations respectively. The first two parts of the problem were unknown percentage problems and involved a treatment followed by a conversion. The third was an unknown value problem and required a conversion before the students could undertake a treatment transformation. The findings reveal that the success rates the students achieved in treatment transformations were higher than those they achieved in conversion transformations. The study also revealed that the direction of the conversions played a role in success rates. Recognising the different challenges the two types of transformations pose requires that teachers pay particular attention to actions that involve movement between different representation systems.
The Output Signal‐to‐Noise Ratio of a Power‐Law Device

An nth law device is fed by a sinusoidal signal and narrow band random noise whose spectrum lies close to the signal frequency. Its output spectrum is different from zero only in the vicinity of harmonics of this frequency. The ratio R′ of output signal power to output noise power in the vicinity of the mth harmonic is computed in terms of the input signal‐to‐noise power ratio R. In general, R′(R) involves a couple of hypergeometric functions, but for small R we have R′≅Γ2[(m+n)/2+1]Rm/(m! )2Γ(n+1) for m≠0, R′≅Γ2(12n+1)/[Γ(n+1)−Γ2(12n+1)] for m=0. For large R we have R′≅2R/(m2+n2).
Recent Advances in Wearable Biosensors for Non-Invasive Detection of Human Lactate

Lactate, a crucial product of the anaerobic metabolism of carbohydrates in the human body, is of enormous significance in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases and scientific exercise management. The level of lactate in the bio-fluid is a crucial health indicator because it is related to diseases, such as hypoxia, metabolic disorders, renal failure, heart failure, and respiratory failure. For critically ill patients and those who need to regularly control lactate levels, it is vital to develop a non-invasive wearable sensor to detect lactate levels in matrices other than blood. Due to its high sensitivity, high selectivity, low detection limit, simplicity of use, and ability to identify target molecules in the presence of interfering chemicals, biosensing is a potential analytical approach for lactate detection that has received increasing attention. Various types of wearable lactate biosensors are reviewed in this paper, along with their preparation, key properties, and commonly used flexible substrate materials including polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), polyethylene terephthalate (PET), paper, and textiles. Key performance indicators, including sensitivity, linear detection range, and detection limit, are also compared. The challenges for future development are also summarized, along with some recommendations for the future development of lactate biosensors.
Some Myths and Legends in Quantitative Psychology

The aim of this article is to discuss some of the limitations of some common quantitative methods used in psychology. The main reason for so doing is to attempt to challenge the "golden rule" aspect that such methods frequently acquire among researchers, with the aim of emphasizing that quantitative methods are tools with limitations that need evaluation, and with rationales that require justification, in each single scientific application.
Effects of Educational Materials About Harms of Waterpipe Tobacco Charcoal use on Adult Smokers’ Risk Perceptions

A prospective online study, consisting of 203 participants ages 18 and older who smoked waterpipe (hookah) within the last 30 days, examined how brief messaging about harms of burning charcoal to heat waterpipe tobacco (shisha) influenced knowledge of toxicants released by using charcoal and perceived harms of using charcoal. Participants were randomized to either a control or to an educational arm that reviewed toxicants released by burning charcoal and the health consequences. Participants in the educational relative to the control arm perceived charcoal as more harmful, were more knowledgeable of toxicants released by burning charcoal, and expressed a stronger desire to quit. Effects were sustained a week later. Brief messages about the harms of burning charcoal were effective and may be used to educate the public about the harms of waterpipe tobacco smoking.
Exacerbation of Cisplatin Cellular Toxicity by Regulation of the Human Organic Cation Transporter 2 through Angiotensin II

Cisplatin (CDDP) is an efficient chemotherapeutic drug, whose use is associated with the development of serious undesired toxicities, such as nephrotoxicity. The human organic cation transporter 2 (hOCT2), which is highly expressed in the basolateral membrane domain of renal proximal tubules seems to play an important role in the development of CDDP nephrotoxicity. The role of angiotensin II (AII) signaling by binding to the AII receptor type 1 (AT1R) in the development and/or progression of CDDP nephrotoxicity is debated. Therefore, in this work, the regulation of hOCT2 activity by AII and its role in the development of CDDP cellular toxicity was investigated. To do this, hOCT2 was overexpressed by viral transduction in Madin–Darby Canine Kidney (MDCK) cells which were cultivated on a filter. This approach allows the separation of an apical and a basolateral membrane domain, which are easily accessible for experimentation. In this system, hOCT2 was mainly localized on the basolateral plasma membrane domain of the cells. The transporter was functional since a specific uptake of the fluorescent organic cation 4-(4-(dimethylamino)styryl)-N-methylpyridinium (ASP+) with an affinity (Km) of 35 µM was only detectable by the addition of ASP+ to the basolateral compartment of hOCT2 expressing MDCK (hOCT2-MDCK) cells. Similarly, CDDP toxicity was evident mainly by CDDP addition to the basolateral compartment of hOCT2-MDCK cells cultivated on a filter. The addition of 1 nM AII stimulated hOCT2 function via PKC activation and worsened CDDP cytotoxicity via binding to AT1R. Therefore, the AII signaling pathway may be implicated in the development and/or progression of CDDP nephrotoxicity. This signaling pathway may be a target for protective interventions for example by blocking AT1R in the kidneys. However, it should be further investigated whether these findings obtained in a cell culture system may have translational relevance for the clinical situation. For toxicity experiments, a 100 µM CDDP concentration was used, which is high but allows us to identify clearly toxic effects due to hOCT2. In summary, down-regulation of hOCT2 activity by the inhibition of the AII signaling pathway may protect against CDDP nephrotoxicity.
From nucleation to growth of catalyst-free GaN nanowires on thin AlN buffer layer

We demonstrate that thin AlN buffer layers improve the orientation of GaN nanowire grown on Si(111). The deposited GaN initially forms into islands which act as a seed for the wires. By raising substrate temperature, the actual amount of grown material decreases but wire density increases and well-separated wires are achieved. Fast wire length growth rate at high growth temperature is assigned to an enhancement of adatom diffusion. The upper limit of length growth rate is determined by the supply rate of active nitrogen.