Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon Ionization Energy Lowering in Water Ices

In studying various interstellar and solar system ice analogs, we have recently found that upon vacuum ultraviolet photolysis, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) frozen in water ice at low temperatures are easily ionized and indefinitely stabilized as trapped ions (Gudipati; Gudipati & Allamandola). Here we report the first experimental study that shows that PAH ionization energy is significantly lowered in PAH/H2O ices, in agreement with recent theoretical work (Woon & Park). The ionization energy (IE) of the PAH studied here, quaterrylene (C40H20, IE = 6.11 eV), is lowered by up to 2.11 eV in water ice. PAH ionization energy reduction in low-temperature water ice substantially expands the astronomical regions in which trapped ions and electrons may be important. This reduction in ionization energy should also hold for other types of trapped species in water-rich interstellar, circumstellar, and solar system ices.
Medical and laboratory assessment for regular blood donors in Sulaimani Blood Bank, Iraq

Introduction It has been suggested that blood donation reduces risks of developing cardiovascular diseases such as heart failure, atherosclerosis, and stroke. Although there are known benefits of blood donation, the inclination of people of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq to donate blood is not known. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine demograpic and blood biochemical profiles of regular and first-time blood donors in the Sulaimani province of North Iraq. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted at the Sulaimani Blood Bank, during the period of April 1, 2016 to March 28, 2017, on convenient samples of 100 regular and 100 first-time blood donors. Donor particulars were obtained from blood bank records. The cholesterol, triglyceride, low-density lipoprotein, ferritin, vitamin D3, and uric acid concentrations of blood samples were determined. Results The main reason for blood donation by regular blood donors was headache (45%), while for the first-timers it was to help relatives (31%). The low-density lipoprotein and ferritin concentrations were significantly (p=0.001) lower in the blood of regular donors than first-timers. Conclusion The study shows that regular blood donation is beneficial for the maintenance of health of donors.
Mutational analysis of the pro‐peptide of a marine intracellular subtilisin protease supports its role in inhibition

Intracellular subtilisin proteases (ISPs) have important roles in protein processing during the stationary phase in bacteria. Their unregulated protein degrading activity may have adverse effects inside a cell, but little is known about their regulatory mechanism. Until now, ISPs have mostly been described from Bacillus species, with structural data from a single homolog. Here, we study a marine ISP originating from a phylogenetically distinct genus, Planococcus sp. The enzyme was successfully overexpressed in E. coli, and is active in presence of calcium, which is thought to have a role in minor, but essential, structural rearrangements needed for catalytic activity. The ISP operates at alkaline pH and at moderate temperatures, and has a corresponding melting temperature around 60 °C. The high‐resolution 3‐dimensional structure reported here, represents an ISP with an intact catalytic triad albeit in a configuration with an inhibitory pro‐peptide bound. The pro‐peptide is removed in other homologs, but the removal of the pro‐peptide from the Planococcus sp. AW02J18 ISP appears to be different, and possibly involves several steps. A first processing step is described here as the removal of 2 immediate N‐terminal residues. Furthermore, the pro‐peptide contains a conserved LIPY/F‐motif, which was found to be involved in inhibition of the catalytic activity.
Advances in consolidated bioprocessing systems for bioethanol and butanol production from biomass: a comprehensive review

Recently, lignocellulosic biomass as the most abundant renewable resource has been widely considered for bioalcohols production. However, the complex structure of lignocelluloses requires a multi-step process which is costly and time consuming. Although, several bioprocessing approaches have been developed for pretreatment, saccharification and fermentation, bioalcohols production from lignocelluloses is still limited because of the economic infeasibility of these technologies. This cost constraint could be overcome by designing and constructing robust cellulolytic and bioalcohols producing microbes and by using them in a consolidated bioprocessing (CBP) system. This paper comprehensively reviews potentials, recent advances and challenges faced in CBP systems for efficient bioalcohols (ethanol and butanol) production from lignocellulosic and starchy biomass. The CBP strategies include using native single strains with cellulytic and alcohol production activities, microbial co-cultures containing both cellulytic and ethanologenic microorganisms, and genetic engineering of cellulytic microorganisms to be alcohol-producing or alcohol producing microorganisms to be cellulytic. Moreover, high-throughput techniques, such as metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, next generation sequencing and synthetic biology developed to explore novel microorganisms and powerful enzymes with high activity, thermostability and pH stability are also discussed. Currently, the CBP technology is in its infant stage, and ideal microorganisms and/or conditions at industrial scale are yet to be introduced. So, it is essential to bring into attention all barriers faced and take advantage of all the experiences gained to achieve a high-yield and low-cost CBP process.
A Consistent Bayesian Approach for Stochastic Inverse Problems

Uncertainty is ubiquitous in computational science and engineering. Often, parameters of interest cannot be measured directly and must be inferred from observable data. The mapping between these parameters and the measureable data is often referred to as the forward model and the goal is to use the forward model to gain knowledge about the parameters given the observations on the data. Statistical Bayesian inference (see e.g., [1, 2]) is the most common approach for incorporating stochastic data into probabilistic descriptions of the input parameters. This approach uses data and an assumed error model to inform posterior distributions of model inputs and model discrepancies. An explicit characterization of the posterior distribution is not necessary since certain sampling methods, such as Markov Chain Monte Carlo, can be used to draw samples from the posterior. We have recently developed an alternative Bayesian solution to the stochastic inverse problem based on the measure-theoretic principles developed in [3]. We prove that this approach, which we call consistent Bayesian inference, produces a posterior distribution that is consistent in the sense that the push-forward probability density of the posterior through the model will match the distribution on the observable data, i.e., the posterior is consistent with the model and the data [4]. Our approach only requires approximating the push-forward probability density of the prior through the computational model, which is fundamentally a forward propagation of uncertainty. Numerical results will be presented to highlight various aspects of the consistent Bayesian approach, to compare with the statistical Bayesian approach, and to demonstrate the effectiveness of adaptive sampling strategies.
Avian Pain : Physiology and Evaluation

CE Information on avian pain and analgesia is limited. However, an understanding of pain physiology and associated behavior specific to avian species can help practitioners recognize pain and treat it effectively.This article provides background information on peripheral and central processing of pain information in birds. Evaluation of pain and changes in behavior are described, and stress-induced analgesia and changes in attention that produce analgesia are also discussed. agents administered for pain in mammals also modulate pain pathways and behavioral responses to painful stimuli in birds. Pain perception allows animals to minimize their exposure to potentially harmful stimuli. Birds often do not indicate pain in an obvious manner because species that may be preyed on are less likely to display overt pain-associated behavior that may attract attention from predators. Considerable variation in behavioral responses to pain may occur among avian species, breeds, strains, or individuals, and there is no reliable or universal indicator of pain. Most practitioners are able to recognize acute severe pain, but chronic pain may go undetected, especially if practitioners are unfamiliar with the normal behavior of the species. Therefore, it is advisable to treat for pain when dealing with any condition expected to cause pain, especially if known to be painful in humans (see box on page 99). This article provides information on pain physiology and related behavior that may improve practitioners’ understanding of pain mechanisms and, therefore, knowledge of appropriate analgesic therapies in birds. This article is based on the available literature on avian pain, but interpreting experimentally produced measures of pain reflexes can be problematic because they may not represent a measure of true pain behavior. Avian Pain: Physiology and Evaluation Karen L. Machin, DVM, PhD University of Saskatchewan Send comments/questions via email compendium@medimedia.com, fax 800-556-3288, or web
GENETIC CORRELATION BETWEEN PUREBRED AND CROSSBRED PERFORMANCE OF MERINO SHEEP FOR THREE WEIGHT TRAITS USING A GENOMIC RELATIONSHIP MATRIX

In sheep, genetic correlations between purebred and crossbred performance have not been studied extensively. The availability of genomic data on both purebreds and crossbreds makes it possible to estimate these genetic correlations for Merinos. Data of ~5000 purebred Merinos and ~ 5000 crossbred Merinos (sired by White Suffolk, Poll Dorset or Border Leicester) was used and the animals were genotyped with the Ovine 50K and phenotyped for three weight traits; weaning weight (WWT), post-weaning weight (PWWT) and carcass weight (CWT). Results showed a significant deviation from 1 for PWWT namely 0.61. While the correlation for WWT and CWT were not significant at 0.96 and 0.69 respectively. For a Merino breeding programs where emphasize is on increasing crossbred performance for PWWT (and CWT), purebred and crossbred performance should be combined in the genetic evaluation to achieve a good response to selection.
User Context Information Personal Context-Aware Preference Mobile User What do you need now ? + Popular Apps Pop Music Latest News Hot Ads

Recent advances in mobile devices and their sensing capabilities have enabled the collection of rich contextual information and mobile device usage records through the device logs. These context-rich logs open a venue for mining the personal preferences of mobile users under varying contexts and thus enabling the development of personalized context-aware recommendation and other related services, such as mobile online advertising. In this paper, we illustrate how to extract personal context-aware preferences from the contextrich device logs, or context logs for short, and exploit these identified preferences for building personalized context-aware recommender systems. A critical challenge along this line is that the context log of each individual user may not contain sufficient data for mining his/her context-aware preferences. Therefore, we propose to first learn common context-aware preferences from the context logs of many users. Then, the preference of each user can be represented as a distribution of these common context-aware preferences. Specifically, we develop two approaches for mining common context-aware preferences based on two different assumptions, namely, context independent and context dependent assumptions, which can fit into different application scenarios. Finally, extensive experiments on a real-world data set show that both approaches are effective and outperform baselines with respect to mining personal context-aware preferences for mobile users.
Image segmentation fusion using weakly supervised trace-norm multi-task learning method

In this study, the authors propose a new method to fuse multiple segmentations generated by different methods or same methods with different parameters. The proposed method has several contributions. First, they convert the image segmentation fusion problem into a weakly supervised learning problem. Thus, the information of superpixels can be used to guide the fusion process. Second, they treat the multiple segmentations as multiple closely related tasks and utilise multi-task learning method to evaluate the reliability of the segmentations. Third, they design a strategy to ensemble the evaluated segmentation maps to obtain the final segmentation. The experiment on the benchmark dataset MSRC demonstrates the superior performance of the proposed method on image foreground and background segmentations.
Optimal Monetary Policy Under Downward Nominal Wage Rigidity

We develop a New Keynesian model with staggered price and wage setting where downward nominal wage rigidity (DNWR) arises endogenously through the wage bargaining institutions. It is shown that the optimal (discretionary) monetary policy response to changing economic conditions then becomes asymmetric. Interestingly, we find that the welfare loss is actually slightly smaller in an economy with DNWR. This is due to that DNWR is not an additional constraint on the monetary policy problem. Instead, it is a constraint that changes the choice set and opens up for potential welfare gains due to lower wage variability. Another finding is that the Taylor rule provides a fairly good approximation of optimal policy under DNWR. In contrast, this result does not hold in the unconstrained case. In fact, under the Taylor rule, agents would clearly prefer an economy with DNWR before an unconstrained economy ex ante.
Central Venous Oxygen Saturation Is not a Predictor of Extubation Success after Simple Weaning from Mechanical Ventilation in Post-Cardiac Surgical Patients.

Objective Central venous oxygen saturation (ScvO2) is a measure of the balance between oxygen delivery and consumption. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether ScvO2 predict weaning success and extubation in simple weaning postcardiac surgical patients. Material and Method We prospective observed critically ill post-cardiac surgical patients who were intubated and mechanically ventilated between December 2011 and October 2014. All enrolled patients underwent a spontaneous breathing trial (SBT) before extubation. Arterial and venous blood gas analysis, and hemodynamic and ventilator variables were recorded at the beginning of SBT (T1) and before extubation (T2). Weaning success was defined as successful extubation after SBT without re-intubation within 48 hours. The area under the receiver characteristic curve (ROC) demonstrated the ability to discriminate weaning success. Statistical significance was defined as p<0.05. Results A total 121 patients were included. Of these, 18 patients (15%) were re-intubation within 48 hours after extubation. There was no statistically significance in age, gender, and type of operations between those who were extubated successfully and those who were re-intubated within 48 hours. Regarding hemodynamic and respiratory parameters, the significant differences were found only in partial arterial oxygen pressure (PaO2; p = 0.048) and PaO2 to oxygen fraction ratio (PF ratio; p=0.048) at T1. There was no difference between the groups in ScvO2 at either T1 or T2. The area under the ROC (95% confidence interval) of ScvO2 was 0.60 (0.47-0.74) and 0.53 (0.39-0.66) at T1 and T2, respectively. Although ScvO2 was combined with rapid shallow breathing index (RSBI), PF ratio and minute volume on the regression model at both T1 and T2, the discrimination ability was not significant increased. Conclusion ScvO2 or its combination with RSBI, PF ratio and minute volume does not predict successful weaning from mechanical ventilators and extubation in critically ill post-cardiac surgical patients.
Land use effects on nitrous oxide emission from drained organic soils

Since industrialisation, the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases (GHG) has increased significantly. The most important anthropogenic GHGs are carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O). N2O is of major concern for two reasons; i) it is a potent GHG responsible for 6.2% of the observed anthropogenic radiative forcing and ii) it plays a major role in the destruction of stratospheric ozone. Soil processes are the largest contributor to the atmospheric N2O, with agriculture as the largest anthropogenic source, accounting for 65% to 80% of total emission. The N2O emissions are largely influenced by the land use and, due to the long half life time of N2O in the atmosphere, is it important to find mitigation options that will reduce N2O from agriculture. This is particularly important for drained organic soils, which are emitting large amounts of N2O and CO2. The main processes that produce N2O in soil are nitrification and denitrification. Several interacting factors control these processes and the magnitude of N2O emission, such as site fertility, ground water level, pH and competition from vegetation. Thus, because of the complexity of the driving variables, it is difficult to predict N2O emission from environmental factors. The articles in this thesis deals with measurements of N2O, CH4 and CO2 fluxes, although I in my summary of these, focus on mitigation options for N2O emissions from organic soils, as these are largely increased after drainage and have a large impact on the national GHG budget for Sweden. Main findings of my work are that cereals, row sown crops (e.g. vegetables) and forest emit larger amounts of N2O than pastures. However, due to the many controlling factors, the different soil properties as well as measurement periods it is difficult to generalise the findings for all peat soils. Soil pH was found to be a driving factor for N2O emission from the forest site, with enhanced N2O emission from low pH. Increased soil pH due to wood ash addition was found to reduce N2O emission at a spruce forest site, which might provide a mitigation option for organic forest soils. Based on the results from the thesis, a suggested mitigation strategy for N2O emission from drained agricultural peat soils is to avoid cereal and vegetable cultivation in favour of permanent meadows or pastures. Increasing pH by wood ash or lime can decrease N2O emission from forest soils. Although not a result in this thesis, liming of agricultural drained peat soils could also be an
Biogenic Emissions from Green Waste and Comparison to the Emissions Resulting from Composting Part II: Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs)

The cumulative emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) resulting from natural decay of selected green waste, i.e. grass clippings, woodchips and prunings, and from composting of the same feedstock were studied. The results indicated that terpenes were the only compounds emitted from the feedstock as they underwent natural breakdown as well as during their composting. Even though there was a wide array of compounds emitted, the results suggested that the following six terpenes i.e., α-pinene, β-pinene, 3-carene, camphene, β-myrcene, and D-limonene, were the most significant compounds encompassing 32.7 to 95.3% of the total emissions. The cumulative VOC emissions varied considerably from a batch to another ranging 11.0 to 347.4 mg/kg-dw expressed as α-pinene. The composting of the same materials in different blends resulted in cumulative emissions ranging from 18.1 to 106.6 mg/kg-dw as α-pinene, representing 60 to 92% reduction compared to the biogenic emissions resulting from natural decay.
Regulation of Appetite for Treating Obesity: Lessons from the Rimonabant Debacle

Physiology of appetite regulation: Appetite functions to ensure sufficient food intake to provide energy for maintaining physiological and metabolic needs. The appetite, in turn, is regulated by a complex process and an intricate interplay of neural and hormonal mechanisms including several brain areas and their projections, various hormones, and gastrointestinal tract (GIT) and adipose tissue. In the brain, the hypothalamus, brain stem and autonomic nervous system (ANS) contribute to the central regulation of food intake and energy balance. A reservoir of nutrients is maintained in human body for metabolic needs and the accentuated evolutionary need to fill body stores for nutrients leads to weight gain, overweight and obesity.
Acetaminophen, antibiotics, ear infection, breastfeeding, vitamin D drops, and autism: an epidemiological study

Background While many studies have examined environmental risk factors for autism spectrum disorder (ASD), much of the research focus has been on prenatal or perinatal factors. Yet, the postnatal environment may affect the risk of ASD as well. Objective To determine whether a set of five postnatal variables are associated with ASD. These variables are: acetaminophen exposure, antibiotic exposure, incidence of ear infection, decreased duration of breastfeeding, and decreased consumption of oral vitamin D drops. Materials and methods An Internet-based survey was conducted. Participants were parents living in the USA with at least one biological child between 3 and 12 years of age. Potential participants were informed about the survey via postings on social media, websites, and listservs and were offered an opportunity to participate in a raffle as well. Participants were also recruited through the Interactive Autism Network. Results There were 1,741 completed survey responses. After exclusions, there remained 1,001 responses associated with children with ASD (cases) and 514 responses associated with children who do not have ASD (controls). In this data set, doses of postnatal acetaminophen (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 1.016, CI: 1.003–1.032, p=0.026), courses of postnatal antibiotics (aOR 1.103, CI: 1.046–1.168, p<0.001), incidence of postnatal ear infection (aOR 1.137, CI: 1.046–1.236, p=0.003), and decreased duration of breastfeeding (aOR 0.948, CI: 0.932–0.965, p<0.001) are all associated with ASD when adjusted for eight demographic variables. A weak association between oral vitamin D drop exposure and ASD was also found when adjusted for breastfeeding and demographics (aOR 1.025, CI: 0.995–1.056, p=0.102). Conclusion This study adds to evidence that postnatal acetaminophen use, postnatal antibiotic use, incidence of ear infection, and early weaning are associated with an increased risk of ASD. It also finds that postnatal oral vitamin D drops are weakly associated with ASD when adjusted for breastfeeding and demographics.
Soil Conservation and Technical Efficiency Among Hillside Farmers in Central America: A Switching Regression Model

The main objective of this paper is to evaluate and analyze technical efficiency (TE) levels for hillside farmers under different levels of adoption of soil conservation in El Salvador and Honduras. A switching regression model is implemented to examine potential selectivity bias for high and low level adopters, and separate stochastic production frontiers, corrected for selectivity bias, are estimated for each group. The main results indicate that households with above-average adoption show statistically higher average TE than those with lower adoption. Households with higher adoption have smaller farms and display the highest partial output elasticity for land. Constraints in the land and credit markets are likely explanations for these differences. In addition, all estimated models show that TE has a positive and significant association with education and extension.