Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Bioavailability of Pentoxifylline-Chitosan Oral Matrix Tablet in Healthy Subjects

Pentoxifylline (PX) is a highly water-soluble, hemorheologic drug that undergoes first-pass effect with 20 % bioavailability. Chitosan (CH), a biocompatible and biodegradable natural polymer, is used to increase drug bioavailability, as well as prolonging release. The aim of this study was to investigate the feasibility of enhancement of oral bioavailability of PX using CH. CH was used as an absorption enhancer for preparing the matrix tablet. The in vitro release and bioavailability of PX-CH tablet was compared with the reference product (Trental®-400, Sanofi-Aventis, Turkey). PX-CH tablets were prepared by the slugging method. The in vitro release studies were performed by a flow-through cell apparatus (USP Apparatus IV). A randomized, two-way crossover bioavailability study was conducted in 12 fasting, healthy male volunteers to compare PX-CH and reference tablets; both of them containing 400 mg PX. One tablet of either formulation was administered after a 12 h overnight fast. After dosing, serial blood samples were collected during a period of 12 hours. Plasma samples were analyzed for PX by a validated UV-HPLC method. The pharmacokinetic parameters AUC0-12, AUC0-inf, Cmax, tmax, λz, t1/2, Vd and CL were determined from plasma concentration-time profiles for both formulations. A higher in vitro release rate of PX was observed using acidic dissolution medium. The total in vitro release of PX was 104 % for PX-CH and 78.7 % for the reference after 12 hours. The mean maximum plasma concentration (Cmax) of PX-CH tablets was 1260±910 ng/mL after a tmax of 0.784±0.406 h. For the reference, they were 67.9±33.7 ng/mL and a tmax of 1.48±0.79 h, respectively. It was found that the relative bioavailability of PTX was significantly increased with CH, compared to reference. AUC0-inf values for test and reference were 1740±850 ng.h/ mL and 1270±780 ng.h/mL, respectively. Enhancement of the bioavailability of PX would suggest that CH could be used to improve oral bioavailability of PX.
Vascular and cognitive effects of cocoa-rich chocolate in postmenopausal women: a study protocol for a randomised clinical trial

Introduction The intake of polyphenols has certain health benefits. This study will aim to assess the effect of adding a daily amount of chocolate high in cocoa content and polyphenols to the normal diet on blood pressure, vascular function, cognitive performance, quality of life and body composition in postmenopausal women. Methods and analysis Here we plan a randomised clinical trial with two parallel groups involving a total of 140 women between 50 and 64 years in the postmenopausal period, defined by amenorrhoea of at least 12 consecutive months. The main variable will be the change in blood pressure. Secondary variables will be changes in vascular function, quality of life, cognitive performance and body composition. The intervention group will be given chocolate containing 99% cocoa, with instructions to add 10 g daily to their normal diet for 6 months. The daily nutritional contribution of this amount of chocolate is 59 kcal and 65.4 mg of polyphenols. There will be no intervention in the control group. All variables will be measured at the baseline visit and 3 and 6 months after randomisation, except cognitive performance and quality of life, which will only be assessed at baseline and at 6 months. Recruitment is scheduled to begin on 1 June 2018, and the study will continue until 31 May 2019. Ethics and dissemination This study was approved by the Clinical Research Ethics Committee of the Health Area of Salamanca, Spain (‘CREC of Health Area of Salamanca’), in February 2018. A SPIRIT checklist is available for this protocol. The clinical trial has been registered at ClinicalTrials.gov provided by the US National Library of Medicine, number NCT03492983. The results will be disseminated through open access peer-reviewed journals, conference presentations, broadcast media and a presentation to stakeholders.
PAN-INFORMATION LOCATION MAP

A huge amount of information, including geographic, environmental, socio-economic, personal and social network information, has been generated from diverse sources. Most of this information exists separately and is disorderly even if some of it is about the same person, feature, phenomenon or event. Users generally need to collect related information from different sources and then utilize them in applications. An automatic mechanism, therefore, for establishing a connection between potentially-related information will profoundly expand the usefulness of this huge body of information. A connection tie is semantic location describing semantically concepts and attributes of locations as well as relationships between locations, since 80% of information contains some kind of geographic reference but not all of geographic reference has explicit geographic coordinates. Semantic location is an orthogonal form of location representation which can be represented as domain ontology or UML format. Semantic location associates various kinds of information about a same object to provide timely information services according to users’ demands, habits, preferences and applications. Based on this idea, a Pan-Information Location Map (PILM) is proposed as a new-style 4D map to associates semantic location-based information dynamically to organize and consolidate the locality and characteristics of corresponding features and events, and delivers on-demand information with a User-Adaptive Smart Display (UASD).
Multipopulation aftereffects on the color–magnitude diagram and Cepheid variables of young stellar systems

Context: The evidence of a multipopulation scenario in Galactic globular clusters raises several questions about the formation and evolution of the two (or more) generations of stars. These populations show differences in their age and chemical composition. These differences are found in old- and intermediate- age stellar clusters in the Local Group. The observations of young stellar systems are expected to present footprints of multiple stellar populations. Aims: This theoretical work intends to be a specific step in exploring the space of the observational indicators of multipopulations, without covering all the combinations of parameters that may contribute to the formation of multiple generations of stars in a cluster or in galaxy. The goal is to shed light on the possible observational features expected by core He-burning stars that belong to two stellar populations with different original He content and ages. Methods: The tool adopted was the stellar population synthesis. We used new stellar and pulsation models to construct a homogeneous and consistent framework. Synthetic color-magnitude diagrams (CMDs) of young- and intermediate-age stellar systems (from 20 Myr up to 1 Gyr) were computed in several photometric bands to derive possible indicators of double populations both in the observed CMDs and in the pulsation properties of the Cepheids. Results: We predict that the morphology of the red/blue clump in VIK bands can be used to photometrically indicate the two stellar populations in a rich assembly of stars if there is a significant difference in their original He content. Moreover, the period distribution of the Cepheids appears to be widely affected by the coeval multiple generations of stars within stellar systems. We show that the Wesenheit relations may be affected by the helium content of the Cepheids.
Characteristics of Bird Community by Types of Habitat in Deogyusan National Park

This study was to analyse on the bird communities of Deogyusan National Park conducted from July 2008 to June 2009, and from April to July, 2010. During the research period, a total of 2,689 individuals were observed, specifically, 12 orders, 34 families and 96 species. The most dominant species was Passer montanus (404 individuals, 15.02%), followed by Paradoxornis webbianus (156 individuals, 5.80%), Emberiza elegans (153 individuals, 5.69%), Corvus frugilegus (145 individuals, 5.39%), Hypsipetes amaurotis (110 individuals, 4.09%), Streptopelia orientalis (106 individuals, 3.94%), Aegithalos caudatus (97 individuals, 3.61%), Cettia diphone (94 individuals, 3.50%), and Turdus pallidus (89 individuals, 3.31%). The largest number of species were observed in May and June, breeding season, and in winter the number was low. The largest number of individuals were also observed in May and June, and the number was also low in fall and early spring. Species diversity was the highest in Baekryunsa area, forest area. Species richness was the highest in Seolcheon area, lowland snow area. Both species diversity and species richness were the lowest in Hyangjeokbong area, mountain ridge. The coefficient of similarity of research areas shows that species composition is dependent on environment. Areas were groups into Hyangjeokbong area (highland ridge), Baekryunsa area and Anseong area (slope and valley), and lowland area and Seolcheon area (farmland and stream).
Credibilidade, Sensibilidade, Sofisticação e Alegria: Personalidades de Marca que fazem a cabeça das mulheres com cabelos cacheados e crespos

Como identificadora de posicionamento, a marca hoje é um diferencial para a empresa. Características humanas dão novo significado a ela, concedendo-a personalidade e, assim, capacitando-a como ponto de aproximação entre clientes e empresas. Do mesmo modo, a Gestão do Relacionamento com Clientes ou Customer Relationship Management (CRM) visa compreender os clientes, dando margem às empresas para execução de estratégias, na perspectiva de superar as expectativas dos consumidores e fidelizá-los. Ademais, a segmentação de mercado se mostra essencial no mercado da beleza, particularmente no que tange aos cabelos, pois potencializa e facilita o encantamento de clientes. Dito isso, este trabalho tem como principal objetivo a investigação da personalidade atribuída à marca e da percepção de relacionamento, com o intento de saber qual a relação entre estes temas no setor de cosméticos que atendem a cabelos cacheados e crespos. A pesquisa é descritiva, explicativa e quantitativa. Por meio de regressão múltipla linear, obteve-se como resultado que as dimensões Credibilidade, Sensibilidade e Sofisticação foram as preditoras do fator Lealdade e que Sofisticação e Alegria predisseram o fator Atendimento ao Cliente. Esta pesquisa avança nos estudos que investigam a relação entre personalidade de marca e relacionamento com os clientes, ainda escassos na literatura de marketing, especialmente no que concerne ao setor de beleza. Além disso, os resultados compõem um diagnóstico que visa auxiliar os gestores do ramo de cosméticos no desenho e implementação de estratégias de comunicação de produto, posicionamento de marca e relacionamento com clientes.
Statistical confirmation of indirect land use change in the Brazilian Amazon

Expansion of global demand for soy products and biofuel poses threats to food security and the environment. One environmental impact that has raised serious concerns is loss of Amazonian forest through indirect land use change (ILUC), whereby mechanized agriculture encroaches on existing pastures, displacing them to the frontier. This phenomenon has been hypothesized by many researchers and projected on the basis of simulation for the Amazonian forests of Brazil. It has not yet been measured statistically, owing to conceptual difficulties in linking distal land cover drivers to the point of impact. The present article overcomes this impasse with a spatial regression model capable of linking the expansion of mechanized agriculture in settled agricultural areas to pasture conversions on distant, forest frontiers. In an application for a recent period (2003–2008), the model demonstrates that ILUC is significant and of considerable magnitude. Specifically, a 10% reduction of soy in old pasture areas would have decreased deforestation by as much as 40% in heavily forested counties of the Brazilian Amazon. Evidently, the voluntary moratorium on primary forest conversions by Brazilian soy farmers has failed to stop the deforestation effects of expanding soy production. Thus, environmental policy in Brazil must pay attention to ILUC, which can complicate efforts to achieve its REDD targets.
Correlación del Sentimiento Negativo y Positivo de comentarios Publicados en Twitter (Negative and Positive Sentiment Correlation on Comments Published on Twitter)

Resumen. En la presente investigacion se describe el analisis de sentimiento (sen¬timent analysis) realizado en comentarios publicados en la red social de Twitter. Los datos se obtuvieron al monitorear durante 36 dias (una muestra cada hora) la evaluacion del sentimiento de los comentarios que resultaron de hacer busquedas (o filtros) de catorce diferentes sistemas operativos para celular; utilizando para dicha evaluacion la herramienta Twitter-Sentiment. Se encontro que los comentarios positivos y negati¬vos presentan una correlacion positiva para la mayoria de los sistemas operativos utilizados en la investigacion. Abstract. The present research describes the sentiment analysis carried on com¬ments published on the social network Twitter. The data were obtained by monitoring over 36 days (one sample per hour) of evaluation on the sentiment of the comments that resulted from querying (or filtering) four¬teen different mobile operating systems; using Twitter-Sentiment for the evaluation. It was found that the positive and negative comments have a positive correlation for most operating systems used in this research. 1. Introduccion En ultimos los anos la popularidad de las redes sociales se ha ido incrementando de forma excepcional; sitios web como Facebook, Linked In, Twitter y Tuenti permiten a los usuarios comunicarse y compartir fotos, videos, comentarios e informacion personal con potencialmente cientos de personas. Twitter (http://www.twitter.com), segun se describe a si mismo en la seccion About de su sitio web, es una red social que conecta a las personas con la informacion de aquello que encuentran interesante. Se basa en la propagacion de pequenos mensajes llamados Tweets, los cuales son publicados y distribuidos a todos los contactos del usuario, que deseen recibir actualizaciones de este. Cada tweet est limitado a 140 caracteres de longitud y diariamente se publican alrededor de 200 millones de tweets (Twitter, 2011), los cuales pueden ser vistos por cualquier usuario registrado. Estas caracteristicas han hecho especialmente interesante a la red para el analisis de sentimiento debido a que los usuarios tienden a ir directamente al punto de lo que quieren decir y los mensajes pueden ser procesados rapidamente por los algoritmos. Recientemente ha aumentado el estudio de metodos de reconocimiento de sentimientos positivos (favorables) y negativos (desfavorables) acerca de un cierto concepto, idea, persona, producto o servicio, en textos de lenguaje natural (Alec, 2010; Jiang y cols., 2011; Kabadjov y cols., 2011; Neviarouskaya y cols., 2011; Thelwall y cols., 2011). Las areas de aplicacion de este conocimiento son muy variadas; se puede aplicar este analisis desde el punto de vista de marketing para analizar la opinion del consumidor sobre un producto o servicio (Pang y Lee, 2008), medir la confianza de la gente en la economia del pais (O'Connor y Smith, 2010) o predecir las siguientes elecciones (Tumasjan y cols., 2010).
Partial Discharge Characteristics in LLDPE-Natural Rubber Blends: Correlating Electrical Quantities with Surface Degradation

Partial discharges (PD) lead to the degradation of high voltage cables and accessories. PD activities occur due to the existence of impurities, voids, contaminants, defects and protrusions during the manufacture and installation of power cables. Commonly, insulation failures occur at cable joints and terminations, caused by inhomogeneous electric field distributions. In this work, a blend of natural rubber (NR) and linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) was investigated, and the optimal formulation of the blend that could resist PD was discussed. The experiments were conducted under a constant high voltage stress test of 6.5 kV AC and the magnitude of partial discharge activities was recorded using the CIGRE method II. Pattern analysis of PD signals was performed along with the interpretation of morphological changes. The results showed that the addition of 10 wt% of NR and 5 wt% of Alumina Trihydrate (ATH) provided promising results in resisting PD activities. However, as the NR content increased, more micropores existed, thus resulting in increased PD activities within the samples.
On the Influence of Network Impairments on YouTube Video Streaming

Video sharing services like YouTube have become very popular which consequently results in a drastic shift of the Internet traffic statistic. When transmitting video content over packet based networks, stringent quality of service (QoS) constraints must be met in order to provide the comparable level of quality to a traditional broadcast television. However, the packet transmission is influenced by delays and losses of data packets which can have devastating influence on the perceived quality of the video. Therefore, we conducted an experimental evaluation of HTTP based video transmission focusing on how they react to packet delay and loss. Through this analysis we investigated how long video playback is stalled and how often re-buffering events take place. Our analysis revealed threshold levels for the packet delay, packet losses and network throughput which should not be exceeded in order to preserve smooth video transmission.
Speaker-Dependent Speech Enhancement Using Codebook-based Synthesis for Low SNR Applications

In this paper, a speaker-dependent speech enhancement is performed by using the codebooks. For this purpose, making use of the STFT parameters, two codebooks are designed for speech and noise separately. In order to design the speech codebook, an adequate number of sentences of particular speakers are used. Utilizing an estimator based on a perceptually weighted distance function, we start searching within the codebooks to find the true indexes for each noisy frame. After finding the true indexes, we synthesize the enhanced speech by using the selected indexes of the speech codebook. As a modification, we suggest two methods to reduce the search time as follows: firstly, a new method for reduction of the codebook size is described. Secondly, by utilizing the relation between the spectral center-of-gravities of the speech, noise and noisy speech, the search area within the codebooks is effectively reduced. Simulation results show that the proposed method can enhance a noisy speech with low SNR. Moreover, since the proposed method is performed frame by frame and it does not use the previous frames of the noisy speech, therefore this method can enhance the noisy speech contaminated by a highly non-stationary noise.
Stochastic Duration and Dynamic Measure of Risk in Financial Futures

Combining the contributions of Cox, Ingersoll and Ross (1979, 1981) in stochastic duration of bonds and in equilibrium pricing of futures contracts, this paper develops stochastic duration as a dynamic risk measure of financial futures. The stochastic duration in this paper takes the general form and thus it is applicable for not only futures but also underlying securities. Some properties of the stochastic duration of the futures are examined and simulation results are provided for illustrative purpose. Stochastic Duration and Dynamic Measure Of Risk in Financial Futures
Introduction: the evolution of intergovernmental financial relations in the twenty-first century

The first decade and a half of the twenty-first century can be characterized as a period of economic and political instability and change. The financial crisis and its aftermath that has disrupted global markets since 2008 is perhaps the most significant international political and economic development over this period. The acute impact of the 'Great Recession' has generated a good deal of scholarship on both the short-term international policy response to the crisis as well as the subsequent sovereign debt and budgetary challenges that emerged as governments embarked on the long and fiercely contested process of fiscal consolidation and budget repair. With the passage of time, more attention is being paid to the subtle, yet significant processes through which crisis-related pressures are being mediated by pre-existing domestic political interests, issues and institutional structures. Such historically grounded accounts enhance our understanding of the complex processes that are reshaping twenty-first-century politics (Grant and Wilson 2012; Moschella and Tsingou 2013; Helleiner 2014; Bell and Hindmoor 2015).
The impact of progressive tuition fees on dropping out of higher education: a regression discontinuity design

In recent years, and under the pressure of increasing public deficits, a number of countries have decided to increase university fees to compensate for reductions in teaching subsidies financed by taxpayers. Perhaps the best known case is that of the UK. In this paper we analyze a similar policy adopted in Catalonia, Spain. Tuition fees increased 66 percent in the 2012-2013 academic year to compensate for the reduction in public subsidies used to finance Catalan university teaching activities. Interestingly, the increase in fees was progressive, meaning that there was a fee waiver in function of family income. We analyze the distributional impact of this policy change, showing that this progressive tuition fee does not have a differential impact on the dropout rate of students of di erent socioeconomic status. Since eligibility for the full tuition waiver is determined by a sharp cut-off on household income, we use a regression discontinuity design to analyze the effect of the new tuition fees around the full tuition waiver. We nd no evidence of any adverse impact of the new fees on the drop out rates.
Synthesis of Carbon Nanostructures by Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapour Deposition at Atmospheric Pressure

Synthesis of Carbon Nanostructures by Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapour Deposition at Atmospheric Pressure Carbon nanostructures present the leading field in nanotechnology research. A wide range of chemical and physical methods was used for carbon nanostructures synthesis including arc discharges, laser ablation and chemical vapour deposition. Plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition (PECVD) with its application in modern microelectronics industry became soon target of research in carbon nanostructures synthesis. Selection of the ideal growth process depends on the application. Most of PECVD techniques work at low pressure requiring vacuum systems. However for industrial applications it would be desirable to work at atmospheric pressure. In this article carbon nanostructures synthesis by plasma discharges working at atmospheric pressure will be reviewed.
The accuracy of rump P8 fat thickness and twelfth rib fat thicknesses in predicting beef carcass fat content in three breed types

The prediction of carcass fat percentage using fat thickness measurements at the 12th rib and the rump P8 site was investigated in Hereford, Brahman and Brahman x Hereford Fl steers. The carcasses used in this work had a commercially representative range in carcass weights from 92-36 1 kg, 12th rib fat thicknesses from 0-31mm, P8 fat thicknesses from 0-27mm and carcass fat contents from 10.6-32.8%. Although some minor differences were evident in the slopes of the regression lines which related fat thickness to carcass fat content, it was concluded that the 2 fat thickness measurement sites used provided similar accuracy for the prediction of carcass fat percentage in each of the 3 breeds.