Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Low-level atmospheric jets as main mechanism of long-range transport of power plant plumes in the Lake Baikal Region

This paper considers some peculiarities of anthropogenic admixtures propagation from large regional Coal Power Plants towards the South Baikal using experimental data and model estimates. Results of observations show that the main mechanism for transfer of atmospheric admixtures towards the South Baikal is low-level atmospheric jets having high velocity and a weak turbulent mixing. A weak mixing of emitted plume with the surrounding air (within a jet flow) results in deficiency of oxidants in it and in slowing of chemical transformation of some admixtures during the transfer.
Chemical Composition and Antioxidant Activity Cuminum cyminum L. Essential Oils

Cuminum cyminum L. is comprised of several relevant species for the food and pharmaceutical industries. Gas chromatography–mass spectrophotometry analysis revealed thymol as a major component of C. cyminum, with its contribution to the oil 40.05%, respectively. The C. cyminum oil revealed the highest antioxidant activity in all conducted assays (β-carotene bleaching test and reducing power). These results clearly showed the antioxidant effects of the C. cyminum essential oil.
Three new compounds from the seeds of Trachyspermum copticum

ABSTRACT The effect of the application of nano-silicon (SiO2; 1.5 and 3 mM) on components of essential oils of Trachyspermum copticum was evaluated. Essential oils extracted by hydrodistillation from Iranian T. copticum was characterized by means of gas chromatography-mass spectrometry and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance. Three new compounds, (1) 2, 5-Dihydroxy-4-methoxy-phenanthrene 2-O-b-Dglucopyranoside; (2) 4-Methoxy-2,5,7,9S tetrahydroxy-9,10-dihydrophenanthrene; and (3) trans-Ethyl cinnamate along with 12 known were isolated from the Eos T. copticum. The essential oil was also subjected to antimicrobial and antioxidant activities. The new compounds were particularly active against Bacillus cereus and Candida albicans, with the lowest minimum inhibitory concentration and minimum bactericidal concentration and minimum fungicidal concentration value. Three new compounds exhibited a higher activity in each antioxidant system with a special attention for β-carotene bleaching test, lipid peroxidation inhibition, and reducing power. The Thin-layer chromatography-bioautography screening and fractionation resulted in the separation of the main antioxidant compound which were identified as trans-Ethyl cinnamate (3). These results indicated that three new compounds might be applicable in natural medicine and healthy food.
Decentralised Avionics and Software Architecture for Sounding Rocket Missions

— This paper describes our ongoing work in the context of the TEXUS/MAXUS sounding rocket program. Based on analysis of requirements, technologies and tools, we propose a solution to cope with increasing number of software applications and hardware components due to decentralisation of the communication system based on the OPC UA communication standard for distributed services. Our main goal is to provide an efficient avionics and software architecture configuration for both the initial development and the maintenance while assuring consistency and increasing availability and reliability of the system for different experiment and mission scenarios.
Effect of dietary germinated sorghum on growth performance, carcass characteristics and some blood parameters of growing Japanese quails

This study was carried out to evaluate the effect of germination in improving the nutritive value of grain sorghum and the effect of using germinated sorghum (GS) as partially or completely replacement of yellow corn in growing Japanese quail diets on growth performance, carcass characteristics and some blood parameters. A total number of two hundred and sixty-four 10-day-old Japanese quails were randomly distributed into four dietary treatment groups (each of 66), each treatment subdivided into 3 replicates (each of 22). Quail chicks in the first group fed corn-based diets (2922 kcal/kg feed and 24% crude protein) and served as control, while the chicks in the second, third and fourth groups received diets containing germinated sorghum as replacement of diet corn at levels 25, 50 and 100%, respectively. Results indicated that the inclusion of GS at all levels in growing Japanese quail diets had no significant effect on body weight, body gain, feed consumption, feed conversion ratio and carcass characteristics measured among all dietary treatments. Blood cholesterol decreased significantly in birds fed GS at levels 50 and 100% as replacement of yellow corn compared to the other birds. Nevertheless, triglyceride significant reduced in group of birds that fed dietary GS at level 100% of yellow corn compared to the other groups. In conclusion, germinated sorghum could be safely incorporated in Japanese quail diets as replacement of yellow corn to improve growth rate and reduce the levels of serum cholesterol and triglyceride.
Evaluating programs for HIV / AIDS prevention and care in developing countries: a handbook for program managers and decision makers.

This Handbook is intended to fill an important unmet need in the field. Evaluating HIV prevention and care programs so that they can promote a high level of quality and effectiveness— even in resource-limited settings—is its subject. Just as substantial progress has been made in developing effective interventions in recent years so have appropriate methodologies strategies and indicators for the evaluation of these programs been honed and sharpened. Evaluating Programs for HIV/AIDS Prevention and Care in Developing Countries brings together the combined experience of collaborations between scientists and program designers and implementers universities and local community-based organizations governments and private agencies—partnerships often hard won but ones that have produced results. (excerpt)
Hochdrucksterilisation von Knochen zur Transplantation und von Implantaten

Zusammenfassung der Dissertation „Hochdrucksterilisation von Knochen zur Transplantation und von Implantaten“ Die Beeintrachtigung oder Zerstorung von Knochengewebe ist eine der zentralen Herausforderungen der modernen Medizin, da etablierte Desinfektionsverfahren die Qualitat von Knochen und sensiblen Biomaterialien negativ beeinflussen. In dieser Arbeit wurde die Effektivitat der Hochdruckbehandlung (HHD) als alternative Methode zur Inaktivierung klinisch relevanter Bakterien gepruft. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass HHD eine Knochendesinfektion ermoglicht. Fur typische Erreger invasiver Knocheninfektionen konnte eine signifikante Reduktion des Keimwachstums, zum Teil eine vollstandige Keiminaktivierung, nachgewiesen werden. Eine Optimierung der Behandlungsparameter konnte HHD moglicherweise als ein sicheres Desinfektionsverfahren sowie als ein intraoperatives Sterilisationsverfahren etablieren.
APPLICATION OF ARBUSCULAR MYCORRHIZAL INOCULUM IN GREENHOUSE SOIL WITH MANURE INDUCED SALINITY FOR ORGANIC PEPPER PRODUCTION

In this study, the effect of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus − AMF Rhizophagus intraradices inoculum (prior or with transplanting) to different pepper type (Capsicum annuum L.) cv. Arlequin F1 (long fruits) and Raiko F1 (bell pepper), on plant growth and physiological parameters in response to elevated soil P concentrations from organic greenhouse production with enhanced soil salinity, was investigated. To explain the physiological growth of mycorrhizal inoculated (M) and non-mycorrhizal inoculated (NM) plants, the parameters of fungal root length colonization, shoot concentration of P an N during growth, plant height, width of stem, yield, number of fruit per plant and also the quality parameters of fruits such as soluble solid content (SSC), fruit color, mineral profile, total soluble phenolics (TSP) and antioxidant activity (FRAP), were determined. This study showed that application of AMF in cv. Raiko cultivated in high P saline soil generally enhanced growth, fruit yield and number of fruits per plant when inoculated at planting time in the greenhouse. AM inoculated plants, regardless of the time of application in cv. Arlequin grown under the same conditions, did not have any significant differences in comparison with NM plants. Arbuscular mycorrhizal inoculation has great potential in enhancing the pepper growth and yield even in high soil P, however, because of the complexity and interaction of involved genotypes of pepper and AMF, the method and time of inoculation, the system of pepper production and environmental conditions, as well as assays have to be performed to verify positive effects.
Comparative Study on Cardiopulmonary Function of College Teachers--Taking Ningbo University as an Example

objective: to compare the differences in cardiopulmonary function between teachers of different genders and different age groups, and to provide a scientific basis for developing health promotion intervention strategies for college teachers. Methods: 548 teachers who participated in the physical examination of Ningbo University in 2018 were taken as the research object. Cardiopulmonary function indicators (systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, and maximum oxygen uptake) were measured and calculated. Non-parametric tests were used to analyze the statistical data. Results: the systolic and diastolic blood pressure in all age groups were higher in men than in women (p <0.01). The systolic and diastolic blood pressure in middle-aged female teachers was higher than that in young people (p <0.01). The maximum oxygen uptake of male and female teachers the amount was higher in the young group than in the middle-aged group (p <0.05). Conclusion: the cardiopulmonary ability of college teachers needs to be improved, and it is necessary to pay attention to the implementation of sports intervention strategies.
EPIDEMIOLOGY AND OUTCOME AMONG SEVERE SEPSIS AND SEPTIC SHOCK PATIENTS IN A SOUTH INDIAN TERTIARY CARE HOSPITAL

Objective: The objective of this research was to determine the prevalence of severe sepsis and septic shock and evaluate its outcome. Methods: This was a prospective, observational study, in which adult patients with severe sepsis or septic shock were included. Relevant information was collected from medical records and the hospital information system. Results: A total of 250 patients [mean age 57.2 y (range: 18 to 98 y)] was studied. The majority of the patients suffered from severe sepsis (81.2%). Most of the episodes occurred in males (75.2%). Major comorbidities included diabetes mellitus (51.2%), hypertension (44.8%) and chronic liver disease (30.4%). One hundred and seventy-eight patients (147 patients with severe sepsis and 31 patients with septic shock) had a positive culture with urine being the main site of infection. One hundred and two patients (40.8%) had a monomicrobial infection while seventy-six (30.4%) patients had a polymicrobial infection. Within the monomicrobial infections, the gram negative organisms predominated (54%). The mean hospital stay for patients with severe sepsis was 11.5 d. Mortality was noted in 79 patients (40 patients with septic shock and 39 patients with severe sepsis). Conclusion: The main causative pathogens were gram negative bacteria. Admissions meeting septic shock criteria have a high mortality rate. Hence, it is imperative to identify patients who are at high risk and treat them promptly to reduce serious consequences.
Sequential Labelling with Active Learning to Extract Information about Disasters

Learning from past incidents has a great importance for disaster managers. Estimation of the outcomes beforehand can improve preparations for the next incidents. To make this a less labour-intensive task, we aim to automate extracting information from past events. We focus on extracting critical information about ﬂood-ing events from newspaper articles as our use case. We treat this information extraction task as a sequential labelling task and create an ensemble of two supervised machine learning algorithms, namely Conditional Random Fields and Structured Support Vector Machines, to achieve our goal. However, supervised learning requires manually annotated training data, which is very expensive and time-consuming to obtain. To reduce the need for manual annotation, Active Learning, a human-in-the-loop method, is explored. We obtain improvement on f1-score up to 25% and observe that Active Learning drastically reduces the effort required by annotation.
Rendering of Constraints With Underactuated Haptic Devices

Several previous works have studied the application of proxy-based rendering algorithms to underactuated haptic devices. However, all these works make oversimplifying assumptions about the configuration of the haptic device, and they ignore the user's intent. In this article, we lift those assumptions, and we carry out a theoretical study that unveils the existence of unnatural ghost forces under typical proxy-based rendering. We characterize and quantify those ghost forces. In addition, we design a novel rendering strategy, with anisotropic coupling between the device and the proxy. With this strategy, the forces rendered by an underactuated device are a best match of the forces rendered by a fully actuated device. We have demonstrated our findings on synthetic experiments and a simple real-world experiment.
Sedentary lifestyle among adults in Jordan, 2007

Objective Sedentary lifestyle is a major risk factor for physical and mental problems, such as cardiovascular, musculoskeletal diseases, and psychological stress. About 60% of the world’s population is not sufficiently physically active in leisure time or during work and social activities. This study aimed to determine the prevalence of inactive Jordanian adults and describe their demographic and behavioral characteristics. Methods The study used data from the behavioral risk factors surveillance survey conducted in Jordan in 2007. The sample size was 3654. Respondents who were physically inactive for more than 240 min daily (sleep time not included) were considered to have a sedentary lifestyle. Data were analyzed with the program SPSS. Results The prevalence of a sedentary lifestyle was 82.8% (2965 respondents), with a mean sedentary time of 587 min (95% confidence interval 581–594 min). Among the physically inactive adults, 52.6% were men, one third of them aged 35–44 years. Sedentary lifestyle was reported by 30% of those with a secondary level of education or above. Of those with a sedentary lifestyle, 37.6% were housewives and 37.5% were employees; 66% of them were overweight and obese. Of the physically inactive people, 2.5% had a history of heart failure and 1.3% had a history of cerebrovascular accidents; 57.2% of them tried to engage more in physical activity and almost three quarters of them were interested in improving their dietary habits. Conclusion Most Jordanian adults have a sedentary lifestyle, which emphasizes that there is a public health problem. Many of them are attempting to lead a healthier lifestyle. Therefore, there is an urgent need to launch an applicable national plan that enables people to practice a healthier lifestyle.
Updated Management of Atrial Fibrillation

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common sustained cardiac arrhythmia. AF is also associated with increased mortality, stroke and other thromboembolic disorders, cardiac failure and hospital admission, diminished quality of life, exercise intolerance, and left ventricular dysfunction. In the literature, there are many reports about the updated management of AF. This report aims at evaluating the previous guidelines and summarizing the prominent points. (Eurasian J Emerg Med 2015; 14: 138-41)
Distribution of wealth-stratified inequalities on maternal and child health parameters and influences of maternal-related factors on improvements in child health survival rate in Bangladesh

This study investigates the influence of household socioeconomic status and maternal risk factors and health-care service availability on changes in the under-five mortality rate (U5MR) in Bangladesh. Potential risk factors that influence U5MRs were investigated using multilevel logistic regression analysis and 29,697 data points from the Bangladesh Demographic and Health Surveys, 2004–2014. Maternal and child health parameters such as childhood morbidity, low vaccination coverage, poor utilization of perinatal care, and malnutrition were found to be more concentrated in poorer households. Pooled estimates indicated that the aggregate odds of U5MR risk declined by 18% to 2007 to 38% to 2014 compared to 2004. However, inadequate antenatal care, short birth interval, primiparity, illiteracy, delayed conception, and low socioeconomic status were significantly associated with a higher risk of under-five mortality. The magnitude of inequality using these measures were significantly associated with large variations in U5MR changes. Although a significant reduction in U5MR in Bangladesh was found in this study, substantial socioeconomic variations still persist. The analysis suggests that decreasing inequality in society is required for further reductions in child mortality. This will help to achieve a more equitable distribution of child and neonatal outcomes and assist the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals 3.2 by 2030.
Relationship between patients’ beliefs about their antihypertensives and adherence in a secondary hospital in northern Nigeria

Poor adherence to medication is a major public health concern, especially in patients with hypertension because it is sometimes difficult to convince them to take medication in the absence of symptoms. The aim of this study was to assess the relationship between patients’ beliefs about their antihypertensive drugs and adherence to treatment. The study was a cross-sectional study on hypertensive patients in General Hospital Katsina State. The data were collected using patient administered questionnaires. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 20.0. The study recorded a total of 127 hypertensive patients, majority of whom were females (58%) and mostly above 40 years (76%). Significant number of the respondents (98%) agreed their antihypertensives were effective in protecting them from the effects of high blood pressure. All adherent patients (100%) were strongly concerned about possible future effects of their medication, suggesting a high counter-balancing effect of this belief on their adherence. Majority (77%) believed they were receiving the necessary advice about their medicines from the pharmacist. Overall adherence to treatment was excellent (80%). A statistically significant relationship (p<.05) was established between patient’s beliefs and adherence. In conclusion, the study revealed that adherence to antihypertensive medication is attributed to patients’ beliefs and the role of pharmacists cannot be overemphasized. Keywords: Antihypertensive, Adherence, Beliefs, Pharmacist
Orbital Plasmacytoma, An Uncommon Presentation of Advanced Multiple Myeloma

Introduction Extramedullary plasmacytomas are present in 13% of multiple myeloma (MM) patients. Less than 5% of MM cases are non-secretory. The orbital location is uncommon and a minority of orbital tumours are plasmacytomas. Description The patient was a 71-year-old man, with right proptosis, retro-ocular pain and epistaxis with visual acuity 2/10, limitation of upper eye movement and scattered ecchymosis. Blood tests revealed severe anaemia, coagulopathy, increased serum creatinine, LDH and C-RP without improvement after antimicrobial treatment. Peripheral immunophenotyping showed 9.4% of plasma cells with intracytoplasmic clonal κ chains. IgG and λ chains were decreased with normal plasma and urine immunofixation. Orbital CT: retro-orbital superomedial tumour with bone destruction. Histology of the tumour and bone biopsy was consistent with plasmacytoma. The patient was deceased in 2 weeks. Discussion MM accounts for 10% of haematopoietic tumours; 7% of cases present with plasmacytomas at diagnosis. Orbital locations are rarely reported (frequently in the temporal region). Proptosis, ptosis and reduced visual acuity are common symptoms. However, orbital pain is less frequent. Most cases of MM demonstrate hypergammaglobulinaemia. Only 5% of MM cases are non-secretory. The uncommon location, topography, symptom peculiarities and absence of monoclonality led to the diagnostic challenge of this fatal case of MM. LEARNING POINTS Multiple myeloma (MM) represents 10% of malignant haematologic disease, 13% of which presents plasmacytomas (mostly in the axial skeleton). Orbital plasmacytoma is an uncommon presentation of MM and only 1% of orbital tumours are plasmacytomas. Proptosis is the most common symptom. Although the majority of MM cases demonstrate hypergammaglobulinaemia, non-secretory MM is described as constituting less than 5% of cases.
Introduced herbivores restore Late Pleistocene ecological functions

Significance Humans have caused extinctions of large-bodied mammalian herbivores over the past ∼100,000 y, leading to cascading changes in ecosystems. Conversely, introductions of herbivores have, in part, numerically compensated for extinction losses. However, the net outcome of the twin anthropogenic forces of extinction and introduction on herbivore assemblages has remained unknown. We found that a primary outcome of introductions has been the reintroduction of key ecological functions, making herbivore assemblages with nonnative species more similar to preextinction ones than native-only assemblages are. Our findings support calls for renewed research on introduced herbivore ecologies in light of paleoecological change and suggest that shifting focus from eradication to landscape and predator protection may have broader biodiversity benefits. Large-bodied mammalian herbivores dominated Earth’s terrestrial ecosystems for several million years before undergoing substantial extinctions and declines during the Late Pleistocene (LP) due to prehistoric human impacts. The decline of large herbivores led to widespread ecological changes due to the loss of their ecological functions, as driven by their unique combinations of traits. However, recently, humans have significantly increased herbivore species richness through introductions in many parts of the world, potentially counteracting LP losses. Here, we assessed the extent to which introduced herbivore species restore lost—or contribute novel—functions relative to preextinction LP assemblages. We constructed multidimensional trait spaces using a trait database for all extant and extinct mammalian herbivores ≥10 kg known from the earliest LP (∼130,000 ybp) to the present day. Extinction-driven contractions of LP trait space have been offset through introductions by ∼39% globally. Analysis of trait space overlap reveals that assemblages with introduced species are overall more similar to those of the LP than native-only assemblages. This is because 64% of introduced species are more similar to extinct rather than extant species within their respective continents. Many introduced herbivores restore trait combinations that have the capacity to influence ecosystem processes, such as wildfire and shrub expansion in drylands. Although introduced species have long been a source of contention, our findings indicate that they may, in part, restore ecological functions reflective of the past several million years before widespread human-driven extinctions.