Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Rapid increase in simulated North Atlantic dust deposition due to fast change of northwest African landscape during the Holocene

Abstract. Marine sediment records from a series of core sites along the northwest African margin show a sudden increase in North Atlantic dust deposition at about 5 ka BP that has been associated with an abrupt end of the African Humid Period (AHP). To assess the causes of the abrupt shift in North Atlantic dust deposition, we explore changes in the Holocene dust cycle and in North African climate and landscape by performing several time slice simulations from 8 ka BP until the preindustrial era. To do this, we use the coupled aerosol–climate model ECHAM6–HAM2 including dynamic vegetation and interactive dust, wherein ocean conditions and lake surface area are prescribed for each time slice. We find a rapid increase in simulated dust deposition between 6 and 4 ka BP that is fairly consistent with the abrupt change in marine sediment records at around 20∘ N close to the northwest African margin. At more northern and more remote cores, a significant change in dust deposition is noticeable roughly between 6 and 2 ka BP in the simulations as well as in the records, but the change is less sharp compared to the near-margin core sites. The rapid change in simulated dust deposition is caused by a rapid increase in simulated dust emissions in the western Sahara, where the main dust sources for dust transport towards the North Atlantic are located. The sudden increase in dust emissions in the western Sahara is according to our simulations a consequence of a fast decline of vegetation cover from 22 to 18∘ N that might occur due to vegetation–climate feedbacks or due to the existence of a precipitation threshold on vegetation growth. Additionally, the prescribed gradual reduction of lake area enforces accelerated dust release as highly productive dust sources are uncovered. Concurrently with the continental drying, surface winds in the western Sahara are accelerated. Changes in the Saharan landscape and dust emissions south of 18∘ N and in the eastern Sahara play a minor role in driving the dynamics of North Atlantic dust deposition at the core sites. Our study identifies spatial and temporal heterogeneity in the transition of the North African landscape. As a consequence, implications from local data records on large-scale climate have to be treated with caution.
Physical and surface properties of polyurethane hydrogels in relation with their chemical structure

Polyethylene glycol (PEG)/castor oil (CO)-based polyurethanes were prepared by one-shot bulk polymerization method with the potential for biomedical applications. Hexamethylene diisocyanate and 1,4-buthane diol were used as diisocyanate component and chain extender, respectively. Polyurethanes were prepared (1) with crosslinker and catalyst, (2) with crosslinker and without catalyst, and (3) without crosslinker and catalyst. The effects of the ratio of CO to PEG, and presence/absence of the crosslinker and catalyst on some physical and surface properties of the polyurethanes were investigated. The glass transition temperatures of prepared polyurethanes are below room temperature. The swelling ratio increased and the water contact angle decreased with increasing amount of PEG in polymer structure. The samples prepared with crosslinker and without catalyst showed the highest swelling ratio. Gas permeability of the samples was measured in a gas permeability system and surface roughness was determined by scanning electron microscope and atomic force microscope. Protein adsorption studies were performed for the samples synthesized without crosslinker and catalyst by using bovine serum albumin and bovine serum fibrinogen. Unexpected results were obtained for the samples which have low contact angles. They exhibited relatively high protein adsorption. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 54:1182–1191, 2014. © 2013 Society of Plastics Engineers
Mechanical behavior of carbon/flax hybrid composites for structural applications

In this work, the influence of an unidirectional carbon fabric layer on the mechanical performances of bidirectional flax fabric/epoxy composites used for structural applications was studied. Two different bidirectional flax fabrics were used to produce flax fabric reinforced plastic (FFRP) laminates by a vacuum bagging process: one is normally used to make curtains; the other, heavier and more expensive than the previous one, is usually used as reinforcement in composite structures. In order to realize hybrid structures starting from FFRP, an unidirectional UHM carbon fabric was used to replace a bidirectional flax fabric. Tensile and three-point bending tests were performed to evaluate the mechanical properties of the laminates investigated (both FFRP and hybrids). Furthermore, the mechanical behavior of the different bidirectional flax fabrics was analyzed by carrying out tensile tests. The experimental tests showed that the structures reinforced with flax fabrics, normally used to make curtains, present better flexural properties than that of others while, in tensile configuration, these last show higher modulus and strength. Moreover, both FFRP laminates show low mechanical properties, which do not allow their use in structural applications while the presence of one external layer of unidirectional carbon involves remarkable increase in their properties. According to this study, the hybrid composites realized could be used in several structural applications (i.e., nautical and automotive).
A note on pragmatic constraints on syntax 1

This note comments on Szendrői’s (2017) claim that some of the pragmatic constraints on syntactic operations proposed in Trotzke (2015a) are not supported by convincing empirical evidence. Szendrői objects to two empirical points made by Trotzke. I will deal with these points in turn: Section 1 focuses on the syntactic flexibility of idioms discussed by Szendrői, and Section 2 replies to her comments in the domain of island effects.
Phenotypic variation of glutathione peroxidase activity in different genotypes of different age groups of chicken and its correlation with some production traits

The purpose of present study was to collect informations on the possible genetic background of glutathione peroxidase enzyme activity in different genotypes, age and sex of chicken, and its correlation with some production traits. Blood samples were collected from six genotypes: Plymouth, Naked Neck Plymouth, Naked Neck New Hampshire, Hungarian Speckled, Transylvanian Naked Neck White, and Hungarian White, aged one-day, 4 wks, 8 wks, 12 wks, at the period of sexual maturity and at the age of the highest egg production. Glutathione peroxidase activity was measured in blood plasma and erythrocyte haemolysate. The enzyme activity in the liver was also measured at day-old age. The results showed that there were significant differences in the glutathione peroxidase activity of blood plasma and erythrocyte haemolysate among genotypes in all age groups. The significant differences were not consequent at different age groups. There were also some significant differences in the enzyme activity of liver among different genotypes. Sex also has a significant effect on red blood cell and blood plasma glutathione peroxidase enzyme activity. Negative correlations were found between glutathione peroxidase activity of blood plasma, erythrocyte haemolysate and liver at day-old age and body weight. Negative correlation was found between GSHPx activity of liver and red blood cells and egg production and significant positive correlation between GSHPx activity in blood plasma and egg production.
Dense outdoor 3D mapping and navigation with Pose SLAM

Pose SLAM is the variant of SLAM where only the robot trajectory is estimated and in which landmarks are solely used to compute relative constraints between robot poses. In previous work, we have developed efficient methods to build Pose SLAM maps that ponder the information content on odometry and measurement links to keep the graph of poses sparse. In this paper we show results of Pose SLAM mapping with our custom built 3D laser and an outdoor all-terrain mobile robot. Finally, we argue that Pose SLAM graphs can be directly used as belief roadmaps and, thus, used for path planning under uncertainty. We show how to plan trajectories with the lowest accumulated robot pose uncertainty, i.e., the most reliable path to the goal, taking into account the encoded uncertainty in the map. Results of this navigation strategy are demonstrated with our outdoor robot.
THE EFFECT OF COMPOST AGE AND OPERATING TEMPERATURE ON BIODEGRADATION OF DIESEL FUEL CONTAMINATED SOIL

A laboratory study was conducted to investigate the effect of compost age and operating temperature on the biodegradation of hydrocarbon (diesel fuel) contaminated soil. A sandy soil contaminated with diesel fuel (20,000 mg kg dry soil) and spiked with labeled phenanthrene 9-C was used in this study. The compost material was prepared from a feedstock consisting of municipal biosolids, leaves, and woodshavings. The contaminated soil was mixed with either fresh feedstock material or with finished compost (prepared by thermophilically composting the same fresh feedstock material for four weeks before use). The treatments were run at either thermophilic or mesophilic temperature patterns. Two controls were also run: contaminated soil with no compost material, and uncontaminated soil mixed with fresh feedstock material. Two replicates of each system (treatments and controls) were run. This resulted in a total of 10 reactors. Each reactor had a volume of 28 L. The volatile solids, moisture content, mineralized and extractable fractions of C labeled phenanthrene, and the extractable diesel range organics (C10 to C19) were determined every two weeks over the 126-day experimental period. It was found that phenanthrene degradation was not effected by compost age at thermophilic temperature pattern. At the thermophilic temperature pattern, the cumulative percent of C recovered as CO2 was similar (23%) with both the finished and fresh composts feedstock. However, the cumulative percent of C recovered as CO2 was 70% high (42%) at the mesophilic temperature pattern for the contaminated soil mixed with finished compost. The C extracted from the solids were decreasing with time. The total radioactivity extracted at the end of the experiment was less than 10% for all systems. In the control (contaminated soil only), more than 65% of the C was extracted. EDRO decreased by more than 78% for all systems. The EDRO remaining in the soil-compost mixtures at the end of the experiment was approaching the acceptable levels of 2000 mg kg as mandated by Manitoba clean-up guidelines for residential land usage. In short, the results presented show that: 1) compost material had a dramatic impact on CO2 generation, extractable C (compare to controls) and removal of EDRO; 2) fresh compost subjected to thermophilic temperature pattern resulted in the highest removal percentage of C and EDRO; and 3) finished compost subjected to mesophilic temperature pattern was the greatest combination for phenanthrene biodegradation.
Why Use TDM and Dashboards for Monoclonal Antibodies? The Promise of Individualized Therapy

Scope of the lecture: Therapeutic monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) have emerged as a major component of treatment for a wide variety of diseases including inflammatory diseases and oncology. With generally better safety profiles than chemical agents, MAbs have also demonstrated therapeutic failures that in some cases appear to be due to pharmacokinetic (PK) variability. This lecture will cover the primary factors that are predictive of between-patient variability for MAb PK, and will look at efforts to improve outcomes using therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM). This lecture will also introduce the concept of dashboard based dosing, which is a way of individualizing therapy based on the patients specific PK behavior and the promise of MAb therapy when TDM and dashboard guided individualized therapy is implemented.
Redshift and distances in a ΛCDM cosmology with non-linear inhomogeneities

Motivated by the dawn of precision cosmology and the wealth of forthcoming high-precision and volume galaxy surveys, in this paper we study the effects of inhomogeneities on light propagation in a flat Λ cold dark matter (ΛCDM) background. To this end we use exact solutions of Einstein’s equations as derived by Meures & Bruni where, starting from small fluctuations, inhomogeneities arise from a standard growing mode and become non-linear. While the matter distribution in these models is necessarily idealized, there is still enough freedom to assume an arbitrary initial density profile along the line of sight. We can therefore model overdensities and voids of various sizes and distributions, e.g. single harmonic sinusoidal modes, coupled modes and more general distributions in a ΛCDM background. Our models allow for an exact treatment of the light-propagation problem, so that the results are unaffected by approximations and unambiguous. Along lines of sight with density inhomogeneities which average out on scales less than the Hubble radius, we find the distance–redshift relation to diverge negligibly from the Friedmann–Lemaitre–Robertson–Walker (FLRW) result. On the contrary, if we observe along lines of sight which do not have the same average density as the background, we find large deviations from the FLRW distance–redshift relation. Hence, a possibly large systematic might be introduced into the analysis of cosmological observations, e.g. supernovae, if we observe along lines of sight which are typically more or less dense than the average density of the Universe. In turn, this could lead to wrong parameter estimation: even if the cosmological principle is valid, the identification of the true FLRW background in an inhomogeneous universe may be more difficult than usually assumed.
A Complete Dual-Cross Pattern for Unconstrained Texture Classification

In order to perform unconstrained texture classification, this paper presents a novel and computationally efficient texture descriptor called Complete Dual-Cross Pattern (CDCP), which is robust to gray-scale changes and surface rotation. To extract CDCP, at first a gray scale normalization scheme is used to reduce the illumination effect and, then CDCP feature is computed from holistic and component levels. A local region of the texture image is represented by it's center pixel and difference of sign-magnitude transform (DSMT) at multiple levels. Using a global threshold, the gray value of center pixel is converted into a binary code named DCP center (DCP_C). DSMT decomposes into two complementary components: the sign and the magnitude. They are encoded respectively into DCP-sign (DCP_S) and DCP-magnitude (DCP_M), based on their corresponding threshold values. Finally, CDCP is formed by fusing DCP_S, DCP_M and DCP_C features through joint distribution. The invariance characteristics of CDCP are attained due to computation of pattern at multiple levels, which makes CDCP highly discriminative and achieves state-of-the-art performance for rotation invariant texture classification.
Preparation and in vivo Evaluation of Solid Dispersions Using Repaglinide

In the present study, immediate release solid dispersion of Repaglinide was formulated by solvent evaporation technique. Repaglinide solid dispersions were prepared using PEG 8000, Pluronic F 127 and Gelucire 44/14 by solvent evaporation method. A 3-factor, 3-level central composite design employed to study the effect of each independent variable on dependent variables. FTIR studies revealed that no drug excipient interaction takes place. From powder X-ray diffraction (p-XRD) and by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) studies it was evident that polymorphic form of Repaglinide has been converted into an amorphous form from crystalline within the solid dispersion formulation. The correlation coefficient showed that the release profile followed Higuchi model anomalous behavior and hence release mechanism was indicative of diffusion. From in vivo studies, the AUC0→24 h and peak plasma concentration (Cmax) was doubled when compared with pure drug. In addition, in vitro dissolution efficiency was well correlated with in vivo pharmacokinetic parameters. The obtained results suggested that developed solid dispersion might be an efficacious approach for enhancing the solubility and bioavailability of Repaglinide.
Spatial Variation in the δ 15 N and δ 13 C of coral tissue and zooxanthellae in Montastraea faveolata collected from the Florida reef tract

Small pieces of coral skeletons with their associated tissues were collected at monthly intervals, between January 1995 and December 1996, from specimens of Montastraea faveolata at five locations on the Florida Reef tract. The locations (Triangles, Pickles Reef, Crocker Reef, Hen and Chickens, and The Rocks) represent both near shore and off shore environments. During each sampling trip between one to four pieces of coral skeleton and associated tissues were collected from the sides of different colonies living in water depths between 3 to 4 m. At one site (Pickles) samples were also collected from 8 m water depth. The tissue and zooxanthellae were removed from the skeletons, separated, and subsequently analyzed for δN and δC. The mean δN value in the coral tissue of all samples was +6.6 (+/0.6 ‰) while the δC was -13.3 (+/0.5 ‰) (n=197). The δN and δC of the zooxanthellae were +4.7 (+/-1.1‰) and -12.2 (+/1.0 ‰) respectively (n=147). The differences in the δN and δC between the zooxanthellae and the coral tissue were statistically significant. No statistically significant differences were observed between near shore and offshore stations in either δN or δC. The absence of a difference between the inshore and offshore stations casts doubt on both whether the δN of the coral tissues is related to anthropogenic influences and whether the δN value itself can be used as an indicator of sewage contamination in corals. Between 1995 and 1997 there was a long term increase of 1 ‰ in the δC of the coral tissue and zooxanthellae and a long term decrease of approximately 0.8 ‰ in the δN of the coral tissue and the zooxanthellae. The increase in the δC of the organic material (OM) was mimicked in the δC of the skeletal material from corals from two reefs in the area suggesting a strong connection between the δC of the coral tissues and the skeletal material. There appears to be clear seasonal variations in the δC of the coral tissue at certain locations such as Pickles Reef with δC of both the coral tissues and the zooxanthellae becoming more positive between July and August. The difference between the δC of the zooxanthellae and the coral tissue also varies seasonal with the maximum difference occurring in July of each year. In contrast the maximum δC in the skeleton appears to occur later in the year, between September and November.
Identification of main fine flavour components in two genotypes of the cocoa tree (Theobroma cacao L.)

Cocoa seeds are the key raw material in chocolate manufacturing. Traders separate them into bulk and fine or flavour cocoa. The latter is characterized by the presence of special aroma notes (e.g. fruity). In contrast to chocolate aroma that derives from seed endogenous components (storage proteins, carbohydrates) fine aroma has been linked to the fruit pulp but, detailed information on its molecular background is lacking. In the present study we analyzed fruit pulp and seeds of two fine or flavour cocoas (SCA6, EET62) and a bulk cocoa (CCN51) using GCMS. The monoterpenes β-myrcene, β-trans-ocimene, β-cis-ocimene and β-linalool were characteristic for the SCA6 volatile composition. Regarding EET62 the secondary alcohol 2-heptanol, its ester 2-heptanol acetate and the methylketones 2-heptanone and 2-nonanone were typical. We conclude that these molecules are main components of SCA6 and EET62 fine aroma. Accordingly, such components may derive from different metabolic pathways depending on the genotype.
Selective Antimicrobial properties of Leaf extract of Samanea Saman against Candida albicans, Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli using several microbial methods

Antibacterial and antifungal activities of Samanea Saman were investigated against pathogenic microorganisms: S.aureus (gram+ve), E.coli (gram-ve) and C.albicans using the Stokes disc diffusion, Well diffusion, streak plate methods and a dilution method. The solvent type extracts were obtained by three extractions each with hexane, CH 2 Cl 2 , EtOAc and CH 3 CH 2 OH respectively. Solvents were removed in vacuo to yield viscous oils and paste which were made up to a concentration of 0.035g in 0.01L(10 mL) of the respective solvents. These were tested in varying volumes of 0.2-0.6ml/plate (i.e. concentrations of 0.03-0.18 mg/10 mL agar). Solvents were used as control whereas ampicillin and nystatin were used as references for bacteria and fungal species respectively. The solvents had no effect on the microorganisms whereas ampicillin and nystatin inhibited microbial growth. Saman Samanea showed selective antimicrobial inhibitory activity, with activity most prominent for the CH 3 CH 2 OH and CH 2 Cl 2 extracts and negligible with the hexane. Its the first time in our study that the CH 2 Cl 2 extracts is found to be more potent antimicrobially than the EtOAc extract. This study suggests that the CH 3 CH 2 OH and CH 2 Cl 2 extracts of Saman Samanea can be used as herbal medicines in the control of E.coli and S.aureus and C.albicans induced diseases, following clinical trials. (Raymond .C. Jagessar, Akini. .Mars, Subramanian Gomathinayagam. Selective Antimicrobial properties of Leaf extract of Samanea Saman against Candida albicans, Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli using several microbial techniques. Journal of American Science 2011;7(3):108-119). (ISSN: 1545-1003). http://www.americanscience. org .
Synthesis, Growth and Characterization of Sodium Mixed Cadmium Oxalate Crystals

The newly synthesized CdNa2? 2C2O4? 2H2O crystals having a size of 0.30 × 0.25 × 0.20 mm3 were grown by the single-diffusion reaction method in the silica gel medium at 28? C temperature. The crystalline nature of crystals was determined in 20 days by 1) varying the concentrations of the feed solutions and the gel pH level, 2) changing the specific gravity of the feed solution, and 3) changing the gel aging period. The crystals were characterized by using the methods such as powder X-ray diffraction, FTIR, UV, SEM-EDAX, TGA/DTA, and micro-hardness test. The structure of as-grown crystals was determined by the powder crystal XRD patterns. FTIR & SEM-EDAX spectral analyses were used to confirm the presence of the required functional groups of as grown crystals. UV absorption spectrum, the absorption peaks at 224.64 nanometer, determined the energy gap. TGA/DTA thermo gram was used to detect the thermal stability of sodium mixed cadmium oxalate dihydrate crystals. The present grown crystals were brittle and also plastic in nature was identified by Vickers micro-hardness test.