Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The origin of the α-enhancement of massive galaxies

We study the origin of the stellar α-element-to-iron abundance ratio, [α/Fe]*, of present-day central galaxies, using cosmological, hydrodynamical simulations from the Evolution and Assembly of GaLaxies and their Environments (EAGLE) project. For galaxies with stellar masses of M* > 1010.5 M⊙, [α/Fe]* increases with increasing galaxy stellar mass and age. These trends are in good agreement with observations of early-type galaxies, and are consistent with a ‘downsizing’ galaxy formation scenario: more massive galaxies have formed the bulk of their stars earlier and more rapidly, hence from an interstellar medium that was mostly α-enriched by massive stars. In the absence of feedback from active galactic nuclei (AGNs), however, [α/Fe]* in M* > 1010.5 M⊙ galaxies is roughly constant with stellar mass and decreases with mean stellar age, extending the trends found for lower mass galaxies in both simulations with and without AGN. We conclude that AGN feedback can account for the α-enhancement of massive galaxies, as it suppresses their star formation, quenching more massive galaxies at earlier times, thereby preventing the iron from longer lived intermediate-mass stars (supernova Type Ia) from being incorporated into younger stars.
Behavioral Epigenetics and the Effects of Domestication

Rapid evolution and adaptation require mechanisms that can orchestrate genomic output and cope with the swift environmental changes and selection. Domestication is a clear example of an artificial selection that in a short time has given rise to a plethora of phenotypic variation, something that cannot be accounted for by sporadic mutations in the genomes of selected animals. A suggested explanation lies in epigenetics, the field of genetics that involve modifications of DNA and chromatin in order to regulate genomic output. Methylation of DNA is by far the most extensively studied of these modifications and a huge area of research in medicine, evolutionary genetics and behavioural sciences, just to mention a few areas. Along with the important histone modifications methylations and acetylations, these epigenetic markers lay way for alternative and dynamic regulation of gene expression. With more and more research being done on the subject, it is clear that epigenetic mechanisms are connected, and DNA methylations variations correlate with histone modifications in order to alter chromatin states. Albeit dynamic in their nature, the marks persistency change depending on the context of their use; some marks fade very rapidly whilst others may last a lifetime, or more, if passed through the germline to the offspring. With that possibility, the progeny might be programmed for certain nutritional conditions, or behavioral responses to various stimuli.
Rosmarinus officinalis L. Essential Oil Protects Astrocytes against Oxidative Damage

Rosmarinus officinalis L. (Rosemary) is an aromatic species spontaneously growing in the Mediterranean area. The antioxidant ability of essential oils has led to experimental approach in neurodegenerative or cancer diseases that imply oxidative processes. The aim of this study is to assess the in vitro antioxidant and neuroprotective potentials of the essential oil from R. officinalis collected in Spain, using a H2O2-induced oxidative stress model in the astrocytoma U373-MG human cell line. Aerial parts of R. officinalis were collected in central Spain and essential oil obtained by Clevenger distillation. Essential oil composition was assessed by Gas Chromatography (CG). The antioxidant ability was first evaluated by the Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity (ORAC) and the free radical scavenging activity (DPPH) methods. Cellular viability was assessed by MTT method assay after 24h pretreatment with oil in order to measure protection from H2O2 in astrocytes. Furthermore, the intracellular ROS formation (DCFH-DA method), Caspase-3 activity (fluorometric assay) and reduced-glutathione (GSH) levels were determined. R. officinalis L. essential oil showed in vitro antioxidant activity through the ORAC and DPPH assays. No cell toxicity was observed for concentrations ranging from 1.0-12. 5μg/ml essential oil. These concentrations also exerted a protective effect on astrocytes simultaneously treated with 1mM H2O2. Oxidative damage by 1mM H2O2 was shown as a significant decrease in GSH concentration. R. officinalis essential oil at 12. 5μg/ml recovered GSH levels close to control values. A slight decrease in the activation of caspase -3 previously induced by 1mM H2O2 was also shown at 5 μg/ml. R. officinalis essential oil protects astrocytes against oxidative damage mainly by modulating GSH levels and caspase-3 activity.
Pesticides: Environmental Impacts and Management Strategies

Increase in food production is the prime-most objective of all countries, as world population is expected to grow to nearly 10 billion by 2050. Based on evidence, world population is increasing by an estimated 97 million per year (Saravi and Shokrzadeh, 2011). The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations has in-fact issued a sobering forecast that world food production needs to increase by 70%, in order to keep pace with the demand of growing population. However, increase in food production is faced with the ever-growing challenges especially the new area that can be increased for cultivation purposes is very limited (Saravi and Shokrzadeh, 2011). The increasing world population has therefore put a tremen‐ dous amount of pressure on the existing agricultural system so that food needs can be met from the same current resources like land, water etc. In the process of increasing crop pro‐ duction, herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, nematicides, fertilizers and soil amendments are now being used in higher quantities than in the past. These chemicals have mainly come into the picture since the introduction of synthetic insecticides in 1940, when organochlorine (OCl) insecticides were first used for pest management. Before this introduction, most weeds, pests, insects and diseases were controlled using sustainable practices such as cultural, mechanical, and physical control strategies.
AN OPTIMIZATION METHOD BASED ON EVOLUTIONARY COMPUTATION USED FOR ESTIMATING THE ENERGY CONSUMPTION FOR HEATING IN A BUILDING

Simplified mathematical models that can describe the real behavior of a building with relative small errors can provide useful information about the best operational methods of the HVAC (Heating, Ventilating and Air Conditioning) systems, energy demand for heating and cooling, etc. We developed a simplified mathematical model for computing the energy demand for heating and optimized it with a Genetic Algorithm, in order to minimize the error between the model and real data. The tested period (a month) showed that the optimization method is suitable for this type of applications and the relative error was 0.14 kWh.
A clinical study of Kaposi Sarcoma among HIV / AIDS patients in Albania

Aim: This descriptive study aims to characterize the epidemiological and clinical features of Kaposi Sarcoma (KS) among HIV/AIDS patients in Albania. Methods: This is an observational retrospective study of 32 adult patients diagnosed with AIDS-associated Kaposi s sarcoma between January 2007 to December 2015 at the Ambulatory HIV/AIDS Clinic, Infectious Disease Service, University Hospital Centre of Tirana. Results: The median age at diagnosis was 43 years (range: 26-79 years), with HIV-KS cases more common among patients of age 41-50 years (32%). Men comprised 91% of the study population, while men who had sex with men comprised 12% of the cases. The most common lesions of the KS in AIDS patients were the nodule (46%), patch (31%) and plaque (15%). The most common tumour locations were the trunk (47%), lower extremity (36%), oral (34%) and face (28%). The most common oral lesions were nodule (54%) and exophytic (36%). 24 patients (75%) had T0 stage of the disease, while 8 cases (25%) had T1 stage of the disease. The median CD4 level at baseline was 142 cell/mm. All the cases were treated with combined antiretroviral therapy (ART). The most used ART regimens were zidovudine + lamivudine + efavirenz. Seven patients (22%) received chemotherapy. Mortality rate during the study period was 22%. Conclusion: In more than two thirds of the cases (69%), the diagnosis of KS was the HIV/AIDS presenting or defining illness/diagnosis, which indicates a very late HIV diagnosis in Albania.
Paywalls: Monetizing Online Content

In recent years, many news providers have begun monetizing online content through paywalls. While the premise behind paywalls is that the subscription revenue can be a new source of income, the externalities that might arise from this pricing change are unclear. The authors study two potential externalities of newspaper paywalls: (1) the effect of a paywall on the engagement of its online reader base and (2) the spillover effect on the print version of the newspaper. The engagement effect considers how the paywall altered the various engagement metrics among light and heavy readers of online news. The spillover effect is likely to arise if readers view print and online versions of a newspaper as substitutes, implying that increasing the price of the latter is likely to increase the demand for the former. Moreover, many newspaper paywalls offer bundles wherein print subscribers are provided free access to the online newspaper. Therefore, the value that a reader derives from the print subscription could be higher after the erection of the paywall. As a result, paywalls are likely to have a positive spillover effect on print subscription and, consequently, circulation. The authors document the sizes of the two externalities for the New York Times paywall and compare them with the direct subscription revenue generated. They comment on implications for newspapers and online content providers that are seeking mechanisms to monetize digital content.
The Evolution of Thermal Barrier Coatings in Gas Turbine Engine Applications

Thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) have been used for almost three decades to extend the life of combustors and augmentors and, more recently, stationary turbine components. Plasma-sprayed yttria-stabilized zirconia TBC currently is bill-of-material on many commercial jet engine parts. A more durable electron beam-physical vapor deposited (EB-PVD) ceramic coating recently has been developed for more demanding rotating as well as stationary turbine components. This ceramic EB-PVD is bill-of-material on turbine blades and vanes in current high thrust engine models and is being considered for newer developmental engines as well. To take maximum advantage of potential TBC benefits, the thermal effect of the TBC ceramic layer must become an integral element of the hot section component design system. To do this with acceptable reliability requires a suitable analytical life prediction model calibrated to engine experience. The latest efforts in thermal barrier coatings are directed toward correlating such models to measured engine performance.
Dual Utilities Under Dependence Uncertainty

Finding the worst-case value of a preference over a set of plausible models is a well-established approach to address the issue of model uncertainty or ambiguity. In this paper, we study the worst-case evaluation of Yaari’s dual utility functionals of an aggregate risk under dependence uncertainty along with its decision-theoretic implications. To arrive at our main findings, we introduce a technical notion of conditional joint mixability. Lower and upper bounds on dual utilities with dependence uncertainty are established and, in the presence of conditional joint mixability, they are shown to be exact bounds. Moreover, conditional joint mixability is indeed necessary for attaining these exact bounds when the distortion functions are strictly inverse-S-shaped. A particular economic implication of our results is what we call the pessimism effect. We show that a (generally non-convex/non-concave) dual utility-based decision maker under dependence uncertainty behaves as if she had a more pessimistic risk-averse dual utility but free of dependence uncertainty.
c町瓦tica皿Curremt Dis伽ibutiom im YBCO Tape

A 'current limiter is one of most promlSlng HTS power devices. A・thin1ayer YBCO conductor ha占a property suitable for a super-to-normal transition type current limiter because the resistivityofathin layer YBCO is high when it is quenched・ Thin1ayer YBCO tape conductors withnonmetallic substrates were developed for.current limiters by Toshiba [1]. Th9 YBCO layer of lpm thick was deposited by a pulsed laser abrasion method・ on a smgle crystal LaA103 substrate of lOO11皿long, 10mm wide皿d lI一皿tbick・ The critical current Ic of the conductor w.as around lOOA and the Jc was 106 A/cm2 at 77K and OT・ AC transport current loss is an important characteristic of conductor used for a current limiterand we measuredthe AC transport current loss of the yBCO tape・ The loss data deviated from the Norris curves 【2]for the ellipticaland strip h.6dels・ We studied a reason for this deviation to understand AC transport loss characteristics ofHTS tapes・ I We assumedthat the deviation of the measured loss data from the Norris curves was due to inhomogeneous Jc distribution in the cross section of HTS tape and madeananalytical model to numerically calculate the AC・transport current loss due to magnetic hysteresis of the tape considering E-J characteristics also[3]・ Based onthis model, we estimated a Jc distribution for the analytical results to fitto the measured data. To investigate the vahdity of our mode), we estimated Jc distribution of the tapeby subdividing
Continuous time autoregressive moving average processes with random Levy coefficients

We introduce a continuous time autoregressive moving average process with random Lévy coefficients, termed RC-CARMA(p,q) process, of order p and q < p via a subclass of multivariate generalized Ornstein-Uhlenbeck processes. Sufficient conditions for the existence of a strictly stationary solution and the existence of moments are obtained. We further investigate second order stationarity properties, calculate the autocovariance function and spectral density, and give sufficient conditions for their existence.
Performance of NC-OFDM autocorrelation-based synchronization under narrowband interference

The NC-OFDM based cognitive radio can operate in a bandwidth partially occupied by licensed system, e.g. narrowband analog wireless microphone system. However, the benefit of using NC-OFDM for high spectral efficiency may not be achievable due to the NC-OFDM synchronization problem caused by interference originating from the narrowband transmission. In this paper, probability of correct NC-OFDM frame detection is analyzed for commonly used Schmidl&Cox synchronization algorithm under the mentioned interference condition. The results are obtained by the means of simulations while modeling interference in accordance with the proper wireless microphones standard. These results are compared to the ones obtained by simpler interference modeling as a complex sinusoid.
ANTIOXIDANT AND ANTITYROSINASE ACTIVITIES OF FLAVONOID FROM BLUMEA BALSAMIFERA ( L . ) DC . LEAVES EXTRACT

The aim of this present research is to evaluate antioxidant and antityrosinase potentials of flavonoid from Blumea balsamifera of ethanol leaf extract. The content of flavonoids in the examined plant extracts was determined through reaction with aluminum cloric (AlCl3), Antioxidant activity was measured by using two different free radical scavenging methods, 2,2′-Azinobis-(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) (ABTS) and 2,2-diphenyl-1picrylhydrazyl radical (DPPH•), whereas flavonoid contents were evaluated by using FolinCiocalteau, and aluminum nitrate methods respectively. Tyrosinase inhibition was evaluated using commercial enzyme and dihydroxyphenylalanine (DOPA) as substrate. The results showed that the content flavonoid of leaf extract 23.34 ± 0.67, The extract showed strong antioxidant activity with IC50 of 0.021 μg/ml and tyrosinase inhibition activity received with IC50 of 398.16 μg/ml.
This paper is included in the Proceedings of the 17th USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation (NSDI ’20)

Data-center network stacks are moving into hardware to achieve 100 Gbps data rates and beyond at low latency and low CPU utilization. However, hardwiring the network stack in the NIC would stiﬂe innovation in transport protocols. In this paper, we enable programmable transport protocols in high-speed NICs by designing Tonic, a ﬂexible hardware architecture for transport logic. At 100 Gbps, transport protocols must generate a data segment every few nanoseconds using only a few kilobits of per-ﬂow state on the NIC. By identifying common patterns across transport logic of different transport protocols, we design an efﬁcient hardware “template” for transport logic that satisﬁes these constraints while being programmable with a simple API. Experiments with our FPGA-based prototype show that Tonic can support the transport logic of a wide range of protocols and meet timing for 100 Gbps of back-to-back 128-byte packets. That is, every 10 ns, our prototype generates the address of a data segment for one of more than a thousand active ﬂows for a downstream DMA pipeline to fetch and transmit a packet.
Stochastic Variance-Reduced Cubic Regularized Newton Method

We propose a stochastic variance-reduced cubic regularized Newton method for non-convex optimization. At the core of our algorithm is a novel semi-stochastic gradient along with a semi-stochastic Hessian, which are specifically designed for cubic regularization method. We show that our algorithm is guaranteed to converge to an $(\epsilon,\sqrt{\epsilon})$-approximately local minimum within $\tilde{O}(n^{4/5}/\epsilon^{3/2})$ second-order oracle calls, which outperforms the state-of-the-art cubic regularization algorithms including subsampled cubic regularization. Our work also sheds light on the application of variance reduction technique to high-order non-convex optimization methods. Thorough experiments on various non-convex optimization problems support our theory.
Time‐transgressive North Atlantic productivity changes upon Northern Hemisphere glaciation

[1] Marine biological export productivity declined in high-latitude regions in the North Pacific and Southern Ocean 2.7 million years ago, in parallel with the intensification of Northern Hemisphere glaciation. Here we present data from the North Atlantic, which show a similar but time-transgressive pattern of high-latitude productivity decline from 3.3 to 2.5 Ma, with productivity decreasing first at 69°N, hundreds of thousands of years before it declined at 58°N. We propose that the cumulative data are best explained by an equatorward migration of the westerly winds, which caused a southward shift in the zone of Ekman divergence and upwelling-associated major nutrient supply over this time interval. We suggest that a similar equatorward migration of the westerly winds may also help explain the productivity changes observed in other high-latitude regions, particularly the Southern Ocean. At 2.7 Ma, equatorial and temperate Atlantic sites began to show orbitally paced productivity pulses, consistent with a shoaling and meridional contraction of the nutrient-poor “warm sphere” that characterizes the low latitude upper ocean. This timing coincides with observed productivity changes in Southern Ocean, consistent with previous findings that the Southern Ocean exerts a strong influence on the fertility of the low-latitude Atlantic. Finally, we propose that the unique basin geometry of the North Atlantic caused deep water formation in this region to remain relatively stable despite equatorward migration of winds and ocean fronts.
A Linkage Study of Adverse Birth Outcomes With Agricultural Land Use Practices in Missouri

Background: Missouri is an agriculturally intensive state, growing primarily corn, soybeans, and wheat, with additional high-intensity rice and cotton farming in the southeastern counties in the state. There is limited evidence that communities residing in close proximity to pesticide-treated fields may have increased exposure to pesticides as well as increased risks of adverse birth outcomes including certain birth defects and adverse birth outcomes such as low birth weight and preterm births. The study aims were (1) to evaluate the relationship between county-level measures of agricultural production and adverse birth outcomes in Missouri, and (2) to evaluate the importance of incorporating spatial and temporal information into the modeling of this data. Methods: Corn, soybean, wheat, rice, and cotton crop densities were evaluated for their relationship with both low birth weight and preterm births in Missouri between 20042006. The covariates considered as potential confounders and effect modifiers in this study included gender, mother’s race and ethnicity, mother’s age at birth, maternal smoking, access to prenatal care, quarter of birth, county median household income, and population density. Three statistical approaches were taken to evaluate the relationship between each measure of crop density and each outcome: (1) Poisson regression, (2) generalized estimating equations, and (3) distance decay random effects Poisson regression. Results: Strong positive associations were observed between rice and cotton density and both low birth weight and preterm births. Rice density was associated with significant increased risk of preterm births across all three models, as was cotton density with low birth weight births. Only 58 counties in Missouri produced rice or cotton between 2004 and 2006, with complete geographic overlap. Despite the geographic correlation between these counties, both rice and cotton densities remained significant predictors of low birth weight and preterm births in dual-exposure models with a slight weakening of the effect in the distance decay models. Conclusions: The associations between both rice and cotton and low birth weight and preterm births should be viewed cautiously because of the many limitations of the study including its ecological study design, limited data on other risk factors, and a lack of chemical-specific exposure estimates. Nonetheless these findings warrant further investigation.