Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Design Based Ultrasound-Assisted Extraction of Marrubium vulgare Linn and Comparative Evaluation of Extracts for Furan Labdane Diterpene (Marrubiin) Concentration and Antihypertensive Potential

Improvement in extract quality in terms of concentration of secondary metabolites and pharmacological activity has always been the need of the hour. In the present research, the target was to extract the selected medicinal herb using the ultrasound waves and to optimize the extraction conditions for the improvement in the quality of extract with respect to furan labdane diterpene (marrubiin) concentration and antihypertensive potential. The whole plant of Marrubium vulgare Linn. was collected from the fields of Pulwama district of Jammu and Kashmir state in India and extracted by cold maceration (MVM) and ultrasound assisted extraction techniques (MVU). The response surface methodology coupled with the central composite design was employed to optimize the selected extraction parameters in UAE method. The marrubiin concentration in different extracts was determined by HPTLC. The extracts were also evaluated for the antihypertensive potential by non-invasive blood pressure monitoring (NIBPM) method. The extract yield (14.2 ± 0.9%) and concentration of marrubiin (0.91 ± 0.04%) were significantly improved at the optimized UAE conditions (Ultrasound power 467 W, sonication time of 47 minutes and solvent concentration of 33 mL per g of drug) as compared to the conventional method. Furthermore, the MVU extract (200 mg/kg) along with ethanol significantly (p<0.01) prevented the rise in mean systolic blood pressure (MSBP) of animals and also the GSH was significantly (p<0.05) enhanced as compared to ethanol-treated animals. The elevation in MSBP and decrease in reduced glutathione concentration (GSH) by the chronic ethanol consumption were significantly altered by MVU extract as compared to MVM extract. The enhanced antihypertensive effect of selected herb may be attributed to the improved concentration of secondary metabolites (marrubiin) in MVU extract obtained at optimized conditions.
Better Bounds for Coalescing-Branching Random Walks

Coalescing-branching random walks, or cobra walks for short, are a natural variant of random walks on graphs that can model the spread of disease through contacts or the spread of information in networks. In a k-cobra walk, at each timestep, a subset of the vertices are active; each active vertex chooses k random neighbors (sampled independently and uniformly with replacement) that become active at the next step, and these are the only active vertices at the next step. A natural quantity to study for cobra walks is the cover time, which corresponds to the expected time when all nodes have become infected or received the disseminated information. In this article, we extend previous results for cobra walks in multiple ways. We show that the cover time for the 2-cobra walk on [0,n]d is O(n) (where the order notation hides constant factors that depend on d); previous work had shown the cover time was O(n⋅polylog(n)). We show that the cover time for a 2-cobra walk on an n-vertex d-regular graph with conductance φG is O(d4φ−2Glog2n), significantly generalizing a previous result that held only for expander graphs with sufficiently high expansion. And, finally, we show that the cover time for a 2-cobra walk on a graph with n vertices and m edges is always O(mn3/4logn; this is the first result showing that the bound of Θ(n3) for the worst-case cover time for random walks can be beaten using 2-cobra walks.
A novel biasing technique for addressable parametric arrays

Addressable arrays that use switches to isolate the devices being tested are limited in size and utility by the parasitic leakage caused by those switches. A new biasing technique that removes the drain-source bias from these switches has been studied to address this problem. Simulations performed in a 90 nm low-power technology predicted more than a two-decade drop in parasitic leakage of the array. Experiment data performed on a 90 nm technology confirmed this improvement.
Twin Mythconceptions: False Beliefs, Fables, and Facts about Twins Nancy Segal (2017), Academic Press, 334 pages, eBook ISBN: 9780128039953, Paperback ISBN: 9780128039946.

Twin Mythconceptions is not Nancy Segal’s first book about twins and twin research, but it is very possibly her best and most comprehensive one. The title might be a bit misleading: the most important part of the book is not about false beliefs but about numerous and diverse facts about twins and twin studies. Nancy Segal may have read every paper that was published on twins in the last few decades, and before. We learn about the risk of child abuse to twins (increased), the divorce rates in parents of twins (likely to be higher than in parents of singletons), about the genes for twinning, and the two research approaches that involve twins. Segal labels one of these as the ‘twins for twins’ approach, which focuses on questions that are exclusive to twins, including questions about their delayed language development or mandatory separation in schools (and nowadays even in day care). The question of whether DNA evidence can tell monozygotic twins apart in, for example, paternity cases or forensics receives an affirmative answer (based on ultra-deep next generation sequencing and at least one twin having offspring). The other approach in twin research involves comparing the resemblance ofmonoand dizygotic twins to estimate heritability and to assess the contribution of genetics to variation in and covariation among traits. This research design has its own historical chapter, the last chapter in the book. Perhaps I can use this review to add one more historical fact. Sir Ronald Fisher, the geneticist who united the Galton/Pearson biometrical view of continuous variation and Mendelian genetics, did not accept that there were two types in twins and put forward in theGenetics journal in 1919 the hypothesis ‘that the ordinarymode of genesis of human twins is intermediate in character between the fraternal and identical modes of genesis, and in particular that while the maternal inheritance is identical, the twins being derived from a common ovum, the paternal inheritance is merely fraternal, the twins being derived from different spermatozoa’. Later, in Eugenics in 1922 he revisited this topic and wrote ‘numbers are far from conclusive, and have been put forward to show that the subject should be thoroughly investigated.We hope that this may be done in London, where over a thousand pairs of twins could rapidly be obtained; but at present the work is delayed for lack of funds’. Nothing very much seems to have changed in the life of scientists, at least with respect to funding. For those interested in twins and how they have contributed somuch to our knowledge of the human condition, I would thoroughly recommend this latest authoritative but eminently readable contribution by Nancy Segal, one of the leading twin researchers of our time (and, of course, a twin herself).
Can Multi-Stage Recombinant Fusion Proteins Be Considered as Reliable Vaccines Against Tuberculosis? A Letter to the Editor

Can Multi-Stage Recombinant Fusion Proteins be Considered as Reliable Vaccines Against Tuberculosis? A Letter to the Editor Masoud Keikha 1 and Mohsen Karbalaei 2, * Department of Microbiology and Virology, Faculty of Medicine, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran Department of Microbiology and Virology, School of Medicine, Jiroft University of Medical Sciences, Jiroft, Iran Corresponding author: Department of Microbiology and Virology, School of Medicine, Jiroft University of Medical Sciences, Jiroft, Iran. Email: mohsenkarbalaei691@gmail.com
Improved mobility models for charge transport in graphene

Abstract Charge transport in graphene is crucial for the design of a new generation of nanoscale electron devices. A reasonable model is represented by the semiclassical Boltzmann equations for electrons in the valence and conduction bands. As shown by Romano et al. (J. Comput. Phys., 2015), the discontinuous Galerkin methods are a viable way to tackle the problem of the numerical integration of these equations, even if efficient DSMC with a proper inclusion of the Pauli principle have been also devised. One of the advantages of the solutions obtained with deterministic approach is of course the absence of statistical noise. This fact is crucial for an accurate estimation of the low field mobility as proved by Majorana et al. (J. Math. Industry, 2016) in the case of a unipolar charge transport in a suspended graphene sheet under a constant electric field. The mobility expressions are essential for the drift-diffusion equations which constitute the most adopted models for charge transport in CAD. Here the analysis by Majorana et al. (J. Math. Industry, 2016) is improved in two ways: by including the charge transport both in the valence and conduction bands; by taking into account the presence of an oxide as substrate for the graphene sheet. New models of mobility are obtained and, in particular, relevant improvements of the low field mobility are achieved.
Credit and honesty-based trust assessment for hierarchical collaborative IoT systems

Trust assessment is a fundamental concept in the context of collaboration for large scale IoT systems. How to represent and measure appropriately the trust is a pursuit of many researchers. Many tasks, such as encryption and signature, can be accomplished perfectly by a collaborative process when a trust metric is well-defined. Trust is a widely used metric that is both effective and significative. This paper proposes a credit and honesty-based method for measuring hierarchical trust. Enhancing the credit of a good collaborator and the honesty of a good rater provides more precision in the management of the most trustworthy objects in the IoT. We have compared our proposal with the reviewed solutions in terms of time complexity, in which it demonstrates the best results.
Toxicity and safety study of Cd-based and Cd-free quantum dots in third-gen PV and scaled-up processing platforms

Quantum dots (QDs) are being incorporated at an accelerated rate into Third-Gen photovoltaic (PV) and scaled-up PV processing platforms for production of high efficiency devices. As a result, studies are needed to examine QD toxicity in workplace environment. Herein, we report on a rapid and sensitive detection methods to examine risk of QD exposure in PV processing. QD-associated toxic elements were detected in slight amounts using gold nanoparticles (Au NPs) probe, followed by photoluminescence and Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectroscopy (ICP-MS) analyses, which indicated the possibility of QD aerosolization during deposition, transferring and testing of the QD film. Cytotoxicity effects of different type QDs were also studied using cell culture viability. The results indicate that QD material and their coating are important factors in producing cytotoxicity effects. It was also demonstrated that CIS QDs have less cytotoxic effects on HeLa and CHSE cells than CdSe QDs, and may be considered non-toxic in comparison.
Consistency of Yield Ranking and Adaptability Patterns of Winter Wheat Cultivars between Multi-Environmental Trials and Farmer Surveys

Cultivar recommendation based on mean performance determined by multi-environment trials (METs) conducted on research stations could be unreliable and ineffective for assessing performance in farmers’ fields. It is important to improve the efficiency of cultivar recommendation based on METs. For this purpose, it would be useful to validate recommendations based on yield data obtained directly from farmers, i.e., through surveys. The aim of this study was to discuss the possibility and statistical methodology of assessing cultivar performance patterns based on yield data obtained through farmer surveys. We suggest that this might be accomplished by assessing the conformity of yield ranking and yield performance patterns between MET and survey datasets in the same growing regions. As an example, we compare winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) yield data obtained from Polish farmers via surveys with data obtained via METs. In the METs, cultivars were evaluated at two levels of crop-management, a moderate-input management (MIM) system and a high-input management (HIM) system. Based on the yield evaluations in the current study, half of the agro-ecological regions had relatively high levels of consistency in yield rankings between the MET MIM system and survey yield dataset. This indicated a relatively high efficiency of cultivar recommendations based on METs in these regions, especially for the MIM system. For the HIM system, however, with the exception of one region, we observed a poor degree of consistency in cultivar ranking.
Position error bound for UWB localization in dense cluttered environments

For most outdoor applications, systems such as global positioning system (GPS) provide users with accurate location estimates. However, similar range-only localization techniques in dense cluttered environments typically lack accuracy and reliability due, notably, to dense multipath, line-of-sight (LOS) blockage and excess propagation delays through materials. In particular, range measurements between a receiver and a transmitter are often positively biased. Furthermore, the quality of the range measurement degrades with distance, and the geometric configuration of the beacons also affects the localization accuracy. In this paper we derive a fundamental limit of localization accuracy for an ultrawide bandwidth (UWB) system operating in such environments, which we call the position error bound (PEB). The impact of different ranging estimation errors due to beacons distance and biases on the best positioning accuracy is investigated. The statistical characterization of biases coming from measurement campaigns can easily be incorporated into this analysis. We show that the relative importance of information coming from different beacons varies depending on the propagation conditions, such as whether the beacon is LOS or non-line-of-sight (NLOS). We show, in particular, that any a priori information knowledge on NLOS beacons can significantly improve the localization accuracy, especially in dense cluttered environments. Finally we put forth the concept of localization outage probability and epsi-localization accuracy outage, and use them to characterize the quality of localization throughout the area.
Sleepers and workaholics: caching strategies in mobile environments

In the mobile wireless computing environment of the future a large number of users equipped with low powered palm-top machines will query databases over the wireless communication channels. Palmtop based units will often be disconnected for prolonged periods of time due to the battery power saving measures; palmtops will also frequencly relocate between different cells and connect to different data servers at different times. Caching of frequently accessed data items will be an important technique that will reduce contention on the narrow bandwidth wireless channel. However, cache invalidation strategies will be severely affected by the disconnection and mobility of the clients. The server may no longer know which clients are currently residing under its cell and which of them are currently on. We propose a taxonomy of different cache invalidation strategies and study the impact of client's disconnection times on their performance. We determine that for the units which are often disconnected (sleepers) the best cache invalidation strategy is based on signatures previously used for efficient file comparison. On the other hand, for units which are connected most of the time (workaholics), the best cache invalidation strategy is based on the periodic broadcast of changed data items.
Maximum utilisation of available resources for efficient poultry feeding in the South Pacific: major issues and prospects

Feed cost is a major impediment to commercial poultry production in the South Pacific region because traditional feed ingredients (grains and oilseeds) are not grown in the region and imported at high price. As a result, meat has to be imported, which in Fiji increased by 69% between 2010 and 2011 (Diarra, 2017). Samoa was valued at about US$ 17 million or 87% of total cost of meat import in the country in 2012 and 2013. Several ingredients, which are available locally, could be included to reduce feed cost in the region. By-products of root/tuber harvest (peels and leaves), low value crops, fruits and by-products (peels and pulps), oil cakes (copra and palm kernel), by-products from the brewery, livestock/poultry slaughter, hatchery and fish processing and insect meal are readily available in most countries of the region. With adequate processing and correct diet formulation, these materials could replace reasonable proportions of the conventional energy and protein ingredients and reduce feed cost. Several factors including the type and source of material, processing method, diet composition, species, age and class of poultry affect the dietary recommendations of alternative ingredients. Currently however, the use of these resources in feed production in the region is limited due to lack of processing and analytical facilities, likely presence of antinutritional substances and poor knowledge on their nutritive value. Continued research into processing technology, regular training for farmers and extension staff and establishment of community owned feed processing units for optimum utilisation of locally available resources will benefits the poultry industry in the region.
Identidades y familias de jóvenes madres desvinculadas del conflicto armado

Este articulo indaga sobre los cambios y/o permanencias resultantes del conflicto armado, en las familias rurales de origen de seis jovenes madres atendidas por el programa de atencion a ninos, ninas y jovenes desvinculados de grupos armados ilegales del Instituto Colombiano de Bienestar Familiar (ICBF). Al reconocer a la familia como espacio de socializacion en el que se ofrecen los primeros referentes para la construccion de las identidades de sus miembros, se entreve la manera como los actores armados ejercen formas de poder que atraviesan el ambito domestico y permanecen vigentes luego de la desvinculacion.
The Impacts Of Emotional Intelligence And Emotional Dissonance: A Systematic Review

Over the past few years, interest in emotions has been progressive. Organizations are proposed to be an important arena for the expression of emotions. Employees who are good at dealing with emotions are said to be emotionally intelligent, and those who are incapable may suffer dissonance. The purpose of this paper is to bring together all available evidence to get an amalgamated view of different impacts of emotional intelligence (EI) and emotional dissonance (ED) in a systematic way. The paper reviewed 31 research based on literature tracked chronologically from 2008 to 2018 using the primary databases; Wiley online library, Sage, Emerald, Elsevier and Google scholar. The literature is then scanned for relevance and citation counts. 21 impacts based on previous research are identified and discussed. The study foregrounds the importance of the impression that EI has a vital role in individual and organizational growth, and identifies that counter-productive behaviour, emotional exhaustion, turn-over intention, unexcused absenteeism and verbal aggression in organizational life are associated with ED. Finally, the study lists the ways to manage emotions, and it is suggested that organizations should provide a healthy work environment that attracts and retain the most valuable workers in such a way that assists employees in managing occupational stress and maintaining psychological well-being. © 2019 Published by Future Academy www.FutureAcademy. org.UK
Natural Capacitor Voltage Balancing for a Flying Capacitor Converter Induction Motor Drive

This paper presents an analysis of the natural voltage balancing dynamics of a three-phase flying capacitor converter when supplying an induction motor. The approach substitutes double Fourier harmonic series for the pulsewidth modulation switching waveforms and the frequency response of the motor, to create a linear state-space model of this type of load. The model requires the mid-frequency response (500 Hz-20 kHz) of the induction motor impedance to be identified, and takes skin and proximity effects into account by adding parallel R-L networks to a standard motor model. Model parameters were measured by applying FFT analysis to variable frequency square waves injected into the motor terminals, and fitting parameter values to these measurements using a least squares minimization method. From the analysis, it was found that the converter voltage balancing behavior degrades substantially at low motor speeds, and that a balance booster filter, as previously proposed, considerably improves the dynamic response. Experimental verification results using a scaled-down flying capacitor converter drive are included in the paper.
The use of CMEMS and Argo Float Data for Bigeye Tuna Fishing Ground Prediction

Performance test of bigeye tuna (Thunnus obesus) potential fishing ground (PFG) in South of Java Indian Ocean (SJIO) has been conducted. The input data of this study were sub-surface temperature of Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS) at a depth of 180 m and Argo Float at a depth of 200 m. PFG of bigeye tuna was developed by applying empirical cumulative distribution function (ECDF) analysis. Validation of PFG was done by applying quantitative method. A total number of 1,311 sample location of fish catchment during 2013 were overlayed with PFG map. The results show that the regions with high density of PFG were distributed around the latitudes of about 10°S to 17°S, with preferred temperature between 14.5°C and 17.5°C. Accuracy of CMEMS PFG and Argo Float PFG were 87.2% and 83.7% respectively. Based on the result of the analysis, it can be concluded that both of CMEMS and Argo Float sub-surface temperature shows a high performance.