Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Antimicrobial Activity, Antioxidant Properties and Phytochemical Screening of Echinacea angustifolia, Fraxinus excelsior and Crataegus oxyacantha Mother Tinctures Against Food-Borne Bacteria

The beneficial health effects of extracts from many types of plants have been known for centuries and the search for new natural extracts, such as mother tinctures (TMs), to be used in the food and cosmetics industry, is very important at present. In this study, the antioxidant and antimicrobial activities of E. angustifolia, F. excelsior and C. oxyacantha mother tinctures against a range of foodborne bacteria and their major components were analyzed and determined. F. excelsior proved the highest content of polyphenols, (313.88 ± 14.30 mg GAE/100 ml), while C. oxyacantha and E. angustifolia showed similar values of polyphenols, 161.25 ± 4.05 mg GAE/100 ml and 123.27 ± 4.06 mg GAE/100 ml, respectively. C. oxyacantha proved the highest content of tannins and flavonoids. E. angustifolia and F. excelsior showed also a good content of flavonoids. Radical-scavenging activity was evaluated by the use of free stable radical, DPPH, and the scavenging activity of the hydroalcoholic extracts were found to be 418.23 ± 36.11 mg TE/100 ml, 266.71 ± 28.32 mg TE/100 ml and 131.33 ± 14.26 mg TE/100 ml in F. excelsior, C. oxyacantha and E. angustifolia, respectively. Similar results were obtained by FRAP test, that showed the highest reducing power in F. excelsior. As the lipid peroxidation inhibition, the BCB method evidenced in F. excelsior the highest inhibition (38.41 ± 3.60%), with an inhibition lower than 50% in all mother tinctures. The antimicrobial activity and the MIC of the mother tinctures were evaluated against selected bacterial strains. All mother tinctures demonstrated no antimicrobial activity against the 50% of tested bacteria. All Gram-negative bacteria were sensitive to all mother tinctures with a middle-low antimicrobial activity, except Escherichia coli that proved to be no sensitive; while the antimicrobial activities observed varied with the type of tested Gram-positive bacterium. The observed antimicrobial and antioxidant activities might be due to the synergistic actions of bioactive compounds detected in the mother tinctures. The results of this study could be applied in pharmaceutical field, establishing an important role of mother tinctures in phytotherapy, in order to adopt integrated strategies to effectively counter the excess and the effects of free radicals, and also in food preservation, alternative medicine and natural therapies.
Chapter 2 Coordinate Systems and Transformations 2 . 1 Coordinate Systems

This chapter describes the coordinate systems used in depicting the position and orientation (pose) of the aerial robot and its manipulator arm(s) in relation to itself and its environment. A reference frame provides a relationship in pose between one coordinate system and another. Every reference frame can relate back to a universal coordinate system. All positions and orientations are referenced with respect to the universal coordinate system or with respect to another Cartesian coordinate system [3]. In Table2.1 we give the list of variable nomenclature used throughout this chapter and the remainder of the book. The angles of rotation about the center of mass of the aerial robot make up the overall attitude of the body. In order to track the changes of these attitude angleswhile the body is in motion, two coordinate systems are required. The body {B} frame coordinate system is attached in the vicinity of the geometric center of the robot and typically aligned with the z-axis of the vehicle. The world {W } frame coordinate system is fixed to the earth and is taken as an inertial coordinate system [5].
Teknologi Malaysia PREDICTION OF PROTEIN SECONDARY STRUCTURE

In the wake of large-scale DNA sequencing projects, accurate tools are needed to predict protein structures. The problem of predicting protein structure from DNA sequence remains fundamentally unsolved even after more than three decades of intensive research. In this paper, fundamental theory of the protein structure of the protein structure will be presented as a general guide to protein secondary structure prediction research. An overview of the state-of-theart in sequence analysis and some principles of the methods involved wil be described.
Printed in the United Kingdom Convex dynamics and applications

This paper proves a theorem about bounding orbits of a time dependent dynamical system. The maps that are involved are examples in convex dynamics, by which we mean the dynamics of piecewise isometries where the pieces are convex. The theorem came to the attention of the authors in connection with the problem of digital halftoning. Digital halftoning is a family of printing technologies for getting full-color images from only a few different colors deposited at dots all of the same size. The simplest version consists in obtaining gray-scale images from only black and white dots. A corollary of the theorem is that for error diffusion, one of the methods of digital halftoning, averages of colors of the printed dots converge to averages of the colors taken from the same dots of the actual images. Digital printing is a special case of a much wider class of scheduling problems to which the theorem applies. Convex dynamics has roots in classical areas of mathematics such as symbolic dynamics, Diophantine approximation, and the theory of uniform distributions.
Broadcast Achievability in Incomplete Minicast Models

Broadcast is a primitive which allows a speciﬁc party to distribute a message consistently among n parties, even if up to t parties exhibit malicious behaviour. In the classical model with a complete network of bilateral authenticated channels, the seminal result of [15] shows that broadcast is achievable if and only if t < n /3. There are two generalizations suggested for the broadcast problem – with respect to the adversarial model and the communication model. Fitzi and Maurer [10] consider a (non-threshold) general adversary that is characterized by the subsets of parties that could be corrupted, and show that broadcast can be realized from bilateral channels if and only if the union of no three possible corrupted sets equals the entire set of n parties. On the other hand, [4] extends the standard model of bilateral channels with the existence of b -minicast channels that allow to locally broadcast among any subset of b parties; the authors show that in this enhanced model of communication, secure broadcast tolerating up to t corrupted parties is possible if and only if t < b − 1 b + 1 n . These generalizations are uniﬁed in [14] where Raykov studies the problem of achieving broadcast from a complete set of b -minicast channels that is secure under general ad-versaries, and gives a tight characterization of the possible corrupted subsets of parties against which broadcast is (im)possible. This thesis initiates the study of achievability of broadcast in scenarios where only some subset of b -minicast channels are available, thereby addressing an open problem posed by [14]. Even though the broadcast problem has been studied for the concrete case of incomplete 3-minicast networks in [16] and [12], not much work has been done with respect to general b -minicast models. Our major contribution is the identiﬁcation of types of minicast channels that are essential for broadcast secure against general adversaries. In particular, this allows us to derive a bound on the amount of b -minicasts required for some party to broadcast. Inspired by the result of [14], the thesis also proves some properties for an interesting class of adversaries, named chain adversaries , that are relevant to the problem at hand,
Role of Hydrolysates in Prophylactic and Therapeutic Diets for Food Allergy

Food allergy is frequently associated with other atopic manifestations during infancy and early childhood. Proteins of hen's egg and cow's milk represent the most common clinically relevant allergens. While pharmacotherapeutic approaches to food allergy up to now have not given convincing results, diets have been shown to be useful tools both in preventing early sensitization to foods and the early manifestation of atopic symptoms and in reducing food-related symptoms in children with clinically relevant sensitizations. For several decades, extensively hydrolyzed cow's milk protein formulas have been used for the treatment of children with cow's milk allergy and several other gastrointestinal disorders. In recent years, other products from different protein sources have become available and marketed for both the treatment and the prevention of allergic disorders. This chapter focuses on the role of these products in the treatment and prevention of food allergy in infancy and childhood.
Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus and the One Health concept

Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) is one of the major threats to the healthcare systems in some countries, especially in the Arabian Peninsula. MERS-CoV is considered an ideal example of the One Health concept. This is due to the animals, especially dromedary camels, play important roles in the transmission and sustainability of the virus, and the virus can be transmitted through aerosols of infected patients into the environment. However, there is some debate regarding the origin of MERS-CoV either from bats or other unknown reservoirs. The dromedary camel is the only identified animal reservoir to date. These animals play important roles in sustaining the virus in certain communities and may act as an amplifier of the virus by secreting it in their body fluids, especially in nasal and rectal discharges. MERS-CoV has been detected in the nasal and rectal secretions of infected camels, and MERS-CoV of this origin has full capacity to infect human airway epithelium in both in vitro and in vivo models. Other evidence confirms the direct transmission of MERS-CoV from camels to humans, though the role of camel meat and milk products has yet to be well studied. Human-to-human transmission is well documented through contact with an active infected patient or some silently infected persons. Furthermore, there are some significant risk factors of individuals in close contact with a positive MERS-CoV patient, including sleeping in the same patient room, removing patient waste (urine, stool, and sputum), and touching respiratory secretions from the index case. Outbreaks within family clusters have been reported, whereby some blood relative patients were infected through their wives in the same house were not infected. Some predisposing genetic factors favor MERS-CoV infection in some patients, which is worth investigating in the near future. The presence of other comorbidities may be another factor. Overall, there are many unknown/confirmed aspects of the virus/human/animal network. Here, the most recent advances in this context are discussed, and the possible reasons behind the emergence and sustainability of MERS-CoV in certain regions are presented. Identification of the exact mechanism of transmission of MERS-CoV from camels to humans and searching for new reservoir/s are of high priority. This will reduce the shedding of the virus into the environment, and thus the risk of human infection can be mitigated.
Numerical Modelling of “ Self-Protection ” Processes in Concrete and its application within a multiscale framework

The reduced service life of corroded RC structures is a well-recognized problem in the scientific community [1]. Concrete is inherently porous [2] and allows corrosion initiating ions such as [Cl-] and [CO3] to pass through. Accumulation of such ions on the embedded rebars leads to the breakdown of the native passive-layer [3], thereby leading to corrosion initiation. Innovative additives that can reduce the influx of such ions inside concrete are required. In the recent years, Layered Double Hydroxides (LDH) have evoked a strong interest in the concrete community due to their ion entrapping properties which can be used to capture external anions from their environment [4]. LDHs can be used inside concrete to capture [Cl-] ion and release inhibitive anions (NO2, for example). This property is known as “Self-Protection” of concrete. In this talk, we present numerical models to explain the sequestration capacity of LDH, the exchange kinetics of chloride capture and inhibitor release, and the action inside mortar and concrete. Its position within a multiscale modelling framework is shown and application within an engineering tool introduced.
Amorphous MgInO Ultraviolet Solar-blind Photodetectors

The magnesium oxide is one of the promising candidate’s materials that can act as solar blind photodetectors. However, the intrinsically low thermal conductivity of MgO, which is restrict the application in electric device. The magnesium oxide exhibit the poor conductivity which could improved by doing method. This paper fabricated magnesium indium oxide (MgInO) solar-blind photodetectors by doping indium oxide with magnesium oxide through co-sputtering deposition method. The photodetector comprises a bottom glass substrate, a MgInO thin film, and an interdigitated gold electrode to complete the metal– semiconductor–metal structure of the solar-blind photodetector. Experimental results indicate that the photo-to-dark-current ratio is 1.4×10, and the responsivity is 1.47 A/W when a reverse bias voltage of 2 V is applied. Furthermore, the noise equivalent power and detectivity are 7.77×10 W and 1.75×10 cm Hz W with a 2 V bias voltage, respectively.
The in fl uence of image masking on object representations during rapid serial visual presentation

Rapid image presentations combined with time-resolved multivariate analysis methods of EEG or MEG (rapid-MVPA) offer unique potential in assessing the temporal limitations of the human visual system. Recent work has shown that multiple visual objects presented sequentially can be simultaneously decoded from M/EEG recordings. Interestingly, object representations reached higher stages of processing for slower image presentation rates compared to fast rates. This fast rate attenuation is probably caused by forward and backward masking from the other images in the stream. Two factors that are likely to influence masking during rapid streams are stimulus duration and stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA). Here, we disentangle these effects by studying the emerging neural representation of visual objects using rapid-MVPA while independently manipulating stimulus duration and SOA. Our results show that longer SOAs enhance the decodability of neural representations, regardless of stimulus presentation duration, suggesting that subsequent images act as effective backward masks. In contrast, image duration does not appear to have a graded influence on object representations. Interestingly, however, decodability was improved when there was a gap between subsequent images, indicating that an abrupt onset or offset of an image enhances its representation. Our study yields insight into the dynamics of object processing in rapid streams, paving the way for future work using this promising approach.
Brain Tumor Region Segmentation using Local Co-occurrence Features and Conditional Random Fields

In this paper we propose a method to segment brain tumor regions in digital pathology images. Multiple local features as well as their local co-occurrences are used to characterise brain tissue regions. An SVM trained on these representations is used to predict the label of new tissue regions, followed by a conditional random field framework which can provide smoothed boundaries for predicted tumor regions. An average segmentation score of 0.66 was obtained based on a 5-fold cross validation.
Large scale and mobile group communication systems

This doctoral thesis examines different attributes of large scale group communication systems such as scalability, security and mobility by studying two different prototype systems - mIR (multicast Interactive Radio) and MES (Mobile E-meeting Services). mIR is a system for large scale real-time music distribution, designed as an interactive radio system for the Internet. MES is a collection of tools for improving the use of e-meeting and video conferencing tools in a mobile environment. The mIR prototype has been used to study scalability and security. Scalability in mIR concerns how to support as many users as possible without degrading the experience. This is achieved using IP multicast together with algorithms that limits the bandwidth usage regardless of the number of users. The work on security have focused on copy prevention through digital watermarking. By adding a unique watermark, i.e. a fingerprint, to each media copy a pirated copy can be traced back to a specific user, which can act as a deterrent. The thesis shows how we can combine the different goals of fingerprinting and IP-multicast while still maintaining the scalability features of multicast. Many issues need to be considered if e-meetings and video conferencing will become widespread and popular. Scalability and security, discussed in the first part of the thesis are two examples, and the second part of the thesis tries to address a third issue: mobility. In particular we are interested in enabling access to an e-meeting in a mobile environment, where we often have difficult conditions such as bad network connections, the user only have access to the Internet through a web browser or the available devices are small and limited. In many cases it is currently impossible to participate in an e-meeting when you're not in the office. The prototype system developed in the second part of the thesis aims to enable participation from any location and device that have some sort of Internet connection. We try to achieve this by allowing a mobile user to access an e-meeting session from a web browser or from a Java enabled mobile phone. Further, the system makes it possible to review missed events in an e-meeting as it is likely that there are many times where no Internet connection at all is available. The general style of work has been prototype driven with a goal of creating usable prototypes - i.e. the prototypes should be easy to deploy and it should be possible to use and test the prototypes daily. Most the prototypes described in this thesis have indeed been deployed and have seen daily use.
The Causal Relationship between Service Quality , Customer Satisfaction and Profitability in Taiwan Banking Industry

Are there economic benefits to improving Service Quality in Taiwan banking industry is the research problem of this study. Service Quality is perceived quality; it is different from objective or actual quality; it is a judgement usually made within a customers evoked set. In literature review, the author finds that: (1) The issue of Service Quality has received considerable argument in the Marketing literatures. (2) In many ways, service quality is similar to an attitude. (3) Customer satisfaction is distinct from service quality. (4) Customers expectations of firms quality are adaptive. (5) It is difficult for traditional financial ratio to measure the economic benefits of service quality improvement. (6) The effects of service change become noticeable only in the long run. (7) The most important single factor affecting a business unit performance is the quality of its goods and service. According to service quality and profitability theoretical background, this study developed the theoretical framework of this paper. This study also designed structural and measurement models to investigate the causal relationships between service quality, customer satisfaction and profitability in Taiwan banking industry. And then, tested relationship by examining the significance of the LISREL estimated path coefficient that links the variables noted. The major conclusion from this study is that the performance base scale developed SERVPERF model and the customer satisfaction on profitability model are confirmed in Taiwan banking industry. The remaining questions addressed in this study are essential managerial issues. The results suggest that perceptive quality is an antecedent of attitude; Service quality is an antecedent of customer satisfaction; Customer satisfaction has a direct effect on purchase intention; Customer satisfaction is an antecedent of profitability. Finally, the author pinpoints gap between customer and service provider to interpret Profitability is positively affected by service quality improvement. 
Mathematical Model of Fog Computing Architecture for IoT Micro-Services

Fog computing provides a distributed data capturing, processing and resource allocation approach in the Internet of Things (IoT). The Quality of Service (QoS) requirements of IoT services are service delay, energy consumption, resource provisioning, bandwidth utilization. We design a fog computing architecture based on QoS parameter. We represent the distributed Cloud-IoT solution where data optimally distributed among mini-clouds/Fog nodes. The processing of IoT traffic is taken care of by Virtual Machines(VMs) facilitated by distributed miniclouds/Fog nodes and located within the edge devices. However, there has been little research on design a QoS aware fog computing architecture. We propose a mathematical formulation of fog computing model. We model for performance analysis of a system based on QoS metrics.
Risk Factors for Incident Myopia among Teenaged Students of the Experimental Class of the Air Force in China

Background In recent decades, the prevalence rate of myopia has markedly increased, especially among teenagers. Our purpose was to determine the incidence of myopia and identify the related risk factors among schoolchildren in the experimental classes of the Air Force in China. Methods In May 2015, this 3-year prospective cohort study enrolled 522 boys (age, 14–16 years) attending grade 10 in 16 high schools in 15 cities in China. Cycloplegic refraction was examined using retinoscopy in both eyes at the baseline and follow-up (3 years). A detailed questionnaire was completed by the students at the 3-year follow-up and included questions on parental myopia and on the total time spent doing near work and outdoor activities each week. Results The incidence of myopia at the 3-year follow-up was 27.01% (141/522, 95% confidence interval (CI): 23.38% to 30.98%). The refractive change was −0.46 D (95% CI: −0.49 to −0.42 D). More hyperopic or less myopic baseline refraction, outdoor activity time per week ≥14 h (odds ratio (OR) = 0.464, 95% CI: 0.227 to 0.950), and reading/writing distance ≥ 30 cm (OR = 0.505, 95% CI: 0.270 to 0.944) were significant protective factors against incident myopia. Near-work time ≥28 h per week was a significant risk factor (OR = 2.579, 95% CI: 1.314 to 5.061). Parental myopia, age at the start of primary school, continuous reading/writing for ≥1 h, sleep duration per week <49 h, and one or more dietary biases were not significant risk factors (P > 0.05). Conclusion A more hyperopic baseline refraction, more time spent outdoors, and longer writing/reading distance were protected against myopia onset, while more near-work time was a risk factor.
General Methods for the Generation of Seamless Procedural Cities

Procedural generation as a concept is as old as computer graphics. It is usually defined as a method for creating data algorithmically as opposed to manually. Work in this area often revolves around noise functions and large degrees of randomness, which works well for chaotic structures and for generating natural environments, but it does not always suit more sophisticated and coherent environments such as interiors. This thesis proposes some new approaches for procedural generation, specifically on the subject of cities. Many of the solutions discussed are applicable in other areas of procedural generation where order and coherency is important as well. Work on procedural cities has been done before, but the scope has usually been limited to one or a few aspects of the city. This project combines several of these previously explored areas and several new ones into a composite whole. (Less)