Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Transient climate simulations of the deglaciation 21-9 thousand years before present (version 1) - PMIP4 Core experiment design and boundary conditions

Abstract. The last deglaciation, which marked the transition between the last glacial and present interglacial periods, was punctuated by a series of rapid (centennial and decadal) climate changes. Numerical climate models are useful for investigating mechanisms that underpin the climate change events, especially now that some of the complex models can be run for multiple millennia. We have set up a Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project (PMIP) working group to coordinate efforts to run transient simulations of the last deglaciation, and to facilitate the dissemination of expertise between modellers and those engaged with reconstructing the climate of the last 21 000 years. Here, we present the design of a coordinated Core experiment over the period 21–9 thousand years before present (ka) with time-varying orbital forcing, greenhouse gases, ice sheets and other geographical changes. A choice of two ice sheet reconstructions is given, and we make recommendations for prescribing ice meltwater (or not) in the Core experiment. Additional focussed simulations will also be coordinated on an ad hoc basis by the working group, for example to investigate more thoroughly the effect of ice meltwater on climate system evolution, and to examine the uncertainty in other forcings. Some of these focussed simulations will target shorter durations around specific events in order to understand them in more detail and allow for the more computationally expensive models to take part.
Empirical evidence on the stabilizing role of fiscal and monetary policies in the US

I apply SVAR tools and counterfactual simulation techniques to study the (de)stabilizing role of monetary and fiscal policies in the US, using quarterly data from 1955 to 2005. Monetary and fiscal disturbances contributed much less to output volatility in the second part of the sample. This result stems from their smaller impact and, to a lesser extent, from a decline in the respective variance. Systematic taxes net of transfers were the most important stabilizing force in the course of postwar recessions until the eighties. Monetary policy had a comparatively smaller role in offsetting the downturns in activity at those episodes. Net taxes have, however, suffered a marked lost of effectiveness in recent decades.
Reconstruction methods for sound visualization based on acousto-optic tomography

The visualization of acoustic fields using acousto-optic tomography has recently proved to yield satisfactory results in the audible frequency range. The current implementation of this visualization technique uses a laser Doppler vibrometer (LDV) to measure the acousto-optic effect, that is, the interaction between sound and light, over an aperture where the acoustic field is to be investigated. By identifying the relationship between the apparent velocity of the LDV and the Radon transform of the acoustic field, it is possible to reconstruct the sound pressure distribution of the scanned area using tomographic techniques. The filtered back projection (FBP) method is the most popular reconstruction algorithm used for tomography in many fields of science. The present study takes the performance of the FBP method in sound visualization as a reference and investigates the use of alternative methods commonly used in inverse problems, e.g., the singular value decomposition and the conjugate gradient methods. A generic formulation for describing the acousto-optic measurement as an inverse problem is thus derived, and the performance of the numerical methods is assessed by means of simulations and experimental results.
A Post-Harvest Prediction Mass Loss Model for Tomato Fruit Using A Numerical Methodology Centered on Approximation Error Minimization

Due to its nutritional and economic value, the tomato is considered one of the main vegetables in terms of production and consumption in the world. For this reason, an important case study is the fruit maturation parametrized by its mass loss in this study. This process develops in the fruit mainly after harvest. Since that parameter affects the economic value of the crop, the scientific community has been progressively approaching the issue. However, there is no a state-of-the-art practical model allowing the prediction of the tomato fruit mass loss yet. This study proposes a prediction model for tomato mass loss in a continuous and definite time-frame using regression methods. The model is based on a combination of adjustment methods such as least squares polynomial regression leading to error estimation, and cross validation techniques. Experimental results from a 50 fruit of tomato sample studied over a 54 days period were compared to results from the model using a second-order polynomial approach found to provide optimal data fit with a resulting efficiency of ~97%. The model also allows the design of precise logistic strategies centered on post-harvest tomato mass loss prediction usable by producers, distributors, and consumers.
Aflatoxins content and risk assessment from Spanish infant cereals

Aflatoxins (AFB1, AFB2, AFG1 and AFG2) are immunosuppressant, mutagenic, teratogenic and carcinogenic agents with a widespread presence in foodstuffs. Since human exposure to aflatoxins occurs primarily by contaminated food intake, and given the greater susceptibility of infants to their adverse effects, the quantification of these mycotoxins in infant food based on cereals is of relevance. Aflatoxins levels were determined in ninetyone Spanish infant cereals classified in terms of nonand organically produced and several types from ten different manufactures, using a extraction procedure followed by inmunoaffinity column clean-up step and High Pressure Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) with fluorescence detection (FLD) and post-column derivatization (Kobra Cell system). Daily aflatoxin intake was also assessed. The preliminary analysis revealed a noticeable detected infant cereal samples for total aflatoxin (81 %), corresponding to a 64 %, 39 %, 65 % and 43 % for AFB1, AFB2, AFG1 and AFG2. Lower aflatoxin values (median, Q1;Q3) in conventional infant cereal (n=74, AFB1: <LOD (n.d.;0.019), AFB2: n.d. (n.d;0.011), AFG1: <LOD (n.d.;0.004), and AFG2: n.d. (n.d.;<LOD) and AFtotal: 0.014 (<LOD;0.035 μg kg) in comparison with infant cereal ecologically produced (n=17, AFB1: 0.022 (0.016;0.212), AFB2: n.d. (n.d;0.027), AFG1: 0.020 (0.014;0.053), and AFG2: 0.007 (n.d.;0.024) and total AF: 0.047 (0.030;0.311 μg kg) were found. In addition, five organic formulations (3.112, 1.981, 0.943, 0.471 and 0.212 μg kg) exceeded European AFB1 legislation (0.10 μg kg) versus two conventional cereals (0.346 and 0.117 μg kg). According to the type of infant cereal, cereals with cocoa provided the highest aflatoxin levels, gluten-free and cereals with dehydrated fruits were in a intermediate level and milkor honeybased cereals and multicereals contained the lowest levels. With the exception of non-compliant cocoa based organic formulation, none of the infant cereals analyzed provides a higher intake of 1 ng kg 1 body weight per day, suggesting that infants fed on infant cereals are exposed to low health hazard. Nevertheless, manufactures are called for continued efforts to routinely monitor and more careful selection of raw material to minimize aflatoxin levels in these infant foods.
APPLICATION OF k- NEAREST NEIGHBOUR CLASSIFICATION IN MEDICAL DATA MINING IN THE CONTEXT OF KENYA

Medical data is an ever-growing source of information from hospitals in form of patient records. When mined, the information hidden in these records is a huge resource bank for medical research. This data contains hidden patterns and relationships, which can lead to better diagnosis. Unfortunately, discovery of these patterns and relationships often goes unexploited. Studies have been carried out in medical diagnosis to predict heart diseases, lungs diseases, and various tumors based on the past data collected from patients. However, they are mostly limited to domain-specific systems that predict diseases restricted to their area of operations. In retrospect, the performance of the k-nearest neighborhoods (k-NN) classifier is highly dependent on the distance metric used to identify the k nearest neighbors of the query points. The standard Euclidean distance is commonly used in practice. This study uses vast storage of information so that diagnosis based on historical data can be made. It focuses on computing the probability of occurrence of a particular ailment by using a unique algorithm. This k-NN algorithm increases the accuracy of such diagnosis. The algorithm can be used to enhance the automated diagnoses, which include diagnosis of multiple diseases showing similar symptoms. To validate the experimental results, a hypothesis was tested for the following variables: accidents, age, allergies, blood pressure, smoking habit, total cholesterol, diabetes and hypertension, family history of heart disease, obesity, and lack of physical activity. It was evident that there was a strong relationship between the above variables to the causes of common chronic diseases like: heart ailment, diabetes and cancer. Key words: k-NN, classification, algorithm
Influence of alpha 1 glycoprotein acid concentrations and variants on atazanavir 1 pharmacokinetics in HIV-infected patients included in ANRS 107 trial 2 3

1 Clinical Pharmacy, Hôpital Bicêtre, AP-HP, France, 2 INSERM, U738, Paris, France ; 7 Université Paris 7, UFR de Médecine, Paris, France; AP-HP, Hôpital Bichat, UF de 8 Biostatistiques, Paris, France, 3 Biochemistry, Hôpital Bicêtre, AP-HP, France, 4 Department of 9 immunology, Hôpital Georges Pompidou, AP-HP, France, 5 Inserm SC10, Villejuif, France, 6 10 Department of infectious diseases, Hôpital Saint Antoine, AP-HP, Paris, France 11
Pedigree analysis of an ostrich breeding flock

Pedigree records, maintained from 1978 to 2005 at the Oudtshoorn Research Farm, South Africa, of 40 074 birds of a pair-breeding ostrich flock were used to estimate the effective number of founders (fe), the effective number of ancestors (fa), the effective population size and the effective genome equivalents (fg) under random mating, to assess the genetic variability present in the population. The average level of completeness of the pedigrees was high (99.3%) in the first generation, and the average level of inbreeding (F), calculated from the pedigrees, was 0.51%. The reference population was defined as the 39 784 birds hatched from 1990 to 2005. The estimated measures of variability were fg = 47.3, fe = 59 and fa = 58, with an fe/fa ratio of 1.02. The numbers of ancestors responsible for 100%, 50% and 20% of the genes in the reference population were 254, 21 and 6, respectively. The largest individual contribution to the population hatched from 1990 to 2005 was from a male that was responsible for 4.85% of the genetic variability. The generation interval for the four selection pathways – calculated as the average age of parents when offspring that were kept for reproduction were born – were sire to son (7.74 ± 4.92), sire to daughter (7.77 ± 5.13), dam to son (7.50 ± 4.29) and dam to daughter (7.90 ± 4.92). The average generation interval of the reference population was 7.72 ± 4.79 years. The linear regressions of mean annual individual rate of inbreeding on year of birth for the two distinct periods 1995–2002 and 2003–2005 were 0.08% and -0.07% per year, respectively. The estimate of effective population size (Ne), computed via the increase in the individual rate of inbreeding, was 112.7. Estimates of Ne using the alternative methods of tracing the numbers of generations were 73.6, 177.4 and 95.3 for complete, maximum and equivalent complete generations. The results of this study indicated that the population under study was at an acceptable level of genetic variability. Keywords: Effective number of founders and ancestors, effective population size, level and rate of inbreeding.
Principal component analysis implementation for brainwave signal reduction based on cognitive activity

Human has the ability to think that comes from the brain. Electrical signals generated by brain and represented in wave form. To record and measure the activity of brainwaves in the form of electrical potential required electroencephalogram (EEG). In this study a cognitive task is applied to trigger a specific human brain response arising from the cognitive aspect. Stimulation is given by using nine types of cognitive tasks including breath, color, face, finger, math, object, password thinking, singing, and sports. Principal component analysis (PCA) is implemented as a first step to reduce data and to get the main component of feature extraction results obtained from EEG acquisition. The results show that PCA succeeded reducing 108 existing datasets to 2 prominent factors with a cumulative rate of 65.7%. Factor 1 (F1) includes mean, standard deviation, and entropy, while factor 2 (F2) includes skewness and kurtosis.
The Growth of Interest in Astronomical X-Ray Polarimetry

Astronomical X-ray polarimetry was first explored in the end of the 1960s by pioneering rocket instruments. The craze arising from the first discoveries of stellar and supernova remnant X-ray polarization led to the addition of X-ray polarimeters to early satellites. Unfortunately, the inadequacy of the diffraction and scattering technologies required to measure polarization with respect to the constraints driven by X-ray mirrors and detectors, coupled with long integration times, slowed down the field for almost 40 years. Thanks to the development of new, highly sensitive, compact X-ray polarimeters in the beginning of the 2000s, observing astronomical X-ray polarization has become feasible, and scientists are now ready to explore our high-energy sky thanks to modern X-ray polarimeters. In the forthcoming years, several X-ray missions (rockets, balloons, and satellites) will create new observational opportunities. Interest in astronomical X-ray polarimetry field has thus been renewed, and this paper presents for the first time a quantitative assessment, all based on scientific literature, of the growth of this interest.
A model of success factors for iplementing local e-government in Uganda.

Local e-government enables citizens at all levels to interact with government easily and access services through electronic means. It enables electronic transactions between government departments and the private sector to take place easily and cheaply. Despite these benefits, its implementation in economically and technologically transitioning countries remains problematic. This is largely due to the gap between the existing egovernment implementation models and the local context for these countries. This study attempts to address this problem by describing a model for local e-government implementation in a transitioning country, Uganda. A field study was used to gather requirements for the model. The results are used to extend an existing model in order to describe a suitable one for Uganda. Basing on the results collected from the field, the research recommends that the extended model for local e-government implementation should address the dimensions of financial Resource mobilization, ICT infrastructure, training, sensitization, trust and social political factors. The model was validated in a questionnaire based field study
Extra-Telomeric Effects of Telomerase (hTERT) in Cell Death

Telomeres are heterochromatic structures found at the ends of chromosomes which are involved in the protection of chromosomes from degradation and DNA-repair mechanisms (Moyzis et al., 1988; Shay and Wright, 2004; Wyatt et al., 2010). Discovery of telomeres also solved the “end-replication problem” which was exposed after the observation that the 3’extremity of chromosomes was not completely replicated during each cell cycle. As a consequence telomeres play a fundamental role in chromosomes and the overall genome stability (de Lange, 2005; Martinez and Blasco, 2011; O'Sullivan and Karlseder, 2010; Takai et al., 2003). In mammals telomeres are composed of tandem repeats of the oligonucleotide sequence TTAGGG and bound by a composite structure of proteins named the shelterin complex (de Lange, 2005, 2010; Diotti and Loayza, 2011; Longhese et al., 2012; Martinez and Blasco, 2010; O'Sullivan and Karlseder, 2010). In somatic cells telomeres are shortened after each division cycle and when a critical short length has been reached then the cell replication stops before these cells undergo senescence or apoptosis (Counter, 1996; Deng and Chang, 2007). This mechanism is supposed to be responsible for the “Hayflick limit” which corresponds to the number of times a cell can divide before it stops proliferating (Deng and Chang, 2007; Hayflick, 1965; Hayflick and Moorhead, 1961). The phenomenon of telomeres shortening is directly linked to the ageing process by acting as a mitotic clock and by inducing senescence and/or apoptosis once the Hayflick limit has been reached (Blasco, 2003; Djojosubroto et al., 2003; Goronzy et al., 2006; Liew et al., 2009; Martinez and Blasco, 2010; Shin et al., 2006).
Manage life ’ s ups and downs naturally Nevaton ® Forte Dosage Adults

The use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in pregnancy has recently attracted substantial interest from researchers in Australia. As a result, there has been advancement in our understanding of the nature and drivers of CAM use by Australian pregnant women, as well as a number of novel findings identified which provide a platform for future enquiry. This paper overviews a number of these recent Australian studies and highlights some important considerations and implications of the findings for practitioners, women and policymakers alike. The areas discussed include the impact of CAM use during pregnancy on adverse birth events at a population level, the impact of the model of maternity care upon CAM use during labour and birth, and the need for additional information regarding the safety and effectiveness of CAM use during pregnancy to better inform women’s decision-making.
Assessment of student engagement among junior high school students and associations with self-esteem, burnout, and academic achievement

The aim of the study was to investigate the structure of affective and cognitive engagement using the Student Engagement Instrument (SEI; Appleton, Christenson, Kim, & Reschly, 2006) and to examine the associations to behavioral engagement, as well as student-reported self-esteem, burnout, and academic achievement among Finnish junior high school students. The analyses were carried out in the main sample of 2,485 students, as well as in an independent sample of 821 students. The results showed that the original five-factor structure of the SEI construed along three affective and two cognitive engagement factors fit the current data relatively well. Affective and cognitive student engagement correlated positively with an independent measure of behavioral engagement. Furthermore, affective and cognitive engagement were positively associated with student-reported self-esteem and academic achievement, and negatively with school burnout. The findings provided corroborating evidence for the psychometric properties and utilization of the SEI instrument for assessing the engagement of junior high school students.
The Prevalence of Sexual Partner Concurrency Is Not Correlated with Markers of Poverty or Gender Inequality: An Ecological Analysis

High rates of overlapping sexual relationships (concurrency) are believed to be important in the generation of generalized HIV epidemics in sub-Saharan Africa. Different authors favor socioeconomic, gender-equity or cultural explanations for the high concurrency rates in this region. We performed linear regression to analyze the association between the point-prevalence of concurrency in 15 - 49 years old males and various indicators of socioeconomic status and gender-equity using data from 11 countries surveyed in 1989/1990. We found no meaningful association between concurrency and the various markers of socioeconomic status and gender-equity. This analysis supports the findings of other studies that high concurrency rates in sub-Saharan Africa could be reduced without having to address socioeconomic and gender-equity factors.
Effects of informal eldercare on female labor supply in different European welfare states

Using advanced panel data methods on ECHP (European Community Household Panel) data, female labor force participation at both the intensive and extensive margin is found to be negatively associated with informal caregiving to elderly. The effects of informal caregiving seem to be more negative in the Southern European countries, less negative in the Nordic countries, and in between these extremes in the Central European countries included in the study. That is, not only do women in some countries provide more care, the care they provide also has a stronger negative correlation with the probability of being employed and the number of hours worked. It is argued in this paper that a candidate explanation for the phenomenon of lower marginal effects in countries with more formal care and less pronounced gendered care norms has to do with the degree of coercion in the caring decision.
Investigating the Frequency of Symptomatic Extracranial Artery Stenosis in Patients with Ischemic Stroke Admitted to Imam Khomeini Hospital of Urmia in 2011–2012 and Its Relationship with Cardiovascular Risk Factors

Background and Objective: Stroke is one of the two leading causes of mortality worldwide and leads to 9.7% of the world’s total deaths. Identifying risk factors that increase the likelihood of stroke or the factors that are associated with its occurrence may have an important role in reducing this disease. The aim of this study was to determine the frequency of symptomatic extracranial artery stenosis in patients with ischemic stroke (IS) admitted in Imam Khomeini Hospital of Urmia in 2011–2012 and its relationship with cardiovascular risk factors. Materials and Methods: This is a descriptive-analytic study in which 149 patients admitted in the neurology department of Imam Khomeini Hospital in Urmia, who had been diagnosed with ischemic cerebrovascular accident (CVA), were examined by a neurologist and the findings of disease record, examination, computed tomography scan, and color Doppler ultrasonography were compared, and the patients with symptomatic extracranial stenosis were entered into this study and a pre-prepared questionnaire was completed about their condition. Data were analyzed using SPSS software version 16. Results: The results of this study showed that the prevalence of carotid artery stenosis in patients with stroke is 40.3% and having a history of myocardial infarction (MI) is the only factor associated with an increase in the incidence of carotid artery stenosis in patients with ischemic CVA, and there is no relationship between different risk factors for cardiovascular diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, ischemic heart disease, cigarette smoking, previous CVA, previous transient ischemic attack, and hyperlipidemia and carotid artery stenosis. Conclusion: Patients with a history of MI have a higher incidence of carotid artery stenosis and heart attack as a risk factor for stroke