Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
BIOANALYTICAL METHOD FOR THE QUANTITATIVE ESTIMATION OF FROVATRIPTAN IN RABBIT PLASMA BY LC-MS/MS AND ITS APPLICATION TO A PHARMACOKINETIC STUDY

Liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry was used to develop a simple, sensitive and rapid method for the quantitative determination of frovatriptan in rabbit plasma using frovatriptan d3 as internal standard (IS). Chromatographic separation was performed on C18 column using a mobile phase composed of 5 mM ammonium formate (pH 3.0) and acetonitrile (60:40, v/v) at flow rate of 0.5 mL/min. Analtyte and the IS were extracted form plasma by a simple liquid– liquid extraction procedure. Frovatriptan and frovatriptan d3 were detected with proton adducts at m/z 244.0213.2 and 247.1231.1 in multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) positive mode, respectively. The method was validated with the correlation coefficients of (r 2 ) ≥ 0.9963 over a linear concentration range of 5.00–12000.00 pg/mL. The method demonstrated intra and inter–day precision within 0.82 to 3.48% and 0.38 to 1.14% and accuracy within 97.23 to 100.32% and 97.79 to 100.91 % for frovatriptan. This method was successfully applied to a pharmacokinetic study in 6 rabbits.
A Defence of Poetry

ACCORDING to one mode of regarding those two classes of mental action, which are called reason and imagination, the former may be considered as mind contemplating the relations borne by one thought to another, however produced, and the latter, as mind acting upon those thoughts so as to color them with its own light, and composing from them, as from elements, other thoughts, each containing within itself the principle of its own integrity. The one is the [Greek], or the principle of synthesis, and has for its objects those forms which are common to universal nature and existence itself; the other is the [Greek], or principle of analysis, and its action regards the relations of things simply as relations; considering thoughts, not in their integral unity, but as the algebraical representations which conduct to certain general results. Reason is the enumeration of qualities already known; imagination is the perception of the value of those qualities, both separately and as a whole. Reason respects the differences, and imagination the similitudes of things. Reason is to imagination as the instrument to the agent, as the body to the spirit, as the shadow to the substance. 1
Spatial Dependency of Buruli Ulcer Disease on Geological Settings in Ghana

Tropical environments are known for their prevalence of a number of geochemical diseases. These are related to the very nature of their geological settings. Little research has, however, been conducted in geosciences in Ghana to investigate the link between geological settings and Buruli Ulcer (BU) disease. This research therefore examined the effect of geological settings on the spread of BU disease caused by Mycobacterium Ulcerans (MU) in the Upper Denkyira West District (UDWD), Amansie West District (AWD) with Tarkwa Nsuaem Municipality (TNM) as a case control study area. Geological maps of the study areas were extracted from the geological map of Ghana. Epidemiological data of BU disease collected from the National Buruli Ulcer Control Programme, district hospitals and from fieldwork were overlaid on geological maps of the study areas. Spatial analysis was then performed to identify the relationship between geological settings and BU disease spread in the study areas. Twenty-seven (27) communities were found to have cases of BU in the three study areas. Results also show that districts underlain by Birimian meta-sedimentary rock units which mainly contain minerals like of pyrites and arsenopyrites are more susceptible to BU disease than districts underlain by Tarkwaian siliciclastics and Birimian meta-volcanic rocks. This research thus offers an opportunity to link geological settings and BU disease as well as contributes to public health and environmental management in the study areas.
Strongly minimal groups in o-minimal structures

We prove Zilber's Trichotomy Conjecture for strongly minimal expansions of two-dimensional groups, definable in o-minimal structures: Theorem. Let M be an o-minimal expansion of a real closed field, (G;+) a 2-dimensional group definable in M, and D = (G;+,.) a strongly minimal structure, all of whose atomic relations are definable in M. If D is not locally modular, then an algebraically closed field K is interpretable in D, and the group G, with all its induced D-structure, is definably isomorphic in D to an algebraic K-group with all its induced K-structure.
THE FIRST DNA PHYLOGENY OF FOUR SPECIES OF MESOBUTHUS (SCORPIONES, BUTHIDAE) FROM EURASIA

Abstract The first molecular phylogeny is presented for four species of the scorpion genus Mesobuthus, based on DNA sequences of three gene fragments (two mitochondrial and one nuclear protein coding gene, ∼1 kb). The inferred phylogeny based on a pooled maximum likelihood analysis revealed a clear deep splitting between the “western clade” consisting of M. gibbosus and M. cyprius (Greece/Anatolia, Cyprus) and the “eastern clade” consisting of M. eupeus and M. caucasicus (Anatolia/Central Asia). The species M. caucasicus (recently placed in the genus Olivierus Farzanpay 1987) groups monophyletically within Mesobuthus; thus, the genus Olivierus is synonymized here with Mesobuthus. Sequences of M. eupeus and M. caucasicus sampled mainly from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are highly structured, indicating the possible existence of multiple species.
Comparison of hemodynamic effects of epinephrine ( 1 : 200000 ) infiltration with or without lignocaine in endonasal endoscopic dacryocystorhinostomy

Background Obtaining adequate hemostasis is of utmost importance during surgery to improve the surgical field. Aims and Objectives The objective of this study is to determine the hemodynamic and haemostatic effects of same concentration of epinephrine with or without local anesthetic used during Endonasal Endoscopic Dacryocystorhinostomy (EE-DCR). Material and Methods Prospective, randomized study was undertaken on sixty patients selected for endonasal endoscopic dacryocystorhinostomy under general anaesthesia. Group A received 8-10ml of epinephrine 1:200,000 with Lidocaine and Group B received 8-10ml of epinephrine 1:200,000 with normal saline. Results In our study we found a statistically significant increase in SBP, DBP, MAP, HR from baseline value in group B with the value reaching a peak at around 5 min and then the parameters start normalizing towards baseline over several minutes. Whereas in case of group A patients, there was no significant changes in baseline values except a mild decrease in all parameters including SBP, DBP, MAP and HR. Conclusions The quality of surgical field was comparable in both groups without any significant differences. Addition of lignocaine to the epinephrine attenuates the cardiovascular side effects of epinephrine without affecting the visualization of the surgical field.
Automated Methods for Webpage Usability & Accessibility Evaluations

Because of the rapid growth of the web and its users, web usability and accessibility become more and more important. This chapter describes two automated methods for evaluating usability/accessibility of webpages. The first method, for usability evaluation, is based on interaction logging and analyses, and the second method, for accessibility evaluation, is based on machine learning. In the following Sections 2 and 3, the two methods are described respectively. Several methods have been proposed and developed for usability evaluation based on user interaction logs. Interaction logs can be recorded by computer logging programs (automated logging) or by human evaluators (observational logging). Analysis methods and tools for the former type of logs are well summarized by Ivory (Ivory & Hearst, 2001; Ivory, 2003), and those for the latter type of logs have also been developed (for example, by Qiang (Qiang et al., 2005)). Our method is for analyzing former type of logs. In the survey by Ivory, analysis methods for automatically captured log files for WIMP (Window, Icon, Menu and Pointing device) applications and web applications are categorized in terms of their approaches including metric-based, pattern-based, task-based and inferential ones. Some of the methods with the task-based approach compare user interaction logs for a test task with desired (expected) interaction sequences for the task and detect inconsistencies between the user logs and the desired sequences (Kishi, 1995; Uehling & Wolf, 1995; Okada & Asahi, 1996; Al-Qaimari & Mcrostie, 1999; Helfrich & Landay, 1999; Zettlemoyer et al., 1999). The inconsistencies are useful cues for finding usability problems: for example, an evaluator can find that users selected some unexpected link on a webpage when another link on the page was expected for the test task and that the link selected by the users may have some usability problem in its design (labeling, layout, etc.). The existing methods require widget-level logs for the comparisons. For example, the method proposed by Okada (Okada & Asahi, 1996) requires interaction logs to include data of widget properties such as widget label, widget type, title of parent window, etc. This requirement degrades independency and completeness of the methods in logging user interactions with systems under evaluation. Section 2 in this chapter describes our method that detects inconsistencies between user logs and desired sequences based on logs of clicked points ((x, y) coordinate values). Coordinate values of clicked points can be easily and fully logged independently of what widgets are clicked on. Several existing methods have also
Attribute and Identity Based Face Image Retrieval

: Large-scale content-based face image retrieval is an enabling technology for many emerging applications. The existing system presents a novel approach to face recognition which considers both shape and texture information and attribute information to represent face images. Existing system contain semantic cues of the face photos to improve content-based face image retrieval by constructing semantic codewords for efficient large-scale face retrieval. Here, I propose to combine identity based face image retrieval with the existing system. Proposed system contains CBIR concepts like indexing, clustering, searching (attribute searching and identity based searching) and face image retrieval. Most of the systems related to existing system are suffering from low recall problems. One solution for this problem is to construct semantic codewords by using extra textual information. So I propose the identity based face image retrieval concept.
Learning Efficient Omni-Directional Capture Stepping for Humanoid Robots from Human Motion and Simulation Data

Two key questions in the context of stepping for push recovery are where to step and how to step there. In this paper we present a fast and computationally light-weight approach for capture stepping of full-sized humanoid robots. To this end, we developed an efficient parametric step motion generator based on dynamic movement primitives (DMPs) learnt from human demonstrations. Simulation-based reinforcement learning (RL) is used to find a mapping from estimated push parameters (push direction and intensity) to step parameters (step location and step execution time) that are fed to the motion generator. Successful omni-directional capture stepping for 89 % of the test cases with pushes from various directions and intensities is achieved with minimal computational effort after 500 training iterations. We evaluate our method in a dynamic simulation of the ARMAR-4 humanoid robot.
Growing Grassroots Innovations: Exploring the Role of Community-Based Initiatives in Governing Sustainable Energy Transitions

The challenges of sustainable development (and climate change and peak oil, in particular) demand system-wide transformations in sociotechnical systems of provision. An academic literature around coevolutionary innovation for sustainability has recently emerged as an attempt to understand the dynamics and directions of such sociotechnical transformations, which are termed ‘sustainability transitions’. This literature has previously focused on market-based technological innovations. Here we apply it to a new context of civil-society-based social innovation and examine the role of community-based initiatives in a transition to a low-carbon sustainable economy in the UK. We present new empirical research from a study of the UK's Transition Towns movement (a ‘grassroots innovation’) and assess its attempts to grow and influence wider societal sociotechnical systems. By applying strategic niche management theory to this civil society context, we deliver theoretically informed practical recommendations for this movement to diffuse beyond its niche: to foster deeper engagement with resourceful regime actors; to manage expectations more realistically by delivering tangible opportunities for action and participation; and to embrace a community-based, action-oriented model of social change (in preference to a cognitive theory of behaviour change). Furthermore, our study indicates areas where theory can be refined to better explain the growth and broader impacts of grassroots innovations—namely, through a fuller appreciation of the importance of internal niche processes, by understanding the important role of identity and group formation, and by resolving how social practices change in grassroots innovations.
High-throughput process development and scale-up of an intermediate purification step for recombinant insulin

This Application note describes high-throughput process development with PreDictorTM plates and Assist software to develop the intermediate purification step of insulin derived from E. coli. This revealed the ion exchanger CaptoTM SP ImpRes to be the most promising medium (resin) and identified binding and elution conditions that gave good separation of insulin from truncated forms of insulin. Further column studies using 1 mL TricornTM columns and ÄKTATM avant 25 chromatography system confirmed that the developed conditions were robust. Finally, the method was scaled up, first 40-fold and then 400-fold, with both purity and recovery exceeding 90%. This figure is a good basis for achieving the required purity (98% or more) in a following polishing step not described here.
Anti-candida biofilm properties of Cameroonian plant extracts

Candida infections can be superficial, invasive or disseminating. The virulence of Candida species has been attributed to several factors, including the promotion of hyphae and biofilm formation, adherence to host tissues, and response to environmental changes and morphogenesis. Resistance to many clinically used antifungal agents has led to the need to identify new compounds and drugs for therapeutic use. Therefore, the objective of this study was to evaluate the anti-candida and anti-biofilm activities of some Cameroonian plant extracts against Candida albicans and Candida glabrata. The biofilm biomass of C. albicans and C. glabrata was quantified using the violet crystal protocol. A microbroth dilution method was used to determine the minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs), and a biofilm enumeration assay was employed to determine the minimum biofilm inhibition concentrations (MBICs) and minimum biofilm eradication concentrations (MBECs) of the extracts. The absorbance value of the biofilm biomass of C. albicans was 0.14±0.01 and that of C. glabrata was 0.51±0.06. Eugenia uniflora and Terminalia mantaly aqueous leaf extracts showed MICs of 0.3125 and 0.625 mg/mL for C. glabrata, while the MICs for C. albicans were 10 and 0.625 mg/mL, respectively. The MBIC and MBEC of C. glabrata of E. uniflora aqueous leaf extracts were 0.125 and 0.5 mg/mL, respectively, and 0.45 and >1.8 mg/mL, respectively for T. mantaly. The results of this study demonstrated the in vitro anti-biofilm potential of T. mantaly and E. uniflora aqueous leaf extracts against Candida biofilm. Nonetheless, further analyses of a larger number of Candida isolates and plant extracts are needed to validate these findings. Key words: Anti-candida, anti-biofilm, Eugenia uniflora, Terminalia mantaly.
The horizontal stability of a ball bouncing upon a vertically vibrated concave surface

In experiments a ball will not bounce repeatedly in the same place upon a vertically vibrating horizontal surface due to imperfections in the ball and the surface. Consequently, a concave surface is often used to restrain the horizontal movement of the ball while measurements are made of its vertical motion. Here we use two numerical-simulation models to study the horizontal motion of an inelastic sphere bouncing chaotically under gravity upon a vertically vibrated parabolic surface. Both models predict the same generic features. For almost flat surfaces the ball makes wandering horizontal excursions and as the surface curvature is increased the horizontal motion of the ball becomes more and more constrained. However, the horizontal motion may exhibit intermittent, abrupt and erratic bursts of very large amplitude. These bursts occur with a probability which increases extremely rapidly with surface curvature such that there is an effective threshold curvature for their observation within a finite sequence of bounces. We study the behaviour of this intermittency as a function of the vibration amplitude, of the surface curvature and of the normal coefficient of restitution.
Growth Standards for Urban Infants in a High Altitude Area of Saudi Arabia

There is a need to establish up-to-date growth standards for use in assessing the adequacy of children’s growth in every population, especially those with peculiar environmental chal-lenges. The purpose of this study is to update growth reference values for the normal population of urban infants (0-24 months) from the high altitude area of Southwestern Saudi Arabia, and to compare these values with the current international standards established by the US Na-tional Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). Anthropometric measurements of weight, length and head circumference were obtained from 5,426 healthy, well-fed infants of both sexes, ages 0 – 24 months, drawn from all socio-economic strata in Abha, Saudi Arabia in a cross-sectional study conducted between March 1998 and December, 2004. Values were corrected for age in the form of centile bands, and compared with the NCHS standards. Then, 5th, 10th, 25th, 50th, 75th, 90th and 95th local percentiles were calculated from such values using the frequencies procedure. centile curves of wt/age, length/age and HC/age. Abha infants of both sexes are significantly lighter (p<0.0001), shorter (p<0.0001) and have smaller head circumferences (p<0.0001) than NCHS reference values. About 77.5%, 54.4% and 73.1% of infants fell below the 10th centile for weight, length and head circumference respectively. This study establishes current and generally applicable growth reference values for the high altitude urban infants of Aseer region to be used in infant growth monitoring and promo-tion.
Predation, Competition, and the Composition of Larval Anuran Guilds

Experimental manipulations of densities of the predatory salamanders Notophthalmus viridescens dorsalis and Ambystoma tigrinum significantly altered relative abundances of six species of larval anurans in 22 artificial—pond communities. One competitively inferior anuran, Hyla crucifer, was virtually excluded from predator—free control communities but survived best and occurred at greater relative abundances in communities containing high densities of Notophthalmus. A second competitively inferior species, Hyla gratiosa, survived best at intermediate intensities of predation. Each of four competitively superior species (Scaphiopus holbrooki, Rana sphenocephala, Bufo terrestris, and Hyla chrysocelis) exhibited inverse relationships between relative abundance and Notophthalmus density. Ambystoma eliminated the entire anuran guild from tank communities and had a much greater per capita impact on anuran guild composition than did Notophthalmus. In most anuran species, maximum and mean mass at metamorphosis were positively correlated with predator density, suggesting an inverse relationship between intensities of predation and competition among tadpoles. Low growth rates of most anuran species in the absence of predators were correlated with high abundances of superior competitors. These results indicate that predators mediated interspecific competition among larval anurans. Intermediate values of Notophthalmus density maximized the total production of anuran metamorph biomass. Biomass of metamorphs of each species varied in a species—specific manner with predation. The propensity of Rana sphenocephala for overwintering as tadpoles following a season of growth was also related to predator density. Laboratory feeding experiments demonstrated that at least two competitively superior anurans, Scaphiopus holbrooki and Bufo terrestris, were especially vulnerable to predation by salamanders. This suggested that Notophthalmus may preferentially remove competitively superior anurans from pond communities, allowing competitively inferior anurans to persist and to complete development successfully at moderate to high predator densities.
The evaluation of an individual burnout intervention program: The role of inequity and social support

This study evaluated a 5-week, group-based burnout intervention program among direct-care professionals working with mentally disabled individuals. Equity theory was used as the theoretical framework. The main objective of the program was to reduce perceptions of inequity in the relationship with the organization and with the recipients of care by increasing the fit between the professional's goals and expectations and the actual work situation. One experimental group and 2 control groups participated. All 3 groups filled out 3 questionnaires: before the program started, 6 months later, and 1 year later. Individual absenteeism rates were assessed for 1 year before and after the program. Results showed that in the experimental group burnout, absence, and deprived feelings diminished compared with the control groups. The most profound effects were among participants who could draw on social resources to benefit from the intervention.
Interannual variability of glacier basal pressure from a 20 year record

Abstract Basal pressure has been recorded at the Svartisen Subglacial Laboratory, northern Norway, for 20 years, and is measured by load cells installed at the ice–rock interface under ~200m of glacier ice. Synchronous pressure variations between load cells are investigated as evidence of stress redistribution and hydrological bed connectivity. A running Pearson correlation is used to study the temporal variation in the response of several sensors. By studying the nature of this correlation as well as the correlation between sensor pairs, it is possible to investigate the evolution of the degree of synchronous response, and to some extent basal connectivity, at the glacier bed. Persistent seasonal variations associated with the melt season are observed throughout the measurement period, indicating dependence on surface hydrological forcing. Overlying this pattern, specific years with longer periods of positive and negative correlation of pressure between sensors are presented to show contrasting interannual variability in basal pressure. An anticorrelated connectivity is associated with a local increase in the rate of daily subglacial discharge, and is caused by load transfer or passive cavity opening. Stable weather appears to enhance connectivity of the sensors, which is attributed to the development of a persistent drainage system and stress redistribution.