Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Unveiling the Evidence for the Use of Pulses in Managing Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: A Scoping Review

Management of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a pressing global healthcare challenge. Innovative strategies that integrate superior medical and nutritional practices are essential for holistic care. As such, pulse consumption is encouraged for its potential benefit in reducing hypercholesterolaemia, dyslipidaemia, and triglyceride levels, as well as enhancing glycaemic control. This scoping review aims to assess the depth of evidence supporting the recommendation for pulse consumption in T2DM management and to identify gaps in the existing literature. We conducted a comprehensive search across the databases MEDLINE, Global Health, EMBASE, CINAHL, Web of Science, and the Cochrane Library (up to July 2023). We included population-based studies of any design, and excluded review-style articles. Articles published in languages other than English were also excluded. From the 2449 studies initially identified, 28 met our inclusion criteria. Acute postprandial trials demonstrated improved glucose responses and enhanced insulin responses to pulse-based intervention. Meanwhile, long-term trials reported meaningful improvements in T2DM indicators such as haemoglobin A1C (HbA1c), fasting glucose, fasting insulin, C-peptide, and markers of insulin resistance like homeostatic model assessment (HOMA). Integrating more pulses into the diets of diabetic individuals might offer an efficient and cost-effective strategy in the global initiative to combat T2DM.
Ocean Surveillance with Polarimetric SAR

RÉSUMÉ Une mission clé du ministère de la Défense nationale consiste à assurer la surveillance des eaux canadiennes. Pendant très longtemps, cette tâche a été accomplie grâce à un agencement de vols de patrouille du CP-140 et de rapports de navires de guerre. Récemment, on a prospecté l'utilisation de satellites commerciaux tels que RADARSAT-1 pour la détection de navires. Les futurs satellites commerciaux tels que ENVISAT et RADARSAT-2 auront des modes à polarisation double et à polarisation quadruple. L'exploitation polarimétrique des données SAR permet éventuellement d'obtenir de l'information sur la structure d'une cible. On s'attend à ce que cette information améliore les capacités de détection d'images SAR de navires. Le présent document fait rapport des résultats de plusieurs techniques polarimétriques appliquées à la détection de navires. On a également effectué une étude approfondie de la détectabilité relative des navires dans le cas des canaux à polarisation orthogonale et des canaux copolaires. Les résultats obtenus des méthodes entièrement polarimétriques, comparés à ceux des canaux simples indiquent une meilleure capacité de détection de navires. Comme les résultats présentés ici le montrent, une méthode fournit des renseignements structuraux qui conviennent à la classification. Les cas où des signaux saturés affaiblissent la détection polarimétrique sont analysés.
Biological Characterization of Cleome felina L.f. Extracts for Phytochemical, Antimicrobial, and Hepatoprotective Activities in Wister Albino Rats

The present study aims to explore the phytochemical constitution and biological activities of Cleome felina L.f. (Cleomaceae). C. felina (leaves, stem, and root) extracts (acetone, methanol, and water) were qualitatively assessed for phytochemical presence. Methanolic leaves extract revealed more positive phyto-compounds among all the extracts; further, methanolic leaves extract was evaluated for FTIR, EDX, GCMS, antimicrobial assay, acute toxicity, and paracetamol-induced hepatoprotective activity in Wister albino rats. FTIR and EDX analysis unveiled important functional groups and elements in the leaves. GCMS analysis of methanolic leaves extract exposed 12 active phyto-compounds: major constituents detected were 1-Butanol, 3-methyl-, formate-48.79%; 1-Decanol, 2-ethyl-13.40%; 1,6-Anhydro-β-d-talopyranose-12.49%; Ethene, 1,2-bis(methylthio)-7.22%; Decane-4.02%; 3-Methylene-7, 11-dimethyl-1-dodecene-3.085%; Amlexanox-2.50%; 1,2,3,4-Cyclopentanetetrol, (1α,2β,3β,4α)-2.07%; L-Cysteine S-sulfate-1.84%; n-Hexadecanoic acid-1.70%; and Flucarbazone-1.55%. The antimicrobial assay showed a moderate zone of inhibition against S. aureus, B. cereus, E. coli, P. aeruginosa, C. albicans, and C. glabrata at 100 µL/mL concentration. Additionally, acute toxicity revealed no behavioral sign of the toxic effect. The significant results were obtained for methanolic leaves extract (low-50 and high-100 mg/kg b.wt. dose) for hepatoprotective activity, where it dramatically reduced serum blood biochemical markers (AST, ALT, ALP, Total bilirubin, and cholesterol) and exhibited elevated hepatic antioxidant enzymes (SOD, CAT, and GSH) concentration with lipid peroxidation retardation. To conclude, C. felina methanolic leaves extract ameliorated important phytochemical compounds and showed significant antimicrobial and hepatoprotective efficacy; therefore, utilization of C. felina leaves suggested in pharmacological applications, and in numerous cosmetics, herbicides, and food industries, would be a great scope for future hepatoprotective drug designing.
Spatially explicit estimation of domestic water use in the arid region of northwestern China: 1985–2009

Abstract Determination of the spatial and temporal trends in domestic water use is vital for making adequate and sustainable water management strategies, especially in arid regions. In this study, domestic water-use models considering socio-economic factors were developed to analyse spatial and temporal trends in domestic water use at a resolution of 4 km × 4 km in the arid region of northwestern China in the period 1985–2009. The results indicate that total annual domestic water use increased from 305.34 × 106 m3/year in 1985 to 1188.53 × 106 m3/year in 2009. Per capita domestic water use increased rapidly, especially in urban areas. A spatial disparity in per capita domestic water use and total annual domestic water use was apparent. The pressure of high domestic water use on water resources was found in some river basins, particularly the Shiyang River basin. The presented models can be successfully applied for estimating domestic water use in this region. However, there are several uncertainties due to the lack of data. Despite these uncertainties, the modelling results can provide important information for managers and planners on sustainable water use in this region. Furthermore, these models have the potential to be applied for estimation of future domestic water use in other regions. Editor Z.W. Kundzewicz Citation Guo, B. , Chen, Y.N. , Shen, Y.J., Li, W.H. , and Wu, C.B, 2013. Spatially explicit estimation of domestic water use in the arid region of northwestern China: 1985–2009. Hydrological Sciences Journal, 58 (1), 1–15.
Observations of Albedo and Radiation Balance over Postforest Land Surfaces in the Eastern Amazon Basin

Abstract Regional climatic change, including significant reductions in Amazon Basin evaporation and precipitation, has been predicted by numerical simulations of total tropical forest removal. These results have been shown to be very sensitive to the prescription of the albedo shift associated with conversion from forest to a replacement land cover. Modelers have so far chosen to use an “impoverished grassland” scenario to represent the postforest land surface. This choice maximizes the shifts in land surface parameters, especially albedo (fraction of incident shortwave radiation reflected by the surface). Recent surveys show secondary vegetation to be the dominant land cover for some deforested areas of the Amazon. The characteristics of secondary vegetation as well as agricultural land covers other than pasture have received little attention from field scientists in the region. This paper presents the results of field measurements of radiation flux over various deforested surfaces on a small farm in the.
Economic assessment of climate change impacts on biodiversity, ecosystem services and human well-being : an application to European forest ecosystems

This paper presents one of the first attempts to value climate change impacts on human welfare through assessing altered forest ecosystems and their capability of delivering ecosystem services to humans, The well‐known MA approach is anchored in the valuation exercise, which allows the comprehensive quantification of ecosystem services provided by forest ecosystems and forms the solid ground for economic valuation practice from a microeconomic perspective. This study focuses on a European scale and potential welfare impacts caused by changing climate are assessed across latitudes in Europe and reported in terms of four future storylines developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for each country under consideration. Our results show that climate change induced welfare impacts vary across latitudes depending on the nature of the forest ecosystem services and the storyline where we stand. The economic magnitudes of climate change impact on forest ecosystems may contribute to a better understanding of the potential welfare losses across different regions and to identification of winners and losers as a result of future climate change. This will have important policy implications to reallocate resources among Europe countries to cope with the continuous climate change.
Climbing Technique Evaluation by Means of Skeleton Video Stream Analysis

Due to the growing interest in climbing, increasing importance has been given to research in the field of non-invasive, camera-based motion analysis. While existing work uses invasive technologies such as wearables or modified walls and holds, or focuses on competitive sports, we for the first time present a system that uses video analysis to automatically recognize six movement errors that are typical for novices with limited climbing experience. Climbing a complete route consists of three repetitive climbing phases. Therefore, a characteristic joint arrangement may be detected as an error in a specific climbing phase, while this exact arrangement may not considered to be an error in another climbing phase. That is why we introduced a finite state machine to determine the current phase and to check for errors that commonly occur in the current phase. The transition between the phases depends on which joints are being used. To capture joint movements, we use a fourth-generation iPad Pro with LiDAR to record climbing sequences in which we convert the climber’s 2-D skeleton provided by the Vision framework from Apple into 3-D joints using the LiDAR depth information. Thereupon, we introduced a method that derives whether a joint moves or not, determining the current phase. Finally, the 3-D joints are analyzed with respect to defined characteristic joint arrangements to identify possible motion errors. To present the feedback to the climber, we imitate a virtual mentor by realizing an application on the iPad that creates an analysis immediately after the climber has finished the route by pointing out the detected errors and by giving suggestions for improvement. Quantitative tests with three experienced climbers that were able to climb reference routes without any errors and intentionally with errors resulted in precision–recall curves evaluating the error detection performance. The results demonstrate that while the number of false positives is still in an acceptable range, the number of detected errors is sufficient to provide climbing novices with adequate suggestions for improvement. Moreover, our study reveals limitations that mainly originate from incorrect joint localizations caused by the LiDAR sensor range. With human pose estimation becoming increasingly reliable and with the advance of sensor capabilities, these limitations will have a decreasing impact on our system performance.
Dual Hybrid CP-ABE: How to Provide Forward Security Without a Trusted Authority in Vehicular Opportunistic Computing

The rapid development of the acrlong IoV has placed a heavy burden on the edge server. Conversely, many idle vehicles parked near the vehicle in demand are not utilized. Opportunistic computing of vehicles can organize these idle vehicles to provide computing services, but this also requires a secure data-sharing scheme to offer support. Although the existing ciphertext policy attribute-based encryption (CP-ABE) can provide a secure fine-grained data sharing, they either map the data to an algebra element that cannot be applied in practice due to the limited length, or they are hybrid schemes that cannot satisfy the forward security. In addition, they require a trusted authority (TA), which may be unrealistic in implementation. To cope with these issues, we propose a dual hybrid CP-ABE scheme without a TA for vehicular opportunistic computing (VOC) in this article. We exploit the dual hybrid mechanism to solve the problem of forward security in hybrid schemes and eliminate the TA by combining the characteristics of VOC. Then, we prove the acrlong IND-sCPA and forward security of the scheme. Finally, we evaluate the computation, storage, and communication cost from theoretical and simulation perspectives and compare them with other typical schemes. These results illustrate that the proposed scheme has better efficiency and lower storage and communication cost in general.
Endogenic Phenolic Compounds of Barley as Potential Biomarkers Related to Grain Mycotoxin Production and Cultivar Selection

Simple Summary Barley is the fourth largest cereal crop in the world. Fusarium head blight (FHB) is one of the diseases in barley producing mycotoxins, such as deoxynivalenol (DON), that could affect grain quality as well as human and animal health worldwide. Due to limited reliable biomarkers to identify and develop FHB-resistant cultivars in barley, we investigated the composition of phenolic compounds in ten barley cultivars under clean and FHB-infected conditions. We analyzed free and bound forms of phenolic compounds and identified differences among tested cultivars. Analysis of mycotoxin DON content showed that resistant cultivars produced less compared to susceptible cultivars. In addition, the resistant cultivars showed higher amounts of major phenolic compounds compared to the known susceptible cultivar. The results of this study suggest that phenolic compounds in barley could have a role as potential biomarkers to identify and develop FHB-resistant barley cultivars. Abstract Barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) is the fourth largest cereal crop in the world. One of the most devastating diseases in barley worldwide is Fusarium head blight (FHB) caused by Fusarium graminearum Schwabe. Several mycotoxins are produced by FHB infection, and deoxynivalenol (DON) is one of them responsible for the deterioration of grain quality. The current limited number of reliable molecular markers makes the development of FHB-resistant cultivars rather difficult and laborious. Moreover, there is a limited number of designed specific biomarkers that could distinguish the FHB resistance and mycotoxin accumulation in barley cultivars. This study investigated the phenolic compounds of ten different Canadian barley cultivars, grown in artificially FHB-infected and non-infected field trials. The enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was used to assess the presence of DON in the harvested infected grains of each tested variety. High-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) analysis was performed using both infected and non-infected samples. We identified differences among cultivars tested in non-infected samples through quantitative analysis of free and bound phenolic compounds. The resistant cultivars showed higher amounts of major bound phenolic compounds compared to the susceptible check CDC Bold. Additionally, the FHB-infected cultivars produced significantly higher amounts of sinapic acid (SIN) () and catechin (CAT) in the soluble free form of phenolics in barley compared to the non-infected subjects. This study suggests that phenolic compounds in barley could allow barley breeders to precisely identify and develop FHB-resistant barley germplasm and cultivars.
The lidar ratio derived from sun-photometer measurements at Belsk Geophysical Observatory

The lidar ratios at 500 and 1020 nm were derived from POM 01L sun-sky scanning photometer measurements taken at Belsk Geophysical Observatory (long. 20°47′, lat. 51°50′) in the period from 2002 to 2006. The most frequently occurring lidar ratio values for the study period are 50 sr and 30 sr at 500 nm and 1020 nm, respectively. Calculations of lidar ratios for summer and winter seasons have been made as well. Back trajectory analysis was also performed to final aerosol source of origin.
Ammonium Recovery from Synthetic Wastewaters by Using Zeolitic Mixtures: A Desorption Batch-Study

Resource recovery from wastewater is very important in view of a circular economy approach in the water field. Among the different technologies applied to realize circular economy, an attractive option is the use of nutrient-enriched media that can be utilized as slow-release fertilizers. Zeolites have been re-discovered for their key role in ammonium (NH4+) adsorption from treated wastewater. Although many studies have been carried out to assess the ability of zeolites to adsorb NH4+, only few papers concerning NH4+ desorption from zeolites are available in the literature. Therefore, this study investigated NH4+ desorption from mineralogically different zeolites, before (ZNS and ZNC) and after (ZSS and ZSC) their treatment with sodium chloride. The zeolites differed in mordenite content. The amount of the desorbed NH4+ varied from 78 to 84% of the total NH4+ adsorbed. In particular, the NaCl-treated materials showed the largest desorption (27.6 ± 0.2 mg L−1, and 27.9 ± 0.7 mg L−1, ZSS, and ZSC, respectively) as compared to the untreated zeolites (22.9 ± 0.3 mg L−1, and 24.2 ± 0.3 mg L−1, ZNS, and ZNC, respectively) because of the different affinity of the cations for the zeolite surface. A monomodal pseudo-first-order model best approximated the desorption kinetics, suggesting only one mechanism of NH4+ desorption from zeolites. Such a mechanism is based on the ion exchange between dissolved Na+ and adsorbed NH4+. The desorption kinetics also showed that NH4+ desorbed slower from the NaCl-treated zeolites than the untreated ones. This effect was explained by the different affinity of Na+ and NH4+ for the zeolite surfaces as due to the diverse sizes of the Na+ and NH4+ hydration spheres. By revealing the effect of zeolite mineralogy and surface treatments in the desorption of NH4+, this study can suggest new and effective synthetic strategies for the achievement of cheap new materials to be applied in environmental remediation within a circular economy perspective.
Application of multi‐source waveform inversion to marine streamer data using the global correlation norm

Conventional multi‐source waveform inversion using an objective function based on the least‐square misfit cannot be applied to marine streamer acquisition data because of inconsistent acquisition geometries between observed and modelled data. To apply the multi‐source waveform inversion to marine streamer data, we use the global correlation between observed and modelled data as an alternative objective function. The new residual seismogram derived from the global correlation norm attenuates modelled data not supported by the configuration of observed data and thus, can be applied to multi‐source waveform inversion of marine streamer data. We also show that the global correlation norm is theoretically the same as the least‐square norm of the normalized wavefield. To efficiently calculate the gradient, our method employs a back‐propagation algorithm similar to reverse‐time migration based on the adjoint‐state of the wave equation. In numerical examples, the multi‐source waveform inversion using the global correlation norm results in better inversion results for marine streamer acquisition data than the conventional approach.
Origin of the Sea of Marmara as Deduced from Neogene to Quaternary Paleogeographic Evolution of its Frame

The Sea of Marmara Basin (SMB) is connected to the fully marine Mediterranean by the Dardanelles strait and to the brackish Black Sea by the Thracian Bosporus. This linkage to two different marine realms with contrasting water chemistry has been a prime control on the sedimentary history of the SMB, which in turn was controlled by its tectonics. Isolation from any of these realms resulted in drastic changes in its paleoceanographic conditions and made it a part either of the global ocean system or of a brackish-marine environment, depending on the realm from which the connection was severed. The SMB represents the inundated part of the northwestern Anatolian graben system that resulted from the interaction between the North Anatolian fault (NAF) zone and the present N-S extensional tectonic regime of the Aegean. The geologic history of this basin began during the late Serravallian when the NAF was initiated. The first inundation of the basin coincided in both time and space with this initiation. The invad.
Ion Channel Genes in Painful Neuropathies

Neuropathic pain (NP) is a typical symptom of peripheral nerve disorders, including painful neuropathy. The biological mechanisms that control ion channels are important for many cell activities and are also therapeutic targets. Disruption of the cellular mechanisms that govern ion channel activity can contribute to pain pathophysiology. The voltage-gated sodium channel (VGSC) is the most researched ion channel in terms of NP; however, VGSC impairment is detected in only <20% of painful neuropathy patients. Here, we discuss the potential role of the other peripheral ion channels involved in sensory signaling (transient receptor potential cation channels), neuronal excitation regulation (potassium channels), involuntary action potential generation (hyperpolarization-activated cyclic nucleotide-gated channels), thermal pain (anoctamins), pH modulation (acid sensing ion channels), and neurotransmitter release (calcium channels) related to pain and their prospective role as therapeutic targets for painful neuropathy.
Simple water balance modelling of surface reservoir systems in a large data-scarce semiarid region / Modélisation simple du bilan hydrologique de systèmes de réservoirs de surface dans une grande région semi-aride pauvre en données

Abstract Abstract Water resources in dryland areas are often provided by numerous surface reservoirs. As a basis for securing future water supply, the dynamics of reservoir systems need to be simulated for large river basins, accounting for environmental change and an increasing water demand. For the State of Ceará in semiarid Northeast Brazil, with several thousands of reservoirs, a simple deterministic water balance model is presented. Within a cascade-type approach, the reservoirs are grouped into six classes according to storage capacity, rules for flow routing between reservoirs of different size are defined, and water withdrawal and return flow due to human water use is accounted for. While large uncertainties in model applications exist, particularly in terms of reservoir operation rules, model validation against observed reservoir storage volumes shows that the approach is a reasonable simplification to assess surface water availability in large river basins. The results demonstrate the large impact of reservoir storage on downstream flow and stress the need for a coupled simulation of runoff generation, network redistribution and water use.