Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Peripheral Mitochondrial Dysfunction: A Potential Contributor to the Development of Metabolic Disorders and Alzheimer’s Disease

Simple Summary Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive disease, where dementia symptoms gradually worsen. The causes of AD are complex and are characterized by changes in the brain that lead to the accumulation of two proteins, amyloid beta and tau, forming structures called plaques and tangles, respectively. It is challenging to identify the mechanisms for the initiation and progression of AD. Therefore, multiple hypotheses have been proposed regarding its origin, suggesting mitochondrial dysfunction or metabolic disorders, or both, playing a role. The association of metabolic diseases such as diabetes with AD has been widely studied and more recently, emerged as a promising strategy for AD prevention through anti-diabetic intervention. Further, oxidative stress and inflammation derived from peripheral mitochondrial dysfunction have also been suggested as alternative contributors of AD pathogenesis; however, the mechanism is still unknown. In this review, we summarize the possible interactions between metabolic disorders, mitochondrial dysfunction and AD, and, accordingly, future therapeutic strategies that could target peripheral mitochondrial impairment to prevent and/or treat AD. Abstract Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease characterized by loss of function and eventual death of neurons in the brain. Multiple studies have highlighted the involvement of mitochondria in the initiation and advancement of neurodegenerative diseases. Mitochondria are essential for ATP generation, bioenergetics processes, the regulation of calcium homeostasis and free radical scavenging. Disrupting any of these processes has been acknowledged as a major contributor to the pathogenesis of common neurodegenerative diseases, especially AD. Several longitudinal studies have demonstrated type 2 diabetes (T2D) as a risk factor for the origin of dementia leading towards AD. Even though emerging research indicates that anti-diabetic intervention is a promising option for AD prevention and therapy, results from clinical trials with anti-diabetic agents have not been effective in AD. Interestingly, defective mitochondrial function has also been reported to contribute towards the onset of metabolic disorders including obesity and T2D. The most prevalent consequences of mitochondrial dysfunction include the generation of inflammatory molecules and reactive oxygen species (ROS), which promote the onset and development of metabolic impairment and neurodegenerative diseases. Current evidence indicates an association of impaired peripheral mitochondrial function with primary AD pathology; however, the mechanisms are still unknown. Therefore, in this review, we discuss if mitochondrial dysfunction-mediated metabolic disorders have a potential connection with AD development, then would addressing peripheral mitochondrial dysfunction have better therapeutic outcomes in preventing metabolic disorder-associated AD pathologies.
One Hundred Years Ago. Keynes’s A Tract on Monetary Reform

Abstract Keynes’s General Theory is the basis of how we think about fiscal policy today, having displaced the Gladstonian view of what constituted sound finance. His earlier Tract on Monetary Reform, written a century ago, advocated what is now the standard form of monetary policy, varying interest rates to target domestic prices rather than a fixed exchange rate. But it was less influential at the time than was the General Theory. The Tract was also less theoretically innovative, being based on the Cambridge tradition of the quantity theory of money.
Determining the effect and magnitude of advanced footwear technology on female distance running performance

Abstract There is limited work, to date, in which the potential performance-enhancing effects of Advanced Footwear Technology (AFT) in the female elite athlete has been considered. This study aimed to retrospectively explore publicly available race data for a marathon, half-marathon, and 10-km elite events to analyse the effect of AFT, along with athlete and event characteristics, to determine the effect on female running performance. Race performance times for the top 20 female athletes within the world were extracted from 1990 to 2020 (n = 1722), along with athlete and event characteristics from 2010 to 2020 (n = 660). Data for race shoes were available for 655 of the 660 performances. The changes in grouped mean performance times over the years that AFT had been adopted were compared with the grouped mean of the corresponding number of years immediately prior show marathon, half-marathon, and 10-km performance times were 1.7, 1.72, and 1.75% (p < 0.001, pη2 > 0.220) faster during the AFT period. Repeated performance analysis comparing the improvement in race times between the control group and athletes who adopted AFT showed athletes who adopted AFT improved significantly more over the marathon (2.64%, p < 0.001) and half-marathon (1.67%, p < 0.002). Advanced Footwear Technology correlated (r > 0.50) with improvements in the marathon and half-marathon, but not the 10-km. Based on multiple regression modelling, it can be suggested that wearing AFT improves marathon race time by 78 s (0.93%), and half-marathon race time by 28 s (0.71%). Based on these results, we observe a small but meaningful performance-enhancing effect of AFT within elite female athletes.
Efficacy of TUVA a growth biostimulant growth regulator based on plant origin amino acid blend and its impact on the performance of Tomato, Cucumber, and Paprika (Bell pepper) under Greenhouse Conditions

In a greenhouse study on tomato, cucumber, and paprika, the effectiveness of TUVA product, a biostimulant and plant growth regulator manufactured from plant-origin amino acids used as organic fertilizer, was assessed. The goal of this study was to determine whether using the TUVA biostimulant, which is based on soybean and seaweed extracts and contains rich microelements essential for plant growth, can ensure good crop yield and quality in tomato, cucumber, and paprika plants growth and productivity. Over six months, the study was held in Mersin, Turkey, at three distinct sites. We looked at the physiological reactions of tomato, cucumber, and paprika plants that were grown in greenhouses and given TUVA biostimulant treatments. The use of the TUVA biostimulant increased plant height by 15% and biomass by 20%, as well as the number of fruits produced and total yield (up to 20.2%). The findings demonstrated that the TUVA product considerably improved all three crops' tonnage, homogeneous size, fruit quantity, and earliness. The fruits' quality was also improved by the TUVA product, which increased their marketability. The findings demonstrate a substantial positive correlation (R=0.9) between the TUVA product and each of the three crops' properties. The correlation coefficients further demonstrate the significant relationship (p ≤0.05) among variables. According to the trial's findings, the TUVA product has promise as a plant growth regulator for usage in greenhouse environments. It can considerably (p ≤0.05) increase the productivity and quality of tomato, cucumber, and paprika crops, and it is safe to use. According to the findings of this research, TUVA is a promising novel growth biostimulant that has the potential to enhance the performance of tomato, cucumber, and paprika plants cultivated in greenhouse environments. The methods by which TUVA improves plant development and productivity need more investigation, but the results of this study indicate that TUVA is a useful tool for producers who want to raise the yield and quality of their crops.
Simulation research on edge defects of high-speed cutting D6AC high-strength steel

Aiming at the high-speed cutting of D6AC high-strength steel, the forming mechanism of edge defects and the influence of cutting parameters on the degree of edge defect were analyzed by ABAQUS finite element software. The results show that there are three stages: the appearance of negative shear angle, the generation and expansion of crack and the peeling off of part substrate and chip; The cutting force increases first and then decreases during the formation of edge defect; The size of decreases with the increase of cutting speed and increases with the increase of cutting depth.
Miso, fermented soybean paste, suppresses high-fat/high-sucrose diet-induced muscle atrophy in mice

This study investigated the effects of miso, a traditional fermented soybean food in Japan, on muscle mass atrophy. Eight week old male C57BL/6J mice were fed high fat/high sucrose diet with or without miso for 12 weeks. A miso diet increased soleus muscle weights (p<0.05) and reduced intraperitoneal glucose tolerance and insulin tolerance (p<0.05). The miso diet downregulated the Tnfα and Ccl2 expression, related to inflammation, and Trim63 and Fbxo32 expression, related to muscle atrophy, in the soleus muscle (p<0.05). The miso diet increased short-chain fatty acids levels, including acetic, propanoic, and butanoic acids, in the feces, serum, and soleus muscle (p<0.05). According to the LEfSe analysis, the miso diet increased family Prevotellaceae, family Christensenellaceae, family Dehalobacterium, family Desulfitibacter; family Deferribacteraceae, order Deferribacterales, class Deferribacteres; and family Gemmatimonadaceae, order Gemmatimonadetes, and class Gemmatimonadales, whereas the miso diet decreased family Microbacteriaceae, order Micrococcales, class Actinobacteria, and family Lactobacillaceae. Miso suppressed high fat/high sucrose diet induced impaired glucose tolerance, low muscle strength, and muscle atrophy by improving dysbiosis and increasing short-chain fatty acids production and provides new insights into the preventive effects of fermented foods on sarcopenia.
Modelling and inversion of time-lapse seismic data using scattering theory

Waveform inversion methods can be used to obtain high-resolution images of the elastic and acoustic property changes of petroleum reservoirs under production, but remains computationally challenging. Efficient approximations in modelling the wavefield based on scattering approaches are desirable for solving time-lapse inversion problems and to test the settings in which they give accurate predictions. In this thesis, we are concerned with acoustic waveform modelling and inversion in frequency domain with emphasis on first-order scattering methods. Key themes of review and discussion include the derivation of scattering problems using Green’s function techniques; Born approximation, distorted-Born approximation, Distorted Born iterative T-matrix method (DBIT); and the concepts of seismic waveform inversion and its application to different approaches in time-lapse seismic imaging. We employ the Born approximation and distorted-Born to simulate time-lapse synthetic seismograms and test the settings in which these methods are valid by benchmarking them against the exact T-matrix approach. The new distorted-Born approximation presented considers a general heterogeneous reference medium and provides a framework for imaging of regions of time-lapse variation using the baseline survey as a reference and the monitor survey as perturbed to directly estimate the perturbation. This poses a linear inverse scattering problem for which suitable linear and non-linear inversion methods are applicable. Synthetic testing based on different 2D models demonstrate that the new distorted-Born approximation provides accurate predictions of the difference data seismograms, at least in the settings considered while the Born approximation is limited to applications involving small volume and velocity contrasts. The inversion results show that Born inversion (in its limits) and DBIT method sufficiently retrieves the time-lapse velocity changes even in the cases of relatively low signal to noise ratio. Inversion of the difference data (differential approach) not only gives improved results but also proves to be useful and efficient since a single inversion procedure is performed for a pair of seismic experiments and hence computationally less expensive. The DBIT method which considers a dynamic background media and a variational T-matrix approach may be very useful in seismic characterisation of petroleum reservoirs under production and may be more efficient in monitoring of CO2 sequestration. iv
Global Optimality in Representation Learning

A majority of data processing techniques across a wide range of technical disciplines require a representation of the data that is meaningful for the task at hand in order to succeed. In some cases one has enough prior knowledge about the problem that a fixed transformation of the data or set of features can be pre-calculated, but for most challenging problems with high dimensional data, it is often not known what representation of the data would give the best performance. To address this issue, the field of representation learning seeks to learn meaningful representations directly from data and includes methods such as matrix factorization, tensor factorization, and neural networks. Such techniques have achieved considerable empirical success in many fields, but common to a vast majority of these approaches are the significant disadvantages that 1) the associated optimization problems are typically non-convex due to a multilinear form or other convexity destroying transformation and 2) one is forced to specify the size of the learned representation a priori. This thesis presents a very general framework which allows for the mathematical analysis of a wide range of non-convex representation learning problems. The frameii
Effects of Different Toothpastes on the Nanomechanical Properties and Chemical Composition of Resin-Modified Glass Ionomer Cement and Composite Resin Restorations

Purpose: This study evaluates the effects of different toothpastes on the nanohardness and chemical compositions of restorative materials and dental surfaces. Methods: Bovine enamel (n = 72) and dentin (n = 72) blocks were obtained and restored using RMGIC (n = 36) or CR (n = 36) to create the following surfaces: dentin adjacent to RMGIC (DRMGIC), enamel adjacent to RMGIC (ERMGIC), dentin adjacent to CR (DCR), and enamel adjacent to CR (ECR). After restoration, one hemiface of each specimen was coated with an acid-resistant varnish to facilitate the creation of control (C) and eroded (E) sides; the latter were achieved by erosion–abrasion cycles as follows: erosion with 1% citric acid: 5 days, four times for 2 min each day; 1% citric acid/abrasion, two times for 15 s, followed by immersion in a toothpaste slurry for 2 min. Toothpastes without fluoride (WF; n = 12), with sodium fluoride (NaF; n = 12), and with stannous fluoride (SnF2; n = 12) were used for RMGIC or CR. The specimens were analyzed for nanohardness (H), and chemical composition using energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and Raman microscopy. The data were statistically analyzed using two-way repeated measures ANOVA and Tukey’s test (α = 0.05). Results: Lower H values were obtained with NaF for DRMGIC-C, with a statistically significant difference from the H value obtained with WF (p < 0.05). The calcium and phosphorus concentrations in DCR-E were significantly lower with WF than with the other types of toothpaste (p < 0.05). Fluoride-containing toothpastes are capable of preserving the main chemical components of the dentin adjacent to the restorative materials under erosive–abrasive conditions.
A locally contractive metric for systems of conservation laws

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Optimizing Service Dominant Logic in Enhancing the Tourist Revisit Intention

The pandemic era has changed the way people live their lives. The influence of digitalization exposure to people’s activities affects their willingness in spending their free time. The desire to travel makes people choose tourist destinations that can meet the service criteria they set. This study aims to take advantage of service dominant logic on the tourist revisit intention because tourist destination providers have focused on drawing strategies to increase the number of tourists so that the company stays afloat or even excel. Arguments based on the literatures were presented. The result shows that the current strategies used by tourism destination providers might not be effective and relevant anymore as the tourists in industry 4.0 are not affected by digital marketing through websites and social media. Instead, the tourist revisit intention is highly influenced by the service given that are driven by the service quality and Servicescape. This study implies that the future marketing strategies should be focused on services delivered at tourist destinations. Keywords: service dominant logic, revisit intention, service quality, servicescape
Riding down the Bay: Space‐time clustering of ecological trends

The Chesapeake Bay Program, initiated in 1983, is a regional partnership between several state governments, federal agencies, and advisory groups that is involved in the cleanup and restoration of the Bay. To study the ecological trends in the area, we propose a new data‐driven procedure for optimal selection of tuning parameters in dynamic clustering algorithms, using the notion of a stability probe. We refer to the new procedure as Downhill Riding (DR) because of the dynamics of the clustering stability probe. We study the finite sample performance of DR when clustering benchmark Iris data and synthetic times series, and illustrate the methods using data on water quality in the Chesapeake Bay.
Improved Action Unit Detection Based on a Hybrid Model

Facial action detection and facial expression recognition are two closely intertwined problems in behavior analysis. This paper presents evidence that model architectures designed for facial expression recognition can be seamlessly adapted for the action units detection task, taking advantage of the structural similarity between the two problems. As a sample case, we have adapted the Pyramid crOss-fuSion TransformER (POSTER) model for action unit detection by adjusting the architecture to handle a multilabel problem with one output per action unit. Then, we tuned the training parameters and retrained the model to achieve state-of-the-art performance on two widely used datasets: DISFA and BP4D. The results obtained with a standard 3-fold cross-validation setup show an average F1 score of 67.8% for DISFA and 65.5% for BP4D. These results outperform state-of-the-art models for AU detection, support the effectiveness of the approach, and suggest placing higher efforts on adapting existing architectures to leverage the synergies between facial expression recognition and action unit detection.
The Role of Blood Oxygen Level Dependent Signal Variability in Pediatric Neuroscience: A Systematic Review

Background: As pediatric BOLD Signal Variability (SV) analysis is relatively novel, there is a need to provide a foundational framework that gives researchers an entry point into engaging with the topic. This begins with clarifying the definition of BOLD signal variability by identifying and categorizing the various metrics utilized to measure BOLD SV. Methods: A systematic review of the literature was conducted. Inclusion criteria were restricted to studies utilizing any metric of BOLD SV and with individuals younger than 18 in the study population. The definition of BOLD SV was any measure of intra-individual variability in the BOLD signal. Five databases were searched: Psychinfo, Healthstar, MEDLINE, Embase, and Scopus. Results: A total of 17 observational studies, including male (n = 1796) and female (n = 1324) pediatric participants were included. Eight studies quantified variability as the amount of deviation from the average BOLD signal, seven used complexity-based metrics, three used correlation measures of variability, and one used the structure of the hemodynamic response function. In this study, 10 methods of quantifying signal variability were identified. Associations and trends in BOLD SV were commonly found with age, factors specific to mental and/or neurological disorders such as attention deficit disorder, epilepsy, psychotic symptoms, and performance on psychological and behavioral tasks. Conclusions: BOLD SV is a potential biomarker of neurodevelopmental and neurological conditions and symptom severity in mental disorders for defined pediatric populations. Studies that establish clinical trends and identify the mechanisms underlying BOLD SV with a low risk of bias are needed before clinical applications can be utilized by physicians.
On the Expansion of the Multidimensional Universe

Almost twenty years ago, Riny Huijbregts and I conducted a series of tape-recorded discussions with Noam Chomsky which later appeared as The Generative Enterprise (Chomsky (1982)). One of the topics addressed rather extensively was the issue of treerepresentability of syntactic objects. Lasnik & Kupin (1977) had appeared a few years earlier and Edwin Williams had just published his formalization of Ross' (1967/1986) notion of across-the-board (ATB) rule application in Williams (1978). Here are some passages about the analysis of coordination, the Lasnik & Kupin formalism and related matters:
Protective effect of Allium ochotense Prokh.
 extract against ethanol-induced cytotoxicity

This study aimed to evaluate the antioxidant and hepatoprotective effects of aqueous and 60% ethanol extracts of Allium ochotense Prokh. against alcohol-induced cytotoxicity as well as on the activities of alcohol-metabolic enzymes. Antioxidant effects of the extracts were analyzed using 3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid, 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazl, ferric reducing antioxidant power, and malondialdehyde assays, and found that both extracts exhibited considerable antioxidant activities. Additionally, both extracts showed synergistic effects on the activities of alcohol-metabolic enzymes, such as alcohol dehydrogenase, but not on the activity of aldehyde dehydrogenase. In addition, 2’-7’-dichlorodihydrofluorescein diacetate (DCF-DA) and 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assays revealed that aqueous and 60% ethanol extracts reduced oxidative stress and increased cell viability. Moreover, both extracts regulated the expression of apoptosis-related proteins, namely B-cell lymphoma (BCl-2), BCl-2 associated X (BAX), and pro-caspase-3, in HepG2 cells. In conclusion, aqueous and 60% ethanol extracts of A. ochotense Prokh. might be valuable functional materials derived from natural resources for the prevention of ethanol-induced cytotoxicity.