Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Light-dependent expression of four cryptic archaeal circadian gene homologs

Circadian rhythms are important biological signals that have been found in almost all major groups of life from bacteria to man, yet it remains unclear if any members of the second major prokaryotic domain of life, the Archaea, also possess a biological clock. As an initial investigation of this question, we examined the regulation of four cyanobacterial-like circadian gene homologs present in the genome of the haloarchaeon Haloferax volcanii. These genes, designated cirA, cirB, cirC, and cirD, display similarity to the KaiC-family of cyanobacterial clock proteins, which act to regulate rhythmic gene expression and to control the timing of cell division. Quantitative RT-PCR analysis was used to examine the expression of each of the four cir genes in response to 12 h light/12 h dark cycles (LD 12:12) in H. volcanii during balanced growth. Our data reveal that there is an approximately two to sixteen-fold increase in cir gene expression when cells are shifted from light to constant darkness, and this pattern of gene expression oscillates with the light conditions in a rhythmic manner. Targeted single- and double-gene knockouts in the H. volcanii cir genes result in disruption of light-dependent, rhythmic gene expression, although it does not lead to any significant effect on growth under these conditions. Restoration of light-dependent, rhythmic gene expression was demonstrated by introducing, in trans, a wild-type copy of individual cir genes into knockout strains. These results are noteworthy as this is the first attempt to characterize the transcriptional expression and regulation of the ubiquitous kaiC homologs found among archaeal genomes.
Effect of indiscriminate use of insecticides on status of pests and their natural enemies on bt cotton

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURAL ENTOMOLOGY VASANTRAO NAIK MARATHWADA KRISHI VIDYAPEETH, PARBHANI Title : Effect of indiscriminate use of insecticides on status of pests and their natural enemies on Bt cotton Name of Student : Shinde Varsha D Reg. No. : 2016A60M Name of Research Guide : Dr. B. V. Bhede The experiment was conducted during Kharif 2017-18 at the Experimental Farm, Department of Agril. Entomology, Vasantrao Naik Marathwada Krishi Vidyapeeth, Parbhani. The experiment was laid out in Randomized Block Design with 10 treatments and 3 replications to study the effect indiscriminate use of insecticides on status of pests and their natural enemies of Bt cotton. The effect of indiscriminate use of insecticides on pests, natural enemies of that pest on Bt cotton was studied by selecting five plants from each plot having size 3.75×5.4m. The observations were recorded 1 day before spraying then 3,7,14 days after spraying. In case of pink bollworm 20 green bolls were selected from each plot and opened these bolls to record the infestation. The insecticides used were imidacloprid 17.8% SL, fipronil 5% SC, lamda-cyhalothin 5% EC, spinosad 45% SC, acephate 75% SP, buprofezin 25% SC, flonicamid 50% WG, acetamiprid 20% SP, spinoterum 11.7% SC, with untreated control. Among the all insecticides flonicamid 50 % WG and buprofezin 25 % SC was superior for the sucking pests of cotton like jassids, aphids, thrips and whiteflies. The rate of reduction of jassids population in imidacloprid 17.8 % SL and lamda-cyhalothrin 5 % EC was lower than other treatments. Lamdacyhalothrin 5 % EC and fipronil 5 % SC gave control of whiteflies after each spraying for 3-7 days, but later on the population increased rapidly as compared to other insecticides. Natural enemies observed predominantly on Bt cotton during Kharif 2017-18 were ladybird beetle and chrysopa. Flonicamid 50 % WG, buprofezin 25 % SC, spinosad 45 % SC and spinoterum 11.7 % SC were more safe for ladybird beetle and chrysopa than other insecticides. Pink bollworm damage was more during this Kharif season. Lamda-cyhalothrin 5 % EC found very effective in reducing population of these bollworms, also spinotrum 11.7 % SC, spinosad 45 % SC found and acephate 75 % SC effective against pink bollworm. Yield losses occurred mostly due to pink bollworm infestation which was highest in untreated control while lamda-cyhalothrin 5 % EC showed highest yield with lowest pink bollworm infestation. Spinoterum 11.7 % SC and spinosad 45 % SC and acephate 75 % SP showed high yield than rest of all treatments.
Effects of suppression of follicle-stimulating hormone secretion on bone resorption markers in postmenopausal women.

CONTEXT It has recently been proposed that the increase in bone resorption after the menopause may not be due principally to estrogen deficiency but rather to the concomitant increase in circulating FSH levels. OBJECTIVE The objective of the study was to test whether suppression of FSH secretion in postmenopausal women reduces levels of bone resorption markers. DESIGN This was a prospective study. SETTING The study was conducted at a clinical research unit. PARTICIPANTS AND INTERVENTIONS Postmenopausal women were treated with a GnRH agonist (leuprolide acetate, 7.5 mg im every 28 d; n = 21) or placebo injections (control; n = 20). Both groups received the aromatase inhibitor, letrozole, 2.5 mg/d, to eliminate variations in endogenous estrogen levels as a confounder. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Serum FSH and bone resorption markers [serum C-terminal telopeptide of type I collagen (CTX) and tartrate-resistant acid phosphatase 5b (TRAP5b)] at d 105 (3.5 months) of treatment as compared with baseline. RESULTS Compared with baseline, serum FSH levels did not change significantly in controls (+6%) but were reduced (-86%, into the premenopausal range) in the GnRH group. Due to the aromatase inhibitor-induced reduction in estrogen production, serum CTX and TRAP5b levels increased significantly in controls (+20 and +10%, respectively). In the GnRH group, suppression of FSH secretion did not reduce serum CTX or TRAP5b levels; rather, both markers also increased in these women (+34 and +15%, respectively; P = 0.161 and 0.266 for comparison of percent changes between groups). CONCLUSIONS This direct interventional study demonstrates that FSH does not regulate bone resorption in postmenopausal women.
Distribution of Accuracy of TRMM Daily Rainfall in Makassar Strait

This research aims to evaluate rainfall estimates of satellite products in regions that have high variations of rainfall pattern. The surrounding area of Makassar Strait have chosen because of its distinctive rainfall pattern between the eastern and western parts of the Makassar Strait. For this purpose, spatial distribution of Pearson’s coefficient correlation and Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) is used to evaluate accuracy of rainfall in the eastern part of Kalimantan Island and the western part of Sulawesi Island. Moreover, we also used the contingency table to complete the parameter accuracy of the TRMM rainfall estimates. The results show that the performance of TRMM rainfall estimates varies depending on space and time. Overall, the coefficient correlation between TRMM and rain observed from no correlation was -0.06 and 0.78 from strong correlation. The best correlation is on the eastern coast of South West Sulawesi located in line with the Java Sea. While, no variation in the correlation was related to flatland such as Kalimantan Island. On the other hand, in the mountain region, the correlation of TRMM rainfall estimates and observed rainfall tend to decrease. The RMSE distribution in this region depends on the accumulation of daily rainfall. RMSE tends to be high where there are higher fluctuations of fluctuating rainfall in a location. From contingency indicators, we found that the TRMM rainfall estimates were overestimate. Generally, the absence of rainfall during the dry season contributes to improving TRMM rainfall estimates by raising accuracy (ACC) in the contingency table.
On Shear Stresses, Temperatures, and the Maximum Magnitudes of Earthquakes at Convergent Plate Boundaries

Apparent coefficients of friction, μ′ , on nine subduction interfaces for which surface heat flux constraints exist fall in the range 0.05≲μ′≲0.07 . Surface heat flux above the maximum depth of thrust‐faulting earthquakes adjusted for radiogenic heat production, QT, falls in a narrow range, implying that the transition from seismic to aseismic slip on the interface takes place at a temperature, TT, that depends upon its depth, zT. For the mean value of QT∼40 mW/m2, TT∼zT×12°C/km. The maximum depth of thrust‐faulting earthquakes, determined from a further 82 profiles of seismicity across subduction zones, exhibits a systematic dependence on convergence rate and the age of the descending plate, which is consistent with a narrow range in QT for these zones also. An analytical expression links μ′ to zT, QT, and the subduction parameters. Application of this relation to the 82 profiles gives μ′=0.07±0.01 . The narrowness of that range can be explained if the primary source of heat on the subduction interface is frictional heating during earthquakes with shear stresses limited by thermal pressurization of pore fluids. Apparent coefficients of friction exhibit insignificant variation with the fraction of the relative motion that is expressed in earthquakes. Either the apparent coefficients of friction for seismic and aseismic slip are indistinguishable or zones with historically low rates of seismicity are prone to large earthquakes that have not been recorded.
Fast Local Rerouting for Handling Transient Link Failures

Link failures are part of the day-to-day operation of a network due to many causes such as maintenance, faulty interfaces, and accidental fiber cuts. Commonly deployed link state routing protocols such as OSPF react to link failures through global link state advertisements and routing table recomputations causing significant forwarding discontinuity after a failure. Careful tuning of various parameters to accelerate routing convergence may cause instability when the majority of failures are transient. To enhance failure resiliency without jeopardizing routing stability, we propose a local rerouting based approach called failure insensitive routing. The proposed approach prepares for failures using interface-specific forwarding, and upon a failure, suppresses the link state advertisement and instead triggers local rerouting using a backwarding table. With this approach, when no more than one link failure notification is suppressed, a packet is guaranteed to be forwarded along a loop-free path to its destination if such a path exists. This paper demonstrates the feasibility, reliability, and stability of our approach
Metric learning for unsupervised phoneme segmentation

Unsupervised phoneme segmentation aims at dividing a speech stream into phonemes without using any prior knowledge of linguistic contents and acoustic models. In [1], we formulated this problem into an optimization framework, and developed an objective function, summation of squared error (SSE) based on the Euclidean distance of cepstral features. However, it is unknown whether or not Euclidean distance yields the best metric to estimate the goodness of segmentations. In this paper, we study how to learn a good metric to improve the performance of segmentation. We propose two criteria for learning metric: Minimum of Summation Variance (MSV) and Maximum of Discrimination Variance (MDV). The experimental results on TIMIT database indicate that the use of learning metric can achieve better segmentation performances. The best recall rate of this paper is 81.8% (20ms windows), compared to 77.5% of [1]. We also introduce an iterative algorithm to learn metric without using labeled data, which achieves similar results as those with labeled data.
Violent Radicalisation and Recruitment to Terrorism: Perspectives of Wellbeing and Social Cohesion of Citizens of Muslim Heritage

After the 7/7 bombings radicalisation became a homegrown issue in the UK with Muslims born and brought up here being responsible for the attacks. This has had a subsequent impact on wellbeing and social cohesion in the UK. It feels the Government’s strategy of tackling radicalisation is ineffective and maybe paradoxically serving to increase recruitment to radical groups. There is limited primary research from a sociological or a psychological perspective on the issue of radicalisation amongst the Muslim community in the UK. Two focus groups with six men and ten women, aged between 22 and 56, were established to determine the meaning of radicalisation to Muslims, gather experiences of the impact of the concept of radicalisation on the wellbeing of the Muslim community, understand more about the sociological and psychological processes that lead to radicalisation and gather in-group perspectives on how to tackle radicalisation as a means to promote social cohesion. Islamophobic media coverage and discrimination affected the wellbeing of the Muslim community resulting in a more orthodox religious identity. Drivers of radicalisation were perceived to include inequalities, and misrepresentation of Islamic teachings. Solutions to tackle radicalisation and promote social cohesion included authentic Islamic education, greater integration and reducing inequalities with greater acceptance by the Muslim community alongside more responsible journalism. Although further work is needed in Muslim communities, there also needs to be work done on non-Muslim communities to further understand the impact of extremism on social cohesion and wellbeing.
Effects of microRNA-21 on the interleukin 12/signal transducer and activator of transcription 4 signaling pathway in asthmatic mice

Objective To study the effect of microRNA-21 (miRNA-21) on the regulation of the interleukin 12 (IL-12)/signal transducer and activator of transcription 4 (STAT4) pathway in the lung tissue of asthmatic mice. Material and methods Forty five male C57BL/6 mice were randomly divided into three groups of 15 mice each: normal control, asthmatic model, and dexamethasone. Our mouse model of allergic asathma was established using OVA sensitization and challenge. Hematoxylin and eosin staining was performed to observe the pathological changes in lung tissue morphology. Both the total cell number and the amount of eosinophils (EOS) in the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) were manually counted. The expression of miRNA-21 was detected by real time quantitative PCR. The expression levels of IL-12 and STAT4 in lung tissue were assayed via western blot, and immunohistochemistry was used to observe the distribution of their expression. Results The expression levels of miRNA-21 as well as the total number of BALF cells and EOS were significantly higher in the asthmatic model group than in the control or dexamethasone groups, with significantly higher amounts found in the dexamethasone group than in the control group. The expression levels of IL-12 and STAT4 proteins were lower in the asthmatic model group than in the control and dexamethasone groups, with a significantly lower expression of IL-12 and STAT4 in the dexamethasone group than in the control group. Conclusions The expression level of miRNA-21 was significantly increased and the expression level of IL-12 and STAT4 proteins was significantly decreased in allergic asthmatic mice compared with normal control mice. These findings suggest a role for miRNA-21 and the IL-12/STAT4 pathway in the development of allergic asthma.
Isothermic hypersurfaces in R^{n+1}

A diagonal metric sum_{i=1}^n g_{ii} dx_i^2 is termed Guichard_k if sum_{i=1}^{n-k}g_{ii}-sum_{i=n-k+1}^n g_{ii}=0. A hypersurface in R^{n+1} is isothermic_k if it admits line of curvature co-ordinates such that its induced metric is Guichard_k. Isothermic_1 surfaces in R^3 are the classical isothermic surfaces in R^3. Both isothermic_k hypersurfaces in R^{n+1} and Guichard_k orthogonal co-ordinate systems on R^n are invariant under conformal transformations. A sequence of n isothermic_k hypersurfaces in R^{n+1} (Guichard_k orthogonal co-ordinate systems on R^n resp.) is called a Combescure sequence if the consecutive hypersurfaces (orthogonal co-ordinate systems resp.) are related by Combescure transformations. We give a correspondence between Combescure sequences of Guichard_k orthogonal co-ordinate systems on R^n and solutions of the O(2n-k,k)/O(n)xO(n-k,k)-system, and a correspondence between Combescure sequences of isothermic_k hypersurfaces in R^{n+1} and solutions of the O(2n+1-k,k)/O(n+1)xO(n-k,k)-system, both being integrable systems. Methods from soliton theory can therefore be used to construct Christoffel, Ribaucour, and Lie transforms, and to describe the moduli spaces of these geometric objects and their loop group symmetries.
Global leadership competencies: a review and discussion

Purpose – From the competency point of view, this article aims to review and discuss existing global leadership and other related literature, and to combine findings and suggestions provided in previous literature in a more integrative framework of global leadership competencies.Design/methodology/approach – The paper reviews and discusses the terminology used in the international global leadership literature. This is followed by a review of the main outcomes of previous research. Finally an attempt is made to combine these outcomes into a more integrative framework of global leadership competencies, offering suggestions for further research.Findings – This paper provides information about previous research, integrating earlier findings into a more comprehensive framework of global competencies. It also discusses deficiencies in use of terminology and research methods used in earlier studies giving suggestions for further research.Research limitations/implications – The references used for this review are.
Asthma guidelines: the Global Initiative for Asthma in relation to national guidelines

Purpose of reviewTo compare and contrast national asthma guidelines with the Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) strategy for asthma management and prevention. Recent findingsThe common goal of GINA and national asthma guidelines is to improve asthma care using the best evidence available from published data. This evidence-based approach has evolved from an initial perspective of expert opinion but with that evolution has not always considered the breadth of asthma phenotypes. GINA and national guidelines differ in a number of ways. GINA reviews available data and updates the core document and recommendations based on the latest data on a yearly basis to offer local, regional and national guidelines materials needed for knowledge mobilization. It remains the purview of those organizations to structure and implement those locally appropriate guidelines. SummaryBoth GINA and national guidelines have furthered asthma care to narrow the care gap from what is known to how asthma care is delivered, hopefully in a more directed, personalized manner. As well, both GINA and national guidelines have helped to shape the direction of research for the future benefit of children and their families.
Dynamics of globally coupled inhibitory neurons with heterogeneity.

A model of many heterogeneous excitable neurons with a global slowly decaying inhibitory coupling is studied. When neuronal intrinsic excitability parameters are randomly distributed, the system exhibits four regimes of behavior. In addition to synchronized periodic and asynchronous regimes, we obtain two aperiodic regimes, with bursting rate a staircaselike function of neuron excitability. In one regime, the system is partially synchronized and in the second, partially antisynchronized. The transition between these two regimes is discontinuous as the disorder increases.
Real‐time imaging and genetic dissection of host–microbe interactions in zebrafish

Many aspects of host interactions with microbes can only be studied in the context of a whole organism. The zebrafish as a model organism has shown to be highly successful for studies of infection biology and the interactions of commensal microbiota with their hosts. Zebrafish are transparent during embryo and larval development and these early life stages are optimally suited for high‐resolution imaging of host–microbe interactions in a vertebrate organism. This is facilitated by the development of a variety of fluorescent reporter lines that mark different immune cell types or subcellular compartments where pathogens reside. The zebrafish is an excellent vertebrate model for forward genetic screening and efficient tools for gene knock‐down and targeted mutagenesis add further to the strength of this model organism. The use of zebrafish larvae for studying microbial infections has recently led to important new insights in host defence mechanisms, which are highlighted in this review focused on bacterial pathogens. Considering the highly conserved nature of the processes involved, including innate immune recognition, immunometabolism and autophagy, it is to be expected that these recent findings in zebrafish will have great translational value for biomedical applications.
Generic-Precision algorithm for DCT-Cordic architectures

In this paper we propose a generic algorithm to calculate the rotation parameters of CORDIC angles required for the Discrete Cosine Transform algorithm (DCT). This leads us to increase the precision of calculation meeting any accuracy.Our contribution is to use this decomposition in CORDIC based DCT which is appropriate for domains which require high quality and top precision. We then propose a hardware implementation of the novel transformation, and as expected, a substantial improvement in PSNR quality is found.
NMDA-Dependent Phase Synchronization between Septal and Temporal CA3 Hippocampal Networks

Increasing evidence suggests that synchronization between brain regions is essential for information exchange and memory processes. However, it remains incompletely known which synaptic mechanisms contribute to the process of synchronization. Here, we investigated whether NMDA receptor-mediated synaptic plasticity was an important player in synchronization between septal and temporal CA3 areas of the rat hippocampus. We found that both the septal and temporal CA3 regions intrinsically generate weakly synchronized δ frequency oscillations in the complete hippocampus in vitro. Septal and temporal oscillators differed in frequency, power, and rhythmicity, but both required GABAA and AMPA receptors. NMDA receptor activation, and most particularly the NR2B subunit, contributed considerably more to rhythm generation at the temporal than the septal region. Brief activation of NMDA receptors by application of extracellular calcium dramatically potentiated the septal–temporal coherence for long durations (>40 min), an effect blocked by the NMDA antagonist AP-5. This long-lasting NMDA-receptor-dependent increase in coherence was also associated with an elevated phase locking of spikes locally and across regions. Changes in coherence between oscillators were associated with increases in phase locking between oscillators independent of oscillator amplitude. Finally, although the septal CA3 rhythm preceded the oscillations in temporal regions in control conditions, this was reversed during the NMDA-dependent enhancement in coherence, suggesting that NMDA receptor activation can change the direction of information flow along the septotemporal CA3 axis. These data demonstrate that plastic changes in communication between septal and temporal hippocampal regions can arise from the NMDA-dependent phase locking of neural oscillators.