Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fruit Characterization and Influence of Variation Factors in Pepper Kapiya Type Varieties and Breeding Lines (Capsicum annuum L.)

TODOROVA, V. , 2007. Fruit characterization and influence of variation factors in pepper kapiya type varieties and breeding lines (Capsicum annuum L.). Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 13: 309-315 Six varieties and ten breeding lines from Kapiya type were evaluated by some morphological fruit characters at the Maritsa Vegetable Crops Research Institute – Plovdiv during the period 2002 – 2004. The sources of variation – genotype, environment and interaction between them had a proven effect (P<0.001) on the phenotypic expression of the five studied characters, describing the fruit, but the power of the influence is different. The combination of high yield with high biological value and attractive fruit appearance makes 669/02 line especially suitable for including in future hybridization programs. It was established that the variation of fruit diameter is the lowest while the one of the usable part is the highest
Neural networks mediating sentence reading in the deaf

The present work addresses the neural bases of sentence reading in deaf populations. To better understand the relative role of deafness and spoken language knowledge in shaping the neural networks that mediate sentence reading, three populations with different degrees of English knowledge and depth of hearing loss were included—deaf signers, oral deaf and hearing individuals. The three groups were matched for reading comprehension and scanned while reading sentences. A similar neural network of left perisylvian areas was observed, supporting the view of a shared network of areas for reading despite differences in hearing and English knowledge. However, differences were observed, in particular in the auditory cortex, with deaf signers and oral deaf showing greatest bilateral superior temporal gyrus (STG) recruitment as compared to hearing individuals. Importantly, within deaf individuals, the same STG area in the left hemisphere showed greater recruitment as hearing loss increased. To further understand the functional role of such auditory cortex re-organization after deafness, connectivity analyses were performed from the STG regions identified above. Connectivity from the left STG toward areas typically associated with semantic processing (BA45 and thalami) was greater in deaf signers and in oral deaf as compared to hearing. In contrast, connectivity from left STG toward areas identified with speech-based processing was greater in hearing and in oral deaf as compared to deaf signers. These results support the growing literature indicating recruitment of auditory areas after congenital deafness for visually-mediated language functions, and establish that both auditory deprivation and language experience shape its functional reorganization. Implications for differential reliance on semantic vs. phonological pathways during reading in the three groups is discussed.
A Circularly Polarized Switched Beam Antenna With Pattern Diversity for WiFi Applications

This letter presents a switched beam antenna optimized for operation at 2.45 GHz. The antenna is composed of two disc-based patches arranged in a concentric single-layer structure. The beamset is composed of one directive broadside pattern, two symmetrical tilted directive patterns, and one conical pattern. The beams are circularly polarized and only moderately correlated, making the device suitable for space diversity medium access for IEEE 802.11 communication in complex areas. Experimental validations confirm a cumulative pattern with a maximum gain of 2.8 dB, covering the half-plane with only 7 dB of ripple. An axial ratio below 3 dB for the entire beam-set and correlation coefficients as low as 0.17 are also observed at center frequency. The moderate beam correlation for the WiFi band confirms the effectiveness of the device.
Construction and Validation of an E-Lifestyle Instrument

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to construct and validate an e‐lifestyle scale.Design/methodology/approach – Through a two‐step approach of exploratory factor analysis (EFA), the generated two EFA solutions reveal the adequacy of the generated seven components underlying the 1,135 responses. By using the other 793 respondents sampling from the same population, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) examines and supports the fitness of the overall structure.Findings – The empirical results show that the 39 items of the e‐lifestyle scale were grouped into seven distinct components. These components represented seven principal factors that significantly influence and shape individual e‐lifestyles.Research limitations/implications – This investigation merely represents a starting point in e‐lifestyle research. To enhance the validity and generalization of the scale proposed in this study, further cross‐cultural validation is necessary.Practical implications – Beyond constructing and validating an e‐lifesty.
A sequence-compatible amount of native burial information is sufficient for determining the structure of small globular proteins

Protein tertiary structures are known to be encoded in amino acid sequences, but the problem of structure prediction from sequence continues to be a challenge. With this question in mind, recent simulations have shown that atomic burials, as expressed by atom distances to the molecular geometrical center, are sufficiently informative for determining native conformations of small globular proteins. Here we use a simple computational experiment to estimate the amount of this required burial information and find it to be surprisingly small, actually comparable with the stringent limit imposed by sequence statistics. Atomic burials appear to satisfy, therefore, minimal requirements for a putative dominating property in the folding code because they provide an amount of information sufficiently large for structural determination but, at the same time, sufficiently small to be encodable in sequences. In a simple analogy with human communication, atomic burials could correspond to the actual “language” encoded in the amino acid “script” from which the complexity of native conformations is recovered during the folding process.
Genome-Wide Analysis of Salicylate and Dibenzofuran Metabolism in Sphingomonas Wittichii RW1

Sphingomonas wittichii RW1 is a bacterium isolated for its ability to degrade the xenobiotic compounds dibenzodioxin and dibenzofuran (DBF). A number of genes involved in DBF degradation have been previously characterized, such as the dxn cluster, dbfB, and the electron transfer components fdx1, fdx3, and redA2. Here we use a combination of whole genome transcriptome analysis and transposon library screening to characterize RW1 catabolic and other genes implicated in the reaction to or degradation of DBF. To detect differentially expressed genes upon exposure to DBF, we applied three different growth exposure experiments, using either short DBF exposures to actively growing cells or growing them with DBF as sole carbon and energy source. Genome-wide gene expression was examined using a custom-made microarray. In addition, proportional abundance determination of transposon insertions in RW1 libraries grown on salicylate or DBF by ultra-high throughput sequencing was used to infer genes whose interruption caused a fitness loss for growth on DBF. Expression patterns showed that batch and chemostat growth conditions, and short or long exposure of cells to DBF produced very different responses. Numerous other uncharacterized catabolic gene clusters putatively involved in aromatic compound metabolism increased expression in response to DBF. In addition, only very few transposon insertions completely abolished growth on DBF. Some of those (e.g., in dxnA1) were expected, whereas others (in a gene cluster for phenylacetate degradation) were not. Both transcriptomic data and transposon screening suggest operation of multiple redundant and parallel aromatic pathways, depending on DBF exposure. In addition, increased expression of other non-catabolic genes suggests that during initial exposure, S. wittichii RW1 perceives DBF as a stressor, whereas after longer exposure, the compound is recognized as a carbon source and metabolized using several pathways in parallel.
Antigen-Induced Increases in Pulmonary Mast Cell Progenitor Numbers Depend on IL-9 and CD1d-Restricted NKT Cells1

Pulmonary mast cell progenitor (MCp) numbers increase dramatically in sensitized and aerosolized Ag-challenged mice. This increase depends on CD4+ T cells, as no MCp increase occurs in the lungs of sensitized wild-type (WT) mice after mAb depletion of CD4+ but not CD8+ cells before aerosol Ag challenge. Neither the genetic absence of IL-4, IL-4Rα chain, STAT-6, IFN-γ, or IL-12p40 nor mAb blockade of IFN-γ, IL-3, IL-4, IL-5, IL-6, IL-10, IL-13, IL-17A, IL-12p40, or IL-12p40Rβ1 before Ag challenge in WT mice reduces the pulmonary MCp increase. However, sensitized and Ag-challenged IL-9-deficient mice and sensitized WT mice given mAb to IL-9 just before Ag challenge show significant reductions in elicited lung MCp/106 mononuclear cells of 47 and 66%, respectively. CD1d-deficient mice and WT mice receiving anti-CD1d before Ag challenge also show significant reductions of 65 and 59%, respectively, in elicited lung MCp/106 mononuclear cells, revealing an additional requirement for MCp recruitment. However, in Jα18-deficient mice, which lack only type 1 or invariant NKT cells, the increase in the numbers of lung MCp with Ag challenge was intact, indicating that their recruitment must be mediated by type 2 NKT cells. Furthermore, anti-CD1d treatment of IL-9-deficient mice or anti-IL-9 treatment of CD1d-deficient mice does not further reduce the significant partial impairment of MCp recruitment occurring with a single deficiency. These findings implicate type 2 NKT cells and IL-9 as central regulators that function in the same pathway mediating the Ag-induced increase in numbers of pulmonary MCp.
Tailoring of epoxy material properties

This research work is aimed to understand the effect of resin chemistry on the physical properties (e.g. moduli, viscoelasticity, moisture uptake, coefficient of thermal expansion) of cured aromatic epoxy-amine thermoset resins. This understanding will result into a good first approximation of the final properties. As a consequence in future it will be possible to design a resin with a well defined set of material properties. Although this research work cannot be generalized to all kinds of polymeric materials, it gives the knowledge to understand and predict the properties within the class of polymeric materials being under consideration. Motivation Look at the bottles of commercially available resins and hardeners and you will find that they are specified with the properties such as equivalent weight, functionality (f) and purity. The properties specified on the bottles of the same kind of resins and hardeners are not always the same. It is mainly because of batch-to-batch variations during the production of the resins and hardeners. Also initial properties such as the mixing ratio and the initial conversion can vary due to the processing schedule in the production unit. Small changes in these initial properties can lead to large changes in the final physical properties of the cured resin. For example if the average functionality of the reacting mixture is changed from 2 to 2.1 the final reacted product will change from thermoplastic to thermoset. So, the motivation behind this research is to understand the effect of batch-to-batch variation in the initial properties (i.e., average functionality, mixing ratio, cure schedule) of a resin-hardener mixture on the final properties of their cured products. The materials that are used for high-tech applications such as in aerospace and electronic industry must satisfy stringent specifications regarding dimensions and high temperature behavior. Usually, the materials used in the high-tech applications contain epoxy as adhesive layer or as matrix material. Hence any change in the initial epoxy composition immediately affects the end properties of these materials. Batch-to-batch variations can easily occur in the suppliers’ production process. An additional advantage of the present study on the effect of resin chemistry on the physical properties is that a good base for future molecular dynamics simulations on epoxy materials is obtained. Aim The aim of the present study is to understand the effect of the initial resin composition on the final properties of their cured products. This understanding will result in a good estimate of the final properties of polymeric materials and thus can help to save time by rightly choosing the initial components without the need of a full experimental characterization. If a good understanding of the relation between the resin chemistry and final properties is known it will be possible to tailor the properties to the customers’ demands.
Utility-based resource allocation and scheduling in OFDM-based wireless broadband networks

This article discusses downlink resource allocation and scheduling for OFDM-based broadband wireless networks. We present a cross-layer resource management framework leveraged by utility optimization. It includes utility-based resource management and QoS architecture, resource allocation algorithms, rate-based and delay-based multichannel scheduling that exploits wireless channel and queue information, and theoretical exploration of the fundamental mechanisms in wireless resource management, such as capacity, fairness, and stability. We also provide a solution that can efficiently allocate resources for heterogeneous traffic with diverse QoS requirements.
Transcription in the Archaea: Basal Factors, Regulation, and Stress-Gene Expression

A brief survey is presented of salient findings on transcription in the Archaea, focussing on stress genes of the hsp70(dnaK locus, which code for the molecular chaperones Hsp70(DnaK), Hsp40(DnaJ), and GrpE. Archaeal basal factors and some recently characterized regulators pertinent to non-stress genes are presented first to show their similarities and differences with equivalents in organisms of the other two phylogenetic domains, Bacteria and Eucarya, and to reveal clues on how these or similar factors might transcribe and regulate the archaeal stress genes. The second part of the article deals with the hsp70(dnaK)-locus genes, particularly those from Methanosarcina mazeii, because they are virtually the only ones within the methanogenic Archaea whose patterns of constitutive and stress-induced expressions have been studied. Therefore, these genes provide a standardized model system to elucidate transcription initiation and regulation at the molecular level in this phylogenetic group. Promoters, and other cis-acting sites that are, or might be, involved in stress-gene expression are described. Conformational changes of basal transcription factors after interaction with stress-gene promoters are discussed that suggest ways for generating a large diversity of initiation complexes using a few factors and DNA sites in different combinations. Likewise, the effects of stress on DNA topology and on TBP-TFB-promoter complex formation and tightness are described, which might also contribute to the generation of transcription-initiation complex diversity. This diversity would be key to differential gene expression, namely, which genes are transcribed, when (basal, steady expression vs. sporadic stress-induced expression), and to what level. Future research should investigate this diversity, and the mechanism of complex formation and action at the atomic, molecular, and supramolecular levels, to elucidate the dynamics of transcription initiation in real time.
On improvements to CI-based GMM selection

Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) computation is known to be one of the most computation-intensive components of speech recognition. In our previous work, context-independent model based GMM selection (CIGMMS) was found to be an effective way to reduce the cost of GMM computation without significant loss in recognition accuracy. In this work, we propose three methods to further improve the performance of CIGMMS. Each method brings an additional 5-10% relative speed improvement, with a cumulative improvement up to 37% on some tasks. Detailed analysis and experimental results on three corpora are presented.
The influence of vegetation on turbulence and flow velocities in European salt‐marshes

Flow hindrance by salt‐marsh vegetation is manifested in the structure of the tidal current; it has a significant impact on sediment transport and it has been related to increased sediment accretion. The flow characteristics in three different vegetation types (Spartina maritima, Sp. anglica and Salicornia sp./Suaeda maritima) were measured on three salt‐marshes in Portugal and England. These in situ measurements differ from laboratory flume experiments with ‘clean’ vegetation by the complexity of natural canopies. Skimming flow develops above the Spartina canopy when the vegetation is fully submerged. In this situation, a low turbulence zone with nearly constant velocity in the denser canopy is separated from the skimming flow above by an interface characterized by high Reynolds stresses. In the low turbulence zone, a positive relationship exists between turbulence intensity and shoot density, which is due to wake turbulence generated locally in the canopy. The rate of particle settling should be increased in that zone. The lower limit of skimming flow is best predicted by the height within the canopy that includes 85% of the biomass. For emergent Spartina canopies and the short Salicornia/Suaeda marsh, the maximal velocity‐gradient is shifted upwards compared to a standard boundary layer over bare sediment and the turbulence is attenuated near the bed, but to a lesser extent than for fully submerged Spartina canopies. A turbulence reduction near the bed was observed in all measured profiles; that should enhance sediment deposition and protects the bed against subsequent erosion.
Evidence Based Emergency Medicine; Part 5 Receiver Operating Curve and Area under the Curve

Multiple diagnostic tools are used by emergency physicians, every day. In addition, new tools are evaluated to obtain more accurate methods and reduce time or cost of conventional ones. In the previous parts of this educational series, we described diagnostic performance characteristics of diagnostic tests including sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values, and likelihood ratios. The receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curve is a graphical presentation of screening characteristics. ROC curve is used to determine the best cutoff point and compare two or more tests or observers by measuring the area under the curve (AUC). In this part of our educational series, we explain ROC curve and two methods to determine the best cutoff value.
Clinical Perspective on Desmoplastic Small Round-Cell Tumor

Rare diseases are often associated with uninformed medical decisions and poorly executed treatments because of inexperience of the physicians. Desmoplastic small round-cell tumor is a rare disease that is a form of peritoneal surface malignancy usually affecting young males, with a mean survival of 29 months. In order to begin to build a more knowledgeable clinical pathway all 7 patients treated at the Washington Hospital Center were studied and compared to patients described in the medical literature. Clinical and pathological data, tumor distribution, cytoreductive surgery, completeness of cytoreduction and survival were recorded and analyzed. The first most common symptoms were pain, increased abdominal girth and palpable abdominal mass in our patients and in the literature review. The overall survival did not improve with cytoreductive surgery plus intraperitoneal chemotherapy (mean survival 32 months); however, 2 long-term survivors who responded to systemic chemotherapy of 55 and 101 months were recorded. The latter may be the longest survivor reported in the literature. No consistent response to chemotherapy was observed in our patients or in any literature review. Complete surgical removal of this malignancy did not correlate with survival in our patients. The absence of improved survival of our aggressively treated patients as compared to the literature was thought to be a consequence of an advanced stage of the disease. A new comprehensive approach that uses complete clearing of cancer by surgery and perioperative systemic and perioperative intraperitoneal chemotherapy as early as is possible in the natural history of the disease emerged as goals for future management.
Design Patterns for Object-Oriented Software Development

1. Impact Of Object-Oriented Software Development On Software Quality Software Quality Attributes Measures for Producing High-Quality Software Reduced Complexity Through Structure Potentials of Object-Orientation for Improving Software Reusability 2. Concepts Of Object-Oriented Software Development Basic Concepts Provided by Object-Oriented Programming Languages Enhancing Software Reusability by an Appropriate Combination of Object-Oriented Concepts 3. Survey Of Design Pattern Approaches The Role of Design Patterns Object-Oriented Patterns Coding Patterns Framework Adaptation Patterns-Cookbook Recipes Formal Contracts Design Pattern Catalog 4. Metapatterns Metapatterns and (Application) Frameworks Class/Objects Interfaces and Interaction Metapatterns Class/Object Composition Metapatterns Impact of Composition Metapatterns on Template Methods When to Choose a Certain Composition Metapattern Capturing Object-Oriented Design with Metapatterns 5. Sample Application Of The Metapattern Approach Overview of ER++'s Domain Capturing ER++'s Core Design with Metapatterns Resulting Sample Adaptation of ET++ Summarizing Remarks 6. Implications For Software Development > Framework-Centered Software Development Limits of State -of-Art OOAD Methodologies Vision of a Hot-Spot-Driven Approach
Tonotopic organization of the superior olivary nucleus in the chicken auditory brainstem

Topographic maps are salient features of neuronal organization in sensory systems. Inhibitory components of neuronal circuitry are often embedded within this organization, making them difficult to isolate experimentally. The auditory system provides opportunities to study the topographic organization of inhibitory long‐range projection nuclei, such as the superior olivary nucleus (SON). We analyzed the topographic organization of response features of neurons in the SON of chickens. Quantitative methods were developed to assess and communicate this organization. These analyses led to three main conclusions: 1) sound frequency is linearly arranged from dorsal (low frequencies) to ventral (high frequencies) in SON; 2) this tonotopic organization is less precise than the organization of the excitatory nuclei in the chicken auditory brainstem; and 3) neurons with different response patterns to pure tone stimuli are interspersed throughout the SON and show similar tonotopic organizations. This work provides a predictive model to determine the optimal stimulus frequency for a neuron from its spatial location in the SON. J. Comp. Neurol. 520:1493–1508, 2012. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.