Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effect of Hot-Water Pre-Extraction on Alkaline Pulping Properties of Wheat Straw

The alkaline pulping properties of wheat straw, which had been hemicelluloses pre-extracted with hot water, were studied. In this work, the process of hot-water extraction at various temperatures, reaction time and other conditions were investigated. The straws pre-extracted or not were made into pulp with NaOH-AQ at same conditions. Then the effects of pre-extraction on properties of straw pulp were studied. The results show that the yield, Kappa number and viscosity of the pulp are affected significantly by hemicelluloses pre-extraction process. The chemicals charge of the extracted straw in the pulping process is lower and shorter cooking time needed, the maximum pulping temperature reduced. These effects indicate that the action of hot-water pre-extraction before alkaline pulping is able to reduce effluent discharge and chemical demand to pulp, and it would be energy-saving. In this experiment, the optimum conditions of hot-water pre-extraction were: maximum temperature 140°C, heat-up time 30min, time at maximum temperature 60min and liquor ratio 1:10. The optimal pulping conditions were: alkali charge 12%, maximum temperature 155°C, heat-up time 90min, and holding time at maximum temperature 60min.
Comparative analysis of polyadenylated RNA complexity in soybean hypocotyl tissue and cultured suspension cells.

Growth parameters of suspension culture cells of soybean (Glycine max L.) were compared between cells grown in medium with (+) auxin and without (-) auxin. Growth rates were greater for (+) auxin cells. Cells transferred to (-) auxin medium primarily expanded in size while (+) auxin cells initially divided and then expanded. Two methods were used to estimate polyadenylated RNA sequence complexity. Kinetic analysis gave a sum of component complexity values of 36,000 and 64,000 diverse poly(A) RNA sequences of about 1,400 nucleotides in (+) and (-) auxin grown cells, respectively. The most striking difference between these cell populations was the increase in the poly(A) RNA sequence complexity in cells grown in medium without auxin. RNA complexities were also determined by the saturation of ;single' copy DNA by poly(A) RNAs from (+) and (-) auxin suspension cells. These saturation studies estimated the total complexity of (+) and (-) auxin suspension cells as 41,000 and 57,000 diverse sequences, respectively. Suspension cells in auxin-depleted medium produced about 20,000 more diverse sequences than (+) auxin cells. Comparisons of poly(A) complexities were also made among auxin-treated and untreated hypocotyl cells from the intact plant relative to suspension culture cells. Mixed populations of poly(A) RNA from these tissues and cells allowed the determination of shared sequences among them. When all combinations of poly(A) RNA were mixed, the percentage of ;single' copy DNA that saturated was equivalent to diverse sequence complexity estimates of about 60,000. When mixed poly(A) RNA from suspension cells from (+) and (-) auxin medium were compared, they shared about 40,000 sequences and (-) auxin cells contained an additional 20,000. Both (+) and (-) tissue culture cells shared a subset of about 20,000 sequences with cells from (+) and (-) auxin treated hypocotyl. A third subset of about 20,000 sequences was shared by (-) auxin suspension cells and hypocotyl treated with or without auxin, a subset most of which were not shared by (+) auxin suspension cells. Kinetic and saturation data estimates of poly(A) RNA complexity compared favorably and indicated that exogenous auxin treatment can dramatically alter the complexity of all classes of poly(A) RNAs in cultured cells.
Smartphone-Based Food Diagnostic Technologies: A Review

A new generation of mobile sensing approaches offers significant advantages over traditional platforms in terms of test speed, control, low cost, ease-of-operation, and data management, and requires minimal equipment and user involvement. The marriage of novel sensing technologies with cellphones enables the development of powerful lab-on-smartphone platforms for many important applications including medical diagnosis, environmental monitoring, and food safety analysis. This paper reviews the recent advancements and developments in the field of smartphone-based food diagnostic technologies, with an emphasis on custom modules to enhance smartphone sensing capabilities. These devices typically comprise multiple components such as detectors, sample processors, disposable chips, batteries and software, which are integrated with a commercial smartphone. One of the most important aspects of developing these systems is the integration of these components onto a compact and lightweight platform that requires minimal power. To date, researchers have demonstrated several promising approaches employing various sensing techniques and device configurations. We aim to provide a systematic classification according to the detection strategy, providing a critical discussion of strengths and weaknesses. We have also extended the analysis to the food scanning devices that are increasingly populating the Internet of Things (IoT) market, demonstrating how this field is indeed promising, as the research outputs are quickly capitalized on new start-up companies.
Adaptor Protein-3-Dependent Vacuolar Trafficking Involves a Subpopulation of COPII and HOPS Tethering Proteins1[OPEN]

AP-3-mediated vacuolar trafficking of PAT10 involves a subpopulation of COPII and the vacuolar tethering complex HOPS. Plant vacuoles are versatile organelles critical for plant growth and responses to environment. Vacuolar proteins are transported from the endoplasmic reticulum via multiple routes in plants. Two classic routes bear great similarity to other phyla with major regulators known, such as COPII and Rab5 GTPases. By contrast, vacuolar trafficking mediated by adaptor protein-3 (AP-3) or that independent of the Golgi has few recognized cargos and none of the regulators. In search of novel regulators for vacuolar trafficking routes and by using a fluorescence-based forward genetic screen, we demonstrated that the multispan transmembrane protein, Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) PROTEIN S-ACYL TRANSFERASE10 (PAT10), is an AP-3-mediated vacuolar cargo. We show that the tonoplast targeting of PAT10 is mediated by the AP-3 complex but independent of the Rab5-mediated post-Golgi trafficking route. We also report that AP-3-mediated vacuolar trafficking involves a subpopulation of COPII and requires the vacuolar tethering complex HOPS. In addition, we have identified two novel mutant alleles of AP-3δ, whose point mutations interfered with the formation of the AP-3 complex as well as its membrane targeting. The results presented here shed new light on the vacuolar trafficking route mediated by AP-3 in plant cells.
Phylogeography of Poorly Dispersing Net-Winged Beetles: A Role of Drifting India in the Origin of Afrotropical and Oriental Fauna

Ancient dispersal history may be obscured by subsequent dispersal events. Therefore, we intend to investigate the biogeography of metriorrhynchine net-winged beetles, a group characterized by limited dispersal propensity. We used DNA data to construct phylogenies and the BayesTraits and RASP programs to identify putative ancestral areas. Further, we inferred ultrametric trees to estimate the ages of selected nodes. The time frame is inferred from tectonic calibrations and the general mutation rate of the mitochondrial genes. Metriorrhynchini consists of two lineages with Afro/Oriental and Australian distributions. The basal lineages originated in Eastern Gondwana after the split of Australia, India and Madagascar; the Afrotropical and Madagascar Metriorrhynchini separated from the Oriental clades 65 and 62 mya. Several already diversified lineages colonized continental Asia 55–35 mya. A few genera of the Australian clade dispersed to the Oriental region 5–15 mya and reached Eastern India and Southern China. Only Xylobanus crossed the Makassar Strait to Sulawesi and does not occur further to the east. The current distribution of Metriorrhynchini is a result of drifting on continental fragments and over-sea dispersal events limited to a few hundreds of kilometers. We conclude that: (1) Afrotropical and Madagascar lineages originated independently from dispersal events during India's drift to the north and the Mozambique Channel completely isolates the respective faunas since then; (2) Oriental fauna is a recently established mixture of the Indian and Australian lineages, with predominance of the older Indian clades; (3) The fauna of islands located north of Australia colonized Sulawesi after collision with the Sundaland margin and the species rich Australian lineages did not reach Western Wallacea or the Philippines. Our results suggest an impact of subtle differences in biological characteristics on biogeographic history of individual lineages, when mostly lowland and flower-visiting lineages were able to disperse across sea channels.
Remodeling of extracellular matrix due to solid stress accumulation during tumor growth

Abstract Solid stresses emerge as the expanding tumor displaces and deforms the surrounding normal tissue, and also as a result of intratumoral component interplay. Among other things, solid stresses are known to induce extensive extracellular matrix synthesis and reorganization. In this study, we developed a mathematical model of tumor growth that distinguishes the contribution to stress generation by collagenous and non-collagenous tumor structural components, and also investigates collagen fiber remodeling exclusively due to solid stress. To this end, we initially conducted in vivo experiments using an orthotopic mouse model for breast cancer to monitor primary tumor growth and derive the mechanical properties of the tumor. Subsequently, we fitted the mathematical model to experimental data to determine values of the model parameters. According to the model, intratumoral solid stress is compressive, whereas extratumoral stress in the tumor vicinity is compressive in the radial direction and tensile in the periphery. Furthermore, collagen fibers engaged in stress generation only in the peritumoral region, and not in the interior where they were slackened due to the compressive stress state. Peritumoral fibers were driven away from the radial direction, tended to realign tangent to the tumor–host interface, and were also significantly stretched by tensile circumferential stresses. By means of this remodeling, the model predicts that the tumor is enveloped by a progressively thickening capsule of collagen fibers. This prediction is consistent with long-standing observations of tumor encapsulation and histologic sections that we performed, and it further corroborates the expansive growth hypothesis for the capsule formation.
State Evolution for Approximate Message Passing with Non-Separable Functions

Given a high-dimensional data matrix $\boldsymbol{A}\in{{\mathbb{R}}}^{m\times n}$, approximate message passing (AMP) algorithms construct sequences of vectors $\boldsymbol{u}^{t}\in{{\mathbb{R}}}^{n}$, ${\boldsymbol v}^{t}\in{{\mathbb{R}}}^{m}$, indexed by $t\in \{0,1,2\dots \}$ by iteratively applying $\boldsymbol{A}$ or $\boldsymbol{A}^{{\textsf T}}$ and suitable nonlinear functions, which depend on the specific application. Special instances of this approach have been developed—among other applications—for compressed sensing reconstruction, robust regression, Bayesian estimation, low-rank matrix recovery, phase retrieval and community detection in graphs. For certain classes of random matrices $\boldsymbol{A}$, AMP admits an asymptotically exact description in the high-dimensional limit $m,n\to \infty $, which goes under the name of state evolution. Earlier work established state evolution for separable nonlinearities (under certain regularity conditions). Nevertheless, empirical work demonstrated several important applications that require non-separable functions. In this paper we generalize state evolution to Lipschitz continuous non-separable nonlinearities, for Gaussian matrices $\boldsymbol{A}$. Our proof makes use of Bolthausen’s conditioning technique along with several approximation arguments. In particular, we introduce a modified algorithm (called LoAMP for Long AMP), which is of independent interest.
Efficiently approximating the minimum-volume bounding box of a point set in three dimensions

We present an efficient O(n+1/? 4.5-time algorithm for computing a (1+? )-approximation of the minimum-volume bounding box of n points in R3. We also present a simpler algorithm whose running time is O(nlogn+n/? 3). We give some experimental results with implementations of various variants of the second algorithm.
Attempts to induce contact allergy to nickel in the mouse

Various attempts to sensitize mice to nickel salts are described. The antigen was applied once or repeatedly by the epicutaneous or intracutaneous route and by combinations of the two. The procedures included prior irritation of the skin, treatment with Freund's complete adjuvant, cyclophosphamide or Tetramisol®, and prior sensitization to picryl chloride. Contact allergy was achieved only by repeated epicutaneous application of a strong nickel solution over a 3‐week period. The resulting dermatitis was demonstrated by a weak but significant wet weight increase of inflamed skin.
Water Quality Sensing and Spatio-Temporal Monitoring Structure with Autocorrelation Kernel Methods

Pollution on water resources is usually analyzed with monitoring campaigns, which consist of programmed sampling, measurement, and recording of the most representative water quality parameters. These campaign measurements yields a non-uniform spatio-temporal sampled data structure to characterize complex dynamics phenomena. In this work, we propose an enhanced statistical interpolation method to provide water quality managers with statistically interpolated representations of spatial-temporal dynamics. Specifically, our proposal makes efficient use of the a priori available information of the quality parameter measurements through Support Vector Regression (SVR) based on Mercer’s kernels. The methods are benchmarked against previously proposed methods in three segments of the Machángara River and one segment of the San Pedro River in Ecuador, and their different dynamics are shown by statistically interpolated spatial-temporal maps. The best interpolation performance in terms of mean absolute error was the SVR with Mercer’s kernel given by either the Mahalanobis spatial-temporal covariance matrix or by the bivariate estimated autocorrelation function. In particular, the autocorrelation kernel provides with significant improvement of the estimation quality, consistently for all the six water quality variables, which points out the relevance of including a priori knowledge of the problem.
Distribution Network Reconfiguration Based on Particle Clonal Genetic Algorithm

Distribution network reconfiguration is an important aspect of automation and optimization of distribution network system. To handle massive binary code infeasible solutions in distribution network reconfiguration, a kind of sequence code is presented in which a loop is a gene and the label of each switch in the loop is the gene value. To solve mutation probability and slow the convergence of clonal genetic algorithm (CGA) in the later stage, in this paper particle clonal genetic algorithm (PCGA) is proposed, in which we build particle swarm algorithm (PSO) mutation operator. PCGA avoids the premature convergence of PSO and the blindness of CGA. It ensures evolution direction and range based on historical records and swarm records. The global optimal solution can be obtained with fewer generations and shorter searching time. Compared with CGA and clonal genetic simulated annealing algorithm (CGSA), IEEE33 and IEEE69 examples show that PCGA can cut the calculation time and promote the search efficiency obviously.
BLEVE - Cases, Causes, Consequences and Prevention

Corrosion is typical of the damage that occurs in ageing pressure vessels and pipelines used in industrial processes as a result of reactive products inside or harsh environmental conditions on the outside. Motivation for this article is to summarize cases, causes, consequences, and prevention in terms of models for the prediction of explosion pressure from BLEVEs. The contribution deals with real scenarios of accidents associated with transport and storage pressurized facilities with corrosive flammable chemicals. While the LPG, propane, and butane BLEVEs are well described in the literature, the information about corrosive and toxic flammable substances are rather scarce. The study presents the results of hazardous zone calculation for the event of ammonia corrosive non-flammable chemical releases. For calculations of the BLEVE overpressure, AICHE ́s Prugh ́s and Baker ́s models together with Effects 9.0. 8. Rupture of vessels model were used for this study.
The Plasmid Complement of the Cheese Isolate Lactococcus garvieae IPLA 31405 Revealed Adaptation to the Dairy Environment

Lactococcus garvieae is a lactic acid bacterium found in raw-milk dairy products as well as a range of aquatic and terrestrial environments. The plasmids in L. garvieae have received little attention compared to those of dairy Lactococcus lactis, in which the genes carried by these extrachromosomal elements are considered of adaptive value. The present work reports the sequencing and analysis of the plasmid complement of L. garvieae IPLA 31405, a strain isolated from a traditional, Spanish, starter-free cheese made from raw-milk. It consists of pLG9 and pLG42, of 9,124 and 42,240 nucleotides, respectively. Based on sequence and structural homology in the putative origin of replication (ori) region, pLG9 and pLG42 are predicted to replicate via a theta mechanism. Real-time, quantitative PCR showed the number of copies per chromosome equivalent of pLG9 and pLG42 to be around two and five, respectively. Sequence analysis identified eight complete open reading frames (orfs) in pLG9 and 36 in pLG42; these were organized into functional modules or cassettes containing different numbers of genes. These modules were flanked by complete or interrupted insertion sequence (IS)-like elements. Among the modules of pLG42 was a gene cluster encoding specific components of a phosphoenolpyruvate-phosphotransferase (PEP-PTS) system, including a phospho-β-galacosidase. The cluster showed a complete nucleotide identity respect to that in plasmids of L. lactis. Loss of pLG42 showed this to be involved in lactose assimilation. In the same plasmid, an operon encoding a type I restriction/modification (R/M) system was also identified. The specificity of this R/M system might be broadened by different R/M specificity subunits detected in pLG9 and in the bacterial chromosome. However, challenges of L. garvieae IPLA 31405 against L. lactis phages proved that the R/M system was not involved in phage resistance. Together, these results support the hypothesis that, as in L. lactis, pLG42 contribute towards the adaptation of L. garvieae to the dairy environment.
CpG Hypermethylation of MDR1 Gene Contributes to the Pathogenesis and Progression of Human Prostate Cancer

Multidrug resistance 1 (MDR1) gene encodes for P-glycoprotein (P-gp), a Mr 170,000 transmembrane calcium-dependent efflux pump that is inactivated in prostate cancer. We hypothesize that inactivation of the MDR1 gene through CpG methylation contributes to the pathogenesis and progression of prostate cancer. To test this hypothesis, CpG methylation status of the MDR1 promoter and its correlation with clinicopathological findings were evaluated in 177 prostate cancer samples and 69 benign prostate hypertrophy (BPH) samples. Cellular proliferation index and apoptotic index were determined by proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) and single-strand DNA immunostaining, respectively. After 5-aza-2′-deoxycytidine treatment, increased expression of MDR1 mRNA transcript was found in prostate cancer cell lines (DU145, DuPro, and ND1). MDR1 methylation frequency was significantly higher in prostate cancer samples compared with BPH samples (54.8 versus 11.6%, respectively, P < 0.001). Logistic regression analysis revealed that PC patients are 11.5 times more likely to have MDR1 methylation than BPH patients (95% confidence interval 4.87–27.0) and that MDR1 methylation is independent of the age. Significant correlation of MDR1 methylation was observed with high pT category (P < 0.001), high Gleason sum (P = 0.008), high preoperative prostate-specific antigen (P = 0.01), and advancing pathological features. In addition, PCNA-labeling index were significantly higher in methylation-specific PCR (MSP)-positive than in MSP-negative prostate cancer samples (P = 0.048). In contrast, no significant difference in apoptotic index was found between MSP-positive and -negative prostate cancer samples. These findings suggest that CpG hypermethylation of MDR1 promoter is a frequent event in prostate cancer and is related to disease progression via increased cell proliferation in prostate cancer cells.
Finite element analysis of vent/hand hole designs for corrugated fibreboard boxes

Corrugated fibreboard is an economical and efficient material for fabricating shipping containers that are widely used for the distribution, transportation and storage of goods. Corrugated fibreboard is usually considered to be an orthotropic material because the principal fibre directions, machine direction (MD) and cross‐machine direction (CD), are identical to the fibres in paperboard, which has apparent directional property differences. The purpose of this study is to investigate the principal design parameters of ventilation holes and hand holes in the faces of the shipping container, (corrugated fibreboard boxes), using finite element analysis (FEA). Various designs of ventilation holes were studied with respect to stress distribution and stress level. It was found that the appropriate pattern and location of the ventilation holes were vertical oblong‐shaped and symmetrically positioned within a certain extent of distance to the right and left from the centre of the front and rear faces of the boxes. On the other hand, the appropriate location and pattern of the hand holes were a short distance from the centre to the top of the boxes on both side faces. The appropriate pattern was a modified shape, such as the radius of curvature of both sides in horizontal oblong. The pattern and location of both the ventilation holes and the hand holes determined by the FEA simulation generally agreed well with laboratory experimental results. The decrease in compression strength of the box could be minimized with identical area of the ventilation holes if the length of the major axis of the ventilation hole is less than 1/4 of the depth of the box and the ratio of the minor axis to the major axis is 1/3.5–1/2.5, provided that even‐numbered holes are located symmetrically. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & son, Ltd.