Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Error-Rate Considerations for Digital Phase-Modulation Systems

The performance of digital phase-modulation systems has been investigated by many authors, and we first present a simple and alternate method of evaluating the character error rates of m -phase coherent and differentially coherent phase-shift keyed (DCPSK) systems when the receiver is ideal. An ideal receiver is assumed to operate with zero-width decision thresholds, but in any practical receiver, the voltage (or current) in question must differ from the threshold value by a finite amount in order for the device to respond properly and reliably. This finite-width decision threshold for any practical receiver can be expressed in terms of a certain parameter γ, and we give methods of evaluating the character error rates of coherent phase-shift keyed (CPSK) and differentially coherent phase-shift keyed systems when the receiver has a finite nonzero γ. The receiver may also introduce a certain phase perturbation δ in the detected phase of the signal because of imperfections present in various parts of the receiver. The methods of evaluating its effect on both CPSK and DCPSK systems have also been given in this paper.
Contribution of Extracellular Vesicles in Rebuilding Injured Muscles

Skeletal myofibers are injured due to mechanical stresses experienced during physical activity, or due to myofiber fragility caused by genetic diseases. The injured myofiber needs to be repaired or regenerated to restore the loss in muscle tissue function. Myofiber repair and regeneration requires coordinated action of various intercellular signaling factors—including proteins, inflammatory cytokines, miRNAs, and membrane lipids. It is increasingly being recognized release and transmission of these signaling factors involves extracellular vesicle (EV) released by myofibers and other cells in the injured muscle. Intercellular signaling by these EVs alters the phenotype of their target cells either by directly delivering the functional proteins and lipids or by modifying longer-term gene expression. These changes in the target cells activate downstream pathways involved in tissue homeostasis and repair. The EVs are heterogeneous with regards to their size, composition, cargo, location, as well as time-course of genesis and release. These differences impact on the subsequent repair and regeneration of injured skeletal muscles. This review focuses on how intracellular vesicle production, cargo packaging, and secretion by injured muscle, modulates specific reparative, and regenerative processes. Insights into the formation of these vesicles and their signaling properties offer new understandings of the orchestrated response necessary for optimal muscle repair and regeneration.
Cross‐seasonal legacy effects of arthropod community on plant fitness in perennial plants

In perennial plants, interactions with other community members during the vegetative growth phase may influence community assembly during subsequent reproductive years and may influence plant fitness. It is well‐known that plant responses to herbivory affect community assembly within a growing season, but whether plant–herbivore interactions result in legacy effects on community assembly across seasons has received little attention. Moreover, whether plant–herbivore interactions during the vegetative growing season are important in predicting plant fitness directly or indirectly through legacy effects is poorly understood. Here, we tested whether plant–arthropod interactions in the vegetative growing season of perennial wild cabbage plants, Brassica oleracea, result in legacy effects in arthropod community assembly in the subsequent reproductive season and whether legacy effects have plant fitness consequences. We monitored the arthropod community on plants that had been induced with either aphids, caterpillars or no herbivores in a full‐factorial design across 2 years. We quantified the plant traits ‘height’, ‘number of leaves’ and ‘number of flowers’ to understand mechanisms that may mediate legacy effects. We measured seed production in the second year to evaluate plant fitness consequences of legacy effects. Although we did not find community responses to the herbivory treatments, our data show that community composition in the first year leaves a legacy on community composition in a second year: predator community composition co‐varied across years. Structural equation modelling analyses indicated that herbivore communities in the vegetative year correlated with plant performance traits that may have caused a legacy effect on especially predator community assembly in the subsequent reproductive year. Interestingly, the legacy of the herbivore community in the vegetative year predicted plant fitness better than the herbivore community that directly interacted with plants in the reproductive year. Synthesis. Thus, legacy effects of plant–herbivore interactions affect community assembly on perennial plants across growth seasons and these processes may affect plant reproductive success. We argue that plant–herbivore interactions in the vegetative phase as well as in the cross‐seasonal legacy effects caused by plant responses to arthropod herbivory may be important in perennial plant trait evolution such as ontogenetic variation in growth and defence strategies.
Multiple Scattering in Various Sources UsingScalar and Vector Transport Equations- AComparative Study

Polarisation effects of multiple scattering of gamma transport can be studied using only the Vector Boltzmann transport equation. The scalar Boltzmann transport equation is utilized when the radiation’s polarisation effects are not taken into consideration. In this article a Monte Carlo code MCSHAPE is used to explain the importance of Vector Model to Scalar Model, using the sources of radiation which produces double scattering peak. The intensity of the double scattering peak of the Vector Model is compared with the Scalar Model which is explained unambiguously
A Novel Decentralized Fuzzy Based Approach for Grid Resource Discovery

Grid computing is the next generation of distributed system. Its goal is to create a huge, independent and powerful virtual machine, and it has been created by gathering different machines with the aim of sharing them. Resource discovery is the most fundamental phase of resource management which has been considered in our work. Considering the advantages and disadvantages of P2P and grid and their architectural similarity; using some of P2P approaches as a solution in Grid can improve the performance of Grid. Semantic technology and fuzzy logic are the two intelligent approaches, which recently apply on P2P network and Grid environment. In P2P networks, nodes are grouping based on their interests. Moreover semantic can be very useful for grouping nodes. This paper follows the identification of resource discovery in grid environment with the help of semantic and fuzzy theory and seeking to present a resource discovery algorithm with respect to exiting obstacles. The proposed approach is assessed in simulated grid environment and the results are compared with other approaches in same conditions. The goals of our approach are to obtain precious matching by clustering nodes which have services semantically related, improving search expressiveness by considering the distances between nodes (delay) in clustering phase, and decreasing response time and processing time by considering the nodes computational capabilities and free space of each node. We evaluate the performance of our approach with some distributed semantic based grid resource discovery models. The results of the experiments show the efficiency of the proposed approach in term of scalability, precision, search expressiveness and response time.
Effect of the Organic and NPK Fertilizers on the Growth and Yield of Sweet Potato (Ipomoea batatas (L) Lam) in the Centre of Côte d’Ivoire

In Côte d’Ivoire, the sweet potato is little cultivated but stays however a culture of pension and a food mattering in certain regions. This study was conducted to assess the effect of the application of mineral (NPK 15-15-15, NPK 12-22-22) and organic (poultry manure) fertilizers on yield components of sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas (L) Lam). The experiment was conducted over two years (2016 to 2017) in experimental station of National Center of Agronomic Research (CNRA) of Bouaké in the centre of Côte d'Ivoire. The experiment was conducted following a split plot with 2 factors (variety and fertilizers) and 3 replicates. The main factor was variety with 2 levels (variety Irene and variety TIB-440060) and the subplot was fertilizers application consisted 13 levels (200, 300, 400, 500 kg ha-1 of NPK fertilizers combined 5, 10, 15 t ha-1 of organic fertilizer). Thirteen treatments based on poultry manure (T6, T7), chemical fertilizer NPK 15 15 15 (T1, T3, T4, T5) and NPK 12 22 22 (T8, T10, T11, T12) and their combination (T2 and T9) were tested. The experimental results revealed that that the effects of chemical fertilizer treatments, manure and their combination with mineral fertilizers did not influence the measured parameters. The results also showed that fertilizers improved all the agronomic parameters of sweet potato compared to the control treatment during two years of experiment. However, the Irene variety with a mean weight of 180 g tuberous roots was significantly different from the TIB variety with a mean weight of 138.73 g. In the conditions of our study and over the two-year period, producers of sweet potatoes would benefit from using organic fertilizers with the Irene variety.
Batch Effect Correction of RNA-seq Data through Sample Distance Matrix Adjustment

Batch effect is a frequent challenge in deep sequencing data analysis that can lead to misleading conclusions. We present scBatch, a numerical algorithm that conducts batch effect correction on the count matrix of RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) data. Different from traditional methods, scBatch starts with establishing an ideal correction of the sample distance matrix that effectively reflect the underlying biological subgroups, without considering the actual correction of the raw count matrix itself. It then seeks an optimal linear transformation of the count matrix to approximate the established sample pattern. The benefit of such an approach is the final result is not restricted by assumptions on the mechanism of the batch effect. As a result, the method yields good clustering and gene differential expression (DE) results. We compared the new method, scBatch, with leading batch effect removal methods ComBat and mnnCorrect on simulated data, real bulk RNA-seq data, and real single-cell RNA-seq data. The comparisons demonstrated that scBatch achieved better sample clustering and DE gene detection results.
Studies on Genetic Variability Parameters for Grain Yield Components and Grain Mineral Concentration in Pearl Millet

A field experiment was carried out in pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum (L.) R. Br. ) to study genetic variability, heritability and genetic advance for grain iron, zinc, yield and its component traits. The observations were recorded on individual plant basis for each replication for days to 50% flowering, plant height, panicle length, panicle girth, total tillers, productive tillers, grain yield per plant, 200-seed weight, iron content in grain and zinc content in grain. The results revealed that the genotypes were significantly different for all the ten characters, indicating sufficient variability in the experimental material. The maximum value of phenotypic coefficient of variation was observed for grain yield per plant followed by effective tillers per plant, total tillers per plant and genotypic coefficient of variation was observed for grain yield per plant followed by total tillers per plant, grain zinc content. Phenotypic coefficient of variation (PCV) was higher than genotype coefficient of variation (GCV) for all the characters indicating the influence of environment on the characters. Highest heritability was recorded for grain zinc content followed by total tillers, grain iron content and plant height.
Conodont size, trophic level, and the evolution of platform elements

Abstract Conodonts are among the first vertebrates to have evolved mineralized tooth-like structures. Among these, the so-called P1 elements are known to have been used to break down food and display a wide variety of morphologies. In particular, the repeated independent evolution of platform-like P1 elements have been suggested to correspond to similar functional constraints linked to diet. To test this hypothesis of convergence, we measured size (as element length) for various conodont taxa and used it as a proxy for trophic level. We then tested the correlation between size and platform presence/absence, both on raw data and in a phylogenetic context. Retaining or excluding the platform traits from the character matrix has limited impact on the resulting phylogeny. Contrary to platform presence/absence, size shows no phylogenetic signal. Using the raw data, size and platform presence appear positively correlated. That correlation, however, is no longer significant if one corrects for the phylogeny. We conclude that platform presence cannot be explained by an enlargement of the conodont element, be it via a trophic-level change or developmental constraints. This suggests that conodonts as a whole, and in particular platform-bearing conodonts, were an ecologically diverse group and that the various known platform types are likely to reflect different, rather than convergent, ecological niches.
Temporal distribution of deleterious variations influences the estimation of FST

Estimating the extent of genetic differentiation between populations is an important measure in population genetics, ecology and evolutionary biology. Fixation index or FST is an important measure, which is routinely used to quantify this. Previous studies have shown that FST estimated for selectively constrained regions was significantly lower than that estimated for neutral regions. By deriving the theoretical relationship between FST at neutral and constrained sites we show that an excess in the fraction of deleterious variations segregating within populations compared to that segregates between populations is the cause for the reduction in FST estimated at constrained sites. Using whole genome data, our results revealed that the magnitude of reduction in FST estimates obtained for selectively constrained regions was much higher for distantly related populations compared to those estimated for closely related pairs. For example, the reduction was 49% for comparison between European-African populations, 31% for European-Asian comparison, 16% for the Northern-Southern European pair and only 4% for the comparison involving two Southern European (Italian and Spanish) populations. Since deleterious variants are purged over time due to purifying selection, their contribution to the among population diversity at constrained sites decreases with the increase in the divergence between populations. However, within population diversity remain the same for all pairs compared above and therefore FST estimated at constrained sites for distantly related populations are much smaller than those estimated for closely related populations. Our results suggest that the level of population divergence should be considered when comparing constrained site FST estimates obtained for different pairs of populations.
Wind affects the growth, root anchorage and tensile strength of Australian pine (Casuarina equisetifolia) seedlings

ABSTRACT Australian pine (Casuarina equisetifolia Forst.) is an important introduced reforestation species in windbreaks for agroforestry and ecological engineering. Nevertheless, the adaptive mechanism of its roots to withstand wind has not yet been fully investigated. In this study, a wind tunnel test was applied to investigate the effects of wind on growth, root architecture, root anchorage and tensile strength of Australian pine seedlings using root excavation method, pullout test and tensile test. After eight months of treatment with simulated wind load (8.2 m s−1) during the day, the non-wind-stressed control seedlings developed taller height (118%), larger stem base diameter (110%), root biomass (100%), shoot biomass (228%), and longer taproot length (56%) than those of wind-stressed seedlings. Furthermore, the wind-stressed seedlings distributed more roots at the windward side than at the leeward side, whereas the control seedlings distributed their root systems in all directions. The average maximum pullout resistance (0.25 ± 0.11 kN) of the control seedlings was significantly higher than that of the wind-stressed ones (0.08 ± 0.04 kN). Additionally, the control seedlings had significantly higher root tensile strength than the wind-stressed ones in 0–1, 1–2 and 2–5 mm root diameter classes, respectively. These results demonstrate that wind stress significantly decreases growth performance, root anchorage capability and tensile strength of Australian pine seedlings.
Biological monitoring of exposure to pesticide residues among Belgian florists

Abstract Many pesticides applied in cut flowers can be readily absorbed through the skin of florists during preparing bouquets and handling contaminated flowers. A study was conducted among volunteer Belgian florists in order to assess their total exposure by measuring concentrations of pesticides (parent compounds and metabolites) in their urines. A total of 42 urine samples (24-h urines) were collected from florists during their professional activities, on the three most important commercial periods. The concentrations of pesticide residues and metabolites in urine samples were analyzed with a multiresidue liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry method, after an ethyl acetate extraction. The results are compared with those of a control group of 42 subjects not occupationally exposed to pesticides, collected in the same periods. A total of 70 residues (56 pesticides and 14 metabolites) were identified, with an average of about eight pesticide residues and metabolites per florist’s urine sample and an average total concentration per sample of 4.3 µg/g creatinine, ranging from 0.2 to 67 µg/g creatinine. Significantly higher urinary excretion of metabolites (t-test) was found in florists than in control group. These results demonstrate that Belgian florists are exposed daily to pesticide residues with a potential effect on their health.
MODELLING MOLECULAR SYSTEMS WITH DISCRETE CONCENTRATION LEVELS IN THE CONTEXT OF PROCESS ALGEBRA PEPA: STOCHASTIC AND DETERMINISTIC INTERPRETATIONS

Process algebras are formalisms widely used to represent concurrent systems such as biological systems (Regev et al., 2001, Priami et al., 2001). An algebraic specification of a system is composed by processes that interact and communicate between them or are synchronized over a set of actions. Algebraic laws describe how processes are defined and how they can be modified. In this thesis we present a novel approach for modelling molecular systems (Calder et al., 2004) based on discrete levels of concentration. Here each molecule species is represented by a process and each process has an index that denotes the current level of the corresponding molecule. Actions model reactions as usual and rates are computed following some rules. Our analysis is performed in the context of PEPA process algebra (Hillston, 1995). An algebraic model can have several mathematical interpretations. We consider Markov chains, ordinary di fferential equations and reactions for stochastic simulations (Gillespie, 1976). It is well known that, when the number of molecules is sufficiently large, stochastic simulations converge to a deterministic limit distribution (Kurtz, 1970). Instead it is not clear the relation between di fferential equations and Markov chains where states represent concentration levels instead of individual molecules. The scope of this thesis is to throw some light on these relationships. In the first part we illustrate this modelling style on the real problem of modelling circadian clocks (Goldbeter, 2002) and we present some experiments useful to understand the relationships between stochastic and deterministic simulations. Our approach yields results similar to the literature (Gonze et al., 2002a,b). In the second part we analyse the relationships between Markov chains with discrete levels i
The activity of some Actinomycetes isolates in control of cucumber damping off disease caused by Rhizoctiona solani and Pythium sp.

A 28 Actinomycetes isolates which collected from different environmental sources in Basra province were described as Gram positive and are characterized by producing branching hyphae. Two isolates were identified by molecular analysis of 16 S r RNA gene. Molecular identification confirmed that two isolates of Actinomycetes from soil had a similarity of 99% with Streptomyces griseus. The sequence has been deposited at NCBI with Gen bank accession number (NBRC 14886, AB 184627. 1). While the isolates of date palm roots was analogous to Brevibacterium celere and the sequence of this strain deposited at NCBI with Gen bank accession number (DQ164,K414744601). The dual culture technique showed that Actinomyces isolates 44 had high antagonistic activity against Rhizoctonia solani as inhibition zone reached 1.7 cm, in contrast to Actinomyces 24 and S. griseus which revealed a high antagonistic activity against Pythium sp. with inhibition zone reached 1.2 cm for both isolates. Pots experiment showed all Actinomyces isolates were significantly reduced cucumber seedling damping off caused by R. solani and Pythium sp. the disease incidence for R. solani damping off were reduced to 1.0% in actinomycetes 44, Actinomycetes 24 and B. celere treatment compared to 11.37 % in control treatment. Disease incidence at Pythium sp. damping off was reduced to 1.0% in Actinomycetes isolates compared with that in control treatment (4.33%). According to this study there is possibility for isolating Actinomycetes isolates which isolated from different environments sources have the ability for reducing cucumber damping off disease caused by R. solani and Pythium sp.