Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Burkholderia pseudomallei interferes with host lipid metabolism via NR1D2-mediated PNPLA2/ATGL suppression to block autophagy-dependent inhibition of infection

ABSTRACT Burkholderia pseudomallei: which causes melioidosis with high mortality in humans, has become a global public health concern. Recently, infection-driven lipid droplet accumulation has been related to the progression of host-pathogen interactions, and its contribution to the pathogenesis of infectious disease has been investigated. Here, we demonstrated that B. pseudomallei infection actively induced a time-dependent increase in the number and size of lipid droplets in human lung epithelial cells and macrophages. We also found that lipid droplet accumulation following B. pseudomallei infection was associated with downregulation of PNPLA2/ATGL (patatin like phospholipase domain containing 2) and lipophagy inhibition. Functionally, lipid droplet accumulation, facilitated via PNPLA2 downregulation, inhibited macroautophagic/autophagic flux and, thus, hindered autophagy-dependent inhibition of B. pseudomallei infection in lung epithelial cells. Mechanistically, we further revealed that nuclear receptor NR1D2 might be involved in the suppression of PNPLA2 after cell exposure to B. pseudomallei. Taken together, our findings unraveled an evolutionary strategy, by which B. pseudomallei interferes with the host lipid metabolism, to block autophagy-dependent suppression of infection. This study proposes potential targets for clinical therapy of melioidosis. Abbreviations: 3-MA: 3-methyladenine; ACTB: actin beta; ATG7: autophagy related 7; B. pseudomallei: Burkholderia pseudomallei; CFU: colony-forming unit; DG: diglyceride; FASN: fatty acid synthase; GFP: green fluorescent protein; LAMP1: lysosomal associated membrane protein 1; LC-MS/MS: liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry; LD: lipid droplet; MAP1LC3B/LC3B: microtubule associated protein 1 light chain 3 beta; MG: monoglyceride; MOI: multiplicity of infection; mRFP: monomeric red fluorescent protein; NR1D2: nuclear receptor subfamily 1 group D member 2; p.i. , post-infection; PLIN2/ADRP: perilipin 2; PNPLA2/ATGL: patatin like phospholipase domain containing 2; Rapa: rapamycin; SQSTM1/p62: sequestosome 1; shRNA: short hairpin RNA; TEM: transmission electron microscopy; TG: triglyceride
A Tool for Guiding Teachers and their Learners: the Case Study of an Art Class

There is growing interest in how to enable in-service teachers to promote computational skills in their classes. Different researchers also highlight the importance of developing a critical mindset toward digital technology. This paper reports a case study, part of a training program for in-service teachers, organised by researchers and the local School District, to bring physical computing into class, and foster critical reflections on technology along the process. The program included teachers for diverse subjects, across primary and high schools. It used the novel IoTgo tool, adaptable to the needs of the different teachers. The study in this paper considers the case of an art class in a high school. According to the reported data analysis, the tool and the structure it offered enabled the teacher to bring computing into her art class, on her own, and learners to reflect along the process from different perspectives.
The Changes of Flavonoids in Honey during Storage

The purpose of this study was to determine the changes in the contents of flavonoids that were the most prevalent in acacia and multifloral honey during one year of storage. Samples were stored in transparent glass containers, at room temperature, on open shelves exposed to light during daytime. Eight individual flavonoids identified and quantified using HPLC-Diode Array Detector (DAD) belongs to three subgroups: flavonols (quercetin, luteolin, kaempferol and galangin), total flavanons (hesperetin and pinocembrin) and total flavones (apigenin and chrysin). Obtained results revealed that multifloral honey had more total flavonoids than acacia samples did. On average from all of the samples, multifloral honey had more of quercetin, hesperetin, luteolin, kaempferol and apigenin than acacia honey did. Content of flavonoids increased in samples between the 1st and 6th month of storage and then started to decrease until the 9th month, when they remained relatively constant all the way until the 12th month of storage. In conclusion, acacia and multifloral honey after one-year of storage still can be a valuable source of flavonoids.
Analysis of Temporal Signals of Climate

The dynamics of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is analyzed and it is shown that the Pinatubo eruption in 1991 had a noticeable effect on these dynamics. The growth rate slowed down. Moreover, analyzing the year-on-year CO2 growth data, we can see an an-thropogenic footprint, possibly due to the burning of fossil fuels. On top of this anthropo-genic contribution is a natural contribution that is of similar magnitude, and that closely follows the ocean surface temperature (influenced by ENSO, El Ni&ntildeo Southern Oscilla-tion). This latter fact is consistent with the hypothesis of the correlation of global temper-atures and carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere being governed by Henry’s Law, in which carbon dioxide variations are the result of, rather than the cause of, temperature changes. This latter being the so-called “greenhouse effect”, sometimes mentioned as responsible for (anthropogenic) climate changes, and that cannot explain the observed phenomena described here. Similar conclusions are drawn on monthly data of carbon dioxide and temperature as well.
A speech envelope landmark for syllable encoding in human superior temporal gyrus

Scientists find how syllable timing and stress are represented in human speech cortex. The most salient acoustic features in speech are the modulations in its intensity, captured by the amplitude envelope. Perceptually, the envelope is necessary for speech comprehension. Yet, the neural computations that represent the envelope and their linguistic implications are heavily debated. We used high-density intracranial recordings, while participants listened to speech, to determine how the envelope is represented in human speech cortical areas on the superior temporal gyrus (STG). We found that a well-defined zone in middle STG detects acoustic onset edges (local maxima in the envelope rate of change). Acoustic analyses demonstrated that timing of acoustic onset edges cues syllabic nucleus onsets, while their slope cues syllabic stress. Synthesized amplitude-modulated tone stimuli showed that steeper slopes elicited greater responses, confirming cortical encoding of amplitude change, not absolute amplitude. Overall, STG encoding of the timing and magnitude of acoustic onset edges underlies the perception of speech temporal structure.
Bio-efficacy of Newer Insecticides against Diamondback Moth (Plutella xylostella Linn.) in Cabbage at Farmers Field

Cabbage (Brassica oleracea var. capitata Linn.) is the most common, popular and major annual vegetable crop. Among the winter vegetables, the cabbage is extensively cultivated crop because of its nutritional and economical values. The area under vegetable crops in India was about 9,541 thousand ha with production of 16, 8,300 MT. In Maharashtra, the corresponding figure for cabbage was 379 thousand ha with a production of8597 MT (Anon., 2015).
A New Teiid Lizard of the Genus Callopistes Gravenhorst, 1838 (Squamata, Teiidae), from the Lower Miocene of Argentina

ABSTRACT Although squamates are commonly found in Cenozoic South American deposits, most findings correspond to fragmentary cranial materials or isolated vertebrae. Among the known South American vertebrate fossil localities, the lower section of the Chichinales Formation (Early Miocene, Colhuehuapian South American Land Mammal Age [SALMA]), in Paso Córdoba Protected Natural Area, Río Negro Province, Argentina, recently yielded an almost complete skull of a previously unknown teiid lizard. Here, we provide a detailed description of this new fossil, based on stereoscopic and high-resolution X-ray computed tomography (CT scan) analyses. Our phylogenetic analysis recovered the new fossil within the monophyletic genus Callopistes, as the sister group of the fossil C. bicuspidatus from upper Miocene–lower Pliocene sediments (Montehermosan SALMA) of the Monte Hermoso Formation. The new species antedates the oldest previously known fossil record of the genus by at least 14 Ma, providing a minimum age of origin for the genus of approximately 20.1Ma (based on recent revisions of the Cenozoic fossil record of SALMA). The current distribution of the two known extant species of Callopistes and the locality from which the new taxon was recovered indicate that this genus had a much broader distribution in the past that included cis-Andean areas of Patagonia during the Miocene. Our phylogenetic results further suggest that Tupinambis uruguaianensis should be allocated to the genus Dracaena.
Modelling the timing of leaf unfolding in pedunculate oak (Quercus robur l.) clonal seed orchard

For ten years, 53 genotypes of Pedunculate Oak were monitored in a clonal seed orchard. The aim of the study was to clarify effects of forcing and chilling temperature as background of leaf unfolding of pedunculate oak through the different kind of prediction models. The Pedunculate Oak is known to have three phenoforms of flushing phases, i.e., early, intermediate and late, and substantially different Growing Degree Days (GDD) requirements were found among these phenological groups. For each of the phenological groups, the GDD interval value required for leaf unfolding was determined, but the values varied between years, rendering the development of a simulation GDD model difficult. For these reasons, other variables – day of year, precipitation and insolation – were included in the assessment. The aim was to examine how these environmental factors determine the GDD requirement for leaf unfolding in the three Pedunculate Oak phenological groups. The results suggest that for all three flushing groups, insolation and the day of year are statistically significant predictors for GDD. Insolation was demonstrated to be the primary factor with the largest influence on the GDD values. In the early flushing group, insolation accounted for 74.1 % of the variation, 90.6 % in the intermediate group, and 78.7 % in the late group. We recommend using the univariate GDD model for the early and intermediate flushing groups (GDDearly = −27.651 + 0.539 * insolation; GDDinter = −48.084 + 0.690 * insolation) and the multivariate model for the late flushing group (GDDlate = −237.839 + 0.559 * insolation + 2.479 * day of year). To break the dormancy, chilling is required to be in the range of ± 40 chilling units, and if the values are higher or lower, the trees require significantly higher forcing temperatures.
Synergy of Active and Passive Remote Sensing Data for Effective Mapping of Oil Palm Plantation in Malaysia

Oil palm is recognized as a golden crop, as it produces the highest oil yield among oil seed crops. Malaysia is the world’s second largest producer of palm oil; 16% of its land is planted with oil palm. To cope with the ever-increasing global demand on edible oil, additional areas of oil palm are forecast to increase globally by 12 to 19 Mha by 2050. Multisensor remote sensing plays an important role in providing relevant, timely, and accurate information that can be developed into a plantation monitoring system to optimize production and sustainability. The aim of this study was to simultaneously exploit the synthetic aperture radar ALOS PALSAR 2, a form of microwave remote sensing, in combination with visible (red) data from Landsat Thematic Mapper to obtain a holistic view of a plantation. A manipulation of the horizontal–horizontal (HH) and horizontal–vertical (HV) polarizations of ALOS PALSAR data detected oil palm trees and water bodies, while the red spectra L-band from Landsat data (optical) could effectively identify built up areas and vertical–horizontal (VH) polarization from Sentinel C-band data detected bare land. These techniques produced an oil palm area classification with overall accuracies of 98.36% and 0.78 kappa coefficient for Peninsular Malaysia. The total oil palm area in Peninsular Malaysia was estimated to be about 3.48% higher than the value reported by the Malaysian Palm Oil Board. The over estimation may be due the MPOB’s statistics that do not include unregistered small holder oil palm plantations. In this study, we were able to discriminate most of the rubber areas.
Second generation bioethanol production at high gravity of pilot-scale pretreated wheat straw employing newly isolated thermotolerant yeast Kluyveromyces marxianus DBTIOC-35

Second-generation bioethanol production by a newly isolated thermotolerant yeast strain was studied at 42 °C and above using pilot-scale dilute acid pretreated wheat straw (WS) as feedstock. This strain was identified as Kluyveromyces marxianus DBTIOC-35 by biochemical characterization as well as molecular phylogenetic analysis of the ITS-5.8S rRNA gene and D1/D2 domain of the 26S rRNA gene after PCR amplification and sequencing. Simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) at 42 °C and 45 °C using 10% biomass loading resulted in ethanol titers of 29.0 and 16.1 g L−1, respectively. At 42 °C ethanol productivity was higher during SSF (0.92 g L−1 h−1) than separate hydrolysis and fermentation (SHF) (0.49 g L−1 h−1) at 20% biomass loading. The results indicated that at 20% biomass loading, SSF without pre-saccharification led to more ethanol production (66.2 g L−1 with 83.3% yield) at a faster rate than SSF with pre-saccharification (PSSF) which produced an ethanol titer of 61.8 g L−1, 77.7% yield and productivity of 0.86 g L−1 h−1. Based on these findings, application of newly isolated yeast K. marxianus DBTIOC-35 in SSF of lignocellulosic biomass can eliminate the pre-saccharification step which is a novel advantage of thermotolerant yeasts in terms of cutting down the overall biomass to bioethanol process time and enhancing bioethanol titer, yields and productivities.
Insect–plant relationships predict the speed of insecticide adaptation

Herbivorous insects must circumvent the chemical defenses of their host plants and, in cropping systems, must also circumvent synthetic insecticides. The pre‐adaptation hypothesis posits that when herbivorous insects evolve resistance to insecticides, they co‐opt adaptations against host plant defenses. Despite its intuitive appeal, few predictions of this hypothesis have been tested systematically. Here, with survival analysis of more than 17,000 herbivore–insecticide interactions, we show that resistance evolution tends to be faster when herbivorous insect diets are broad (but not too broad) and when insecticides and plant defensive chemicals are similar (but not too similar). These general relations suggest a complex interplay between macro‐evolutionary contingencies and contemporary population genetic processes, and provide a predictive framework to forecast which pest species are most likely to develop resistance to particular insecticide chemistries.
Deficit Irrigation and Arbuscular Mycorrhiza as a Water-Saving Strategy for Eggplant Production

Crop production in arid regions requires continuous irrigation to fulfill water demand throughout the growing season. Agronomic measures, such as roots-soil microorganisms, including arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi, have emerged in recent years to overcome soil constraints and improve water use efficiency (WUE). Eggplant plants were exposed to varying water stress under inoculated (AM+) and non-inoculated (AM−) to evaluate yield performance along with plant physiological status. Plants grown under full irrigation resulted in the highest fruit yield, and there were significant reductions in total yield and yield components when applying less water. The decline in fruit yield was due to the reduction in the number of fruits rather than the weight of the fruit per plant. AM+ plants showed more favorable growth conditions, which translated into better crop yield, total dry biomass, and number of fruits under all irrigation treatments. The fruit yield did not differ between full irrigation and 80% evapotranspiration (ET) restoration with AM+, but a 20% reduction in irrigation water was achieved. Water use efficiency (WUE) was negatively affected by deficit irrigation, particularly at 40% ET, when the water deficit severely depressed fruit yield. Yield response factor (Ky) showed a lower tolerance with a value higher than 1, with a persistent drop in WUE suggesting a lower tolerance to water deficits. The (Ky) factor was relatively lower with AM+ than with AM− for the total fruit yield and dry biomass (Kss), indicating that AM may enhance the drought tolerance of the crop. Plants with AM+ had a higher uptake of N and P in shoots and fruits, higher stomatal conductance (gs), and higher photosynthetic rates (Pn), regardless of drought severity. Soil with AM+ had higher extractable N, P, and organic carbon (OC), indicating an improvement of the fertility status in coping with a limited water supply.
Calculative practices and socio-political tensions: A historical analysis of entertainment, arts and accounting in a government agency

The article examines entertainment, arts and accounting practices of a national arts council that funds arts organisations and artists. It does so by investigating the first 25 years of annual reports of the Australian Council for the Arts (1973-1996), using media reports to triangulate the data. Set against a background of socio-political change, the study explicates the differing treatments of entertainment and the arts, as political parties come in and out of power, national policy shifts, and macro-economic changes occur. Guided by legitimacy theory, analysis of narratives and budgets as calculative practices in annual reports illustrates how the nexus between entertainment and the arts changes over time, with the emphasis or value placed on entertainment diminishing relative to the arts. We conclude that the arts council has become the ‘arts council for the performing arts’, calling into question moral, pragmatic and cognitive legitimacy of the arts council.
The Influence of Tilt Angle on the Aerodynamic Performance of a Wind Turbine

Aerodynamic performance of a wind turbine at different tilt angles was studied based on the commercial CFD software STAR-CCM+. Tilt angles of 0, 4, 8 and 12° were investigated based on uniform wind speed and wind shear. In CFD simulation, the rotating motion of blade was based on a sliding mesh. The thrust, power, lift and drag of the blade section airfoil at different tilt angles have been widely investigated herein. Meanwhile, the tip vortices and velocity profiles at different tilt angles were physically observed. In addition, the influence of the wind shear exponents and the expected value of turbulence intensity on the aerodynamic performance of the wind turbine is also further discussed. The results indicate that the change in tilt angle changes the angle of attack of the airfoil section of the wind turbine blade, which affects the thrust and power of the wind turbine. The aerodynamic performance of the wind turbine is better when the tilt angle is about 4°. Wind shear will cause the thrust and power of the wind turbine to decrease, and the effect of the wind shear exponents on the aerodynamic performance of the wind turbine is significantly greater than the expected effect of the turbulence intensity. The main purpose of the paper was to study the effect of tilt angle on the aerodynamic performance of a fixed wind turbine.
Structural-controlled synthesis of polyaniline nanoarchitectures using hydrothermal method

Three new polyaniline (PANI) micro/nanostructures featuring square nanosheets, microspheres and microdisks are successfully synthesized via hydrothermal method. Uniform sizes and thickness of highly crystalline PANI square structural nanosheets can be tuned by the oxidation polymerization in the presence of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) as a template. Mechanistic studies indicate that concentrations of aniline and CTAB, reaction temperature and time have great influence on the morphology of PANI polymers. Particularly, CTAB is essential to determine the morphology of synthetic PANI. In aqueous solution at extremely high temperature and pressure, CTAB provides various self-assembly of micelles, such as spherical micelle, planar bilayer, and lamellar phase, in which corresponding micro/nanostructures are formed. This hydrothermal fabrication gives an excellent example for the preparation of well-defined two-dimensional PANI micro/nanomaterials and potentially for other synthetic polymers.
Automated Volume Measurement, Adulteration Detection, and Tracking of Petroleum Products

The quantity of crude oil, petrol, diesel, or kerosene stored in storage tanks by the refineries, bulk oil terminals/depots, bulk consumers and petrol pumps is measured by taking the "dip" or height of the product in the tank. The process is manual, and open to theft, manipulation, and inaccurate reporting. Furthermore, petroleum products adulteration is another major challenge as there are no devices capable of detecting adulteration at point of sale (POS) terminals. A significant volume of petroleum products in Nigeria are being diverted and adulterated by corrupt officials to create artificial scarcity or smuggle to neighbouring countries to earn higher profits. The Petroleum Product Volume Estimator and Tracker (PPVET) is a portable electronic device that automatically measures the volume of a petroleum product contained with a receptacle, be it calibrated or uncalibrated. PPVET is also capable of detecting and identifying pure petroleum products, and tracking petroleum products during transportation. The Petroleum Product Volume Estimator and Tracker has been designed, built, and tested in Effurun, Delta State, Nigeria. The unit accurately measured 9 L of kerosene in a vertical cylinder with a measurement error of 2.2%. The system also demonstrated the ability to distinguish between pure crude oil, diesel, kerosene and petrol, based on their chemical signature data from gas vapor emissions. PPVET demonstrated the ability to track the transportation of a petroleum product along an authorized route, to detect when the product was being diverted outside the authorized route, and to alert the appropriate authorities on the diversion occurence and the GPS location of the diversion. Future work includes testing the system for automated volume measurement of underground storage tanks and petroleum product tankers, testing the PPVET's ability to detect adulterated petroleum products and to quantity the level of adulteration present in a given petroleum product, and testing the PPVET product tracking capability on a petroleum tanker transporting petroleum products across the country.