Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Phosphorus limitation on photosynthesis of two dominant understory species in a lowland tropical forest

Aims Elevated nitrogen (N) deposition in tropical regions may accelerate ecosystem phosphorus (P) limitation. However, it is not explicitly addressed that how changes in soil N and P availability affect foliar nutrients and photosynthesis of plants in tropical forests. In this study, we examined the effects of N and P additions on foliar nutrients and net photosynthesis of two dominant understory species, Randia canthioides (R. canthioides) and Cryptocarya concinna (C. concinna) in an N-saturated old-growth tropical forest (>400-year-old) in south ern China. Methods A full factorial NP addition experiment (2
Flooding resistance and shoot elongation in relation to developmental stage and environmental conditions in Rumex maritimus L. and Rumex palustris Sm.

The flooding resistance of Rumex maritimus L. and Rumex palustris Sm. , two species from frequently flooded areas of river forelands, was studied in two large-scale outdoor experiments. Plants were raised in cohorts and in several stages of development subjected to four weeks of submergence in early summer or in midsummer. The role of under-water shoot elongation in raising foliage above the water line was not equally important in both species. In R. maritimus, survival following either early- or midsummer flooding was restricted mainly to plants which emerged from the water surface by elongating their main shoot. R. palustris was better able to survive submergence, especially under early-summer conditions. As a consequence of survival being restricted to plants in the stem elongation stage, flooded plants of R. maritimus all reproduced in the first growing season and seed output correlated positively with stem length immediately after flooding. This was also the case for R. palustris flooded at midsummer. However, for plants of R. palustris which were flooded in early summer and remained below the water line, flowering was delayed or even postponed to the following season. Variation in seed weight was much larger in R. maritimus than in R. palustris and more clearly related to cohort and treatment effects. Differences between both species in Hooding resistance did not seem to be primarily caused by different abilities of shoot elongation, but by differences in submergence tolerance in relation to life-history characteristics.
Dumbo: Faster Asynchronous BFT Protocols

HoneyBadgerBFT, proposed by Miller et al. [34] as the first practical asynchronous atomic broadcast protocol, demonstrated impressive performance. The core of HoneyBadgerBFT (HB-BFT) is to achieve batching consensus using asynchronous common subset protocol (ACS) of Ben-Or et al., constituted with n reliable broadcast protocol (RBC) to have each node propose its input, followed by n asynchronous binary agreement protocol (ABA) to make a decision for each proposed value (n is the total number of nodes). In this paper, we propose two new atomic broadcast protocols (called Dumbo1, Dumbo2) both of which have asymptotically and practically better efficiency. In particular, the ACS of Dumbo1 only runs a small κ (independent of n) instances of ABA, while that of Dumbo2 further reduces it to constant! At the core of our techniques are two major observations: (1) reducing the number of ABA instances significantly improves efficiency; and (2) using multi-valued validated Byzantine agreement (MVBA) which was considered sub-optimal for ACS in [34] in a more careful way could actually lead to a much more efficient ACS. We implement both Dumbo1, Dumbo2 and deploy them as well as HB-BFT on 100 Amazon EC2 t2.medium instances uniformly distributed throughout 10 different regions across the globe, and run extensive experiments in the same environments. The experimental results show that our protocols achieve multi-fold improvements over HoneyBadgerBFT on both latency and throughput, especially when the system scale becomes moderately large.
Effect of different sources of dietary omega‐3 fatty acids on general performance and fatty acid profiles of thigh, breast, liver and portal blood of broilers

One hundred and sixty-eight 1-day-old Cobb broiler chickens were randomly assigned to 12 broiler cages to determine the dietary effect of different sources of oils rich in long-chain omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (LCω3PUFA). The following oils were added to the feed at a concentration of 12.5 g kg−1: a highly refined seal blubber oil (SBO) containing 225 g kg−1 LCω3PUFA; a fish oil (FO) concentrate containing >800 g kg−1 LCω3PUFA in the form of triglycerides; and an FO concentrate containing >600 g kg−1 LCω3PUFA in the form of ethyl esters. Fatty acid profiles of the breast and thigh meat were measured in order to determine the deposition of LCω3PUFA into the body tissues, whilst fatty acid profiles of the liver and the portal blood were taken in order to deduce consequences of the different ester forms on the absorption process. A triangular sensory evaluation was performed on the breast meat. The levels of LCω3PUFA in all tissues and the portal blood reflected the concentrations of LCω3PUFA in the diets. The sensory properties of the breast meat were negatively influenced by ethyl ester supplementation only. Copyright © 2004 Society of Chemical Industry
Looking Ahead in Rice Disease Research and Management

Rice production is subject to increasing environmental and social constraints. Agricultural labor and water, which are key resources for rice production, illustrate this point. Nearly all rice-producing countries face reduced availability of agricultural water and shortage of farm labor. Plant pathologists should be concerned with such large-scale evolutions because these global drivers have an impact on not only the rice production system but also on the individual field and single-rice-plant levels. These concerns are closely associated with the long-term sustainability and environmental consequences of the intensification of agricultural systems brought about by problems of feeding a rapidly growing human population. Furthermore, genetic diversity in rice production has been reduced, thus inducing frequent disease epidemics and pest outbreaks. Looking ahead, we need to realize the need to maintain the diversity and yet retain the high productivity of the system. Natural resources, including genetic resources, are not infinitely abundant. We have to be efficient in utilizing genetic resources to develop durable resistance to rice diseases. Developing resistance is an important first step in tackling the disease problem, but it is not the only step available to achieve durability. Deployment of resistance must be considered in conjunction with development of host plant resistance. To attain durability, we need a better understanding of the coevolution process between the pathogen and the host resistance gene. Our target is an integrated gene management approach for better disease control and more effective utilization of genetic resources. Plant pathology, as an applied science, derives its strengths from various disciplines. To do the job right, we need a better understanding of the pathosystems, the epidemiology, and the coevolution process between the pathogen and the host resistance gene. The challenge, as pointed out by pioneers in our profession, is to prove the usefulness and the relevance of our research. Thus, we need to strike a balance between mission-oriented and fundamental research and make sure that our profession is (still) useful in the information technology and genomic era. We believe that a gene-based and a resource-based disease management approach should allow us to incorporate these new scientific developments. However, we do need to incorporate the new science for fundamental research to solve practical problems of rice production.
The prevalence of malnutrition in children with cleft lip and cleft palate: a case-control study

Background: Children with cleft lip and cleft palate come across lot of impediment, hurdles in society. There are several social factors which hinders the proper nourishment of CL only, CP or CLP children, so majority of them tend to suffer malnutrition due to lack of standard care especially from their parents and society. Due to even low socio-economic status, impact on growth of these children is vexatious. However potential risk of malnutrition is particularly more during early childhood. Moreover, till date there are not much significant data on malnutrition in CL only, CP or CLP children. The aim of the study was to assess the prevalence of malnutrition in non syndromic CL only, CP or CLP in south India.Methods: Anthropometric parameters weight for age z score (WAZ), height for age z score (HAZ), of children with CLP were compared with age matched controls.Results: Prevalence of PEM and stunting for cleft group were 40% and 21.3% respectively compared to 33.33% and 17.33% for the control. Differences in the underweight, and stunting between the two groups were not statistically significant (χ2=2.83, p value=0.58, and χ2=1.48, p value=0.69 respectively). Conclusions: There is no statistically significant difference in the occurrence of malnutrition in children with non- syndromic cleft lip and Palate compared with control.
Genetic variability, heritability and genetic advance studies in Dolichos bean (Lablab purpureus L.) genotypes

The present investigation was carried out to study the genetic variability, heritability and expected genetic advance for 18 traits in dolichos bean. The experimental material comprised of 12 genotypes of Lablab purpureus. The genotypes GL 243, Culture 47 and GL 671 are superior based on mean for pod yield. Wider variability was observed for plant height, number of secondary branches per plant, number of pods per inflorescence, number of inflorescence per plant, mean pod weight, number of pods per plant, 100-seed weight, pod yield per plant and pod yield per hectare. All these characters also recorded high heritability and genetic advance. Hence selection will be effective for these traits.
Towards Deep Learning for Weed Detection: Deep Convolutional Neural Network Architectures for Plant Seedling Classification

Traditional means of on-farm weed control mostly relies on manual labor. This process is time consuming, costly and contributes to major yield losses. The conventional application of chemical weed control, however, goes against the strive for sustainability. To solve this using computer vision, precision agriculture researchers have used remote sensing weed maps, but this has been largely ineffective for early season weed control due to problems such as solar reflectance and cloud cover in satellite imagery. With the current advances in artificial intelligence, this study leverages the automatic feature extraction capabilities of deep convolutional neural networks (DCNN) to classify plant seedlings. In a comparative study, we demonstrate that DCNNs can successfully classify crops and weeds in various phenological growth stages. Our results indicate that while training DCNNs from scratch can achieve state-of-the-art performance for weed classification tasks, model performance can be improved by fine-tuning a pre-trained model.
Behavioral Design in Online Supermarkets: How Virtual Shopping Cart Functions Impact Sustainable Consumption

In recent years, the negative environmental impact of consumers' dietary habits has become more visible. Accordingly, in-store interventions to promote more sustainable (e.g., organic) food choices have received increased scholarly attention. Thereby, online grocery shopping is gaining momentum as web-applications provide decision support tools such as real-time spending feedback (RSF). Building on budgeting and spending literature, this study provides initial insights on the impact of RSF on consumers’ organic food choices in online supermarkets. Using a free simulation experimental approach, we were able to track participants’ real grocery shopping behavior within a realistic online shopping environment. Within a baseline (no RSF) and an intervention (RSF) condition (between subject design), we show that RSF facilitated participants to stay within their budget and significantly reduced underspending. Somewhat surprisingly in response to the RSF, participants who usually buy fewer organic products purchased significantly more organic food items, both in absolute and relative terms.
Genetic improvement for production and health in broilers

The objective of present thesis was to optimize the genetic improvement of production and health traits in broilers. The genetic correlations among abdominal, subcutaneous, and intramuscular fat showed that there is a high genetic correlation between abdominal and subcutaneous fat (0.54), whereas the genetic correlation between abdominal and intramuscular fat is almost zero (0.02). Therefore selection for reduced abdominal fat does not change the intramuscular fat content and consequently meat quality. The genetic correlations were estimated on broilers of different ages (48, 63, and 70 d). The results indicated that increase in growth at 48 d was accompanied by increase in valuable parts (breast meat and back half); at 70 d it was accompanied by an increase in abdominal fat percentage. In addition, the genetic correlation of BW at 48 d between individual cage and group housing demonstrated a genotype by environment interaction for performance of birds in different housing systems. The present research showed that including indirect carcass measurements in the broiler breeding schemes resulted in improved genetic gain for breast meat percentage and reduced rate of inbreeding, which is desirable for long-term selection. The improved genetic gain resulted from increased accuracy of selection due to the own performance of selection candidates for carcass traits. The reliability of the indirect measurements influences the usefulness of these methods. The correlation between BW and ascites related traits in the cold conditions were estimated using mixture model analysis. The results indicated that the overall correlations between BW and ascites traits are dependent on the relative frequency of ascitic and non-ascitic birds in the population. Finally, estimated genetic parameters for production and health traits were used in a simulation to illustrate the consequences of including health related traits together with production traits in a sustainable breeding program. The results showed that a reduction of 6% of response in production traits was sufficient to offset the negative response in health traits.
Unipolar Depression and Bipolar Depression Manifest Different Brain Abnormalities: A Voxel-based Morphometry Study

Background:Patients with bipolar depression is often misdiagnosed to be as unipolar depression due to the phenotype similarity of these two diseases. We hypothesize that patients with these two diseases may demonstrate difference in terms of gray matter volume. Methods:Structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data were acquired from 64 subjects, including 17 unipolar depression patients, 19 bipolar depression patients and 28 healthy controls. Image preprocess were conducted using Voxel-based morphometry (VBM). Then the gray matter volume changes were compared among different groups. Results: Compared to healthy controls, both Unipolar and bipolar patients demonstrated significantly decreased gray matter volume in the right anterior cerebellum lobe. Moreover, we observed significant right superior temporal gyrus volume decrease in unipolar patients compared to both healthy controls and bipolar subjects. Conclusion: Our results indicated that volume changes in anterior cerebellum lobe could be used for the diagnosis of both unipolar and bipolar depressions. Additionally, the right superior temporal gyrus volume variations may differ in unipolar and bipolar patients and thereby could be used as a marker for differentiating these two diseases
A Dynamic Classification Approach to Churn Prediction in Banking Industry

Churn prediction is the process of using transaction data to identify customers who are likely to cease their relationship with a company. To date, most work in churn prediction focuses on sampling strategies and supervised modeling over a short period of time. Few have explored the area of mining customer behavior pattern in longitudinal data. This research developed a dynamic approach to optimizing model specifications by using time-series predictors, multiple time periods, and rare event detection to enable accurate churn prediction. The study used a unique three-year dataset consisting of 32,000 transaction records of a retail bank in Florida, USA. It uses trend modeling to capture the change of customer behavior over time. Results show that data from multiple time periods helped to improve model precision and recall. This dynamic churn prediction approach can be generalized to other fields for which mining long term customer data is necessary.
Firm's Response Strategies after Data Breach and Stock Market Reactions

Recent high-profile data breaches have attracted the public’s and regulators’ attention. Despite the compliance requirement of disclosing data breaches, it is not clear how breached firms respond to the public after data breaches as part of the firm’s overall disaster recovery and public perception management strategies. In this work-in-progress, using data breach data from 2005 to 2018, we investigate how breached firms respond to the public through press releases and how such responses may affect subsequent stock market reactions. Initial descriptive information is provided, and we conclude with future plans.
Deep and Shallow Banding of Phosphorus and Potassium as Alternatives to Broadcast Fertilization for No-Till Corn

Proper P and K management for no-till crops is uncertain. Potential problems include inappropriate extrapolation of soil test interpretations and fertilizer recommendations from conventional tillage, inappropriate soil sampling techniques, and inefficient fertilizer placement. This study compared broadcast, deep-band, and planter-band P and K placements for no-till corn (Zea mays L.). Long-term P and K trials were established in 1994 at five Iowa research centers and were evaluated for 3 yr. Eleven short-term P-K trials were established in farmers' fields during the same period. Treatments were various P (0 to 56 kg P ha -1 ) and K (0 to 132 kg K ha -1 ) rates broadcast, banded with the planter 5 cm beside and below the seeds, and deep-banded at the 15- to 20-cm depth before planting. Soil samples were collected from the 0- to 7.5-cm and 7.5- to 15-cm depths prior to planting. Soil-test P (P ST ) at the 0- to 15-cm depth ranged from very low to very high across sites; soil-test K (K ST ) ranged from optimum to very high. There were grain yield responses to fertilization at several sites, but no significant differences between the P or K rates and no interactions between rates and placements. Phosphorus increased yields only in soils testing very low or low, and there was no response to P placement at any site. Potassium increased yields in several soils that tested optimum or higher in K ST , and yields were higher when K was deep-banded. High rates of broadcast or planter-banded K did not offset the advantage of deep-banded K. Responses were better related with deficient rainfall in late spring and early summer than with K ST . Current soil-test P interpretations and P fertilizer recommendations based on chisel-plow tillage are appropriate for most Iowa soils managed with no-tillage. Further work is needed to better characterize and predict responses to deep-banded K. Because yield response was small, the cost-effectiveness of deep-band K will be determined largely by application costs.
Mitochondrial DNA analysis confirms the existence of two glacial races of rainbow smelt Osmerus mordax and their reproductive isolation in the St Lawrence River estuary (Quebec, Canada)

A phylogeographic analysis of mitochondrial DNA variation was performed in order to test the hypothesis that north‐eastern North America has been postglacially recolonized by two races of rainbow smelt Osmerus mordax. This was accomplished by documenting the geographical distribution of two major mtDNA phylogenetic clades among 1290 smelt from 49 lacustrine and anadromous populations covering most of the species' native range. The data set was built by combining previously published results with those generated in this study. The two mtDNA clades showed a geographical dichotomy, independent of life‐history types, whereby the more eastern populations were either fixed or largely dominated by one clade and western populations for the other. Such geographical pattern implying a phylogenetic discontinuity provided strong evidence for the persistence of smelt in two distinct glacial refugia as well as their differential postglacial dispersal. The most likely refugium for the so‐called Atlantic race was the Atlantic coastal plains, whereas that of the so‐called Acadian race was the exundated Grand Banks area. Patterns of postglacial dispersal interpreted from palaeogeographic events suggested that the Atlantic race recolonized northern regions about 5000 years prior the Acadian race. Both races came into contact in the St Lawrence River estuary. While gene flow has been possible, the sympatric occurrence in the estuary of anadromous populations alternatively dominated by one mtDNA clade or the other indicated that reproductive isolation mechanisms between the two races developed within this contact zone. This represents the first evidence of secondary intergradation among distinct races of aquatic organisms in an estuarine environment.
Auditors' Adoption of Blockchain Technology: A Study on Antecedents

In this study, we examine the adoption of Blockchain Technology (BC) by auditors as BC has the potentials to fundamentally change the auditing industry. We first examine auditors’ knowl edge in accounting and auditing, their experience in using accounting software, and their general knowledge of BC. We suggest that these factors have a positive impact on BC adoption intention. We also examine auditors’ judgments regarding the sampling size of transactions considering the materiality concept. Lastly, we consider the roles of auditors’ degrees of professional skepticism (PS), defined in professional standards as having a questioning mind and critically assessing evidence. We suggest that both materiality and PS have a negative impact on BC adoption. A survey is conducted among internal and external auditors to collect empirical data to test our research model. The study recognizes some crucial factors that influence auditors’ adoption of BC, providing guidance for research and practice.
Folding BIKE: Scalable Hardware Implementation for Reconfigurable Devices

Contemporary digital infrastructures and systems use and trust Public-Key Cryptography to exchange keys over insecure communication channels. With the development and progress in the research field of quantum computers, well established schemes like RSA and ECC are more and more threatened. The urgent demand to find and standardize new schemes – which are secure in a post-quantum world – was also realized by the National Institute of Standards and Technology which announced a Post-Quantum Cryptography Standardization Project in 2017. Recently, the round three candidates were announced and one of the alternate candidates is the Key Encapsulation Mechanism scheme BIKE. In this article, we investigate different strategies to efficiently implement the BIKE algorithm on Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs). To this extend, we improve already existing polynomial multipliers, propose efficient strategies to realize polynomial inversions, and implement the Black-Gray-Flip decoder for the first time. Additionally, our implementation is designed to be scalable and generic with the BIKE specific parameters. All together, the fastest designs achieve latencies of 2.69 ms for the key generation, 0.1 ms for the encapsulation, and 1.89 ms for the decapsulation considering the lowest security level.