Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Architectural analysis of plant root systems 2. Influence of nutrient supply on architecture in contrasting plant species

summary Two components of root architecture (topology and link lengths) were measured in a group of 13 dicotyledon and eight grass species, under both high and low nutrient supply rates. Predictions were made, based on a simulation analysis, that root systems from plants grown in low nutrient conditions and those from plants characteristic of such conditions should have the more herringbone topology (branching principally on main axis) and longer links. Both these predictions were confirmed for the dicots, but data from grasses agreed with the predictions only in terms of geometry (link lengths) and not topology. The ecological character of the species was assessed on the assumption that species of low inherent relative growth rate were characteristic of infertile soils, Taxonomic patterns were also evident, indicating that some variation in root system architecture may be historical rather than adaptive.
Terminonaris (Archosauria: Crocodyliformes): new material from Saskatchewan, Canada, and comments on its phylogenetic relationships

Abstract A newly-discovered skeleton of Terminonaris (=Teleorhinus) robusta (=robustus) from the early Turonian marine deposits of east-central Saskatchewan affords the opportunity for a detailed description of the anatomy of this species and its placement in the context of other known species of this genus. The specific diagnosis of T. robusta and the generic diagnosis of Terminonaris are established. Terminonaris robusta differs from the type species T. browni mainly in size-related features. Teleorhinus mesabiensis Erickson, 1969 is placed into the synonymy of Terminonaris robusta. The genus can be diagnosed by features of the anterior end of the snout, sutural relationships of the bones surrounding the orbit, and the structure of the occiput. A phylogenetic analysis based upon data drawn from the new material suggests that Terminonaris is not a pholidosaurid but is, instead, closely related to Dyrosaurus. This analysis continues to support the hypothesis that long-snouted crocodyliforms of the traditional “mesosuchian grade” form a clade.
Effects of early skip-a-day feed removal on broiler live performance and carcass yield

SUMMARY Programs that limit early growth of broilers are widely used to reduce mortality and culling and to improve feed conversion. Skip-a-day feed removal is a technique for limiting early growth and has not been extensively examined for broilers. This technique may be more easily implemented than other commonly used programs. Broilers were subjected to one of the following regimens: provided feed ad libitum to 54 d of age (AL); ad libitum except for 24-h removal periods at 8 and 10 d of age (R2); 24-h removal periods at 8, 10, 12, and 14 d of age (R4); or 24-h removal periods at 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, and 18 d of age (R6). Body weights at the end of feed removal were reduced 29, 35, and 41% by R2, R4 and R6 treatments, respectively, when compared with the AL treatment for the same periods. Average daily gains on R4 and R6 treatments were greater upon resumption of feeding ad libitum. Feed removal for a total of 2 or 4 d did not decrease final body weight, feed consumption, or carcass weight; however, removal for a total of 6 d decreased these variables. Cumulative feed conversion, BW, uniformity, mortality, carcass yield, carcass weight, abdominal fat pad, and feed costs per pound of body and carcass weights were not affected by feed removal. These results indicate subjecting broilers to 4 d of feed removal significantly reduced early growth without compromising final weight or meat recovery.
Identifying key knowledge needs for evidence‐based conservation of wild insect pollinators: a collaborative cross‐sectoral exercise

In response to evidence of insect pollinator declines, organisations in many sectors, including the food and farming industry, are investing in pollinator conservation. They are keen to ensure that their efforts use the best available science. We convened a group of 32 ‘conservation practitioners’ with an active interest in pollinators and 16 insect pollinator scientists. The conservation practitioners include representatives from UK industry (including retail), environmental non‐government organisations and nature conservation agencies. We collaboratively developed a long list of 246 knowledge needs relating to conservation of wild insect pollinators in the UK. We refined and selected the most important knowledge needs, through a three‐stage process of voting and scoring, including discussions of each need at a workshop. We present the top 35 knowledge needs as scored by conservation practitioners or scientists. We find general agreement in priorities identified by these two groups. The priority knowledge needs will structure ongoing work to make science accessible to practitioners, and help to guide future science policy and funding. Understanding the economic benefits of crop pollination, basic pollinator ecology and impacts of pesticides on wild pollinators emerge strongly as priorities, as well as a need to monitor floral resources in the landscape.
Imperfect 1-Out-of-2 Quantum Oblivious Transfer: Bounds, a Protocol, and its Experimental Implementation

Oblivious transfer is an important primitive in modern cryptography. Applications include secure multiparty computation, oblivious sampling, e-voting, and signatures. Information-theoretically secure perfect 1-out-of 2 oblivious transfer is impossible to achieve. Imperfect variants, where both participants' ability to cheat is still limited, are possible using quantum means while remaining classically impossible. Precisely what security parameters are attainable remains unknown. We introduce a theoretical framework for studying semi-random quantum oblivious transfer, which is shown equivalent to regular oblivious transfer in terms of cheating probabilities. We then use it to derive bounds on cheating. We also present a protocol with lower cheating probabilities than previous schemes, together with its optical realisation.
A Vision for Numerical Weather Prediction in 2030.

In this essay, I outline a personal vision of how I think Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) should evolve in the years leading up to 2030 and hence what it should look like in 2030. By NWP I mean initial-value predictions from timescales of hours to seasons ahead. Here I want to focus on how NWP can better help save lives from increasingly extreme weather in those parts of the world where society is most vulnerable. Whilst we can rightly be proud of many parts of our NWP heritage, its evolution has been influenced by national or institutional politics as well as by underpinning scientific principles. Sometimes these conflict with each other. It is important to be able to separate these issues when discussing how best meteorological science can serve society in 2030; otherwise any disruptive change - no matter how compelling the scientific case for it - becomes impossibly difficult.
Influence of season, temperature, and photoperiod on growth of the land snail Helix aperta

Growth strategies are often plastic and influenced by environmental conditions. Terrestrial gastropods are particularly affected by seasonal and climatic variables, and growth rate and size at maturity are key traits in their life history. Therefore, we investigated juvenile growth of Helix aperta snails under four combinations of temperature and photoperiod using two sets of young snails, born in the laboratory from adults collected in either the autumn (aestivating snails) or spring (active snails). Parental snails were collected from Bakaro (Northeastern Algeria). Higher temperature increased adult size and reduced the time to first reproduction. Long day photoperiod also increased the final body weight, but had no effect on the length of the growth period. The season of birth had significant effects on length of the growth period and weight of hatchlings, whereas this weight difference disappeared by adulthood. The Spring snails took less time to develop and reached similar adult body weight as the Autumn snails. These differences may be owing to differences in egg size or quality between the snails from different seasons. More rapid growth in Spring snails results in larger snails entering aestivation, a period with size-related mortality in this species.
The Role of Nitrate in the Osmotic and Nutritional Control of Plant Development

I postulate that certain of the effects of nitrate on plant development are mediated by the combination of an osmotic effect on water uptake and a nutritional effect on protein synthesis. This hypothesis is discussed with reference to effects on seed germination, apical dominance, lateral root initiation, flowering and leaf senescence. The postulated osmotic effect of nitrate is consistent with the well-established role of both nitrate and reduced forms of N as major osmotica in plant cells, and also with the similarity and interaction between developmental effects of nitrate and water. Evidence of the nutritional component of developmental effects of nitrate is provided by a comparison of responses induced by nitrate and by other osmotica of less nutritional significance. Carbohydrate has also been reported to influence development by a combination of osmotic and nutritional effects. The proposed hypothesis is a unifying concept which provides a similar physiological explanation for a wide range of diverse developmental responses that are usually attributed to the effect or interaction of different hormonal factors.
Cytological studies on the Sino‐Himalayan endemic Solms‐laubachia (Brassicaceae) and two related genera

The karyotypes of six species of Solms-laubachia and one each of Parrya and Desideria (Brassicaceae) from the Himalayan-Hengduan Mountains (Tibet, Sichuan and Yunnan provinces) were investigated. Chromosome counts of S. xerophyta, S. lanata, S. platycarpa and D. baiogoinensis are reported for the first time and found to be diploid with 2n = 14. Diploid counts were also made of S. retropilosa, a species previously known to be a tetraploid. The karyotype formulae of D. baiogoinensis, S. eurycarpa, S. pulcherrima, S. retropilosa, S. xerophyta and S. platycarpa are 2n = 14 = 6 m + 6sm + 2st, whereas those of S. lanata and P. nudicaulis are 2n = 14 = 6 in + 2sm + 6st and 2n = 14 = 8 in + 4sm + 2st, respectively. Karyotypes and counts of S. eurycarpa and S. pulcherrima are in agreement with prior studies. The relationships within Solms-laubachia and among the three genera are discussed. Speciation within Solms-laubachia may have been the result of primarily intrachromosomal variation at the diploid level, and the genus probably evolved within the Himalayan-Hengduan Mountains instead of migrating from other regions. (C) 2004 The Linnean Society of London.
Null hypersurfaces in Kerr–Newman–AdS black hole and super-entropic black hole spacetimes

A three-dimensional light-like foliation of a spacetime geometry is one particular way of studying its light cone structure and has important applications in numerical relativity. In this paper, we execute such a foliation for the Kerr–Newman–AdS black hole geometry and compare it with the lightlike foliations of the Kerr–AdS and Kerr–Newman black holes. We derive the equations that govern this slicing and study their properties. In particular, we find that these null hypersurfaces develop caustics inside the inner horizon of the Kerr–Newman–AdS black hole, in strong contrast to the Kerr–AdS case. We then take the ultra-spinning limit of the Kerr–Newman–AdS spacetime, leading to what is known as a super-entropic black hole, and show that the null hypersurfaces develop caustics at a finite distance outside the event horizon of this black hole. As an application, we construct Kruskal coordinates for both the Kerr–Newman–AdS black hole and its ultra-spinning counterpart.
Validation of Chemical Control of Gram Pod Borer, Helicoverpa armigera (Hub.) With New Insecticides

The study on chemical control of Helicoverpa armigera on cjikcpea was carried out in the field and laboratory. In field, the two sprays of Arrivo (cypermethrin) 10EC @ 250 ml, Lannate (methomyl) 40SP @ 300 g, Tracer (spinosad) 240SC @ 60 ml and Steward (indoxacarb) 150SC @ 150 ml acre -1 , at interval of 15 days, using Randomized Complete Block Design with three replications, were applied. Results revealed Tracer was the most effective treatment in restricting the pest infestation followed by Steward and Lanante whereas Arrivo was unable to do the same. In the laboratory bioassay on plants treated with different concentration ofd the insectidies aslso presented that the Tyracer (1 ppm) was toxic to 2 nd instar larvae of the pest and Arrivo (216 ppm) was least effective. The presence of tolerance to cypermethrin in the field indicates a wide spread genetic factor or possibly a common mechanism of resistance to cypoer tmrjhin. Steawrds and Tracer along with Lannate provide with alternate insecticide to cypermethrin for the control of H. armigera on chickpea.
The effects of fiber length and fiber loading on the mechanical properties of wood-plastic (polypropylene) composites

This study examined the effects of wood pulp fiber length (short, medium, and long), and fiber loading (27%, 37%, 47%, and 0% [non-reinforced PP]) with 3% maleic anhydride-grafted polypropylene on the mechanical properties of wood-plastic composites (WPCs). Polypropylene and fibers were compounded into pellets using a counter-rotating twin-screw extruder and test specimens were prepared by injection molding. The results show that increases in fiber length and fiber loading significantly increased (P < 0.05) the mechanical properties of the WPCs (MOE and tensile modulus). The behavior of the composites against MOR and impact strength varied according to fiber length and loading level. In general, the tensile strength was observed to be the same.
Fractional SIS Epidemic Models

In this paper, we consider the fractional SIS (susceptible-infectious-susceptible) epidemic model (α-SIS model) in the case of constant population size. We provide a representation of the explicit solution to the fractional model and we illustrate the results by numerical schemes. A comparison with the limit case when the fractional order α converges to 1 (the SIS model) is also given. We analyze the effects of the fractional derivatives by comparing the SIS and the α-SIS models.
Scalar Cosmological Perturbations

In this paper we present the study of the scalar cosmological perturbations of a single field inflationary model up to first order in deviation. The Christoffel symbols and the tensorial quantities are calculated explicitly in function of the cosmic time t. The Einstein equations are solved up-to first order in deviation and the scalar perturbations equation is derived.
Cloning, characterization and regulation of an α‐amylase gene from Streptomyces limosus

An α‐amylase gene (aml) of Streptomyces limosus ATCC 19778 was cloned in Streptomyces lividans 66. S1 mapping experiments identified an aml transcript 1.8 kb in length and the extracellular enzyme was estimated to be 59 kD in size, suggesting that aml was transcribed as a monocistronic mRNA species. Expression of the gene was induced by maltose (or maltodextrins) in S. Iimosus and when aml was cloned in S. lividans or Streptomyces coelicolor A3(2). In S. Iimosus, mannitol repressed aml expression while glucose had little or no effect; in S. lividans and S. coelicolor the relative effects of the two sugars were reversed. Both induction and carbon‐source repression of aml expression appeared to occur at the level of transcriptional initiation. Glucose repression in S. coelicolor was dependent upon a functional glucose kinase gene.
Semi-uniform stability of operator semigroups and energy decay of damped waves

Only in the last 15 years or so has the notion of semi-uniform stability, which lies between exponential stability and strong stability, become part of the asymptotic theory of C0-semigroups. It now lies at the very heart of modern semigroup theory. After briefly reviewing the notions of exponential and strong stability, we present an overview of some of the best known (and often optimal) abstract results on semi-uniform stability. We go on to indicate briefly how these results can be applied to obtain (sometimes optimal) rates of energy decay for certain damped second-order Cauchy problems. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Semigroup applications everywhere’.
Quantifying the hydrodynamic limit of Vlasov-type equations with alignment and nonlocal forces

In this paper, we quantify the asymptotic limit of collective behavior kinetic equations arising in mathematical biology modeled by Vlasov-type equations with nonlocal interaction forces and alignment. More precisely, we investigate the hydrodynamic limit of a kinetic Cucker--Smale flocking model with confinement, nonlocal interaction, and local alignment forces, linear damping and diffusion in velocity. We first discuss the hydrodynamic limit of our main equation under strong local alignment and diffusion regime, and we rigorously derive the isothermal Euler equations with nonlocal forces. We also analyze the hydrodynamic limit corresponding to strong local alignment without diffusion. In this case, the limiting system is pressureless Euler-type equations. Our analysis includes the Coulombian interaction potential for both cases and explicit estimates on the distance towards the limiting hydrodynamic equations. The relative entropy method is the crucial technology in our main results, however, for the case without diffusion, we combine a modulated macroscopic kinetic energy with the bounded Lipschitz distance to deal with the nonlocality in the interaction forces. For the sake of completeness, the existence of weak and strong solutions to the kinetic and fluid equations are also established.
PIE-NET: Parametric Inference of Point Cloud Edges

We introduce an end-to-end learnable technique to robustly identify feature edges in 3D point cloud data. We represent these edges as a collection of parametric curves (i.e.,lines, circles, and B-splines). Accordingly, our deep neural network, coined PIE-NET, is trained for parametric inference of edges. The network relies on a "region proposal" architecture, where a first module proposes an over-complete collection of edge and corner points, and a second module ranks each proposal to decide whether it should be considered. We train and evaluate our method on the ABC dataset, a large dataset of CAD models, and compare our results to those produced by traditional (non-learning) processing pipelines, as well as a recent deep learning based edge detector (EC-NET). Our results significantly improve over the state-of-the-art from both a quantitative and qualitative standpoint.
Jet resonance in truncated ideally contoured nozzles

Abstract Unsteady side loads observed in supersonic nozzles operating in over-expanded regimes are most often associated with intrinsic unsteadiness of the shock system and separation line, featuring random motions with mainly broadband low-frequency contributions. A tonal flow behaviour, rather associated with energy peaks of fluctuating wall pressure in the middle frequency range, is also found to emerge for particular operating conditions in a truncated ideally contoured nozzle. The corresponding flow field is here investigated to understand its origin and show how it modifies side-load properties. The temporal and spatial organization of wall pressure and jet velocity field are first experimentally characterized based on synchronized acquisition of both wall pressure along rings of pressure probes located within the nozzle, and high-rate time-resolved particle image velocimetry velocity fields measured in a plane section crossing the jet downstream of the nozzle exit. The external jet aerodynamics and internal wall pressure field are first shown to be clearly linked, but only at this frequency peak for which a significant coherence emerges between first azimuthal mode of fluctuating wall pressure and first azimuthal mode of fluctuating external velocity field. A delayed detached eddy simulation is carried out and validated against experimental results in order to reproduce this tonal flow dynamics. The analysis of simulation data shows that the tonal flow behaviour of first azimuthal mode is indeed more globally felt within the whole flow structure where both upstream and downstream propagating waves are shown to coexist, even far downstream of the nozzle exit. The analysis shows that both waves possess support in the jet core and have a non-negligible pressure signature in the separated region. The spectral proper orthogonal decomposition of fluctuating pressure field at this tonal frequency reveals that the nature and intensity of lateral pressure forces is directed by the resonance related to the upstream- and downstream-propagating coherent structures, which imposes the shock waves network to respond and modulate the pressure levels on the nozzle internal surface.
ThreeDWorld: A Platform for Interactive Multi-Modal Physical Simulation

We introduce ThreeDWorld (TDW), a platform for interactive multi-modal physical simulation. With TDW, users can simulate high-fidelity sensory data and physical interactions between mobile agents and objects in a wide variety of rich 3D environments. TDW has several unique properties: 1) realtime near photo-realistic image rendering quality; 2) a library of objects and environments with materials for high-quality rendering, and routines enabling user customization of the asset library; 3) generative procedures for efficiently building classes of new environments 4) high-fidelity audio rendering; 5) believable and realistic physical interactions for a wide variety of material types, including cloths, liquid, and deformable objects; 6) a range of "avatar" types that serve as embodiments of AI agents, with the option for user avatar customization; and 7) support for human interactions with VR devices. TDW also provides a rich API enabling multiple agents to interact within a simulation and return a range of sensor and physics data representing the state of the world. We present initial experiments enabled by the platform around emerging research directions in computer vision, machine learning, and cognitive science, including multi-modal physical scene understanding, multi-agent interactions, models that "learn like a child", and attention studies in humans and neural networks. The simulation platform will be made publicly available.
Chaotic Saddles in a Generalized Lorenz Model of Magnetoconvection

The nonlinear dynamics of a recently derived generalized Lorenz model (Macek and Strumik, Phys. Rev. E 82, 027301, 2010) of magnetoconvection is studied. A bifurcation diagram is constructed as a function of the Rayleigh number where attractors and nonattracting chaotic sets coexist inside a periodic window. The nonattracting chaotic sets, also called chaotic saddles, are responsible for fractal basin boundaries with a fractal dimension near the dimension of the phase space, which causes the presence of very long chaotic transients. It is shown that the chaotic saddles can be used to infer properties of chaotic attractors outside the periodic window, such as their maximum Lyapunov exponent.