Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The influence of Cycocel on the responses of wheat plants to water limitations

Considerable research has been concentrated on the foliage application of Cycoce, whereas little attention has focused on its use in seed application. Imbibition of caryopses of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) in (2-chloroethyl) trimethylammonium chloride (Cycocel/CCC) resulted in a reduction in germination rate and a stunting of seedling growth. This was consistent with the appearance of a thicker stem, with shorter leaves than the control. Chlorophyll content per unit weight of leaf and numbers of tillers initiated both increased in comparison to controls. However, Cycocel treatment was accompanied by an enhanced survival capacity of seedlings when they were subjected to water limitation under growth room conditions. Seedlings grown from caryopses imbibed in 0.4 % Cycocel and exposed to a 7-day cycle of watering remained green and turgid beyond the time when the controls had wilted and died. Seedlings, at the fourth leaf stage, showed no wilting 23 days after watering had been withheld totally. Enhanced survival was also noted in seedlings when caryopses had been imbibed in Cycocel for 24 hours followed by a period of dry storage for up to 2 weeks prior to sowing. Enhanced survival was also detected as a carryover into the tillers, and the subsequent GEN2 seedlings, derived from GEN1plants. Cycocel pre-treatment did not alter Stomatal Index to an extent which could lead to enhanced water use efficiency, nor to the accumulation of proline to bring compatible solutes into equilibrium. However, the pre-treatment with Cycocel was found to enhance growth as a counter to water stress, and maintained fresh and dry weight of shoots when examined under the polyethylene glycol (PEG) induced stress. At the anatomical level the microscopic investigation of the GEN2 leaf tissues, derived from GENl plant, revealed a fully turgid cell structure, cells did not collapse and tissues were not distorted after the extraction of chlorophyll when compared with the control of the continuous watering as well as the moderate watering regime. Additionally, the cortex of GENl plants derived from pre-treated caryopses, showed a bright fluorescing unidentified deposition under Nutrient Solution (NS). This was more much greater when sampled from the NS + PEG treatments. From the results achieved Cycocel pre-treatment of caryopses appeared to have potential in manipulating wheat plants against water limitation. However, the mechanism (s) by which this can be achieved was not fully resolved in this study. Further investigations are required at the biochemistry and molecular level, particularly in relation to potential carryover effects between generations.
On Unique Forms of Anomalous Sacral Structure in Tailless Amphibians

The unique structural anomalies of spinal column caused by unilateral development of pelvis are described in an adult specimen of Xenopus laevis and 2 larvae of Rana temporaria . In all the specimens the unilateral development of sacrum was observed. The described anomalies support the hypothesis of deforming influence of developing ilium on posteromost presacral segments as well as some assumptions on the factors determining the morphogenetic process in anurans.
Examining the effect of a play-at-work intervention on the organisational outcomes of work teams

Orientation: Organisations have jumped the gun in implementing play in organisations as literature regarding the application of play to organisational outcomes is still unknown. Research purpose: This study aimed to determine the effect of a play at work intervention on psychological detachment, work enjoyment, employee performance, workplace boredom and turnover intention of work teams. Motivation for the study: Although play at work is becoming more popular, the influence of this on organisational outcomes is scarce. Research design, approach and method: A longitudinal, three-wave intervention study design was used with paper-and-pencil-based questionnaires to collect data from a non-probability purposive sample consisting of an experimental (n = 9) and a control group (n = 17). The independent sample t-test was utilised to test for statistical differences between the mean scores, and an effect size was calculated with Cohen’s d value. Main findings: The results indicated that the play at work intervention positively influenced employees’ psychological detachment during their lunch break. Team performance also increased when the play at work intervention was introduced Practical/managerial implications: Employees who participate in play at work during their breaks will psychologically detach more compared to other employees. According to previous research on psychological detachment, play at work can therefore have an effect on employeeworkplace relationship conflicts, well-being, anxiety, role conflict, job demands and work engagement. Additionally, organisations who implement play will have higher team performance compared to others, thereby improving the profitability of organisations. Contribution/value-add: This study contributes to the limited research on play at work and its effects on organisational outcomes. This study provided more insight into the effect of play at work on psychological detachment, work enjoyment, team performance, workplace boredom and turnover intention.
The saturated salt accelerated aging test for small-seeded crops

The accelerated aging test is an important seed vigor test for many large-seeded crops, but its value in small-seeded crops has been limited because moisture uptake is too rapid resulting in fast seed deterioration for some species. This study examined a method to retard small seed moisture uptake in an accelerated aging test. High and low quality impatiens (Impatiens wallerana Hook) seed lots were exposed to three different saturated salt solutions producing differing relative humidities (KCI-87%, NaCI-76%, and NaBr-55% RH) at 38 and 41 °C. All other equipment and procedures were the same as recommended for a standard accelerated aging test. As relative humidity of the accelerated aging chamber declined, seed moisture content decreased. Seed deterioration of the small-seeded crop increased with increasing relative humidity so that useful accelerated aging results that correlated with seed vigor could be obtained with either KCI or NaCl after 4 days germination by aging for 72 h and 96 h at 38°C for KCl and NaCl, respectively, or 48 h at 41°C for both salts. These results demonstrate that saturated salt solutions modify the relative humidity of an accelerated aging test making use of this valuable seed vigor test applicable to impatiens and likely other small-seeded crops.
Regulation of Apoptosis in Mature αβ+CD4−CD8− Antigen-Specific Suppressor T Cell Clones

The regulation of apoptosis in mature CD4+ or CD8+ αβ+ T cells has been well studied. How the survival and death is regulated in peripheral CD4−CD8− (double negative, DN) αβ+ T cells remains unknown. Recent studies suggest that peripheral DN T cells may play an important role in the regulation of the immune responses mediated by CD4+ or CD8+ T cells. Here, we used immunosuppressive DN T cell clones to elucidate the mechanisms involved in the regulation of death and survival of αβ+ DN T cells. The DN T cell clones were generated from the spleen cells of 2C transgenic mice, which express the transgenic TCR specific for Ld and permanently accepted Ld+ skin allografts after pretransplant infusion of Ld+ lymphocytes. We report that 1) the mature DN T cells are highly resistant to TCR cross-linking-induced apoptosis in the presence of exogenous IL-4; 2) Fas/Fas-ligand and TNF-α/TNFR pathways do not play an apparent role in regulating apoptosis in DN T cells; 3) the DN T cells constitutively express a high level of Bcl-xL, but not Bcl-2; 4) both Bcl-xL and Bcl-2 are up-regulated following TCR-cross-linking; and 5) IL-4 stimulation significantly up-regulates Bcl-xL and c-Jun expression and leads to mitogen-activated protein kinase phosphorylation in DN T cells, which may contribute to the resistance to apoptosis in these T cells. Taken together, these results provide us with an insight into how mature DN T cells resist activation-induced apoptosis to provide a long-term suppressor function in vivo.
Pigment diversity in marine Synechococcus sp. : molecular basis, evolution and ecological role

Marine Synechococcus are the second most abundant photosynthetic organisms on the planet. These picocyanobacteria present very diverse pigmentations due to differences in the composition of their light-harvesting antenna (phycobilisome), allowing them to efficiently exploit a wide range of spectral niches. Yet, the evolution, ecology and molecular bases of the different Synechococcus pigment types are not well understood. By comparing the genomic regions involved in the synthesis of phycobilisome rods from 54 sequenced isolates spanning all cultured pigment types and from natural Synechococcus populations, I proposed a scenario for the evolution of the different pigment types and showed that the pigment diversity of marine Synechococcus predates the diversification of this genus. Then, I developed a bioinformatic pipeline for reliably quantifying all known Synechococcus pigment types from metagenomes. Applying it to the Tara Oceans dataset allowed me to describe for the first time their distribution in the global ocean and revealed that type IV chromatic acclimation, a process by which cells can match their absorption properties to the ambient light colour, is widespread and constitutes the dominant pigmentation in Synechococcus populations. It also showed that natural chromatic acclimation mutants prevail in wide oligotrophic areas of the southern Pacific Ocean. Finally, I genetically characterized two members of an enzyme family binding chromophores to phycoerythrin-II, a major component of phycobilisomes. This provided new insights into the molecular bases of chromatic acclimation and revealed the importance of allelic variation for the diversity of pigment types.
Impact of invasive plants on food webs and pathways.

In natural ecosystems, energy mainly flows along food chains in food webs. Numerous studies have shown that plant invasions influence ecosystem functions through altering food webs. In recent decades, more attention has been paid to the effects of alien plants on local food webs. In this review, we analyze the influence of exotic plants on food webs and pathways, and explore the impacts of local food web characteris- tics on community invasibility. Invasive plants alter food webs mainly by changing basal resources and envi- ronment conditions in different ways. First, they are consumed by native herbivores due to their high avail- ability, and are therefore incorporated into the native food web. Second, if they show low availability to na- tive herbivores, a new food web is generated through introduction of new consumers or by changing the en- ergy pathway. Third, environmental changes induced by plant invasions may alter population density and feeding behavior of various species at different trophic levels, thus alien plants will affect the communities and food web structures along non-trophic pathways. The influence of the local food web on plant invasions depends on web size and trophic connections. Issues that deserve attention in future studies are raised and discussed. Future research should extend from short-term experiments to long-term monitoring. More quan- titative researches to define the responses of food web parameters are needed. In addition, recovering of food web structure and species interaction in restored habitats is an important issue requiring future research.
Does Refactoring of Test Smells Induce Fixing Flaky Tests?

Regression testing is a core activity that allows developers to ensure that source code changes do not introduce bugs. An important prerequisite then is that test cases are deterministic. However, this is not always the case as some tests suffer from socalled flakiness. Flaky tests have serious consequences, as they can hide real bugs and increase software inspection costs. Existing research has focused on understanding the root causes of test flakiness and devising techniques to automatically fix flaky tests; a key area of investigation being concurrency. In this paper, we investigate the relationship between flaky tests and three previously defined test smells, namely Resource Optimism, Indirect Testing and Test Run War.We have set up a study involving 19,532 JUnit test methods belonging to 18 software systems. A key result of our investigation is that 54% of tests that are flaky contain a test code smell that can cause the flakiness. Moreover, we found that refactoring the test smells not only removed the design flaws, but also fixed all 54% of flaky tests causally co-occurring with test smells.
COMPARACIÓN DEL CARIOTIPO DE Eucalyptus globulus Y Eucalyptus cladocalyx (Myrtaceae) Comparison of karyotype of Eucalyptus globulus and Eucalyptus cladocalyx (Myrtaceae)

A B S T R A C T Mitotic metaphase plates were analyzed in Eucalyptus globulus Labill. and Eucalyptus cladocalyx F. Muell. The chromosomes were observed by squashing root tips, pre-treated with 8Hydroxyquinoline and stained with the Feulgen reaction. Both, E. globulus and E. cladocalyx had a karyotype of 2n = 22, with 1A symmetry level, and chromosome sizes varying between 0.68 and 2.03 ∝m. Mean chromosome size differed significantly between E. cladocalyx (1.42 ∝m) and E. globulus (1.02 ∝m) (P < 0.01). The greater chromosomal size of E. globulus suggests a greater amount of DNA, probably originated by structural alterations. This evolutionary pattern of karyotype morphology might be associated, as well, with a high level of conservation in chromosome morphology.
Effect of dietary levels of tallow and NSP-degrading enzume supplements on nutrient efficiency of broiler chickens

Introduction Fat digestibility in broilers depends not only on fat type but also on the particular cereal grain that is used. There are considerable evidences showing antinutritive effect of NSP in cereals have a pronounced negative effect on digestibility of fat in young birds. An increase in intestinal viscosity depresses fat digestibility more in animal fat-based diets. Reduction in viscosity due to enzyme addition in such diets should exert a more pronounced effect (Danicke, 1999a). Significant interaction effect between dietary fat type and carbohydrase addition was also reported (Danicke, 1999b). The objective of the present study was to examine the effects of dietary levels of tallow and NSP degrading enzyme supplements on broiler chickens.
A study of weighted Bergman projections

The aim of this thesis is to study certain weighted Bergman projections associated to a bounded pseudoconvex domain in C. We obtain three new results as follows: The first result concerns estimates of weighted Bergman kernels and the holomorphic Hardy norm of the Bergman kernel. The main tools are L-estimates of the B-equation and the relation between the Bergman kernel and the pluricomplex Green function. In particular, these improve the result of Chen and Fu [CF11] on the comparison of the Szegö and Bergman kernels for the class of pseudoconvex domains admitting a plurisubharmonic defining function, such as convex domains, strongly pseudoconvex domains and Kohn special domains. The second result extends the work of Čučković and McNeal [CM06]; and of Abate, Raissy and Saracco [ARS12], on the gain L regularity of the BergmanToeplitz operators f ÝÑ TK ́α pfq pzq :“ ż Ω K pz, wqK ́α pw,wq f pwq dV pwq , (0.0.1) for a class of weakly pseudoconvex smooth domains in C, which we call sharp Btype domains, that contains such as strongly pseudoconvex domains in C, convex domains of finite type in C and finite-type domains in C. For the third result, we obtain the L mapping properties of the BergmanToeplitz operators (0.0.1) for a model of non-smooth domains, namely, the fat Hartogs triangles Ωk :“ ! pz1, z2q P C : |z1| ă |z2| ă 1 ) , k P Z`. As a result, our work generalises the recent work by Edholm and McNeal [EM16]. i Acknowledgements I am indebted to my supervisors Dr. Jiakun Liu and Dr. Tran Vu Khanh for their guidance and encouragement during my study at the University of Wollongong. I have been learning from them not only academic advice for my future career in mathematics but also an enjoyable view in doing research. They warmly support me in my family issues and also offer me great opportunities for attending international conferences throughout my time there. Special thanks to my housemates Ngo and Truc, and my friend Dave for their encouragement and friendship. I would like to thank Professor Dinh Tien Cuong for the invitation to the complex geometry conference at NUS in May 2017. I thank the referees for their thoughtful comments, which help to improve the quality of this thesis. I am grateful to my family, especially my parents and my wife, who always encourage and believe in my ability. This thesis is also devoted to my son, who really enjoys doing mathematics.
Biocontrol of tomato verticillium wilt by using indigenous Gliocladium spp. and Penicillium sp. isolates.

Endogenous Gliocladium spp. and Penicillium sp. isolates were tested in vitro, in vivo and in situ for their antagonistic activity against Verticillium spp. causing tomato vascular wilt in Tunisia. Gliocladium catenulatum, G. roseum and Penicillium sp. isolates reduced the radial growth of V. dahliae, V. albo-atrum and V. tricorpus in comparison to the untreated controls. Antagonistic potential of Gliocladium spp. and Penicillium sp. against tested wilt agents showed intraand inter-specific variations. Additionally to the sclerotinization inhibitory activity and to the reduced abundance of resting structures of Verticillium spp. observed, compared to untreated controls, antagonists tested caused several alterations of Verticillium spp. mycelium at the confrontation zone. The germination of V. dahliae microsclerotia, exposed for 30 min to liquid cultures of antagonists tested and incubated at 20°C, was completely suppressed compared to the control microsclerotia treated with sterile distilled water. Furthermore, germinating microsclerotia dual cultured with Gliocladium spp. and Penicillium sp. became inable to germinate and mature microsclerotia progressively lost their typical dark colour. All tomato cv. ‘Ventura’ plants, when treated at planting with Gliocladium spp. and Penicillium sp. spore suspensions and inoculated with V. dahliae, showed after 60 days of culture under growth chamber conditions, reduced severity of Verticillium wilt in comparison to inoculated and untreated control plants. Plants treated with antagonists tested showed increased height and root and stem fresh weights in comparison to the inoculated and untreated control. The discoloration index, noted on tomato plants treated at planting by G. catenulatum, G. roseum and Penicillium sp. and grown under greenhouse conditions, was significantly reduced compared to the untreated control. Plants treated with Penicillium sp. showed, after 90 days of culture, an increase of more than 40% of their roots and stem fresh weights in comparison to the untreated control. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Characterization of the global Brown Swiss cattle population structure

The global Brown Swiss population was studied to estimate population genetic parameters, measure genetic variation and identify most influential animals. The population was found to have 3.30 mean equivalent complete generations. The mean inbreeding coefficient was 0.77% for the pedigree population. There was, in most cases, periodic and generational increase of mean inbreeding coefficient. Results showed that there was 0.40% increase in inbreeding by equivalent complete generations. Increase in average generation per period was also noted from the study. The pedigree population had 1.1% mean average relatedness. Effective population size for the equivalent complete generations was a mere 125.97, which could be considered as a small size considering the number of individuals in the population under study. There was big variation between average generation intervals for the four parental pathways. The highest average generation interval was seen in the sireson path way, having a value of 8.73. The average generation interval for the whole population, which was 6.53, was also high. The pedigree population had 0.55% mean coancestry between its individuals. The French Brown Swiss subpopulation had the highest mean coancestry among its individuals. The French and the Austrian subpopulations had the highest mean coancestry between their subpopulations. The Italian subpopulation had the highest equivalent complete generation. The lowest genetic distance was recorded between the Italian and the US subpopulation, implying they had the highest genetic similarity. Most of the genetically influential individuals were sires. The highest contributing founder was a sire with 3.22% contribution. The highest contributing dam had 1.75% contribution. The effective number of founders and effective number of ancestors were 141 and 88, respectively.
The effects of toll-like receptor ligand-activated dendritic cells on human CD4+ T cell responses

Dendritic cells (DCs) play an important role as a link between innate and adaptive immunity through their abilities to detect infection and to prime naïve T cells (signal 1 and 2). They not only activate naïve T cells, but also direct differentiation of CD4 T cells to induce appropriate immune responses against pathogens via cytokine production (signal 3). In this study, human monocyte-derived dendritic cells (moDCs) as a model for myeloid DCs were activated in vitro with an array of Toll-like receptor (TLR) ligands derived from or mimicking various pathogens, to determine their cytokine profiles, as well as the ability of these differentially TLR ligand-activated DCs to induce differentiation of naïve CD4 T cells. moDCs activated with a viral TLR ligand (TLR3 ligand) induced more heavily skewed Th1 responses, whereas bacterial TLR ligand (TLR1/2, 4 and 5 ligand)-activated moDCs induced more balanced Th1/Th2/Th17 responses in CD4 T cells. Unexpectedly, moDCs activated with another viral TLR ligand (TLR7/8 ligand) also induced more balanced Th1/Th2/Th17 CD4 T cell responses. These results provide a framework for the use of these TLR ligands in tailoring T cell responses in vaccines and other immunotherapeutic approaches.
Preliminary analysis of field population of black cutworm, Agrotis ipsilon (Hufn) and some measurements for its field life table in Egypt.

A method to forecast the beginnings of damage by the black cutworm, Agrotis ipsilon (Hufn) to maize, cotton, clover, faba beans and vegetables was detected through 1993-1996 in Abu-homos District, Behaira Governorate. Life table parameters which were calculated to fit the accuracy of the method. As it appears the first and third generations have a moderate values of (r m), and the second generation has a low (rm) values. The (Ro) also decreased in the second generation and increased on the third one to be like the first one. These parameters are more sens itive to the change in developmental time, survival rates and fecundity than other life history components, which should be taken into consideration when a successful plans are to be proposed for management and control programs of this pest.