Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fertigation Strategies to Alleviate Fertilizer Contamination Generated by Tomato Crops under Plastic Greenhouses

The rapid development of greenhouse horticulture has brought about a dramatic increase in the nitrate pollution of aquifers. The optimization of nitrogen application is an important tool to minimize nitrogen losses. The objective of this research was to assess the effect of different fertigation strategies, based on the reduction of the nitrogen applied and the use of a percentage of NH4+ as a nitrogen source, on the decrease in the environmental impact caused by the traditional system, as well as to evaluate if this is compatible with a high fruit yield (considering quantity and quality). Lycopersicum esculentum Mill cv. Forteza plants were grown in a polyethylene greenhouse. Tomato yield and quality were evaluated, along with leachates, which were collected by means of rigid plastic lysimeters. The proposed strategies did not reduce fruit yield. However, the reduction in the nitrate applied caused firmness and °Brix decrease, together with a diminution in titratable acidity until 124 days after transplanting. Nevertheless, these effects were not observed with the replacement of some of the NO3− by NH4+. The reduction in fertilizer inputs significantly improved water and nutrient (N, P and K) use efficiency. The treatment with NH4+ improved K use efficiency, compared to the conventional treatment, but P decreased. The highest NO3− and K leaching was detected in the traditional treatment.
STAT3 ameliorates cognitive deficits via regulation of NMDAR expression in an Alzheimer's disease animal model

Background: Abnormal tau accumulation in the brain has a positively correlation with neurodegeneration and memory deterioration, but the mechanism underlying tau-associated synaptic and cognitive impairments remains unclear. Our previous work has found that human full length tau (hTau) accumulation activated signal transducer and activator of transcription-1 (STAT1) to suppress N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors (NMDARs) expression, followed by memory deficits. STAT3 also belongs to STAT protein family and is reported to involve in regulation of synaptic plasticity and cognition. Here, we investigated the role of STAT3 in the cognitive deficits induced by hTau accumulation. Methods: In vitro studies HEK293 cells were used. EMSA, Luciferase reporter assay, and Immunoprecipitation were applied to detect STAT3 activity. In vivo studies, AAV virus were injected into the hippocampal CA3 region of C57 mice. Western blotting, quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction, and immunofluorescence were applied to examine the level of synaptic proteins. Electrophysiological analysis, behavioral testing and Golgi impregnation were used to determine synaptic plasticity and memory ability recovery after overexpressing STAT3 or non-acetylated STAT1. Results: Our results showed that hTau accumulation acetylated STAT1 to retain STAT3 in the cytoplasm by increasing the binding of STAT1 with STAT3, and thus inactivated STAT3. Overexpressing STAT3 or non-acetylated STAT1 ameliorated hTau-induced synaptic loss and memory deficits by increasing the expression of NMDARs. Conclusions: Taken together, our study indicates that hTau accumulation impaired synaptic plasticity through STAT3 inactivation induced suppression of NMDARs expression, revealing a novel mechanism for hTau-associated synapse and memory deficits.
MUSE: Secure Inference Resilient to Malicious Clients

The increasing adoption of machine learning inference in applications has led to a corresponding increase in concerns about the privacy guarantees offered by existing mechanisms for inference. Such concerns have motivated the construction of efﬁcient secure inference protocols that allow parties to perform inference without revealing their sensitive information. Recently, there has been a proliferation of such proposals, rapidly improving efﬁciency. However, most of these protocols assume that the client is semi-honest, that is, the client does not deviate from the protocol; yet in practice, clients are many, have varying incentives, and can behave arbitrarily. To demonstrate that a malicious client can completely break the security of semi-honest protocols, we ﬁrst develop a new model-extraction attack against many state-of-the-art secure inference protocols. Our attack enables a malicious client to learn model weights with 22 × –312 × fewer queries than the best black-box model-extraction attack [Car+20] and scales to much deeper networks. Motivated by the severity of our attack, we design and implement M USE , an efﬁcient two-party secure inference protocol resilient to malicious clients . M USE introduces a novel cryptographic protocol for conditional disclosure of secrets to switch between authenticated additive secret shares and garbled circuit labels, and an improved Beaver’s triple generation procedure which is 8 × –12 . 5 × faster than existing techniques. These protocols allow M USE to push a majority of its cryptographic overhead into a preprocessing phase: compared to the equivalent semi-honest protocol (which is close to state-of-the-art), M USE ’s online phase is only 1 . 7 × –2 . 2 × slower and uses 1 . 4 × more communication. Overall, M USE is 13 . 4 × – 21 × faster and uses 2 × –3 . 6 × less communication than existing secure inference protocols which defend against malicious clients.
A Minimalistic Prediction Model to Determine Energy Production and Costs of Offshore Wind Farms

A numerical framework for determining the available wind power and associated costs related to the development of large-scale offshore wind farms is presented. The idea is to develop a fast and robust minimal prediction model, which with a limited number of easy accessible input variables can determine the annual energy output and associated costs for a specified offshore wind farm. The utilized approach combines an energy production model for offshore-located wind farms with an associated cost model that only demands global input parameters, such as wind turbine rotor diameter, nameplate capacity, area of the wind farm, number of turbines, water depth, and mean wind speed Weibull parameters for the site. The cost model includes expressions for the most essential wind farm cost elements—such as costs of wind turbines, support structures, cables and electrical substations, as well as costs of operation and maintenance—as function of rotor size, interspatial distance between the wind turbines, and water depth. The numbers used in the cost model are based on previous but updatable experiences from offshore wind farms, and are therefore, in general, moderately conservative. The model is validated against data from existing wind farms, and shows generally a very good agreement with actual performance and cost results for a series of well-documented wind farms.
Triguna (three qualities) personality model and two-factor conceptualization of self-compassion: a new insight to understand achievement goal orientations

background Although the three-dimensional Vedic personality model (Triguna) and self-compassion have been linked with a variety of life outcomes, little is known about their interplay in shaping goal orientations. We explored the interrelationships and interplay of the Triguna (Sattva, Rajas and Tamas) with positive and negative self-compassion in shaping the goal orientations of Indian students.
A pseudo-two-dimensional model of an n-channel MOSFET under the influence of ionizing radiation

A pseudo-two-dimensional model has been developed for determining the radiation-induced changes in the characteristics of an n-channel metal-oxide-semiconductor-field-effect transistor (MOSFET) during exposure to ionizing radiation as well as in the post-irradiated condition. The ionizing radiation-induced excess carriers in the semiconductor as well as changes in the interface states and build-up of oxide-trapped charges at Si–SiO2 interface have been incorporated in the basic model equations for analysing the device under exposure to ionizing radiation. A model has been proposed that can examine the behaviour of the device during exposure to ionizing radiation. This model enables one to determine the ID–VD and transfer characteristics of the device by considering the field-dependent mobility of the surface channel in the unirradiated condition, during exposure to ionizing radiation as well as in post-irradiated condition. The results obtained on the basis of the model in the irradiated as well as post-irradiated condition have been compared and contrasted with available experimental and simulated results.
Pregnancy rates and luteal phase characteristics of bovine embryo recipients treated with flunixin meglumine

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of flunixin meglumine administration on pregnancy rates and luteal phase characteristics in bovine embryo recipients at the moment of embryo transfer. In experiment 1, in vitro produced embryos were transferred to 184 females divided as control and treated group (recipients treated with 1.1mg/kg flunixin meglumine). In experiment 2, 22 females were divided as control group; group 2 (animals submitted to a reproductive tract manipulation similar to an embryo transfer on the 7th day after estrous); and group 3 (females submitted to a manipulation and treatment with 1.1mg/kg flunixin meglumine). In experiment 1 no difference was observed between control and treated groups (40.2% and 44.6%, respectively) for pregnancy rates. In experiment 2 no difference was observed on the length of luteal phase between groups, however, animals in group 2 presented lower plasma progesterone concentrations than the control group and group 3. Therefore, we concluded that although the administration of flunixin meglumine at the moment of embryo transfer inhibited the reduction plasma progesterone concentrations, it was not effective in increasing pregnancy rates of bovine recipients.
EXPLORING EXOTIC SUPERCONDUCTING ORDER IN LA-BASED CUPRATE MATERIALS USING JOSEPHSON INTERFEROMETRY BY DAVID ROBERT HAMILTON DISSERTATION

Josephson junctions are especially useful devices for studying exotic superconducting materials, because the transmission of superconductivity through a junction depends on the difference in phase of the superconducting order parameter across the junction. We present the results of two measurements which involve the fabrication of Josephson junctions on unconventional high-temperature superconductors to study the physical processes which govern novel superconducting states within these materials. The first experiment involves measuring the current-phase relation (CPR) of La2−xBaxCuO4 (LBCO)-Au-Nb Josephson junctions. Using two independent measurement methods, we observe a clear sin(2φ) component of the CPR, a signature of pair-density wave (PDW) order. This component is strongest at x=0.125 doping, where PDW order is believed to be strongest, and increases in magnitude with temperature as conventional superconductivity is suppressed. Likewise, at x=0.155 doping, where PDW order is not expected to dominate, the CPR primarily contains the conventional sin(φ) term. Together, these results provide strong support to the prediction that charge, spin and superconducting order intertwine to form a pair-density wave state in LBCO near x=1/8 doping. In the second experiment, we perform Josephson interferometry measurements of the superconducting order parameter of La2xSrxCuO4 (LSCO) in the heavily overdoped (x>0.25) regime. Combining experimental measurements and simulations of Ic(Φ), we find evidence for granular superconductivity and circulating currents in LSCO near criticality.
Effect of Testosterone Enanthate Modeling of Polycystic Ovary on Liver Irs-2 mRNA Expression in Rats: A Brief Report

There are many animal models for polycystic ovary (PCO); using exogenous testosterone enanthate is one of the methods of induction of these models. However, induction of insulin resistance should also be studied in the modeling technics. Therefore, the present study aims to investigate the expression of insulin receptor substrate (Irs)-2 mRNA in the liver tissue of rat PCO model. Nineteen Wistar rats were divided into three groups; (1) PCO modeling group (N =7) received daily 1.0 mg/100g testosterone enanthate solved in olive oil along with free access dextrose water 5%, (2) vehicle group (N =6), which handled like the PCO group, but did not receive testosterone enanthate, (3) control group (N =6) with standard care. All the animals were administered via intra-peritoneal injection for 14 days. Expression of Irs-2 mRNA was studied with real-time PCR and fold changes (FC) were reported. The average of expression in the control group was considered as the calibrator. About 13.4% expression reduction was found in the PCO group (FC =0.874, P-value =0.043). No significant reduction was found in the vehicle group (FC =0.951, P-value =0.076). However, analysis of variance did not show a significant difference between all the groups of study (P-value =0.085). The present model of PCO might induce insulin resistance at liver level with a low effect size via reduction in the mRNA expression of Irs-2. Study of the involved genes and molecules in other tissues of PCO animal models is suggested.
On end-to-end 6DOF object pose estimation and robustness to object scale

This report contains a set of experiments that seek to reproduce the claims of two recent works related to keypoint 3 estimation, one speciﬁc to 6DOF object pose estimation, and the other presenting a generic architectural improvement 4 for keypoint estimation but demonstrated in human pose estimation. More speciﬁcally, in the backpropagatable PnP [1], 5 the authors claim that incorporating geometric optimization in a deep-learning pipeline and predicting an object’s pose 6 in an end-to-end manner yields improved performance. On the other hand, HigherHRNet [2] introduces a novel heatmap 7 aggregation method that allows for scale-aware pose estimations, offering higher keypoint localization accuracy for 8 small scale objects
Prevalence and Epidemiology of Non-O157 Escherichia coli Serogroups O26, O103, O111, and O145 and Shiga Toxin Gene Carriage in Scottish Cattle, 2014–2015

Cattle are reservoirs for Shiga toxin Escherichia coli (STEC), bacteria shed in animal feces. Humans are infected through consumption of contaminated food or water and by direct contact, causing serious disease and kidney failure in the most vulnerable. ABSTRACT Cattle are a reservoir for Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC), zoonotic pathogens that cause serious clinical disease. Scotland has a higher incidence of STEC infection in the human population than the European average. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence and epidemiology of non-O157 serogroups O26, O103, O111, and O145 and Shiga toxin gene carriage in Scottish cattle. Fecal samples (n = 2783) were collected from 110 herds in 2014 and 2015 and screened by real-time PCR. Herd-level prevalence (95% confidence interval [CI]) for O103, O26, and O145 was estimated as 0.71 (0.62, 0.79), 0.43 (0.34, 0.52), and 0.23 (0.16, 0.32), respectively. Only two herds were positive for O111. Shiga toxin prevalence was high in both herds and pats, particularly for stx2 (herd level: 0.99; 95% CI: 0.94, 1.0). O26 bacterial strains were isolated from 36 herds on culture. Fifteen herds yielded O26 stx-positive isolates that additionally harbored the intimin gene; six of these herds shed highly pathogenic stx2-positive strains. Multiple serogroups were detected in herds and pats, with only 25 herds negative for all serogroups. Despite overlap in detection, regional and seasonal effects were observed. Higher herd prevalence for O26, O103, and stx1 occurred in the South West, and this region was significant for stx2 at the pat level (P = 0.015). Significant seasonal variation was observed for O145 prevalence, with the highest prevalence in autumn (P = 0.032). Negative herds were associated with Central Scotland and winter. Herds positive for all serogroups were associated with autumn and larger herd size and were not housed at sampling. IMPORTANCE Cattle are reservoirs for Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC), bacteria shed in animal feces. Humans are infected through consumption of contaminated food or water and by direct contact, resulting in serious disease and kidney failure in the most vulnerable. The contribution of non-O157 serogroups to STEC illness was underestimated for many years due to the lack of specific tests. Recently, non-O157 human cases have increased, with O26 STEC of particular note. It is therefore vital to investigate the level and composition of non-O157 in the cattle reservoir and to compare them historically and by the clinical situation. In this study, we found cattle prevalence high for toxin, as well as for O103 and O26 serogroups. Pathogenic O26 STEC were isolated from 14% of study herds, with toxin subtypes similar to those seen in Scottish clinical cases. This study highlights the current risk to public health from non-O157 STEC in Scottish cattle.
International psychometric validation of the Living with Chronic Illness Scale in Spanish-speaking patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Objectives To validate the Living with Chronic Illness (LW-CI) Scale in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Design Observational, cross-sectional validation study with retest. Acceptability, reliability, precision and construct validity were tested. Setting The study took place in primary and secondary specialised units of public and private hospitals of Spain and Colombia. Participants The study included 612 patients with COPD assessed from May 2018 to May 2019. A consecutive cases sampling was done. Inclusion criteria included: (A) patients with a diagnosis of COPD; (B) native Spanish speaking; (C) able to read and understand questionnaires; and (D) able to provide informed consent. Exclusion criteria included: (A) cognitive deterioration and (B) pharmacological effect or disorder that could disrupt the assessment. Results The LW-CI-COPD presented satisfactory data quality, with no missing data or floor/ceiling effects, showing high internal consistency for all the domains (Cronbach’s alpha for the total score 0.92). Test–retest reliability was satisfactory (intraclass correlation coefficient=0.92). The LW-CI-COPD correlated 0.52–0.64 with quality of life and social support measures. The scale demonstrated satisfactory known-groups validity, yielding signiﬁcantly different scores in patients grouped according to COPD severity levels. Conclusions This has been the first validation study of the LW-CI-COPD. It is a feasible, reliable, valid and precise self-reported scale to measure living with COPD in the Spanish-speaking population. Therefore, it could be recommended for research and clinical practice to measure this concept and evaluate the impact of centred-care interdisciplinary interventions based on the patients’ perspective, focused on providing holistic and comprehensive care to patients with COPD.
Maternal seafood intake during pregnancy, prenatal mercury exposure and child body mass index trajectories up to 8 years

Abstract Background Maternal seafood intake during pregnancy and prenatal mercury exposure may influence children’s growth trajectories. Methods This study, based on the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study (MoBa), includes 51 952 mother-child pairs recruited in pregnancy during 2002–08 and a subsample (n = 2277) with maternal mercury concentrations in whole blood. Individual growth trajectories were computed by modelling based on child’s reported weight and length/height from 1 month to 8 years. We used linear mixed-effects regression analysis and also conducted discordant-sibling analysis. Results Maternal lean fish was the main contributor to total seafood intake in pregnancy and was positively but weakly associated with child body mass index (BMI) growth trajectory. Higher prenatal mercury exposure (top decile) was associated with a reduction in child’s weight growth trajectory, with the estimates ranging from -130 g [95% Confidence Intervals (CI) = -247, -12 g] at 18 months to -608 g (95% CI = -1.102, -113 g) at 8 years. Maternal fatty fish consumption was positively associated with child weight and BMI growth trajectory, but only in the higher mercury-exposed children (P-interaction = 0.045). Other seafood consumption during pregnancy was negatively associated with child weight growth compared with no intake, and this association was stronger for higher mercury-exposed children (P-interaction = 0.004). No association was observed between discordant maternal seafood intake and child growth in the sibling analysis. Conclusions Within a population with moderate seafood consumption and low mercury exposure, we found that maternal seafood consumption in pregnancy was associated with child growth trajectories, and the direction of the association varied by seafood type and level of prenatal mercury exposure. Prenatal mercury exposure was negatively associated with child growth. Our findings on maternal seafood intake are likely non-causal.
Electron relaxation time measurements in GaAs/AlGaAs quantum wells: Intersubband absorption saturation by a free‐electron laser

The intersubband absorption saturation in GaAs/AlGaAs quantum wells as a function of the incident power has been measured, using picosecond micropulses with a power density up to 1 GW/cm2 delivered by a free‐electron laser. The absorption in a sample with a bound‐to‐bound transition was compared to the absorption in a sample with a bound‐to‐resonant transition, and it was found that the electron relaxation time in the bound‐to‐bound transition is about four times shorter than for the bound‐to‐resonant transition.
Size‐ and Shape‐Control of Crystalline Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles: A New Organometallic Synthetic Method

A novel organometallic synthetic method has been developed for the preparation of crystalline ZnO nanoparticles of controlled size and shape. Isotropic nanoparticles with a mean size between 3 and 6 nm and nanorods with a mean diameter of 3–4 nm and length up to 120 nm have been obtained in this way. This synthetic method takes advantage of the exothermic reaction of the precursor Zn(c‐C6H11)2 (1) toward moisture and air and involves the presence of long‐alkyl‐chain amines as stabilizing ligands. The influence of the different experimental parameters (concentration, solvent, nature of the ligand, time, and temperature) on the size and shape of the ZnO nanoparticles has been studied, together with the mechanism of their formation, by NMR spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and X‐ray diffraction techniques. The nanoparticles prepared in this way can be dissolved in most of the common organic solvents, forming colloidal solutions. The surface state of the nanoparticles as well as the possibility of forming luminescent solutions from which regular monolayers can be deposited are also reported.