Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Biochemical investigations on vigour enhancement in aged seeds upon seed priming in onion

Loss in seed quality that occurs during all process, from maturation in the field to storage, leads to seed deterioration. Storage of onion seeds under ambient, hot and humid conditions is very problematic since these conditions deteriorate seed quality faster. Seed deterioration is associated with many metabolic defects that occur due to changes in enzymes and protein levels. This deterioration can be rectified to the extent possible by the technique of seed priming. The results clearly indicated that priming will restore the lost seed vigour in aged seeds due to reactivation of enzyme activity in old seeds. The germination percentage improved from 60% to 79.5% and 72.5% in GA3 and hydroprimed, respectively. Priming will also restore the lost seed vigour in aged seeds due to reactivation of proteins in old seeds and expression of these proteins in priming treatments are related to priming induced proteins in contrast to their absence in the aged seeds which are necessary for germination and longevity of seeds.
An NDT Model for Block Designs Operating Under Asymmetrical Duty Cycling

Reducing energy consumption is of paramount importance in wireless networks, particularly now with the increasing popularity of the Internet of Things. One of the most effective tools for that is duty cycling the radio. In particular, asynchronous methods have been repeatedly studied in the literature. In this letter, we consider the asymmetrical case of asynchronous duty cycling, i.e., when nodes operate under different duty cycles because of different energy requirements. More specifically, we derive upper and lower bounds, as well as an approximate model for the neighbor discovery time of nodes operating under asymmetrical block designs. We further validate our model by comparing it to empirical data.
Medicalisation in Pregnancy and Childbirth: unintended consequences of interventions

• Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal Download policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim.
Experimental Investigation on the Influences of Different Horizontal Fire Locations on Smoke Temperature Stratification under Tunnel Ceiling

The increased probability of fire occurrence in urban tunnels has led researchers to investigate this issue extensively. Although fire can occur at any point in a tunnel, the effect of fire source position on temperature distribution has not received considerable attention in most of previous investigations. In this research, the influences of varying horizontal fire source locations on temperature diffusion in particular maximum smoke temperature stratification beneath the ceiling has been investigated. A set of scale-down experiments was performed in a model tunnel [3 m (length) x 0.6 m (width) x 0.96 m (height)]. n-Heptane and gasoline were used as fuels in rectangular pools to generate a heat source. The analysis reveals that typical temperature curves have a similar trend when the fire source location changes. Furthermore, the temperature profile tip (maximum smoke temperature) is located between the burner and the origin of the tunnel. The modified model of maximum temperature, which considers the horizontal fire source location, is defined. The results here complement existing literature where the effects of variable fire position in a tunnel have not been considered.
Sustainable Solutions for Wearable Technologies: Mapping the Product Development Life Cycle

Wearable technologies involve the integration of technology into clothing or accessories to bring new functionalities for people on the move. Many examples of wearables are emerging, from simple fitness tracking watches to electronics deeply embedded into garments for multi-touch sensing and control for personal music players. Without careful development, wearables can have a negative impact on the environment due to increased production of electronic components, increased e-waste from abandoned devices, and increased energy usage. We examine environmental sustainability issues through a review of recent research and cases across three broad areas including the fashion industry, information and communications technology (ICT), and wearable technologies. In the analysis, we examine stages in the product life cycle and identify the unique issues for each sector, including the extraction of materials, production process, distribution of products, use, and disposal of products that have reached the end of their life. The findings are gathered as implications for design so that researchers, educators, designers, developers, and product managers will gain an overview of the issues related to environmental sustainability. Related examples of products and prototypes are provided to enable informed choices during the design and development of wearables that are more environmentally sustainable.
Digital Health Innovation: Exploring Adoption of COVID-19 Digital Contact Tracing Apps

With the outbreak of COVID-19, contact tracing is becoming a used intervention to control the spread of this highly infectious disease. This article explores an individual's intention to adopt COVID-19 digital contact tracing (DCT) apps. A conceptual framework developed for this article combines the procedural fairness theory, dual calculus theory, protection motivation theory, theory of planned behavior, and Hofstede's cultural dimension theory. The study adopts a quantitative approach collecting data from 714 respondents using a random sampling technique. The proposed model is tested using structural equation modeling. Empirical results found that the perceived effectiveness of privacy policy negatively influenced privacy concerns, whereas perceived vulnerability had a positive influence. Expected personal and community-related outcomes of sharing information positively influenced attitudes toward DCT apps, while privacy concerns had a negative effect. The intention to adopt DCT apps were positively influenced by attitude, subjective norms, and privacy self-efficacy. This article is the first to empirically test the adoption of DCT apps of the COVID-19 pandemic and contributes both theoretically and practically toward understanding factors influencing its widespread adoption.
Is the Universe Anisotropic Right Now? Comparing the Real Universe with the Kasner’s Space-Time

We investigate possible astronomical manifestations of space-time anisotropy. The homogeneous vacuum Kasner solution was chosen as a reference anisotropic cosmological model because there are no effects caused by inhomogeneity in this simple model with a constant degree of anisotropy. This anisotropy cannot become weak. The study of its geodesic structure made it possible to clarify the properties of this space-time. It showed that the degree of manifestation of anisotropy varies significantly depending on the travel time of the light from the observed object. For nearby objects, for which it does not exceed half the age of the universe, the manifestations of anisotropy are very small. Distant objects show more pronounced manifestations; for example, in the distribution of objects over the sky and over photometric distances. These effects for each of the individual objects decrease with time but, in general, the manifestations of anisotropy in the Kasner space-time remain constant due to the fact that new sources come from beyond the cosmological horizon. We analyze observable signatures of the Kasner-type anisotropy and compare it to observations. These effects were not found in astronomical observations, including the study of the CMB. We can assume that the Universe has always been isotropic or almost isotropic since the recombination era. This does not exclude the possibility of its significant anisotropy at the moment of the Big Bang followed by rapid isotropization during the inflationary epoch.
SING: Free-Space SensING of Grape Moisture Using RF Shadowing

Convenient, non-obtrusive, low-cost, and accurate sensing of fruit moisture content is crucial for the scientific studies of pomology and viticulture and their associated agriculture. It can provide early indicators of yield estimation and crop health as well as providing data for food production and precision farming systems. With a focus on grapes, we introduce SING, a scheme that senses grape moisture content by utilizing RF signals but without physical contact with the fruit. In this article, we extend the investigation of the theoretical relationship between the dielectric properties and the moisture content of agricultural products to establish a sensing model in the 5-GHz band. To make the work practical, we are first to measure the dielectric properties of grape bunches (not individually as that would be destructive), presenting a unique measurement challenge as internal grapes are hidden. In doing so, we demonstrate that our technique precisely estimates moisture content to a high degree of accuracy (90%). Current RF sensing models to estimate moisture are destructive; they require samples to be constrained in containers. Our work is first to dispense with such impracticalities and, without contact with the object, accurately measures nonuniform grape clusters in open space. We demonstrate that SING is superior to existing work in its ability to accurately measure the dielectric properties of nonuniform fruit objects and test this through both lab-based experimentation and preliminary outdoor vineyard tests.
NMR and Computational Characterization of Protein Structure and Ligand Binding

NMR AND COMPUTATIONAL CHARACTERIZATION OF PROTEIN STRUCTURE AND LIGAND BINDING Terrence S. Neumann Marquette University, 2013 Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) techniques combined with computational methods such as docking and cheminformatics were used to characterize protein structure and ligand binding. The thioredoxin system of Mycobacterium tuberculosis consists of a thioredoxin reductase and at least three thioredoxins. This system is responsible for maintaining the cellular protein thiol redox state in normal state. This maintenance is important as the bacterium is engulfed by the human macrophage. Here it is bombarded by reactive oxygen and nitrogen species in an attempt to disrupt normal cellular function in part by perturbing the protein thiols. To this end, the solution structures of the three thioredoxins, A, B, and C, in the oxidized state were solved by NMR. Additionally, the reduced form of thioredoxin C was solved as well. Docking and NMR chemical shit pertubation experiments show promise for the inhibition of the thioredoxin C-thioredoxin reductase catalytic turnover. Automated docking is the process of computationally predicting how tightly a ligand binds to a protein and the correct orientation. The docking of an in-house collection of 10,590 chemicals into a protein called dual specificity phosphatase 5 identified potential ligands. These compounds were characterized as inhibitors in a phosphatase assay and as ligands in NMR chemical shift perturbation experiments. Based on a promising lead compound, additional chemicals were identified using cheminformatics and subjected to the same experimental verification.
Bioassay Guided Fractionation of Allium austroiranicum by Cytotoxic Effects against Ovary and Cervical Cancer Cell Lines

Background and objectives: Cancer is a major health problem in the world. The aim of this study was to extract the flowers of Allium austroiranicum used by Iranian people as a condiment or for its medicinal effects followed by bioassay guided fractionation of the extracts and fractions, using anti-proliferative effects against ovarian and cervical cancer cells. Methods: The air-dried flowers of Allium austroiranicum were extracted in a four-step extraction method, resulting hexan, chloroform, chloroform: methanol (9: 1), butanol and aqueous extracts. Anti-proliferative effects of the extracts were evaluated by MTT assay against OVCAR-3, HeLa, and HUVEC cell lines. The most potent cytotoxic extract was then subjected to fractionation by MPLC method on a RP-18 silicagel column. Finally, the cytotoxic effects of resulted fractions were analyzed again and the most potent cytotoxic fraction and its IC50 were determined. Results: Statistical analysis showed thatbutanol extract of A. austroiranicum showed the most potent cytotoxic effects against OVCAR-3, HeLa and HUVEC cell lines with IC50 values of 38±2, 56±1.4, and 60±3.5 µg/mL, respectively. On the other hand, for 7 fractions resulting from fractionation of the butanol extract, MTT assay results showed that 6th fraction (F) was the most cytotoxic fraction with IC50 of 2.7±0.26 and 7.5±0.5 µg/mL for OVCAR-3 and HeLa cancer cell lines, respectively. Primary evaluation of the fraction by TLC and NMR analysis suggested the steroidal saponins as the main constituents. Conclusion: Allium austroiranicum showed significant cytotoxic effects against ovarian cancer cell line especiallyfractions assumed to contain steroidal saponins. The fraction constituents have the potential of being strong cytotoxic agents and the isolation and identification of compounds are suggested.
Seasonal abundance of horseflies (Diptera: Tabanidae) in the Western Ghats of Karnataka

The aim of the present study was to explore the seasonal activity of tabanids in the Western Ghats of Karnataka. The study was carried out during all the seasons of the flight period March, 2019 to February 2020. A total of 912 specimens of tabanids were collected and identified belong to 5 different genera grouped into 20 species. The horse flies began flying during March-2019 and its flight period lasted until February-2020 with difference in number and species composition. The peak of seasonal abundance was observed during the last week of June. The most abundant species in the horse fly assemblages in the Western Ghats of Karnataka was Tabanus diversifrons Ricardo comprising of 18.64%, followed by Tabanus indianus Ricardo (9. 21%), Atylotus virgo Wiedemann (8.33%), Tabanus biannularis Philip (8.11%), Tabanus dorsilinea Wiedemann (7.13%), Tabanus rubidus Wiedemann (7.02%), Tabanus jucundus Walker (5.81%), Haematopota montana Ricardo (5.37%), Tabanus gertrudae Philip and Tabanus triceps Thunberg 5.04% each, Chrysops dispar Fabricius 3.84%, Haematopota javana Wiedemann 3.51%, Haematopota Longipennis Stone and Philip (2.96%), Haematopota brevis Ricardo (2.52%), Tabanus sexcinctus Ricardo and Philoliche taprobanes Walker 2.08% each, Tabanus tenebrosus Walker (1.43%), Tabanus auristriatus Ricardo (1.21%), and least abundance was observed in Haematopota albimedia Stone and Philip and Chrysops pellucidus Fabricius with 0.33% each. The largest number of specimens of Tabanus diversifrons Ricardo was collected during the peak of seasonal abundance of horse flies in the Western Ghats of Karnataka. Among the 20 species recorded in the present study, 7 species were proven vector for Surra, Anthrax, Blackleg and Haemorrhagic septicaemia in domestic and wild animals.
Minerals from Macedonia V.Characterization of gypsum, barite and their synthetic analogues by FTIR and RAMAN spectroscopy

The Fourier transform infrared (FfIR) and Raman spectra of gypsum (CaS04'2H20) and barite (BaS04) from various localities in Macedonia were studied. Contrary to the group-theoretical predictions, it was found that the band originating from the V2 sulfate mode (expected at around 450 cm-I) does not appear in the infra­ red spectra of either gypsum or barite, apparently due to the high effective symmetry of the force field for this mode. The infrared and Raman spectra of natural gypsum and its synthetic analogue are very similar. On the other hand, slight frequency differences (especially pronounced in the region of the V3 sulfate modes) were registered in the infra­ red spectrum (and, to a considerably lesser extent in the Raman spectrum as well) of synthetic BaS0 4 when compared to the spectrum of mineral barite. Also studied were the FTIR and Raman spectra of a mineral previously character­ ized as anhydrite. Although its morphological characteristics (shape, color and transparency) were quite different from those of gypsum it was shown that the studied mineral is in fact gypsum.
Mediating role of consumer identity between factors influencing purchase intention and actual behavior in organic food consumption in Thailand

The aims of this research are to explore the relationship between the factors influencing purchase intention and actual behaviors of Thai consumers of organic food, and to observe the mediating role of consumer identity between the factors: attitude toward organic food, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control, and purchase intentions. The theory of planned behavior (TPB) was adopted as a theoretical framework which contained the role of consumer identity as a mediator. Data was collected from 400 Thai consumers of organic foods. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data through AMOS package. The results of the data analysis indicate that the consumer identity plays a full mediating role between independent variables (i.e. health concern, subjective norm, organic food familiarity and organic food literacy) and purchase intention. The organic food literacy is the main determinant of consumer identity with the highest coefficient value, whilst the organic food familiarity was placed as the second important determinant of consumer identity. Moreover, the results highlight the strong influence of intention on actual behavior of organic food purchase. Accordingly, this study thoroughly captures the TPB model and strengthens it by confirming relationship between purchase intention and actual purchase behaviors in
Religiosity as a moderator of agreeableness and prosocial behavior

Bullying is something that needs to be considered and gets special treatment. This event is very closely related to adolescents who are not yet mature. Thus the need for this research as further study material. Personality can support growing prosocial behavior. In the top five personalities, there are factors that contribute to this prosocial behavior namely conformity, agreement is considered as the strongest predictor that contributes to prosocial relationships, where individuals are pleasant. In people who behave prosocially, personality agrees to influence, but also has great importance supported by someone’s religiosity someone who makes prosocial protection. Results The value obtained from the regression test using the first ANOVA is 0, 124 which means that the agreed variables influence the prosocial behavior variable by 12.4%. Furthermore, after the moderating variable (Religiosity) in the second regression equation which is the second hypothesis test, the R Square value is increased to 0.167 or 16.7%. Thus it can be accepted that the “hypothesis is accepted”. The variable of religiosity (as a moderating variable) will be able to be agreed to or improved in its suitability variable for the prosocial behavior variable.
Biology and morphometrics of melon fruit fly, Bactrocera cucurbitae Coquillett on bitter gourd (Momordica charantia L.)

Biology and morphometrics of Melon fruit fly (Bactrocera cucurbitae Coquillett) on Bitter gourd was carried out during 2018-19 at Department of Entomology, Chaudhary Charan Singh Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar. The mean incubation period of eggs of B. cucurbitae was 18.0 ± 6.32 hours. The total maggot period ranged from 5 to 7 days with a mean period of 5.8±0.78 days. Pupation took place inside the soil (5 to 6 cm thick) provided in cylindrical glass jar. Mean pupal duration was 6.9±0.87 days having a length and breadth of 5.98±0.38 mm and 2.54±0.14 mm, respectively. Total life period of male fruit fly ranged from 30 to 46 days with a mean of 36.2±5.77 days. In case of female fruit fly total life period was slightly longer ranging from 32 to 50 days with a mean of 40.4±6.24 days. Sex ratio in B. cucurbitae was recorded as 1:0.84 (male:female).
Are Children's Socio-Emotional Skills Shaped by Parental Health Shocks?

Child skills are shaped by parental investments. When parents experience a health shock, their investments and therefore their children's skills may be affected. This paper estimates causal effects of severe parental health shocks on child socio-emotional skills. Drawing on a large-scale survey linked to hospital records, we find that socio-emotional skills of 11-16 year-olds are robust to parental health shocks, with the exception of significant but very small reductions in Conscientiousness. We study short-run effects with a child-fixed effects model, and dynamics around the shocks with event studies. A sibling comparison suggests some long-run build-up of effects of early shocks.
Video Content Understanding Using Text

The rise of the social media and video streaming industry provided us a plethora of videos and their corresponding descriptive information in the form of concepts (words) and textual video captions. Due to the mass amount of available videos and the textual data, today is the best time ever to study the Computer Vision and Machine Learning problems related to videos and text. In this dissertation, we tackle multiple problems associated with the joint understanding of videos and text. We first address the task of multi-concept video retrieval, where the input is a set of words as concepts, and the output is a ranked list of full-length videos. This approach deals with multiconcept input and prolonged length of videos by incorporating multi-latent variables to tie the information within each shot (short clip of a full-video) and across shots. Secondly, we address the problem of video question answering, in which, the task is to answer a question, in the form of Fill-In-the-Blank (FIB), given a video. Answering a question is a task of retrieving a word from a dictionary (all possible words suitable for an answer) based on the input question and video. Following the FIB problem, we introduce a new problem, called Visual Text Correction (VTC), i.e., detecting and replacing an inaccurate word in the textual description of a video. We propose a deep network that can simultaneously detect an inaccuracy in a sentence while benefiting 1D-CNNs/LSTMs to encode short/long term dependencies, and fix it by replacing the inaccurate word(s). Finally, as the last part of the dissertation, we propose to tackle the problem of video generation using user input natural language sentences. Our proposed video generation method constructs two distributions out of the input text, corresponding to the first and last frames latent representations. We generate high-fidelity videos by interpolating latent representations and a sequence of CNN based up-pooling blocks.