Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Registration of ‘Quest’ spring malting barley with improved resistance to Fusarium head blight

‘Quest’ (Reg No. CV-348, PI 663183) is a spring, six-rowed, malting barley ( Hordeum vulgare L.) released by the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station in January 2010 on the basis of its improved resistance to Fusarium head blight [FHB; caused by Fusarium graminearum Schwabe; teleomorph Gibberella zeae (Schwein) Petch]. Quest was developed over three breeding cycles of selection for yield, malting quality, and FHB resistance. Disease resistance traces to the Midwest cultivar MNBrite and the two-rowed accession from China Zhedar1. Quest has about half the level of disease and about 40% less of the associated mycotoxin, deoxynivalenol, compared to the historically important cultivar in the region ‘Robust’. Quest is similar in yield to the current dominant varieties in the region and was approved as a malting variety by the American Malting Barley Association.
Inhibition of human muscle-specific enolase by methylglyoxal and irreversible formation of advanced glycation end products

Methylglyoxal (MG) was studied as an inhibitor and effective glycating factor of human muscle-specific enolase. The inhibition was carried out by the use of a preincubation procedure in the absence of substrate. Experiments were performed in anionic and cationic buffers and showed that inhibition of enolase by methylglyoxal and formation of enolase-derived glycation products arose more effectively in slight alkaline conditions and in the presence of inorganic phosphate. Incubation of 15 micromolar solutions of the enzyme with 2 mM, 3.1 mM and 4.34 mM MG in 100 mM phosphate buffer pH 7.4 for 3 h caused the loss a 32%, 55% and 82% of initial specific activity, respectively. The effect of MG on catalytic properties of enolase was investigated. The enzyme changed the KM value for glycolytic substrate 2-phospho-D-glycerate (2-PGA) from 0.2 mM for native enzyme to 0.66 mM in the presence of MG. The affinity of enolase for gluconeogenic substrate phosphoenolpyruvate altered after preincubation with MG in the same manner, but less intensively. MG has no effect on Vmax and optimal pH values. Incubation of enolase with MG for 0-48 h generated high molecular weight protein derivatives. Advanced glycation end products (AGEs) were resistant to proteolytic degradation by trypsin. Magnesium ions enhanced the enzyme inactivation by MG and facilitated AGEs formation. However, the protection for this inhibition in the presence of 2-PGA as glycolytic substrate was observed and AGEs were less effectively formed under these conditions.
Crop Leaf Disease Diagnosis using Convolutional Neural Network

The major problem that the farmers around the world face is losses, because of pests, disease or a nutrient deficiency. They depend upon the information that they get from the agricultural departments for the diagnosis of plant leaf disease. This process is lengthy and complicated. Here comes a system to help farmers everywhere in the world by automatically detecting plant leaf diseases accurately and within no time. The proposed system is capable of identifying the disease of majorly 5 crops which are corn, sugarcane, wheat, and grape. In this paper, the proposed system uses the Mobile Net model, a type of CNN for classification of leaf disease. Several experiments are performed on the dataset to get the accurate output. This system ensures to give more accurate results than the previous systems.
Fast Video Object Segmentation With Temporal Aggregation Network and Dynamic Template Matching

Significant progress has been made in Video Object Segmentation (VOS), the video object tracking task in its finest level. While the VOS task can be naturally decoupled into image semantic segmentation and video object tracking, significantly much more research effort has been made in segmentation than tracking. In this paper, we introduce “tracking-by-detection” into VOS which can coherently integrates segmentation into tracking, by proposing a new temporal aggregation network and a novel dynamic time-evolving template matching mechanism to achieve significantly improved performance. Notably, our method is entirely online and thus suitable for one-shot learning, and our end-to-end trainable model allows multiple object segmentation in one forward pass. We achieve new state-of-the-art performance on the DAVIS benchmark without complicated bells and whistles in both speed and accuracy, with a speed of 0.14 second per frame and J &F measure of 75.9% respectively.
Genetic Analysis of New Sources of Soybean Resistance to Brown Stem Rot

Brown stem rot (BSR) of soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr. ], caused by Phialophora gregata (Allington & D.W. Chamb.) W. Gams 1971, is an economically important disease prevalent in soybean producing regions of the north-central United States and Canada. To date, all BSR resistant genes identified are located on chromosome 16 (formerly molecular linkage group J). The objective of this study was to determine if four plant introductions from south-central China identified as BSR resistant have resistance genes mapping to the same location on chromosome 16 as previously mapped BSR resistance genes. The four plant introductions, PI 594637, PI 594638B, PI 594650A, and PI 594858B, were crossed to the BSR-susceptible cultivar ‘Century 84’ to develop four F₂ populations. Each segregating population and the parental lines were screened for BSR resistance in growth chamber conditions. The F₂:₃ individual plants of each population were tested with the simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers Satt431 or Satt547, which map closely to BSR resistance quantitative trait loci (QTL) on chromosome 16. Associations between molecular data and phenotypic data used to validate QTL were analyzed using single factor ANOVA. Three of the four populations had markers on chromosome 16 significantly associated with BSR resistance with R ² values from 24 to 48%. However, when marker Satt547 was regressed on BSR resistance in population PI 594637 × Century 84, no significant association was observed. This result suggests that PI 594637 could have a new BSR resistance gene. Transgressive segregation also was observed in this population, and highly BSR resistant progeny could be used in the development of BSR resistant cultivars. Additional research and testing in this population will be conducted to identify resistance QTL(s) from this source.
EFFECTS OF SOIL-PILE-STRUCTURE INTERACTION ON SEISMIC RESPONSE OF SDOF STRUCTURES

The interaction between soil, foundation and structure during earthquake shaking is a complex phenomenon in which several mechanisms are involved. Soil-structure interaction (SSI) is formed by two main mechanisms: kinematic and inertial interaction, involving wave scattering and impedance problems, respectively. Theoretical studies in the subject abound in the literature and show that the effects of SSI on the earthquake response of structures involve mainly an elongation in fundamental natural period and a change (usually an increase) in damping. Nonetheless, the experimental validations of such studies are still scarce. Such validations can be efficiently investigated with physical scaled model in 1-g or n-g devices. In the present paper the soil-pile-structure interaction (SPSI) is investigated by utilizing a set of data selected from a comprehensive experimental test program carried out using 1-g shaking table tests. The scaled model adopted in the tests comprises a group of five piles embedded in a bi-layer deposit with or without a single-degree-of-freedom oscillator mounted on the piles, with or without a rigid connection (cap) between them. The present work focused on the response of the scaled model when subjected to both harmonic input motions and the strong motion recorded at Tolmezzo Station during the 1976 Friuli (Italy) earthquake. The experimental outcomes are compared with some theoretical formulations from the literature. It is found that: (i) the SPSI effects are, as expected, more evident in the system without a stiff connection between the piles and (ii) the theoretical formulae are not able to predict in an accurate manner the above quantities, due to a variety of factors discussed in the paper.
Identification of aster yellows phytoplasmas in soybean in Wisconsin based on RFLP analysis of PCR-amplified products (16S rDNAs)

Phytoplasmas have been detected for the first time by molecular methods in soybeans in Wisconsin. Nested polymerase chain reaction (PCR) using a combination of two phytoplasma-specific "universal" primer pairs (P1/P7-R16F2n/R16R2 and R16mF2/R16mR1-R16F2n/R16R2) amplified 16S rDNA (with expected fragment size of 1.2 kilobases) in soybean leaf tissue in 48 of 121 plants tested. Restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis of nested PCR products indicated that only 2 of these samples contained phytoplasmas. Gram-positive bacterial 16S rDNA genes were detected in 46 PCR positive samples. This was confirmed by culturing bacteria and direct PCR of soybean seed. In the two soybean samples, phytoplasmas belonging to the aster yellows phytoplasma group (16SrI), subgroup 16SrI-A, and a newly established subgroup, 16SrI-O, were identified. Phylogenetic analysis using partial 16S rDNA sequences (1.2 kilobases) from representative phytoplasma strains clustered soybean phytoplasmas into two distinct phylogenetic lineages that are consistent with the two subgroups defined by restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis. No correlation between the presence of phytoplasmas and the occurrence of "green-stem syndrome" in soybeans in Wisconsin was detected.
Seasonal distribution of juvenile Atlantic cod in the southern Gulf of St Lawrence

Seasonal changes in the geographic distribution of juvenile (ages 1–4) Atlantic cod Gadus morhua were determined from research surveys conducted in the southern Gulf of St Lawrence during 1986–87, 1990–91, and 1994. From late June to early October, juvenile cod were most abundant in shallow water ( 100 m) offshore waters for the winter. For most juveniles, this represented a minimum migration of >225 km (each way). Age 3 and 4 cod migrated greater distances than age 1 and 2 fish. Some age 3 and 4 cod migrated as far as 650 km from their summer and early autumn areas. Although there was partial geographic segregation of juvenile and adult fish during summer and winter, all age groups were found together during the migration. No cod were present in the shallow waters (<80 m deep) of the south-western Gulf during April due, in part, to later than average ice-melt. Large numbers of all age-classes were present in most of the south-eastern Gulf by mid-May.
Karyotype and mitochondrial 16S gene characterizations in seven South American Cichlasomatini species (Perciformes, Cichlidae)

The family Cichlidae constitutes most of the freshwater fish fauna of South America; its taxonomy is at present mainly based on morphological characters. Here, relationships among seven Cichlasomatini species have been investigated by studying their karyotype structure and by sequencing a 520 bp fragment of the mitochondrial 16S gene. Molecular data sets point to a high affinity of Cichlasoma amazonarum with Aequidens sensu stricto group, in particular with Aequidens tetramerus. Aequidens never form a single monophyletic clade: molecular trees group together ‘Aequidens pulcher’ and ‘Aequidens rivulatus’ and suggest their close relationship with Bujurquina and Laetacara, rather than with the A. sensu stricto group. Both molecular and karyotypic data confirm that Cleithracara maronii belongs to a distinct clade, thus supporting its generic differentiation based on morphological characters. Chromosome number, karyotype structure and molecular data suggest that Laetacara dorsigera is related to Bujurquina vittata and confirm their generic level of differentiation. From a cytotaxonomic point of view, a karyotype of 2n = 48 with most acrocentric or subacrocentric chromosomes could be the ancestral one from which the others might have derived. Zusammenfassung Ein groser Teil der sudamerikanischen Suswasserfische gehort zur Familie der Cichliden, deren Taxonomie bisher aber nur auf morphologischen Eigenschaften beruhte. In dieser Arbeit wurden die Verwandtschaftbeziehungen zwischen sieben Arten durch die Untersuchung des Karyotyps und eines 520 bp Teilstucks der mitochondrialen 16S rDNA-Sequenz studiert. Die molekularen Daten weisen auf eine hohere Verwandtschaft zwischen Cichlosoma amazonarum und Aequidens sensu strictu, besonders mit A. tetramerus, hin. Die Arten der Gattung Aequidens bilden niemals eine monophyletische Clade; die molekularen Baume gruppieren immer A. pulcher und A. rivulatus zusammen und machen deren nahere Verwandtschaft zu den Gattungen Bujurquina und Laetacara wahrscheinlicher als zu der als Aequidens sensu strictu bezeichneten Gruppe. Die molekularen und die karyologischen Daten bestarken, das die Art Cleithracara maroni einer klar getrennten Clade angehort, was auch die morphologischen Ergebnisses unterstutzt. Die Chromosomenzahl, die Zusammensetzung des Karyotyps und die molekularen Vergleiche lassen erkennen, dasLaetacara dorsigera mit Bujurquina vittata verwandt ist, aber die Differenzierung den Gattungsstatus rechtfertigt. Vom cytotaxonomischen Standpunkt konnte ein Karyotyp mit 2n = 48 mit vorwiegend akrozentrischen oder subakrozentischen Chromosomen der ursprungliche sein, von dem die anderen ableitbar sind.
SegGCN: Efficient 3D Point Cloud Segmentation With Fuzzy Spherical Kernel

Fuzzy clustering is known to perform well in real-world applications. Inspired by this observation, we incorporate a fuzzy mechanism into discrete convolutional kernels for 3D point clouds as our first major contribution. The proposed fuzzy kernel is defined over a spherical volume that uses discrete bins. Discrete volumetric division can normally make a kernel vulnerable to boundary effects during learning as well as point density during inference. However, the proposed kernel remains robust to boundary conditions and point density due to the fuzzy mechanism. Our second major contribution comes as the proposal of an efficient graph convolutional network, SegGCN for segmenting point clouds. The proposed network exploits ResNet like blocks in the encoder and 1 × 1 convolutions in the decoder. SegGCN capitalizes on the separable convolution operation of the proposed fuzzy kernel for efficiency. We establish the effectiveness of the SegGCN with the proposed kernel on the challenging S3DIS and ScanNet real-world datasets. Our experiments demonstrate that the proposed network can segment over one million points per second with highly competitive performance.
Moth sex pheromone adsorption to leaf surface: bridge in time for chemical spies

Abstract When brussels sprouts leaves were exposed to air passed over a single calling Mamestra brassicae moth, sex pheromone was adsorbed onto the leaf surface to such an extent that it subsequently elicited behavioural responses in conspecific male moths, as well as in female Trichogramma evanescens, egg parasitoids of M. brassicae. Male moths responded to odour‐treated leaves over a short distance (c. 5 cm) in a wind tunnel, but were not attracted at a distance of 1 m. In contrast, sex pheromone adsorbed to and re‐released from the glass wall of a wind tunnel compartment attracted male moths from 1 m. Trichogramma's locomotory behaviour on leaves is described. On leaves previously exposed to air passed over a calling female moth, Trichogramma wasps stayed significantly longer on leaves treated with clean air or air passed over a non‐calling female moth. In addition, wasps spent relatively more time along the margin and on the leaf underside on treated leaves compared with control leaves. All effects persisted for at least 4 h, and after 24 h treated leaves still increased wasp residence times. These results are the first example of responses of male moths to adsorbed airborne sex pheromone originating from a single female moth. They further suggest how sex pheromone released by nocturnal moths may function as a kairomone for diurnally foraging parasitoids.
Biological Control of Blue Stain in Pulpwood: Mechanisms of Control used by Phlebiopsis gigantea

Summary Phlebiopsis gigantea, a white-rot fungus currently being tested in biological processing applications for the pulp and paper industry, was shown to effectively inhibit blue stain fungi in both laboratory and field trials. Inoculation of logs with P. gigantea shortly after cutting resulted in up to 86% colonization of logs in the laboratory and 100% in field studies. Colonization of logs by blue stain fungi such as Ophiostoma piliferum and O. piceae was greatly reduced or completely inhibited with prior inoculation by P. gigantea. In field studies, blue stain fungi colonized up to 53% of the sapwood and stained as much as 31% of the sapwood in non-inoculated control logs in contrast to 4% colonization and 2% stain in treated logs. Logs inoculated with O. piliferum 2 weeks prior to inoculation with P. gigantea were 88% colonized by O. piliferum and had 33% of the sapwood stained after 7 weeks, and 33% colonized and 18% stained after 29 weeks. Scanning electron micrographs of P. gigantea and O. piliferum hyphae showed P. gigantea parasitizing the blue stain fungus. Phlebiopsis gigantea was shown penetrating and growing adjacent to collapsed and disintegrated blue stain hyphae. Phlebiopsis gigantea also decolorized sapwood previously stained blue.
Wolbachia identified in a new crustacean host: an explanation of the prevalence of asexual reproduction in non-marine ostracods?

Wolbachia are cytoplasmic proteobacteria which induce severe modifications in the reproductive behaviour of their arthropod hosts. Although common in insects and terrestrial isopods, Wolbachia have seldom been found in other arthropod groups. Based on PCR amplification and DNA sequencing of Wolbachia 16S rDNA we report the first record of these endosymbiont bacteria in ostracods (Ostracoda), an exclusively aquatic crustacean group. The implications of this finding and the likely links between Wolbachia and ostracod reproductive life-history traits (parthenogenesis and sex-ratio distortion) are discussed.
Circulating steroids and the relationship between ovarian and placental secretion during early and mid pregnancy in the baboon

Ovarian and placental steroid secretion was examined at intervals during early and mid‐pregnancy in the olive baboon, Papio anubis. Progesterone, androstenedione, testosterone, estrone, and estradiol‐17β were measured after celite chromatography in samples from peripheral circulation and from utero‐ovarian veins draining ovaries with and without corpora lutea at the following stages of pregnancy: days 8–9 (unconfirmed pregnant), 10–19, 34–40, 60–66, and 104–106 after ovulation. The pattern of hormone levels in peripheral and utero‐ovarian vein samples indicated the following: 1) The corpus luteum was the principal source of progesterone until at least day 19. Placental secretion was well advanced by days 34–40 and provided the major contribution to circulating progesterone levels by day 60.2) There was a significant elevation in peripheral concentrations of androstenedione and testosterone on days 10–19 and 34–40 of pregnancy; androgen levels in peripheral and utero‐ovarian vein samples declined to baseline values by day 60. 3) Estrogens were secreted by the corpus luteum on days 10–19 but not on days 34–40. Placental secretion of estradiol‐17β increased markedly after days 60–66, whereas little, if any, placental secretion of estrone was apparent at this time. These results provide circumstantial evidence that progesterone secretion by the corpus luteum of early pregnancy extends beyond the time when estrogen secretion has declined and that the timing of the luteo‐placental shift in the baboon is intermediate between that in rhesus monkeys and that in marmosets and humans. Increased secretion of androgens during the first 6 weeks of gestation may be useful in early pregnancy diagnosis in the baboon, although the physiological significance of this event is not clear.
The effects of irrigation, inoculants and fertilizer nitrogen on peanuts (Arachis hypogaea L.). 1. Nitrogen fixation.

Abstract Effects of irrigation, inoculants and fertilizer nitrogen (N) on N2(C2H2) fixation in peanuts were studied in 1976 and 1977 at Delhi, Ontario. Inoculant application increased nodulation and N-fixation in both years. Powdered peat and granular formulations containing the same strains of rhizobia resulted in almost the same amounts of nodulation and N-fixation (80 kg/ha on average). Differences in nodulation from inoculants containing different strains of rhizobia were not consistent over the two years. However, 60% difference in N-fixation resulted from the inoculants containing different strains of rhizobia in both years. Nitrogen application decreased the nodule number, nodule dry weight, and N-fixation of all the inoculated peanuts. Irrigation increased the N-fixation of the peanuts treated with granular inoculant in 1976 by an average of 45% and all the inoculated peanuts in 1977 by an average of 54% but had no effect on nodulation in either year.
Opportunistic cervical cancer screening by papanicolaou stain Pap smear among women: a pilot study at urban health training centre of All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Patna, Bihar, India

Background: Cancer of the uterine cervix is the second most common cancer among women world-wide and accounts for 17% of all cancer deaths among females aged 30-69 years in India. Locally advanced cervical cancer is rampant in Bihar because of the high prevalence of associated risk factors. However, there is lack of organized screening programmes and treatment facilities for these patients. Thus, the study aimed at screening women for cervical cancer opportunistically during their visit to the health centres and to assess the various socio-demographic and other risk factors associated with positive screening test results.Methods: Using purposive sampling technique, all women aged 18-59 years who visited the centre for any purpose were interviewed using a pre-designed questionnaire. All eligible women were screened using the conventional Pap Smear and evaluation was done using the 2014 Bethesda system. This study is still underway and 71 women have been screened so far. An interim analysis was done.Results: Only 4.23% of the women ever had Pap smear testing in their life earlier. Mean age was 35.3±9.12 years and majority of the women were married and multi-parous. Vaginal discharge (55.74%) was the most common perceived gynecological morbidity. Most (36.62%) smears were reported as inflammatory cervical smears while epithelial cell abnormalities were seen in 4 (5.63%) cases.Conclusions: This study reiterates the need to start organized cervical screening program not only at tertiary center but also at primary health centers which will definitely help to reduce the burden to some extent