Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Semi-Systematic Review of Capillary Irrigation: The Benefits, Limitations, and Opportunities

Capillary irrigation systems have been investigated for some years as a means to deliver water to plants in container gardening. This review paper identifies that traditional capillary irrigation systems such as capillary wicks, capillary mats, and ebb and flow systems have been shown to produce higher crop yields and use less water than conventional irrigation methods. In addition, capillary irrigation offers an added advantage by reducing the volume of potentially harmful leachate into surrounding soil environments. However, these systems are basically limited to small pot sizes and are widely used for growing ornamental and nursery plants in glasshouse conditions. Further, the cost and complexity of Negative Pressure Difference Irrigation may have limited its practical use. Conversely, wicking beds (WBs) are low-tech and water-efficient systems which can be used for growing plants with different rooting depths. Irrespective of the wide acceptance of WBs among the growing community, this review recognises that there is no published research providing design recommendations for WBs and their expected performance relative to other irrigation systems. Therefore, some potential advantages of WBs are noted in the context of capillary irrigation research; however, a substantial knowledge gap exists relating to the optimised design and use of WBs.
Watered-down biodiversity? A comparison of metabarcoding results from DNA extracted from matched water and bulk tissue biomonitoring samples

Biomonitoring programs have evolved beyond the sole use of morphological identification to determine the composition of invertebrate species assemblages in an array of ecosystems. The application of DNA metabarcoding in freshwater systems for assessing benthic invertebrate communities is now being employed to generate biological information for environmental monitoring and assessment. A possible shift from the extraction of DNA from net-collected bulk benthic samples to its extraction directly from water samples for metabarcoding has generated considerable interest based on the assumption that taxon detectability is comparable when using either method. To test this, we studied paired water and benthos samples from a taxon-rich wetland complex, to investigate differences in the detection of taxa from each sample type. We demonstrate that metabarcoding of DNA extracted directly from water samples is a poor surrogate for DNA extracted from bulk benthic samples, focusing on key bioindicator groups. Our results continue to support the use of bulk benthic samples as a basis for metabarcoding-based biomonitoring, with nearly three times greater total richness in benthic samples compared to water samples. We also demonstrated that few arthropod taxa are shared between collection methods, with a notable lack of key bioindicator EPTO taxa in the water samples. Although species coverage in water could likely be improved through increased sample replication and/or increased sequencing depth, benthic samples remain the most representative, cost-effective method of generating aquatic compositional information via metabarcoding.
Accelerated ageing test and behaviour investigation of isoenzymes in sesame seeds

The seeds of a sesame crop contain approximately 50% oil content, one of the main reasons for their cultivation. However, information regarding methodologies for the assessment of quality seeds of this culture are scarce. Therefore, the objective of this study was to adapt the methods of accelerated ageing tests for sesame seeds and investigate changes in the behaviour of isoenzymes. The physiological characterization of the seeds and electrophoretic analysis of the isoenzymes superoxide dismutase, esterase, catalase, alcohol dehydrogenase, malate dehydrogenase and isocitrate lyase were also performed. For the accelerated ageing test, the seeds were subjected to the traditional method, with a saturated NaCl solution, at ageing times of 0, 24, 48, 72, and 96 hours. It was found that it is possible to evaluate the effect of accelerated ageing tests on sesame seeds by using the traditional method for 72 hours and saturated NaCl solution at 45°C for 48 hours. When associated with the activity of isozymes EST, CAT, ADH, and ICL, it was possible to observe that there was a significant variation in the intensity of expression of the bands as the seed deterioration process progressed.
Prediction of crude protein content in rice grain with canopy spectral reflectance

Non-destructive and rapid monitoring methods for crude protein content (CPC) in rice grain are of significance in nitrogen diagnosis and grain quality monitoring, and in enhancing nutritional management and use efficiency. In this study, CPC and canopy spectra in rice were measured based on rice field experiment. Key spectral bands were selected by principal component analysis (PCA) method, and the predicted models were built by multiple linear regressions (MLR), artificial neural network (ANN) and partial least squares regression (PLSR). The results showed that there is a significant correlation between CPC content and key spectral bands. The results of prediction for the three models were in order of PLSR > ANN > MLR with correlation values of 0.96, 0.92 and 0.90, respectively, for the validation data. Therefore, it is implied that CPC in rice (grain quality) could be estimated by canopy spectral data.
Learning to Design in a Serious Game

This paper describes, discusses and reflects how a second-year Engineering Design project in a Mechanical Engineering bachelor’s programme has been ‘gamified’ by introducing ‘playful’ elements into the course (which already incorporates Problem-Based and Project-Oriented Learning). One of the aims for reorganising the course has been to intensify its immersive character. Conducting the project in the form of a Serious Game also helped to place emphasize on the inevitable necessity of considering economic efficiency in the design process. Thus, the course provided a free space for experiencing personally that development should not necessarily strive for the technically best solution but for one that is largely accepted by the market and thus invited students to explore the perspectives of different stake-holders in the design process. Therefore, this paper gives an overview of Game-Based Learning in higher education, presents exemplarily how a design-related project course can be reorganised as a Serious Game, provides indications for the inclusion of measurable project out-comes in the course grading, and shares experiences made during the supervision of the course.
Molecular insights into viral respiratory infections

Influenza A virus (IAV) is a membrane-enveloped virus with a segmented, single strand negative-sense RNA genome, which causes annual epidemics and occasional pandemics. Each of the eight genomic segments forms a ribonucleoprotein (vRNP) complex together with multiple copies of viral nucleoprotein and a single copy of the viral RNA polymerase complex. The role of vRNPs in IAV life cycle is to orchestrate viral RNA replication and transcription, intracellular viral RNA transport, gene re-assortment as well as genome packing into progeny particles. For the successful completion of virus life cycle, vRNPs also rely on host cellular processes to perform the necessary functions. Autophagy is a conserved catabolic process for the recycling of cytoplasmic macromolecules and is also critical for the interaction between IAV and the host. However, the function of ATG proteins during IAV infection remains to be fully understood. Here, we confirm that IAV triggers an autophagic response in host cells but we also show that an intact ATG machinery is not required for the IAV life cycle. Nevertheless, depletion of LC3 members of ATG8 protein family crucially impairs IAV infection revealing their pivotal role in IAV intracellular life. Moreover, LC3 proteins but not GABARAP proteins, associated with part of the cytoplasmic vRNPs in their non-lipidated forms. Our data here reveal an autophagy-independent role of LC3 proteins in IAV infected host cells suggesting the differential requirement of autophagy components during the viral life cycle.
The Provision of Written Corrective Feedback on Students Writing: Beliefs and Practices

---This article is aimed at describing a lecturer’s beliefs and practices regarding the provision of written corrective feedback. The data was taken from a lecturer of English Education Department who taught writing course at a State Islamic University of Lampung, Indonesia. Interview and feedback analysis were used to collect the data. The data analysis revealed both congruence and incongruence between lecturers’ beliefs and their practices. The congruence was obtained on the focus and the explicitness of written corrective feedback done by the lecturer. Meanwhile, the incongruence were found at the amount of written corrective feedback, and positive versus negative feedback used by the lecturer. The incongruence found in this study, thus, could be used as a springboard for meaningful discussion between lecturers, which could hopefully raise the awareness about their beliefs.
Comparative Evaluation of Karanjin and Extracts of Karanja (Pongamia glabra Vent.) and Neem (Azadirachta indica L.) Seeds for Retardation of Nitrification of Urea in Soil

The effect of alcohol extracts of karanja (Pongomia glabra) and neem (Azadirachta indica) seeds in retarding the nitrification of urea was compared to that of karanjin in an incubation experiment. Application of the seed extracts at a rate corresponding to 30 percent of the N rate was comparable to karanjin applied at 5 and 10 per cent concentration. The extracts were effective for a period of up to 45 days, while karanjin was effective for up to 60 days. The different patterns of nitrification inhibition observed with karanja and neem seed extracts suggested an advantage in using a mixture of the two.
Corticospinal Control of Human Locomotion: A New Determinant of Age-Related Sarcopenia?

Assessment of the cortical role during bipedalism has been a methodological challenge. While surface electroencephalography (EEG) is capable of non-invasively measuring cortical activity during human locomotion, it is associated with movement artifacts obscuring cerebral sources of activity. Recently, statistical methods based on blind source separation revealed potential for resolving this issue, by segregating noncerebral/artifactual from cerebral sources of activity. This step marked a new opportunity for the investigation of the brain’s role while moving and was tagged mobile brain/body imaging (MoBI). This methodology involves simultaneous mobile recording of brain activity with several other body behavioral variables (e.g., muscle activity and kinematics), through wireless recording wearable devices/sensors. Notably, several MoBI studies using EEG–EMG approaches recently showed that the brain is functionally connected to the muscles and active throughout the whole gait cycle and, thus, rejecting the long-lasting idea of a solely spinaldriven bipedalism. However, MoBI and brain/muscle connectivity assessments during human locomotion are still in their fledgling state of investigation. Mobile brain/body imaging approaches hint toward promising opportunities; however, there are some remaining pitfalls that need to be resolved before considering their routine clinical use. This article discusses several of these pitfalls and proposes research to address them. Examples relate to the validity, reliability, and reproducibility of this method in ecologically valid scenarios and in different populations. Furthermore, whether brain/muscle connectivity within the MoBI framework represents a potential biomarker in neuromuscular syndromes where gait disturbances are evident (e.g., agerelated sarcopenia) remains to be determined. 1 Institute of Human Movement Sciences and Sport, Department of Health Sciences and Technology, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland 2 Division of Physiotherapy, Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
A Systematic Review of the Efficacy and Safety of Favipiravir (Avigan) for the Treatment of Novel COVID-19 Infections

Since the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 infection in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, the spread has caused COVID19 disease in over 8.1 million people and more than 439 thousand deaths across the globe as on 16th June 2020. Absence of any particular cure or vaccine lead the health care system to treat the patients with the existing potential antiviral drugs. Recently, Favipiravir, a potential RdRp inhibitor of SARS-COV-2 sheds the ray of hope for treating COVID-19 patients efficiently.
Glucocorticoids in Maintenance of Systemic Lupus Erythematosus: Is Complete Withdrawal a Possibility?

Systemic lupus erythematosus [SLE] is a potentially life-threatening disease and the treatment consists of immunosuppression. Glucocorticoids have played a major role in remission induction and maintenance in SLE for a very long time. Prolonged use of glucocorticoids leads to vast array of steroid related adverse effects. Also, steroid use is associated with increased damage accrual in SLE as seen in various studies. This effect can be mitigated by using minimum doses of glucocorticoids, for shortest periods. However, lack of clear guidelines on steroid dose and duration, leads to variations in clinical practice. The paucity of randomized controlled trials and alternative drugs, make the withdrawal of steroids in SLE difficult. This review discusses the various studies addressing steroid tapering and withdrawal, and areas of future research. Longer duration of remission before attempting withdrawal, and use of additional immunosuppression might be the key to successful withdrawal
Identifying Cortical Brain Directed Connectivity Networks From High-Density EEG for Emotion Recognition

In this article, we investigate brain directed connectivity (BDC) networks for emotion recognition using electroencephalogram (EEG) source signals that were estimated from high-density sensor EEG signals, for the first time. Currently, a variety of features extracted from sensor EEG signals are used for emotion recognition. However, they cannot unambiguously describe the location of emotions associated with neural activities and information propagation or the interaction between brain regions. In addition, most current studies use low-density sensor EEG signals. Moreover, source signals estimated from high-density sensor EEG signal have not been employed for emotion recognition to date. We designed a BDC network-based framework using EEG source signals to investigate emotion recognition. The global cortex factor-based multivariate autoregressive (GCF-MVAR) method was utilized to extract emotion-related BDC features. Our study revealed that the combined BDC and DE features facilitated a recognition accuracy of up to 89.58 percent, which is higher than the rate obtained from BDC features and DE features alone. The sensor features derived from high-density EEG signals also exhibited higher recognition accuracy compared to low-density EEG signals. These findings suggest that BDC features derived from EEG source signals can better characterize human emotional states and are meaningful for emotion recognition.
Statistical context dictates the relationship between feedback-related EEG signals and learning

Successful decision-making requires learning expectations based on experienced outcomes. This learning should be calibrated according to the surprise associated with an outcome, but also to the statistical context dictating the most likely source of surprise. For example, when occasional changepoints are expected, surprising outcomes should be weighted heavily, demanding increased learning. In contrast, when signal corruption is expected to occur occasionally, surprising outcomes can suggest a corrupt signal that should be ignored by learning systems. Here we dissociate surprising outcomes from the degree to which they demand learning using a predictive inference task and computational modeling. We show that the updating P300, a stimulus-locked electrophysiological response previously associated with adjustments in learning behavior, does so conditionally on the source of surprise. Larger P300 signals predicted greater learning in a changing context, but predicted less learning in a context where surprise was indicative of a one-off outlier (oddball). The conditional predictive relationship between the P300 and learning behavior was persistent even after adjusting for known sources of learning rate variability. Our results suggest that the P300 provides a surprise signal that is interpreted by downstream learning processes differentially according to statistical context in order to appropriately calibrate learning across complex environments.
English to Hindi Multi Modal Image Caption Translation

—When it comes to describe image by words, the possibilities are numerous. Generating caption automatically from image is a well researched area. The concept is now advanced to utilise multiple models for translating captions in another language. One of the major hurdle in machine translation is word sense disambiguation. Visual cues from image can be helpful in disambiguate source words. System are being developed to generate image descriptions in a target language from an input image and one or more descriptions in source language. This paper describes the multi modal Neural Machine Translation systems for translating image captions from English to Hindi. Various multi-modal architectures were explored using local visual feature, global visual features, attention mechanisms, and pre-trained embedding. The features obtained form various models are integrated in various ways. We also tried re-ranking method. The systems are evaluated on BLEU score, RIBES score and AM/FM score. Re-ranking method proves to be best over all our other methods.
Storage performance of kinnow mandarins in evaporative cool chamber and ambient condition

Freshly harvested 'kinnow' fruits were subjected to treatments of bavistin, semperfresh (sucrose polyester wax) and their combinations. These fruits and an untreated lot (as control) were kept at room temperature (16.75 to 20.61°C and 62-95% RH) and in a big size evaporative cool chamber (14.56 to 18.69°C and 84-96% RH). Results indicated that fruits treated with bavistin in combination with semperfresh could be kept upto 40 days in cool chamber as against 15 days at room temperature. Data on shelf life, physiological loss in weight (PLW), spoilage and retention of vitamin C indicate that the cool chamber is an ideal on-farm storage technology for maintaining proper fruit quality and market acceptability of kinnow.
Chemische und Chemotaxonomische Untersuchungen der Pterophyten. LIX: Chemische Untersuchungen der Inhaltsstoffe von Alsophila spinulosa TRYON

From the fronds of Alsophila spinulosa TRYON biflavonoids Hegoflavone A (I) and B (II) were isolated and their structures were elucidated by spectroscopic analysis and chemical degradation to be 2, 3-dihydro-3'''-hydroxy-6, 6'''-biapigenin (I) and 2, 3-dihydro-6, 6'''-biluteolin (II) respectively. These are the first reports of a C-6/C-6'''-linked biflavonoid in nature.
The effect of captopril on inflammation-induced liver injury in male rats

Abstract Activation of macrophages-induced by lipopolysaccharide (LPS) is accompanied by the production of reactive oxygen species and inflammatory cytokines to induce hepatic injury. Renin–angiotensin system may play a role in liver damage. In the current study, the effect of captopril on the injury of inflammation-induced liver was investigated. The rats were divided into (1) Control, (2) LPS, and (3–5) LPS as well as 10, 50, or 100 mg/kg captopril for 2 weeks. Captopril decreased NO metabolites, IL-6, and MDA, while it increased CAT, SOD, and total thiol in the liver. Captopril also attenuated AST, ALT, and ALK-P, whereas it increased albumin and total protein in serum. As an ACE inhibitor, captopril improved liver function and attenuated inflammation and oxidative stress induced by LPS injection.
Physiological and biochemical analyses reveal drought tolerance in cool-season tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea) turf grass with the application of melatonin

Abstract. Tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea Schreb.) is a widely used, cool-season turf grass and is relatively sensitive to water stress. Melatonin has been reported to improve abiotic stress tolerance in many plants. In this study, we demonstrated that, although shoot height and fresh weight of tall fescue seedlings were significantly reduced by drought stress, they were increased by melatonin pre-treatment compared with control plants. Chemical analyses showed that tall fescue seedlings pre-treated with melatonin exhibited decreased levels of reactive oxygen species, electrolyte leakage and malondialdehyde, but higher levels of antioxidant enzyme activities (catalase, and peroxidase) and total chlorophyll content, compared with untreated seedlings. Leaf water loss was also partially mitigated and leaf water content increased by melatonin application, resulting in improved plant growth under drought stress. Moreover, root growth of tall fescue seedlings was promoted by melatonin under osmotic stress. The results show that drought tolerance was improved in cool-season tall fescue by application of exogenous melatonin. Therefore, melatonin may potentially be used as a protectant for plants against the deleterious effects of drought or water-deficit stress.
Assessment of Biological Role and Insight into Druggability of the Plasmodium falciparum Protease Plasmepsin V

Upon infection of a red blood cell (RBC), the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum drastically remodels its host by exporting hundreds of proteins into the RBC cytosol. This program of protein export is essential for parasite survival, hence there is interest in export-related proteins as potential drug targets. One proposed target is plasmepsin V (PMV), an aspartic protease that cleaves export-destined proteins in the parasite ER at a motif called the Plasmodium export element (PEXEL). This cleavage is essential for effector export across the vacuolar membrane. Despite long-standing interest in PMV, functional studies have been hindered by the failure of current technologies to produce a regulatable lethal depletion of PMV. To overcome this technical barrier, we designed a facile system for stringent post-transcriptional regulation, allowing a tightly controlled, tunable knockdown of PMV. Under maximal knockdown conditions, parasite growth was arrested, validating PMV as essential for parasite survival in RBCs. We found that PMV levels had to be dramatically depleted to affect parasite growth, suggesting that the parasite maintains this enzyme in substantial excess. This has important implications for antimalarial development. Additionally, we found that PMV-depleted parasites arrest immediately after invasion of the host cell, suggesting that PMV has an unappreciated role in early development that is distinct from its previously reported role in protein export in later-stage parasites. Importance Malaria is endemic to large swaths of the developing world, causing nearly 500,000 deaths each year. While infection can be treated with antimalarial drugs, resistance continues to emerge to frontline antimalarials, spurring calls for new drugs and targets to feed the drug development pipeline. One proposed target is the aspartic protease plasmepsin V (PMV) that processes exported proteins, enabling the export program that remodels the host cell. This work uses facile genetic tools to produce lethal depletion of PMV, validating it as a drug target and showing that PMV is made in substantial excess in blood-stage parasites. Unexpectedly, PMV depletion leads to parasite death immediately after invasion of RBCs, distinct from other disruptions of the export pathway. This suggests that PMV inhibitors could lead to relatively rapid parasite death, and that PMV has additional unexplored role(s) during RBC infection.