Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Persistence of Only a Minute Viable Population in Chlorotic Microcystis aeruginosa PCC 7806 Cultures Obtained by Nutrient Limitation

Cultures from the cyanobacterial strain Microcystis aeruginosa PCC 7806 submitted to nutrient limitation become chlorotic. When returned to nutrient rich conditions these cultures regain their green colour. The aim of this study was to verify whether the cells in these cultures could be considered resting stages allowing the survival of periods of nutrient starvation as has been reported for Synechococcus PCC 7942. The experiments with Microcystis were carried out in parallel with Synechococcus cultures to rule out the possibility that any results obtained with Microcystis were due to our particular experimental conditions. The results of the experiments with Synechococcus PCC 7942 cultures were comparable to the reported in the literature. For Microcystis PCC 7806 a different response was observed. Analysis of chlorotic Microcystis cultures by flow cytometry showed that the phenotype of the cells in the population was not homogenous: the amount of nucleic acids was about the same in all cells but only around one percent of the population emitted red autofluorescence indicating the presence of chlorophyll. Monitoring of the reversion of chlorosis by flow cytometry showed that the re-greening was most likely the result of the division of the small population of red autofluorescent cells originally present in the chlorotic cultures. This assumption was confirmed by analysing the integrity of the DNA and the membrane permeability of the cells of chlorotic cultures. Most of the DNA of these cultures was degraded and only the autofluorescent population of the chlorotic cultures showed membrane integrity. Thus, contrary to what has been reported for other cyanobacterial genera, most of the cells in chlorotic Microcystis cultures are not resting stages but dead. It is interesting to note that the red autofluorescent cells of green and chlorotic cultures obtained in double strength ASM-1 medium differ with respect to metabolism: levels of emission of red autofluorescence are higher in the cells of green cultures and the ability to convert fluorescein diacetate of these cells are heterogeneous when compared to the autofluorescent cells of chlorotic cultures. Thus, the small population of the red autofluorescent cells of chlorotic cultures are in a differentiated metabolic state that allow them to persist in conditions in which most of the population loses viability; persistent cells can be detected in chlorotic cultures maintained for more than a year.
On the comparison of Bayesian Information criterion and Draper''s Information criterion in selection of an asymmetric price relationship: bootstrap simulation results

Alternative formulations of the Bayesian Information Criteria provide a basis for choosing between competing methods for detecting price asymmetry. However, very little is understood about their performance in the asymmetric price transmission modelling framework. In addressing this issue, this paper introduces and applies parametric bootstrap techniques to evaluate the ability of Bayesian Information Criteria (BIC) and Draper's Information Criteria (DIC) in discriminating between alternative asymmetric price transmission models under various error and sample size conditions. The results of the bootstrap simulations indicate that model selection performance depends on bootstrap sample size and the amount of noise in the data generating process. The Bayesian criterion clearly identifies the true asymmetric model out of different competing models in the presence of bootstrap samples. Draper's Information Criteria (DIC; Draper, 1995) outperforms BIC at either larger bootstrap sample size or lower noise level.
How Sovereign is Sovereign Credit Risk?

We study the nature of sovereign credit risk using an extensive sample of CDS spreads for 26 developed and emerging-market countries. Sovereign credit spreads are surprisingly highly correlated, with just three principal components accounting for more than 50 percent of their variation. Sovereign credit spreads are generally more related to the U.S. stock and high-yield bond markets, global risk premia, and capital flows than they are to their own local economic measures. We find that the excess returns from investing in sovereign credit are largely compensation for bearing global risk, and that there is little or no country-specific credit risk premium. A significant amount of the variation in sovereign credit returns can be forecast using U.S. equity, volatility, and bond market risk premia.
Comparing Sentinel-2 MSI and Landsat 8 OLI in soil salinity detection: a case study of agricultural lands in coastal North Carolina

ABSTRACT This study presents the first comparison of Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) and Sentinel-2 Multispectral Instrument (MSI) in identifying soil salinity using soil physiochemical, spectral, statistical, and image analysis techniques. By the end of the century, intermediate sea level rise scenarios project approximately 1.3 meters of sea level rise along the coast of the southeastern United States. One of the most vulnerable areas is Hyde County, North Carolina, where 1140 km2 of agricultural lands are being salinized, endangering 4,200 people and $40 million USD of property. To determine the best multispectral sensor to map the extent of salinization, this study compared the feasibility of OLI and MSI to estimate electrical conductivity (EC). The EC of field samples were correlated with handheld spectrometer spectra resampled into multispectral sensor bands. Using an iterative ordinary least squares regression, it was found that EC was sensitive to OLI bands 2 (452 nm – 512 nm) and 4 (636 nm – 673 nm) and MSI bands 2 (457.5 nm – 522.5 nm) and 4 (650 nm – 680 nm). Respectively, the R2Adj and Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) of 0.04–0.54 and 1.15 for OLI, and 0.05–0.67 and 1.17 for MSI, suggests that the two sensors have similar salinity modelling skill. The extracted saline soils make up approximately 1,703 hectares for OLI and 118 hectares for MSI, indicating overestimation from the OLI image due to its coarser spatial resolution. Additionally, field samples indicate that nearby vegetated land is saline, indicating an underestimation of total impacted land. As sea levels rise, accurately monitoring soil salinization will be critical to protecting coastal agricultural lands. MSI’s spatial and temporal resolution makes it superior to OLI for salinity tracking though they have roughly equivalent spectral resolutions. This study demonstrates that visible spectral bands are sensitive to soil salinity with the Blue and Red spectral ranges producing the highest model accuracy; however, the low accuracies for both sensors indicate the need of narrowband sensors. The HyspIRI to be launched in the early 2020s by NASA may provide ideal data source in soil salinity studies.
Plan-Recognition as Planning in Continuous and Discrete Domains

Plan recognition is the task of inferring the plan of an agent, based on an incomplete sequence of its observed actions. Previous formulations of plan recognition commit early to discretizations of the environment and the observed agent’s actions. This leads to reduced recognition accuracy. To address this, we first provide a formalization of recognition problems which admits continuous environments, as well as discrete domains. We then show that through mirroring— generalizing plan-recognition by planning—we can apply continuous-world motion planners in plan recognition. We provide formal arguments for the usefulness of mirroring, and empirically evaluate mirroring in more than a thousand recognition problems in three continuous domains and six classical
Research progress in metallogenic chronology of Mississippi valley-type (MVT) Pb-Zn deposits

MVT Pb-Zn deposits are one of world’s important Pb-Zn deposits. Their lead and zinc account for approximately 20% of global lead and zinc resources. After constant explorations, researchers have made substantial progress in geological features, geochemical characteristics, ore-forming material sources, and transport and deposition mechanisms for ore-forming fluids, chronology restriction, and geochemical kinetic background for ore genesis of MVT Pb-Zn deposits over the past decades. This paper discusses problems with chronological research by summing up previous outcomes.
Stable Many-to-Many Matchings with Contracts

We consider several notions of setwise stability for many-to-many matching markets with contracts and provide an analysis of the relations between the resulting sets of stable allocations for general, substitutable, and strongly substitutable preferences. Apart from obtaining "set inclusion results" on all three domains, we introduce weak setwise stability as a new stability concept and prove that for substitutable preferences the set of pairwise stable matchings is nonempty and coincides with the set of weakly setwise stable matchings. For strongly substitutable preferences the set of pairwise stable matchings coincides with the set of setwise stable matchings.
Electropolymerization of an EDOT-Quinoxaline Monomer for Green Electrochromic Thin Films and Devices

In this study, we present a 5,8-bis(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene)quinoxaline monomer with two 4-(octyloxy)phenyl side chains (EDOTPQ) that can be electropolymerized on ITO glass in standard electrolytes containing lithium salts and propylene carbonate as solvent. The electrochemically deposited PEDOTPQ layers show very good adhesion and homogeneity on ITO. The green-colored polymer thin films exhibit promising electrochromic (EC) properties and are interesting for applications such as adaptive camouflage, as well as smart displays, labels, and sensors. Novel organic–inorganic (hybrid) EC cell configurations were realized with Prussian blue (PB) or titanium-vanadium oxide (TiVOx) as ion storage electrodes, showing a highly reversible and fast color change from green to light yellow.
Compressed Domain Image Retrievals Based On DCT-Processing

- While data compression has made significant contribution to the digital revolution in computer science and telecommunications, efficient image processing algorithms and feature extraction techniques are developed in pixel domain. As a matter of fact, many JPEG compressed image retrieval methods based on DCT coefficients have been elaborated in recent years. Various approaches and systems of image retrieval and matching are investigated in the paper. Particular attention was given to studying and confrontation of experimental results for some CBIR methods and systems used DCT and its features.
Relation extraction for knowledge graph of dangerous goods based on distributed representation

The construction of knowledge graph of dangerous goods (KGDG) is with great significance of inferring relative information of dangerous goods, developing corresponding policy for its storage and transport, preventing disaster caused by dangerous goods(DG), and providing emergency plan when the disaster happens. Since distributed representation of natural language is an effective method for knowledge representation, we proposed a distributed method of relation extraction for constructing KGDG. We firstly automatically crawled the description of various DG from web to obtain a large corpus. Secondly, we cut the words and represented them by training an embedding vector matrix. Thirdly, we extracted the relation among entities of DG based on similarity of any two words. At last, we compared the performance of relation extraction between co-occurrence and embedding vector. The results showed that our method works well for constructing KGDG.
Molecular Cloning and Functional Characterization of a Novel Isoflavone 3′-O-methyltransferase from Pueraria lobata

Pueraria lobata roots accumulate 3′-, 4′- and 7-O-methylated isoflavones and many of these methylated compounds exhibit various pharmacological activities. Either the 4′- or 7-O-methylation activity has been investigated at molecular levels in several legume species. However, the gene encoding the isoflavone 3′-O-methyltransferase (OMT) has not yet been isolated from any plant species. In this study, we reported the first cDNA encoding the isoflavone 3′-OMT from P. lobata (designated PlOMT4). Heterologous expressions in yeast and Escherichia coli cells showed that the gene product exhibits an enzyme activity to methylate the 3′-hydroxy group of the isoflavone substrate. The transcript abundance of PlOMT4 matches well with its enzymatic product in different organs of P. lobata and in the plant roots in response to methyl jasmonate elicitation. Integration of the biochemical with metabolic and transcript data supported the proposed function of PlOMT4. The identification of PlOMT4 would not only help to understand the isoflavonoid metabolism in P. lobata but also potentially provide an enzyme catalyst for methylating existing drug candidates to improve their hydrophobicity.
Composing vibrotactile music: A multi-sensory experience with the emoti-chair

The Emoti-Chair is a novel technology to enhance entertainment through vibrotactile stimulation. We assessed the experience of this technology in two workshops. In the first workshop, deaf film-makers experimented with creating vibetracks for a movie clip using a professional movie editing software. In the second workshop, trained opera singers sang and `felt' their voice through the Emoti-Chair. Participants in both workshops generally found the overall experience to be exciting and they were motivated to use the Chair for upcoming projects.
Insulation Degradation Characteristics and Phase-Field Simulation of Epoxy Resin for Valve-Side Bushing Under Strongly Coupled Electrothermal Field

As voltage levels increase, insulation materials often suffer insulation failures in recent years, such as epoxy resin (ER) for valve-side bushings. Under the combined effect of a strongly coupled electrothermal field, the bushing radial insulation breakdown accident happens from time to time. In this article, an electrothermal treeing experimental setup was built. The treeing characteristics of ER from 40 °C to 120 °C were tested. A novel treeing model under a strongly coupled electrothermal field was proposed. The treeing process based on the physical parameters was simulated by using COMSOL Multiphysics. The results show that the critical energy density of partial damage in the phase field model is determined to be $1.84\times {10}^{{5}}$ J/m2. The experiment and simulation results consistently show that with the increase in the ER temperature, the morphology of the trees changes from branch type to mixed bush-branch type, the fractal dimension of the trees increases, and the breakdown time delay of the specimens is shortened, which is caused by the increase in dielectric constant, the dielectric loss angle tangent value, and the phase diffusion coefficient. In addition, the simulation results show that the electrostatic energy distribution of the specimens has a significant effect on the treeing process, and the higher the electrostatic energy is, the faster trees develop. The results of this article may help to understand the initiation and growth of electrical trees and to optimize insulation materials from an energetic point of view.
Improved Instruments and Methods for the Photographic Study of Spark-Induced Cavitation Bubbles

An underwater spark is able to induce a cavitation bubble, and this principle has been utilized to make cavitation bubble generators for several decades. In this paper, an improved instrument for generating spark-induced cavitation bubbles is described in detail. The voltage time history inside the instrument is measured to show the working process and principle. Cavitation bubbles are generated by the instrument and recorded by a high-speed camera. The radius time history of the bubble is obtained using an image processing algorithm. The ratio of its minimum radius to its maximum radius reaches ~0.2, which indicates that there is little undissolved gas in the bubble. With the radius time history, the velocity fields around the bubbles were calculated by the 1D continuity flow equation, and the pressure fields were calculated by the 1D Euler equation. One cavitation bubble is chosen and discussed in detail. The velocity and pressure on the bubble interface achieve their maximums (~25 m/s and ~1.2 MPa, respectively) at the same time, when the radius is at its minimum (~1 mm). Some statistical results are also presented to show the effect of the instrument.
Improving sensor network immunity under worm attacks: a software diversity approach

Because of cost and resource constraints, sensor nodes do not have a complicated hardware architecture or operating system to protect program safety. Hence, the notorious buffer-overflow vulnerability that has caused numerous Internet worm attacks could also be exploited to attack sensor networks. We call the malicious code that exploits a buffer-overflow vulnerability in a sensor program sensor worm. Clearly, sensor worm will be a serious threat, if not the most dangerous one, when an attacker could simply send a single packet to compromise the entire sensor network. Despite its importance, so far little work has been focused on sensor worms. In this work, we first illustrate the feasibility of launching sensor worms through real experiments on Mica2 motes. Inspired by the survivability through heterogeneity philosophy, we then explore the technique of software diversity to combat sensor worms. Given a limited number of software versions, we design an efficient algorithm to assign the appropriate version of software to each sensor, so that sensor worms are restrained from propagation. We also examine the impact of sensor node deployment errors on worm propagation, which directs the selection of our system parameters based on percolation theory. Finally, extensive analytical and simulation results confirm the effectiveness of our scheme in containing sensor worms.
A computational multiscale agent-based model for simulating spatio-temporal tumour immune response to PD1 and PDL1 inhibition

When the immune system responds to tumour development, patterns of immune infiltrates emerge, highlighted by the expression of immune checkpoint-related molecules such as PDL1 on the surface of cancer cells. Such spatial heterogeneity carries information on intrinsic characteristics of the tumour lesion for individual patients, and thus is a potential source for biomarkers for anti-tumour therapeutics. We developed a systems biology multiscale agent-based model to capture the interactions between immune cells and cancer cells, and analysed the emergent global behaviour during tumour development and immunotherapy. Using this model, we are able to reproduce temporal dynamics of cytotoxic T cells and cancer cells during tumour progression, as well as three-dimensional spatial distributions of these cells. By varying the characteristics of the neoantigen profile of individual patients, such as mutational burden and antigen strength, a spectrum of pretreatment spatial patterns of PDL1 expression is generated in our simulations, resembling immuno-architectures obtained via immunohistochemistry from patient biopsies. By correlating these spatial characteristics with in silico treatment results using immune checkpoint inhibitors, the model provides a framework for use to predict treatment/biomarker combinations in different cancer types based on cancer-specific experimental data.
Changes in Body Composition and Physical Performance after a Six-Week International Tour in Young Chilean Female Tennis Players

Junior tennis players travel a lot to play tennis tournaments; this causes them to spend a lot of time away from their homes and disrupts their training, which could reduce their performance and increase the risk of injury. The purpose of this study was to analyze the changes in physical performance and body composition after a six-week international tour in young Chilean female tennis players. Thirty young female tennis players (15.4 ± 0.6) participated in this study. Body weight, skinfolds, and perimeters were measured. Body fat percentage (BFP) and skeletal muscle mass (SMM) were calculated. For physical performance, 5 m sprint, the 505 with stationary start test (505 test), the pro-agility test, countermovement jump (CMJ), and medicine ball throw (MBT) were evaluated. The results show a significant increase in BFP and decrease in SMM (p < 0.01; d = −0.18 and 0.19, respectively). In terms of physical performance, 5 m sprint, the 505 test (p < 0.01; d = −0.95 and −0.95, respectively), CMJ, MBT, and HJ significantly decreased post-tour (p < 0.05; d = 0.96, 0.89 and 0.47, respectively). We conclude that, after a six-week international tour, there were changes in body composition and a significant decrease in 5 m sprint, the 505 test, CMJ, and MBT.
The extent and effectiveness of knowledge management in Australian community service organisations

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to evaluate the extent and effectiveness of knowledge management (KM) in community service organisations (CSOs) in Australia. CSOs are focussed on support, care and encouragement, thereby improving the quality of life of many in the community. This study contributes to a wider acceptance and management of knowledge, from a national perspective, and assists CSOs to improve practice. Design/methodology/approach – KM theory and practice is expanded through a national online survey from 89 Australian CSOs, represented by 538 employees. CSOs, as a subset of not-for-profit organisations, were selected because they contribute significantly to the economy. Existing research generally relies on case studies, offering scope for wider quantitative research to address the gap. Findings – The extent and effectiveness of KM were moderate. KM was more extensive in CSOs with a formal KM policy. Face-to-face exchange of knowledge was the major transfer method. Recognition or other in.
Automated GUI Test Coverage Analysis Using GA

A Graphical User Interface (GUI) is a graphical front-end to a software system. A GUI contains graphical objects with certain distinct values which can be used to determine the state of the GUI at any time. Software developing organizations always desire to test the software thoroughly to get maximum confidence about its quality. But this requires gigantic effort to test a GUI application due to the complexity involved in such applications. This problem has led to the automation of GUI testing and different techniques have been proposed for automated GUI Testing. Event-flow graph is a fresh technique being used in the field of automated GUI testing. Just as control-flow graph, another GUI model that represents all possible execution paths in a program, event-flow model, in the same way, represents all promising progressions of events that can be executed on the GUI. Another challenging question in software testing is, “How much testing is enough? ” As development proceeds, there are fewer measures available that can be used to provide guidance on the quality of an automatic test suite. Genetic algorithm searches for the best possible test parameter combinations that are according to some predefined test criterion. Usually this test criterion corresponds to a “coverage function” that measures how much of the automatically generated optimization parameters satisfies the given test criterion. In this paper, we have attempted to exploit the event driven nature of GUI. Based on this nature, we have presented a GUI testing and coverage analysis technique centered on genetic algorithms.