Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The antagonistic strain Bacillus subtilis UMAF6639 also confers protection to melon plants against cucurbit powdery mildew by activation of jasmonate-and salicylic acid-dependent defence responses

Biological control of plant diseases has gained acceptance in recent years. Bacillus subtilis UMAF6639 is an antagonistic strain specifically selected for the efficient control of the cucurbit powdery mildew fungus Podosphaera fusca, which is a major threat to cucurbits worldwide. The antagonistic activity relies on the production of the antifungal compounds iturin and fengycin. In a previous study, we found that UMAF6639 was able to induce systemic resistance (ISR) in melon and provide additional protection against powdery mildew. In the present work, we further investigated in detail this second mechanism of biocontrol by UMAF6639. First, we examined the signalling pathways elicited by UMAF6639 in melon plants, as well as the defence mechanisms activated in response to P. fusca. Second, we analysed the role of the lipopeptides produced by UMAF6639 as potential determinants for ISR activation. Our results demonstrated that UMAF6639 confers protection against cucurbit powdery mildew by activation of jasmonate‐ and salicylic acid‐dependent defence responses, which include the production of reactive oxygen species and cell wall reinforcement. We also showed that surfactin lipopeptide is a major determinant for stimulation of the immune response. These results reinforce the biotechnological potential of UMAF6639 as a biological control agent.
From nomad to explorer: active object recognition on mobile robots

This paper demonstrates the importance of active behavior in machine vision systems. It proposes using activity of the observer for object finding and recognition. The presented robotic system is based on active and qualitative vision approaches which are supplemented by a hierarchical, multiresolution image representation and a parallel implementation of the active vision algorithms. The system uses a hierarchical search strategy to locate and then identify objects in a three-dimensional space. The paper describes the recognition algorithm and its parallel implementation. The preliminary results show near real-time performance.
Depth correction in ToF camera

A depth captured by a Time-of-Flight (ToF) camera is sometimes distorted when object is close to camera. This problem causes low quality in several applications. In this paper, we take saturation of pixel into account and propose how to correct depth regardless of color or distance of objects using multi-integration time and phase reconstruction methods. The ToF camera captures depth of objects by using the ratio of electron charges which is not saturated for each integration time and by using phase summation equality. For verifying our approach, we used our prototype ToF camera with 480x270 pixel resolution, 16MHz modulated frequency, f/1.6 lens and 40msec integration time. Integration times are set by 16msec and 24msec, respectively. And target object used in test is color chart consisting of 24 standard colors and is located at intervals of 25cm (0.75m to 2.00m). We verified depth of each patch in color chart has identical value.
Tungiasis : A eglected Health Problem in Rural Cameroon Introduction

Background: The jigger flea (Tunga penetrans) is a parasitic insect that causes debility in resource-poor communities of the developing world. The flea originates from South America, but it has spread across the Caribbean, Sub-Saharan Africa and parts of South Asia. Virulence, known as tungiasis, results from infestation by the fertilised female flea, which embeds into the epidermis (usually of the feet), feeds on lymph and swells as the eggs grow. The mature eggs are extruded onto the ground, where the larvae feed, pupate and metamorphose into the adult flea. Aim & Objectives: To ascertain the prevalence and impact of Tunga penetrans in a rural population of Northwest Cameroon, in relation to a series of associated risk factors. Method/Study Design: In July and August 2008, a survey was carried out across a representative sample of compounds within nine villages in the Ndu subdivision of Northwest Cameroon. The residents were questioned in relation to suggested risk factors, as well as local treatments and folklore. Their hands and feet were examined for the presence of tungiasis, and the number and locality of lesions were recorded. Results/Findings: 1,151 individuals were examined, including 567 males (49%) and 584 females (51%). Of these, 53% were children (0-14 years), and 10% were elderly (60+ years). In total, 610 individuals (53%) were infested with Tunga penetrans. Prevalence was higher in males (59%) than in females (47%) (p=0.004). Prevalence was highest in children, decreased in adults and increased again in the elderly. Illiterate people were more likely to suffer (59%) than those who were literate (50%) (p=0.05). The mean parasite intensity was 5.1, and the median parasite intensity was 2 (interquartile range, 2-5). Of those surveyed, 769 (67%) had experienced the flea within the previous month, and 21% of the study sample did not consider jigger flea infestation to be a disease. Conclusion: The prevalence and impact of tungiasis in rural areas of Northwest Cameroon are high, causing suffering and disability to a large proportion of the population. The disease remains an important health problem to the impoverished, and needs to be addressed by health officials, the medical community, educationalists and sufferers themselves.
An Exploratory Study of Travel Cards

Abstract A travel card, a card type payment method used for limited travel purposes, has been introduced to many tourism destinations in order to improve tourists’ convenience. This study tries to expand our understanding of travel card functions and to identify factors that influence individuals’ preference of travel card payment type. In order to achieve study goals, 60 travel cards being used worldwide have been reviewed, and a survey of Korean and Japanese travelers to Busan was conducted (n=408). Study results indicate that the function of a travel card encompasses discount function, convenience function, and gift/souvenir function. Both Korean and Japanese tourists are more in favor of a pre-paid travel card. The preference of payment type varies significantly by some individual, trip characteristics, and nationality of respondents. Study results imply that an explicit consideration of functions to provide and characteristics of target market, in addition to available resources needs to be taken when a DMO tries to introduce a new travel card to the region.
Federated Semi-supervised Learning for Medical Image Segmentation with intra-client and inter-client Consistency

Medical image segmentation plays a vital role in clinic disease diagnosis and medical image analysis. However, labeling medical images for segmentation task is tough due to the indispensable domain expertise of radiologists. Furthermore, considering the privacy and sensitivity of medical images, it is impractical to build a centralized segmentation dataset from different medical institutions. Federated learning aims to train a shared model of isolated clients without local data exchange which aligns well with the scarcity and privacy characteristics of medical data. To solve the problem of labeling hard, many advanced semi-supervised methods have been proposed in a centralized data setting. As for federated learning, how to conduct semi-supervised learning under this distributed scenario is worth investigating. In this work, we propose a novel federated semi-supervised learning framework for medical image segmentation. The intra-client and inter-client consistency learning are introduced to smooth predictions at the data level and avoid confirmation bias of local models. They are achieved with the assistance of a Variational Autoencoder (VAE) trained collaboratively by clients. The added VAE model plays three roles: 1) extracting latent low-dimensional features of all labeled and unlabeled data; 2) performing a novel type of data augmentation in calculating intra-client consistency loss; 3) utilizing the generative ability of itself to conduct inter-client consistency distillation. The proposed framework is compared with other federated semi-supervised or self-supervised learning methods. The experimental results illustrate that our method outperforms the state-of-the-art method while avoiding a lot of computation and communication overhead.
Neural Parameter Regression for Explicit Representations of PDE Solution Operators

We introduce Neural Parameter Regression (NPR), a novel framework specifically developed for learning solution operators in Partial Differential Equations (PDEs). Tailored for operator learning, this approach surpasses traditional DeepONets (Lu et al., 2021) by employing Physics-Informed Neural Network (PINN, Raissi et al., 2019) techniques to regress Neural Network (NN) parameters. By parametrizing each solution based on specific initial conditions, it effectively approximates a mapping between function spaces. Our method enhances parameter efficiency by incorporating low-rank matrices, thereby boosting computational efficiency and scalability. The framework shows remarkable adaptability to new initial and boundary conditions, allowing for rapid fine-tuning and inference, even in cases of out-of-distribution examples.
Biochip-Based Detection of KRAS Mutation in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

This study is aimed at evaluating the potential of a biochip assay to sensitively detect KRAS mutation in DNA from non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) tissue samples. The assay covers 10 mutations in codons 12 and 13 of the KRAS gene, and is based on mutant-enriched PCR followed by reverse-hybridization of biotinylated amplification products to an array of sequence-specific probes immobilized on the tip of a rectangular plastic stick (biochip). Biochip hybridization identified 17 (21%) samples to carry a KRAS mutation of which 16 (33%) were adenocarcinomas and 1 (3%) was a squamous cell carcinoma. All mutations were confirmed by DNA sequencing. Using 10 ng of starting DNA, the biochip assay demonstrated a detection limit of 1% mutant sequence in a background of wild-type DNA. Our results suggest that the biochip assay is a sensitive alternative to protocols currently in use for KRAS mutation testing on limited quantity samples.
Discovery of Data Evolution Regularities in Large Databases

A large volume of concrete data may change over time in a database. It is important to catch the general trend of such changes and nd data evolution (changing) regularities in databases in many applications. Because of the large volume of data, data evolution regularity cannot be simply expressed by enumeration of actual data. Machine learning technology should be adopted to extract such regularities in databases. This paper describes an attribute-oriented induction technique for discovery of data evolution regularities in relational databases. The technique extracts characteristic rules, discriminant rules, and the trends of data evolution in an evolving database, where a characteristic rule summarizes the characteristics of a set of evolving data, a discriminant rule distinguishes the general properties of a set of evolving data from a set of contrasting data, and the third one summarizes the general trend of data evolution over a period of time. Also, knowledge discovery can be performed with databases containing noise or exceptional data using quantitative information. Furthermore, the technique can be extended to discovery of data evolution regularities in temporal databases and extended relational databases. Our analysis of the algorithms shows that attribute-oriented induction substantially reduces the computational complexity of the knowledge discovery process.
What makes new grandparents satisfied with their lives

The study examined the contribution of sociodemographic characteristics, perceived stress, and cognitive appraisals of grandparenthood to life satisfaction among new grandparents. The theoretical framework was Lazarus and Folkman's stress and coping model and the positive psychology approach. The sample consisted of 246 Israeli grandparents (aged 42–72 years) who completed a set of questionnaires 3–24 months after the birth of their first grandchild. The results showed that higher levels of life satisfaction were associated with younger age of grandparents, higher levels of physical health and economic status, and lower grandparent distress. Moreover, maternal grandparents reported higher appraisals of challenge and threat than did paternal grandparents, and grandfathers reported a higher perception of dysfunctional interaction with the grandchild than did grandmothers. Most importantly, the participants' cognitive appraisals were found to moderate the perceptions of stress generated by the birth of a first grandchild. The study highlights the need for preventive interventions aimed at promoting factors that can empower new grandparents who have difficulty coping with their new role. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
A Study on Authorized Deduplication Techniques in Cloud Computing

Data deduplication is the technique which compresses the data by removing the duplicate copies of identical data and it is extensively used in cloud storage to save bandwidth and minimize the storage space. To secure the confidentiality of sensitive data during deduplication, the convergent encryption technique is used to encrypt the data before outsourcing. For better data protection, this paper talks about the issue of data deduplication authorization. There are several new deduplication implementations providing authorized deduplication verification in a hybrid cloud approach.
SearchPlus: a new search results clustering approach

Search engines are the fastest way to find and retrieve information on the web. Their usefulness is evident from the fact that three of the most visited web sites on internet are search engines. With advanced algorithms and the ability to go over millions of records in mere milliseconds, the most time consuming part of searching for the required information is not the search itself but the time it takes to sort through the searched results. Specially when the search query is vague, too broad or simply ill defined. This leads the user to a situation where the search results becomes unmanageably large and confusing. In this paper we present a novel search result clustering technique that relies on the information returned by the search query to extract keywords and to cluster the search results. Unlike most of the search result clustering techniques our proposed solution does not rely on any external knowledge bases, predefined categories or any peripheral knowledge. Thus our technique could be applied on any search domain. We developed a prototype to conduct experiments. Our preliminary results show the applicability and effectiveness of our approach.
Low Intensity laser therapy (830nm) in the management of minor postsurgical wounds: A controlled clinical study

The stimulatory effects of low intensity laser therapy (LILT) have been widely published for the treatment of chronic ulceration. In contrast to this previous work, the current study investigated its potential efficacy (by using a dosage of 9 J/cm2) in the management of acute wounds. For this purpose, uncomplicated postoperative wounds after minor podiatric surgery were examined.
Reclaiming Rio: Iconization and erasure of American English in the Brazilian Portuguese dubbing of an animated film

This article draws on Irvine and Gal’s semiotic processes of iconization and erasure of language differentiation to analyse and compare the English language original and Brazilian Portuguese dubbed version of the animated film Rio. Three scenes depicting cross-linguistic encounters between American English- and Brazilian Portuguese-speaking characters are studied to see how screen translators approach situations in which the linguistic other in a source text is portrayed by a language that coincides with the target language. The case study draws on translational strategies proposed by Zabalbeascoa and Corrius. Viewed from the perspective of semiotic processes of language differentiation, these strategies have a striking effect: whereas mainstream Hollywood films tend to portray multilingual situations and the non-English-speaking linguistic other by iconization and erasure, once the film is dubbed, it is American English identities that are iconized and later disappear from the screen.
Zinc Deficiency Affects the Activity and Protein Concentration of Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme in Rat Testes

Abstract Zinc (Zn) deficiency causes hypogonadism in a number of different species. Previous work has shown that Zn deficiency reduces the activity of angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE), a Zn-dependent enzyme, in the testes of prepubertal rats. These studies were designed to determine whether this effect was caused by a change in the concentration of ACE protein. Thirty-five male rats at 26 days of age were divided into three groups. One group was fed < ad libitum a Zn-adequate diet (40 mg/kg); another group was fed a similar diet, but deficient in Zn (< 1.0 mg/kg); a third group was pair-fed to the deficient group. After 4 weeks on these regimens, all rats in the <ad libitumfed group and half of the rats in each of the deficient and pair-fed groups were sacrificed, and tissues were collected for analysis. The remaining animals in the Zn-deficient and pair-fed groups were fed a Zn-adequate diet <ad libitum for another 2 weeks, then sacrificed. With the use of an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay for testicular ACE protein, the effect of these treatments on the concentration of ACE protein in testes was determined. After 4 weeks, ACE activity in testes of the Zn-deficient rats was reduced by 74% compared to that in the <ad libitum-fed controls. This was accompanied by a 64% reduction in the amount of ACE protein in the testes. There was not a significant effect of pair-feeding. Refeeding Zn-deficient rats a Zn-adequate diet for 2 weeks restored ACE protein concentrations and ACE activity to values not significantly different from those in pair-fed controls. Soluble ACE, but not particulate ACE, of the epididymis was significantly reduced by Zn deficiency. Because the ACE activity of testes has been found primarily in the germinal cells, and soluble ACE in the epididymis is derived from the testes, these findings suggest that the effects of Zn deficiency on testicular and epididymal ACE is caused by an impairment of spermatid development.
The characteristics and factors of a wafer dicing blade and its optimized interactions required for singulating high metal stack lowk wafers

Dicing a thick, 6 metal layer low-k Cu metallization wafer (from 90nm node wafer technology) is very challenging compared to the 4 metal layer stacked wafer. Poor topside cutting responses with excessive saw chip-outs were observed with the 6 metal layer. To resolve the saw chipping quality issue, a series of dicing assessments were performed, which includes: (1) saw machine baseline calibration and verification, (2) analysis study on the blade's elements (diamond grit, diamond concentration, bond type) (3) new saw blade selection and evaluation, and (4) saw process parameter optimization and validation. This paper is focused on discussing the fundamentals of understanding each of the blade elements and its interaction on improving the topside chipping and peeling quality. Experimental studies were conducted by using various blade types and by varying the blade element composition. This includes variations in diamond grits sizes, diamond concentration (higher vs. lower diamond concentration), and bond type (softer vs. harder bond). A thorough process characterization was conducted to validate the cutting performance on the post-processed wafers. All results and data collected from the experimental studies were statistically analyzed and interpreted. In conclusion, a new saw blade with the appropriate selected blade attributes were introduced and qualified. With the optimized blade and saw parameters for the thick low-k Cu metallization wafers, topside chipping and peeling quality was significantly improved.
Ultraviolet Light Induces Apoptosis via Direct Activation of CD95 (Fas/APO-1) Independently of Its Ligand CD95L

Induction of apoptosis in keratinocytes by UV light is a critical event in photocarcinogenesis. Although p53 is of importance in this process, evidence exists that other pathways play a role as well. Therefore, we studied whether the apoptosis-related surface molecule CD95 (Fas/APO-1) is involved. The human keratinocyte cell line HaCaT expresses CD95 and undergoes apoptosis after treatment with UV light or with the ligand of CD95 (CD95L). Incubation with a neutralizing CD95 antibody completely prevented CD95L-induced apoptosis but not UV-induced apoptosis, initially suggesting that the CD95 pathway may not be involved. However, the protease CPP32, a downstream molecule of the CD95 pathway, was activated in UV-exposed HaCaT cells, and UV-induced apoptosis was blocked by the ICE protease inhibitor zVAD, implying that at least similar downstream events are involved in CD95- and UV-induced apoptosis. Activation of CD95 results in recruitment of the Fas-associated protein with death domain (FADD) that activates ICE proteases. Immunoprecipitation of UV-exposed HaCaT cells revealed that UV light also induces recruitment of FADD to CD95. Since neutralizing anti-CD95 antibodies failed to prevent UV-induced apoptosis, this suggested that UV light directly activates CD95 independently of the ligand CD95L. Confocal laser scanning microscopy showed that UV light induced clustering of CD95 in the same fashion as CD95L. Prevention of UV-induced CD95 clustering by irradiating cells at 10°C was associated with a significantly reduced death rate. Together, these data indicate that UV light directly stimulates CD95 and thereby activates the CD95 pathway to induce apoptosis independently of the natural ligand CD95L. These findings further support the concept that UV light can affect targets at the plasma membrane, thereby even inducing apoptosis.
Implementation and Use of Data Structures in Java Programs

Programs manipulate data. For many classes of programs, this data is organized into data structures. Java’s standard libraries include robust, general-purpose data structure implementations; however, standard implementations may not meet developers’ needs, forcing them to implement ad-hoc data structures. We investigate the implementation and use of data structures in practice by developing a tool to statically analyze Java libraries and applications. Our DSFinder tool reports 1) the number of likely and possible data structure implementations in a program and 2) characteristics of the program’s uses of data structures. We applied our tool to 62 opensource Java programs and manually classified possible data structures. We found that 1) developers overwhelmingly used Java data structures over ad-hoc data structures; 2) applications and libraries confine data structure implementation code to small portions of a software project; and 3) the number of ad-hoc data structures correlates with the number of classes in both applications and libraries, with approximately 0.020 data structures per class.