Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparative Insecticidal Properties of Two Nucleopolyhedrovirus Vectors Encoding a Similar Toxin Gene Chimer

Abstract Laboratory, greenhouse and field studies were conducted to characterize the insecticidal properties of genetically altered forms of Autographa californica (Speyer) nucleopolyhedrovirus (AcNPV) and Helicoverpa zea (Boddie) NPV (HzNPV) against selected heliothine species. The altered viruses each contained a chimeric 0.8-kb fragment encoding the insect-specific, sodium channel neurotoxin from the Algerian scorpion Androctonus australis Hector (AaIT, hence recombinant viruses designated Ac-AaIT and Hz-AaIT). Based on LD50 values, results from diet-overlay bioassays showed Ac-AaIT and Hz-AaIT to be equally virulent against larval tobacco budworm, Heliothis virescens (F.), but Hz-AaIT averaged 1,335-fold greater bioactivity than Ac-AaIT against larval cotton bollworm, Helicoverpa zea (Boddie). Hz-AaIT killed larvae of both heliothine species at rates significantly faster than those imparted by HzNPV (viral LT50 values averaged 2.5 and 5.6 d, respectively). In greenhouse studies, foliar sprays of Ac-AaIT and Hz-AaIT were equally effective in controlling H. virescens on cotton; however, Hz-AaIT provided control of H. zea on cotton at a level superior to that of Ac-AaIT. For example, after three weekly sessions of foliar application and H. zea artificial infestation, cotton treated with Ac-AaIT or Hz-AaIT at 10 × 1011 occulsion bodies (OB)/ha averaged 2.5 and 16.2 nondamaged flower buds per plant, respectively. Another greenhouse study conducted against heliothine species on cotton showed that the quicker killing speed exhibited by Hz-AaIT led to improved plant protection versus HzNPV. Finally, results from three field trials demonstrated that Hz-AaIT at 5–12 × 1011 OB/ha provided control of the heliothine complex in cotton at levels slightly better than Bacillus thuringiensis, equal to the macrolide, spinosad, and only slightly less than that of selected pyrethroid and carbamate insecticides. Overall, results from these studies indicate that, because of host range differences between the two wild-type viruses, HzNPV is the better vectoring agent (versus AcNPV) for designing recombinant clones as insecticides targeted at the multi-species heliothine complex. Further, these studies suggest that if appropriately tailored for the pest complex, recombinant NPVs may be very effective, insect-specific approaches to managing pests in many cropping scenarios. Possible Hz-AaIT deployment strategies for control of heliothine species on conventional and transgenic cotton varieties are discussed.
An Enhanced RASTA processing for speaker identification

1 This work was supported by the key projects of national nature science funds grants 69635052 and postdoctoral fundation. Abstract: In this paper, we propose an Enhanced RASTA (E_RASTA) technique for speaker identification. The new method consists of classical RASTA filtering in logarithmic spectrum domain following by another RASTA processing in spectrum domain. In this manner, both the channel distortion and additive noise are removed effectively. In isolated digit speaker identification experiment on TI46 database, we found that the E_RASTA performed equal or better than J_RASTA method. The new method does not need the estimation of speech SNR in order to determinate the optimal value of J and multitemplates in J_RASTA, and the information of how the speech degrades.
Social capital and internet usage: a study in Lisbon

This thesis explores the relationship between social capital and Internet usage. Despite its polysemic nature, social capital can be a central concept in the debate around the Internet’s effects on society: Is the Internet reinforcing and complementing social capital? Or is it isolating people, and diminishing their social capital? This study examines this relationship through three dimensions of social capital, namely bonding, bridging, and resources. I analyze these dimensions separately and then combine them to create the variable social capital. My main hypothesis is that the individuals’ perceived social capital is positively associated with Internet usage. This research is based on a mixed methods approach, combining quantitative and qualitative research. In a first phase, I surveyed a stratified random sample of 417 participants who lived in Lisbon, Portugal. In a second phase, I conducted follow-up semi-structured interviews with 14 participants. Results show that social capital and Internet usage are positively related: heavy Internet users are more likely to have a high level of bonding, bridging, and of social capital than non-users, light users, and moderate users. Age is also a significant predictor, although negatively: per each year of age, there is a lower probability of having a high level of bonding, bridging, resources, and of social capital.
Effects of gabapentin on sleep in menopausal women with hot flashes as measured by a Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index factor scoring model.

OBJECTIVE The aim of this research was to analyze gabapentin's effect on Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) scores in menopausal women. METHODS Secondary analysis of data from a cohort of menopausal women participating in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of gabapentin 300 mg three times daily (TID) for hot flashes. The outcomes of interest were PSQI global and factor scores at weeks 4 and 12. RESULTS Subjects randomized to gabapentin demonstrated improvement in the sleep quality factor score, compared to placebo-treated subjects, at 4 and 12 weeks (p < 0.03). There was also gabapentin-associated improvement in the global PSQI score (p = 0.004) and the sleep efficiency factor score (p = 0.05) at 4 weeks. There was no significant effect of gabapentin on the daily disturbance factor score. CONCLUSIONS Gabapentin may improve sleep quality in menopausal women with hot flashes. These results warrant further prospective investigation, with an emphasis on measuring subjective sleep quality and maintenance.
Notice of RetractionEffects of Moisture Regime on Characteristic of Soil Microbe in Continuous Cropping Field

Vegetable continuous cropping is one of the major environmental concerns. It imperiled soil physical, chemical and biologic properties, especially microbial community and enzymatic activity. And it made against food safety. This paper laid out different moisture regime to research changes of species and activity of soil microbes. Paddyfield inundation and semiarid ridging based on the paddy-upland rotation decreased soil deleterious fungi obviously compared to continuous cropping field. Shannon diversity index, richness and evenness were improved along with decrease of fungi quantity after water treatments, and specially improved by the semiarid ridging obviously. Activity of sucrase, urease, phosphatase and dehydrogenase were higher in the water treated soil, especially semiarid ridging produced the highest activity, and they were 173%, 34.8%, 49% and 81% higher than control soil respectively. However, polyphenoloxidase activity was lower than control soil, and decreased 33.3% in semiarid ridging field. Consequently, the water treatment (semiarid ridging) was beneficial to improve soil quality indicators. It may be used for controlling soil-borne disease and keeping crop safe.
Playing Catch up: How Different Is Large Scale Enterprise Systems Implementation in Transition Countries and Organizations?

We investigated the differences in ES implementation in a transition economy when compared to praxis in developed economies. For that purpose, we conducted interviews with practitioners with several years of experience that played various roles in those types of projects in a transition economy, and then contrasted the findings with those of the mainstream literature, mainly based on data from developed economies. We identify similarities and variation in lifecycle phases, activities, and the actors involved in the process. This helps to better understand this phenomenon in a moment when several transition economies are making strides to bring their IT systems to speed in the European Union and other parts of the world.
A Frequency- and Polarization-Reconfigurable Stub-Loaded Microstrip Patch Antenna

A stub-loaded microstrip patch antenna with reconfigurability in both frequency and polarization is presented. Using 12 varactors with two independent voltages, reconfigurability is achieved in a fractional bandwidth of around 40% while allowing selection between circular polarization (CP) with both rotating senses and linear polarization (LP). The design is optimized based on an analytical model, which significantly speeds up the process while yielding reasonably accurate predictions. For illustration of the concept, an antenna is designed, optimized, and manufactured for reconfigurable operation in the 2.4-3.6 GHz frequency range. A good agreement between simulations and measurements is obtained which validates the proposed method. A full reconfigurability is demonstrated in the operation band with the ability to both tune the antenna to a given frequency and select a polarization state among left-hand or right-hand CP or various states of LP.
Promoter organization and activity of human monoamine oxidase (MAO) A and B genes

Monoamine oxidase A and B (MAO A and B) play important roles in the metabolism of biogenic and dietary amines and are encoded by two genes derived from a common ancestral gene. The promoter regions for human MAO A and B genes have been characterized using a series of 5′ flanking sequences linked to a human growth hormone reporter gene. When these constructs were transfected into NIH3T3, SHSY-5Y, and COS7 cells, the maximal promoter activity for MAO A was found in a 0.14 kilobase (kb) PvuII/DraII fragment (A0.14) and in a 0.15 kb PstI/NaeI fragment (B0.15) for MAO B. Both fragments are GC-rich, contain potential Sp1 binding sites, and are in the region where the MAO A and B 5′ flanking sequences share the highest identity (approximately 60%). However, the organization of the transcription elements is distinctly different between these two promoters. Fragment A0.14 consists of three Sp1 elements, all in reversed orientations, and lacks a TATA box. Two of the Sp1 sites are located within the downstream 90 base pair (bp) direct repeat, and the third is located at the 3′ end of the upstream 90 bp direct repeat. Fragment B0.15 contains an Sp1-CACCC-Sp1-TATA structure; deletion of any of these elements reduced promoter activity. Additional Sp1 sites, CACCC elements, CCAAT boxes, and direct repeats (four 30 bp direct repeats in MAO A and two 29 bp direct repeats in MAO B) are found in farther-upstream sequences of both genes (1.27 kb for MAO A and mostly in 0.2 kb for MAO B). Inclusion of these sequences decreased promoter activity. The different promoter organization of MAO A and B genes provides the basis for their different tissue- and cell- specific expression.
Effects of aflatoxin on hepatic gene expression in a poultry model

The objective of this study was to determine the effects of dietary aflatoxin (AF) on hepatic gene expression in male broiler chicks. Seventy five day-old male broiler chicks were assigned to three dietary treatments (five replicates of five chicks each) from hatch to day 21. The diets contained 0, 1 and 2 mg AF/kg of feed. Aflatoxin reduced (P < 0.05) feed intake (FI), body weight gain (BWG), serum total proteins, serum Ca and P, but increased (P < 0.01) liver weights in a dose dependent manner. Microarray analysis was used to identify shifts in genetic expression associated with the affected physiological processes in chicks fed 0 and 2 mg AF/kg of feed to identify potential targets for pharmacological/toxicological intervention. A loop design was used for microarray experiments with three technical and four biological replicates per treatment group. Ribonucleic acid (RNA) was extracted from liver tissue and its quality was determined using gel electrophoresis and spectrophotometry. High quality RNA was purified from DNA contamination, reverse transcribed, and hybridized to an oligonucleotide microarray chip. Microarray data were analyzed using a 2-step ANOVA model and validated by quantitative real-time PCR. Genes with false discovery rates less than 13% and fold change greater than 1.4% were considered as differentially expressed. Compared with controls (0
Virulence studies of Aspergillus nidulans mutants requiring lysine or p-aminobenzoic acid in invasive pulmonary aspergillosis

To identify steps in fungal intermediary metabolism required by Aspergillus spp. during invasive pulmonary aspergillosis, we have developed murine models involving Aspergillus nidulans as the inoculum. The advantages of using A. nidulans over Aspergillus fumigatus or Aspergillus flavus, which are the most common agents of clinical disease, are the well-understood genetics of A. nidulans and a large range of mutants of this species which are affected in a variety of metabolic pathways. Comparison of the virulence of A. nidulans strains carrying mutations which block the biosynthesis of lysine (lysA2) and p-aminobenzoic acid (pabaA1) shows that lysA2 strains have reduced virulence while pabaA1 strains are entirely nonpathogenic. The pathogenicity of pabaA1 strains can be restored by supplementing the drinking water of animals with p-aminobenzoic acid. The results indicate that the availability of lysine in the lung is limited, and p-aminobenzoic acid is probably not available at all. Thus, models of invasive pulmonary aspergillosis involving A. nidulans can be used to identify metabolic pathways that may be essential for the pathogenicity of A. fumigatus, the predominant pathogenic species, suggesting potential new targets for antifungal therapy.
TRYING TO PREDICT AND EXPLAIN THE PRESENCE OF AFRICAN TRYPANOSOMES IN TSETSE FLIES

Trypanosome infections identified by polymerase chain reaction on field-caught tsetse flies from various locations were analyzed with respect to factors intrinsic and extrinsic to the trypanosome–tsetse association. These factors were then simultaneously analyzed using artificial neural networks (ANNs) and the important factors were identified to predict and explain the presence of trypanosomes in tsetse. Among 4 trypanosome subgroups (Trypanosoma brucei s.l., T. congolense of the ‘savannah’ and of the ‘riverine-forest’ types, and T. simiae), the presence of the 2 types of T. congolense was predictable in more than 80% of cases, suggesting that the model incorporated some of the key variables. These 2 types of T. congolense were significantly associated in tsetse. Among all the examined factors, it was the presence of T. congolense savannah type that best explained the presence of T. congolense riverine forest type. One possible biological mechanism would be ‘hitchhiking,’ as previously suspected for other parasites. The model could be improved by adding other important variables to the trypanosome tsetse associations.
New Convergence Results for the Least Squares Identification Algorithm

The basic least squares method for identifying linear systems has been extensively studied. Conditions for convergence involve issues about noise assumptions and behavior of the sample covariance matrix of the regressors. Lai and Wei proved in 1982 convergence for essentially minimal conditions on the regression matrix: All eigenvalues must tend to infinity, and the logarithm of the largest eigenvalue must not tend to infinity faster than the smallest eigenvalue. In this contribution we revisit this classical result with respect to assumptions on the noise: How much unstructured disturbances can be allowed without affecting the convergence? The answer is that the norm of these disturbances must tend to infinity slower than the smallest eigenvalue of the regression matrix.
Distinction between handwritten and machine-printed characters with no need to locate character or text line position

In this paper, we propose a method for distinction between handwritten and machine-printed characters with no need to locate positions of characters or text lines. We call the proposed method psilaspectrum-based local fluctuation detection method. The method transforms local regions in document images into power spectrum to extract feature values which represent fluctuations caused by handwriting. We employ a multilayer perceptron for the distinction. We feed the obtained feature values to a preliminarily optimized multilayer perceptron (MLP), and the MLP yields likelihood of handwriting. We prepare a document image which has randomly aligned characters for an experiment. The experimental result shows that our method can distinguish handwritten and machine-printed characters with no need to locate positions of characters or text lines.
An approach for Aspect Based Sentiment Analysis using Deep Learning

In this project, we present a deep learning approach for aspect based sentiment analysis (ABSA). Sentiment analysis is an important task in natural language processing and has a lot of applications in real world. The typical sentiment analysis is a process of classifying opinions expressed in a text as positive, negative or neutral. A more general task would be to predict the sentiments of each aspect mentioned in the text. In recent years with the growth of internet, social networking sites, discussion forums and blogs, e-commerce websites have gained immense importance. To enhance customer shopping experience, these websites generally provide platform for people to express their views about the product and its different aspects. There is a review and an overall score available for each product, but this doesn’t provide the complete information. For example, two products might have same overall rating but with different unsatisfactory aspect opinions. This problem has inspired a new line of research on aspect level opinion mining since early 2000s [2]. Also, a major source of encouragement behind this project comes from the increasing popularity of ABSA task present in SemEval since 2014.
Fabrication and properties of an ultrafast NbN hot-electron single-photon detector

A new type of ultra-high-speed single-photon counter for visible and near-infrared wavebands based on an ultrathin NbN hot-electron photodetector (HEP) has been developed. The detector consists of a very narrow superconducting stripe, biased close to its critical current. An incoming photon absorbed by the stripe produces a resistive hotspot and causes an increase in the film's supercurrent density above the critical value, leading to temporary formation of a resistive barrier across the device and an easily measurable voltage pulse. Our NbN HEP is an ultrafast (estimated response time is 30 ps; registered time, due to apparatus limitations, is 150 ps), frequency unselective device with very large intrinsic gain and negligible dark counts. We have observed sequences of output pulses, interpreted as single-photon events for very weak laser beams with wavelengths ranging from 0.5 /spl mu/m to 2.1 /spl mu/m and the signal-to-noise ratio of about 30 dB.
Efficacy of Active Participation in Conversation with a Virtual Patient with Alzheimer's Disease

The objective of our research is to facilitate social conversation between persons affected with Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) and their caregivers via a future intervention for caregivers. In the intervention, a computer system will enable caregivers to practice spoken conversation with high-fidelity Virtual Patients simulating the verbal and non-verbal behavior of persons with AD (VP-AD). It is hoped that the skills acquired by the caregiver will improve the quality of life of persons with AD and reduce caregiver stress. In this paper, we describe a pilot study intended to evaluate the efficacy of active participation in conversation with a lower fidelity VP-AD in comparison to passive observation of the same VP-AD in conversation. The study found, after 15 minutes or less of practice, a significant increase in use of recommended caregiver communication skills by participants in the active condition.
Speech outcome following late primary palate repair.

OBJECTIVE Early palate repair is recommended to minimize the development of disordered speech. We studied the speech outcome of late palate repair in 131 patients. The success of late palate repair is questioned because of the persistence of learned, compensatory misarticulations that are difficult to correct in spite of the establishment of correct palatal anatomy and a competent velopharyngeal mechanism. The objective of this study is to highlight the speech results following late primary repair of the palate. SETTINGS AND DESIGN Retrospective analysis of speech outcomes in 131 patients with cleft lip and palate who underwent primary palate repair after the age of 10 years between November 2000 and December 2004. None of the patients had received supervised institution-based speech therapy. However, all patients were counseled and oriented and demonstrated the correct place and manner of articulation for the phonemes misarticulated by them. Preoperative and 6- to 12-month postoperative speech samples were assessed within the parameters of articulation, hypernasality, nasal air emission, and speech intelligibility. OUTCOME The analysis indicated improvement in all speech parameters leading to an overall improvement in postoperative intelligibility for most patients. CONCLUSION Although definite improvement occurs in all parameters of speech following late primary palate repair, residual speech problems persist in most patients, requiring further evaluation and appropriate treatment.
Cohort profile: a data linkage cohort to examine health service profiles of people with intellectual disability in New South Wales, Australia

Purpose People with intellectual disability are a minority group who experience poorer physical and mental health than the general population and have difficulty accessing healthcare services. There is lack of knowledge about healthcare service needs and gaps experienced by people with intellectual disability. This study aims to interrogate a large linked administrative data set containing hospital admissions, presentations to emergency departments (ED) and mortality data to provide evidence to inform the development of improved health and mental health services for this population. Participants A retrospective cohort of people with intellectual disability (n=51 452) from New South Wales (NSW), Australia, to explore health and mental health profiles, mortality, pattern of health service use and associated costs between 2005 and 2013. The cohort is drawn from: the Disability Services Minimum Data Set; Admitted Patients Data Collection; Emergency Department Data Collection, Australian Bureau of Statistics Death Registry and Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages. Mental health service usage among those with intellectual disability will be compared to a cohort of people who used mental health services (n=1 073 139) and service usage other than for mental health will be compared with published data from the general population. Findings to date The median age of the cohort was 24 at the time of the last hospital admission and 21 at the last ED presentation. The cohort has a higher proportion of men than women and accounts for 0.6% of the NSW population in 2011. Over 70% had up to 5 ED presentations and hospitalisations between 2005 and 2012. A high proportion of people with intellectual disability live in the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Future plans Results will be used to inform the development of more responsive healthcare, including improved interactions between health, social and disability supports. More generally, the results will assist the development of more inclusive policy frameworks for people with intellectual disability.