Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
In Silico Primer Designing And Validation For Specific Molecular Identification Of Trichoderma Species

The study reports the implementation of PCR primers for a quick and accurate molecular identification of Trichoderma species viz. T. viride, T. harzianum, T. asperellum, T. virens, T. atroviride, T. longibrachiatum and T. koningii. The research encompasses an in silico (or bioinformatics) approach to design such specific primers and calculate their properties such as length, melting temperature, GC content (%), PCR product size (in base pair). A complete set of forward and reverse primers for the seven strains of Trichoderma species (isolated from different farm fields of an Indian State) is generated using online tools such as FastPCR and PCR Primer Stats. The designed primers also do not show any relevant cross reactivity with the gene sequences of other database organisms. Thus, they are found to be specific and true to the isolated strains of Trichoderma species. PCR primers are sequenced and then used to amplify the gene sequences of each Trichoderma species in a thermal cycler. The amplified products are then electrophoresed on agarose gel which indicated that all the selected primers produced PCR products that lie close in approximation to the predicted product size.
Tracking changes in relative body composition of southern elephant seals using swim speed data

Changes in buoyancy during an animal’s time at sea are a powerful tool for inferring spatial and temporal foraging success. Buoyancy can be difficult to measure, but in some species of seal, drift components of dives can be used. We used swim speed data from adult female southern elephant seals Mirounga leonina using geo-locating velocity-time-depth recorders during 2004 postlactation (PL; n = 7) and 2002, 2004 and 2005 post-moult (PM; n = 18) foraging trips to detect periods of passive drifting during diving. In addition to the characteristic drift dives of elephant seals, drifting also occurred during putative foraging dives. We used generalised linear models (GLMs) to examine the relationship between body lipid content measured on land and several diving variables collected within a week of these measurements being taken. The strongest support (deviance explained = 90%) was for the model including drift rate (77%), seal length (12%) and descent rate (2%). Estimates of body lipid, based on the GLM, were predicted for each day of the foraging trips. Areas where seals increased their relative lipid content from one day to the next corresponded well with areas in which the seals spent the greatest amount of time. Inferring foraging success from positive changes in drift rate has so far been limited to elephant seals which perform characteristic drift dives, but the addition of swim speed data to detect short periods of stationary behaviour allows for this method to be expanded to a greater range of ocean predators.
The Impact of Convection on ENSO: From a Delayed Oscillator to a Series of Events

Abstract The NCAR Community Climate System Model, version 3 (CCSM3) exhibits persistent errors in its simulation of the El Nino–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) mode of coupled variability. The amplitude of the oscillation is too strong, the dominant 2-yr period too regular, and the width of the sea surface temperature response in the Pacific too narrow, with positive anomalies extending too far into the western Pacific. Two changes in the parameterization of deep convection result in a significant improvement to many aspects of the ENSO simulation. The inclusion of convective momentum transport (CMT) and a dilution approximation for the calculation of convective available potential energy (CAPE) are used in development integrations, and a striking improvement in ENSO characteristics is seen. An increase in the periodicity of ENSO is achieved by a reduction in the strength of the existing “short-circuited” delayed-oscillator mode. The off-equatorial response is weaker and less tropically confined, largely as a.
Robotic Gaming and User Interaction: Impact of Autonomous Behaviors and Emotional Features

This paper aims to investigate the impact associated with the introduction of emotional features and autonomous behaviors in robotic games leveraging drones. To this purpose, a game named Protoman Revenge incorporating the above elements is implemented by following known guidelines regarding game design, in general, and so-called Physically Interactive Robotic Games (PIRGs), in particular. A user study is devised to evaluate how the above traits affect the individual's experience and engagement. Obtained results could be possibly exploited to orient further research in the field of robotic gaming and other applications (not necessarily involving drones) w.r. t. to the perception of robot's autonomy and of emotional encoding strategies.
Molecular cloning and sequence analysis of sglt 1 and tertiary structure prediction of deduced protein in Cyprinus

Na + /glucose cotransporter (Sglt1) plays an important role in transporting Na + and glucose and maintaining the adjustment of metabolism. The aim to study sglt1 is to further understand the regulation mechanism of sglt1 gene in fish. In this study, the full-length cDNA of Na + /glucose cotransporter gene was cloned in intestine of Cyprinus carpio L. using RT-PCR and RACE methods, which included 2856 bp involved in 113 bp 5'-untranslated region, 766 bp 3'-untranslated region, and 1977 bp open reading frame (ORF) which encoded 658 amino acids. The predicted amino acid sequence was the highest similar with that of Danio rerio (90.70%), and the lowest similar with that of rabbit (71.40%). Fourteen transmembrane domains were predicted in the 3-D protein model using comparative protein modeling program SWISS-MODEL. The structural core was comparative of 5 TM helices (TM2-TM6 and TM7-TM11) with the inverted repeat. It was demonstrated that Glucose might be bounded in the center of the structural core, and a possible Na + -binding site was located at the intersection of TM2 and TM9. Thereby, the functional roles and regulation mechanism of Sglt would provide unique opportunities to investigate the biochemical processes in intestine of Cyprinus carpio L. , and lay the foundation for artificial culture of the species involved. [Guoxing Nie, Caixia Hou, Junli Wang, Jianxin Zhang, Dongying Song, Bei Wang, Xuejun Li, Xianghui Kong. Molecular cloning and sequence analysis of sglt1 and tertiary structure prediction of deduced protein in Cyprinus carpio L. Life Science Journal. 2011;8(2):204-212] (ISSN:1097-8135). http://www.lifesciencesite. com.
Matching ASCAT and QuikSCAT winds

Surface winds from two scatterometers, the Advanced scatterometer (ASCAT), available since 2007, and QuikSCAT, which was available through November 2009, show persistent differences during their period of overlap. This study examines a set of collocated observations during a 13-month period November 2008 through November 2009, to evaluate the causes of these differences. A difference in the operating frequency of the scatterometers leads to differences that this study argues depend on rain rate, wind velocity, and SST. The impact of rainfall on the higher frequency QuikSCAT introduces biases of up to 1 m s(-1) in the tropical convergence zones and along the western boundary currents even after rain flagging is applied. This difference from ASCAT is reduced by some 30% to 40% when data for which the multidimensional rain probabilities 0.05 is also removed. An additional component of the difference in wind speed seems to be the result of biases in the geophysical transfer functions used in processing the two data sets and is parameterized here as a function of ASCAT wind speed and direction relative to the mid-beam azimuth. After applying the above two corrections, QuikSCAT wind speed remains systematically lower (by 0.5 m s(-1)) than ASCAT over regions of cold SST 5 degrees C. This difference appears to be the result of temperature-dependence in the viscous damping of surface waves which has a greater impact on shorter waves and thus preferentially impacts QuikSCAT. The difference in wind retrievals also increases in the storm track corridors as well as in the coastal regions where the diurnal cycle of winds is aliased by the time lag between satellites.
Potential Protective Role of Sitagliptin (Januvia) Against Acetaminophen-Induced Hepatotoxicity in Adult Albino Rats

Acetaminophen (APAP) is a commonly used analgesic-antipyretic drug. Overdose of APAP is significant global clinical problem in humans. Sitagliptin (Sitg) an anti-diabetic drug, has shown protective effects against organs toxicities. This work aimed to evaluate the protective effect of Sitg against APAP-induced hepatotoxicity. Forty male rats were divided into four equal groups. Group-I (control; C-GP; distilled water), Group-II (Sitg-GP; 20-mg/kg), Group-III (APAPGP; 500-mg/kg), and Group-IV (Sitg+APAP-GP; 20-mg/kg+500-mg/kg) pretreated with Sitg followed 2-hour later by APAP. The dosages were given once daily by gavage for 15 days and then blood and liver specimens were collected. Liver biomarkers were assayed in sera and included enzymes (aspartate transaminase=AST; alanine transaminase=ALT; alkaline phosphatase=ALP; gamma-glutamyltransferase=GGT; lactate dehydrogenase=LDH), bilirubin (total bilirubin=TB; direct bilirubin=DB; indirect bilirubin=IB), and proteins (total protein=TP; albumin=ALB; globulin=GLB). Oxidative stress biomarkers were estimated in homogenates and included antioxidants (superoxide dismutase=SOD; catalase=CAT; glutathione peroxidase=GPx; glutathione-S-transferase=GST; glutathione=GSH) and oxidative malondialdehyde (MDA) besides tissue total redox status (total oxidative status=TOS; total antioxidant capacity=TAC; oxidative stress index=OSI; OSI=TOS/TAC). The hepatic lesions were semi-quantitatively scored. In APAP-GP, concentrations of all enzymes and bilirubin, MDA, TOS, and OSI were significantly increased, while levels of all proteins, antioxidants, and TAC were significantly decreased. Histopathological changes showed distorted architecture, increased fibrous deposition, and reduced glycogen contents. Pretreatment with Sitg markedly prevented APAP-induced biochemical and histopathological abnormalities. Sitg possess remarkable hepatoprotective effects against APAPinduced hepatotoxicity and may be useful in treatment of APAP-poisoned patients with diabetes mellitus.
DIETARY SUPPLEMENTATION WITH MANNANOLIGOSACCHARIDES AND β GLUCANS IN GROWING RABBITS . 2 GUT BARRIER AND INTESTINAL MICROBIOTA AFTER WEANING

The aim of this work was to determine the effect of yeast mannanoligosaccharides (MOS; Actigen, Alltech) and yeast β-glucans on gut barrier and intestinal microbiota in rabbits. A control diet (C) was formulated to meet rabbit growth requirements. G1 and G2 diets were obtained by supplementing C diet with β-glucans from Saccharomyces cerevisiae (100 and 200 mg/kg respectively), M1 and M2 diets were supplemented with mannanoligosaccharides (Actigen, Alltech) (400 and 800 mg /kg respectively), and GM diet was supplemented with 100 mg/kg of β-glucans + 400 mg/kg of MOS. Ninety six rabbits weaned at 32 days of age were randomly assigned to the six experimental diets and slaughtered 15 days after weaning. The type of diet did not affect villus length and goblet cell counts, but crypt depth was reduced at the highest levels of MOS and β-glucans supplementation. Both MOS and β-glucans increased specific sucrose activity (P = 0.001) and soluble protein concentration (P < 0.05) in jejunal mucosa; they also modified ileal and caecal microbiota and modulated the immune response. Compared with the control diet, the supplementation with 200 mg/kg of β-glucans (G2) and 800 mg/kg of MOS (M2) reduced the expression of iNOS in ileum. Rabbits fed the M2 diet showed also the lowest mRNA abundance of IL6. In appendix, rabbits fed G2 showed increased IL6 expression and those fed the M2 reduced the expression of INFγ. In conclusion, MOS and β-glucans changed intestinal microbiota and modulated the immune response by reducing the expression of some pro-inflammatory cytokines in ileum and caecum of weaned rabbits.
A perturbation solution for head fluctuations in a coastal leaky aquifer system considering water table over-height

Abstract This paper develops a new analytical solution for the aquifer system, which comprises an unconfined aquifer on the top, a semi-confined aquifer at the bottom and an aquitard between them. This new solution is derived from the Boussinesq equation for the unconfined aquifer and one-dimensional leaky confined flow equation for the lower aquifer using the perturbation method, considering the water table over-height at the remote boundary. The head fluctuation predicted from this solution is generally greater than the one solved from the linearized Boussinesq equation when the ratio of the tidal amplitude to the thickness of unconfined aquifer is large. It is found that both submarine groundwater discharges from upper and lower aquifers increase with tidal amplitude–aquifer thickness ratio and may be underestimated if the discharge is calculated based on the average head fluctuation. The effects of the aquifer parameters and linearization of the Boussinesq equation on the normalized head fluctuation are also investigated. Editor D. Koutsoyiannis; Associate editor J. Simunek Citation Chuang, M. -H. , Mahdi, A. -A. and Yeh, H. -D. , 2012. A perturbation solution for head fluctuations in a coastal leaky aquifer system considering water table over-height. Hydrological Sciences Journal, 57 (1), 162–172.
Studies on some species of Indian Anopheles based on mitochondrial gene COII (Diptera: Culicidae: Anophelinae)

Mosquitoes are the important members of biting Diptera and are widely distributed in almost all the regions of the world. Anopheles is the most studied genus of mosquitoes due to their great impact on human health. The mitochondrial COII gene has been widely used to identify and address phylogenetic uncertainties in insects at diverse taxonomic levels: among orders, within an order, within genus or species groups. The use of genetic markers has managed to recognise of a number of cryptic species and divergent evolutionary ancestries. In the current study, we analysed a partial sequence of 183 bp (approx.) of COII gene for four species of subfamily Anophelinae. The interspecific distance between these Anopheles species was calculated to be 9.88% while intraspecific distance between populations of same species was 0.65%.
Uniform Information Density Effects on Syntactic Choice in Hindi

According to the UNIFORM INFORMATION DENSITY (UID) hypothesis (Levy and Jaeger, 2007; Jaeger, 2010), speakers tend to distribute information density across the signal uniformly while producing language. The prior works cited above studied syntactic reduction in language production at particular choice points in a sentence. In contrast, we use a variant of the above UID hypothesis in order to investigate the extent to which word order choices in Hindi are influenced by the drive to minimize the variance of information across entire sentences. To this end, we propose multiple lexical and syntactic measures (at both word and constituent levels) to capture the uniform spread of information across a sentence. Subsequently, we incorporate these measures in machine learning models aimed to distinguish between a naturally occurring corpus sentence and its grammatical variants (expressing the same idea). Our results indicate that our UID measures are not a significant factor in predicting the corpus sentence in the presence of lexical surprisal, a competing control predictor. Finally, in the light of other recent works, we conclude with a discussion of reasons for UID not being suitable for a theory of word order.
Detection and Geo-temporal Tracking of Important Topics in News Texts

In our current society, newswire documents are in constant development and their growth has been increasing every time more rapidly. Due to the overwhelming diversity of concerns of each population, it would be interesting to discover within a certain topic of interest, where and when its important events took place. This thesis attempts to develop a new approach to detect and track important events over time and space, by analyzing the topics of a collection of newswire documents. This approach combines the collection’s associated topics (manual assigned topics or automatically generated topics using a probabilistic topic model) with the associated spatial and temporal metadata of each document, in order to be able to analyze the collection’s topics over time with time series, as well as over space with geographic maps displaying the geographic distribution of each topic. By examining each of the topic’s spatial and temporal distributions, it was possible to correlate the topic’s spatial and temporal trend with occurrence of important events. By conducting several experiments on a large collection of newswire documents, it was concluded that the proposed approach can effectively enable to detect and track important events over time and space.
Electronic properties of MOS 2 monolayer and related structures

The present review provides an overview of the transition metal dichalcogenides discovered newly at the level of two dimensions. A special emphasis is given to the electronic structure of semiconducting representatives of this family, which can depend on many factors like thickness, environment, mechanical strain and structural imperfections of the layers. Both calculations and experimental data available to date on example of MoS2 compound evidence that, semiconducting dichalcogenide layers could become successful counterparts of graphene and nanosilicon as the materials of flexible nanoelectronics. However, current technologies for the fabrication of single mono- and multilayers of transition metal dichalcogenides still do not offer a large-scale and cost-effective product with the tuned quality to reveal all abilities predicted for these nanostructures.
Impacts of Immigration on the Economy Case: Afghan immigrants in Finland

Author/s Mohammad Taher Nawroz Group IBMA2015 The title of your R&D project Impacts of immigration on the Economy Case: Afghan immigrants in Finland Number of pages 61 Supervisor(s) Seppo Suominen Abstract This study assesses and evaluates the effects of Afghan immigrants on the Finland’s economy.This study assesses and evaluates the effects of Afghan immigrants on the Finland’s economy. It is plausible that immigration may become highly significant for Finland’s economy by resulting in stronger economic growth. Additionally, it is expected that Finland's economic characteristics are likely to change as its population ages, and immigration, therefore, can prove to be the solution to fill the vacuum instigated by this segment when they gradually head into retirement. Intrinsically, immigrants' economic performance and the outcome is one of the most significant determinants of the impact they will have on the economy of the receiving country. In Finland, concerns over immigration explosion are attributed to the mounting sense of social and economic crisis that has wreaked havoc on the political status quo. The hot debate on the economic impact of immigration has been polarized, and hence, there is a divergence in opinions. The naysayers or opponents cast doubt on the positive economic impact of immigration on the host society, especially when a large number of immigrants are less educated to be qualified for jobs. Contrarily, the proponents of immigration argue that smaller and geographically isolated nation like Finland may, in fact, benefit from immigration, and this can be particularly true when Finland population is projected to age fast and hastily in the forthcoming decades as compared to other Nordic countries, the OECD and the European Union. For the purposes of this study, the data was acquired from both secondary sources, such as literature reviews and primary sources like observation and semi-structure interviews. The research choice for this study was qualitative investigating to assess the economic impact of the Afghan immigrants on Finland and their contribution to the demographic changes. Moreover, there were some spaces for quantitative statements determining the number of Afghan immigrants who primarily rely on welfare services for meeting their basic needs. To conclude, the outcome of this study revealed that Afghan immigrants would have a positive impact on demographic changes in Finland, essentially in the long term. However, their economic impact tends to be negative due to their dependency ratio on the public purse. In other words, Afghan immigrants consume more in social and welfare services than their fiscal contribution. Hence, the positive economic impact can be achieved only under the condition of employment, which needs an effective assimilation strategy. This study proposes recommendations to improve assimilation of Afghan immigrants into the job market for relaxing the burden on the public finance. With effective management, immigrants can play a significant role in the economic growth, while addressing the demographic challenges.
Catalyst-free growth of GaAs nanowires by selective-area metalorganic vapor-phase epitaxy

We report on the fabrication of GaAs hexagonal nanowires surrounded by {110} vertical facets on a GaAs (111) B substrate using selective-area (SA) metalorganic vapor-phase epitaxial (MOVPE) growth. The substrate for SA growth was partially covered with thin SiO2, and a circular mask opening with a diameter d0 of 50–200 nm was defined. After SA-MOVPE, GaAs nanowires with a typical diameter d ranging from 50 to 200 nm and a height from 2 to 9μm were formed vertically on the substrate without any catalysts. The size of the nanowire depends on the growth conditions and the opening size of the masked substrate. A possible growth mechanism is also discussed.
Students’ perceptions of competencies by the end of a masters’ degree Perceções de competências: um estudo com alunos finalistas de mestrado

Current models of employability are rather broad and complex, including not only a set of skills as determinant factors in employability, but also a subjective dimension that considers individual self-beliefs and attitudes. This study presents the preliminary results of a research project focused on the factors that impact employability with 214 participants, senior students taking a masters’ degree. Results pointed to a closer interconnection between the practical competencies, employability competencies, preparedness to work transition, and expectations of success. These findings stress the importance of a stronger practical component in the curriculum, as a way to promote employability.
BAGAN: Effective Data Generation Based on GAN Augmented 3D Synthesizing

Augment reality (AR) is crucial for immersive human-computer interaction (HCI) and vision of artificial intelligence (AI). Labeled data drove object recognition in AR. However, manual annotating data is expensive and labor-intensive, and furthermore, scanty labeled data limits the application of AR. Aiming at solving the problem of insufficient training data in AR object recognition, an automated vision data synthesis method called BAGAN is proposed in this paper based on the 3D modeling and GAN algorithm. Our approach has been validated to have better performance than other methods through image recognition task on natural image database ObjectNet3D. This study can shorten the algorithm development time of AR and expand the application scope of AR, which is of great significance to immersive interactive systems.