Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Management and economic feasibility of potassium fertilizer for cotton cultivar FH-900

Cotton is an important cash crop of Pakistan and tr uly called white gold of Pakistan. South Punjab in Pakistan produces a major part of total cotton prod uction in Pakistan. Cotton crop has much yield pot ential but due to lack of management, un-awareness about potas sium fertilizer and its application, over expenditu re incurred upon its growth. Field trials were carried out to e valuate the effect of two levels of potassium and tof its application on the yield and yield components of se ed cotton at farmer’s field of village Shah Sadar D in, District Dera Ghazi Khan (D.G. Khan) during years 2001 and 2Potassium fertilizer was applied @ 31.25 and 6 2.5 kg ha -1 i.e. (a) full dose at the time of sowing (b) full dose at the time of first irrigation and (c) in split application i.e. half at the time of sowing and remaining half at th e time of first irrigation. These treatments were c ompared among themselves in addition to check treatments. Results showed that potassium fertilizer applied @ 31.25 kha -1 at sowing produced maximum seed cotton yield during bo th the years i.e. 4011.11 kgs ha -1 during 1 st year and 3547.55 kgs ha -1 during 2 nd year when compared with heavy dose i.e. 62.5 kg ha -1 applied at sowing which produced 3702.22 kgs ha -1 during 2001 and 3295.44 kgs ha -1 during the year 2002. This shows that application of lower rate of potassium fertilizer is more beneficial in getting maximum seed cotton yield during both the years of study if applied at sowing time when compared to heavy dose. Applica tion of heavy dose of potassium fertilizer applied at any stage reduced the seed cotton yield. The economic feasibi lity calculated from input / out put ratio showed h ighest cost benefit ratio 1:27 from the lower dose of potassium fertilizer at the time of sowing instead of heavy application at the time of sowing, first irrigation or applied in split application. The conclusion drawn from the re sults clearly indicated that early application of potassium to co tton crop is more beneficial in an area of Shah Sad der Din, District Dera Ghazi Khan.
Review on recent patents in texture synthesis

Computer graphics applications often use textures to render synthetic images. These textures can be obtained from a variety of sources such as hand-drawn pictures or scanned photographs. Texture synthesis is an alternative way to create textures. Because synthetic textures can be made any size, visual repetition is avoided. The goal of texture synthesis can be stated as follows: given a texture example, synthesize a new texture that, when perceived by a human observer, appears to be generated by the same underlying process. This paper reviews the recent patents on texture synthesis schemes. The key components in a texture synthesis algorithm, such as neighborhood matching, block sampling, anisometric synthesis, etc., are discussed. Then we discuss the applications of texture synthesis in texture magnification and image repairing. This paper also points out future works on this issue.
Genetic divergence among maize hybrids and correlations with heterosis and combining ability

Twelve corn hybrids recommended for cropping in the south-central region of the Parana State and 66 crossings obtained among these hybrids were evaluated for agronomic and morphological traits. These genotypes were evaluated in three experiments performed in Laranjeiras do Sul, Guarapuava and Cantagalo, Parana State, Brazil. Heterosis and specific combining ability (SCA) were estimated for yield of husked ears. Data from measuring 22 morphological/agronomical traits of the parents were subjected to a multivariate joint analysis of variance and cluster analysis to group the parental hybrids via the neighbor method, using the generalized Mahalanobis distance. Pearson correlation coefficients between heterosis, SCA, D 2 and yield of husked ears were obtained. The cross P30F44 x Sprint displayed a high mean and a high heterosis for yield of husked ears, but a moderate estimate of genetic divergence. Estimates of genetic divergence were not effective at predicting the most heterotic crossings, as Pearson correlation coefficients between D 2 and heterosis and D 2 and CEC were not significant. Positive significant
COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF INTER SIMPLE SEQUENCE REPEATS AND SIMPLE SEQUENCE REPEATS MARKERS: GENETIC ANALYSIS OF DESCHAMPSIA CESPITOSA POPULATIONS GROWING IN METAL CONTAMINATED REGIONS IN CANADA

Comparative studies conducted on the genetic variat ion of metal-tolerant populations and their non-met altolerant counterparts have been performed on numerous species using isozyme markers. Analysis of genet ic differences among plant populations growing in heavy metal-contaminated and uncontaminated regions are limited. The main objectives of the present study w ere to compare ISSR and microsatellite markers in assessing genetic variation in D. cespitosa populations that colonized metal-contaminated and uncontaminated regions in Northern Ontario, Canada. Total genomic DNA from D. cespitosa samples were amplified with ISSR and SSR primers using optimized PCR conditions. The level of polymorphic loci varies from 46 to 74% for ISSR analysis. The level of observed heterozygosity was moderate to high ranging from 0.44 to 0.68 for the SSR primers used. But no significant difference in genetic variation levels was detected between metal contaminated and uncontaminated sites with SSR markers. There was a significant reduction of polymorphic loci in sample s from highly metal-contaminated areas of the Cobal t region compared to the reference sites based on ISS R analysis. Use of a combination of different marke r systems is recommended to analyse genetic variation in plant populations.
Completely bounded mappings and simplicial complex structure in the primitive ideal space of a C*-algebra

We consider the natural contraction from the central Haagerup tensor product of a C*-algebra A with itself to the space of completely bounded maps CB(A) on A and investigate those A where there exists an inverse map with finite norm L(A). We show that a stabilised version L'(A) = sup n L(M n (A)) depends only on the primitive ideal space Prim(A). The dependence is via simplicial complex structures (defined from primal intersections) on finite sets of primitive ideals that contain a Glimm ideal of A. Moreover L'(A) = L(A ⊗ K(H)), with K(H) the compact operators, which requires us to develop the theory in the context of C*-algebras that are not necessarily unital.
Entrepreneurship Development Programme: Intervention Mechanism in Agriculture for Youth Unemployment in Abia State, Nigeria

The study assessed the entrepreneurship development programme as an intervention mechanism in Agriculture for youth unemployment in Abia state, Nigeria. The specific objectives were to describe the socio economic characteristics of respondents; assess the level of participation of youth in entrepreneurship development programme, determine factors that influence the youth entrepreneurship programme of youth. A random sample of 120 respondents was selected using a well structured questionnaire. Data analysis was done using both descriptive and inferential (probit) statistics. Findings indicated that male youths participated (56.7%) most in entrepreneurship development programmes. Youths in Abia state participated mostly (53.4%) in the entrepreneurship development programme known as “Youth Enterprise with Innovation in Nigeria (YOUWIN). Access to loan after completion of their entrepreneurship development programme by the youth participants is limited (53.7%). The level of participation of the youths in entrepreneurship development programme is moderately high (58.7%). Level of education (4.060), youth’s interest in entrepreneurial jobs (5.782), youths experience in technical skill (2.991), easy access to loans among the youths (5.252) youth awareness of job opening in their areas (5.948) lack of infrastructural facilities (3.793), rapid expansion of educational system (2.72) and awareness of entrepreneurship development programme(6.621) significantly influenced the involvement of youths in entrepreneurship development programme. It is therefore recommended that efforts be made to enrich the content of the entrepreneurship development programme with practical steps to start-up various agricultural enterprise as this will complement the experience of the youths and also increase food production, and access to loan after completion of their entrepreneurship development programme by the youth participants should be enhanced as this will help the youth to practise the skills they acquired from entrepreneurship development programme and be able to create their own jobs and even be able to employ others among others.
Conveyance and sediment management. Is it worth it

The Environment Agency is currently developing System Asset Management Plans (SAMPs) for each of its Flood Risk Management Systems (FRMS). Across the Agency, the expenditure on conveyance and sediment management is significant. The benefit achieved for this expenditure is however not known and difficult to determine. Typical approaches to the assessment of flood risk fail to reflect changes in the conveyance and or sediment regime of a channel. As a result, they often suggest that channel maintenance contributes little (or unknown) flood risk management benefit. This is a serious omission and limits the development of effective and efficient management policy and investment planning. This paper presents an innovative broadscale approach to explicitly estimate the benefit of channel maintenance activities (defined as actions taken to manage either the conveyance or sediment within a watercourse). The “benefit” is defined as the change in the economic damage (to residential and commercial properties) expressed as the Expected Annual Damages (EAD) arising through different management options. The method utilises expert rules to translate postulated changes in the approach to management (of both the channel vegetation and river sediment) into changes of conveyance. Credible but broad scale methods based on the Conveyance Estimation System (CES) are then used to estimate the likely impact on these changes in conveyance into changes in river water level for a range of return period storm events. The impact of the change in water level is assessed translated to a change in flood risk through the so-called RASP High Level risk analysis tools and expressed as a change in the EAD. Validation of the method is presented through three pilot sites from different Environment Agency Regions (Anglian, Thames and North West Region) and comparison with more detailed RASP analysis. The validated method is then applied at a national scale to 85 catchments of England and Wales to provide an assessment of the national benefit derived through the “Business as usual” management scenario as well as changed conveyance management activities.
The Effect of Conversational Shadowing on Enhancing Iranian EFL Learners’ Oral Performance Based on Accuracy

The present study is an investigation of the extent to which conversational shadowing improve the level of accuracy of EFL learners during their oral performance. Participants in this study were consisted of 60 students studying English in an English institute at intermediate level in Tehran as an EFL context. The participants received conversational shadowing practice during their interaction with the instructor and peers. A general English proficiency test, pre-test and post-test of simple past tense were administered to them. Two intact classes were selected as a control and experimental group in this study. Experimental group were taught simple past tense based on conversational shadowing while the control group were taught as it had been demonstrated in their books. The results of the quantitative and qualitative studies, when integrated, supported this assumption by showing that oral repetition served as a scaffolding device that helped learners use correct form of simple past tense. Conversational shadowing was not perceived as enjoyable or useful in itself, but a few highly proficient students, who had utilized the pertinent technique in the service of more interesting activities, acknowledged that they had learned useful sentences and make fewer errors during their conversation. Therefore, conversational shadowing can be best utilized to help intermediate EFL students to perfect their correct use of grammar when they are interacting with their peers. Normal 0 false false false RU X-NONE X-NONE
RECOVERING THE 3D POSE AND SHAPE OF VEHICLES FROM STEREO IMAGES

Abstract. The precise reconstruction and pose estimation of vehicles plays an important role, e.g. for autonomous driving. We tackle this problem on the basis of street level stereo images obtained from a moving vehicle. Starting from initial vehicle detections, we use a deformable vehicle shape prior learned from CAD vehicle data to fully reconstruct the vehicles in 3D and to recover their 3D pose and shape. To fit a deformable vehicle model to each detection by inferring the optimal parameters for pose and shape, we define an energy function leveraging reconstructed 3D data, image information, the vehicle model and derived scene knowledge. To minimise the energy function, we apply a robust model fitting procedure based on iterative Monte Carlo model particle sampling. We evaluate our approach using the object detection and orientation estimation benchmark of the KITTI dataset (Geiger et al., 2012). Our approach can deal with very coarse pose initialisations and we achieve encouraging results with up to 82 % correct pose estimations. Moreover, we are able to deliver very precise orientation estimation results with an average absolute error smaller than 4°.
Yield related morphological measures of short duration cotton genotypes.

The present studies were aimed to characterize the early maturing cotton genotypes and determine the relationship among earliness, yield and fiber quality traits . Eight upland cotton genotypes viz., CRIS-134, Sadori, Chandi, NIAB-78, AA-802, IR-3701, IR-1524 and FH-113 were included in the studies. The experiment was laid out in a randomized complete block design with four replications during 2012 at Sindh Agriculture University, Tandojam, Pakistan. The mean squares indicated significant (p≤0.01) differences among the genotypes for all the traits . The two cultivars i.e. CRIS-134 and Sadori were characterized as early maturing in terms of days to 1 st flower, formed sympodial branches at relatively lower nodes, set 1 st effective boll on lower sympodia, formed and opened maximum bolls at 90 and 120 days after planting (DAP) and weighed medium size bolls. For yield traits, maximum bolls plant -1 , bigger bolls, higher seed cotton yield and more lint percentage were obtained from cultivars CRIS-134, Sadori, IR-3701 and FH-113. Regarding fiber traits, the longer staple with desirable micronaire were recorded by CRIS -134, AA-802 and FH-113. The correlation coefficient showed that sympodial branch length, bolls formed at 120 DAP, bolls plant -1 and seed index were significantly and positively correlated with seed cotton yield. The higher correlations of yield components with yield indicated their reliable use as indirect selection criteria to improve the seed cotton yield. Some important negative correlations of lint percentage with seed index, staple length and micronaire value were also recorded which indicated that a compromise level for lint percentage may be considered while improving staple length and fiber fineness in cotton.
An Upper Limit on the Strength of the Extragalactic Magnetic Field from Ultra-high-energy Cosmic-Ray Anisotropy

If ultra-high-energy cosmic rays originate from extragalactic sources, the offsets of their arrival directions from these sources imply an upper limit on the strength of the extragalactic magnetic field (EGMF). The Pierre Auger Collaboration has recently reported that anisotropy in the arrival directions of cosmic rays is correlated with several types of extragalactic objects. If these cosmic rays originate from these objects, they imply a limit on the EGMF strength of B < 0.7– G for coherence lengths λB < 100 Mpc and B < 0.7–2.2 × 10−10 G at larger scales. This is comparable to existing upper limits at λB = 1 Mpc, and improves on them by a factor of 4–12 at larger scales. The principal source of uncertainty in our results is the unknown cosmic-ray composition.
Timing of songbird migration: individual consistency within and between seasons

The timing of migration is generally considered of utmost importance for reproduction and survival, and timing is furthermore considered to be under strong genetic control. The individual timing of migration is presumably a result of a combination of genetic, phenotypic and environmental factors as well as some degree of randomness. However, potential differences in consistency of timing between spring and autumn and between migration strategies are not well studied. Using long-term Danish ringing data, we study such differences by correlating date of ringing with date of recaptures for a suite of common migrating passerines in Denmark. We found that individuals marked early in one year tended to be recaptured early in the same season in a following year indicating that individuals time their migration in spring or autumn similarly between years. The relationship between spring and autumn migration was overall slightly negative, suggesting that birds arriving early in spring tended to depart late in autumn and vice versa. There were only weak effects of geographical location on timing, suggesting that the patterns found are not primarily caused by different populations being involved. Knowledge of individual consistency in migration timing is needed for understanding changes in migration timing. The consistent patterns of repeatabilities within and between seasons found here highlight the importance of timing of migration in songbirds.
Design and Fabrication of a Narrow-bandwidth Micromechanical Ring Filter using a Novel Process in UV-LIGA Technology

This paper presents a novel low-cost fabrication process for micromechanical filter in UV-LIGA technology. The micromechanical filter consists of the two identical bulk-mode ring resonators, mechanically coupled by a flexural-mode beam. The design procedure is performed by a mechanical lumped element model and ANSYS software. The low-cost fabrication process with only three UV-lithography steps is used to achieve a high aspect ratio of 20 with 3 μm gap spacing. The fabricated filter is characterized using a fully differential drive and sense interface circuit. The experimental results demonstrates micromechanical filter with a center frequency of 10.31 MHz and percent bandwidth less than 0.3% using a DC-bias voltage of 60 V. The detailed fabrication process can be applied as an appropriate alternative to X-ray LIGA and silicon-based micromechanical filters.
Subjective Evaluation in the Agency Contract and the Reputation of the Principal

We study whether and how a principal uses her subjective evaluation of the agent’s performance in a credible way. There are two types of the principal: trustworthy and untrustworthy. When a principal is believed to be a trustworthy type by the agent, she will obtain a higher payoff in the future transaction with him. It creates the reputational effect. In equilibrium, the trustworthy type of the principal gives high ratings to the agent more frequently than the untrustworthy one. In order to make the agent believe that she is the trustworthy type, the principal gives an honest rating at the evaluation, even when it leads to a higher wage. It is shown that the reputational effect functions in a robust way only when the accuracy of the observation about the agent’s performance is different between the two types. JEL classification : D23, D82
Significance of RT-PCR expression patterns of CYC-like genes in Oreocharis benthamii (Gesneriaceae)

We isolated and characterized two CYC-like genes from Oreocharis benthamii Clark (Gesneriaceae) in order to investigate their expression patterns. Phylogenetic analysis demonstrates that the two CYC-like genes, ObCYC1 and ObCYC2, belong to GCYC1 and GCYC2 clades in Gesneriaceae, respectively. Gene-specific RT-PCR results show that they have different spatio-temporal expression patterns. ObCYC1 is mainly expressed in the adaxial region of developing flowers as CYC is in Antirrhinum majus. The expression pattern of ObCYC1 demonstrates its basic function of controlling the adaxial floral organ development that is similar to that of CYC in Antirrhinum, which is in correlation with their conserved function domains, i.e. TCP and R domains. However, ObCYC1 is likely to repress the growth of both the adaxial petals and adaxial staminode. In addition, the weak- ened expression of ObCYC1 near flowering is correlated with the flower morphology of Oreocharis which is characteristic of weak zygomorphy. ObCYC2 exhibits a remarkable differentiation in protein sequence of TCP and R domain in comparison with those of ObCYC1 and CYC. Correlatively, ObCYC2 is inactive in floral tissue. This unique feature of ObCYC2 needs to be investigated by further comparative study both in expression and function in order to understand its basic function and evolutionary pathway in Gesneriaceae and related families.
EFFECTS OF SPECIES, SEX, AGE, AND HABITAT ON GEOMETRY OF POCKET GOPHER FORAGING TUNNELS

Abstract Home-range size and shape are influenced by cost–benefit relationships associated with acquiring resources. Subterranean animals may be particularly affected by food availability and soil conditions because of the close coupling of their activity to soil and the high energetic expense of digging. We examined foraging tunnel length, area, and geometry (e.g., number of branches and turning angles) of 3 species of pocket gophers (Geomys attwateri, Geomys bursarius, and Thomomys bottae) in their natural habitats, which differed in food abundance and soil characteristics. Burrow features (except length and area) were similar among species, sexes, ages, and habitats. However, burrows of adults were longer and occupied larger areas than those of juveniles, and burrow system length and area decreased with increasing vegetation biomass and with increasing soil clay content of soil (i.e., increasing expense of digging). Our findings reveal common patterns of burrow geometry, which suggest that there may be an underlying strategy defining geometric features of burrows within this family of subterranean rodents.