Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Autobioluminescent Cellular Models for Enhanced Drug Discovery

Autobioluminescent cellular models are emerging tools for drug discovery that rely on the expression of a synthetic, eukaryotic‐optimized luciferase that does not require an exogenous chemical substrate to produce its resultant output signal. These models can therefore self‐modulate their output signals in response to metabolic activity dynamics and avoid the sample destruction and intermittent data acquisition limitations of traditional fluorescent or chemically stimulated bioluminescent approaches. While promising for reducing drug discovery costs and increasing data acquisition relative to alternative approaches, these models have remained relatively untested for drug discovery applications due to their recent emergence within the field. This chapter presents a history and background of these autobioluminescent cellular models to offer investigators a generalized point of reference for understanding their capabilities and limitations and provides side‐by‐side comparisons between autobioluminescent and traditional, substrate‐requiring toxicology screening platforms for pharmaceutically relevant three‐dimensional and high‐throughput screening applications to introduce investigators to autobioluminescence as a potential new drug discovery toolset.
Landscapes as patches of plant functional types: An integrating concept for climate and ecosystem models

While most land models developed for use with climate models represent vegetation as discrete biomes, this is, at least for mixed life‐form biomes, inconsistent with the leaf‐level and whole‐plant physiological parameterizations needed to couple these biogeophysical models with biogeochemical and ecosystem dynamics models. In this paper, we present simulations with the National Center for Atmospheric Research land surface model (NCAR LSM) that examined the effect of representing vegetation as patches of plant functional types (PFTs) that coexist within a model grid cell. This approach is consistent with ecological theory and models and allows for unified treatment of vegetation in climate and ecosystem models. In the standard NCAR LSM the PFT composition and leaf area for each grid cell are obtained by classifying grid cells as 1 of 28 possible biomes. Here, we develop a data set from 1‐km satellite data that provides each model grid cell a unique PFT composition and leaf area for each PFT. Global simulations at 3° × 3° spatial resolution showed that ground temperature, ground evaporation, and northern high‐latitude winter albedo exhibited direct responses to these landscape changes, which led to indirect effects such as in soil moisture and sensible and latent heat fluxes. Additional simulations at 2° × 2° and 1° × 1° spatial resolution showed that low‐resolution simulations masked landscape heterogeneity in both approaches but the satellite‐based, continuous representation of vegetation reduced model sensitivity to resolution. It is argued that the use of spatially continuous distributions of coexisting PFTs is a necessary step to link climate and ecosystem models.
The injection of rice bran oil to avian egg: focus on carotenoids content of liver and brain in embryonic period

Introduction: The brain and liver are highly vulnerable to oxidative stress in embryo developmental periods. The levels of antioxidant in these tissues are correlated with the mother's nutrition during pregnancy. The present study was conducted to assess the level of carotenoids in liver and brain following the injection of Rice Bran Oil (RBO) to the chicken embryo. Methods: The eggs were divided into three groups (n=10, for each group). 0.1 cc of RBO was injected into the chorioallantoic membrane and into the egg yolk on the day 4 of incubation. The experiment was terminated on the day 20 of incubation, then, the liver and brain sample tissues were collected. The carotenoids level was measured and compared in the groups. Results: The levels of carotenoids of the eggs yolks in which RBO were injected in them were 0.31±0.08 and 1.2±0.08 (µg/g tissue) in brain and liver, respectively. These changes were significant as compared with control group (P<0.05). Conclusion: RBO exposed embryo significantly increased carotenoids level of liver and brain. Therefore, the result of this study confirms health benefit of RBO consumption during embryonic development. A R T I C L E I N F O
Using Discourse Features for Referring Expression Generation

Referring expression generation (REG) is the task of choosing a noun phrase that refers to an extra-linguistic entity and inserting the noun phrase into a text. REG is helpful for tasks such as text generation and information summarization (Kan et al., 2001). We present a system for referring expression generation that mines a number of discourse-based feature functions from text and uses a maximum entropy classifier (Le, 2004) to choose a referring expression from a list of possibilities. Our results show varying effectiveness of the different discourse-based predicates. We also demonstrate two different uses of the maximum entropy classifier: a binary classification method and an n-class classification method.
Effect of Calcium Chloride on the Preparation of Low-fat Spreads from Buffalo and Cow Butter

Purpose : To investigate the effects of CaCl2 on the preparation of low-fat spreads from buffalo and cow butter Methods : Buffalo and cow butter-based low-fat spreads (B-LFS and C-LFS) were treated with CaCl2 (0, 0.02, 0.04, 0.06, and 0.08%) at pH 5.5 and stored at 4°C. They were sampled after 3, 30, 60, and 90 days, and analysed for sensory, morphological, rheological, and melting properties using a 9-point hedonic scale, digital camera, texture analyser TA-XT 2i, Physica MCR 301 rheometer, and differential scanning calorimeter, respectively. Results : Sensory evaluation results showed that control samples were the best of all the treatments; additionally, no phase separation was found in samples treated with 0, 0.02 or 0.04% CaCl2, but separation occurred with 0.06 and 0.08% CaCl2. Generally, hardness and viscosity of samples decreased with increasing CaCl2 concentrations; however, these parameters increased during storage. Increasing CaCl2 concentrations didn’t affect the melting profiles of the spreads, but the parameter varied for B-LFS during storage. Furthermore, the temperature range of the high melting zones of the BLFS samples was greater than that of C-LFS samples. Conclusion : Sensory, morphological, and rheological properties were affected by CaCl2 concentrations but there were negligible effects on the melting behaviour of the spreads. Keywords : Buffalo butter, Cow butter, Calcium chloride Low-fat spread, Sensory, Morphology, Melting
Kinetic Phenomena in Transport of Electrons and Positrons in Gases caused by the Properties of Scattering Cross Sections

Collisions of electrons, atoms, molecules, photons and ions are the basic processes in plasmas and ionized gases in general. This is especially valid for low temperature collisional plasmas. Kinetic phenomena in transport are very sensitivitive to the shape of the cross sections and may at the same time affect the macroscopic applications. We will show how transport theory or simulation codes, phenomenology, kinetic phenomena and transport data may be used to improve our knowledge of the cross sections, our understanding of the plasma models, application of the swarm physics in ionized gases and similar applications to model and improve gas filled traps of positrons. Swarm techniques could also be a starting point in applying atomic and molecular data in models of electron or positron therapy/diagnostics in radiation related medicine.
Retention of aroma compounds by lactic acid bacteria in model food media

The interactions between aroma compounds and other particles in foods, particularly with macromolecules, have been greatly studied in order to better understand the binding of flavors in food matrices. Bacteria possess many macromolecules on their cellular surface that provide them surface properties which are involved in the physicochemical interactions between cells and interfaces. However, the interactions between bacteria and aroma compounds have not received so much attention despite the presence of bacteria in many fermented products. In order to study the retention of aroma compounds by bacteria, we have investigated the retention of esters by lactic acid bacteria with static headspace techniques. Two strains of Lactococcus lactis subsp. lactis biov. diacetylactis reflecting the natural diversity of the bacterial surface properties and two ethyl esters generally involved in the cheese flavor (ethyl acetate and ethyl hexanoate) were chosen for the experiments. The results have shown that bacteria, through their surface physicochemical properties, can interact directly with aroma compounds or in an indirect way, by changing the emulsion characteristics. However, these effects depend on the physicochemical properties of both aroma compounds and bacterial surfaces. r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
ffect of preen oil on plumage bacteria : An experimental test with the mallard

Feathers are essential for avian thermoregulation, communication or flight and a reduction of plumage condition may alter these functions and reduce individual fitness. Recently, descriptive studies provided evidence that birds carry feather-degrading bacteria on their plumage that have the ability to degrade feathers rapidly under laboratory conditions. If such bacteria reduce avian fitness, natural selection should favour the evolution of anti-bacterial defences to limit the effects of these detrimental microorganisms. Preening behaviour and associated preen gland secretions have been proposed as the main factor used by birds to limit feather-degrading bacterial growth and some recent in vitro studies provided evidence that uropygial oil inhibited the growth of some keratinolytic strains in passerines. However, preen oil antimicrobial properties remained to be experimentally tested in vivo. We conducted an experiment with mallards (Anas platyrhynchos) onto which we fixed a removable mechanism that blocked access to the uropygial gland in a first group of mallards, whilst birds in a second group had the same removable mechanism but access to their gland and a third group of birds had normal access to their gland. We found no significant effect of our treatment on total and feather-degrading bacterial loads. Three hypotheses may explain the discrepancy between our results and previous in vitro studies. First, in vitro studies may have over-estimated the bactericidal properties of the preen oil. Second, preen gland deprivation may have affected only a small portion of the feather-degrading bacterial and p community. Third, ducks
Sustainable Development of Smart Cites: A Qualitative Research Design

The smart city thought alludes to better of organising city functions and urban life, which are accepted to move production and consumption from worldwide to local, manufacturing from competitive to collaborative, and business from stakeholders to a customer point of view. Policy makers have addressed the need for sustainable development and increasing urban population density in part by using smart city theory and practices. Current smart city frameworks are best categorized as descriptive theories. There has been a gap in the literature regarding smart cities. Most past research has focussed on the societal level of smart cities, while less appears to be recognised about the management of business as part of smart cities. The determination of this paper is to present a systematic review on the state of the art of management research on smart cities. A total of 20 papers which based on midsized smart-designated cities have been discussed. Those research papers mostly collected data from government websites and city manager surveys. This paper emphasised on the policy and societal level issues which create hurdles in developing smart cities. The review on the literature of smart city framework creates the roadmap for the use in both future research and for cities planners to advance smart city development and to act as responsible stewards for stakeholders who rely on researcher’s directions.
Cerberus : Red-Black Heuristic for Planning Tasks with Conditional Effects Meets Novelty Heuristic and Enchanced Mutex Detection

Red-black planning is the state-of-the-art approach to satisficing classical planning. A planner Mercury, empowered by the red-black planning heuristic, was the runner-up of the latest International Planning Competition (IPC) 2014, despite the trivial handling of conditional effects by compiling them away. Conditional effects are important for classical planning and required in many domains for efficient modeling. Another recent success in satisficing classical planning is the Novelty based heuristic guidance. When novelty of heuristic values is considered, search space is partitioned into novelty layers. Exploring these layers in the order of their novelty considerably improves the performance of the underlying heuristics. Yet another recent success relates to the translation of planning tasks from the input PDDL language to a grounded multi-valued variable based representation, such as SAS. Recent methods of invariants synthesis allow for deriving richer SAS representations. We herein present a satisficing classical planner which we baptize Cerberus, that incorporates these three recent improvements. It starts by performing enhanced mutex detection to derive a SAS planning task with conditional effects. Then, it performs best first search of various greediness, exploiting red-black planning heuristic with a direct handling of conditional effects and using such red-black heuristic as a base for a novelty heuristic.
Addressing emerging pathogens and parasites in the Galápagos penguin ( Spheniscus mendiculus )

Recent reports have documented introduced parasites and pathogens in the Galápagos penguin (Spheniscus mendiculus) (Levin et al. 2009; Deem et al. 2010; Palmer et al. 2013). These parasites include the vector-borne Plasmodium spp. protozoa and the Toxoplasma gondii parasite. Plasmodium spp. is responsible for avian malaria, a disease known to cause high mortality and morbidity in penguin populations (Palmer et al. 2013). Here, I show that the Galápagos penguin is especially susceptible to introduced diseases due to population fluctuations and low MHC (major histocompatibility complex) diversity. I analyze the threat of introduced diseases to the Galápagos penguin population and determine that Galápagos penguins are at risk of contracting diseases from domestic chickens, cats, and the introduced Culex quinquefasciatus
Total Factor Productivity and Technical Efficiency of Indian Manufacturing: The Role of Infrastructure and Information & Communication Technology

Drawing on a recent dataset of the Indian manufacturing industry for 1994 to 2008, this paper shows for eight sectors that core infrastructure and Information & Communication Technology (ICT) matter for Total Factor Productivity (TFP) and Technical Efficiency (TE). In the analysis, we use a range of advanced estimation techniques to overcome problems of non-stationary, omitted variables, endogeneity and reverse causality (such as System-GMM, panel cointegration and FMOLS). Estimation results suggest that the impact of core infrastructure is rather strong on TFP and TE (elasticity of 0.32 and 0.17 respectively), while the effect of ICT appears slightly smaller (0.12 and 0.08, respectively). This finding is of particular importance in the Indian context of infrastructure bottlenecks. It strongly supports the idea that a lack of infrastructure can hamper growth in developing countries. Our results also reveal that the impact of infrastructure and ICT varies among the industries. Interestingly, Transport Equipments, Metal & Metal Products and Textile, which are sectors relatively more exposed to foreign competition, are also found to be more sensitive to infrastructure endowment. This result can be extended to the Chemical industry for TE. This finding implies that improving core and ICT infrastructure would proportionally benefit more to these sectors, which could play a leading role in the competitiveness and the industrial growth of the Indian economy.
Simulations and measurements on electrical resonances on the Portuguese 25 kV network

The higher switching frequencies of modern traction converters can lead to resonances which can cause costly malfunctions, as the Eigen frequencies of traction power supply systems are relatively low and as dampening can be low as well. Unfortunately EMC standards like [1] nor traction power supply standards like [2] give guidance on this subject. The introduction of refurbished UTE-Silicio train sets on the Portuguese railway network by Comboios de Portugal (train operating company) led to resonance problems in the traction power supply network, which where in some locations thus severe that it resulted in damaged equipment, such as burned out transformers. The decision was made to change the switching frequency of the converters in the train from 450 Hz to 650 Hz, in order to avoid major modifications in the traction power supply systems. A project was started to calculate the frequency response of all 25 kV lines in the Portuguese railway network, as part of the homologation process for the refurbished UTE-Silicio train sets. Measurements were performed on many lines using a number of methods, to verify the simulation results. This paper discusses the results of the simulations and the measurements and these results will be compared. A further step will be a future project in which research will be performed to determine the technical and economical optimal solution for the problems caused by resonances. For instance changes in the switching frequency of rolling stock, or modification in the traction power supply system.
TGF-β Codon 25 Polymorphism and the Risk of Graft-Versus-Host Disease after Allogenic Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation

Some of the genotypes of cytokines are associated with acute graft versus host disease after bone marrow transplantation. The purpose of the present investigation was to find out the possible association between transforming growth factor beta-1 (TGF-β1) codon 25 polymorphism (rs:1800471) and acute graft versus host disease (aGVHD) after bone marrow transplantation from the sibling with the similar HLA among the Iranian population. In this retrospective case-control investigation, 172 subjects including 86 Iranian patients and their siblings with the similar HLA as donor/recipient pairs were recruited. All of the patients were diagnosed with one group of blood disorder consisting of Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML)=40, Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL)=25 and Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML)=21. PCR-SSP method was carried out to ascertain TGF- β1 codon 25 G/C polymorphism genotypes. The frequency of TGF- β1 codon 25 GG, GC and CC genotypes among all cases were 77.3%, 21.5% and 1.2%, respectively. Recipients with the GG genotype developed severe aGVHD significantly more than those with CC or GC genotypes (Odds Ratio =12.133, P=0.015). Genetic background of TGF-β1 may be involved in aGVHD development and/or severity in the patients who received Bone Marrow Transplantation (BMT) from their siblings with the similar HLA among the Iranian population.
Population Genetic Diversity in The Genus Dryobalanops Gaertn. f. (Dipterocarpaceae) Based on Nuclear Microsatellite Markers

The genus Dryobalanops Gaertn. f. is a small but important genus that contains seven species and is found in the Southeast Asian tropical rain forests. Seven polymorphic nuclear microsatellite markers were analyzed in 46 natural populations of six extant Dryobalanops species (N = 700 individuals) covering the distribution range in Western Malesia. The mean gene diversity at the species level ranged from 0.392 in D. rappa to 0.635 in D. aromatica. The FST value ranged from 0.156 in D. keithii to 0.283 in D. beccarii and all FST values were highly significantly greater than zero. These results suggest that gene flow between populations has been limited and intensive genetic drift has occurred in all of the species. Plants with narrowly distributed species such as D. keithii and D. rappa, which are endemic to Borneo, tend to have lower levels of genetic diversity compared with widespread species such as D. aromatica. STRUCTURE analysis revealed that at least two of the six species could be effectively discriminated each other. The results of this study will be helpful for building effective conservation schemes as well as for providing basic data for future provenance trials of Dryobalanops species.
Integrating local pastoral knowledge, participatory mapping, and species distribution modeling for risk assessment of invasive rubber vine ( Cryptostegia grandiflora ) in Ethiopia’s Afar region

The threats posed by invasive plants span ecosystems and economies worldwide. Local knowledge of biological invasions has proven beneficial for invasive species research, but to date no work has integrated this knowledge with species distribution modeling for invasion risk assessments. In this study, we integrated pastoral knowledge with Maxent modeling to assess the suitable habitat and potential impacts of invasive Cryptostegia grandiflora Robx. Ex R.Br. (rubber vine) in Ethiopia's Afar region. We conducted focus groups with seven villages across the Amibara and Awash-Fentale districts. Pastoral knowledge revealed the growing threat of rubber vine, which to date has received limited attention in Ethiopia, and whose presence in Afar was previously unknown to our team. Rubber vine occurrence points were collected in the field with pastoralists and processed in Maxent with MODIS-derived vegetation indices, topographic data, and anthropogenic variables. We tested model fit using a jackknife procedure and validated the final model with an independent occurrence data set collected through participatory mapping activities with pastoralists. A Multivariate Environmental Similarity Surface analysis revealed areas with novel environmental conditions for future targeted surveys. Model performance was evaluated using area under the receiver-operating characteristic curve (AUC) and showed good fit across the jackknife models (average AUC = 0.80) and the final model (test AUC = 0.96). Our results reveal the growing threat rubber vine poses to Afar, with suitable habitat extending downstream of its current known location in the middle Awash River basin. Local pastoral knowledge provided important context for its rapid expansion due to acute changes in seasonality and habitat alteration, in addition to threats posed to numerous endemic tree species that provide critical provisioning ecosystem services. This work demonstrates the utility of integrating local ecological knowledge with species distribution modeling for early detection and targeted surveying of recently established invasive species.
Sentiment analysis using machine learning classifiers and SentiWordNet : A review

In the current social, technological and economic context, customers make their decisions based mostly on the opinion of other consumers. On the other side, companies require quick feedback from their customers in order to adapt to their needs in real time. The effective connection between these two aspects relies on opinion mining tools, which automatically process consumers’ reviews and opinions about products or services. This paper proposes the analysis and prediction rating from customer reviews who commented as open opinion using Machine Learning Classifiers and SentiWordNet.