Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Occurrence and molecular characterization of different virulence-associated genes of Cronobacter sakazakii isolates from some foods and dust samples

ABSTRACT: Among the Cronobacter genus, Cronobacter sakazakii is the most common species posing a severe health risk for newborns, infants and children. Some infant formulas, cereal-based foods, and food production environments may be the potential reservoirs of C. sakazakii. This pathogen possesses different virulence factors encoded by different virulence genes. Therefore, characterizing these genes is important for distinguishing pathogenic strains from nonpathogenic ones. The objective of this study was to characterize some virulence genes [OmpA, OmpX, zpx, and Cpa] by real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in C. sakazakii isolates from a total of 120 samples (20 each of milk powder, starch, rice flour, semolina, infant formula and dust samples from food production environments). Overall, 13 isolates (7 from milk powder, 2 rice flour, 1 semolina, and 3 dust) were cultured, identified by bioMérieux API® 20E test kit, and then subjected to real-time PCR application for screening the target virulence-associated genes. Our results showed that all of 13 isolates were positive for the virulence genes OmpA, OmpX, zpx, and Cpa. In summary, our study revealed that some of the analyzed foods and environmental samples were contaminated with pathogenic C. sakazakii with its virulence-associated markers, far above the allowable limit; and therefore, this level of contamination may pose a severe health threat for newborns, infants, and children.
Nutrient declines in overwintering Halyomorpha halys populations

Brown marmorated stink bug, Halyomorpha halys (Stål) (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae), has become a major pest for agricultural growers since it arrived in the USA and Europe. To better understand the energetic requirements of overwintering, dispersal, and reproduction of this invasive pest, we monitored the weight, egg load, lipid, glycogen, and sugar levels of adult H. halys populations in western Oregon, USA, over 2 years. In the first study, overwintering H. halys collected monthly from inside shelters exhibited a consistent decline in weight, glycogen, and sugar levels from October to June. In the second study, post‐overwintering adults that exited shelters in late spring had lower lipid, glycogen, and sugar levels than those that exited in early spring. Also, adults that just exited shelters had lower weight, glycogen, sugar, and sometimes lipids than adults that remained in diapause. Sugar levels declined the most during winter, followed by lipid and glycogen. These findings suggest that nutritional depletion may cause H. halys to emerge from diapause. In the third study, overwintered and first‐generation adults (G1) were simultaneously collected from holly in July and August. Overwintered adults often had lower nutrient levels than G1 adults, which may reflect overwintered adults having expended energy for dispersal and reproduction. In the fourth study, we evaluated whether the Nutrient Index [weight (mg)/prothorax width (mm)3], a convenient index of physiological status, correlated with nutrient reserves. The Nutrient Index correlated with the adults’ lipid, glycogen, or sugar levels in 57% of cases, ranging from weakly negative to moderately positive correlations.
Community structure of mesofauna in the light of qualitative and quantitative research on soil mites

Research into structure and abundance of soil fauna communities should be based on material consisting of both qualitative and quantitative samples to provide reliable results. However, in practice it turns out that sometimes it is simply impossible to have both qualitative and quantitative samples. The study presents a comparative analysis of results obtained with qualitative and quantitative methods used in research into soil mites from the suborder Uropodina (Acari: Mesostigmata). The research was carried out in different regions of Poland. Both qualitative (sieving of soil and litter) and quantitative samples were collected in each of the examined ground plots. The results presented in the study show that zoocenological analysis based on both qualitative and quantitative samples gives similar results in the case of common and abundant species, and collecting 2 or 3 sievings in a given ground plot can be equivalent to large series of quantitative samples in faunistic research and monitoring of the environment. This stems from the fact that sieving of litter allow to obtain far more dense material than from quantitative samples. Due to the high density of sieving they contain more species and specimens, including specimens at different developmental stages found in the examined area. This type of sampling can be more efficient when the researcher needs a simple and fast method of collecting material for analysis, especially in the case of extensive research conducted in large areas, monitoring of changes in soil, as well as in taxonomic, biometric, biogeographical, and molecular research. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.5281/zenodo.2248744
Influence of medetomidine, acepromazine, fentanyl and butorphanol on intraocular pressure and pupil size in healthy dogs

The aim of this study was to assess the effects of four different drugs used for anaesthesia premedication on intraocular pressure and pupil size in dogs. A prospective, randomised, double-blind clinical study was carried out. The subjects were forty client-owned healthy dogs (20 males and 20 females), aged 8.0 ± 2.9 years, with body weights of 11.8 ± 8.5 kg (mean ± SD) and without ocular abnormalities that were scheduled for periodontal treatment. Animals were randomly allocated into four groups and received intravenously either medetomidine 0.01 mg/kg, acepromazine 0.02 mg/kg, fentanyl 0.01 mg/kg or butorphanol 0.2 mg/kg. Intraocular pressure, pupil size, heart rate, respiratory frequency and systolic and diastolic arterial pressures were measured prior to (baseline) and at five and 10 minutes after premedication (T5, T10). Data were analysed by Anderson-Darling, Bartlett’s, ANOVA and Dunnett’s tests (P < 0.05). Significant increases of intraocular pressure were observed at T5 and T10 in the fentanyl group. Significant decreases of pupil size at T5 and T10 were detected in the fentanyl, butorphanol and medetomidine groups. In the fentanyl group, heart rate dropped significantly at T10, while respiratory frequency was elevated at T5 and T10. In the medetomidine group, heart rate and respiratory frequency were decreased at T5 and T10. In the butorphanol group, systolic arterial pressure was decreased at T5 and diastolic arterial pressure was decreased at T5 and T10. In the acepromazine group, systolic arterial pressure was decreased at T10. Within ten minutes after intravenous administration in healthy dogs, fentanyl significantly increased intraocular pressure and fentanyl, butorphanol and medetomidine decreased pupil size.
Novel and efficient synthesis of insulating gas- heptafluoroisobutyronitrile from hexafluoropropylene

A novel and efficient preparation route of insulating gas-heptafluoroisobutyronitrile was developed. The synthetic route involved halogen-exchange fluorination, decomposition of bis-(perfluoroisopropyl) ketone and dehydration reaction. Overall, the desired compound was produced without the use of extremely toxic and expensive substances. Structures of the as-obtained products were determined by 19F NMR, 13C NMR, IR and GC-MS. The effects of several variables on reaction yield including nature of potassium fluoride, the catalyst dosage, temperature, solvent and molar ratio of raw materials were all investigated. The results indicated that the total yield of heptafluoroisobutyronitrile could reach 42% from original materials under optimal conditions and the mechanism of the reaction was proposed.
Using zebrafish to elucidate the epigenetic mechanisms controlling neurogenesis and brain tumorigenesis

Retinoblastoma-Binding Protein 4 (RBBP4) is a chromatin adaptor protein that associates with numerous activating and repressive chromatin regulatory complexes. RBBP4 is overexpressed in human gliomas, and has been shown to promote survival of GBM cells and p300-dependent expression of DNA repair genes (Kitange et al., 2016). We previously established a zebrafish RB-defective neural progenitor-like brain tumor model (Solin et al., 2015) and recently found Rbbp4 is highly upregulated in the RBbrain tumors. Here we demonstrate Rbbp4 is essential for zebrafish brain development and show it has distinct requirements in neural stem and progenitor cells. CRISPR/Cas9 targeting was used to isolate a 4 base-pair frameshift mutation in the zebrafish homolog rbbp4. Homozygous mutant rbbp4Δ4/Δ4 are lethal at approximately 5-7 days post fertilization and show a dramatic reduction in the size of the brain and retina. Overexpression of rbbp4 cDNA in a Tg(Tol2) transgenic line rescues the rbbp4 mutant phenotype, demonstrating disruption of neurogenesis in rbbp4Δ4/Δ4 homozygotes is due to lack of functional Rbbp4. Beginning at 2 days post fertilization, γH2AX and activated caspase labeling was detected in post-mitotic regions in the larval midbrain and retina, suggesting RBBP4 is required to prevent DNA-damage and apoptosis in neural progenitors or newborn neurons. γ-H2AX and caspase were not detected in the stem cell niches at the brain ventricle or retinal ciliary marginal zone, however, stem cell morphology was abnormally large. Pulse chase BrdU labeling experiments confirmed a delay in stem cell proliferation and a lack of survival of postmitotic neural progenitors. TP53 morpholino knockdown in rbbp4Δ4/Δ4 homozygotes transiently suppressed neural progenitor apoptosis, indicating the absence of Rbbp4
Automatic Cropping of Retinal Fundus Photographs using Convolutional Neural Networks

Deep learning (DL) is used in widespread applications including the medical sector. Particularly, Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) are architectures commonly used to classify or predicts retinal fundus photographs (RFP). However, the image noise located in the background of the RFP and space location of the retinal Region of Interest (ROI) can aﬀect the performance of these models. One solution to this problem is to make a segmentation of the RFP. In this work we present a Segmentation Model based on CNN (SMCNN) for the cropping process, this model reaches high accuracy levels for test images up to 98%.
A New Approach for Evaluation of Egg Laying Behaviour of Alfalfa Weevil, Hypera postica (Gyllenhal) (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) during Autumn Using CHAID and MARS Algorithms

Celalettin Gözüaçık1, Ecevit Eyduran2 and Mohammad Masood Tariq3* 1Faculty of Agriculture, Department of Plant Protection, Igdir University Igdır-76000, Turkey 2Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Department of Business Administration, Igdir, Turkey 3Centre of Advanced Studies in Vaccinology and Biotechnology, University of Balochistan, Quetta, Pakistan Article Information Received 09 March 2020 Revised 30 April 2020 Accepted 11 June 2020 Available online 07 October 2020
Caffeic Acid Phenethyl Ester (CAPE) Suppresses Systemic Inflammation In Rat Trauma Model

Aim: This study was conducted to explain the anti-inflammatory activity of caffeic acid phenethyl ester (CAPE) in an experimental rat thoracic trauma model. Materials and Methods: Forty adult (200 - 250 g) male Wistar albino rats were used. Rats were randomly divided into 4 groups; Control (n=10), Trauma model (n=10), Trauma model + CAPE (n=10) and CAPE (n=10) groups, respectively. CAPE treatment was administered intraperitoneally at a dose of 10 µmol/kg for seven days. At the end of the seventh day, the rats were sacrificed under anesthesia. Serum interleukin 1-beta (IL-1β), interleukin-6 (IL-6) and interleukin-10 cytokine levels were determined as pg/ml using the sandwich ELISA method. Results: In the trauma model, there was increased IL-1β and IL-6 and decreased pro-inflammatory IL-10 serum levels compared to the control group (p
A CMOS Peak Detect and Hold Circuit With Auto-Adjust Charging Current for NS-Scale Pulse ToF Lidar Application

This paper presents a novel CMOS peak detect and hold (PDH) circuit scheme for pulsed time of flight (ToF) Lidar application. The proposed PDH circuit, which is one part of analog front end (AFE) circuit of Lidar receiver, is used to widen the narrow input pulse width, aiming to easily digitize the pulse amplitude through a low-speed and low-cost ADC in pulsed ToF Lidar application. The reset voltage clamped to the common-mode level of the input pulse voltage is beneficial to reduce the pedestal error voltage. Meanwhile, the auto-adjust charging current scheme is employed to decrease the peak error through rejecting the overshoot voltage in the proposed PDH circuit. The circuit was implemented and fabricated in a 65-nm CMOS technology. The proposed PDH circuit can detect the pulse voltage with a pulse amplitude range from ~20 mV to ~500 mV and a minimum pulse width of 5 ns. The measured results show that the maximum absolute and relative errors are less than 16 mV and 4.5%, respectively. The layout area of the proposed PDH circuit is equal to $0.17\times 0.14$ mm2.
SSR-based genetic analysis of sweet corn inbred lines using artificial neural networks

Studies on genetic diversity and population structure provide basic information at the molecular level, which is a key input for breeding programs of crop species. This study evaluated the genetic diversity of 12 elite lines of sweet corn, using 20 microsatellite markers. To determine the genetic differentiation among lines, we used an artificial neural network with the self-organizing map (SOM) algorithm. This algorithm identified three genetically differentiated groups and produced relatively more accurate results than UPGMA, according to the indices of Davies-Bouldin and RMSSTD (Root Mean Square Standard Deviation). The expected heterozygosity was high (He>0.5) for 90% and the polymorphism information content high (PIC>0.6) for 40% of the SSR loci, indicating their potential to detect genetic differences among lines. The high genetic differentiation, detected by the neural network procedure, would allow the selection of promising divergent sweet corn genotypes.
Controversial taxonomy of hemp

Hemp (Cannabis sativa L.) was one of the earliest domesticated plant species. Biological classification (taxonomy or systematization) manifests evolutional relationships between taxons according to trait similarities. When it comes to taxonomy, hemp is one of the most controversial plant species due to significant effects of environmental conditions on hemp phenology and expression of quantitative traits as well as different levels of gender expression observed in hemp plants. Controversial taxonomy of hemp has gone through several phases throughout history. The attitude on the number of species within the genus Cannabis and the criteria used in taxonomic units division were under dispute. Initially focused on morphological characteristics and geographical origin, the approach was greatly amended by the development of molecular and biochemical techniques. The main cause of taxonomic uncertainties is the inbreeding ability of all wild Cannabis populations, resulting in continual variability of quantitative traits. The aim of the paper is to review the history of Cannabis classification including different approaches to this scientific issue.
Cluster-Aware Scattered Repair in Erasure-Coded Storage: Design and Analysis

Erasure coding is a storage-efficient means to guarantee data reliability in today's commodity storage systems, yet its repair performance is seriously hindered by the substantial repair traffic. Repair in clustered storage systems is even complicated because of the scarcity of the cross-cluster bandwidth. We present <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">${\sf ClusterSR}$</tex-math><alternatives><mml:math><mml:mi mathvariant="sans-serif">ClusterSR</mml:mi></mml:math><inline-graphic xlink:href="shen-ieq1-3028353.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula>, a cluster-aware scattered repair approach. <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">${\sf ClusterSR}$</tex-math><alternatives><mml:math><mml:mi mathvariant="sans-serif">ClusterSR</mml:mi></mml:math><inline-graphic xlink:href="shen-ieq2-3028353.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula> minimizes the cross-cluster repair traffic by carefully choosing the clusters for reading and repairing chunks. It further balances the cross-cluster repair traffic by scheduling the repair of multiple chunks. Large-scale simulation and Alibaba Cloud ECS experiments show that <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">${\sf ClusterSR}$</tex-math><alternatives><mml:math><mml:mi mathvariant="sans-serif">ClusterSR</mml:mi></mml:math><inline-graphic xlink:href="shen-ieq3-3028353.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula> can reduce 5.6-52.7 percent of the cross-cluster repair traffic and improve 14.4–68.8 percent of the repair throughput.
Workflow-Aware Automatic Fault Diagnosis for Microservice-Based Applications With Statistics

Microservice architectures bring many benefits, e.g., faster delivery, improved scalability, and greater autonomy, so they are widely adopted to develop and operate Internet-based applications. How to effectively diagnose the faults of applications with lots of dynamic microservices has become a key to guarantee applications’ performance and reliability. As a microservice performs various behaviors in different workflows of processing requests, existing approaches often cannot accurately locate the root cause of an application with interactive microservices in a dynamic deployment environment. We propose a workflow-aware automatic fault diagnosis approach for microservice-based applications with statistics. We characterize traces across microservices with calling trees, and then learn trace patterns as baselines. For the faults affecting the workflows of processing requests, we estimate the workflows’ anomaly degrees, and then locate the microservices causing anomalies by comparing the difference between current traces and learned baselines with tree edit distance. For performance anomalies causing significantly increased response time, we employ principal component analysis to extract suspicious microservices with large fluctuation in response time. Finally, we evaluate our approach on three typical microservice-based applications with a series of experiments. The results show that our approach can accurately locate the microservices causing anomalies.
CNN Model for Image Classification on MNIST and Fashion-MNIST Dataset

: Paper presents application of convolutional neural network for image classification problem. MNIST and Fashion-MNIST datasets used to test the performance of CNN model. Paper presents five different architectures with varying convolutional layers, filter size and fully connected layers. Experiments conducted with varying hyper-parameters namely activation function, optimizer, learning rate, dropout rate and batch size. Results show that selection of activation function, optimizer and dropout rate has impact on accuracy of results. All architectures give accuracy more than 99% for MNIST dataset. Fashion-MNIST dataset is complex than MNIST. For Fashion-MNIST dataset architecture 3 gives better results. Review of obtained results and from literature shows that CNN is suitable for image classification for MNIST and Fashion-MNIST dataset.
Population fluctuations and tree damage by red-backed voles (Myodes gapperi) after clearcutting of coniferous forest

ABSTRACT Although Eurasian species of Myodes voles are indeed pest species in forestry, it is not clear if the southern red-backed vole (Myodes gapperi), a closed-canopy species in western North America, also feeds on tree seedlings. Thus, we tested the hypotheses (H) that (H1) abundance of M. gapperi would dominate the vole population immediately post-clearcutting and then disappear, and (H2) while at high densities, incidence of mortality from feeding damage to newly planted tree seedlings by M. gapperi would be comparable to that reported for long-tailed voles (Microtus longicaudus). We live-trapped both species of voles, and measured feeding damage to planted trees, on seven replicate sites for the first 2 years after clearcutting near Golden, British Columbia, Canada. Population changes of M. gapperi and M. longicaudus were essentially the converse of one another in the first 2 years post-harvest. Red-backed voles were the dominant species in the first year and long-tailed voles were prominent in the second year. M. gapperi did not persist on these cutover sites and was at, or near, extirpation after 2 years post-harvest, and hence H1 seemed to be supported. The range of tree mortality by red-backed voles was near the overall mean percentage tree mortality (33.9 ± 4.8%) by M. longicaudus, and hence H2 seemed to be supported. If new plantations have to survive relatively high numbers of two vole species and their feeding damage up to 4–5 years after harvest, then it may be worthwhile to delay planting until vole numbers have declined.
What Caused the Disjunct Distributions of the Lachnaia tristigma Species-Group (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) on the Iberian Peninsula?

Abstract Non-overlapping distributions of closely related species can be explained by two mechanisms, either niche divergence or vicariance in the absence of niche differentiation. We assess which of these mechanisms is the most likely cause of the disjunct distributions of three closely related species of Lachnaia Dejean, 1836 (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) on the Iberian Peninsula.We estimated the three species' climatic niches, compared them using multivariate analysis, and projected their potential distributions under climatic conditions during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) around 20,000 years ago. Lachnaia tristigma (Lacordaire, 1848) and Lachnaia pseudobarathraea (Daniel and Daniel, 1898) hardly differ in their climatic niches. The temperature ranges are similar among the three species, but Lachnaia gallaeca Baselga and Ruíz-García, 2007 occupies a fraction of the environmental space with higher precipitation. The three climatic niches present a broad overlap, which does not suggest speciation events driven by niche differentiation. In turn, the projection of their climatic envelopes to the LGM conditions shows that their potential distributions are compatible with the existence of different glacial refugia for each species. Therefore, we hypothesize that the contraction of species ranges during LGM and subsequent vicariance could have been a major mechanism behind the disjunct distributions that we observe in the present.
Conceptual model of modularisation

It is difficult to produce and manage information for which there is no conceptual model and supporting tools. The results of the paper illustrate what design information concepts are specific for a modular product. This is also described as a conceptual model, because without it, the software-based tools cannot be developed. In addition to these, the methodology by which this design information is generated is discussed. This article does not deal with the actual development of the tool and its testing. They are the subject of future research.