Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Screening and characterization of exopolysaccharide producing Lactobacillus spp.

The present study was undertaken with the objective to screen promising L. gasseri, L. reuteri and L. helveticus isolates for the Exopolysaccharide (EPS) production and their characterization through biochemical and molecular tests. A total of 7 isolates of L. gasseri and 37 isolates of L. reuteri and one isolate of L. helveticus were screened for the EPS production through various tests and finally L . gasseri Lg62 and L. helveticus V3 were selected for the further study. The most promising EPSs producing isolates i.e. V3 and Lg62 gave a prominent growth on RR-MRS agar plate whereas Lg63 and Lg50A were not so prominent on RR-MRS agar plate. V3 and Lg62 showed better viscosity than Lg63 and Lg50A. V3 showed viscosity and corresponding O.D. in the range of 1.100 -1.677 cp and 0.753-1.207 (at 525nm) respectively at 42 0 C and 1.050-1.242 cp and 0.673-0.952 (at 525nm) at 37 0 C respectively. The isolates were found to be purple coloured Gram-positive rods of varying size under microscope. Lactobacillus cultures were catalase negative. V3 showed growth when incubated in MRS broth at 37 0 C as well as at 42 0 C for 24-48 hrs, in terms of turbidity whereas there was no turbidity at 15 0 C. In the arginine hydrolysis test neither LG62 nor V3 showed positive reaction. Both the EPS+ cultures produced acid from glucose, maltose, fructose and sucrose on incubation at 37 0 C for 24 hours. None of the culture produced gas in glucose. Both the cultures V3 and Lg62 showed growth at 4% NaCl concentration and changed the colour of the media from purple to yellow. Growth of V3 was not detected in 6.5% NaCl concentration whereas Lg62 showed growth in the same concentration. After identification of the selected cultures by biochemical techniques they were further confirmed by PCR using species specific primers.
A Review on Multi-Layered Armour using Sugarcane Bagasse waste

1-4Undergraduate student, Amal Jyothi College of Engineering, Kottayam, Kerala ---------------------------------------------------------------------***---------------------------------------------------------------------Abstract Monolithic metallic plates such as high strength steel has been the preferred choice for ballistic armour due to their high resistance against high-velocity projectiles. However due to their higher density, they are not suitable for practical applications. In such cases, multi-layered armours which are a combination of low-density materials with similar or superior ballistic resistance as that of monolithic metallic plates is used. Multilayered Armour Systems (MASs) with a front ceramic followed by synthetic fabric are currently used against high velocity ammunition. Researches are being conducted on the use of natural fibre composites, such as those made from sugarcane bagasse wastes , as the second layer in such Multi-layered armours. In this paper, we review the properties of sugarcane bagasse composite and the different materials used for fabricating a Multi-layered armour system.
DESIGN AND PHYSICAL TESTING OF BIAXIAL MINIMAL-DISTURBANCE ARM DAMPER FOR SEISMIC REHABILITAION

The hollow structural section (HSS) columns are commonly used to sustain the seismic loading from any direction in Japanese steel frames due to its uniform geometry along each principle axis of cross section. However, during the earthquake, the bottom flanges of beam ends are usually the vulnerable parts. Thus, to retrofit the all beam ends of beamcolumn connection is more practical. This paper introduces a seismic rehabilitation technique, named MDAD (Minimaldisturbance Arm Damper), which is a tension-only bracing system to improve the seismic performance of steel moment resisting frame by restraining the local deformation at the bottom flange of beam ends and utilizing the reserve capacity of frame. It not only aims at minimizing the obstruction of the visual and physical space for building users but is expected to provide a stable hysteretic behavior to the steel frames under the seismic loading. In this study, the MDAD is developed to be biaxial configuration which can accommodate the bidirectional loading. With this new configuration, the design equations were developed. Furthermore, under bidirectional loading, the MDAD will experience the in-plane and out-ofplane deformation. To verify the performance of MDAD, the quasi-static testes under both unidirectional and bidirectional loading are constructed.
A Note on the Pollen of Trichaulax mwasumbii (Acanthaceae: Justicieae)

The pollen morphology of Trichaulax mwasumbii Vollesen is described and illustrated. The pollen is highly distinctive and of a type previously undescribed in the family Acanthaceae. It is subprolate to prolate, (4-)5(-6)-colporate, with complex and rather variable ornamentation, consisting of areas of semitectate, coarse rugulate exine in the centres of the mesocolpia, surrounded by alternating fine and coarse rugulate bands. Occasional grains with abnormal ornamentation were observed. The ectexine consists of fairly short, well spaced columellae, with a granular foot layer. Pollen was stained, according to availability, using the method of Alexander, to test for potential fertility. The pollen morphology is compared with that of Ecbolium Kurz and Megalochlamys Lindau, the nearest known relatives. It is distinguished from both of these by several important features and this supports placing this species in a new genus, Trichaulax.
Continuous Tension Validation for Cable-Driven Parallel Robots

This paper deals with continuous tension validation for Cable-Driven Parallel Robots (CDPRs). The proposed method aims at determining whether or not a quasi-static path is feasible regarding cable tension limits. The available wrench set (AWS) is the set of wrenches that can be generated with cable tensions within given minimum and maximum limits. A pose of the robot is considered valid regarding the tensions if and only if the wrench induced by the platform weight is inside the AWS. The hyperplane shifting method gives a geometric representation of the AWS as the intersection of half-spaces. For each facet-defining hyperplane of the AWS, we define a value which is positive when the pose is valid, i.e. when the corresponding wrench lies on the proper side of the hyperplane. Using this value and an upper bound on its time derivative along the path, the half-length of a valid time interval is obtained. Intervals are repeatedly validated for each hyperplane until either the whole path is validated or a non-valid pose is found. The presented method is integrated within the open-source software Humanoid Path Planner (HPP) and implementation results using the configuration of the CDPR CoGiRo are presented.
Cytotoxic Activity-Guided Isolation from Achillea monocephala, and Biological Activities of its Different Extracts

The aim of the current research was to evaluate in vitro cytotoxic activities of n-hexan, chloroform, ethyl acetate and methanol extracts and to isolate the active compounds from the extract showing the strongest cytotoxic activity. In addition to this, it was aimed to evaluate the biological activities (cytotoxic, antioxidant, anti-urease, anticholinesterase, antimicrobial) of different extracts and active compounds from Achillea monocephala.
QUANTITATIVE LIGHT MICROSCOPIC AUTORADIOGRAPHY FOR α-BUNGAROTOXIN BINDING CAPACITY IN THE MOUSE BRAIN

α-Bungarotoxin (α-BGT) binding capacity on slide-moullted brain sections which had been fixed with 4% paraformaldehyde (PFA) or periodate-lysine-paraformaldehyde (PLP) was determined by quantitative light microscopic autoradiography using radioiodinated toxin. The results are consistent with our previous data obtained by a biochemical method on tissue homogenate. This is a new methodology for estimation of α-BGT binding capacity in brain regions of a limited area.
Interacting With a Ball-Playing Entertainment Robot

The robot Doggy is able to play a simple ball game with a human. In the scope of this thesis, the robot’s interactive behaviour was expanded to perform emotional gestures (both during and outside of the ball game) based on its internal emotional state. This behaviour design was implemented both as a simulation software and on the robot itself. It was tested on the robot and evaluated in terms of how it impacted the test participants’ interaction with and perception of the robot: Emotional expression was experienced as a positive addition to the interaction; but while the participants were generally able to easily understand the robot’s gestures, the number of distinct expressions that could be distinguished was limited.
Seasonal Fluctuations of Salamander eDNA in Central Kentucky Streams

Bi, Ke, and James P. Bogart. "Time and time again: unisexual salamanders (genus Ambystoma) are the oldest unisexual vertebrates. " BMC evolutionary biology 10, no. 1 (2010): 238. Ficetola, G. F. , Miaud, C. , Pompanon, F. , & Taberlet, P. (2008). Species detection using environmental DNA from water samples. Biology Letters, 4(4), 423-425. Goldberg, C. S. , Pilliod, D. S. , Arkle, R. S. , & Waits, L. P. (2011). Molecular detection of vertebrates in stream water: a demonstration using Rocky Mountain tailed frogs and Idaho giant salamanders. PloS one, 6(7), e22746. Jerde, C. L. , Mahon, A. R. , Chadderton, W. L. , & Lodge, D. M. (2011). “Sight‐unseen” detection of rare aquatic species using environmental DNA. Conservation Letters, 4(2), 150-157. Lodge, D. M. , Turner, C. R. , Jerde, C. L. , Barnes, M. A. , Chadderton, L. , Egan, S. P., . & Pfrender, M. E. (2012). Conservation in a cup of water: estimating biodiversity and population abundance from environmental DNA. Molecular ecology, 21(11), 2555-2558. Thomsen, P., Kielgast, J. O. S. , Iversen, L. L. , Wiuf, C. , Rasmussen, M. , Gilbert, M. and T. P.Willerslev, E. (2012). Monitoring endangered freshwater biodiversity using environmental DNA. Molecular Ecology, 21(11), 2565-2573. Zhang, Peng, and David B. Wake. "Higher-level salamander relationships and divergence dates inferred from complete mitochondrial genomes. " Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 53, no. 2 (2009): 492-508. eDNA Results – Stoney Run A. barbouri eDNA (Fig. 6) was absent in Feb. but present at apparently increasing concentrations between 3/22 and 5/16, a trend consistent with breeding and egg deposition (which would have occurred after 2/8 and then larval growth through 5/16). The A. barbouri eDNA present on 7/31 occurs somewhat after metamorphosis was observed to occur but may represent metamorphs inhabiting the stream before transitioning to surrounding habitat. The appearance of E. lucifuga eDNA (Fig. 7) could correspond with breeding although the absence of this species’ DNA on 7/31 is difficult to understand given the longevity of their larvae in aquatic systems.
Correlation of Plasma RBP4-to-Vitamin A Ratio with Severity of Diabetic Retinopathy

10.30699/jambs.28. 129.175 Background & Objective: Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is a common microvascular complication of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and the leading cause of vision loss in working-age adults. Vitamin A (retinol) has a role in the mechanism of vision process and retinol binding protein-4 (RBP4), is a carrier of vitamin A, and as an adipokine may be associated with increased risk for insulin resistance and DR. This case-control study was aimed to determine and analyze plasma RBP4-to-vitamin A ratio in relation with terms of DR severity.
Internet of Things-Based Agriculture: A Review of Security Threats and Countermeasures

- The agriculture sector is gradually becoming more digitalize with large integration of Internet of Things into various farming processes such as land cultivation, farm monitoring, product processing, food marketing and consumers-farmers interaction. This paradigm shift from mechanical (or wired) agriculture technology to a wireless (or sensor based) agriculture system comes along with its own security challenges as viewed from cyber security perspective. This paper therefore provides an overview of IoT-based agriculture from cybersecurity perspective by (i) analyzing possible application of IoT devices in agriculture (ii) classifying IoT-based agriculture into four architectural layers (iii) analyzing security threats to IoT based agriculture and suggesting possible countermeasures based on IoT architectural layers for secure deployment of IoT devices in agriculture. With good consideration of threat and security requirements of IoT-based agriculture drawn from literature reviews, this paper presents possible countermeasures against attacks on IoT devices in agriculture. The proposed countermeasures prove to be highly secure against attacks on privacy, authentication, integrity, confidentiality and availability, with low power and time consumption. This research will assist researchers and agriculturists to choose the most suitable and flexible security mechanisms for IoT deployment in agriculture.
Novel Semantic Relatedness Computation for Multi-Domain Unstructured Data

Semantic Relatedness computation has been a fundamental as well as an essential step for domains like Information Retrieval, Natural Language Processing, Semantic Web, etc. Many techniques for Semantic Relatedness calculation in a single domain have been proposed. However, these techniques give inappropriate results for the massive multidomain dataset because they provide a relation between concepts across different domains, which are not related to each other. Their similarities should be minimized. In this paper, a novel method, "modified Balanced Mutual Information(MBMI)," to calculate the semantic relatedness of multidomain data has been proposed. In this proposed method, to get semantic relatedness, concepts are extracted, followed by a fuzzy vector from a given corpus. A comparison of the proposed method with other existing methods has been performed. We used medical and computer science articles as our dataset. The proposed method shows better results for multidomain data. Received on 18 March 2020; accepted on 26 June 2020; published on 30 June 2020
Limited Effects of Long-Term Repeated Season and Interval of Prescribed Burning on Understory Vegetation Compositional Trajectories and Indicator Species in Ponderosa Pine Forests of Northeastern Oregon, USA

Fire exclusion has dramatically altered historically fire adapted forests across western North America. In response, forest managers reduce forest fuels with mechanical thinning and/or prescribed burning to alter fire behavior, with additional objectives of restoring forest composition, structure, and ecosystem processes. There has been extensive research on the effects of fuel reduction and restoration treatments on trees, fuels, regeneration, and fire behavior; but less is known about how these treatments influence understory vegetation, which contains the majority of vascular plant diversity in many dry conifer forests. Of particular interest is how understory vegetation may respond to the season and interval of prescribed burning. The season and interval of prescribed burning is often determined by operational constraints rather than historical fire regimes, potentially resulting in fire conditions and burn intervals to which native plants are poorly adapted. In this study, we examined how understory vegetation has responded to season and interval of prescribed burning in ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) forests in the Blue Mountains of northeastern Oregon, USA. Using over a decade (2002–2015) of understory vegetation data collected in stands with different intervals (5 versus 15 year) and seasons (spring versus fall) of prescribed burning, we quantified how season and interval of prescribed burning has influenced understory vegetation compositional trajectories and indicator species over time. Season of prescribed burning resulted in different understory communities and distinct trajectories of understory composition over time, but interval of burning did not. Indicator species analysis suggests fall burning is facilitating early seral species, with native annual forbs displaying ephemeral responses to frequent burning, while invasive cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum) increased in abundance and frequency across all treatments over time. These findings indicate that understory vegetation in these ecosystems are sensitive to seasonality of burning, but the responses are subtle. Our findings suggest season and interval of prescribed burning used in this study do not result in large changes in understory vegetation community composition, a key consideration as land managers increase the pace and scale of prescribed fire in these forests.
A typology of Newcomblike problems

This paper introduces a typology of Newcomblike problems—decision problems in which evidential decision theory and causal decision theory come apart. Such problems involve an evidential dependence between an action and an outcome that does not stem from the causal effects of the action. We distinguish two types of Newcomblike problems on the basis of how this dependence arises: (i) reference class, and (ii) common cause. In the former, the dependence arises from an inference about the actions of similar agents or models of agents, as in Newcomb’s problem. In the latter, it is the result of a common cause between action and outcome, as in the Smoking Lesion. We argue that several plausible, recently proposed variants of causal decision theory take the distinction into account in their action recommendations. Moreover, the distinction sheds new light on the debate about the tickle defense. We argue that if the tickle defense works, then it applies only to common cause problems, not to reference class
Clustering-Based Trajectory Outlier Detection

The improvement in mobile computing techniques has generated massive trajectory data, which represent the mobility of moving objects like vehicles, animals, and people. Mining trajectory data and especially outlier detection in trajectory data is an attractive and challenging topic that fascinated many researchers. In this paper, we propose a Clustering-Based Trajectory Outlier Detection algorithm (CB-TOD). The proposed algorithm partitions a trajectory into line segments and decreases those line segments to a smaller set (Summary-trajectory SS(t)) without affecting the spatial properties of the original trajectory. After that the CB-TOD algorithm using a clustering method to detect the cluster with the smallest number of segments for a trajectory and a small number of neighbors to be sub-trajectory outliers for this trajectory. Also, our proposed algorithm can detect outlier trajectories in the dataset. The main advantage of CB-TOD algorithm is reducing the computational time for outlier detection especially for big trajectory data without affecting the efficiency of the outlier detection results. Experimental results demonstrate that CB-TOD outperforms the state of art existing algorithms in identifying outlier sub-trajectories and also outlier trajectories in real trajectory dataset.
A Robust Algorithm for Classification and Diagnosis of Brain Disease Using Local Linear Approximation and Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity Model

Regions detection has an influence on the better treatment of brain tumors. Existing algorithms in the early detection of tumors are difficult to diagnose reliably. In this paper, we introduced a new robust algorithm using three methods for the classification of brain disease. The first method is Wavelet-Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity-K-Nearest Neighbor (W-GARCH-KNN). The Two-Dimensional Discrete Wavelet (2D-DWT) is utilized as the input images. The sub-banded wavelet coefficients are modeled using the GARCH model. The features of the GARCH model are considered as the main property vector. The second method is the Developed Wavelet-GARCH-KNN (D-WGK), which solves the incompatibility of the WGK method for the use of a low pass sub-band. The third method is the Wavelet Local Linear Approximation (LLA)-KNN, which we used for modeling the wavelet sub-bands. The extracted features were applied separately to determine the normal image or brain tumor based on classification methods. The classification was performed for the diagnosis of tumor types. The empirical results showed that the proposed algorithm obtained a high rate of classification and better practices than recently introduced algorithms while requiring a smaller number of classification features. According to the results, the Low-Low sub-bands are not adopted with the GARCH model; therefore, with the use of homomorphic filtering, this limitation is overcome. The results showed that the presented Local Linear (LL) method was better than the GARCH model for modeling wavelet sub-bands.
Measuring Waste in Malaysia: A Neglected Approach

The aim of this paper is to explore the reasons why Full Cost Accounting (FCA) has not been adopted by solid waste management (SWM) in Malaysia. A case study methodology is used for the exploratory research undertaken in this study. The thematic analysis used reveals that lack of regulation is a central barrier to the adoption of FCA. FCA emerges as a supported but little understood concept among participants who are environmentally sensitive. It is concluded that although Kuching community is environmentally sensitive it is not yet at the stage where FCA could be effectively supported. © 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and peer-review under responsibility ofCentre for EnvironmentBehaviour Studies (cE-Bs), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia
Have we reproduced Rat Park? Conceptual but not direct replication of the protective effects of social and environmental enrichment in addiction

The Rat Park studies are classic experiments in addiction neuroscience, yet they have not been successfully replicated directly and several serious methodological criticisms have been raised. However, the conceptual reproducibility of the Rat Park studies is supported by both contemporaneous and subsequent research. Contemporaneous research on social and environmental enrichment frequently found social isolation rendered rats less sensitive to the effects of drugs of abuse. The Rat Park studies therefore confirmed the importance of social and environmental enrichment and extended this literature to suggest that enrichment reduced opioid consumption. Subsequent studies have also demonstrated social and environmental enrichment reduces drug consumption. However, there are also several papers reporting no effects of enrichment (or ‘negative’ results) and caveats from studies that show genes, age, sex and drug of abuse are all important parameters. While the Rat Park studies did not use methods that are reliable by current standards, enrichment has been shown to reliably reduce opioid consumption and this effect can generalise to other drugs of abuse.