Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Estimating primary production rates from photosynthetic electron transport in estuarine microphytobenthos

Microphytobenthos primary production was measured using C fixation and compared with production estimates based on measurements on intact cores using variable chlorophyll fluorescence with a PAM (pulse-amplitude-modulated) fluorometer at a number of different sites on intertidal flats in the Westerschelde and Oosterschelde estuaries (The Netherlands). We observed a linear relationship between the minimal fluorescence, F-0, and the chlorophyll a content of the sediments, but the relationship was quite noisy, which was partly due to a vertical scale mismatch between the depth of sampling (1 mm) and the measuring depth the of PAM fluorometer (100 to 200 mum) On most sites, C fixation was a linear function of photosystem II electron transport (ETR, obtained from PAM measurements), although for Stn B, a relatively silty site on the Molenplaat, an intertidal flat in the Westerschelde, the agreement between C fixation and ETR was often non-linear at irradiances saturating C fixation. This was sometimes observed for some of the other stations as well. The differences at high irradiance might be related to vertical migration of epipelic diatoms, optical properties of the sediment or alternative electron accepters. A conversion factor was calculated, allowing estimation of C fixation from ETR measurements. This conversion factor was not different for the different stations and no clear seasonal influence was observed, although the conversion factor could vary within hours. The seasonally averaged conversion factor for all stations and each site was used to calculate areal rates of production and compared with primary production estimates obtained from the C fixation measurements. It appeared that the PAM-based estimates gave a good prediction of the (potential) C fixation, with the exception of a number of dates for Molenplaat Stn B. This demonstrates that the variable fluorescence technique can become, after further calibration with C-14 for Other shallow sediments, a very useful tool in production studies, and can be instrumental in obtaining a good spa; tial coverage of primary production, which remains very difficult due to the patchiness in microphytobenthos biomass and production. [KEYWORDS: chlorophyll fluorescence; photosynthetic electron transport; C fixation; micro-phytobenthos; primary production; tidal flats Variable chlorophyll fluorescence; photosystem-ii; benthic microalgae; oxygen evolution; quantum yield; phytoplankton photosynthesis; marine-phytoplankton; natural assemblages;incident irradiance; charge separation]
Microstructural analysis of creep exposed IN617 alloy

Abstract Ni base alloys such as IN617 are one of the preferred choices for steam turbine components used by fossil fuelled power generation plants. IN617 is a solid solution strengthened Ni based superalloy containing ∼23%Cr, 12%Co and 9%Mo with low content of precipitation strengthening elements Al, Ti and Nb. In the 'as received' (solution annealed condition), the microstructure consists of primary carbides (M23C6) and occasional TiN particles dispersed in a single phase austenitic matrix. Owing to high temperature exposure and the creep deformation processes that occur in service, evolution of the microstructure occurs. This results in secondary precipitation and precipitate coarsening, both on grain boundaries and intragranularly in areas of high dislocation density. The influence of creep deformation on the solution treated IN617 alloy at an operating condition of 650 ∼C/574 h, with emphasis on the morphology and distribution of carbide/nitride precipitation is discussed. The applied stress was at an intermediate level.
Circulating Lipocalin-2 Levels Are Associated With Soluble Lectin-Like Oxidized Low-Density Lipoprotein Receptor-1 Levels In Type 2 Diabetic Patients

Purpose: Diabetes mellitus is associated with atherosclerotic and cardiovascular diseases. Our aim was to investigate the levels of lipocalin-2 (LCN-2) and soluble Lectin-like oxidized low-density lipoprotein receptor-1(sLOX-1) levels in both diabetics and prediabetic with comparison to non-diabetic subjects. We also examined the association of LCN-2 with sLOX-1 and albuminuria Methods: One hundred forty-two subjects with type 2 diabetes mellitus, 32 prediabetic subjects, 58 non-diabetic controls were consecutively enrolled in this study. LCN-2 and sLOX-1 levels were measured with ELISA assays. Results: LCN-2 levels didn’t show significant difference between diabetics, prediabetic and control groups (p = 0.864). sLOX-1 levels were significantly lower in diabetic group (2.53 ng/mL, median) compared with prediabetic (2.84 ng/mL, median; p = 0.041) and control groups (3.00 ng/mL, median; p = 0.001). Multiple linear regression analysis showed that urinary albumin excretion and sLOX1 were independently associated with LCN-2. When logistic regression analysis was performed LCN-2 was independent factor determining albuminuria (p = 0.021; OR, 1.001; (1.000-1.001) 95% CI). Conclusion: Our study provides the first clinical evidence demonstrating serum LCN-2 concentrations are independently associated with sLOX-1 levels which were found to be lower in type 2 diabetics unexpectedly. LCN-2 was also associated with albuminuria. Received: September 24,2018; Accepted: October 01,2018; Published: October 02,2018 *Corresponding author : Banu Sarer Yurekli, Ege University Faculty of Medicine, Department of Endocrinology, Ankara Street, Bornova, Izmir, Turkey, 35100,Tel: +90 5055250373;Fax: +902323247880;E-mail: bsareryurekli@yahoo.com
Morphological Features Growth and Development of Dendrobium sp. Orchid as Influenced by Nutrient Spray

The experiment was conducted to see the effect of nutrient spray on morphophysiological feature and growth of three orchid varieties namely Dendrobium Red Bull, D. Kasim Gold and D White 5 N. Results revealed that the morphophysiological and growth attributes significantly varied among the cultivars. D Red Bull showed the highest plant height, leaf length, leaf area and stem diameter among the varieties. D. White 5 N was superior in leaf number and total leaf area and D. Kasim Gold was superior in leaf area index and leaf width to the other varieties. On the other hand, the trend of increasing in leaf length, leaf width, leaf area index, leaf number, leaf area and total leaf area was the highest for N:P:K as 10:25:30. Plant height and stem diameter was maximum for N:P:K as 15:20:20. In conclusion, low level of nitrogen and high level of phosphorus and potassium was suitable for leaf length, leaf width, leaf area index, leaf number, leaf area and total leaf area while high level of nitrogen and low level of potassium was suitable for plant height and stem diameter. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.3329/jesnr.v5i1. 11598 J. Environ. Sci. & Natural Resources, 5(1): 309-318, 2012
Robust visual tracking of infrared object via sparse representation model

In this paper, we propose a robust tracking method for infrared object. We introduce the appearance model and the sparse representation in the framework of particle filter to achieve this goal. Representing every candidate image patch as a linear combination of bases in the subspace which is spanned by the target templates is the mechanism behind this method. The natural property, that if the candidate image patch is the target so the coefficient vector must be sparse, can ensure our algorithm successfully. Firstly, the target must be indicated manually in the first frame of the video, then construct the dictionary using the appearance model of the target templates. Secondly, the candidate image patches are selected in following frames and the sparse coefficient vectors of them are calculated via ℓ1-norm minimization algorithm. According to the sparse coefficient vectors the right candidates is determined as the target. Finally, the target templates update dynamically to cope with appearance change in the tracking process. This paper also addresses the problem of scale changing and the rotation of the target occurring in tracking. Theoretic analysis and experimental results show that the proposed algorithm is effective and robust.
Visual Flexibility in Arithmetic Expressions

We investigated whether, and in what, ways people use visual structures to evaluate mathematical expressions. We also explored the relationship between strategy use and other common measures in mathematics education. Participants organized long sum/products when visual structure was available in algebraic expressions. Two experiments showed a similar pattern: One group of participants primarily calculated from left to right, or combined identical numbers together. A second group calculated adjacent pairs. A third group tended to group terms which either produced easy sums (e.g., 6+4), or participated in a global structure. These different strategies were associated with different levels of success on the task, and, in Experiment 2, with differential math anxiety and mathematical skill. Specifically, problem solvers with lower math anxiety and higher math ability tend to group by chunks and easy calculation. These results identify an important role for the perception of coherent structure and pattern identification in mathematical reasoning.
The Effects of Different Applications on Creativity Regarding Academic Achievement: A Meta-Analysis.

In this study, through a meta-analysis of 20 studies, it is aimed to compare the effectiveness of various forms of learning methods including creativity based learning, problem based learning, and differentiated instruction on creativity in terms of the academic achievement of students and to find out other study characteristics, related to the effectiveness of creativity. Studies including the pretest-posttest control group model and collected from national and international arena between the years 2000 to 2015 were chosen. In this context, 20 studies that met inclusion criteria were analyzed under three themes: creativity based learning, problem based learning, and differentiated instruction by using Comprehensive Meta- Analysis and the MetaWin statistical program. In addition, other studies having effectiveness on creativity were categorized as “method” and “approach” and their effect sizes were calculated separately. The effect size values of academic achievement scores in each theme were found to be respectively 0.850, 1.560, and 0.729 which were significant and at a large level in the first two themes; at a medium level in the third theme according to the classification of Thalheimer and Cook. The results indicated that different applications had positive effects on academic achievement.
Lexicon-Driven Word Recognition Based on Levenshtein Distance

In this paper, we propose a word recognition method for printed Arabic word images using HMM and Levenshtein Distance. The existing algorithm has the difficulty for Arabic text recognition to treat various fonts and sizes. This is because Arabic characters are cursive and each character may have up to four different shapes based on its location in a word. Our work begins with segmentation of a word into characters. Then each character is recognized individually using HMM classifier. Since the recognition of HMM is not accurate enough, we apply Levenshtein distance to correct misclassification and miss segmentation of a character in a word. Levenshtein distance works by comparing between recognized word and every words in a dictionary. We tested our proposed system with APTI dataset, and the achieved average recognition rates in more than 95% for six different fonts.
Using Molecular Modelling Tools to Understand the Thermodynamic Behaviour of Ionic Liquids

Lourdes F. Vega*1,2, Oriol Vilaseca1,2, Edoardo Valente1, Jordi S. Andreu1,2, Felix Llovell1,2, and Rosa M. Marcos3 1MATGAS Research Center (Carburos Metalicos/Air Products Group, CSIC, UAB), Campus de la UAB, 08193 Bellaterra, Barcelona 2Institut de Ciencia de Materials de Barcelona. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas. ICMAB-CSIC. Campus de la UAB. 08193 Bellaterra, Barcelona. 3Departament d’Enginyeria Mecanica. Escola Tecnica Superior d’Enginyeria. Universitat Rovira i Virgili. Campus Sescelades. 43007 Tarragona. Spain
Deployment of Parallel Data Warehouse Joint Design in Teradata

Parallel databases play an important role in delivering performance required by data warehousing applications. Such performance can not be accomplished without a good scheme for fragmentation and allocation of data. Both problems are NP-hard problems and optimal solutions are impractical in real life situations. These two problems were addressed extensively in research and there are a lot of heuristic based efficient solutions that provide good results. In these solutions, the fragmentation and allocation were done separately. In our previous work, we proposed a genetic solution that solves both problems simultaneously which we refer to as a the joint solution. The joint solution was tested on some known benchmarks using internal simulations of a parallel database. These simulations are not reliable since it lacked the real life aspects of parallelism. This paper addresses this issue by applying our joint solution on the Teradata DBMS. We experiment the SSB benchmark (TPC-H like) on a Teradata appliance running TD 13.10. The results shows a significant improvement over previous results that performs fragmentation and allocation sequentially.
Development of cost-effective SNP assays for chickpea genome analysis and breeding

A total of 1499 ESTs generated from 26 different Cicer species, available in the public domain at the time of analysis, were used for in silico identification of SNPs using the bioinformatic tools developed at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) (http://hpc.icrisat.org/PBSWeb). Cluster analysis provided a total of 118 clusters, of which 11 clusters contained sequences from more than one Cicer species. Further, these clusters were assembled into 19 contigs and 184 putative SNPs were identified in 15 contigs. However, only 73 SNPs involved restriction enzyme sites for development of the CAPS assays as identified through the SNP2CAPs program. Primer pairs were designed for only 8 contigs (CL3a, CL3c, CL3d, CL3e, CL4a, CL10, CL20 and CL99) which had SNPs, resulting in putative recognition sites to commonly used restriction enzymes. Results of the demonstrates the utility of Cicer EST resources and the availability of bioinformatics analysis pipelines for the large-scale identification of SNPs on the HPC (High Performance Computer) at ICRISAT and the development of costeffective CAPS assay for SNP genotyping. It is anticipated that the availability of large number of ESTs from more than one genotype of cultivated chickpea (C. arietinum) in the near future will make it possible to develop larger number of SNPs in cultivated chickpea germplasm for genome analysis and breeding applications
Daily minimum and maximum temperature simulation over complex terrain

Spatiotemporal simulation of minimum and maximum temperature is a fundamental requirement for climate impact studies and hydrological or agricultural models. Particularly over regions with variable orography, these simulations are difficult to produce due to terrain driven nonstationarity. We develop a bivariate stochastic model for the spatiotemporal field of minimum and maximum temperature. The proposed framework splits the bivariate field into two components of "local climate" and "weather. " The local climate component is a linear model with spatially varying process coefficients capturing the annual cycle and yielding local climate estimates at all locations, not only those within the observation network. The weather component spatially correlates the bivariate simulations, whose matrix-valued covariance function we estimate using a nonparametric kernel smoother that retains nonnegative definiteness and allows for substantial nonstationarity across the simulation domain. The statistical model is augmented with a spatially varying nugget effect to allow for locally varying small scale variability. Our model is applied to a daily temperature data set covering the complex terrain of Colorado, USA, and successfully accommodates substantial temporally varying nonstationarity in both the direct-covariance and cross-covariance functions.
The spatial variation of macrobenthic community in the Negombo estuary in relation to physico-chemical parameters

Analysis of physico-chemical parameters gives an insight to the the spatial distribution of benthic communities in estuaries. With this view the present study was carried out to see whether the spatial distribution of macrobenthic fauna is governed by the physico-chemical parameters in sediment and overlying water in Negombo estuary, Sri Lanka. This study also attempted to determine the key physico-chemical determinants that govern this spatial distribution. During the study, the macrobenthic fauna at Moya, Virisiyanu Duwa, Kadol Kele, Dungalpitya, and Pamunugama within the estuary were collected and their species diversity and species richness were determined. Physico-chemical parameters such as the pore water salinity, temperature, pH, sand %, silt %, clay % and OM % in sediment as well as the salinity, pH, temperature, conductivity, DO, BOD 5 and NO 3- concentration in the over lying water were measured and analyzed using appropriate standard techniques. Results revealed that the species richness, species diversity, structure of the macrobenthic community and the physico-chemical parameters in sediment and the over lying water and the varied significantly between the five study sites. However, the species diversity and the species richness were positively correlated with the salinity and sand % while they were negatively correlated with the BOD 5, silt % and OM % in the sediment and overlying water. It is therefore evident that the spatial distribution of macrobenthic fauna in Negombo estuary is governed by a combination of some key physico-chemical parameters such as salinity, sand %, OM % and BOD 5 in the sediment and over lying water in this tropical estuary. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.4038/sljas.v16i0. 6714 Sri Lanka J. Aquat. Sci. 16 (2011): 41-62
THE EFFECTS OF PATHOGEN-INDUCED PSEUDOFLOWERS AND BUTTERCUPS ON EACH OTHER'S INSECT VISITATION'

Pseudoflowers induced by the rust fungus Puccinia monoica on Arabis spp. are flower-like in color, shape, size, nectar production, and scent. Pseudoflowers attract insects that aid the rust's reproduction in a way that is analogous to pollination in flowering plants. I explored the effects of pathogen-induced pseudoflowers and co-blooming butter- cups (Ranunculus inamoenus) on each other's insect visitation by comparing visitation in single-species plots and mixtures. Visitation to pseudoflowers was greater in mixtures containing buttercups than in pseudoflower plots of the same density, and visitation to buttercups was also greater in the mixtures than in pure buttercup plots. Because fungal pseudoflowers and buttercups both appeared to receive greater visitation when associated with each other than when alone, and both species produce food for insect visitors, this interaction could be described as Millerian floral mimicry. However, several characteristics of this system do not fit standard definitions of mimicry: (1) pseudoflowers are not nec- essarly mimicking any particular species but instead may be generalized flower-mimics, (2) flower visitors may not always mistake pseudoflowers for flowers but may actually choose them, and (3) under some circumstances pseudoflowers and flowers may compete for visitors. Competition in favor of pseudoflowers is most likely when flies are the primary flower visitors or on the rare occasions when pseudoflowers are common relative to other species.
Costs of Illness Among Older Adults: An Analysis of Six Major Health Conditions with Significant Environmental Risk Factors

This study estimates the cost burden associated with six major illnesses among Americans age 65 or older: chronic lung disease, ischemic heart disease, stroke, lung cancer, pneumonia, and gastrointestinal illness. These illnesses were selected because of their relatively high impact among older populations and because they include environmental exposures as a significant risk factor. A prevalence-based cost-of-illness approach was applied. Medical costs were estimated from Medicare claims data in 2000. Productivity losses were estimated through regression analyses of National Health Interview Survey data and using age-specific earnings and household production estimates. Estimated costs range from $0.5 billion (gastrointestinal illness) to almost $60 billion (ischemic heart disease). The combined costs of these conditions among the 65-or-older population in 2000 were almost $135 billion. A simple extrapolation of these cost estimates based on population growth and increases in average medical care prices since 2000 implies that the comparable costs in 2007 were more than $196 billion. With the expectation that these costs will continue to increase significantly as the population ages, priority should be given to prevention strategies such as environmental quality improvements.
Role of Subsurface Physics in the Assimilation of Surface Soil Moisture Observations

Abstract Root-zone soil moisture controls the land–atmosphere exchange of water and energy, and exhibits memory that may be useful for climate prediction at monthly scales. Assimilation of satellite-based surface soil moisture observations into a land surface model is an effective way to estimate large-scale root-zone soil moisture. The propagation of surface information into deeper soil layers depends on the model-specific representation of subsurface physics that is used in the assimilation system. In a suite of experiments, synthetic surface soil moisture observations are assimilated into four different models [Catchment, Mosaic, Noah, and Community Land Model (CLM)] using the ensemble Kalman filter. The authors demonstrate that identical twin experiments significantly overestimate the information that can be obtained from the assimilation of surface soil moisture observations. The second key result indicates that the potential of surface soil moisture assimilation to improve root-zone information is h.
Possibilities for Breathing Improvement in Patients with Unilateral Postoperative Defects of the Upper Jaw

Introduction: The injuries occurred after surgical treatment of tumors in maxillofacial area seriously violated breathing. Aim: The aim of this survey is to follow up the breathing changes in patients with unilateral postoperative defects of the upper jaw, after prosthetic treatment with obturators, made of heat cured acrylic and rebased directly with silicone material. Material and methods: In this study was included 15 patients (9 men and 6 women) with oncological operations of the upper jaw and prosthetic treatment by heat cured acrylic obturators, rebased directly with silicone material in the period of 2013-2016 year. For assessing the progress of hermetization in the area of the defect and breathing was used the device RhinoScan SRE2000. Results: The described approach of prosthetic rehabilitation ensured optimum hermetization of post resection defects and normalization of the nasal breathing. The results of acoustic rhinograms have shown an improvement of breathing in all examined patients. Conclusions: Prosthetic treatment with obturators, made of heat cured acrylic and rebased with silicon material, improves significantly the nasal breathing in patients with unilateral maxillary defects.