Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Phylogenetic Position of the African Lungfish in Sudan Inferred from the Complete Sequences of the Mitochondrial 12S rRNA and 16S rRNA Genes

The mitochondrial DNA sequence of the lungfish is intriguing because of its evolutionary position as possibly the closest living relative to land vertebrates among fish. Here, we show the relationship between two lungfish subspecies in different geographical regions of Sudan as well as their relationship to tetrapods, actinopterygii and coelacanth by constructing phylogenetic trees. Mitochondrial 12S and 16S rRNA gene alignment results showed that members of the two lungfish subspecies studied are sister groups and that the coelacanth are more closely related to tetrapods than the lungfish of Sudan. The taxonomy database will be extended to include a significant proportion of Sudanese dipnoans.
Studies on the antiulcer activity of Moringa oleifera leaf extract on gastric ulcer models in rats

The methanol fraction of M. oleifera leaf extract was found to possess significant protective actions in acetylsalicylic acid, serotonin and indomethacin induced gastric lesions in experimental rats. A significant enhancement of the healing process in acetic acid—induced chronic gastric lesions was also observed with the extract‐treated animals.
Food-, temperature-and crowding-mediated laboratory dispersal of Carcinops pumilio (Erichson) (Coleoptera: Histeridae), a predator of house fly (Diptera: Muscidae) eggs and larvae

The dispersal potential of natural enemies is critical to the success of biological control by mass releases. In this paper the effects of satiation level, temperature and crowding on the dispersal of the house fly predator, Carcinops pumilio (Erichson), was studied under laboratory conditions. Adults with access to sufficient prey were reluctant to disperse and no flight dispersal was observed after 11 days of starving, which could be associated with depletion in energy reserves. Dispersion was less pronounced at 20 °C than at 30 °C. A crowding level of 50 C. pumilio adults per 200 ml container resulted in the least dispersal and did not exceed 2.5 % per day compared with up to 24 % dispersal at a crowding level of 400 per 200 ml. The absence of food, increase in temperature and overcrowding, in any interaction, could be the driving force to initiate dispersal in C. pumilio. No significant sexual differences were found in the effects of the different parameters (food, temperature and crowding) on dispersal.
Increased susceptibility to oxidative damage as a cost of accelerated somatic growth in zebra finches

1. Most animals do not grow at their maximal rate. This might appear puzzling because the early attainment of a large body size incurs several selective benefits, such as reduced risk of predation and earlier reproductive output. Several hypotheses have been suggested to explain this paradox. Among them, the cost due to high levels of oxidative stress, as the consequence of sustained metabolic activity during growth, has been put forward. 2. In this study, we wished to assess this cost in captive zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata). In order to manipulate access to food and consequently early growth, hatchlings were randomly assigned to reduced or enlarged broods. Even though nestlings raised in enlarged broods were smaller when 20-days-old compared to nestlings raised in reduced broods, they grew faster during the following 20-day period. 3. When 60-days-old, we measured the resistance of red blood cells against a free radical attack and correlated these values to nestling growth rate. In agreement with the prediction, we found that red blood cell resistance to free radicals was negatively correlated with growth rate, nestlings that grew faster being those with the weakest capacity to resist a free radical attack. These results support the hypothesis that oxidative damage might constrain growth rate. Furthermore, the fact that the relationship was only established during the period of accelerated growth after the initial delay also suggests that compensatory growth can negatively affect the individual resistance to oxidative damage.
Structural Elucidation and Antioxidant Activity of a Polysaccharide from Mycelia Fermentation of Hirsutella sinensis Isolated from Ophiocordyceps sinensis

The structure and antioxidant activity of a polysaccharide from mycelia fermentation of Hirsutella sinensis were analyzed. The natural active component water-soluble polysaccharides was isolated from mycelia, and three polysaccharide fractions HSP-1, HSP-2, and HSP-3 were purified with chromatography and the structures were identified. The structural characteristics determination with a combination of chemical and instrumental analysis methods showed that the mainly component HSP-1 was about 1.7×104 Da, and composed of glucose, mannose and galactose at a molar ratio of 4.5:1.0:1.4. Further researches revealed that HSP-1 was a branched polysaccharide possessing a backbone of (1→4)-α-D-glucose residues (~70%), (1→4)-α-D-mannose residues (~15%) and (1→4)-α-D-galactose residues (~15%). The branches were at the (1,2,4,6→)-α-D-glucose residues (~8%) of the backbone, mainly composed of (1→4)-α-D-glucose residues, (1→4)-α-D-galcatose residues, (1→4)-α-D-mannose residues, and terminated with α-D-galactose residues. The in vitro antioxidant assay proved HSP-1 possessed the hydroxyl radical-scavenging activity with an IC50 value of 0.834 mg/mL.
EFFECT OF SOURCE-SINK RATIO ON DRY MATTER ACCUMULATION AND LEAF SENESENCE OF MAIZE

The effect of source-sink ratio (i.e., the ability of the leaves to produce photosynthate versus the capacity of the grain to accommodate the assimilates) on dry matter accumulation and leaf senescence during the grain filling period of two short-season maize (Zea mays L.) hybrids was investigated in 1979 and 1980. Source-sink ratio of the maize hybrids was altered by ear removal at midsilking and at 3 wk after midsilking; by partial fertilization of the topmost ear so that treatment ears contained approximately 50% of kernel number of the control; and by removal of all leaf blades but that of the ear leaf at 2 wk after midsilking. Crop growth rate during the period from 3–5 wk after midsilking was reduced by 30% for the partly fertilized treatment and by 60% for both ear removal treatments. During the period from 5 to 7 wk after midsilking, the treatment-by-hybrid interaction for crop growth rate reflected different patterns of leaf senescence. In one hybrid, treatments which caused reductions in sink si.
The relationship of stand structure with canopy transmittance: Simple models and practical methods for managing understory light conditions in eastern white pine (Pinus strobus L.)-dominated forests

The relationship of stand structural features with understory light levels, estimated by gap light index (GLI), was investigated in 22 second-growth eastern white (Pinus strobus L.) and red pine (Pinus resinosa Ait.)-dominated stands in central Ontario that encompassed a broad range in density and basal area. Simple, empirical light models were developed to quantify the influence of several stand structural variables on canopy transmittance as estimated by GLI. Models were also derived to facilitate the operational identification of residual basal area, density, and percent canopy closure associated with target understory light levels that optimize the growth of white pine regeneration and its protection from weevil and blister rust when using the uniform shelterwood silvicultural system. Regression models indicated significant negative, nonlinear relationships of GLI with density, basal area, a stand density index, total crown area, and foliar biomass, while GLI was linearly related to percent canopy clo.
Phenotypic diversity of 188 rice embryo mutants

We have identified 188 embryo mutants of rice and characterized them into six groups based on their phenotypes: (1) embryoless in mature seed, (2) deletion of embryonic organ(s), (3) abnormal position of embryonic organs, (4) abnormal embryo size, (5) defect in organ morphology, and (6) variable abnormal phenotypes in spite of single mutations. Three types of organless mutants are obtained: small globular embryo, club-shaped embryo, and large embryo. Although 12 shootless mutants derived from at least three loci are identified, only three radicleless mutants are recovered, which produce normal adventitious roots after germination. In reduced embryo mutants, every embryonic organ is reduced, in contrast to giant embryo mutants in which only scutellum is enlarged. Considerable number of mutants are categorized into (5) and (6) in the above. These diverse embryo mutants would serve as promising materials for genetic study of embryogenesis. © 1995 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
The Role of Extrinsic and Intrinsic Factors on the Departure Decisions of a Long-Distance Migratory Passerine

Summary. Factors determining departure decisions of migrants from a stopover site can be extrinsic and/or intrinsic but the relative role of each of these factors on departure decisions is still poorly known. Date and wind should be the main factors determining departure decisions in a long-distance migrant, which is expected to minimise duration of migration. Date was considered as an intrinsic factor and wind as an extrinsic one. We analysed the capture-recapture data of a long-distance migrant European songbird, the sedge warbler Acrocephalus schoenobaenus, from a stopover site in northern Iberia during the autumn migration period to quantify the relative importance of several factors on emigration likelihood. Cormack-Jolly-Seber (CJS) models were used to estimate the emigration likelihood. From 107 models tested, only the model with an additive effect of date, tailwind assistance and population size substantially supported the data. As expected, sedge warblers were more likely to depart with high tailwind values and late in the season and, contrary to expectations, with decreasing sedge warbler abundance.
Kalman filtering to real-time trace water level measurements using ultrasonic sensor

Water level monitoring systems are needed in various related fields. However, to accurately determine water levels typically difficult due to the effect like sloshing in dynamic environments. In this paper, we proposed Kalman filter based approach to reduce uncertainty in the water level measurements. Experiments have been performed by filling the tank with water and installing an ultrasonic sensor module at the top center of the tank. The water tank is vibrated with an artificial vibrator, then measuring the water level is done by the ultrasonic sensor. To reduce measurement errors we introduced the Kalman filtering. This technique is developed for improving the precision of water level measurements in the presence of various noise sources. The Kalman filter performance is demonstrated to be adaptive to real-time noise. Experiment results indicate reducing the errors of measurement significantly up to about 60% for a dynamic water condition by adjusting appropriately the Kalman filter tuning parameters.
Efficiency of Prepared Chelate Fertilizer From Humic Acid in Reducing Ammonia Volatilization From Urea Fertilizer

Composted cow manure sample was collected from filed of college of Agriculture, University of Basrah. Its properties were identified. Humic acid was extracted from cow manure and diagnosed according to elemental analysis (CHN), spectral study (E4/E6), infra-red spectrum (IR), in addition to chemical composition of functional groups. Two types of humic acid were prepared, one of them humic acid with fermented plant residue (HA1-N) and other humic acid with zeolite (HA2-N). A laboratory experiment was carried out to study the amount of ammonia volatile from two prepared chelate fertilizers (HA1-N and HA2-N) and urea fertilizer by incubation two types of soils (sandy soil and clay loam soil) at 35°C with four rates of nitrogen (0, 125, 250 and 500 mg N kg-1 soil) and with five incubation time (3, 6, 12, 24 and 48 days). The study found that increasing rate of nitrogen and incubation time increased ammonia volatilization, and the highest value was at the rate 500 mg N kg-1 soil and at 48 days of incubation to reach a 21.427 and 9.736 mg N-NH3 Kg-1 soil for sandy soil and clay loam soil, respectively. Application of two prepared chelate fertilizers (HA1-N and HA2-N) at rate 500 mg N Kg -1 reduced ammonia volatilization to 99.30 % and 98.62 % for sandy soil and 98.96 % and 97.77 % for clay loam soil comparing with urea fertilizer . Fertilizers were took the following order in reducing ammonia volatilization : HA1-N > HA2-N > Urea.
The Effect of Natural and Artificial Shade on the Macrophytes of Lowland Streams and the Use of Shade as a Management Technique

The reduction of the biomass of three main problem species of submerged aquatic macrophytes was proportional to the light at the stream surface both under artificially shaded sections of stream and in naturally shaded areas when compared to the biomass in adjacent open and unshaded sections of stream. The effect of marginal vegetation in varying the shading effect given to streams of differing width and orientation are described. It is recommended that light should be reduced to about half that presently available in the open, by shading from marginal vegetation but it is warned that too much shade is detrimental to the fish populations of the stream and leads to accentuated local accumulations of leaves. The long term effects are considered but it is expected that partial shading will increase the diversity of submerged plant species. It is suggested that the practice of stream realignment is discontinued and that the natural tendency of streams to create their own meandering channels is allowed but within some defined and generally acceptable framework.
Crescimento de Siegesbeckia orientalis sob diferentes condições de luminosidade

This study aimed to contrast the effects of shading on the growth of S. orientalis by applying growth analysis. The experiments were conducted in pots under full sunlight (A) and 50% shading (B). Plant growth indices were determined at 14, 28, 42, 56, 80, 94 and 108 days after transplant (DAT) for A and at 14, 28, 42, 56, 70, 84, 108, 122, 136 DAT for B. The experimental design was completely randomized, with four repetitions. Data were analyzed by means of regression analysis. The models were chosen based on the significance of the regression coefficients, using the t test up to 10% in the determination coefficient and the phenomenon under study. The plants presented a similar behavior in A and B for most of the variables analyzed; however, the plants under shading (mean radiation of 218 µmol m-² s-¹) had a longer cultural cycle duration (around 140 DAT) with their maximum and minimum points being much slower than the plants under full sunlight (average of 658 µmol m-² s-¹), with approximately 110 DAT. The plants under shading also obtained the highest averages for most of the indices evaluated, such as leaf area, height, number of leaves and floral capitulum, total dry biomass, absolute growth rate, relative growth rate, leaf weight ratio, leaf area ratio and specific leaf area, indicating that this species is favored by shading.
In vitro rearing of parasitoids: role of host factors in nutrition.

Evidence for the role of host components in the growth and development of parasitoids is briefly reviewed, and implications concerning the development of in vitro culture media are discussed. In vitro development of the entomophagous parasitoids Eucelatoria bryani Sabrosky (Diptera: Tachinidae) and Trichogramma pretiosum Riley (Hymenoptera: Trichogrammatidae) is dependent on low-molecular-weight host chemicals. Asparagine, but not aspartic acid, and several other free amino acids are essential dietary ingredients for E. bryani. From insect hemolymph, small, unidentified polar molecules with characteristics similar to sugars are needed for pupation of T. pretiosum. Both adaptive and nonadaptive changes likely are responsible for the dependence of parasitoids on host factors. The genetic changes have no apparent adverse effect unless the parasitoids are fed artificial media devoid of certain chemicals that are obtained in vivo from host insects. The rearing of at least several species of important entomophages to control pest insects of great economic importance is dependent on the identification of constituents from host insects and inclusion of these chemicals in artifical diets.
Cascade^CNN: Pushing the Performance Limits of Quantisation in Convolutional Neural Networks

This work presents CascadeCNN, an automated toolflow that pushes the quantisation limits of any given CNN model, aiming to perform high-throughput inference. A two-stage architecture tailored for any given CNN-FPGA pair is generated, consisting of a low-and high-precision unit in a cascade. A confidence evaluation unit is employed to identify misclassified cases from the excessively low-precision unit and forward them to the high-precision unit for re-processing. Experiments demonstrate that the proposed toolflow can achieve a performance boost up to 55% for VGG-16 and 48% for AlexNet over the baseline design for the same resource budget and accuracy, without the need of retraining the model or accessing the training data.
Transcriptome analysis of paradormancy release in root buds of leafy spurge (Euphorbia esula)

Abstract Bud dormancy is the primary mechanism by which the many perennial weeds escape herbicidal and mechanical control. We developed a 2,654-element Euphorbiaceae cDNA microarray using 1,886 sequenced cDNAs from the model perennial weed leafy spurge, 384 cDNAs from cassava, and 384 control genes from other plant, animal, and bacterial species. This array was used to follow changes in gene expression in root buds of leafy spurge following loss of paradormancy. The differential expression of several genes previously identified as being induced following loss of paradormancy was confirmed by microarray analysis. In addition, genes encoding an asparagine synthase, a phosphate-inducible protein, and a curculin-like (mannose-binding) lectin family protein were found to be rapidly up-regulated upon loss of paradormancy. Several genes involved in flavonoid biosynthesis were found to be rapidly down-regulated upon loss of paradormancy. The potential impact of flavonoid biosynthesis on auxin transport in response to bud growth is discussed. Nomenclature: Leafy spurge, Euphorbia esula L. EPHES; cassava,
Anatomical variation in juvenile eucalypt leaves accounts for differences in specific leaf area and CO2 assimilation rates

Specific leaf area (SLA) is an important leaf attribute representing a compromise between the capture of light and CO2 and the limitations imposed by leaf structure, herbivore resistance and the mitigation of water loss. We examined three Eucalyptus L'Her. species to determine whether variation in CO2 assimilation rate was related to SLA and leaf anatomy. Seedlings were grown in a naturally illuminated glasshouse with adequate water and nutrients. Light-saturated rates of photosynthesis were measured on the youngest fully expanded leaves. Mesophyll characteristics were measured from sections thick of the interveinal leaf lamina. Significant interspecies variation in SLA corresponded to clear trends in anatomy and photosynthesis. Low-SLA leaves were thicker, having increased thickness of palisade mesophyll because of a greater number of palisade layers. E. occidentalis, E.camaldulensis and E. grandis had 3.7, 2.0 and 1.0 layers of palisade cells which corresponded to an SLA of 14.8, 17.6 and 21.8 m2 kg-1, respectively. High investment of dry mass in photosynthetic tissue was associated with higher leaf N (area and mass) concentration, chlorophyll concentration and photosynthetic capacity per leaf area. Leaf morphology affected use of the resources N, water and CO2. In contrast to the thin leaves of E. grandis, thick leaves of E. occidentalis had low N-use efficiency and high instantaneous water-use efficiency. Differences in leaf structure of these species appear to reflect the most limiting resource experienced in the environments to which they have adapted.
Bone marrow mesenchymal stem cell from chronic hepatitis B patients differentiation into hepatocyte-like cells

The aim of this study was to observe the biological characteristics and hepatic differentiation potential of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BM-MSCs) from chronic hepatitis B patients in vitro. MSCs were isolated from bone marrow of 15 chronic hepatitis B patients and 11 normal donors by density gradient centrifugation. The adipogenic and osteogenic differentiation potential, immunophenotyping and DNA contents were detected. Chronic hepatitis B patients BM-MSCs were induced to hepatocytes. Hepatic markers were detected by immunohistochemical analysis. Periodic acideschiff staining was used to detect for glycogen production. The results showed that both MSCs had adipogenic and osteogenic differentiation potential, nearly all the BM-MSCs expressed CD105, CD166, CD44 and CD29. Compared with normal donors, the primary passage time of BM-MSCs from chronic hepatitis B patients were much longer, and the S-phase nuclei were lower. Chronic hepatitis B patients BM-MSCs were induced to hepatocyte-like cell, which express the hepatic-specific markers and have the glycogen production function. Though it was difficult to cultivate BM-MSCs from chronic hepatitis patients in vitro and they had deficient proliferation, they could differentiate into functional hepatocyte-like cells. Key words: Hepatitis B, mesenchymal stem cell, bone marrow, hepatocyte-like cell, glycogen.