Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Antibacterial Evaluation and Phytochemical Analysis of Selected Medicinal Plants against Some Pathogenic Enteric Bacteria in Gozamin District, Ethiopia

Antibacterial activity evaluation and Phytochemical Analysis of aqueous, chloroform, methanol and ethanol crude extracts of thirteen medicinal plants species that were selected based on ethno botanical information on their traditional use were tested for treatment of enteric disease in Gozamin District. The study has been carried out from January 5, 2014 to February 15, 2015. All of these plants were extracted following standard methods (Soaking extraction method and agar-well diffusion) to screen of potential anti-microbial substance. All crude extracts of those medicinal plants were tested against standard reference strains including Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Shigella sonnei, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Salmonella typhimurium. The highest antibacterial activity (17 mm) was observed from chloroform leaf extract of Eucalyptus globules against E. coli and leaf extract of Verbena officinalis (13.6 mm) extract against Shigella sonnei, followed by methanol leaf extract of Cordia africana (12.8 mm) against E. coli. More over Eucalyptus globules was positive for all bioactive compounds tested except saponins and Verbena officinalis was positive for all bioactive ingredients tested except alkaloids. In general extracts of Eucalyptus globules leaves exhibited the highest potency against E. coli and extract Verbena officinalis showed highest potency against Shigella sonnei. Thus, this study confirmed the alternative sources of medicine for pathogenic enteric bacteria tested.
The Earth's electromagnetic environment

It is found that the energy density of electromagnetic fields at the surface of the Earth follow a scaling law that extends over ∼16 orders of magnitude from ∼10−9 Hz to ∼107 Hz. The temporal variability of the field can be described with an ∼1/f2, or Brownian, noise power spectrum which reflects the superposition of numerous transient source processes. To the best of our knowledge, the spectral extent of this straightforward scaling law is unparalleled and outperforms any other scaling law in physics which describes a time dependent observable. The frequency dependence of the energy density can be approximated with the analytic description u(f) = u0(f0/f)2 where u0 = 10−16 Jm−3Hz−1, f0 = 1 Hz is a scaling constant, and f is the frequency of the electromagnetic field. The corresponding frequency dependence of the magnetic field is B(f) = B0(f0/f) where B0 = 10−11 T/Hz1/2.
Efficient Semantic Segmentation Using Gradual Grouping

Deep CNNs for semantic segmentation have high memory and run time requirements. Various approaches have been proposed to make CNNs efficient like grouped, shuffled, depth-wise separable convolutions. We study the effectiveness of these techniques on a real-time semantic segmentation architecture like ERFNet for improving runtime by over 5X. We apply these techniques to CNN layers partially or fully and evaluate the testing accuracies on Cityscapes dataset. We obtain accuracy vs parameters/FLOPs trade offs, giving accuracy scores for models that can run under specified runtime budgets. We further propose a novel training procedure which starts out with a dense convolution but gradually evolves towards a grouped convolution. We show that our proposed training method and efficient architecture design can improve accuracies by over 8% with depthwise separable convolutions applied on the encoder of ERFNet and attaching a light weight decoder. This results in a model which has a 5X improvement in FLOPs while only suffering a 4% degradation in accuracy with respect to ERFNet.
Multi-task WaveNet: A Multi-task Generative Model for Statistical Parametric Speech Synthesis without Fundamental Frequency Conditions

This paper introduces an improved generative model for statistical parametric speech synthesis (SPSS) based on WaveNet under a multi-task learning framework. Different from the original WaveNet model, the proposed Multi-task WaveNet employs the frame-level acoustic feature prediction as the secondary task and the external fundamental frequency prediction model for the original WaveNet can be removed. Therefore the improved WaveNet can generate high-quality speech waveforms only conditioned on linguistic features. Multi-task WaveNet can produce more natural and expressive speech by addressing the pitch prediction error accumulation issue and possesses more succinct inference procedures than the original WaveNet. Experimental results prove that the SPSS method proposed in this paper can achieve better performance than the state-of-the-art approach utilizing the original WaveNet in both objective and subjective preference tests.
Power-law scaling of extreme dynamics near higher-order exceptional points

We investigate the extreme dynamics of non-Hermitian systems near higher-order exceptional points in photonic networks constructed using the bosonic algebra method. We show that strong power oscillations for certain initial conditions can occur as a result of the peculiar eigenspace geometry and its dimensionality collapse near these singularities. By using complementary numerical and analytical approaches, we show that, in the parity-time ($\mathcal{PT}$) phase near exceptional points, the logarithm of the maximum optical power amplification scales linearly with the order of the exceptional point. We focus in our discussion on photonic systems, but we note that our results apply to other physical systems as well.
Thunderstorm clouds may discharge directly to the ionosphere in spectacular luminous jets – the largest electric discharges of our planet

[1] Thunderstorm clouds may discharge directly to the ionosphere in spectacular luminous jets – the largest electric discharges of our planet. The properties of these “giants,” such as their polarity, conductivity, and currents, have been predicted by models, but are poorly characterized by measurements. A recent observation of a giant, fortuitously illuminated by an unusual sprite discharge in the mesosphere, allows us to study their electric properties and effects on the atmosphere-ionosphere. We show from a first-principles model of the combined giant and sprite event that the observations are consistent with the nature of the giant being a leader in the stratosphere of line charge density 0.8 mCm 1 and of multiple streamers in the mesosphere. It is further shown that the giant modifies the free electron content of the lower ionosphere because of electric field-driven ionization, electron attachment and detachment processes. This is the first time that sprites are used for sounding the properties of the mesosphere. The results presented here will allow evaluation of theories for jet and gigantic jets and of their influence on the atmosphere and ionosphere.
Development of an Influenza Rapid Diagnostic Kit Specific for the H7 Subtype

Since the spring of 2013, human infections with H7N9 viruses have been detected in China. Some of these viruses have become highly pathogenic. Highly and low pathogenic avian influenza H7N9 viruses are currently co-circulating with the seasonal influenza A viruses H3N2 and H1N1pdm09. Prompt identification and isolation of H7N9 patients is one measure to prevent the spread of H7N9 virus and help prevent a pandemic. The majority of commercially available point-of-care rapid influenza diagnostic kits can differentiate between influenza A and B viruses, but cannot distinguish between H7N9 viruses and seasonal influenza A viruses. Accordingly, we have developed a rapid diagnostic kit specific for the H7 subtype that is accessible, easy to use. Although the detection limit of this H7 kit is one-tenth lower than that of a commercially available rapid influenza A and B diagnostic kit of similar design, except for the specificity of the monoclonal antibodies used, this kit is highly specific, detecting only H7-subtype influenza viruses, including the recent highly pathogenic H7N9 viruses from humans, and does not show any non-specific reactions with other HA subtypes. This H7 kit will be of value for the early detection of H7N9-infected patients.
Development and Verification of Enclosure Radiation Capabilities in the CHarring Ablator Response (CHAR) Code

With the recent development of multi-dimensional thermal protection system (TPS) material response codes, the capability to account for surface-to-surface radiation exchange in complex geometries is critical. This paper presents recent efforts to implement such capabilities in the CHarring Ablator Response (CHAR) code developed at NASA's Johnson Space Center. This work also describes the different numerical methods implemented in the code to compute geometric view factors for radiation problems involving multiple surfaces. Verification of the code's radiation capabilities and results of a code-to-code comparison are presented. Finally, a demonstration case of a two-dimensional ablating cavity with enclosure radiation accounting for a changing geometry is shown.
Evaluation of phenolic compounds content and in vitro antioxidant activity of red wines produced from Vitis labrusca grapes

Wine production in the northern Curitiba, Parana, Brazil, specifically the communes of Colombo and Almirante Tamandare, is based mainly on the utilization of Vitis labrusca grapes var. Bordo (Ives). Total sugar content, pH, and total acidity were analyzed in red wine samples from 2007 and 2008 vintages following official methods of analysis. Moreover, total phenolic, flavonoid, and tannin contents were analyzed by colorimetric methodologies and the antioxidant activity was determined using the 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical methodology. Phenolic compounds were identified by high performance liquid chromatography. The total phenolic content of wine samples presented concentrations varying between 1582.35 and 2896.08 mg gallic acid.L-1 since the major part corresponds to flavonoid content. In these compounds' concentration range, a direct relationship between phenolic compounds content and levels of antioxidant activity was not observed. Among the identified phenolic compounds, chlorogenic, caffeic, and syringic acids were found to be the major components. Using three principal components, it was possible to explain 81.36% of total variance of the studied samples. Principal Components Analysis does not differentiate between vintages.
Can C-Band SAR be used to estimate soil organic carbon storage in tundra?

A new approach for the estimation of Soil Organic Carbon (SOC) pools North of the tree line has been developed based on synthetic aperture radar data (SAR). SOC values are directly determined from backscatter values instead of upscaling using land cover or soil classes. The multi-mode capability of SAR allows application across scales. It can be shown that measurements in C-band under frozen conditions represent vegetation and surface structure properties which relate to soil properties, specifically SOC. It is estimated that at least 29 PgC are stored in the upper 30 cm of soils North of the tree 5 line. This is approximately 25% less than stocks derived from the soil map based Northern Circumpolar Soil Carbon Database (NCSCD). The total stored carbon is underestimated since the established empirical relationship is not valid for peatlands as well as strongly cryoturbated soils. The approach does however provide the first spatially consistent account of soil organic carbon across the Arctic. Furthermore, it could be shown that values obtained from 1 km resolution SAR correspond to accounts based on a high spatial resolution (2 m) land cover map over a study area of about 7 x 7 km in NE Siberia. The approach can 10 be also potentially transferred to medium resolution C-band SAR data such as ENVISAT ASAR Wide Swath with 120 m resolution but it is in general limited to regions without woody vegetation. Comparisons to the length of unfrozen period indicates the suitability of this parameter for modelling of the spatial distribution of soil organic carbon storage. 1 Biogeosciences Discuss. , doi:10.5194/bg-2016-157, 2016 Manuscript under review for journal Biogeosciences Published: 3 May 2016 c © Author(s) 2016. CC-BY 3.0 License.
Global Semantic Consistency for Zero-Shot Learning

In image recognition, there are many cases where training samples cannot cover all target classes. Zero-shot learning (ZSL) utilizes the class semantic information to classify samples of the unseen categories that have no corresponding samples contained in the training set. In this paper, we propose an end-to-end framework, called Global Semantic Consistency Network (GSC-Net for short), which makes complete use of the semantic information of both seen and unseen classes, to support effective zero-shot learning. We also adopt a soft label embedding loss to further exploit the semantic relationships among classes. To adapt GSC-Net to a more practical setting, Generalized Zero-shot Learning (GZSL), we introduce a parametric novelty detection mechanism. Our approach achieves the state-of-the-art performance on both ZSL and GZSL tasks over three visual attribute datasets, which validates the effectiveness and advantage of the proposed framework.
Transcriptional activities of methanogens and methanotrophs vary with methane emission flux in rice soils under chronic nutrient constraints of phosphorus and potassium

Abstract. Nutrient status in soil is crucial for the growth and development of plants which indirectly or directly affect the ecophysiological functions of resident soil microorganisms. Soil methanogens and methanotrophs can be affected by soil nutrient availabilities and plant growth, which in turn modulate methane (CH4) emissions. Here, we assessed whether deficits in soil-available phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) modulated the activities of methanogens and methanotrophs in a long-term (20 year) experimental system involving limitation in either one or both nutrients. Results showed that a large amount of CH4 was emitted from paddy soil at rice tillering stage (flooding) while CH4 flux was minimum at ripening stage (drying). Compared to soils amended with NPK fertiliser treatment, the soils without P input significantly reduced methane flux rates, whereas those without K input did not. Under P limitation, methanotroph transcript copy number significantly increased in tandem with a decrease in methanogen transcript abundance, suggesting that P-deficiency-induced changes in soil physio-chemical properties, in tandem with rice plant growth, might constrain the activity of methanogens, whereas the methanotrophs might be adaptive to this soil environment. In contrast, lower transcript abundance of both methanogen and methanotrophs were observed in K-deficient soils. Assessments of community structures based upon transcripts indicated that soils deficient in P induced greater shifts in the active methanotrophic community than K-deficient soils, while similar community structures of active methanogens were observed in both treatments. These results suggested that the population dynamics of methanogens and methanotrophs could vary along with the changes in plant growth states and soil properties induced by nutrient deficiency.
Effect of type and level of dietary fibre supplements in rats

Both experimental and clinical studies have indicated that a novel source of dietary fibres is potentially hypolipidemic. In the present study, turnip, sugar beet, cabbage and fenugreek green leaves were used as natural new sources of dietary fibres, to examine their effects on nutritional parameters and lipid metabolism in rats fed for 8 weeks comparing with a control diet (fibre-free control). Chemical analyses of the 4 plants revealed that there are differences between the ratios of soluble and insoluble non - starch polysaccharides (NSP) and their monomers constituents. Higher levels of uronic acid were present in soluble fibre (NSP) in all fibre sources than that of insoluble one. Generally, highly significant decrease in the weight gain and food intake of the rats fed the 4 experimental diets after 8 weeks feeding comparing with those fed control diet. Rats fed turnip diet exhibited a highly significant decrease in all the nutritional parameters through the feeding period. Rats fed a diet supplemented with sugar beet fibre, have a highly significant decrease in the value of weight gain, food intake and Dapp over the feeding period. Sugar beet, cabbage and fenugreek green fibre-containing diets had lowering effect on serum total lipid, total cholesterol, LDL-C (except sugar beet) and triglycerides levels than that of control diet fed rats. Supplemented the diet with turnip fibre had only lowering effect on serum triglycerides over the feeding period. Hepatic total lipid and total cholesterol levels were significantly lower when rats fed cabbage and fenugreek green fiber-containing diets. Highly significant decrease in the level of triglycerides was achieved in the liver of rats fed turnip fibre supplemented diet comparing with the experimental period (8 weeks).
Meson formation in mixed-dimensional t-J models

Surprising properties of doped Mott insulators are at the heart of many quantum materials, including transition metal oxides and organic materials. The key to unraveling complex phenomena observed in these systems lies in understanding the interplay of spin and charge degrees of freedom. One of the most debated questions concerns the nature of charge carriers in a background of fluctuating spins. To shed new light on this problem, we suggest a simplified model with mixed dimensionality, where holes move through a Mott insulator unidirectionally while spin exchange interactions are two dimensional. By studying individual holes in this system, we find direct evidence for the formation of mesonic bound states of holons and spinons, connected by a string of displaced spins – a precursor of the spin-charge separation obtained in the 1D limit of the model. Our predictions can be tested using ultracold atoms in a quantum gas microscope, allowing to directly image spinons and holons, and reveal the short-range hidden string order which we predict in this model.
A multi-year methane inversion using SCIAMACHY, accounting for systematic errors using TCCON measurements

Abstract. This study investigates the use of total column CH4 (XCH4) retrievals from the SCIAMACHY satellite instrument for quantifying large-scale emissions of methane. A unique data set from SCIAMACHY is available spanning almost a decade of measurements, covering a period when the global CH4 growth rate showed a marked transition from stable to increasing mixing ratios. The TM5 4DVAR inverse modelling system has been used to infer CH4 emissions from a combination of satellite and surface measurements for the period 2003–2010. In contrast to earlier inverse modelling studies, the SCIAMACHY retrievals have been corrected for systematic errors using the TCCON network of ground-based Fourier transform spectrometers. The aim is to further investigate the role of bias correction of satellite data in inversions. Methods for bias correction are discussed, and the sensitivity of the optimized emissions to alternative bias correction functions is quantified. It is found that the use of SCIAMACHY retrievals in TM5 4DVAR increases the estimated inter-annual variability of large-scale fluxes by 22% compared with the use of only surface observations. The difference in global methane emissions between 2-year periods before and after July 2006 is estimated at 27–35 Tg yr−1. The use of SCIAMACHY retrievals causes a shift in the emissions from the extra-tropics to the tropics of 50 ± 25 Tg yr−1. The large uncertainty in this value arises from the uncertainty in the bias correction functions. Using measurements from the HIPPO and BARCA aircraft campaigns, we show that systematic errors in the SCIAMACHY measurements are a main factor limiting the performance of the inversions. To further constrain tropical emissions of methane using current and future satellite missions, extended validation capabilities in the tropics are of critical importance.
The Approximate Duality Gap Technique: A Unified Theory of First-Order Methods

We present a general technique for the analysis of first-order methods. The technique relies on the construction of a duality gap for an appropriate approximation of the objective function, where the function approximation improves as the algorithm converges. We show that in continuous time enforcement of an invariant that this approximate duality gap decreases at a certain rate exactly recovers a wide range of first-order continuous-time methods. We characterize the discretization errors incurred by different discretization methods, and show how iteration-complexity-optimal methods for various classes of problems cancel out the discretization error. The technique is illustrated on various classes of problems -- including solving variational inequalities for smooth monotone operators, convex minimization for Lipschitz-continuous objectives, smooth convex minimization, composite minimization, and smooth and strongly convex minimization -- and naturally extends to other settings.
EFFECT OF CYTOKININS ON SHOOT APICAL MERISTEM IN NICOTIANA TABACUM

Cytokinins are involved in plant cell proliferation leading to plant growth and morphogenesis. The size, activity and maintenance of the shoot apical meristem (SAM) are defined by a balanced rate of mitotic cell divisions and functional cell differentiation that are controlled by cytokinins. In order to investigate the effect of exogenous cytokinin on SAM, morpho-anatomical changes in the shoot apices of tobacco treated with benzyladenine (BA) were compared to those of untreated control plants.
Hydroelastic solitary waves in deep water

The problem of waves propagating on the surface of a two-dimensional ideal fluid of infinite depth bounded above by an elastic sheet is studied with asymptotic and numerical methods. We use a nonlinear elastic model that has been used to describe the dynamics of ice sheets. Particular attention is paid to forced and unforced dynamics of waves having near-minimum phase speed. For the unforced problem, we find that wavepacket solitary waves bifurcate from nonlinear periodic waves of minimum speed. When the problem is forced by a moving load, we find that, for small-amplitude forcing, steady responses are possible at all subcritical speeds, but for larger loads there is a transcritical range of forcing speeds for which there are no steady solutions. In unsteady computations, we find that if the problem is forced at a speed in this range, very large unsteady responses are obtained, and that when the forcing is released, a solitary wave is generated. These solitary waves appear stable, and can coexist within a sea of small-amplitude waves.