Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Enzymatic Production of High Molecular Weight Chitooligosaccharides Using Recombinant Chitosanase from Bacillus thuringiensis BMB171

The chitosanase gene (btbchito) of Bacillus thuringiensis BMB171 was cloned and heterologously expressed in the yeast Pichia pastoris. After purification, about 300 mg of recombinant chitosanase was obtained from the 1-1 culture medium with a specific activity of 240 units/mg. Results determined by the combined use of thin layer chromatography (TLC) and matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time of flight (MALDI-TOF) mass spectrometry (MS) showed that the chitooligosaccharides (COSs) obtained by chitosan (N-deacetylated by 70%, 80%, and 90%) hydrolysis by rBTBCHITO were comprised of oligomers, with degrees of polymerization (DP) mainly ranging from trimers to heptamers; high molecular weight chitopentaose, chitohexaose, and chitoheptaose were also produced. Hydrolysis products was also deduced using MS since the COSs (n) are complex oligosaccharides with various acetyl groups from one to two, so the non-acetyl COSs (GlcN)n and COSs with more acetyls (> 2) were not detected. The employment of this method in the production of high molecular weight COSs may be useful for various industrial and biological applications, and the activity of chitosanase has great significance in research and other applications.
Repurposing anticancer drugs for the treatment of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and antifibrotic drugs for the treatment of cancer: state of the art.

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is an aggressive pulmonary disease which shares several molecular, patho-physiological and clinical aspects with lung cancer, including high mortality rates. The antifibrotic drugs Nintedanib and Pirfenidone have been recently introduced in clinical practice for the treatment of IPF. Nintedanib is also used for the treatment of several malignancies, including non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in combination with Docetaxel, while Pirfenidone showed some anti-neoplastic effects in preclinical studies. On the other hand, novel targeted agents and immunotherapies have been introduced in the last decade for the treatment of NSCLC, and some of them showed anti-fibrotic properties in recent studies. These evidences, based on the common pathophysiological backgrounds of IPF and lung cancer, make possible the mutual or combined use of anti-fibrotic and anti-neoplastic drugs to treat these highly lethal diseases. The aim of the present review is to depict the current scientific landscape regarding the repurposing of anti-neoplastic drugs in IPF and antifibrotic drugs in lung cancer, and to identify future research perspectives on the topic.
Analisis Pengaruh Penyaluran Dana Zakat terhadap Perkembangan Usaha Kecil dan Menengah (UKM) Mustahik

Pertumbuhan Usaha Kecil dan Menengah (UKM) merupakan unsur penting untuk meningkatkan sektor ekonomi masyarakat. Mayoritas permasalahan UKM terletak pada kepemilikan modal. Salah satu sektor yang dapat membantu UKM untuk memperoleh dana melalui kegiatan penyaluran Zakat Produktif. Dalam penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menganalisa tentang peranan zakat produktif terhadap perkembangan usaha mikro mustahik. Penelitian ini merupakan penelitian lapangan berdasarkan data pengisian kuesioner kepada 30 orang mustahik yang memperoleh bantuan zakat produktif melalui program TALA Makmur BAZNAS kabupaten Tanah Laut. Kemudian akan di analisis pengaruh pemberian dana zakat produktif kepada para mustahik melalui beberapa variabel terkait yaitu modal, Pendapatan, dan Keuntungan, dengan menggunakan Uji Beda (Pairet T-Test). Hasil dari penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa terdapat pengaruh bantuan modal dari BAZNAS terhadap pengembangan usaha mustahik yang mengakibatkan meningkatnya pendapatan dan keuntungan sebelum dan sesudah memperoleh dana zakat produktif tersebut. Sehinggadengan meningkatnya penyaluran zakat produktif dapat meningkatkan perekonomian khususnya di wilayah kecamatan Pelaihari Kabupaten Tanah Laut.
A Multi-Gene Synaptic Plasticity Array Identifies Candidate Molecular Underpinnings of Cognitive and Mood Deficits in Rats with Heart Failure

Chronic heart failure (HF) is a serious disorder that afflicts more than 26 million patients worldwide. HF is comorbid with depression, anxiety and memory deficits that have serious implications for quality of life and self-care in patients who have HF. Despite evidence that cognitive performance is worse in HF patients with reduced ejection fraction than in HF patients with preserved cardiac function, there are few studies that have assessed the effects of severely reduced ejection fraction (≤40%) on cognition in non-human animal models. Moreover, very limited information is available regarding the effects of HF on genetic markers of synaptic plasticity in brain areas critical for memory and mood regulation. We induced HF in male rats and tested mood and anxiety (sucrose preference and elevated plus maze) and memory (spontaneous alternation and inhibitory avoidance) and measured the simultaneous expression of 84 synaptic plasticity-associated genes in dorsal (DH) and ventral hippocampus (VH), basolateral (BLA) and central amygdala (CeA,) and prefrontal cortex (PFC). We also included the hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus (PVN), which has been implicated in neurohumoral activation in HF. Our results show that rats with severely reduced ejection fraction displayed signs of polydipsia, anhedonia, increased anxiety, and impaired memory in both tasks. HF also produced a drastic downregulation of synaptic-plasticity genes in PFC and PVN, moderate decreases in DH and CeA and minimal effects in BLA and VH. Collectively, these findings identify candidate brain areas and molecular mechanisms underlying HF-induced disturbances in mood and memory.
Remaining Useful Life Prediction of Lithium-ion Battery based on Attention Mechanism with Positional Encoding

The rising demands of more reliable and stable electrical systems attach importance to accurate Remaining Useful Life (RUL) prediction of the lithium-ion batteries. As artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques advance, data-driven methods especially deep learning algorithms have become the rising star in RUL prediction. Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) and their variants such as Long Short Term Memory have proven effectiveness in various sequential tasks. However, due to its iterative nature along the time axis, RNNs take much time for information to flow through the network for prediction. Inspired by recent advance brought by Transformer in sequence transduction tasks, we proposed the attention mechanism based Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) with positional encoding to tackle this problem. The attention mechanism enables the network to focus on specific parts of sequences and positional encoding injects position information while utilizing the parallelization merits of CNN on GPUs. Empirical experiments show that the proposed approach is both time effective and accurate in battery RUL prediction.
Early Detection of Depression using Screening Tools and Electroencephalogram (EEG) Measurements

Mental illness can be defined as a type of health condition that causes mild to severe disturbances in thoughts and/or behavior, resulting in an ability to cope with one life’s ordinary demands and routines. Mental illnesses are presented in many forms. There are more than two hundred (200) classified forms of mental illnesses that exist in the world and more common disorders include are depression, generalized anxiety disorder, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and eating Abstract: Mental illness refers to mental disorder that causes mild to severe disturbances in thoughts and behavior, resulting in the inability to cope with ordinary demands and daily life routines. Among the wide spectrum of mental health conditions, depression was found to have the highest prevalence globally. The current practice of depression detection depends on screening tools which are either physician-administered or self-administered and behavioral observations. Both methods are widely used but relies on subjective interpretation. Thus, the method may lack the reliability and accuracy of detecting depression which may lead to incorrect diagnosis of medications. Many mental illness patients still suffer from their mental conditions as well as the side effects of medications during the treatment process. Physiological measurement methods, such as electroencephalogram (EEG) measurements were found to be able to evaluate the condition of patients suffering from mental illness through recorded brain waves. The paper sought to investigate the relationship between brainwaves and depression and to propose an alternative method to further evaluate the condition of patients who suffer from depression in a more accurate and effective way. Subjects underwent an initial screening to evaluate and classify their mental health condition based on the score obtained from the screening tools Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ)-9. Subjects also underwent an EEG experiment with a given video-watching stimulus to evaluate their brain activity. The study proves that increased depression severity subjects have shown distinctly lower Alpha waves at almost all electrode channels and comparatively lower Beta and Theta in the frontal region. This shows that there is a relationship between mental illness and brainwaves activities. Despite that, the findings from the study showed that there were no strong association found between mean EEG amplitudes and the score from PHQ-9 which suggest that the current practice which only depends on subjective methods may not be sufficient for depression diagnosis. Using a more objective method showed that there are strong associations found between mean EEG amplitudes and the proposed EEG scoring especially in Alpha waves. There were also strong association between the EEG scoring and the EEG amplitudes at all electrode channels in Alpha waves. The use of EEG measurement may be considered as an effective and more accurate method to support the current practice in detecting early signs of mental illness in patients, specifically depression.
Multi-path synergic fusion deep neural network framework for breast mass classification using digital breast tomosynthesis

Objective. To develop and evaluate a multi-path synergic fusion (MSF) deep neural network model for breast mass classification using digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT). Methods. We retrospectively collected 441 patients who had undergone DBT in which the regions of interest (ROIs) covering the malignant/benign breast mass were extracted for model training and validation. In the proposed MSF framework, three multifaceted representations of the breast mass (gross mass, overview, and mass background) are extracted from the ROIs and independently processed by a multi-scale multi-level features enforced DenseNet (MMFED). The three MMFED sub-models are finally fused at the decision level to generate the final prediction. The advantages of the MMFED over the original DenseNet, as well as different fusion strategies embedded in MSF, were comprehensively compared. Results. The MMFED was observed to be superior to the original DenseNet, and multiple channel fusions in the MSF outperformed the single-channel MMFED and double-channel fusion with the best classification scores of area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve (87.03%), Accuracy (81.29%), Sensitivity (74.57%), and Specificity (84.53%) via the weighted fusion method embedded in MSF. The decision level fusion-based MSF was significantly better (in terms of the ROC curve) than the feature concatenation-based fusion (p< 0.05), the single MMFED using a fused three-channel image (p< 0.04), and the multiple MMFED end-to-end training (p< 0.004). Conclusions. Integrating multifaceted representations of the breast mass tends to increase benign/malignant mass classification performance and the proposed methodology was verified to be a promising tool to assist in clinical breast cancer screening.
Long‐term viability of the northern anthracnose pathogen, Kabatiella caulivora, facilitates its transportation and spread

The conidia and resting hyphae of the northern anthracnose pathogen of Trifolium species, Kabatiella caulivora, were effectively carried by, and maintained long-term viability on, a range of materials, including metals, fabrics, woods and plastics. Conidia and hyphae became thick-walled and melanized with time. There were significant (P < 0.001) differences in conidia/resting hyphae survival between carrier materials and between temperature regimes. At 23 °C/8 °C day/night, conidia and resting hyphae remained viable on steel, corrugated iron, galvanized steel, all tested fabrics, wood and random mixed materials for up to 8 months. At 36 °C/14 °C day/night, conidia and resting hyphae remained viable for up to 8 months, but only on cotton, denim, fleece, silk, leather, paper, plastic and all wood materials. At 45 °C/15 °C day/night, conidia and resting hyphae remained viable up to 8 months only on fleece wool, Eucalyptus marginata (jarrah wood) and paper. There were significant differences between carrier materials in their abilities to retain conidia and resting hyphae after washing (P < 0.001). Metabolic activity was confirmed for conidia and resting hyphae recovered after 8 months and K. caulivora colonies successfully re-established on potato dextrose agar. Findings confirmed the critical importance of materials as long-term carriers of viable K. caulivora conidia and resting hyphae, highlighting the potential for spread of a highly virulent K. caulivora race within and outside Australia via farming equipment, clothing and other associated materials. Results also have wider biosecurity implications for the transportation of fungal-infested carrier materials previously considered as low risk.
Spatiotemporal Dynamics and Driving Forces of Ecosystem Changes: A Case Study of the National Barrier Zone, China

It is of great significance to study the spatiotemporal dynamics of the ecosystem and explore the driving forces that affect change in the ecosystem in the National Barrier Zone (NBZ). Based on multi-source remote sensing data, this paper analyzed the change in the ecosystem in the NBZ from 2000 to 2015. Natural and social economic factors were selected as the driving factors, and the change mechanism of the ecological system in the NBZ area was analyzed by means of redundancy analysis and other methods. The results showed the following: (1) Between 2000 and 2015, the ecosystem changes in the NBZ are obvious. It is important to note that the grassland and urban ecosystem increased by 13,952 and 6720 km2, respectively; at the same time, the desert ecosystem significantly decreased by 4544 km2. (2) The human activity represented by gross domestic product (GDP) is the main factor in the change of ecosystem change in the NBZ with a contribution of 75%, especially in the ecological barrier of the Sichuan–Yunnan–Loess plateau with a GDP contribution rate of 83%. (3) The changes in the ecosystems are significantly influenced by multifactorial interactions, such as the joint contribution rate of the drought index (PDSI) and GDP reaching 0.11 in the ecological barrier of Qinghai–Tibet plateau. (4) The ecological protection projects, such as the Green for Grain Project in the NBZ, play a positive role, and the ecological environment is improving. The conclusions of this paper will be used as a basic theory to contribute to subsequent research on ecosystem services, policy making, and other aspects in the NBZ.
ASSESSMENT OF THE MANGROVE FOREST CHANGES ALONG THE PAHANG COAST USING REMOTE SENSING AND GIS TECHNOLOGY

Mangrove forests provide vital ecosystem services to the surrounding communities. Despite their importance, development in coastal areas impose a direct impact on reducing area cover. It is an important topic to understand the effect of coastal development on the carbon storing capacity of mangroves. This study aimed to examine the rate of erosion and accretion and estimate the amount of carbon stock change along the Cherating Pekan coastline in Pahang, Malaysia. The rate of erosion and accretion from 2006 to 2014 was determined by using SPOT 5 satellite images. The normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI) was modelled to estimate carbon stock specific to the mangrove forest. Results from the study reveal that mangroves grew at only four locations along the 87 km Cherating–Pekan shoreline. Difference analyses unveil that the coastline had undergone erosion and accretion processes, with Cherating River and Penor River showing the most rapid change of 10.31 and 18.17 m/year, respectively, using the end point rate (EPR) method. Ular River and Kuantan River have been identified as areas prone to moderate erosion. The total carbon stock of mangroves in 2006 and 2014 was estimated at 499.78 and 520.48 t/ha, respectively. This finding provides the baseline information which would be helpful and should be considered when planning the future development as well as in the management of resources along the Pahang coastline.
Genetic divergence and phenotypic plasticity contribute to variation in cuticular hydrocarbons in the seaweed fly Coelopa frigida

Abstract Cuticular hydrocarbons (CHCs) form the boundary between insects and their environments and often act as essential cues for species, mate, and kin recognition. This complex polygenic trait can be highly variable both among and within species, but the causes of this variation, especially the genetic basis, are largely unknown. In this study, we investigated phenotypic and genetic variation of CHCs in the seaweed fly, Coelopa frigida, and found that composition was affected by both genetic (sex and population) and environmental (larval diet) factors. We subsequently conducted behavioral trials that show CHCs are likely used as a sexual signal. We identified general shifts in CHC chemistry as well as individual compounds and found that the methylated compounds, mean chain length, proportion of alkenes, and normalized total CHCs differed between sexes and populations. We combined these data with whole genome resequencing data to examine the genetic underpinnings of these differences. We identified 11 genes related to CHC synthesis and found population‐level outlier SNPs in 5 that are concordant with phenotypic differences. Together these results reveal that the CHC composition of C. frigida is dynamic, strongly affected by the larval environment, and likely under natural and sexual selection.
Measuring the Competency of Teachers in Business Studies towards Students' Academic Achievement

The main aim of this study is to measure the competency of teachers in Business Studies in improving students' academic achievement in the subject. The three aspects of the teachers' competence assessed include teachers' knowledge, skills and professionalism towards students' academic achievement. In order to test the objective, a total of 135 Business Studies teachers were selected as respondents from the states of Perlis, Kedah and Penang. A set of questionnaires was used in this study to measure the level of teachers' competency towards the students' academic achievement. Based on the findings, the relationship between teaching skills and professionalism was significant but from low to moderate level. Regression analysis further indicated that the three variables were moderately significant towards students' academic achievement as dependable variable. Meanwhile, the findings also revealed that the teachers experience and qualification were insignificant and did not mediate the independent variable factors against the dependent variable when tested by using PROCESS analysis. In conclusion, there are other factors that are more likely to influence the students' academic achievement compared to the three study variables.
Insights into vector control through the modulation of An. gambiae G protein-coupled receptors

i DEDICATION.iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.v LIST OF TABLES.x LIST OF FIGURES . xvii LIST OF DATASETS . xix CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION A. Malaria as a Major Public Health Issue . 2 B. Malaria Life Cycle . 8 C. Malaria Vector: Anopheles mosquito . 10 D. Control Strategies, Implementation and the Battle of Insecticide Resistance . 16 E. G protein-coupled Receptors (GPCRs): Drug Targets . 20 F. Figures and Legends . 30 CHAPTER II: A critical role for the Drosophila dopamine 1-like receptor Dop1R2 at the onset of metamorphosis A. ABSTRACT.34 B. INTRODUCTION . 35 C. RESULTS . 38 D. DISCUSSION . 46 E. METHODS . 55 F. TABLES, FIGURES AND LEGENDS . 65 CHAPTER III: RNAi trigger delivery into Anopheles gambiae pupae A. ABSTRACT.90 B. INTRODUCTION . 91 C. RESULTS . 94 D. DISCUSSION . 95 E. METHODS (PROTOCOL) . 99 F. FIGURES AND LEGENDS . 105
Recipient site preparation by cryoblebbing in melanocyte keratinocyte transplantation procedure over the fingers in vitiligo: A pilot study

Surgical treatment of vitiligo lesions over the fingers has poor outcome. In this intra‐patient comparative study, 12 patients with stable non‐segmental vitiligo (NSV) affecting the middle three fingers of one hand were included. Three variations were used in treatment of finger vitiligo lesions: minipuch grafting, melanocytes keratinocyte transplantation procedure (MKTP) preceded by cryoblebbing or full CO2 laser resurfacing of the recipient site. Liquid nitrogen was used to create blebs in one finger 24 hours before therapy. On the following day, the second finger was treated by minipunch grafting and the third finger was resurfaced by CO2 laser. A suspension was prepared and 0.1 mL was injected into each cryobleb. It was also applied to the resurfaced skin. All patients underwent topical PUVA therapy and were followed‐up for 12 months. Ten cases with 52 lesions completed the follow‐up period. About 4/18 lesions treated by cryoblebbing followed by MKTP showed ≥75% repigmentation while only 1/17 lesions treated by laser resurfacing + MKTP and 1/17 lesions treated by minipunch grafting showed 30% and 10% repigmentation, respectively. No complications occurred in MKTP treated lesions. Cryoblebbing of the recipient site seems to improve the outcome of MKTP in lesions over the fingers in stable NSV.
Evidence for Glass Behavior in Amorphous Carbon

Amorphous carbons are disordered carbons with densities of circa 1.9–3.1 g/cc and a mixture of sp2 and sp3 hybridization. Using molecular dynamics simulations, we simulate diffusion in amorphous carbons at different densities and temperatures to investigate the transition between amorphous carbon and the liquid state. Arrhenius plots of the self-diffusion coefficient clearly demonstrate that there is a glass transition rather than a melting point. We consider five common carbon potentials (Tersoff, REBO-II, AIREBO, ReaxFF and EDIP) and all exhibit a glass transition. Although the glass-transition temperature (Tg) is not significantly affected by density, the choice of potential can vary Tg by up to 40%. Our results suggest that amorphous carbon should be interpreted as a glass rather than a solid.
On the origins of marine‐derived freshwater fishes in South America

The South American fish fauna is renowned for its extraordinary diversity. The majority of this diversity is restricted to few major clades that have ancient associations to freshwater habitats. However, at a higher taxonomic level, the South American ichthyofauna is enriched by an extraordinary number of marine derived lineages – lineages that are endemic to freshwaters, but derived from marine ancestors. Here, we test palaeogeographical hypotheses that attempt to explain the origins and exceptional diversity of marine derived fishes in rivers of South America.