Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Integrated Biological Control Using a Mixture of Two Entomopathogenic Bacteria, Bacillus thuringiensis and Xenorhabdus hominickii, against Spodoptera exigua and Other Congeners

Simple Summary An entomopathogen, Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), has been used to control insect pests. On the other hand, insect immune responses defend the bacterial pathogenicity. An idea to enhance the Bt virulence was to inhibit insect immune defense using immunosuppressant. Secondary metabolites from another entomopathogen, Xenorhabdus hominickii, are known to inhibit the insect immune responses, but they alone give little virulence against insects. The addition of the bacterial culture broth containing the secondary metabolites to Bt spores significantly enhanced the Bt virulence in laboratory and field trials. This study demonstrates an integrated biological control by ideally combining two entomopathogenic bacteria. Abstract Insect immunity defends against the virulence of various entomopathogens, including Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). This study tested a hypothesis that any suppression of immune responses enhances Bt virulence. In a previous study, the entomopathogenic bacterium, Xenorhabdus hominickii (Xh), was shown to produce secondary metabolites to suppress insect immune responses. Indeed, the addition of Xh culture broth (XhE) significantly enhanced the insecticidal activity of Bt against S. exigua. To analyze the virulence enhanced by the addition of Xh metabolites, four bacterial secondary metabolites were individually added to the Bt treatment. Each metabolite significantly enhanced the Bt insecticidal activity, along with significant suppression of the induced immune responses. A bacterial mixture was prepared by adding freeze-dried XhE to Bt spores, and the optimal mixture ratio to kill the insects was determined. The formulated bacterial mixture was applied to S. exigua larvae infesting Welsh onions in a greenhouse and showed enhanced control efficacy compared to Bt alone. The bacterial mixture was also effective in controlling other Spodopteran species such as S. litura and S. frugiperda but not other insect genera or orders. This suggests that Bt+XhE can effectively control Spodoptera-associated pests by suppressing the immune defenses.
A Systematic Review on Suitability of Molecular Techniques for Diagnosis and Research into Infectious Diseases of Concern in Resource-Limited Settings

Infectious diseases significantly impact the health status of developing countries. Historically, infectious diseases of the tropics especially have received insufficient attention in worldwide public health initiatives, resulting in poor preventive and treatment options. Many molecular tests for human infections have been established since the 1980s, when polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing was introduced. In spite of the substantial innovative advancements in PCR technology, which currently has found wide application in most viral pathogens of global concern, the development and application of molecular diagnostics, particularly in resource-limited settings, poses potential constraints. This review accessed data from sources including PubMed, Google Scholar, the Web of Knowledge, as well as reports from the World Health Organization’s Annual Meeting on infectious diseases and examined these for current molecular approaches used to identify, monitor, or investigate some neglected tropical infectious diseases. This review noted some growth efforts in the development of molecular techniques for diagnosis of pathogens that appear to be common in resource limited settings and identified gaps in the availability and applicability of most of these molecular diagnostics, which need to be addressed if the One Health goal is to be achieved.
A Reformulated Version of Marx’s Theory of Ground Rent Shows That There Cannot Be Any Absolute Rent

This article develops a simple theoretical model to analyze Marx’s theory of ground rent. Using the model, I demonstrate two important results. First, if we take capital outlay as exogenously given, then total ground rent can be decomposed into the three components: differential rent of the first variety (DRI), differential rent of the second variety (DRII), and absolute rent (AR). Second, if we let the amount of capital outlay on each plot of land be determined by the profit-maximizing behavior of capitalist farmers, then absolute rent becomes zero. Neither the low organic composition of capital nor the monopoly power of the class of landlords can generate any absolute rent. I conclude that under reasonable behavioral assumptions about landlords and capitalist farmers, there will be no absolute rent in a capitalist economy. JEL Classification: B51
Challenges in Geometry: for Mathematical Olympians Past and Present

Preface Glossary of Symbols 1. Integer-sided Triangles 2. Circles and Triangles 3. Lattices 4. Rational Points on Curves 5. Shapes and Numbers 6. Quadrilaterals and Triangles 7. Touching Circles and Spheres 8. More on Triangles 9. Solids 10. Circles and Conics 11. Finite geometries Appendix: Areal Co-ordinates Answers to Exercises References
Convergence and Efficiency of the Wang-Landau algorithm

We analyze the convergence properties of the Wang-Landau algorithm. This sampling method belongs to the general class of adaptive importance sampling strategies which use the free energy along a chosen reaction coordinate as a bias. Such algorithms are very helpful to enhance the sampling properties of Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithms, when the dynamic is metastable. We prove that the Wang-Landau algorithm converges with an associated central limit theorem, and we provide an analysis of the efficiency of the algorithm in a metastable situation.
Hemispheric Asymmetry of the Hand Motor Representations in Patients with Highly Malignant Brain Tumors: Implications for Surgery and Clinical Practice

We addressed both brain pre-surgical functional and neurophysiological aspects of the hand representation in 18 right-handed patients harboring a highly malignant brain tumor in the sensorimotor (SM) cortex (10 in the left hemisphere, LH, and 8 in the right hemisphere, RH) and 10 healthy controls, who performed an fMRI hand-clenching task with both hands alternatively. We extracted the main ROI in the SM cortex and compared ROI values and volumes between hemispheres and groups, in addition to their motor neurophysiological measures. Hemispheric asymmetry in the fMRI signal was observed for healthy controls, namely higher signal for the left-hand movements, but not for either patients’ groups. ROI values, although altered in patients vs. controls, did not differ significantly between groups. ROI volumes associated with right-hand movement were lower for both patients’ groups vs. controls, and those associated with left-hand movement were lower in the RH group vs. all groups. These results are relevant to interpret potential preoperative plasticity and make inferences about postoperative plasticity and can be integrated in the surgical planning to increase surgery success and postoperative prognosis and quality of life.
Utility of Integrated PET/MRI for the Primary Diagnostic Work-Up of Patients with Ewing Sarcoma: Preliminary Results

Background: This study was conducted to evaluate the clinical applicability of integrated PET/MRI for staging and monitoring the effectiveness of neoadjuvant chemotherapy in Ewing sarcoma patients. Methods: A total of 11 juvenile patients with confirmed Ewing sarcoma, scheduled for induction polychemotherapy, were prospectively enrolled for a PET/MR examination before, during and after the end of treatment. Two experienced physicians analysed the imaging datasets. They were asked to perform a whole-body staging in all three examinations and to define treatment response according to the RECIST1.1 and PERCIST criteria for each patient. Results: In eight patients lymph node and/or distant metastases were detected at initial diagnosis. According to the reference standard, three patients achieved complete response, six patients partial response, and one patient showed stable disease while another patient showed progressive disease. RECIST1.1 categorized the response to treatment in 5/11 patients correctly and showed a tendency to underestimate the response to treatment in the remaining six patients. PERCIST defined response to treatment in 9/11 patients correctly and misclassified two patients with a PR as CR. Conclusion: PET/MRI may serve as a valuable imaging tool for primary staging and response assessment of juvenile patients with Ewing sarcoma to induction chemotherapy, accompanied by a reasonable radiation dose for the patient.
Sixteen-Week Vitamin D3 Supplementation Increases Peripheral T Cells in Overweight Black Individuals: Post hoc Analysis of a Randomized, Double-Blinded, Placebo-Controlled Trial

Background: Vitamin D is considered to modulate T-cell function, which has been implicated in the treatment of inflammatory conditions. However, there is limited knowledge on the effects of vitamin D and its influences on circulating T-cell profiles in humans, particularly in overweight Black individuals who are more likely to be vitamin D insufficient (serum 25(OH)D concentrations of ≤20 ng/mL). Thus, this study tested the hypothesis that vitamin D supplementation modulates T-cell composition, which is in a dose-dependent manner. Methods: A 16-week randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled trial of vitamin D3 supplementation was undertaken in 70 overweight/obese Black people (mean age = 26 years, 82% female) with 25 hydroxyvitamin D ≤ 20 ng/mL at baseline. Subjects were randomly assigned a supervised monthly oral vitamin D3 equivalent to approximately 600 IU/day (n = 17), 2000 IU/day (n = 18), 4000 IU/day (n = 18), or a placebo (n = 17). Fresh peripheral whole blood was collected and CD3+, CD4+ and CD8+ cell counts and percentages were determined by flow cytometry at baseline and at 16 weeks, among 56 subjects who were included in the analyses. Results: A statistically significant increase in CD3+% in the 2000 IU/day vitamin D3 supplementation group, and increases in CD4+% in the 2000 IU/day and 4000 IU/day vitamin D3 supplementation groups were observed (p-values < 0.05) from the changes in baseline to 16 weeks. Further adjustments for age, sex and BMI showed that 2000 IU/day vitamin D3 supplementation increased in CD3+ count, CD3%, CD4 count, and CD4%, as compared to the placebo group (p-values < 0.05). Moreover, the highest serum 25(OH)D quantile group had the highest CD3% and CD4%. Conclusions: Sixteen-week vitamin D3 supplementation increases peripheral blood T-cell numbers and percentages in overweight/obese Black patients with vitamin D insufficiency. This resulting shift in circulating T-cell composition, particularly the increase in T helper cells (CD4+ cells), suggests that vitamin D supplementation may improve immune function in Black individuals.
A contribution to the connections between Fibonacci numbers and matrix theory

We present a lovely connection between the Fibonacci numbers and the sums of inverses of $(0,1)-$ triangular matrices, namely, a number $S$ is the sum of the entries of the inverse of an $n \times n$ $(n \geq 3)$ $(0,1)-$ triangular matrix iff $S$ is an integer between $2-F_{n-1}$ and $2+F_{n-1}$. Corollaries include Fibonacci identities and a Fibonacci type result on determinants of family of (1,2)-matrices.
Pentacoordinate Carbon Atoms in a Ferrocene Dication Derivative—[Fe(Si2-η5-C5H2)2]2+

Pentacoordinate carbon atoms are theoretically predicted here in a ferrocene dication derivative in the eclipsed-(1; C2v), gauche-(2; C2) and staggered-[Fe(Si2-η5-C5H2)2]2+(3; C2h) forms for the first time. Energetically, the relative energy gaps for 2 and 3 range from −3.06 to 16.74 and −2.78 to 40.34 kJ mol−1, respectively, when compared to the singlet electronic state of 1 at different levels. The planar tetracoordinate carbon (ptC) atom in the ligand Si2C5H2 becomes a pentacoordinate carbon upon complexation. The ligand with a ptC atom was predicted to be both a thermodynamically and kinetically stable molecule by some of us in our earlier theoretical works. Natural bond orbital and adaptive natural density partitioning analyses confirm the pentacoordinate nature of carbon in these three complexes (1–3). Although they are hypothetical at the moment, they support the idea of “hypercoordinate metallocenes” within organometallic chemistry. Moreover, ab initio molecular dynamics simulations carried out at 298 K temperature for 2000 fs suggest that these molecules are kinetically stable.
Collisionless two‐fluid theory of toroidal ηi stability

A collisionless two‐fluid theory based on a 14‐moment generalization of the ‘‘double‐adiabatic’’ equations is developed to lowest order in the Larmor radius parameter, and applied to derive the toroidal ηi stability boundary for all values of the ratio of the density gradient scale length divided by the field curvature length. The present model is an improvement over existing two‐fluid models in view of the collisionless nature of the ηi instability, while retaining the advantage over kinetic theory of the practicability of mode‐coupling simulations. The linear stability boundary, linear growth rate, and real frequency agree fairly accurately with drift‐kinetic theory.
Sensitive Determination of Moxifloxacin HCl in Pharmaceuticals or Human Plasma Using Luminescence or Eye Vision

A new probe based on the complex of 1,2 dihydro-2-oxoquinoloine-4-carboxylic acid (DOCA) as a ligand with Europium (III) ion was developed for the quantitation of Moxifloxacin HCl (Moxi.HCl) in pharmaceuticals and human plasma using a luminescence method. The metal to ligand ratio of the complex is 1:2 as determined by a Job plot. The determination of Moxi.HCl is based on static quenching of the luminescence of the probe upon coordination of Moxi.HCl. The negative value for ΔG proves that this reaction is spontaneous. The calibration curve was constructed based on a Stern–Volmer equation and the quantitation range was 0.05–80 µg ml−1. This is low enough to determine the drug in blood plasma, even hours after administration, which is not feasible with the methods published so far. The LOD was 15 ng ml−1. The accuracy of the method was demonstrated by good recoveries of spiking experiments in tablets, ophthalmic eyedrops and human blood plasma, where the mean recovery was 99% with RSDs below 5%. The method was validated by closely matching concentrations of the drug found in all these real samples by HPLC. Additionally, Moxi.HCl can be assessed semi-quantitatively by eye vision upon excitation with a UV lamp at 365 nm by a gradual color shift from red to blue with increasing concentrations of Moxi.HCl.
A Group Maintenance Method of Drone Swarm Considering System Mission Reliability

Based on the characteristics of drone swarm such as low cost, strong integrity, and frequent information exchange, as well as the high cost of timely maintenance of traditional units. This paper proposes a swarm maintenance method based on the reliability assessment of multi-layer complex network missions, which combines the multi-layer complex network system evaluation method with the group maintenance method. On the basis of considering the problem of maintenance grouping cost, the failure mechanism of drones in different modes and the impact of drone maintenance on the system are studied. According to the failure model of single node, the complex network method is used to establish the swarm system’s topology model and evaluate the system mission reliability. The maintenance grouping strategy is optimized by using the multi-objective planning of cost and system mission reliability. Compared with the existing just in time maintenance methods, this method can greatly reduce the total maintenance cost of the swarm system maintenance under the condition of ensuring the high mission robustness of the swarm. In addition, a universal drone swarm mission scenario is used to illustrate the method, and the results verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the method.
Intelligent backtracking on constraint satisfaction problems: experimental and theoretical results

The Constraint Satisfaction Problem is a type of combinatorial search problem of much interest in Artificial Intelligence and Operations Research. The simplest algorithm for solving such a problem is chronological backtracking, but this method suffers from a malady known as "thrashing," in which essentially the same subproblems end up being solved repeatedly. Intelligent backtracking algorithms, such as backjumping and dependency-directed backtracking, were designed to address this difficulty, but the exact utility and range of applicability of these techniques have not been fully explored. This dissertation describes an experimental and theoretical investigation into the power of these intelligent backtracking algorithms. We compare the empirical performance of several such algorithms on a range of problem distributions. We show that the more sophisticated algorithms are especially useful on those problems with a small number of constraints that happen to be difficult for chronological backtracking. We also illuminate some issues concerning the distribution of hard and easy constraint problems. It was previously believed that the hardest problems had a small number of constraints, but we show that this result is an artifact of chronological backtracking that does not apply to the more advanced algorithms. We then study the performance of a particular intelligent backtracking algorithm that has been of much interest: dynamic backtracking. We demonstrate experimentally that for some problems this algorithm can do more harm than good. We discuss the reason for this phenomenon, and we present a modification to dynamic backtracking that fixes the problem. We also present theoretical worst-case results. It is known that dependency-directed backtracking can solve a constraint satisfaction problem in time exponential in a particular problem parameter known as the "induced width. " This algorithm, however, requires about as much space as time; that is, its space requirements also grow exponentially in this parameter. This suggests the question of whether it is possible for a polynomial-space algorithm to be exponential in the induced width. We show that for a large class of constraint satisfaction algorithms, it is not possible. That is, there is a trade-off in intelligent backtracking between space and time.
Spatial structure of complex network and diffusion dynamics

In the recent development of network sciences, spatial constrained networks have become an object of extensive investigation. Spatial constrained networks are embedded in configuration space. Their structures and dynamics are influenced by spatial distance. This is proved by more and more empirical data on real Systems showing exponential or power laws spatial distance distribution of links. In this dissertation, we focus on the structure of spatial network with power law spatial distribution. Several mechanisms of structure formation and diffusion dynamics on these networks are considered. First we propose an evolutionary network constructed in the configuration space with a competing mechanism between the degree and the spatial distance preferences. This mechanism is described by a ki + (1 — a), where ki is the degree of node i and rni is the spatial distance between nodes n and i. By adjusting parameter a, the network can be made to change continuously from the spatial driven network (a = 0) to the scale-free network (a = 1). The topological structure of our model is compared to the empirical data from email network with good agreement. On this basis, we focus on the diffusion dynamics on spatial driven network (a = 0). The first model we used is frequently employed in the study of epidemie spreading : the spatial susceptible-infected-susceptible (SIS) model. Here the spreading rate between two connected nodes is inversely proportional to their spatial distance. The result shows that the effective spreading time increases with increasing a. The existence of generic epidemic threshold is observed, whose value depends on parameter a. The maximum epidemic threshold and the minimum stationary ratio of infected nodes simultaneously locate in the interval 1.5 < a < 2. Since the spatial driven network has well defined spatial distance, this model offers an occasion to study the diffusion dynamics by using the usual techniques of statistical mechanics. First, considering the fact that the diffusion is anomalous in general due to the important long-range spreading, we introduce a composite diffusion coefficient which is the sum of the usual diffusion constant D of the Fick's laws applied over different possible transfer distances on the network. As expected, this composite coefficient decreases with increasing a and is a good measure of the efficiency of the diffusion. Our second approach to this anomalous diffusion is to calculate the mean square displacement (l²) to identify a diffusion constant D' and the degree of the anomalousness y with the help of the power law {l²} = 4D'ty. D' behaviors in the same way as D, i.e., it decreases with increasing a. y is smaller than unity (subdiffusion) and tends to one (normal diffusion) as a increases.
Some tests of physics beyond the Standard Model

Quantum field theories are the basis of modern elementary particle physics. Our present understanding of both the smallest structures of matter and the composition of the universe is based on the quantum field theories, that present observable phenomena by describing particles as vibrations of fields. These fields are quantized, i.e. they get discrete values. The Standard Model of particle physics is a quantum field theory that combines electromagnetic, weak and strong interactions into a single gauge field theory. The Standard Model describes physics properly only to a certain upper limit of energy scale. This scale is of the order of the masses of the gauge fields (W,Z±). Beyond this electroweak scale the Standard Model must be modified. For example, the Standard Model cannot explain the quadratic divergences that plaque one of the particles of the theory (the Higgs boson). Because the valid model must be viable to the highest possible energy scale (Planck scale, 1019 GeV, which is determined as a scale where the gravity becomes relevant), there must necessarily be some new physics beyond the electroweak scale. In this dissertation I present some viable models that describe physics beyond the Standard Model. These include supersymmetric quantum field theories with specific supersymmetry breaking mechanisms, split supersymmetry and the model with large extra dimensions. I derive limits for parameters of these models and discuss the possibilities of finding evidence of these in future particle accelerators.
ABSOLUTE PRODUCTION AS A - POSSIBLE - METHOD TO EXTERNALIZE THE PROPERTIES OF CONTEXT DEPENDENT INTERNAL REPRESENTATIONS

Absolute identification requires a participant to identify which stimulus has been presented, from a relatively small pre-specified set the stimuli might be a set of 9 lines, with the shortest labelled #1, the longest #9. Absolute identification yields many well-established behavioral phenomena - for example, more extreme stimuli (such as lines #1 and #9 in the above example) are identified more accurately, and responded to faster, than more central stimuli (such as lines #4 and #5). Contemporary models propose that the internal representations of the stimuli, and/or of the responses, are context dependent in that they depend on factors such as the number, range, and presentation frequency of the stimuli. We present data on absolute production that we interpret as externalizing the properties of such internal representations and that show effects paralleling those in absolute identification.