Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Nutritional value and digestible dry matter production of oat genotypes for ensiling

Abstract This study evaluated dry matter yield and nutritional characteristics of different oat genotypes (Avena spp.) for ensiling. Treatments consisted of genotypes of white oat IPR 126 (Avena sativa), black oat Cabocla IPR and Agrocoxilha (Avena strigosa), and BRS Madrugada and BRS Centauro (Avena vertis). Oats were harvested at the phenological stage of milk/dough grain. The design was a completely randomized block scheme, with five treatments and three replications per treatment. The IPR Cabocla genotype showed the highest dry matter content (before and after silo opening) and in vitro dry matter digestibility of fresh forage. No differences were observed for in vitro dry matter digestibility and dry matter losses among silages. The highest silage digestible dry matter yield (kg ha-1) was observed for the BRS Centauro genotype. Thus, despite the better nutritional quality presented by the IPR Cabocla genotype before ensiling, BRS Centauro genotype presented a higher yield of digestible dry matter per hectare.
Effect of naphthalene acetic acid and mipiquat chloride on physiological components of yield in bell pepper (Capsicum annuum L.)

In a study conducted at College of Agriculture, University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad, India. Effect of foliar spray of naphthalene acetic acid [NAA] (50, 100 and 150 ppm) and mepiquat chloride [MC] (500, 1000 and 1500) at 45 and 65 days after transplanting (DAT) on yield, physiological and biochemical parameters of bell pepper (Capsium annuum, cv. Tarihal Local) was studied. All treatments significantly increased fruit yield, number of fruits, average fruit weight and number of seeds. Total chlorophyll, ascorbic acid and nitrate reductase activity were also increased. Fruit yield was significantly high (159.89 g/plant) with double spray of MC @ 150 ppm at 45 DAT and at 65 DAT followed by MC @ 1500 ppm at 45 DAT (156.49 g/plant) compared to control. From economic point of view, single spray of MC @ 500 ppm at 45 DAT was more profitable compared to other treatments.
Say No to Price Discrimination: Decentralized and Automated Incentives for Price Auditing in Ride-Hailing Services

As the most successful application of the sharing economy, ride-hailing service is popular worldwide and serves millions of users per day worldwide. Ride-hailing service providers (SPs) usually collect users’ personal data to improve their services via big data technologies. However, SPs may also use the collected user data to apply personalized prices to different users, which raises price fairness concerns. In this paper, we propose a smart price auditing system named Spas. Spas allows a user to purchase Fair Price Insurance in the form of Price Auditing Contract, then the price of ride-hailing service (RHS) order will be audited automatically once completed. According to the auditing result, the contract punishes misbehaving SPs and also compensates affected users automatically. By replacing an untrustworthy centralized auditor with carefully designed smart contracts, we construct a decentralized price auditing system which is trustworthy and transparent. We demonstrate a theoretical model for practical payment flows based on real RHS user data and we implement Spas in Hyperledger Fabric to show that decentralizing and automating price auditing for RHS with financial incentives is technically feasible.
Profiling eukaryotic and bacterial communities of high- and low-productivity blueberry farm and forest soils

OF THE THESIS . ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . iv LIST OF TABLES . vii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS . viii CHAPTER ONE: THE RHIZOSPHERE MICROBIOME . 1 Stable isotope probing . 5 Profiling ribosomal RNA operons for microbiome studies . 10 REFERENCES . 14 CHAPTER TWO: DETECTION OF BOTH RESIDENT AND ACTIVE BACTERIA AND EUKARYOTES IN AGRICULTURAL AND FOREST SOILS VIA SIP AND MINION SEQUENCING . 19 Introduction . 19 Methods and materials . 21 Sample collection and stable isotope probing . 21 DNA extraction . 22 PCR amplification of bacterial and eukaryotic ribosomal RNA operons . 24 Library preparation and MinION sequencing . 26 Demultiplexing and BLAST analysis . 26 Statistical analysis and data visualization. 27 Results . 28 Bacterial taxa . 30 Eukaryotic taxa . 37 Discussion . 38 REFERENCES . 44 CHAPTER THREE: DETECTING THE UNSEEN DIVERSITY WITHIN ABUNDANT TAXONOMIC UNITS . 49 Introduction . 49 Methods and materials . 51 Selection of highly similar ribosomal RNA operon sequences . 51 Definition of sequence clusters . 52
Knock-knock, who’s there: Sex-coding, competition and the energetics of tapping communication in the tok-tok beetle, Psammodes striatus (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae)

I describe the abdomino-substratal tapping communication system of a Southern African tenebrionid beetle, Psammodes striatus (Fabricius, 1775) (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae: Molurini), using computer simulation of tapping signals and computer-assisted acquisition of precise response timing data, augmented with data from natural beetle-beetle communication. Communication consists of trains of 5 - 7 Hz taps in groups or trains separated by 2-3 sec intervals. Male beetles spontaneously produce groups of tap-trains with 8 - 18 taps per train. If other beetles reply, an alternating duet commences. Solitary female beetles do not tap spontaneously but respond to male tapping with short, distinctive tap-trains containing 4 – 6 taps; they ignore female signals. In contrast, extensive communication occurs between male beetles, the nature of which changes significantly if the stimulus call is typical of male or of female beetles. Inter-male communication consists of long tap-trains, but males interacting with females produce shorter tap-trains and engage in phonotactic behavior that is absent in inter-male communication. Females respond highly preferentially to inter-male communication, rather than to the signals produced spontaneously by single males. Finally, I propose a simple model of the selective advantages of this unusual communication system, and calculate its approximate energetic leverage over random locomotion (∼13x).
TÉCNICAS DE ANÁLISE DE IMAGEM PARA CARACTERIZAÇÃO DA QUALIDADE DE SEMENTES DE PARICARANA (Bowdichia virgilioides Kunth)

A Bowdichia virgilioides Kunth. , conhecida popularmente como paricarana, é uma espécie com potencial econômico paisagístico, madeireiro e para a recuperação de áreas degradadas. Objetivou-se com este trabalho a caracterização física de sementes de paricarana com diferentes cores do tegumento provenientes de 12 matrizes, utilizando técnicas de análise de imagem, além de verificar a eficiência do tratamento de superação de dormência aplicado às sementes para determinar a qualidade fisiológica. As sementes de 12 matrizes de paricarana foram classificadas em cor laranja e vermelha manualmente e com auxílio do aparelho e software Groundeye®. O delineamento experimental utilizado foi inteiramente casualizado, em arranjo fatorial 12 x 2 (matrizes x cores) com quatro repetições. Foram avaliadas a morfometria das sementes e plântulas, raios-x, germinação, velocidade de sementes embebidas, velocidade de germinação e microscopia eletrônica de varredura das sementes. Para o teste de germinação realizou-se o tratamento de superação de dormência das sementes com água a 100°C por 10 segundos, e para controle de patógenos, hipoclorito de sódio a 2% por cinco minutos. As técnicas utilizadas para caracterização física das sementes de cor laranja e vermelha das 12 matrizes de paricarana são eficientes. As sementes de paricarana de cor laranja apresentam melhor qualidade física e fisiológica. O tratamento com água a 100°C por 10 segundos mais cinco minutos de imersão em hipoclorito a 2% é eficiente na superação de dormência, e controle de patógenos das sementes de cor laranja e vermelha das 12 matrizes de paricarana.
Leveraging Programmable Data Plane For Compressing Forwarding Tables

The Forwarding Information Base (FIB) resides in the data plane of a routing device and is used to forward packets to a next-hop, based on packets’ destination IP addresses. The constant growth of a FIB forces network operators to spend more resources on maintaining memory with line-rate Longest Prefix Match (LPM) lookup in a FIB, namely, expensive and energy-hungry Ternary Content-Addressable Memory (TCAM) chips. In this work, we review two different approaches used to mitigate the FIB overflow problem. First, we investigate FIB aggregation, i.e., merging adjacent or overlapping routes with the same next-hop while preserving the forwarding behavior of a FIB. We propose a near-optimal algorithm, FIB Aggregation with Quick Selections (FAQS), that minimizes the FIB churn and speeds BGP update processing by more than twice. In the meantime, FAQS preserves a high compression ratio (at most 73%). FAQS handles BGP updates incrementally, without the need of re-aggregating the entire FIB table. Second, we investigate FIB (or route) caching, when TCAM holds only a portion of a FIB that carries most of the traffic. We leverage the emerging concept of the programmable data plane to propose a Programmable FIB Caching Architecture (PFCA), that allows cache-victim selection at the line rate and significantly reduces the FIB churn compared to FIB aggregation. PFCA achieves 99.8% cache-hit ratio with only 3.3% of the FIB placed in a FIB cache. Finally, we extend PFCA’s design with a novel approach of integrating incremental FIB aggregation and FIB caching. Such integration needed to overcome cache hiding challenge when a less specific prefix in a cache hides a more specific prefix in a secondary FIB table, which leads to incorrect LPM matching at the cache. In Combined FIB Caching and Aggregation (CFCA), cache-hit ratio is maximized up to 99.94% with only 2.5% entries of the FIB, while the total number of route changes in TCAM is reduced by more than 40% compared to low-churn FIB aggregation techniques.
Validity and reliability of Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI) among Iranian community-dwelling older adults

1Nursing Care Research Center, School of Nursing And Midwifery, I. R. Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, I. R. Iran 2Iranian Research Center on Aging, University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, Tehran, I. R. Iran 3Malaysian Research Institute on Ageing (MyAgeing), Universiti Putra, Malaysia 4PhD Student of Reproduction Health, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, I. R. Iran
Feasibility Study of a Radical Vane-Integrated Heat Exchanger for Turbofan Engine Applications

In the present study, a compact heat exchanger for cryogenically fueled gas turbine engine applications is introduced. The proposed concept can be integrated into one or various vanes that comprise the compression system and uses the existing vane surface to reject core heat to the cryogenic fuel. The requirements for the heat exchanger are defined for a large geared-turbofan engine operating on liquid hydrogen. The resulting preliminary conceptual design is integrated into a modified interconnecting duct and connected to the last stage of a publicly available low-pressure compressor geometry. The feasibility of different designs is investigated numerically, providing a first insight on the parameters that govern the design of such a component.
QoE-driven HAS Live Video Channel Placement in the Media Cloud

HTTP adaptive streaming (HAS) technology has been increasingly employed by video service providers (VSPs) due to its prominent benefits such as reducing interruptions of video playback and achieving higher bandwidth utilization and outstanding quality of experience (QoE). And many VSPs have deployed HAS applications in the media cloud to provide large-scale video streaming services. At present, research into the media cloud typically focuses on the management and optimization of cloud resources, such as the placement and migration of virtual machines in media cloud data centers. However, considering the HAS live video streaming service, existing related works have not adequately discussed the specific impact of the consumption of computing and bandwidth resources of media cloud servers on the user experience (QoE), particularly under the resource constraints in the media cloud. In this paper, we first investigate and formulate the computing and bandwidth resource consumption characteristics of HAS live video streaming with different frame rates and resolutions, and we further establish a resources-aware QoE model to quantify the user experience of live video channels (i.e., programs). Then, based on the model, we present a QoE-driven HAS live video channel placement approach (including a placement algorithm HCP and a rescheduling algorithm HCR) to optimize the channel allocation in media cloud servers, aiming to maximize the average user QoE. We abstract the maximization problem into an MMKP problem, and employ a heuristic solution to address this problem. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed approach compared with benchmark solutions.
6.2 Understanding Business-Level Strategy through “Generic Strategies”

Business-level strategy addresses the question of how a firm will compete in a particular industry (Table 5.1). This seems to be a simple question on the surface, but it is actually quite complex. The reason is that there are a great many possible answers to the question. Consider, for example, the restaurants in your town or city. Chances are that you live fairly close to some combination of McDonald’s, Subway, Chili’s, Applebee’s, Panera Bread Company, dozens of other national brands, and a variety of locally based eateries that have just one location. Each of these restaurants competes using a business model that is at least somewhat unique. When an executive in the restaurant industry analyzes her company and her rivals, she needs to avoid getting distracted by all the nuances of different firm’s business-level strategies and losing sight of the big picture.
Influences on the Accuracy of Torque Calculation for Permanent Magnet Synchronous Machines

In this work, the influences on the torque generated by permanent magnet synchronous machines are identified to provide approaches to improve the accuracy of torque calculation. By analyzing the torque generation mechanism, basic machine parameters influencing the generated torque are identified. The machine torque is split into different components, i.e. synchronous, reluctance, and parasitic torque components. The parasitic component results from non-linearities such as saturation. In a second step, environmental and operational conditions influencing those basic parameters are determined. Based on this analysis, the remanence flux density of the permanent magnets, the magnetization behavior of the soft-magnetic material, and the iron losses are selected for the study. Two traction drive machine designs are used in the parameter study. The machine torque is evaluated by performing 2D magnetostatic Finite-Element simulations of the investigated machine designs. The results show quantify the interdependencies between the torque components and the model parameters. The significance of the influence of the parameters on the accuracy of the torque calculation is discussed.
Students’ Academic Self-Esteem and Academic Achievement Relationships in Public Secondary Schools in Nakuru County, Kenya

Academic achievement is important in the determination of a students’ future prospects. Educationists and other stakeholders have consistently used students’ academic achievement results as basis of advancement and employment opportunities. The learners’ academic self-esteem correspondingly shape the learning environment of students. The purpose of this study was to examine students’ academic self-esteem and academic achievement relationships in public secondary schools in Nakuru County, Kenya. Correlational research design and both quantitative and qualitative research approaches were used in the study. The population of the study comprised 23,309 from 29 public secondary schools. The sample size for the study was 407 respondents, comprising of 378 form three students and 29 class teachers. The study used closed-ended questionnaires to collect data on self-esteem from students and interview schedule to collect data from class teachers. Self-esteem scale was adopted and adjusted using Rosenberg Self-esteem Inventory. Data for academic achievement was obtained from school examinations results record. Cronbach’s Alpha test of internal constituency for self-esteem questionnaire had reliability coefficients of 0.873 which was considered acceptable. The study found out that there was a significant relationship between students’ academic self-esteem and academic achievement in public secondary schools in Nakuru County, Kenya. The study concluded that students’ academic self-esteem affects their academic achievement. In respect to this, the study recommended the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) to develop a curriculum or teaching methods that seeks to improve students’ academic self-esteem for better academic achievement. Keywords: Academic Self-Esteem, Academic Achievement DOI: 10.7176/JEP/11-24-18 Publication date: August 31 st 2020
Functional Analysis of Tadhn1312 by Virus-Induced Gene Silencing (VIGS) in Common Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)

Virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) is an important tool for gene function analysis in plants. In the present study, the function identification of a candidate gene named Tadhn1312 encoding Dehydrin protein obtained from the high-throughput transcriptome was carried out by VIGS. Leaves appeared the chlorotic phenotype and the transcript level of TaPDS decreased rapidly at 7 days after the inoculation by BSMV: TaPDS, which indicated that the virus had successfully infected wheat leaves and the BSMV system was efficient. The chlorophyll content of leaves with BSMV: TaPDS and BSMV: Tadhn1312 inoculation decreased at 7 days, and reached significant level compared with the control. After the inoculation by BSMV: Tadhn1312, the transcript level of Tadhn1312 was rapidly decreased at 7 days, and reached the minimum value at 21 days, indicated that Tadhn1312 had been silenced. The spike differentiation procession of wheat plants inoculated by BSMV: Tadhn1312 was late than that inoculated by BSMV: 00. The result showed that the silencing of Tadhn1312 prolonged the spike differentiation process, illustrating that Tadhn1312 gene was involved in the spike differentiation process of wheat directly or indirectly.
Exogenous enzyme on in vitro gas production and ruminal fermentation of diet containing high level of concentrate

SUMMARY Exogenous enzyme preparations (fibrolytic activity (FIB), 0, 0.6, 1.2, 1.8, and 2.4 mg/ml liquid volume incubated; amylolytic activity (AMZ), 0, 0.05, 0.10, 0.15, and 0.20 mg/ml liquid volume incubated; proteolytic activity (PRO), 0, 0.05, 0.10, 0.15, and 0.20 mg/ml liquid volume incubated) were incubated in vitro. Their fermentation effects were assessed based on accumulated gas production, kinetic parameters, and fermentation profile using the technique of gas fermentation. Ruminal liquid was obtained from two rumen cannulated Santa Inês sheep, fed a diet with roughage-to-concentrate ratio of 20:80. Accumulated gas production was during 96 h of incubation, measured at 18 different times. After incubation, pH, dry matter degradability (DMD), organic matter in vitro digestibility (OMD), metabolisable energy (ME), partitioning factor (PF96), gas yield (GY24), short chain fatty acids (SCFA), and microbial protein production (MCP) were evaluated. Increasing FIB dose linearly decreased (P<0.05) lag time without affecting others kinetic parameters. However, FIB increased the accumulated gas production, resulting in improved DMD, OMD, ME, GY24 and SCFA. The addition of AMZ decreased linearly (P<0.05) lag time and increased (P<0.05) gas production on initial times of incubation without altering the fermentation profile. The inclusion of PRO did not affect (P>0.05) the evaluated parameters. The addition of these exogenous enzyme preparations with fibrolytic activity altered ruminal fermentation in vitro of diets containing high levels of concentrates.
A Deep Multiscale Spatiotemporal Network for Assessing Depression From Facial Dynamics

Recently, deep learning models have been successfully employed in many video-based affective computing applications (e.g., detecting pain, stress, and Alzheimer’s disease). One key application is automatic depression recognition – recognition of facial expressions associated with depressive behaviour. State-of-the-art deep learning algorithms to recognize depression typically explore spatial and temporal information individually, by using 2D convolutional neural networks (CNNs) to analyze appearance information, and then by either mapping facial feature variations or averaging the depression level over video frames. This approach has limitations in terms of its ability to represent dynamic information that can help to accurately discriminate between depression levels. In contrast, models based on 3D CNNs allow to directly encode the spatio-temporal relationships, although these models rely on temporal information with fixed range and single receptive field. This approach limits the ability to capture variations of facial expression with diverse ranges, and the exploitation of diverse facial areas. In this article, a novel 3D CNN architecture – the Multiscale Spatiotemporal Network (MSN) – is introduced to effectively represent facial information related to depressive behaviours from videos. The basic structure of the model is composed of parallel convolutional layers with different temporal depths and sizes of receptive field, which allows the MSN to explore a wide range of spatio-temporal variations in facial expressions. Experimental results on two benchmark datasets show that our MSN architecture is effective, outperforming state-of-the-art methods in automatic depression recognition.
Incremental Clustering With Hard Centers

FU-PCM is an effective clustering mode by inducing the regularization constraint in C-means to avoid the interference of noises and outliers. However, it is difficult to obtain the satisfactory performance in the context of imbalance category distribution. To address above problem, first, we propose a novel clustering model, which exploits Pearson Correlation Coefficient to auto-balance the optimal equation according to the category distribution. Then, we extend it to the incremental model, which only learns samples at the current frame to update the original model by mapping centers of two adjacent frames to the distinguishable space, and mining hard centers to recognize new categories in online datasets. In this article, offline and online methods are verified in popular datasets, and experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed models.
An Algorithm to Image Individual Phase Fractions of Multiphase Flows Using Electrical Capacitance Tomography

In this paper, an algorithm using electrical capacitance tomography has been proposed to image and continuously monitor individual phases of a multiphase flow components. Instead of directly reconstructing the permittivity of the imaging domain, the proposed method presents successful reconstruction of fractional area/volume of each phase of a multiphase flow using only single frequency measurements. The permittivity image can then be calculated from the reconstructed fraction parameters. For the fraction reconstruction, the conventional cost function is reformulated and solved employing the well-known Landweber method typically used in ECT. Several three and two phase flow scenarios, including gas-oil-water process, have been analyzed and successful fraction parameter reconstructions are demonstrated. Apart from yielding successful reconstruction of individual phases, the proposed method also increases the overall accuracy of permittivity recovery consistently for all the explored cases. Hence, the proposed fraction imaging algorithm can potentially serve as a tool to decompose individual phases of a multiphase flow along with increased image accuracy.