Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The influence of social factors on the prosody of Spanish in contact with Basque

Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: The main goal of this paper is to analyse how social factors determine the degree of occurrence of intonational features of Basque in Spanish in the Basque Country (i.e. Basque Spanish). Design/methodology/approach: We concentrate on information-seeking yes/no questions. In Castilian Spanish, these end in a rising contour, whereas in Basque they end in a rising–falling contour. The data were gathered through sociolinguistic interviews with 12 speakers of Basque Spanish with different linguistic profiles: monolingual Spanish; first language Spanish–second language Basque; and L1 Basque–L2 Spanish. Data and analysis: 172 information-seeking yes/no interrogatives were obtained from conversational speech. Their final intonational contours were annotated in the Spanish Tone and Break Index model of intonational analysis. Findings/conclusions: 79% of all information-seeking yes/no questions had final configurations with a rising–falling circumflex contour. Only 21% had the final rising contour of Castilian Spanish. Speakers differed in their frequency of occurrence of falling contours, but the differences did not correlate with the speakers’ linguistic profile (monolingual vs bilingual). Rather, higher percentages of yes/no questions ending in a falling contour were found among speakers who had (a) a higher degree of contact with the Basque ethnolinguistic group, and (b) more positive attitudes towards the Basque language and the Basque ethnolinguistic group. Originality: Methodologically, this study is original because the intonational analysis is carried out on natural speech rather than on read or elicited speech. This study is also original from a theoretical point of view because it is the first one to underline the role that subjective factors such as linguistic attitudes play in the adoption of features of a language variety from another contact variety. Significance/implications: Our research opens up a path to continue investigating the weight of subjective social factors such as linguistic attitudes in explaining the variation in the influence of one language variety over another.
Genetic variability and correlation studies in brinjal (Solanum melongena L.).

The present investigation was carried out in the Department of Horticulture, Faculty of Agriculture, Annamalai University, during the period 2014 - 2015 to asses the extent of genetic variability, heritability, correlation and path co-efficient analysis of 60 genotypes of brinjal for yield and shoot and fruit borer tolerance. The experiment was laid out in Randomized Block Design with three replications. From the analysis of data, it can be concluded that the maximum phenotypic and genotypic variation was noted for fruit yield per plant (67.94 and 67.27%) followed by fruit weight (50.70 and 50.41%), fruit girth (30.72 and 29.88%), number of fruits per plant (29.99 and 29.79%) followed by shoot and fruit borer incidence (21.59 and 21.37%). High heritability along with high estimates of GCV, genetic advance and genetic gain was observed for fruit yield per plant, fruit weight, number of secondary branches per plant and shoot and fruit borer incidence. Among the sixteen morphological characters studied, number of long styled flowers per plant (8.803), number of short styled flowers per plant (5.403), number of fruits per plant (3.099), fruit weight (0.757), days to first harvesting (0.133) and shoot and fruit borer incidence (0.082) showed positive direct effect in path co-efficient analysis. Positive correlation was recorded for fruit weight (0.885), fruit girth (0.644) and number of fruits per plant (0.622).
Understanding Intermodel Diversity When Simulating the Time of Emergence in CMIP5 Climate Models

Using a statistical method, we examined the time of emergence (ToE), which was defined as the year when the global mean surface temperature (GMST) trend exceeds the trend explained by internal variability, using 33 Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) climate models for 1861–2100. We found that the GMST trend explained by internal variability showed minimal changes even though the GMST trend rapidly increased under the Representative Climate Pathway 8.5 scenario. However, there was large intermodel diversity for the ToEs in CMIP5 climate models. The intensity of Arctic amplification was closely associated with intermodel diversity of the ToEs. A significant difference in the amount of Arctic sea ice extent during the reference period (1861‐1910) played a role in determining whether there was slow or fast simulation of the ToE in CMIP5 climate models. We argue that a slow or fast ToE is influenced by how the climate models initially simulate the sea ice extent during the reference period.
Managing Cool-Season Weeds in Sugarbeet Grown for Biofuel in the Southeastern United States

Abstract Sugarbeet, grown for biofuel, is being considered as an alternate cool-season crop in the southeastern U.S. coastal plain. Typically, the crop would be seeded in the autumn, then grow through the winter and be harvested the following spring. Labels for herbicides registered for use on sugarbeet grown in the traditional sugarbeet production regions do not list any of the cool-season weeds common in the southeastern United States. Field trials were initiated near Ty Ty, GA, to evaluate all possible combinations of ethofumesate applied PRE, phenmedipham + desmedipham applied POST, clopyralid POST, and triflusulfuron POST for cool-season weed control in sugarbeet. Phenmedipham + desmedipham alone and in combination with clopyralid and/or triflusulfuron effectively controlled cutleaf eveningprimrose, lesser swinecress, henbit, and corn spurry when applied to seedling weeds. Ethofumesate PRE alone was not as effective in controlling cool-season weeds compared to treatments containing phenmedipham + desmedipham POST. However, ethofumesate PRE applied sequentially with phenmedipham + desmedipham POST improved weed control consistency. Clopyralid and/or triflusulfuron alone did not adequately control cutleaf eveningprimrose. Triflusulfuron alone effectively controlled wild radish. In the 2013–2014 and 2014–2015 seasons, December-applied POST herbicides did not injure sugarbeet. However, in the 2015–2016 season POST herbicides were applied in late October. On the day of treatment, the maximum temperature was 25.4 C, which exceeded the established upper temperature limit of 22 C for safe application of phenmedipham + desmedipham, and sugarbeet plants were severely injured. In the southeastern United States, temperatures frequently exceed 22 C in early autumn, which may limit phenmedipham + desmedipham use for controlling troublesome cool-season weeds of sugarbeet in the region. Weed control options need to be expanded to compensate for this limitation. Nomenclature: Clopyralid; ethofumesate; phenmedipham + desmedipham; triflusulfuron; corn spurry, Spergula arvensis L. ; cutleaf eveningprimrose, Oenothera laciniata Hill; henbit, Lamium amplexicaule L. ; lesser swinecress, Coronopus didymus (L.) Sm. ; wild radish, Raphanus raphanistrum L. ; sugarbeet, Beta vulgaris L.
Temperature-Compensated Spread Spectrum Sound-Based Local Positioning System for Greenhouse Operations

A spread spectrum sound-based local positioning system (SSSLPS) has been developed for indoor agricultural robots by our research group. Such an SSSLPS has several advantages, including effective propagation, low cost, and ease of use. When using sound velocity for field position measurements in a greenhouse, spatial and temporal variations in temperature during the day can have a major effect on sound velocity and subsequent positioning accuracy. In this research, a temperature-compensated sound velocity positioning was proposed and evaluated in comparison to a conventional temperature sensor method. Results indicate that this new proposed method has a positioning accuracy to within 20 mm in a 3 m × 9 m ridged greenhouse. It has the potential to replace the current system of using the temperature sensors in a greenhouse.
A Novel Robust Principal Component Analysis Algorithm of Nonconvex Rank Approximation

Noise exhibits low rank or no sparsity in the low-rank matrix recovery, and the nuclear norm is not an accurate rank approximation of low-rank matrix. In the present study, to solve the mentioned problem, a novel nonconvex approximation function of the low-rank matrix was proposed. Subsequently, based on the nonconvex rank approximation function, a novel model of robust principal component analysis was proposed. Such model was solved with the alternating direction method, and its convergence was verified theoretically. Subsequently, the background separation experiments were performed on the Wallflower and SBMnet datasets. Furthermore, the effectiveness of the novel model was verified by numerical experiments.
Antistaling properties of encapsulated maltogenic amylase in gluten‐free bread

Abstract Staling of bakery products especially gluten‐free products is a challenge on the development of these products. For retarding staling of gluten‐free bread, maltogenic amylase (MAase) at concentrations of 8.2, 45, and 82 mg/ml was encapsulated into beeswax (BW) at 1%, 2.5%, and 4% levels. Results showed the treatment with 8.2 mg/ml MAase and 2.5% beeswax had the highest encapsulation efficiency (42.04%) and chosen for subsequent experiments. The size of encapsulated particles was 362.70 nm and had a zeta potential of −15.35 mV. Surface morphology of encapsulated MAase was almost spherical with layered appearance. The free and encapsulated MAase with the activity of 5.2 µmol/min were used in gluten‐free batter and breads, respectively. In the rheological tests, batters containing free and encapsulated MAase showed lower cross over point than control batter (without enzyme or wall material) (59 and 53 Hz, respectively). Encapsulated MAase contained bread had darker crust, whiter and softer crumb, and more aerated structure in comparison with free MAase loaded one. Both breads containing MAase as free or encapsulated had higher moisture content and water activity in crust and crumb than control bread. However, bread with free MAase had softer crumb after four days of storage, and bread with encapsulated MAase had higher sensorial acceptability than other breads after 2 and 4 days of storage.
Response of Turkish and Trojan fir to Phytophthora cinnamomi and P. cryptogea

ABSTRACT Phytophthora root rot, primarily caused by the oomycete Phytophthora cinnamomi, is a large problem for the Christmas tree industry in North Carolina. Fraser fir (Abies fraseri) has no known innate resistance to this pathogen while some exotic fir species, such as Trojan (Abies equi-trojani) and Turkish (Abies bornmuelleriana) fir display varying amounts of resistance. A Phytophthora-resistance screening trial was completed with 1600 seedlings from 12 Turkish and Trojan fir families and Fraser and momi fir (A. firma). Seedlings from each family or species were inoculated with each of eight Phytophthora isolates, six P. cinnamomi and two Phytophthora cryptogea, in an effort to describe variability in isolate aggressiveness. Mortality was assessed as percent shoot necrosis bi-weekly for 16 weeks. Overall, rankings of resistance in fir species confirmed previous single-isolate-based results; momi fir was the most resistant, followed by Turkish, Trojan, and Fraser fir. P. cinnamomi isolates were generally more aggressive than P. cryptogea isolates. The two P. cryptogea isolates resulted in 5.6% and 0.8% mortality on Turkish fir, and 10.9% and 6.7% mortality on Trojan fir, the first reported resistance screen of these host-pathogen combinations. Pearson’s correlation testing identified a high degree of correlation between most isolates and overall mean mortality. Turkish and Trojan fir families appear to possess resistance to Phytophthora species common in North Carolina.
Confirmation: A crucial step in copy number variation analysis after exome sequencing in intellectual disabilities

Intellectual disability (ID) comprises a group of mental disorders which have underlying genetic causes, among which the monogenic causes are one of the causes for ID. One kind of a monogenic cause is the copy number variations (CNVs). These CNVs can be indicated using exome sequencing (ES) and the CoNVex and CoNIFER algorithms. To confirm the possible causative CNVs quantitative PCR (QPCR) was used. In a Pakistani ID patient a homozygous deletion of ENTPD3 was indicated and in an Estonian ID patient CPVL-CHN2 a homozygous duplication was indicated. However the QPCR showed that ENTPD3 did not segregate and CPVL-CHN2 was only duplicated heterozygous. Confirmation, like QPCR, is therefore a crucial step in confirming CNVs analysis of ES in ID patients.
DOMINO: a novel algorithm for network-based identification of active modules with reduced rate of false calls

Algorithms for active module identification (AMI) are central to analysis of omics data. Such algorithms receive a gene network and nodes’ activity scores as input and report sub-networks that show significant over-representation of accrued activity signal (‘active modules’), thus representing biological processes that presumably play key roles in the analyzed biological conditions. Although such methods exist for almost two decades, only a handful of studies attempted to compare the biological signals captured by different methods. Here, we systematically evaluated six popular AMI methods on gene expression (GE) and GWAS data. Notably, we observed that GO terms enriched in modules detected by these methods on the real data were often also enriched on modules found on randomly permuted input data. This indicated that AMI methods frequently report modules that are not specific to the biological context measured by the analyzed omics dataset. To tackle this bias, we designed a permutation-based method that evaluates the empirical significance of GO terms reported as enriched in modules. We used the method to fashion five novel performance criteria for evaluating AMI methods. Last, we developed DOMINO, a novel AMI algorithm, that outperformed the other six algorithms in extensive testing on GE and GWAS data. Software is available at https://github.com/Shamir-Lab.
A summary on non-viral systems for gene delivery based on natural and synthetic polymers

Abstract Gene delivery systems necessitate the gene therapy, which is a unique approach for applying the tunable genes to treat any diseases. To tackle down the disadvantages of viral vectors like high cost, poor target cell specificity, and inability in transferring the large size genes, the non-viral vectors/carriers have been introduced for achieving better efficacy in gene therapy. A variety of carriers including liposomes, metallic/polymeric nanoparticles, dendrimers, gelatins, quantum dots/rods, etc. has been depicted distinct features in the gene therapy. Herein, the advances and applications of natural/synthetic polymeric carriers have been summarized in gene therapy and disadvantages/challenges have been also discussed. Graphical Abstract
Rootstock Improves High-tunnel Tomato Water Use Efficiency

The following study was conducted to address water use efficiency in grafted tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) in an on-farm environment. The commercial rootstock cultivars Beaufort (BE) and Shield (S) were chosen as these two have different root system morphologies that may benefit water use efficiency. The heirloom cultivar Cherokee Purple (CP) was grafted onto both rootstocks and used as the nongrafted control. The study was conducted in 2016 and 2017 on a 5-acre vegetable and cut flower farm in North Carolina’s Piedmont region. Plants were grown under protected, high-tunnel culture where they received either 100% (3 hours every other day) or 50% (1.5 hours every other day) of the grower’s normal irrigation regime. At 50% irrigation, ‘Beaufort’-grafted plants yielded significantly more than nongrafted ‘Cherokee Purple’ and ‘Shield’-grafted plants. Furthermore, ‘Beaufort’-grafted plants at 50% irrigation yielded more than nongrafted ‘Cherokee Purple’ receiving the 100% irrigation treatment. The ‘Beaufort’-grafted plants significantly improved irrigation water use efficiency (iWUE) at the 50% irrigation treatment compared with the other graft treatments. Yield and iWUE of ‘Shield’-grafted plants were comparable with the nongrafted ‘Cherokee Purple’ at both irrigation treatments. Regardless of irrigation treatment, grafting onto ‘Beaufort’ improved the quality of total fruit harvested. An economic assessment was conducted to determine the feasibility of using grafted plants in conditions lacking significant disease pressure. Purchasing grafted transplants would increase the initial investment by $5227.2 per acre. However, the increased yield obtained when using ‘Beaufort’ rootstock at 50% irrigation increased net revenue by $35,900.41 per acre compared with nongrafted ‘Cherokee Purple’ receiving 100% irrigation, amounting to a 44.6% increase in net revenue while saving ≈383,242 gal/acre of water per growing season. These results indicate that growers can select rootstocks to better manage water use in an environmentally friendly manner without limiting economic gains.
Serious Game Design: Presenting a New Generic Creative Reflection Framework

Serious games are transcending the way of teaching and learning nowadays. Since serious games balance playful and educational aspects, it constitutes a privileged learning method for the digital natives. However, they are ubiquitous in today's society and their stakes and assets remain largely fuzzy. This paper describes different models and frameworks for serious game design. Between theoretical and technical consideration, authors propose a new reflection model that aims to help pedagogues guiding their conception of serious games. This model is a result of a thematic synthesis analyzing more than 40 texts offering a three-layered model covering the simplest to the most advanced design. Three study cases are announced to be conducted by the end of this year in order to challenge and evaluate this new model.
Quality Changes after Oven-drying and Frozen Storage of Bluestripe Herring ( Herklotsichthys quadrimaculatus )

Proximate composition (moisture, ash, protein, and fat) of muscle tissue and small, medium, and large sizes bluestripe herring (Herklotsichthys quadrimaculatus) were analyzed. The fresh index of all three sizes bluestripe herring was monitored every month during six months frozen storage (-20°C). Small-sized specimens spoil faster than the larger ones; therefore it is mostly processed into dried products right away and sold in the market in dried form. As two of the often-used methods, oven and sun drying of small bluestripe herring were compared for their water activity and moisture changes, freshness index values (pH, Thiobarbituric acid (TBA), and Total volatile basic nitrogen (TVBN)), and overall acceptability. pH and TVBN values indicate that bluestripe herring (all sizes) are still under fresh index value in fresh condition even after 6 month storage at -20°C, but considering the TBA values, the fish are considered best to consume when fresh or at most before 1 month at -20°C frozen storage. The fish oven-dried at 80°C gave lower TVBN amount than sun dried fish, and both values are still considered suitable for human consumption. Their pH, TVBN and TBA values showed significant difference. The fish oven dried at 60°C and 80°C received a higher score by panelists than sun-dried fish. Oven drying at 80°C can be an alternative to traditional sun drying as it is time saving. Frozen storage still considered as the best method for mitigating quality changes of bluestripe herring.
Automatic Measurement of Fetal Cavum Septum Pellucidum From Ultrasound Images Using Deep Attention Network

The measurement of cavum septum pellucidum is an important step in prenatal testing. However, this process is usually done manually, which is such a difficult and time-consuming task due to the attenuation and shadows of ultrasound images even for experienced sonographers. In this study, we propose a novel deep attention network to address this problem by segmenting and measuring the width of cavum septum pellucidum. The proposed network is based on U-net with three changes: a new channel attention module, increasing attention on relevant regions; VGGI I, adding the depth of encoder path to increase the receptive field; And post-processing to measure and diagnose the anomalies of cavum septum pellucidum. Experiments on a fetal ultrasound dataset demonstrated our proposed network achieved the highest precision of 79.5% and the largest Dice score of 77.5%. To demonstrate the generalization capacity, we also have been validated our model on the BraTs 2017 dataset, obtaining an excellent performance with the Dice score of 91.5%.
Textile wastewater treatment by anaerobic sludge blanket reactor

In this study, performance of a lab-scale hybrid up-flow anaerobic sludge blanket (HUASB) reactor treating textile wastewater was evaluated under several operating conditions such as i) textile wastewater mixed up with glucose as food, ii) textile wastewater seeded with sewage sludge and glucose and iii) textile wastewater only. In all cases, two days of incubation period was provided for bacterial growth. In the first case, Klebsiella was the primary Species of bacteria growing in the reactor and the removal efficiency of COD and color was 25% and 56.4% respectively. In the second case, Klebsiella and Escherichia coli were the major bacteria and removal efficiency of COD and color was found to be 38% and 65% respectively. In the last case, Pseudomonas bacterium was dominant in the reactor and removal efficiency of COD, BOD and color was 84%, 93%, and 97% respectively. Wastewater treatment without glucose favored the growth of Pseudomonas which has been found to be effective in degrading organics present in textile wastewater. For all cases, reactor performance decreased after the third or fourth cycle of treatment. However, the removal of sludge after the third cycle allowed a high degradation efficiency of organics to be maintained in the reactor. With proper bacterial growth and maintenance, the HUASB reactor can be a huge upgrade from conventional UASB and a suitable alternative to conventional processes for the treatment of textile wastewater. Bangladesh J. Sci. Ind. Res.55(3), 165-172, 2020
Relationship between seed moisture content and acquisition of impermeability in Nelumbo nucifera (Nelumbonaceae)

Seeds of Nelumbo nucifera do not imbibe water, and thus have physical dormancy (PY). However, a proportion of seeds are permeable to water, and so we hypothesized that variation in moisture content is a reason for the development of both permeable and impermeable seeds. Th e permeable proportion of seeds present in a lot collected from Suzhou, China, was separated using an imbibition test. Th e permeable proportion had an average moisture content of 15.6 %, compared with 8.5 % for impermeable seeds. Drying permeable seeds above silica gel to 10 % and 8 % f. wb. , resulted in 77 and 100 % impermeable seeds, respectively, compared with no impermeable seeds at 15 % moisture content. Dried to 10 % moisture content, and incubated above water in an airtight container, 46 % of the seeds reverse impermeability. Permeable seeds with 15 % moisture content maintained above LiCl2 (RH=70 %) did not develop impermeability after three months of storage. Th e seeds dried to 6 % moisture content and stored above water in an airtight container showed no increase in moisture. Based on these results, we conclude that there is a strong relationship between moisture content and the onset of impermeability in this species.