Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
SPR Biosensing MUA/Poly-L-lysine Platform for the Detection of 2,4-Dinitrophenol as Small Molecule Model System

Surface Plasmon Resonance assays are being developed as alternative biodetection methods for a great number of pesticides and toxins. These substances typically have low molecular weight, making it necessary to perform competitive inhibition immunoassays. In most of the cases, the strategy is to immobilize a protein derivative of the analyte, which usually involves the appearance of nonspecific protein binding which limits the detection range of the assay. In this work we present results of a poly-L-lysine Au-MUA-PLL based sensor platform for quantitative determination of 2,4-dinitrophenol as model system for small molecular weight substances detection. The prepared sensor chip was characterized by means of Atomic Force Microscopy, Surface Plasmon Resonance, and Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy. Experiments verified the absence of nonspecific protein adsorption to Au-MUA-PLL surfaces and the improvement of the competitive inhibition assays performance in comparison with single and mixed thiol self-assembled monolayers. The possibility of directly immobilizing 2,4-dinitrophenol to the poly-L-lysine containing platforms leads to an improvement in the detection of the soluble analyte by the competitive inhibition assay avoiding undesirable nonspecific protein adsorption. Therefore, Au-MUA-PLL surfaces constitute a suitable alternative for quantitative detection of small molecules when nonspecific adsorption cannot be avoided.
Cryptonemia asiatica sp. nov. (Halymeniaceae, Rhodophyta), a new marine macroalgal species from Korea and Japan

We propose Cryptonemia asiatica sp. nov. from Korea and Japan. We used molecular analyses of plastid-encoded rbcL and morphological observations to resolve the taxonomic identities of C. lactuca from Korea, C. luxurians from Japan, and C. seminervis from Spain. Specimens of C. lactuca and C. luxurians fell within the same molecular phylogenetic clade (with 100% bootstrap support) and were clearly separated from specimens of C. luxurians collected from the type locality in Brazil. Our analyses demonstrated identical molecular sequences between C. seminervis specimens from Spain and C. lomation specimens from France. Morphological characteristics of the new species, C. asiatica include prominent midribs through the mid thallus, a cortex 4–6 cells thick, and a blade with undulate margins. Molecular evidence indicates that specimens from Korea and Japan previously assigned to C. lactuca and C. luxurians, respectively, should be reassigned to Cryptonemia asiatica. Binomial C. luxurians from Brazil should be resurrected as the independent species of Cryptonemia.
Draw squares, and you will discover that many competent and rigorous people are around you: Shape priming influences impressions regarding the interpersonal environment

The effects of drawing circles and squares on personality judgments in a metaphor-consistent manner, the round-warm and square-competent associations were investigated. We conducted a study in which participants drew as many circles or squares as possible and responded to a questionnaire assessing their interpersonal environment. Results showed that participants in the round condition responded that there were significantly more warm people around them than those in the square condition, and those in the square condition responded that there were significantly more competent and rigorous people around them than those in the round condition. These findings confirmed the metaphor-consistent effect of shapes on social perceptions.
Compton scattering tomography for agricultural measurements

This paper presents a new approach in tomographic instrumentation for agriculture based on Compton scattering, which allows for the simultaneous measurements of density and moisture of soil samples. Compton tomography is a technique that can be used to obtain a spatial map of electronic density of samples. Quantitative results can be obtained by using a reconstruction algorithm that takes into account the absorption of incident and scattered radiation. Results show a coefficient of linear correlation better than 0.81, when comparison is made between soil density measurements based on this method and direct transmission tomography. For soil water contents, a coefficient of linear correlation better than 0.79 was found when compared with measurements obtained by time domain reflectrometry (TDR). In addition, a set of Compton scatter images are presented to illustrate the efficacy of this imaging technique, which makes possible improved spatial variability analysis of pre-established planes.
BIOTESTING OF HEAVY METAL POLLUTION IN THE SOIL

Biotesting of heavy metal pollution in the soil. Chemical pollution of the environment increases sharply globally, and one of the most significant indicator of this increasing pollution is the accumulation of heavy metals in the soil. In mobile forms they can enter the food chain, damaging the environment seriously and posing a risk to human health. The subject of this work is justified by the fact, that a plant biotest method representing the toxicity of heavy metals to the ecosystem, characterizing the heavy metal pollution of soils and applying plant parameters is not available. Thus, it was to develop a laboratory plant biotest method and assessing system suitable to characterize heavy metal polluted areas, on test soils contaminated by cadmium, lead and copper, applying perennial rye-grass (Lolium perenne), as test plant. The basis for a plant biotest method suitable to characterize heavy metal polluted soils was the rapid seedling biotest method developed by Nooman & Fuleky (1991/1992). In the experiments the number of heavy metal loading levels was increased, applying 0-, 0,75-, 1-, 24× loading levels. 1× loading levels were identical for all three heavy metals with “B” (pollution) limit levels, calculated for air dried soil. A 0× loading means unloaded soil with natural heavy metal content. In addition to shoot heights other plant physiological parameters were tested as well, i.e. green and dry masses and humidity of the shoots, the mass of the roots and heavy metal content taken up by the shoots and the roots were measured. In the test plants used, the increase of the heavy metal content could be undoubtedly correlated to heavy metal loading levels. The greatest impacts of increased heavy metal loading were observed in the heavy metal content taken up by the shoots and the roots. Heavy metal contents taken up by the shoots can be much more sensitive indicators of heavy metal pollution of soils, than the numerical values of soil limit levels. Our results with Cd, Pb and Cu loading of test soils have shown that shoot height reduction of perennial rye-grass (Lolium perenne) can be a well treatable and sensitive indicator of heavy metal pollution level of soils, as it is characteristic for the inhibiting effect of heavy metal pollution and for the acute toxicity level as well. Acute toxicities of heavy metal loading could be easily monitored by the decreasing of green mass.
Determination of Antioxidant Capacity of 2,6-Quinolinediol

Kinolin grubu bilesikleri, canli metabolizmasi, boya ve ilac sektorunde genis capta kullanilmaya baslamistir. Bu nedenle cesitli kinolin turevleri sentezlenmekte ve sentez yontemleri gelistirilmektedir. Endustriel acidan kinolin bilesiklerinin sentezi ayri bir alan olusturmaktadir. 2,6-kinolindiol bir kinolin turevidir. Bu calismada; Fe3+-Fe2+ transformasyonu metoduna gore indirgeme kapasitesi, CUPRAK metoduna gore Cu2+-Cu+ indirgeme kapasitesi, FRAP metoduna gore Fe3+-TPTZ indirgeme kapasitesi, bipiridil reaktifi kullanarak ferroz iyonlari (Fe2+) selatlama aktivitesi, DPPH, ABTS, DMPD radikal giderme aktiviteleri ile superoksit anyon radikalleri (O2.-) giderme aktivitesi gibi farkli biyoanalitikal metotlar kullanildi. Ayrica BHA, BHT, α-tokoferol ve troloks referans antioksidan olarak kullanildi. Bu madde icin ABTS radikal giderme IC50 inhibisyon degeri 3.39 μg mL-1 olarak hesaplandi. BHA, α-Tocopherol, trolox, BHT ve gibi standart antioksidanlar, sirasiyla 2.59, 4.44, 7.07 ve 32.36 μg mL-1 olarak ABTS radikal giderme inhibisyonlari sergiledi. Calismalar 2,6-kinolindiolun, etkili bir antioksidana sahip oldugunu acikca gostermistir.
Impact of L-arginine on Streptococcus gordonii gene expression and biofilm formation

Streptococcus gordonii is a bacterium commonly found in the healthy human mouth, and a primary coloniser of tooth surfaces. This gives it an important role in the establishment of dental plaque, which is a typical 'biofilm' a multi-layered community of bacterial cells surrounded by a sticky protective matrix, found on the surface of teeth. Dental plaque is present in health but, if left unchecked, plays a causative role in the formation of both gum disease and tooth decay, the two most common oral diseases. A strain of S. gordonii has been generated that is defective in biofilm formation. This strain carries a deletion of the gene arcR, which encodes ArcR, a protein involved in the regulation of arginine catabolism. The role of ArcR in biofilm formation is currently unclear. The aim of this project was to investigate the S. gordonii arcR mutant with a view to characterising the contribution of ArcR to biofilm growth. A number of phenotypes were investigated, including cell surface hydrophobicity, cell surface protein and intracellular protein expression, appearance of biofilms (by atomic force microscopy imaging), and the relative fitness of the mutant in direct competition with the wild-type. It was found that the arcR deletion strain of S. gordonii exhibited structural differences from the wild-type in addition to the unstable biofilm phenotype seen previously including differences in cell surface protein expression. Future work aims to identify those proteins that are differentially expressed in order to understand the mechanisms of S. gordonii biofilm formation.
Title Effect of temporal fine structure on speech intelligibilitymodeling

Temporal fine structure (TFS) carries important information for the speech perception of hearing-impaired listeners and for the design of novel prosthetic hearing devices. This study assessed the performance of present intelligibility indices for predicting the intelligibility of speech containing different amount of TFS information. Speech intelligibility data was collected from vocoded and wideband Mandarin sentences containing little/partial and intact TFS information, respectively, and was then subjected to the correlation analysis with existing intelligibility indices. It was found that, though performing well in predicting the intelligibility of vocoded or wideband speech separately, present intelligibility indices were not highly correlated with the intelligibility scores when a general function was used to map all intelligibility measures to intelligibility scores. Analysis further showed that the intelligibility prediction power could be significantly improved when multiple condition-dependent functions were used for mapping intelligibility measures to intelligibility scores.
Solving puzzles of spontaneously broken spacetime symmetries

We establish a classical analog of the Nambu-Goldstone theorem for spontaneous breaking of spacetime symmetries. It provides a counting rule for independent Nambu-Goldstone fields and states which of them are gapped. We demonstrate that only those symmetry group generators give rise to independent Nambu-Goldstone fields that act non-trivially on a vacuum at the origin of coordinates. Other generators give rise to auxiliary fields that must be excluded from a theory by the means of inverse Higgs constraints. The physical meaning of the inverse Higgs phenomenon and an application of our results to theories of massive gravity are discussed.
Islamic Crowd-funding as The Next Financial Innovation in Islamic Finance: Potential and Anticipated Regulation in Indonesia

Crowd-funding is an innovative concept. The online nature and the usually small size of investments of crowd-funding makes it different from private placement or other similar activities. Crowd-funding is still infant industry but growing fast, including Islamic crowd-funding. Islamic crowd-funding is the platform designed to comply with the sharia. Considering as the most populous Muslim in the world, the third largest democracy, and the biggest Muslim nation in the world, with favorable demographics and transition to a middle-income country, Indonesia will mean eventually become the biggest market for Islamic finance. Hence, the coming era of Islamic crowd-funding in Indonesia is also underway. However, there is still lack of awareness and understanding about Islamic crowd-funding including its prospects and challenges. There is also no specific regulation on Islamic crowd-funding yet. In near future, regulation must also be put in place for crowd-funding. Regulator needs to create frameworks that provide sufficient structure and protections while allowing enough space for an orderly and robust market to grow. It is incumbent on Indonesia to ensure the groundwork in its place. Otoritas Jasa Keuangan (OJK) has shown resolve and determination to ensure the requisite infrastructure and regulations needed. Sharia and crowd-funding have similar goal and philosophical foundation. Our paper suggests that crowd-funding and Islamic finance are inherently compatible and mutually reinforcing. Islamic crowd-funding may also help Islamic finance to play more important roles with more significant market share in the Indonesian economy. Our paper also describes possible anticipated regulations for crowd-funding in Indonesia.
Preparation and Optical Properties Assessment of CdSe Quantum Dots

CdSe quantum dots (QDs) (2 - 3 nm) were synthesized by chemical precipitation method. Optical and structure properties of the products were investigated by scanning tunneling microscope (STM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and ultra violet-visible (UV-Vis) spectrophotometer. The results show that high-quality cubic CdSe QDs were obtained. It is also obtained that temperature is one of the most important factors the affect on the particle size and optical properties of the prepared QDs samples.
Short-Term Persistence in Norwegian Equity Mutual Funds

In order to analyze short-term persistence in Norwegian equity mutual fund returns, two methods are applied. The backbone for both of them is a sorting procedure that creates four equally weighted portfolios based on lagged one-year returns. These ranked portfolios are subject to three different holding strategies, i.e. they are rebalanced every one, six and twelve months. The first method uses the 4-factor model by Carhart to obtain risk-adjusted returns from all the portfolios. The second one analyzes rank dependency by utilizing contingency tables. The results are somewhat mixed. None of the ranked portfolios were able to create significant risk-adjusted alphas, but simple returns seem to be affected by rankings and the holding periods. Consistency in rankings is present when the portfolios are rebalanced every one and six months. Finally, persistent behavior is gradually diminishing as the post-formation period increases.
OF VERTICALLY ALIGNED CARBON NANOTUBES AND HORIZONTAL NANOSTRUCTURES

OF THE THESIS FABRICATION OF VERTICALLY ALIGNED CARBON NANOTUBES AND HORIZONTAL NANO-STRUCTURES Fabrication of ordered anodic alumina nanopore arrays and anodization parameters including electrolyte, concentration, voltage, temperature and time have been investigated. Cobalt nanoparticles were electrodeposited at the bottom of the pores. Vertically aligned, open-tipped multi-walled carbon nanotube arrays of high density and uniformity were synthesized via a flame method on silicon substrates using a nanoporous template of anodized aluminum oxide. The diameter and length of the nanotubes are controlled by the geometry of the aluminum oxide template. It is the cobalt catalyst particles, not the porous aluminum templates, help the growth of carbon nanotubes through graphitization and bonding of carbon nanotubes to the silicon substrates. Fabrication of nano-structures has been demonstrated. Nano-trenches of 20 nm have been achieved using single-walled nanotube bundles as shadow masks, which were aligned across electrodes under high frequency AC voltage.
A NEW APPROACH IN DISTORTIONLESS TECHNIQUES FOR PAPR REDUCTION IN MULTICARRIER TRANSMISSION SYSTEMS

Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is a robust and effective multicarrier transmission technique for high speed communication in wireless mobile environment and applications. A major challenging issue in application of OFDM is its high peak to average power ratio (PAPR). Selective mapping (SLM) is one of the promising techniques which offer distortionless PAPR reduction at the cost of bandwidth efficiency and computational complexity. In this work, SLM is modified by using new phase sequences, which are combinations of Centering matrix along with Hadamard and Riemann matrices. Simulation results show that the proposed phase sequences offer improved PAPR reduction and thus outperform some of the previously proposed techniques.
Rapid and Sensitive Serodiagnosis of Scrub Typhus Using SERS-Based Lateral Flow Assay Platforms.

A surface-enhanced Raman scattering-based lateral flow assay (SERS-LFA) technique has been developed for the rapid and accurate diagnosis of scrub typhus. Lateral flow kits for the detection of O. tsutsugamushi IgG (scrub typhus biomarker) were fabricated and the calibration curve for various standard clinical sera concentrations were obtained by Raman measurements. The clinical sera titer values were determined by fitting the Raman data to the calibration curve. To assess the clinical feasibility of the proposed method, SERS-LFA assays were performed on 40 clinical samples. The results showed good agreement with those of the standard indirect immunofluorescence assay (IFA) method. SERS-LFA has many advantages over IFA including the less sample volume, simpler assay steps, shorter assay time, more systematic quantitative analysis, and longer assay lifetime. As SERS strips can be easily integrated with a miniaturised Raman spectrophotometer, field serodiagnosis is also more feasible.
Colorimetric analysis on flocculation of bioinspired au self-assembly for biophotonic application

Gold nanoparticles exhibited strong surface plasmon absorption and couplings between neighboring particles within bioactivated self-assembly modified their optical properties. Colorimetric analysis on the optical modification of surface plasmon resoanance (SPR) shift and flocculation parameter functionalized bioinspired gold assembly for biophotonic application. The physical origin of bioinspired gold aggregation-induced shifting, decreasing, or broadening of the plasmon absorption spectra could be explained in terms of dynamic depolarization, collisional damping, and shadowing effects.
Characteristic Analysis, Antioxidant Components and Antioxidant Activityof Date Fruits, Date Seeds and Palm Shell

The present study describes the chemical composition and antioxidant components of date fruits, date seeds and palm shell. Tocopherol, phenolic compounds, benzoic acid, cinnamic acid, quercetin and kaempferol of date fruits, date seeds and palm shell were determined by HPLC. Date fruits contained high amounts of total phenols 2515.6 mg/ 100 g and tocopherol 22.722 μg/ 100 g, while palm shell contained high amounts of total tannins 1728.03 mg/ 100 g. Date seeds contained high amounts of kaempferol 14.878 mg/ 100 g and protocattechuic acid 6.672 mg/ 100 g. The antioxidant activity of date fruits, date seeds and palm shell were evaluated and exhibited 91.87, 81.85 and 63.77%, respectively. Our findings demonstrate that the date fruits, date seeds and palm shell can be considered as good source of natural antioxidants.
The Effects of Information Technology Applications on Collaborating Capability in Achieving Organisational Competitive Advantages in Malaysia

Emerging and developing countries, particularly in Asia, have seen relatively strong economic growth. With right information technology (IT) adoption, the strong growth would provide a great advantage in improving the potential of the growth of companies. This paper highlights information technology (IT) applications have moderating effects towards collaborating capability-organisational competitive advantage relationship based on empirical justifications of 295 Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) Malaysia companies. These findings from Malaysia, a fast growing Asian country, would serve as guidelines to organisations in other emerging and developing countries on key IT application necessary for organisational competitive advantage. Findings reveal that there were nine IT applications that moderate the collaborating capability-E-Mail, Content Management, Decision Support System, Knowledge Base/Repository, Document Management, Search Engine, Website Content, Intranet and Internet Access. The contributions to research and practice including suggestions for future studies are discussed.
Chapter 12 CFD for the Design and Optimization of Slurry Bubble Column Reactors

Despite the notion that computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models are considered complicated, expensive, time-consuming and difficult to formulate, their implementation offers an advanced prospect to move beyond empirical models, which inherit severe limitations in terms of flexibility, scale-up, and optimization of slurry bubble column reactors (SBCRs). This is because complex hydrodynamics coupled with chemical reactions in such reactors increase the uncertainty in using empirical models, leading to significant startup delays and overruns. Recent work by Basha et al. has shown that properly validated CFD models provide an exceptional opportunity to gain detailed temporal and spatial information about the local hydrodynamics and overall behavior as well as performance of SBCRs. This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of different CFD frameworks which could be used to model SBCRs, namely the multi-Eulerian, direct numerical simulations (DNS) and large Eddy simulation (LES). The steps required in developing CFD models and the optimization of different sub-models, such as interphase interactions, solid-phase representation, bubble population balance, bubble-induced turbulence, mass transfer and reaction kinetics are highlighted. Different convergence criteria for meshing, solution stability and techniques for maximizing the CFDmodel scale without compromising accuracy are addressed. An example of using CFD multi-Eulerian frameworks to describe the local hydrodynamics in a pilot-scale SBCR (0.3-m ID, 3-m height) operating under the Fisher-Tropsch (F-T) synthesis process are also provided.