Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Induction of Heat Resistance in Wheat Coleoptiles by 4- Hydroxybenzoic Acid: Connection with the Generation of Reactive Oxygen Species

The effect of 4-hydroxybenzoic acid (4-HBA) on resistance of coleoptiles of 4-day-old etiolated seedlings of wheat (Triticum aestivum L., cv. Elegiya) to damaging heating (10 min at 43°C) and possible dependence of this effect on changes in the activities of enzymes producing and scavenging reactive oxygen species (ROS) were investigated. Treatment of coleoptiles with 10 µM 4-HBA resulted in enhancing of superoxide anion-radical generation and maintaining of hydrogen peroxide content there in. Increasing of the rate of ROS production was significantly suppressed by inhibitors of NADPH oxidase (α-naphthol) and peroxidase (salicylhydroxamic acid). Under the influence of 4HBA the activities of superoxide dismutase and apoplastic forms of peroxidase were increased. The activity of oxalate oxidase and catalase has not changed. Exogenous 4-HBA improved coleoptiles heat resistance and its effects were comparable with the influence of salicylic acid. Antioxidant agent BHT (butylhydroxytoluene), inhibitors of NADPH oxidase and peroxidase significantly reduced the increasing of wheat coleoptiles heat resistance, caused by 4-HBA action. It was concluded that 4-HBA influence on coleoptiles heat resistance is realized with the ROS mediation.
Analysis of sewage sludge ashes from air and oxy-fuel combustion in a circulating fluidized-bed

The ashes from sewage sludge combustion in air versus O2 /CO2 atmospheres with oxygen concentrations in the range of 21–40% vol. at temperature of 850°C in a 12 kW bench-scale CFB combustor were characterised. The chemical and phase composition of ashes were studied by XRF and XRD. The morphology of studied ashes were examined by SEM method. The slagging and fouling indices were calculated to study the deposition tendencies of ash. The thermal behaviour of ashes was studied by TG-DSC techniques, focusing on the mass loss and thermic effects with the increasing of temperature up to 1200°C.
Quantum Teleportation using Pseudorandom Number based Quantum Tricks

The present work purports to a radically new perspective towards exploiting the advantages of quantum computation using classical systems. Termed ‘Quantum Tricks’, the technique relies on replacing the inherent probabilistic nature of the qubit with a pseudorandom generator. Using this, extremely simple mathematical operations are developed to implement basic Pauli X, Y and Z gates, using FPGA. Following this, entanglement is implemented and a real life application of quantum computing, namely Quantum Teleportation is implemented using the ‘QTrick Bits’. It is seen that the QTrick Bits are able to implement the teleportation with a remarkable degree of accuracy. Nonlinear characterization of the entangled states reveal the presence of chaos, thus providing subtle hints towards understanding the QTrick signal behavior. The extreme simplicity of the proposed design coupled with its efficacy in implementing quantum teleportation accurately form the highlights of the present work.
3D-QSAR of p38-α mitogen-activated protein kinase inhibitors: pyridopyridazin-6-ones (part 1)

: p38- a mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) is considered to be a novel target for the development of new anti-inflammatory agents. Inhibitors of this enzyme can provide new therapeutics for the treatment of various inflammatory diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis, disease, and inflammatory bowel disease. Three-dimensional quantitative structure-activity relationship (3D-QSAR) studies for pyridopyridazin-6-ones exhibiting p38- a MAPK inhibition were performed using comparative molecular field analysis (CoMFA) and comparative molecular similarity indices analysis (CoMSIA). The study included 70 compounds. The QSAR model was generated using a training set of 45 compounds. The energy-minimized structure of the most active compound in the series, compound 70, was used as a template for alignment, which was done with an aligned database. The optimum partial least squares analysis model on CoMFA and CoMSIA descriptors showed ‘‘leave-one-out’’ cross-validation correlation coefficients ( q 2 ) of 0.611 and 0.493, and non-cross-validated correlation coefficients ( r 2ncv ) of 0.973 and 0.815, respectively. The statistical quality of the generated model was further analyzed by bootstrapping analysis and by more robust cross-validation testing using cross-validation by two groups (leave-half-out method) to check the internal reliability within the dataset. The predictive ability of the generated CoMFA and CoMSIA model was analyzed by an external test set of 25 compounds, resulting in predictive correlation coefficients ( r 2pred ) of 0.630 and 0.403, respectively. The generated model may provide useful guidance for future synthesis of potent p38- a MAPK inhibitors. comparative molecular field analysis; comparative analysis; compound
Interpretation of fast repetition rate (FRR) fluorescence: signatures of phytoplankton community structure versus physiological state

Introduction of active chlorophyll a fluo- rescence protocols, in particular fast repetition rate (FRR) fluorometry, to oceanography and limnology 15 yr ago has enabled rapid assessment of photosyn- thetic physiology in situ. The FRR protocol generates simultaneous measurements of Photosystem II (PSII) effective absorption cross sections (termed σPSII) and photochemical efficiency (termed Fv/Fm). Both Fv/Fm and σPSII measurements have been utilised to examine the effects of physiological stress on the photosynthetic apparatus of phytoplankton in an ever growing num- ber of fluorescence-based studies. However, it is now becoming clearer that in situ values of Fv/Fm and σPSII also contain taxonomic information. Here, we present
Explaining Variation in Patterns of Fiscal Consolidation

The comparative study of debt and fiscal consolidation has acquired a new focus with the re-emergence of debt as a major problem consequent upon the global financial crisis. This leads us to re-evaluate the literature on fiscal consolidation that flourished during the 1980s and 1990s. We identify two broad schools of analysis, one which segments episodes of fiscal change into discrete observations, the other comparing budget profiles at two points in time. We argue that both strategies miss the dynamic features of government strategy, especially in the choices made between expenditure-based and revenue-based fiscal consolidation strategies. We propose a focus on pathways rather than episodes of adjustment, to recapture what Pierson terms ‘politics in time. ’ We draw on classical explanatory tools of comparative political economy, including structures of interest intermediation, the role of ideas in shaping the set of feasible policy choices, and the situation of national economies in the international political economy. We support our argument with qualitative data based on paired comparisons of Ireland and Britain, and Greece and Spain.
New Perspectives on ToothWear PeterW

Some of the efforts that have been made to document tooth wear are reviewed here with an emphasis on nonhuman mammals, literature with which dentists may not be very familiar. We project a change in research strategy from the description of wear at various scales of measurement towards investigation of the mechanical mechanisms that actually create the texture of a worn surface. These studies should reveal exactly how tooth tissue is lost and what aspects of the structure of dental tissues affect this. The most important aspects of the interaction between the tooth surface and wear particles would appear to be particle size, particle shape, their mechanical properties with respect to those of tooth tissues, and the influence of saliva.
Trade Potential factors Affecting Hired labour Adoption in Yam Production in Ghana

This paper examines the levels of family and hired labour use and the trade potential factors that influence the adoption of hired labour in Kpandai District in Northern Ghana. Empirical measure of the level of labour use among 510 sampled yam farm households revealed that hired labour dominate (63.9%) yam production among farm households. Furthermore, the paper estimate a logit model which identify that trade factors that were important in explaining the likelihood of hired labour use include producer price, farm size, competition among households, market integration, and cost of transportation. It is therefore recommended that a deliberate policy should be developed in order to improve the income levels of these labours to ensure the effective maintenance and continuity of hire labour use. Furthermore, policies should be developed to incorporate labour saving technologies to reduce the cost of yam production.
A fast topology optimization method of damping material layer for noise reduction to elastic curved plate-cavity structure

This paper presents a fast topology optimization method of damping material layer for noise reduction to elastic curved plate (shell)-cavity structure. Using less as far as possible the damping materials reach the maximum efficiency of one's vibration or noise reduction. Energy method is employed. The way to determine the location where the damping material pasted on is to find the location where damping material’s energy will lose more. The computational model is based on a finite element discretization. Assuming pasting a small amount of damping materials on the structure has little effect on vibration mode, the relationship between energy loss of the damping material on each element and the displacement of the nodes of the plate (shell) during a period of vibration was deduced. Damping material was laid out on the element location where damping layer energy will lose most, and then the second gradually, until optimization target was achieved. Commercial finite element software was used to obtain the finite element model of complex engineering structures. Nodes information, stiffness and mass matrix were read out by Matlab subroutines. A numerical result of topology optimization of damping material layer on the curved plate-cavity structure noise reduction was presented. The topology optimization method is approximate, simple and suitable for complex engineering applications.
Context Processing: A Distributed Approach

Context processing refers to the operation of processing different types of context data and/or information using different kinds of operators. These operators are applied according to some conditions or constraints given in context queries. Existing context aware systems process context data in a centralized fashion to answer context queries and generate context information. However, this method can cause scalability issues and give poor system throughput. In this paper, we aim to address this issue by proposing a distributed context data processing mechanism in which the context data processing computations of different context queries will be distributed to different computing devices. Relying on the developed prototype, a performance evaluation was conducted with centralized context data processing method as benchmark. (Less)
Are Uzbeks Better Off? Economic Welfare and Ethnicity in Kyrgyzstan

In the light of violent clashes between Kyrgyz and ethnic Uzbeks in Kyrgyzstan in June 2010 we investigate the association between economic welfare and ethnicity in this country. We intend to answer two questions. First, are Uzbek households better off than Kyrgyz households, as is often claimed in the media and also by some academics? Second, what are the correlates of household welfare in recent years, and how have these changed in comparison with the 1990s? We use data from two cross-sections of the Kyrgyz Integrated Household Survey (2003 and 2005) and run OLS regressions using three measures of welfare, i.e. per capita consumption, per capita income, and an asset index. We find some evidence for higher welfare of Uzbek headed households compared with their Kyrgyz counterparts, but mainly in rural areas. In the south of the country, where most Uzbeks live and where the violence took place, there appears to be no substantial difference in welfare. This is clearly in contrast to what was commonly propagated in the media and what most Kyrgyz tend to think. In terms of the other correlates of welfare, we find that household size, educational attainment of adults, and residence outside the capital and the neighbouring Chui oblast are most importantly connected with welfare. This coincides with findings from earlier studies using data from a decade earlier.
Preparing students for global citizenship: the effects of a Dutch undergraduate honors course

Using a mixed method approach, this case study investigates effects on the participating students () of an undergraduate honors course in the Netherlands, aimed at global justice citizenship. Knowledge about effects of global citizenship courses is still limited. The Ethical Sensitivity Scale Questionnaire and the Global Citizenship Scale were used in a pre- and posttest design to measure possible development in the moral and civic domain among the participants of the course. In the qualitative part, deductive content analyses of students’ work and students’ written reflection on the course, utilizing the theory-based curriculum guidelines Global Justice Citizenship Education, were performed. In addition, a follow-up blog and interview were analyzed to learn students’ perception on the effects of the course after half a year. Quantitative results show increased ethical sensitivity as well as global civic engagement and global competence among the participants. Qualitative results point in the same direction and provide deeper insights in the content of students’ learning and the perceived impact of the course on their attitudes and behavior. Results are discussed in relation to theory on justice-oriented global citizenship and honors pedagogies.
Two short tests fail to detect vigilance decrements.

Summary: Deterioration in performance associated with decreased ability to sustain attention may be found in long and tedious task sessions. The necessity for assessing a number of psychological dimensions in a single session often demands “short” tests capable of assessing individual differences in abilities such as vigilance and maintenance of high performance levels. In the present paper two tasks were selected as candidates for playing this role, the Abbreviated Vigilance Task (AVT) by Temple, Warm, Dember, LaGrange and Matthews (1996) and the Continuous Attention Test (CAT) by Tiplady (1992). However, when applied to a sample of 829 candidates in a job-selection process for air-traffic controllers, neither of them showed discriminative capacity. In a second study, an extended version of the CAT was applied to a similar sample of 667 subjects, but also proved incapable of properly detecting individual differences. In short, at least in a selection context such as that studied here, neither of the task.
Regional climate downscaling with prior statistical correction of the global climate forcing

A novel climate downscaling methodology that attempts to correct climate simulation biases is proposed. By combining an advanced statistical bias correction method with a dynamical downscaling it constitutes a hybrid technique that yields nearly unbiased, high‐resolution, physically consistent, three‐dimensional fields that can be used for climate impact studies. The method is based on a prior statistical distribution correction of large‐scale global climate model (GCM) 3‐dimensional output fields to be taken as boundary forcing of a dynamical regional climate model (RCM). GCM fields are corrected using meteorological reanalyses. We evaluate this methodology over a decadal experiment. The improvement in terms of spatial and temporal variability is discussed against observations for a past period. The biases of the downscaled fields are much lower using this hybrid technique, up to a factor 4 for the mean temperature bias compared to the dynamical downscaling alone without prior bias correction. Precipitation biases are subsequently improved hence offering optimistic perspectives for climate impact studies.
Genetic Variation in Geographic Crayfish (Cambaroides similis) Populations

Genomic DNA samples isolated from two geographical crayfish (Cambaroides similis) populations in the inland of the Korean Peninsula, at Jeonju (Jeonju crayfish; JJC) and Jeongup (Jeongup crayfish; JUC), were PCR-amplified repeatedly. The six arbitrarily selected primers OPC-03, OPC-06, OPC-09, URP-02, URP07 and URP-09 generated the common, specific, and polymorphic fragments. The sizes of DNA fragments also varied widely, from 100 bp ~ 2,600 bp. Here, 521 fragments were identified in the JJC population, and 354 in the JUC population: 6 primers generated 60 specific fragments (60/521 fragment, 11.5%) in the JJC population, and 90 (90/354 fragments, 25.4%) in the JUC population. These primers produced 42 polymorphic fragments (8.1%) in the JJC population, and 18 (5.1%) in the JUC population. Especially these results demonstrate that the primers detected numerous specific fragments. Especially, the decamer primer OPC-06 generated inter-population-common DNA fragments, approximately 400 and 800 bp, respectively, in both the JJC and JUC populations. The universal primer URP-02 also generated inter-population-identical DNA fragments, approximately 350 bp and 600 bp, between the two geographical crayfish populations. Based on the average bandsharing values of all samples, the bandsharing value of individuals within the JJC population was much higher than in the JUC population. The bandsharing value between individuals no. 10 and no. 15 was 0.683, which was the highest between the two geographical populations. The dendrogram obtained by the six primers indicates two genetic clusters: cluster 1 (CRAYFISH 01 ~ CRAYFISH 11), and cluster 2 (CRAYFISH 12 ~ CRAYFISH 22). The genetic distance between the two geographical populations ranged from 0.053 to 0.605. Ultimately, the longest genetic distance displaying significant molecular differences was found to exist between individuals in the two crayfish populations, between individuals CRAYFISH no. 02 of Jeonju and CRAYFISH no. 15 of Jeongup (genetic distance = 0.605).
Keratoconus in a Case with Scleroderma: A Rare Coexistence

ABS TRACT A 50 year-old female admitted to the hospital with the complaint of decreased vision, burning and grittiness in her eyes. The diagnosis of scleroderma had been made by a rheumatologist seven years ago. On presentation, her best corrected visual acuity was 8/10 in the right eye and 5/10 in the left eye. Central corneal thickness measured by an ultrasonic pachymeter was 455 micrometer (μm) in the right eye and 423 μm in the left eye. Corneal topography showed bilateral central steepening consistent with diagnosis of keratoconus. Schirmer tear test (after topical local anesthetic) was 2 mm/5 minute bilaterally. Break-up time was 1 second bilaterally. Her physical features related to scleroderma included tightness of the skin, per-oral puckering and facial telangiectasia of her face as well as flexion contracture on her fingers. This is the first case report in the literature describing the association of keratoconus with scleroderma. Although scleroderma is usually associated with increased central corneal thickness, it can also rarely be associated with keratoconus like ectatic corneal disorders.
Simulated multipolarized MAPSAR images to distinguish agricultural crops

Many researchers have shown the potential of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images for agricultural applications, particularly for monitoring regions with limitations in terms of acquiring cloud free optical images. Recently, Brazil and Germany began a feasibility study on the construction of an orbital L-band SAR sensor referred to as MAPSAR (Multi-Application Purpose SAR). This sensor provides L-band images in three spatial resolutions and polarimetric, interferometric and stereoscopic capabilities. Thus, studies are needed to evaluate the potential of future MAPSAR images. The objective of this study was to evaluate multipolarized MAPSAR images simulated by the airborne SAR-R99B sensor to distinguish coffee, cotton and pasture fields in Brazil. Discrimination among crops was evaluated through graphical and cluster analysis of mean backscatter values, considering single, dual and triple polarizations. Planting row direction of coffee influenced the backscatter and was divided into two classes: parallel and perpendicular to the sensor look direction. Single polarizations had poor ability to discriminate the crops. The overall accuracies were less than 59 %, but the understanding of the microwave interaction with the crops could be explored. Combinations of two polarizations could differentiate various fields of crops, highlighting the combination VV-HV that reached 78 % overall accuracy. The use of three polarizations resulted in 85.4 % overall accuracy, indicating that the classes pasture and parallel coffee were fully discriminated from the other classes. These results confirmed the potential of multipolarized MAPSAR images to distinguish the studied crops and showed considerable improvement in the accuracy of the results when the number of polarizations was increased.
Effect of salinity on microbial methane oxidation in freshwater and marine environments

ABSTRACT: Salinity is an important environmental control of aerobic methane oxidation, which reduces the emission of the potent greenhouse gas methane into the atmosphere. The effect of salinity on methane oxidation is especially severe in river estuaries and adjacent coastal waters, which are important sources of methane emission and, at the same time, are usually characterized by pronounced salinity gradients. Using methane oxidation rates determined by a radiotracer technique as a measure of methanotrophic activity, we tested the effect of immediate and gradual salinity changes on pure cultures of methanotrophic bacteria, and natural freshwater (Elbe River) and natural marine (North Sea) methanotrophic populations. According to our results, Methylomonas sp. and Methylosinus trichosporium are resistant to an increase in salinity, whereas Methylovulum sp. and Methylobacter luteus are sensitive to such an increase. Natural methanotrophic populations from freshwater are more resistant to an increase in salinity than those from marine water are to a decrease in salinity. In contrast to an immediate change of salinity, gradual change (1.25 PSU d−1) can attenuate salinity stress. Experiments with the natural populations revealed different reactions to changes in salinity; thus, we assume that the initial composition of the methanotrophic population, i.e. the ratio of sensitive versus resistant strains, also governs the community response to salinity stress.Repeated experiments with the natural populations revealed different reactions to changes of salinity; thus we assume that the initial composition of the methanotrophic population, i.e. the ratio of sensitive and resistant strains, also governs the community response to salinity stress.