Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Methanobactin: Metal binding properties, physiological function and biosynthesis

Methanobactins (mbs) are low molecular mass (< 1300 Da) modified peptides secreted by many methanotrophs or methane oxidizing bacteria to sequester copper from the environment. To date, methanobactin has been structurally characterized from six methanotrophs and can be divided into two groups. Group I methanobactins are represented by methanobactins from Methylosinus trichosporium OB3b and Methylosinus sp. LW4. This group is characterized by the presence of two oxazolone rings with adjacent thioamide groups. Two nitrogens from the oxazolone rings and two sulfurs from the thioamide groups come together to form a copper coordination site in distorted tertrahedral geometry. This group of methanobactin also has two cysteines in the mature protein that form a stable disulfide bond. The second group is composed of methanobactins from four different Methylocystis species. This group of methanobactins has a hairpin like structure following copper binding with sulfate group attached to serine or threonine and is structurally more dynamic than group I methanobactins. This group is also characterized by the presence of a C-terminal oxazolone ring with an associated thioamide and either an N-terminal imidazolone or pyrazinedione group and an associated thioamide. The first part of this dissertation is focused on the study of methanobactin binding to various non-copper metals such as mercury and gold and the role of that binding of noncopper metals has on the physiology of methanotrophs. The second part of this dissertation is focused on understanding the post-translational modifications required for methanobactin. Until recently, the biosynthesis was assumed to be via a non-ribosomal peptide synthase or polyketide synthase. However, during the course of my dissertation, we determined that
Positive periodic solution of first-order neutral differential equation with infinite distributed delay and applications

In this paper, we consider first-order neutral differential equation with infinite distributed delay, where nonlinear term may satisfy sub-linearity, semi-linearity and super-linearity conditions. By virtue of a fixed point theorem of Leray-Schauder type, we prove the existence of positive periodic solutions. As applications, we prove that Hematopoiesis model, Nicholson’s blowflies model and the model of blood cell production have positive periodic solutions.
Fine Mapping and Candidate Gene Analysis of Small Round Grain Mutant in Rice

Grain size and panicle architecture are important traits determining yield. Here we report a new allele of DEP2 (dense and erect panicle 2) which has a pleiotropic effect on grain size/shape and panicle architecture. A small round grain and erect panicle mutant was obtained by treating japonica cultivar Hwacheong waxy with MNU (N-methyl-N-nitrosourea). Through fine mapping sequence analysis, we identified the single nucleotide substitution in the mutant, which caused splicing error of the first intron, on previously reported DEP2 locus in rice. Since the dep2-1 and dep2-2 have been reported in previous studies, we named this new allele as dep2-3. The dep2-3 mutant manifested reduced grain size and plant height, dense and erect panicle and erect plant architecture. When we crossed the mutant with wild type, panicle and grain of F1 plant showed intermediate phenotype, indicating that dep2-3 showed incomplete dominance, which was not reported in the previous study. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) results showed that increase in width of mutant grain was due to the increased width of glume cells. Paraffin section of peduncle revealed that outgrowth in outer layer of peduncle compared to inner layer caused the erectness of the panicle. Our results collectively indicated that the dep2-3 might play a significant role in the regulation of grain size/shape and formation of vascular bundles.
'Euploea alcathoe misenus' Miskin (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae) in Torres Strait, Queensland

'Euploea alcathoe misenus' Miskin, 1890, stat. rev. is shown to be the appropriate subspecific name for 'E. alcathoe' (Godart) populations in Torres Strait, Queensland. The type locality of Thursday Island for 'E. a. monilifera' (Moore, 1883) is shown to be erroneous and this taxon should be treated as a junior synonym of either 'E. a. nox' Butler, 1866, from Aru Island, Indonesia, or 'E. a occulta' Butler, 1877, from the Port Moresby region of Papua New Guinea.
Antiplasmodial activity of Anchomanes difformis aqueous leaf extract on Plasmodium berghei infected mice

Challenges including treatment failure, cost, resistance, and adverse effects associated with antimalarial drugs have increased the use of medical plants as alternative treatment. Anchomanes difformis (A. difformis) is a multipurpose plant used traditionally for the treatment of a variety of ailments including malaria, but with a paucity of scientific evidence. This study assessed the antiplasmodial activity of A. difformis aqueous leaf extract (AEA) in Plasmodium berghei (P. berghei) infected mice. AEA (100, 200 and 400 mg/kg) was orally administered to P. berghei infected mice in the curative, suppressive and prophylactic groups. The untreated parasitized control (UPC) and the positive control were administered orally with normal saline (0.2mL) and chloroquine (CQ) (10mg/kg). After treatment, blood samples were analyzed for parasitamia level, hematological parameters and liver samples were evaluated for histology. Curative, suppressive and prophylactic studies showed that administered AEA decreased parasitamia levels and increased survival time in a dose-dependent fashion with significance at 200 mg/kg (p
The Aerodynamics and Power Requirements of Forward Flapping Flight in the Mango Stem Borer Beetle (Batocera rufomaculata).

The need for long dispersal flights can drive selection for behavioral, physiological, and biomechanical mechanisms to reduce the energy spent flying. However, some energy loss during the transfer of momentum from the wing to the fluid is inevitable, and inherent to the fluid-wing interaction. Here, we analyzed these losses during the forward flight of the mango stem borer (Batocera rufomaculata). This relatively large beetle can disperse substantial distances in search of new host trees, and laboratory experiments have demonstrated continuous tethered flights that can last for up to an hour. We flew the beetles tethered in a wind tunnel and used high-speed videography to estimate the aerodynamic power from their flapping kinematics and particle image velocimetry (PIV) to evaluate drag and kinetic energy from their unsteady wakes. To account for tethering effects, we measured the forces applied by the beetles on the tether arm holding them in place. The drag of the flying beetle over the flapping cycle, estimated from the flow fields in the unsteady wake, showed good agreement with direct measurement of mean horizontal force. Both measurements showed that total drag during flight is ∼5-fold higher than the parasite drag on the body. The aerodynamic power estimated from both the motion of the wings, using a quasi-steady blade-element model, and the kinetic energy in the wake, gave mean values of flight-muscle mass-specific power of 87 and 65 W kg muscle-1, respectively. A comparison of the two values suggests that ∼25% of the energy is lost within the fluid due to turbulence and heat. The muscle mass-specific power found here is low relative to the maximal power output reported for insect flight muscles. This can be attributed to reduce weight support during tethered flight or to operation at submaximal output that may ensure a supply of metabolic substrates to the flight muscles, thus delaying their fatigue during long-distance flights.
Discovery of a synergistic effect of oxytocin on the efficacy of Alpha-Chloralose, a drug used for capturing and controlling birds

ABSTRACT Overdose and death of both target and non-target species are not uncommon when α–chloralose is used for animal control. Alpha–chloralose appears to depress the central nervous system by having an affect on the GABA-A receptor in a manner similar to ethanol. Recently central administration of oxytocin was shown to block ethanol-induced impairment in rodents. Our study investigates whether IM administration of oxytocin speeds avian recovery from α–chloralose and reduces mortality under simulated field conditions. We found that when injected twice with oxytocin (30 uL/kg) chickens entered α–chloralose narcosis more quickly and showed greater behavioral impairment. When fed the LD50 dose of α–chloralose, repeated injection with oxytocin produced no significant difference in mortality rate or time to death in comparison to the control group. The effects of peripheral oxytocin on female chicks were different than results found previously in cockerels given oxytocin centrally. Oxytocin is not a suitable antidote for α–chloralose overdose during animal capture in the field but instead accentuates α–chloralose narcosis, making capture more likely and efficient.
Employees are faced with whistleblowing reporting channel alternatives: Which one is more desirable

Our study analyzes several factors which can potentially conduct the reporting of fraud (whistleblowing) inside of the organization toward responsible parties to look at the tendency of reporting channels, whether internal channels or external channels. The purpose of this study is to reveal fraud in the context of Indonesian Culture and develop hypotheses based on the literature on predictors of intention in terms of whistleblowing. We use survey letters and direct messages (DM) through public media related to social media to collect data and collect hypotheses that have been prepared through a logistic regression model. Through a survey conducted on 2,214 civil servants in the Regency, City and Province Governments in Indonesia. The findings reveal the relation of whistleblowing, individual and situational factors are significant predictors of the selection of reporting channels by civil servants in Indonesia. We found that fear of retaliation tended to be more dominant (higher), compared to public service motivation, which resulted in negative and insignificant opportunities for whistleblowing reporting channel alternatives. This research provides a valuable lesson for organizations to promote internal complaints because the internal complaint provides many positive implications for the improvement of government organizations in Indonesia.
Precipitation Characteristics of an Abrupt Heavy Rainfall Event over the Complex Terrain of Southwest China Observed by the FY-4A Satellite and Doppler Weather Radar

On 22 July 2019, mesoscale convective systems (MCSs) with an abrupt heavy rainfall event (AHRE) hit Shuicheng County of Guizhou Province in Southwest China causing landslide and debris flow secondary disasters. The AHRE over the complex terrain of Shuicheng County had differences in location and intensity during two stages of the event. The two stages could be divided into different rainfall types (topographic rainfall and synoptic-weather-related rainfall) according to the spatiotemporal distribution and organization of MCSs based on surface and midlevel environmental field conditions. During the topographic rainfall stage, smaller meso-γ-scale (2–20 km) convective cells with lower echo-top heights (6–10 km) occurred along the windward slope of the primary mountain peak. During the synoptic-weather-related rainfall stage, a meso-β-scale (20–200 km) convective echo band with higher echo-top heights (10–14 km) occurred in the valley of the region. An adverse wind area (AWA) with distinct convergence of radar radial velocity existed over Shuicheng County. A formation mechanism analysis of the AHRE showed that topographic rainfall occurred in the warm and moist area, while synoptic-weather-related rainfall occurred due to local convergence and the intrusion of a cold tongue. Compared to the early stage, the cold tongue from the higher terrain superimposed over the warm sector at the base of major mountain ranges appeared to strengthen the rainfall.
Nootropic herbal formulations for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease: In vivo pharmacological assay and molecular docking studies

Background and Aims: The main aim of the study was to enhance the cognitive function of the brain by nootropic herbal formulations in animal models. Polyphyto herbal formulations were known to enhance the cognition and memory function by several pathways such as anti-oxidative, anti-inflammatory, and cell signaling pathways. In this study, six formulations were prepared by mixing specified plant parts and were coded as NHF1, NHF2, NHF3, NHF4, NHF5, and NHF6. Methods: The potency of the formulations was assessed by In vivo (photo actometer, rod walking test, pole climbing test, and Ellman’s acetylcholinesterase test) studies. Results: NHF1 and NHF5 exhibited greater activity than the standard drug donepezil in vivo (Ellman’s acetylcholinesterase test) analysis. NHF1 and NHF5 formulations containing plant parts were further investigated against several published literatures for the identification of chemical constituents and those chemical constituents were subjected to molecular docking and in silico ADME prediction studies to figure out the possible compounds responsible for the cholinesterase inhibition activity. Conclusion: In conclusion, the computational studies also reveal that presence of chemical constituents such as sarsasapogenin (13.13 nM), racemosol (16.26 nM), and beta-sitosterol (30.47 nM) having binding energy (-10.75 kcal/mol), (-10.63 kcal/mol), (-10.25 kcal/mol), might be directly responsible for the nootropic activity.
A Hyperconnected Smart City Framework: Digital Resources Using Enhanced Pedagogical Techniques

Recent technological advancements have given rise to the concept of hyper-connected smart cities being adopted around the world. These cities aspire to achieve better outcomes for citizens by improving the quality of service delivery, information sharing, and creating a sustainable environment. A smart city comprises of a network of interconnected devices also known as IoT (Internet of Things), which captures data and transmits it to a platform for analysis. This data covers a variety of information produced in large volumes also known as Big Data. From data capture to processing and storage, there are several stages where a breach in security and privacy could result in catastrophic impacts. Presently there is a gap in the centralization of knowledge to implement smart city services with a secure architecture. To bridge this gap, we present a framework that highlights challenges within the smart city applications and synthesizes the techniques feasible to solve them. Additionally, we analyze the impact of a potential breach on smart city applications and state-of-the-art architectures available. Furthermore, we identify the stakeholders who may have an interest in learning about the relationships between the significant aspects of a smart city. We demonstrate these relationships through force-directed network diagrams. They will help raise the awareness amongst the stakeholders for planning the development of a smart city. To complement our framework, we designed web-based interactive resources that are available from http://ausdigitech.com/smartcity/.
Modelling dependencies in genetic-marker data and its application to haplotype analysis

The objective of this thesis is to develop new methods to reconstruct haplotypes from phaseunknown genotypes. The need for new methodologies is motivated by the increasing avail¬ ability of high-resolution marker data for many species. Such markers typically exhibit correlations, a phenomenon known as Linkage Disequilibrium (LD). It is believed that re¬ constructed haplotypes for markers in high LD can be valuable for a variety of application areas in population genetics, including reconstructing population history and identifying genetic disease variants. Traditionally, haplotype reconstruction methods can be categorized according to whether they operate on a single pedigree or a collection of unrelated individuals. The thesis begins with a critical assessment of the limitations of existing methods, and then presents a uni¬ fied statistical framework that can accommodate pedigree data, unrelated individuals and tightly linked markers. The framework makes use of graphical models, where inference entails representing the relevant joint probability distribution as a graph and then using associated algorithms to facilitate computation. The graphical model formalism provides invaluable tools to facilitate model specification, visualization, and inference. Once the unified framework is developed, a broad range of simulation studies are conducted using previously published haplotype data. Important contributions include demonstrating the different ways in which the haplotype frequency distribution can impact the accuracy of both the phase assignments and haplotype frequency estimates; evaluating the effectiveness of using family data to improve accuracy for different frequency profiles; and, assessing the dangers of treating related individuals as unrelated in an association study.
Energy saving in vision at the first synapse: The ON and OFF pathways measure temporal differences

The inner plexiform layer (IPL) of mammalian retina has a precise bisublaminar organization in an inner on- and an outer off-layer, innervated by spatially segregated on- and off-cone bipolar cell inputs. Also, the processes of starburst amacrine cells are segregated into on and off sublaminae of the IPL. Distances between overlapping on-off pair retinal ganglion cell dendritic tree centers are markedly smaller than between on-on or off-off centers, indicating simultaneously sampling the same space. Despite dekades of research, no good model exists for the role of the on- and off pathways. Here I propose that the on- and off pairs are temporally subtracted, with one channel delayed in time, likely in a higher cortical center. The on- and off receptive fields give at every retinal location an I+ and I-signal, where I is intensity, velocity, color. Subsequent frame subtraction is a basis function of every surveillance camera for vision, and in MPEG video/sound compression. The model explains the many phenomena observed when the retinal image is stabilized. The separation of layers in the LGN fits with the notion of a time delay at higher cortical level. The directionalty observed in micro-saccades is typically perpendicular to the main edges in the scene. Precise measurement of spatio-temporal receptive field kernels shows that time is processed in the visual system as a real-time process, i.e. with a logarithmic time axis. As only contours and textures are transmitted, it is a very effective design strategy of the visual system to conserve energy, in a brain that typically uses 25 Watt and very low neuron firing frequencies. The higher visual centers perform the fill-in (inpainting) with such efficiency, that the subtraction always goes unnoticed.
TEXT SUMMARIZER FOR URL AND .DOCX FILES

The objective of this model is to compute a block of text and return it’s equivalent summary. The text provided could be both content from an online website or an offline text document. The purpose of this project is to help generate an efficient algorithm which could provide a meaningful summary of the text and help the user save time on reading and help grasp maximum information in a minimalistic amount of time.
CONVECTIVE FLOW OF A BINGHAM FLUID IN INTERNALLY HEATED POROUS CAVITIES

We study the onset of convection within a rectangular porous cavity which is saturated with a Bingham fluid and subjected to a uniform internal heat generation. When such a cavity is saturated by a Newtonian fluid then convection takes place at all nonzero values of the Darcy-Rayleigh number, Ra. In such cases convection takes the form of two contra-rotating cells with flow down the cold sidewalls when Ra first increase from zero. However, when the enclosure is saturated by a Bingham fluid, then we find that the cavity remains stagnant until the Darcy-Rayleigh number is sufficiently large that buoyancy overcomes the yield threshold. Numerical solutions are obtained using a second order accurate finite difference methodology where convergence is accelerated using line-relaxation. The presence of the yield surfaces, which mark the boundaries of stagnant regions, is modelled by means of a regularisation of the yield threshold. It is found that the critical value of Ra above which convection arises depends roughly linearly on the value of Rb, which may be described as a convective porous Bingham number. When the cavity has a sufficiently large aspect ratio the fluid admits more than one stable steady state solution.
Enrichment of rare protein truncating variants in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis patients

To discover novel genetic risk factors underlying amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), we aggregated exomes from 3,864 cases and 7,839 ancestry matched controls. We observed a significant excess of ultra-rare and rare protein-truncating variants (PTV) among ALS cases, which was primarily concentrated in constrained genes; however, a significant enrichment in PTVs does persist in the remaining exome. Through gene level analyses, known ALS genes, SOD1, NEK1, and FUS, were the most strongly associated with disease status. We also observed suggestive statistical evidence for multiple novel genes including DNAJC7, which is a highly constrained gene and a member of the heat shock protein family (HSP40). HSP40 proteins, along with HSP70 proteins, facilitate protein homeostasis, such as folding of newly synthesized polypeptides, and clearance of degraded proteins. When these processes are not regulated, misfolding and accumulation of degraded proteins can occur leading to aberrant protein aggregation, one of the pathological hallmarks of neurodegeneration.
Experiences and value perceptions of an ecotourism trip – an empirical study of outbound Chinese tourists

ABSTRACT Ecotourism is a fast-growing tourism sector, but the value of ecotourism trips from tourists’ perspective has seldom been studied, which led to the current study that examined outbound Chinese tourists’ value perceptions of ecotourism trips. Data were collected from Chinese tourists on bus tours to a well-known Australian ecotourism site over an one-year period. The study suggested tourists’ experiences impacted on perceived ecotour value in a number of ways. In particular, all experience dimensions influenced one or more of the five value dimensions examined, while entertainment, relating, and education experiences influenced each of the five value dimensions. The study offers important implications for both ecotourism researchers and operators attempting to understand and manage the key experiential offerings that could help maximise value to international tourists.