Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Ecosystem Paradigm and Environmental Risk Management

Modern approaches to environmental evaluation and management decision making derive from ecological theories developed largely in the 1960s and earlier. Widespread use of such practices warrants a review of the status of theoretical ecology and its relationship to practical risk management decision making. Two paradigms of ecology, the Ecosystem Paradigm and Fry's Paradigm, can be summa rized in three principles: (1) in the biological levels of organization scheme there is a level of organization called “the ecosystem”; (2) to study an ecosystem, observa tions must be made at the ecosystem level of organization; (3) observations should be quantitative measurements. The literature shows that these principles have largely been ignored by ecologists when examining aquatic systems. Many theoreti cal concepts for describing the ecosystem have been proposed, but quantification is often poor or unworkable. It is evident that the “ecosystem” or “levels of organiza tion” ecological paradigm has not produced a mature theory or hypothesis of ecology as there is no generally accepted, technical, quantitative description of an ecosystem, of the other levels of organization in the scheme, or of their interrela tionships. Instead, managers, who need practical tools with reasonable predictive and explanatory power, routinely use quantitative descriptors based directly or indirectly on economics or environmental engineering in their environmental decision making.
A 50–112-Gb/s PAM-4 Transmitter With a Fractional-Spaced FFE in 65-nm CMOS

This article presents a 50–112-Gb/s current-mode four-level pulse amplitude modulation (PAM-4) transmitter with a two-tap fractional-spaced feed-forward equalizer (FFE). The principle analysis shows that the fractional-spaced FFE can provide an extended compensation range beyond the Nyquist frequency without amplifying noise. For the transmitter prototype implementation, the tap delay is adjusted by a coarse–fine capacitor array-based delay cell located in the quarter-rate clock path. Dynamic latches, pseudo-AND2s, and bandwidth-enhanced 4:1 multiplexers are employed to guarantee an adequate timing margin and a sufficient bandwidth for the data rate of 112 Gb/s. A linearity-optimized FFE driver is employed to overcome the current compression caused by the channel-length modulation. Fabricated in a 65-nm CMOS process, the measurement results show that the proposed fractional-spaced FFE can significantly improve the eye-opening in terms of expanding the eye width and optimizing the eyelid thickness. The PAM-4 transmitter can operate in both full-rate PAM-4 and half-rate NRZ modes, achieving a maximum data rate of 112 Gb/s with an energy efficiency of 2.17 pJ/bit.
A diagnostic PCR based assay for stripe rust resistance gene Yr10 in wheat.

The aim of this study was to develop a PCR based assay for an efficient selection of Yr10 resistance gene in breeding material. The two primer pairs designed from the Yr10 gene sequence amplified specific DNA fragments in the genotypes carrying Yr10 and did not give a signal with near isogenic line and other lines containing different Yr genes. The genetic linkage of these molecular markers to Yr10 gene was tested on a segregating F 2 population derived from cross between the stripe rust resistant genotype carrying Yr10 (FLW10) and the susceptible line WH542. The data demonstrated that the markers derived from Yr10 gene sequence are completely linked to Yr10 , which will enable to combine this gene with other stripe rust resistance genes in wheat breeding programmes.
Smart Surveillance System Using Artificial Intelligence

: Recognition of the face is one of the biometric techniques used to recognize any facial image. Since birth, faces have played a crucial role in any individual's social interaction that gives the individual a distinctive identity. Face detection and recognition is a very popular topic in biometric research as it is used for the safety and security of an individual. Face recognition technology has attracted a large number of researchers due to its wide range of application value as well as market potentials, such as fraud detection and video surveillance. Face recognition plays a very important role in the surveillance system, as there is no need for the participation of an object. We used an image set algorithm with the help of OpenCV and Python programming and having a pre-existing dataset of faces. The module is divided into three sub modules: 1] Detection module 2] Training module 3] recognition module.
Pengaruh Blended Learning terhadap Kreativitas Mahasiswa Calon Guru di Universitas Negeri Medan

This study aims to determine the effect of blended learning strategies on the creativity of the pre-service teachers. By a quantitative approach, the type used in this study is a quasi-experimental with pretest-posttest control group design. The population in this study were pre-service teachers in semester VII of the Mathematics Education Study Program at Universitas Negeri Medan. The instrument has used a test in the form of essay tests of 5 items concerning creativity. The results of the study indicated that there were significant differences in the creativity of pre-services teachers who apply blended learning and direct learning. Thus, it could be concluded that blended learning gave effects of creativity.
α-Methylene-γ-butyrolactones attenuate Staphylococcus aureus virulence by inhibition of transcriptional regulation

Bacterial pathogenesis is triggered by complex molecular mechanisms that sense bacterial density within an infected host and induce the expression of toxins for overriding the immune response. Virulence is controlled by a set of transcriptional regulators that directly bind to DNA promoter regions of toxin-encoding genes. Here, we identified an α-methylene-γ-butyrolactone as a potent inhibitor of Staphylococcus aureus virulence. Treatment of bacteria not only resulted in a markedly decreased expression of one of the most prominent virulence factors α-hemolysin (Hla) but also caused attenuated invasion efficiency. Mass spectrometry (MS) based target identification revealed this biological effect originating from the consolidated binding to three important transcriptional regulators SarA, SarR and MgrA. MS investigation of the binding site uncovered a conserved cysteine in all three proteins which gets covalently modified. Intriguingly, investigation of DNA binding demonstrated an impaired DNA-protein interaction upon compound treatment. The functional correlation between target binding, inhibition and the observed biological effect was proven by gene knockouts and confirmed the expected mode of action.
The effect of sucrose and citric acid concentration of Candi banana peels jam on physico-chemical and sensory characteristics

Jam is one of complementary foods which has the viscous texture and usually prepared from fruit puree. The fruit contains pectin in which it will be combined with sucrose and acid to form gel. Banana peel also contains the pectin. This current study aims to investigate the effect of citric acid and sucrose concentration on physico-chemical and sensory characteristics of Candi banana peels jam. Completely Randomized Block Design was assigned to investigate the main factors. Factor I is the citric acid concentration (0.2% and 0.4% w/v). Factor II is the concentration of sucrose (50%, 60%, and 70% w/v). Each treatment was replicated 3 times. “Candi” banana peels jam with combination 0.2% of citric acid and 70% of sucrose is considered as the best treatment. The best Candi banana peels jam has been characterised by 48.80% water content; 4.97 pH values; 45.10 0Brix total dissolved solids; and the spreading length is 9.3 cm. While the sensory attributes intensity were 8.8 for sweetness; 2.4 for sourness; 3.4 for astringency; 8.9 for color; 5.5 for firmness; 10.5 for spreadibility; and 8.4 for spreading length.
Identification of Genes Expressed during Conidial Germination of the Pepper Anthracnose Pathogen, Colletotrichum acutatum

Genes expressed during conidial germination of the pepper anthracnose fungus Colletotrichum acutatum were identified by sequencing the 5’ end of unidirectional cDNA clones prepared from the conidial germination stage. A total of 983 expressed sequence tags (ESTs) corresponding to 464 genes, 197 contigs and 267 singletons, were generated. The deduced protein sequences from half of the 464 genes showed significant matches (e value less than 10-5) to proteins in public databases. The genes with known homologs were assigned to known functional categories. The most abundantly expressed genes belonged to those encoding the elongation factor, histone protein, ATP synthease, 14-3-3 protein, and clock controlled protein. A number of genes encoding proteins such as the GTP-binding protein, MAP kinase, transaldolase, and ABC transporter were detected. These genes are thought to be involved in the development of fungal cells. A putative pathogenicity function could be assigned for the genes of ATP citrate lyase, CAP20 and manganese-superoxide dismutase.
The relative importance of green infrastructure as refuge habitat for pollinators increases with local land‐use intensity

Agricultural expansion and intensification have resulted in strong declines in farmland biodiversity across Europe. In many intensively farmed landscapes, linear landscape elements such as field boundaries, road verges and ditch banks are the main remaining green infrastructures providing refuge for biodiversity, and as such play a pivotal role in agri-environmental policies aiming at mitigating biodiversity loss. Yet, while we have a fairly good understanding of how agricultural intensification influences biodiversity on farmland, little is known about whether and how local land-use intensity affects biodiversity in nearby linear landscape elements and how this affects their role as biodiversity refuge. Focussing on pollinating insects, we examined the effects of local land-use intensity on biodiversity in agricultural fields and adjacent green infrastructures. In an intensively farmed area in south-western France, we selected 23 agricultural grasslands and nearby field boundaries along a gradient in grassland cutting frequency which acted as a proxy for land-use intensity. We analysed how grassland cutting frequency affects species richness, abundance and community composition of wild bees and hoverflies in the grasslands and neighbouring field boundaries, and whether these effects differ across habitat types and species groups. Grassland cutting frequency negatively affected pollinator species richness and abundance in the grasslands, whereas pollinators in the neighbouring field boundaries were unaffected. These responses reflected the effects of cutting frequency on floral resources, with flower cover and richness decreasing in grasslands but not in field boundaries. As a result, the proportion of the local pollinator community supported by field boundaries increased with the increasing cutting frequency of the adjacent grassland. Common and rare pollinator species generally showed similar responses. Furthermore, communities of plants and pollinators in field boundaries next to intensively farmed grasslands were fairly similar to those next to extensively farmed ones. Synthesis and applications. Our results suggest that, as nearby land use intensifies, flower-rich field boundaries become increasingly important as pollinator refuge habitats. Conserving field boundaries and other green infrastructures, and maintaining or enhancing their quality, therefore constitute important tools to conserve and promote pollinators in intensively farmed landscapes.
Design and manufacture of teaching edupark physics Mifan water park Padang Panjang, Indonesia with discovery learning model

The background of the design and manufacture of the textbook is a follow-up to the preliminary research. Based on the preliminary research revealed: first, there are many facts, principles, concepts on the tourist attraction of Mifan Water Park Padang Panjang, Indonesia. Second, the need for the development of fluid Edupark learning devices in Mifan Padang Panjang Waterpark. The purpose of this research was to produce learning devices in the form of teaching books by making the tourist attraction of Padang Panjang Mifan Water Park as Educational Park (Edupark). This Textbook is designed based on the 2013 curriculum by containing discovery learning syntax. The type of the research is using the Plomp development model at the stage of development and prototyping phase. The data collection using questionnaire techniques. Validation was carried out on instrument sheets and teaching books by three material validates, language, and constructs from the lecturers. The data analysis technique used is a Likert scale and the value of validity using Aiken’s V formula. This research produces textbooks that have valid categories. The conclusion of the results of this research is that the textbooks have been made are suitable for use in physics learning activities as a source of learning physics in high school.
Segmentation of white rat sperm image

The segmentation of sperm image exerts a profound influence in the analysis of sperm morphology, which plays a significant role in the research of animals' infertility and reproduction. To overcome the microscope image's properties of low contrast and highly polluted noise, and to get better segmentation results of sperm image, this paper presents a multi-scale gradient operator combined with a multi-structuring element for the micro-spermatozoa image of white rat, as the multi-scale gradient operator can smooth the noise of an image, while the multi-structuring element can retain more shape details of the sperms. Then, we use the Otsu method to segment the modified gradient image whose gray scale processed is strong in sperms and weak in the background, converting it into a binary sperm image. As the obtained binary image owns impurities that are not similar with sperms in the shape, we choose a form factor to filter those objects whose form factor value is larger than the select critical value, and retain those objects whose not. And then, we can get the final binary image of the segmented sperms. The experiment shows this method's great advantage in the segmentation of the micro-spermatozoa image.
Multislope PI Modeling and Feedforward Compensation for Piezoelectric Beam

The hysteresis nonlinearity greatly reduces the tracking precision of piezoceramic actuators for expected displacement in a high-accuracy positioning system. In order to effectively compensate the hysteresis for piezoelectric ceramics, a novel modeling method, namely, multislope PI (Prandtl–Ishlinskii) was proposed. In view of the minimum mean square error (MSE) criterion, the weights of an improved PI model were identified by the quadratic programming optimization algorithm. For verifying the accuracy of the proposed multislope PI hysteresis model, a feedforward compensation control for piezoceramic beam was achieved. The corresponding experimental system was established, and the displacement tracking experiments were carried out. The results indicated that the mean tracking error was 0.2828 μm and within 1% of full scale, as well as the MSE was 0.3100 μm. Compared with the conventional PI model, the proposed multislope PI model demonstrated a significant improvement in positioning performance for the piezoceramic beam.
Computer vision algorithm development for classification of palm fruit ripeness

This paper presents a novel computer vision algorithm that focus on detecting the ripeness of palm fruit and the developed computer vision algorithm is implemented into a low cost processor that can be integrated into a portable standalone device. The computer vision algorithm mainly consists of two major functions, which are segmenting out the section that consists of tree from the image and classifying the ripeness of palm fruit after locating the fresh fruit bunch (FFB) on the palm tree. A sliding window method is used to separate the image of a palm oil plantation into various sections. By retraining the Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), which is AlexNet, using fully labelled dataset, it is capable to identify the existence of palm tree in each segmented section. For the ripeness detection of palm fruit, it is achieved by analyzing dataset that consists of 100 palm fruit images from different category of ripeness. Those images are analyzed in Hue, Saturation and Value (HSV) color spaces. Palm fruit that belongs to the ripe category has a unique range of value that is not found in other categories. Therefore, the algorithm to classify the ripeness of palm fruit is developed accordingly. The novel computer vision algorithm is then converted to Python programming language which is compatible to run in Tinker Board. Tinker Board is one of the Single Board Computer (SBC) that consists of Graphical Processing Unit (GPU) that is vital in digital image processing field. A high definition camera is equipped with the Tinker Board to capture the image of palm oil plantation and palm fruit. The integrated device that consists of Tinker Board and camera provides mobility to end-user to classify the ripeness of palm fruit in the palm oil plantation. The proposed algorithm successfully yielded an accuracy of 85% as there were a total of 85 images which were correctly classified out of 100 images of palm fruit.
Evaluation of Practical Bluegill Diets with Varying Protein and Energy Levels

Abstract Because bluegills Lepomis macrochirus are considered important both as a source of forage for largemouth bass Micropterus salmoides and as a sport fish, there is strong demand for juveniles and subadults for stocking purposes. Although spawning and extensive culture techniques are well established, there is a need to intensify culture systems to make juvenile production more cost effective. To move toward a more intensive culture system, we must establish basic parameters for the selection of commercial feeds. An 11-week feeding trial was conducted with juvenile bluegills (1.76 g) to evaluate the effect of dietary protein and lipid level on growth, feed efficiency, and survival. Six practical diets were formulated, with varying levels of protein (32–44%) and lipid (6–12%). Final weight (9.4–12.1 g), feed intake (12.6–14.4 g), and feed efficiency values (60.6–72.1%) increased with increasing levels of dietary protein. Increasing the lipid content by 4% in the 32%-protein diet (to 10% lipid) or the.
Image Processing-Based Pitting Corrosion Detection Using Metaheuristic Optimized Multilevel Image Thresholding and Machine-Learning Approaches

Pitting corrosion can lead to critical failures of infrastructure elements. Therefore, accurate detection of corroded areas is crucial during the phase of structural health monitoring. This study aims at developing a computer vision and data-driven method for automatic detection of pitting corrosion. The proposed method is an integration of the history-based adaptive differential evolution with linear population size reduction (LSHADE), image processing techniques, and the support vector machine (SVM). The implementation of the LSHADE metaheuristic in this research is multifold. This optimization algorithm is employed in the task of multilevel image thresholding to extract regions of interest from the metal surface. Image texture analysis methods of statistical measurements of color channels, gray-level co-occurrence matrix, and local binary pattern are used to compute numerical features subsequently employed by the SVM-based pattern recognition phase. In addition, the LSHADE metaheuristic is also used to optimize the hyperparameters of the machine-learning approach. Experimental results supported by statistical test points out that the newly developed approach can attain a good predictive result with classification accurate rate = 91.80%, precision = 0.91, recall = 0.94, negative predictive value = 0.93, and F1 score = 0.92. Thus, the newly developed method can be a promising tool to be used in a periodic structural health survey.
Genes, morphology, development and photosynthetic ability support the resurrection of Elysia cornigera (Heterobranchia : Plakobranchoidea) as distinct from the 'solar-powered' sea slug, E. timida

Some groups of marine heterobranch sea slugs (formerly Opisthobranchia) have few discrete characters or hard parts and many ‘cosmopolitan’ species, suggesting an overly conservative taxonomy in need of integrative approaches. Many herbivorous sea slugs in the clade Sacoglossa retain algal chloroplasts that remain functionally photosynthetic for 1–2 weeks, but at least four species can sustain chloroplasts for several months. To better understand the origins of long-term kleptoplasty, we performed an integrative study of the highly photosynthetic species Elysia timida from the Mediterranean and Caribbean populations that were described as E. cornigera but later synonymised with E. timida. Nominal E. cornigera were distinct in their anatomy and aspects of larval development, and had dramatically reduced chloroplast retention compared with E. timida. Mean divergence at three genetic loci was determined for ten pairs of sister species in the genus Elysia, confirming that E. cornigera and E. timida have species level differences. Both taxa had a high degree of population genetic subdivision, but among-population genetic distances were far less than interspecific divergence. In an integrative taxonomic framework, E. cornigera is thus restored to species rank and fully redescribed, and baseline molecular data are presented for evaluating species level differences in the Sacoglossa.
Raiffa-Kalai-Smorodinsky Bargaining Solution for Bilateral Contracts in Electricity Markets

In electricity markets, bilateral contracts (BC) are used to hedge against price volatility in the spot market. Pricing these contracts requires scheduling from either the buyer or the seller aiming to achieve the highest profit possible. Since this problem includes different players, a Generation Company (GC) and an Electricity Supplier Company (ESC) are considered. The approaches to solve this problem include the Nash Bargaining Solution (NBS) equilibrium and the Raiffa–Kalai–Smorodinsky (RKS) bargaining solution. The innovation of this work is the implementation of an algorithm based on the RKS equilibrium to find a compromise strategy when determining the concessions to be made by the parties. The results are promising and show that the RKS approach can obtain better results compared to the Nash equilibrium method applied to a case study.
Navigating the Valley of Death: Perceptions of Industry and Academia on Production Platforms and Opportunities

Rational lifestyle engineering through synthetic biology has made it possible to improve industrial performance of cell factories for the production of a range of biobased chemicals. However, only an estimated 1 in 5,000 to 10,000 innovations make it through the Valley of Death to market implementation. To gain insights into the key bottlenecks and opportunities to reach market implementation, an exploratory study was performed by conducting 12 in-depth interviews with 8 industrial and 4 academic participants. We found that academics are limited only by technical factors in their research, while industry is restricted in their choices and flexibility by a series of technical, sector dependent and social factors. This leads to a misalignment of interests, often resulting in miscommunication. Although both agree that academia must perform curiosity-driven research to find innovative solutions, there is pressure for short-term industrial applications. All these factors add up to the Valley of Death; the gap between development and market implementation. A third party, in the form of start-up companies, could be the answer to bridging the Valley of Death.