Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evaluating Hydrological Processes of the Atmosphere–Vegetation Interaction Model and MERRA-2 at Global Scale

Hydrological processes are a key component of land surface models and link to the energy budget and carbon cycle. This study assessed the global hydrological processes of the Atmosphere–Vegetation Interaction Model (AVIM) using multiple datasets, including the Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS), the University of New Hampshire and Global Runoff Data Centre (UNH-GRDC), the European Space Agency (ESA) Climate Change Initiative (CCI), the Global Land Evaporation Amsterdam Model (GLEAM), and the Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications Version 2 (MERRA-2) datasets. The comparisons showed that the AVIM gives a reasonable spatial pattern for surface soil moisture and surface runoff, but a less satisfactory spatial pattern for evapotranspiration. The AVIM clearly underestimates surface runoff worldwide and overestimates the surface soil moisture in the high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, while yielding moderately higher evapotranspiration in arid areas and lower evapotranspiration in low-latitude areas near the equator. The annual cycle of evapotranspiration in the AVIM shows good agreement with the GLEAM dataset, whereas the surface soil moisture in the AVIM has a poor annual cycle relative to the CCI dataset. The AVIM simulates a late start time for snowmelt, which leads to a two-month delay in the peak surface runoff. These results clearly point out the directions required for improvements in the AVIM, which will support future investigations of water–carbon–atmosphere interactions. In addition, the evapotranspiration in the MERRA-2 dataset had an overall good performance comparable with that of the GLEAM dataset, but its surface soil moisture did not perform well when validated against the CCI dataset.
Analysis of a Three-Level Bidirectional ZVS Resonant Converter

A bidirectional three-level soft switching circuit topology is proposed and implemented for medium voltage applications such as 750 V dc light rail transit, high power converters, or dc microgrid systems. The studied converter is constructed with a three-level diode-clamp circuit topology with the advantage of low voltage rating on the high-voltage side and a full-bridge circuit topology with the advantage of a low current rating on the low-voltage side. Under the forward power flow operation, the three-level converter is operated to regulate load voltage. Under the reverse power flow operation, the full-bridge circuit is operated to control high-side voltage. The proposed LLC resonant circuit is adopted to achieve bidirectional power operation and zero-voltage switching (ZVS). The achievability of the studied bidirectional ZVS converter is established from the experiments.
Structural biology of bacterial functional amyloid formation

Amyloids are proteinaceous aggregates best known for their role in degenerative diseases involving protein misfolding. Research into amyloid has intensified in recent times due to its prominence in many debilitating human diseases and limited understanding of the causes. The discovery of functional amyloids in a broad range of species has enhanced our understanding of amyloid, of these the curli system of E. coli has been extensively studied, in this system CsgC was identified as a potent inhibitor of amyloid. An additional protein was discovered in some curli operons in other species termed CsgH and warrants further study. A morphologically similar but genetically distinct bacterial functional amyloid system was identified in Pseudomonas encoded by the fapABCDEF operon and termed amyloid-like fibres (Alf). The study of functional amyloid has the potential to provide insights into how amyloid can be controlled. The aims of this thesis were to investigate the novel functional amyloid system of Pseudomonas with a view to structural and functional characterisation of the individual components. The structure and function of the CsgH protein were also studied by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and the ThioflavinT (ThT) amyloid fibrillation assay. Constructs were produced for all the Alf proteins and the more structured components, FapD and FapF, were optimised to produce constructs for structural study. The structure of CsgH was solved successfully using NMR and showed that the protein shared a similar tertiary structure to CsgC. The function of the CsgH was shown to be similar to CsgC inhibiting amyloid formation by CsgA at substoichiometric concentrations. Mutagenesis, ThT assay and NMR were used to show that CsgH and CsgA interact and that several charged residues have an important role in function. It was also interesting to note that CsgH was capable of inhibiting amyloid formation by the FapC amyloid protein of Pseudomonas.
EVALUATION OF ALOE VERA LEAF EXTRACTS AND ALOE EMODIN ON SEVERAL CANCER CELL LINES

Fresh leaf skin aqueous and methanolic extracts as well as shade-dried leaf skin methanolic extracts prepared separately from the leaves of Aloe vera and aloe emodin (AE) were assayed on human gastric (AGS), colon (HT-29, HCT116) and hepatocellular (HEPG2) cancer cell lines relative to human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC). AE, 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) and imatinib (IM) were tested as positive controls. Among the four extracts studied, A. vera gel extract (AVG) had the highest cytotoxic effect on cancer cells, with the highest effect on HCT116 cells, while no cytotoxic effect on HUVEC cells was detected. AE has also selective cytotoxic and apoptotic effects on the cancer cells and was ineffective on normal cells. AVG treatment in HCT116 cells induced the apoptosis by the activation of caspase-9 and caspase-3. According to our results, AVG and AE could be proposed as promising cytotoxic drugs from natural origin.
What Type of Industrial Agglomeration Is Beneficial to the Eco-Efficiency of Northwest China?

The contradiction between industrial economic development and the ecological environment in Northwest China is prominent, so the green transformation of industrial economy in this region is imperative. From the perspective of industrial ecology, this study uses economic and environmental statistics from Northwest China from 2006 to 2018 as well as the Krugman specialization index and entropy index methods to calculate the degree of different types of industrial agglomeration in Northwest China. The eco-efficiency of Northwest China is calculated by the global SBM-DDF model. On this basis, the stochastic effect panel tobit regression model is used to analyze the influence and mechanism of different types of industrial agglomeration on eco-efficiency in Northwest China. The results show that the concentration of specialization has a significantly negative effect on the eco-efficiency of Northwest China at the level of 1%. Excepting Ningxia, the eco-efficiency of other provinces has been improved with the decrease of industrial specialization. The influence of the related diversification agglomeration on the eco-efficiency in Northwest China shows a U curve. The degree of industrial correlation diversification in Qinghai and Ningxia is less than the critical value 1.45, whereas Shaanxi, Gansu, and Xinjiang have crossed the inflection point. The unrelated diversification agglomeration has a negative effect on the eco-efficiency of Northwest China at the level of 1%, and the degree of industrial independent diversification in Shaanxi Province has decreased slightly, which is beneficial to the improvement of eco-efficiency. By contrast, other provinces have increased considerably. The conclusion can provide a theoretical basis for industrial green transformation path selection and related policy formulation in Northwest China.
Memory and Performance Aware Scheduling Design for Hadoop MapReduce Framework

MapReduce (MR) has been one of the popular computing framework for BigData analysis and processing application in last decade; further Hadoop is an open source platform which is widely used for MR framework. Moreover, existing HMR aka Hadoop-MR model faces major issues like I/O overhead and memory overhead. In this research work, we focus on developing memory and performance awarescheduler design named as MPA-HMR for efficient utilization of system resources and data processing in real time.MPAS-HMR is developed for analyzing the Global Memory Management; thus minimizing the Disk I/O seek. Moreover, MPAS method are evaluated on the Microsoft Azure HDInsight cloud platform in consideration with text mining applications, also comparative analysis with the existing model is carried out. Further, comparative analysis shows that our model outperforms existing model in terms of computation time and computing cost.
A New Highly Efficient Amine-Free and Peroxide-Free Redox System for Free Radical Polymerization under Air with Possible Light Activation

Efficient redox initiating systems for radical polymerizations under air usually show some severe drawbacks such as handling and toxicity of the oxidizing agent (peroxides, persulfates, peroxidiphosphates, disulfides, etc.), toxicity of the reducing agent (aromatic amines such as 4-N,N-trimethylaniline), and more generally a low top surface conversion due to high oxygen inhibition. The originality of the proposed paper relies on the development of new redox initiating systems for the polymerization of (meth)acrylate monomers that does not contain any hazardous compound (no peroxide) and is amine-free (low toxicology issues). And these new systems that possess the advantages of redox-initiated polymerization (possibility to cure thick samples) can also be photoactivated in order to have a faster and better curing of the surface of the sample (advantages of the photopolymerization to overcome the oxygen inhibition). The light activations presented in this work have been done with light-emitting diodes (LEDs.
Regulating redox and pH- responsive behavior of emulsion by varying alkane carbon number of tertiary amine

Abstract Tertiary amines (TA) are widely treated as the responsive additions of stimuli-responsive emulsion. The effect of alkane carbon number (ACN) of TA (N,N-Dimethyldecylamine (DMA), N,N-Dimethyldodecylamine (DMDA), N,N-Dimethyltetradecylamine (DMTA) and N,N-Dimethylhexadecylamine (DMHA)) on redox and pH- responsive behavior of emulsion was explored, obtaining a reference to regulate the redox and pH- responsiveness of emulsion precisely. Here, the emulsions are stabilized by the surfactant prepared simply with electrostatic interaction TA and ferrocenecarboxylic acid (FA). The stability of emulsion can be enhanced because of the enhanced surface activity of surfactant with increasing ACN of TA, which was demonstrated by the measurement of water separation ratio (WSR), micrographs and Zeta potential value of emulsion. In addition, by the analysis of micrographs, surfactant tension and interfacial tension, it is demonstrated that the more complete oil-water separation is regulated reversibly because of the larger change value of interfacial tension with increasing ACN upon the alternate addition of Na2SO3 and H2O2. Besides, the emulsions stabilized by surfactant prepared with TA containing ACN = 10 and 12 exhibit doubly pH-responsive behavior, which is ascribe to the inactivation of surface activity of surfactant at lower and higher pH. However, the emulsions stabilized by surfactant prepared with TA containing ACN = 14 and 16 exhibit single pH-responsive behavior because of the inactivatd surface activity of surfactant at higher pH and activatd surface activity of protonated DMTA and DMHA at lower pH. Graphical Abstract
Lattice Thermodynamics for Ultra-Cold Atoms

We measure the temperature of ultracold $^{87}\text{R}\text{b}$ gases transferred into an optical lattice and compare to noninteracting thermodynamics for a combined lattice-parabolic potential. Absolute temperature is determined at low temperature by fitting quasimomentum distributions obtained using band mapping, i.e., turning off the lattice potential slowly compared with the band gap. We show that distributions obtained at high temperature employing this technique are not quasimomentum distributions through numerical simulations. To overcome this limitation, we extract temperature using the in-trap size of the gas.
Smell and taste abnormalities: early clinical biomarkers for isolating the positive cases in COVID-19 pandemic

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an infectious disease of the respiratory tract caused by a novel virus called severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus 2 (SARS-Co-2). It primarily spread human to human by droplets which carry virus. The common clinical presentations of the COVID-19 patients are fever, cough, fatigue, gastrointestinal symptoms and dyspnea. Smell and taste abnormalities have recently documented among patient with COVID-19 infection which hypothesize that olfactory mucosa and oral cavity mucosal lining possess SARS-CoV-2 virus. Some COVID-19 patients are also presenting with isolated smell and taste disturbances even without any other respiratory symptoms. Currently there is no effective treatment available for COVID-19 infections. So screening, early diagnosis and isolations are essential in this pandemic. Identifying the early symptoms in COVID-19 patient is priority now in health care system. In COVID-19 pandemic, patient presenting with loss of smell and taste should initiate home isolation and social distancing for avoiding further spread of this disease. This can be confirmed by diagnostic test such as reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) when available. Sudden onset of smell/olfactory and taste/gustatory dysfunctions should be considered in routine work up and screening of the patients with COVID-19 infection. This review article focuses on the smell and taste abnormalities among COVID-19 patient which will surely increase the awareness among the front liner clinicians and help them for early diagnosis of the patient and their management.
Perancangan Aplikasi Observasi Bakat Siswa Sekolah Alam Kubang Raya Berbasis Mobile Android

Setiap manusia terlahir dengan bakatnya tersendiri. Pengembangan bakat sangat penting pada saat fase-fase pertumbuhan dini. Pada Sekolah Alam Kubang Raya (SAKURA) observasi bakat dilakukan untuk melihat perkembangan bakat siswanya yang bertingkatan TK dan SD. Namun dalam melakukan proses observasi, guru sekolah belum mendapatkan fasilitas yang efisien selain observasi dan mencatat secara manual. Dengan sekolah melakukan sistem pembelajaran di dalam dan di luar kelas, sebuah aplikasi mobile yang mudah dibawa diharapkan dapat menunjang kegiatan observasi bakat. Aplikasi observasi bakat ini berbasis Android dan menggunakan MySQL. Aplikasi ini juga berfokus kepada pencatatan observasi kegiatan siswa tingkatan SD kelas satu hingga enam yang berbasis Pandu 45 yang merupakan turunan dari Talent Mapping. Dengan adanya aplikasi observasi bakat, detail data observasi bakat dapat dipaparkan per bulan sehingga perkembangan bakat siswa terlihat dan menunjang guru dalam mengarahkan siswa ke bakatnya yang terkuat.
Nitrogen release in decomposition of boreal mor and peat as affected by enchytraeid worms

1) Finnish Forest Research Institute, Joensuu Unit, P.O. Box 68, FI-80101 Joensuu, Finland (*corresponding author’s e-mail: mari.lappalainen@metla.fi) 2) University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu Campus, Department of Biology, P.O. Box 111, FI-80101 Joensuu, Finland 3) present address: University of Jyväskylä, Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, P.O. Box 35, FI-40014 Jyväskylän yliopisto, Finland 4) Finnish Forest Research Institute, Parkano Unit, Kaironiementie 15, FI-39700 Parkano, Finland 5) Department of Ecological and Environmental Sciences, University of Helsinki, Niemenkatu 73, FI-15140 Lahti, Finland 6) Aalto University, School of Engineering, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, P.O. Box 15200, FI-00076 Aalto, Finland
A color-changing plasmonic actuator based on silver nanoparticle array/liquid crystalline elastomer nanocomposites

Inspired by the chameleon and cephalopod, scientists have developed materials and devices to mimic the ability to change skin color with an environmental stimulus. However, a complicated integration of stretch ability, color changing and stimulus sensing is commonly required. Herein, by integrating a single-layer silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) array with a liquid crystal elastomer (LCE), we develop a facile bilayer-structural device that exhibits the ability to change color with thermally-driven actuation behavior. This indicates that an Ag NPs array inlayed into the surface of a LCE layer could spontaneously induce a homeotropic orientation of LC molecules, thereby allowing for different deformations associated with the blue-shift of structural color at vertical and hybrid alignment states in bilayer-structural films. The observed blue-shift of the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) peak which derives from a close packed Ag NPs array may be connected to the elongation of the gap distances of Ag NPs induced by flat expansion and bent deformation of the LCE. Moreover, finite-element simulations are undertaken to understand the intrinsic mechanism of the above behavior. The developed color-changing actuators could be promising candidates for smart environmental-responsive devices such as thermal-camouflage skin and color-changing actuators.
POREĐENJE SISTEMA ZA SINTEZU EKSPRESIVNOG GOVORA SA MOGUĆNOŠĆU KONTROLE JAČINE EMOCIJE

U sintezi ekspresivnog govora važno je generisati emocionalno obojen govor koji odražava kompleksnost emocionalnih stanja. Brojni TTS sistemi emocije u sintetizovanom govoru modeluju u vidu diskretnih skupova, ali tek kada se uzmu u obzir i varijacije koje postoje unutar emotivnih stanja, generisani govor može biti nalik ljudskom. Ovaj rad obuhvata teorijsku analizu i poređenje dva inovativna sistema za sintezu ekspresivnog govora koji kompleksnost emocija modeluju u vidu kontinualnih vektora kojima je moguće manipulisati. Rezultati pokazuju da je pristup zasnovan na t-SNE embedding vektorima primjenljiv samo u slučaju specifičnih baza podataka, dok je drugi pristup, zasnovan na interpolaciji tačaka u embedding prostoru multi-speaker, multi-style modela, opštiji, ali zahtijeva dodatnu analizu.
Response of five eco-physiological parameters, to the application of potassium in sunflower (Asteraceae), under semi-arid climate

In order to know the effect of three levels of potassium on five eco-physiological parameters in sunflower, open-pollinated achenes Victory cultivar, were sown at a density of 11.08 plants m-2 with a fertilization of 100N-50P kg ha-1 N=nitrogen, P= phosphorous, K= potassium. Traits evaluated were: agronomic yield, leaf area index, light attenuation coefficient and intercepted radiation. The treatments consisted of three potassium levels: 0, 50 and 100 kg ha-1 (K2O) and four repetitions (3x4) resulting in 12 experimental units, which were evaluated under a randomized complete block design. The results indicate that the application of 50 and 100 kg ha-1 of potassium increase the agronomic yield, leaf area index, intercepted radiation as well as the light attenuation coefficient. From this investigation it can be concluded, that potassium is a very important nutrient for sunflower when it is sown in dry climates such as the Tehuacan valley, Puebla.
Promising Anti-MRSA Activity of Brevibacillus sp. Isolated from Soil and Strain Improvement by UV Mutagenesis

Antibiotic-resistant infection is a major health problem, and a limited number of drugs are currently approved as antibiotics. Soil bacteria are promising sources in the search for novel antibiotics. The aim of the present study is to isolate and assess soil bacteria with anti-MRSA activity and improve their capabilities by UV mutagenesis. Soil samples from the upper south of Thailand were screened for antibacterial activity using the cross-streak method. Agar well diffusion was used to examine the activity of isolates against a spectrum of human pathogens. The most active isolate was identified by 16S rRNA sequencing, and the production kinetics and stability were investigated. The most promising isolate was mutated by UV radiation, and the resulting activity and strain stability were studied. The results show that isolates from the cross-streak method could inhibit Staphylococcus aureus TISTR 517 (94 isolates) and Escherichia coli TISTR 887 (67 isolates). Nine isolates remained active against S. aureus TISTR 517 and MRSA, and eight isolates inhibited the growth of E. coli TISTR 887 as assessed using agar well diffusion. The most active strain was Brevibacillus sp. SPR-20, which had the highest activity at 24 h of incubation. The active substances in culture supernatants exhibited more than 90% activity when subjected to treatments involving various heat, enzymes, surfactants, and pH conditions. The mutant M201 showed significantly higher activity (109.88–120.22%) and strain stability compared to the wild-type strain. In conclusion, we demonstrate that soil Brevibacillus sp. is a potential resource that can be subjected to UV mutagenesis as a useful approach for improving the production of anti-MRSA in the era of antibiotic resistance.
Experimental measurements of CO2 concentrations in sleeping rooms

People spend nearly one-third of their life on sleeping. Several factors can affect bedroom air quality and comfort of sleep, such as temperature, relative humidity and air quality. The most common indicator of indoor air quality is the concentration of carbon dioxide, its presence in indoor environment being strictly related to respiration and human metabolism. Since 2002, when the European Parliament and Council approved the directive on energy performance of buildings, EU member countries launched various programs for refurbishment of buildings and HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning) systems, in order to reduce the energy consumption. Unfortunately, the renovation operations, such as replacing old windows with new tight ones or thermal insulation of the facades, lead to tightly sealed interior spaces. Insufficient infiltration of fresh air and limited natural ventilation result into increased pollutant concentration and deterioration of the indoor microclimate. Permissible concentration of carbon dioxide in the closed spaces according to World Health Organization is 1000 ppm. When the level exceeds this threshold, occupants may complain of headaches, drowsiness, lack of concentration and fatigue. The present study shows the measurements of carbon dioxide concentrations conducted in several sleeping rooms located in refurbished buildings, with or without mechanical ventilation system for fresh air supply, as well as suggested measures.