Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The rhizosphere microbiota of plant invaders: an overview of recent advances in the microbiomics of invasive plants

Plants in terrestrial systems have evolved in direct association with microbes functioning as both agonists and antagonists of plant fitness and adaptability. As such, investigations that segregate plants and microbes provide only a limited scope of the biotic interactions that dictate plant community structure and composition in natural systems. Invasive plants provide an excellent working model to compare and contrast the effects of microbial communities associated with natural plant populations on plant fitness, adaptation, and fecundity. The last decade of DNA sequencing technology advancements opened the door to microbial community analysis, which has led to an increased awareness of the importance of an organism’s microbiome and the disease states associated with microbiome shifts. Employing microbiome analysis to study the symbiotic networks associated with invasive plants will help us to understand what microorganisms contribute to plant fitness in natural systems, how different soil microbial communities impact plant fitness and adaptability, specificity of host–microbe interactions in natural plant populations, and the selective pressures that dictate the structure of above-ground and below-ground biotic communities. This review discusses recent advances in invasive plant biology that have resulted from microbiome analyses as well as the microbial factors that direct plant fitness and adaptability in natural systems.
Development of small flying robot with rotary wing and autonomous control system

This paper presents small flying robot with a rotary wing system and an autonomous guidance and control system. Nowadays, a small flying robot such as small/micro air vehicle (MAV) can play a significant role for human's reconnaissance mission. Small hovering robot will be able to approach a dangerous area where human cannot go. In addition, comparing with fixed wing type, it can continuously watch a certain fixed point by hovering in a specific area. This paper is concerned with small rotary wing flying robot (KU-Loiter) design, manufacturing and autonomous control of KU-Loiter.
Resolution of Pronominals in Tamil

The paper presents a system, which resolves pronominals in Tamil. In resolving the pronominals we adopt a probabilistic method. The analysis depends on the salience weight of the candidate noun phrases (NP) for the antecedent-hood of the pronominal from the list of possible candidate NPs. The salience weight of an NP is obtained from the salience factors, which are determined by the probability of an NP to be the antecedent on the basis of the grammatical features. The input text is pre-processed and partially parsed before sending it to the salience analyzer. The partial parsing is done using morphological markings and no sophisticated notions of the modern formal linguistic theories are used. The system considers candidate nouns that occur four sentences above the sentence in which the pronoun occurs. The system gives 86.32% precision and 80.9% recall
Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 Receptor Agonist Treatment Prevents Glucocorticoid-Induced Glucose Intolerance and Islet-Cell Dysfunction in Humans

OBJECTIVE Glucocorticoids (GCs) are regarded as diabetogenic because they impair insulin sensitivity and islet-cell function. This study assessed whether treatment with the glucagon-like peptide receptor agonist (GLP-1 RA) exenatide (EXE) could prevent GC-induced glucose intolerance. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS A randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind, crossover study in eight healthy men (age: 23.5 [20.0–28.3] years; BMI: 26.4 [24.3–28.0] kg/m2) was conducted. Participants received three therapeutic regimens for 2 consecutive days: 1) 80 mg of oral prednisolone (PRED) every day (q.d.) and intravenous (IV) EXE infusion (PRED+EXE); 2) 80 mg of oral PRED q.d. and IV saline infusion (PRED+SAL); and 3) oral placebo-PRED q.d. and intravenous saline infusion (PLB+SAL). On day 1, glucose tolerance was assessed during a meal challenge test. On day 2, participants underwent a clamp procedure to measure insulin secretion and insulin sensitivity. RESULTS PRED+SAL treatment increased postprandial glucose levels (vs. PLB+SAL, P = 0.012), which was prevented by concomitant EXE (vs. PLB+SAL, P = NS). EXE reduced PRED-induced hyperglucagonemia during the meal challenge (P = 0.018) and decreased gastric emptying (vs. PRED+SAL, P = 0.028; vs. PLB+SAL, P = 0.046). PRED+SAL decreased first-phase glucose- and arginine-stimulated C-peptide secretion (vs. PLB+SAL, P = 0.017 and P = 0.05, respectively), whereas PRED+EXE improved first- and second-phase glucose- and arginine-stimulated C-peptide secretion (vs. PLB+SAL; P = 0.017, 0.012, and 0.093, respectively). CONCLUSIONS The GLP-1 RA EXE prevented PRED-induced glucose intolerance and islet-cell dysfunction in healthy humans. Incretin-based therapies should be explored as a potential strategy to prevent steroid diabetes.
Soil microfloral and faunal populations in an organic agroecosystem in Oregon, USA

Soil microbial and faunal populations in paired organic and conventional green pepper vegetable farms, both on the same Mollisol soil (Woodburn soil series) in Corvallis, Oregon, were assessed. Thirteen years following conversion to organic from conventional farming practices, densities of bacteria, protozoa, nematodes, and arthropods in the 0 to 10 cm depth of soil were higher in the organic than in the conventionally managed soil. Soil fungal biomass was higher in the conventional agroecosystem. Microbivorous and predatory of nematodes and the plant parasitic nematode Xiphinema sp. were higher in the organic agroecosystem throughout the year, except in May. Greater numbers of Rhabditida, such as Rhabditis sp. were present in the organic agroecosystem while Panagrolaimus spp. were higher than Rhabdilitis sp. in the conventional agroecosystem. Collembola were greater in number in the organic than the conventional system, while individuals of the Family Eupodidae (mites) were equally numerous in both systems. Omnivores and predators in the Mesostigmata, such as Digamasellidae and Laelapid, and Prostigmata, such as Alicorhaiidae and Rhagidiidae, were more abundant in the organic agroecosystem. Fungivorous Prostigmata such as Terpnacaridae and Nanorchestidae and Astigmata such as Acarida were higher in the conventional ecosystem. These results support the fact that fungal biomass was greater in the conventional agroecosystem. There was a seasonal decrease in the numbers of the populations because of a marked decrease in soil moisture. Higher diversities and numbers of soil biota survived in favorable, extremely hot and dry conditions in organic soil ecosystem.
Micromechanical and statistical studies of twinning in hexagonal metals: application to magnesium and zirconium

The objective of this thesis is to investigate and quantify the influence of parent-twin and twin-twin interactions on the mechanical response of h.c. p. metals. To study parent-twin interactions, a mean-field continuum mechanics approach has been developed based on a double inclusion topology. A first model generalizing the Tanaka-Mori scheme to heterogeneous elastic media is applied to first and second generation twinning in Mg. The model is capable of reproducing the trends in the development of backstresses within the primary twin and enables the identification of the most likely second-generation twin variants to grow in a primary twin domain. A second self-consistent model, consisting of an extension of the first one to the case of elasto-plasticity, is applied to AZ31 Mg polycrystals. The results show that deformation system activities and plastic strain distributions within twins drastically depend on the interaction with parent domains. The influence of twin-twin interactions on nucleation and growth of twins is being statistically studied from Zr and Mg electron back-scattered diffraction (EBSD) scans. A twin recognition software relying on graph theory analysis has been developed for data extraction. The results obtained from Zr EBSD maps reveal that twin-twin interactions hinder subsequent twin nucleation and that mechanisms involved in twin growth may differ for each twinning mode. A second study performed on AZ31 Mg presents statistics about low Schmid factor {10-12} tensile twins and about {10-12}-{10-12} double twins coupled with a simplified version of the Tanaka-Mori scheme generalized to heterogeneous elasticity with plastic incompatibilities.
Denial of service resilience in ad hoc networks

Significant progress has been made towards making ad hoc networks secure and DoS resilient. However, little attention has been focused on quantifying DoS resilience: Do ad hoc networks have sufficiently redundant paths and counter-DoS mechanisms to make DoS attacks largely ineffective? Or are there attack and system factors that can lead to devastating effects? In this paper, we design and study DoS attacks in order to assess the damage that difficult-to-detect attackers can cause. The first attack we study, called the JellyFish attack, is targeted against closed-loop flows such as TCP; although protocol compliant, it has devastating effects. The second is the Black Hole attack, which has effects similar to the JellyFish, but on open-loop flows. We quantify via simulations and analytical modeling the scalability of DoS attacks as a function of key performance parameters such as mobility, system size, node density, and counter-DoS strategy. One perhaps surprising result is that such DoS attacks can increase the capacity of ad hoc networks, as they starve multi-hop flows and only allow one-hop communication, a capacity-maximizing, yet clearly undesirable situation.
Granulocyte‐Macrophage colony stimulating factor (GM‐CSF) priming in the treatment of elderly patients with acute myelogenous leukemia

Standard intensive induction therapy is tolerated poorly by elderly patients with acute myeloblastic leukemia (AML). We treated 19 elderly patients with AML, including seven with a prior myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) with a combination of low dose cytarabine, hydroxyurea, and GM‐CSF. The percentage of blasts in S‐phase was evaluated prior to and 24 hr after starting the GM‐CSF infusion. Cell cycle analysis was performed by flow cytometry using propidium iodine staining with fluorescein isothiocyanate‐conjugated monoclonal antibody to the myeloid antigen CD 33.
Simulative Untersuchung verschiedener Routingregeln für Rechnernetze/ A Simulative Study of Different Routing Rules in Packet Switching Networks

Das Routing der Nachrichten ist eine. der Hauptprobleme der Netzwerksteuerung. Meist werden Simulationsmodelle benutzt, um die Leistung (adaptiver) Routingregeln unter verschiedenen Netzlasten und -topologien zu analysieren. In dieser Studie werden Simulationsmodelle vorgestellt, mit deren Hilfe zwei adaptive, lokal implementierte Routingregeln aus dem ARPA-Netz untersucht wurden. Die Modelle wurden unter Verwendung eines Modellierungswerkzeuges erstellt. Die Routingregeln, die Netzwerkmodelle sowie die Simulationsergebnisse werden in dem Bericht erörtert.
Embracing diversity in the Barrelfish manycore operating system

We discuss diversity and heterogeneity in manycore computer systems, and identify three distinct types of diversity, all of which present challenges to operating system designers and application writers alike. We observe that most current research work has concentrated on a narrow form of one of these (non-uniform memory access) to the exclusion of the others, and show with measurement why this makes sense in the short term. However, we claim that this is not viable in the long term given current processor and system roadmaps, and present our approach to dealing with both heterogeneous hardware within a single system, and the increasing diversity of complete system configurations: we directly represent detailed system information in an expressive “system knowledge base” accessible to applications and OS subsystems alike, and use this to control tasks such as scheduling and resource allocation.
Scene text script identification with Convolutional Recurrent Neural Networks

Script identification for scene text images is a challenging task. This paper describes a novel deep neural network structure that efficiently identifies scripts of images. In our design, we exploit two important factors, namely the image representation, and the spatial dependencies within text lines. To this end, we bring together a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) and a Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) into one end-to-end trainable network. The former generates rich image representations, while the latter effectively analyzes long-term spatial dependencies. Besides, on top of the structure, we adopt an average pooling structure in order to deal with input images of arbitrary sizes. Experiments on several datasets, including SIW-13 and CVSI2015, demonstrate that our approach achieves superior performance, compared with previous approaches.
Mechanische und Strömungsmechanische Topologieoptimierung mit der Phasenfeldmethode

In der Ingenieursarbeit ist die Optimierung ein Aspekt bei der Mikrostruktur eines Werkstoffs, bei mechanisch belasteter bzw. bei bestromter Bauteile und (geologischer) Strukturen. Vorgestellt werden Methoden fur die Optimierung basierend auf der Kontinuumsmechanik, der Stromungsmechanik und der Phasenfeldmethode. Die Simulationen wurden mit dem Softwarepaket Parallel Algorithms for Crystal Evolution in 3D (Pace3D) durchgefuhrt.
The role of resist for ultrathin gate oxide degradation during O2 plasma ashing

During ashing process, resist has been intuitively regarded as a protection layer and deliberately removed in previous studies by wet process prior to plasma exposure in an effort to amplify the damage effect. Recently, we found instead that resist does not simply act as a protection layer. This newly observed phenomenon cannot be explained by the well-known electron shading effect which should not affect the area-intensive antenna structure used in our study. Here we hypothesize that this resist-related charging damage is determined by the plasma potential adjustment difference between those devices with and without resist overlayer. The experimental results show a good correlation with our explanation. To be specific, severe antenna area ratio (ARR) dependent degradation of thin gate oxide is induced during the initial ashing stage while the resist is still on the electrodes, not during the overashing period.
Fast Multidimensional Scaling using Vector Extrapolation

Multidimensional scaling (MDS) is a class of methods used to flnd a low-dimensional representation of a set of points given a matrix of pairwise distances between them. Problems of this kind arise in various applications, from dimensionality reduction of image manifolds to psychology and statistics. In many of these applications, e‐cient and accurate solution of an MDS problem is required. In this paper, we propose using vector extrapolation techniques to accelerate the numerical solution of MDS problems. Vector extrapolation is used to accelerate the convergence of flxed-point iterative algorithms. We review the problem of multidimensional scaling and vector extrapolation techniques, and show several examples of our accelerated solver for multidimensional scaling problems in various applications.
Is it a tree, a DAG, or a cyclic graph? A shape analysis for heap-directed pointers in C

This paper reports on the design and implementation of a practical shape analysis for C. The purpose of the analysis is to aid in the disambiguation of heap-allocated data structures by estimating the shape (Tree, DAG, or Cyclic Graph) of the data structure accessible from each heap-directed pointer. This shape information can be used to improve dependence testing and in parallelization, and to guide the choice of more complex heap analyses.The method has been implemented as a context-sensitive interprocedural analysis in the McCAT conlpiler. Experimental results and observations are given for 16 benchmark programs. These results show that the analysis gives accurate and useful results for an important group of applications.
Binding of vitronectin and Factor H to Hic contributes to immune evasion of Streptococcus pneumoniae serotype 3

Summary Streptococcus pneumoniae serotype 3 strains are highly resistant to opsonophagocytosis due to recruitment of the complement inhibitor Factor H via Hic, a member of the pneumococcal surface protein C (PspC) family. In this study, we demonstrated that Hic also interacts with vitronectin, a fluid-phase regulator involved in haemostasis, angiogenesis, and the terminal complement cascade as well as a component of the extracellular matrix. Blocking of Hic by specific antiserum or genetic deletion significantly reduced pneumococcal binding to soluble and immobilised vitronectin and to Factor H, respectively. In parallel, ectopic expression of Hic on the surface of Lactococcus lactis conferred binding to soluble and immobilised vitronectin as well as Factor H. Molecular analyses with truncated Hic fragments narrowed down the vitronectin-binding site to the central core of Hic (aa 151–201). This vitronectin-binding region is separate from that of Factor H, which binds to the N-terminus of Hic (aa 38–92). Binding of pneumococcal Hic was localised to the C-terminal heparin-binding domain (HBD3) of vitronectin. However, an N-terminal region to HBD3 was further involved in Hic-binding to immobilised vitronectin. Finally, vitronectin bound to Hic was functionally active and inhibited formation of the terminal complement complex. In conclusion, Hic interacts with vitronectin and simultaneously with Factor H, and both human proteins may contribute to colonisation and invasive disease caused by serotype 3 pneumococci.
Pre-illness dietary factors in inflammatory bowel disease.

BACKGROUND: The effect of environmental factors has been demonstrated in the pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Nutrition may be one of them. AIM: To investigate the pre-illness diet in patients with recent IBD in comparison with matched population and clinic controls. METHODS: Quantified dietary histories were obtained from 87 patients with recent IBD (54 ulcerative colitis (UC) and 33 Crohn's disease (CD)) and 144 controls. Odds ratios (OR) for IBD were derived for intake levels of various foods. RESULTS: A high sucrose consumption was associated with an increased risk for IBD (OR 2.85 (p = 0.03) against population controls and 5.3 (p = 0.00) against clinic controls). Lactose consumption showed no effect while fructose intake was negatively associated with risk for IBD (NS). Similar trends were noted in UC and CD. A high fat intake was associated with an increased risk for UC; this was particularly marked for animal fat (OR 4.09, p = 0.02) and cholesterol (OR 4.57, p = 0.02). A high intake of fluids (p = 0.04), magnesium (p = 0.04), vitamin C, and fruits (NS) was negatively associated with the risk for IBD, while a positive association was found for retinol (p = 0.01). Most of the findings were similar in UC and CD except for potassium and vegetable consumption which showed a negative association only with risk for CD. CONCLUSIONS: An association was found between pre-illness diet and subsequent development of UC and CD. The effect of dietary components may be primary or modulatory.
FIB-based measurement of local residual stresses on microsystems

The paper comprises research results obtained for stress determination on micro and nanotechnology components. It meets the concern of controlling stresses introduced to sensors, MEMS and electronics devices during different micromachining processes. The method bases on deformation measurement options made available inside focused ion beam equipment. Removing locally material by ion beam milling existing stresses / residual stresses lead to deformation fields around the milled feature. Digital image correlation techniques are used to extract deformation values from micrographs captured before and after milling. In the paper, two main milling features have been analyzed - through hole and through slit milling. Analytical solutions for stress release fields of in-plane stresses have been derived and compared to respective experimental findings. Their good agreement allows to settle a method for determination of residual stress values, which is demonstrated for thin membranes manufactured by silicon micro technology. Some emphasis is made on the elimination of main error sources for stress determination, like rigid body object displacements and rotations due to drifts of experimental conditions under FIB imaging. In order to illustrate potential application areas of the method residual stress suppression by ion implantation is evaluated by the method and reported here.
Extraskeletal myxoid chondrosarcoma: a histochemical and immunohistochemical study

In reviewing a large series of soft tissue sarcomas, nine cases of extraskeletal myxoid chondrosarcoma have been retrieved. These tumours, which principally presented in middle‐aged adults, have been examined histochemically to determine the heteroglycan content of their myxoid matrix and immunohistochemically for the presence of S‐100 protein. The principal mucopolysaccharides identified were chondroitin‐4 and 6‐sulphate and keratan sulphate; each of the tumours was S‐100 positive. The relevance of these findings to the histogenesis and differential diagnosis of these uncommon neoplasms is discussed.
Preparation, characterization, and DNA interaction studies of cationic europium luminescent copolymer

This paper proposed a simple synthetic strategy towards a novel cationic europium luminescent copolymer, poly(METAC-co-NIPAm-co-Eu(AA)3Phen) (PMNEu), and investigation about their complexation ability with DNA. In this approach, first, Eu(AA)3Phen complex monomer containing Eu3+, acrylic acid (AA), and 1,10-phenanthroline (Phen) was synthesized, and subsequently, free radical copolymerization of Eu(AA)3Phen complex monomer with other two functional monomers, [2-(methacryloyloxy) ethyl] trimethylammonium chloride (METAC) and N-isopropylarylamide (NIPAm), was carried out in methanol using azodiisobutyronitrile (AIBN) as the initiator. 1HNMR, GPC, fluorescence spectroscopy, UV–vis spectroscopy, and TEM were used to investigate the chemical structures, molecular weight and molecular weight distribution, fluorescence properties, UV spectra, and morphologies of PMNEu copolymer, respectively. Furthermore, the interaction of PMNEu with DNA was also studied with fluorescence spectroscopy, UV–vis spectroscopy, and agarose gel electrophoresis. These results indicated that PMNEu could interact with DNA via an electrostatic bonding mode and the bonding constant was 2.2 × 105 L/mol. Additionally, TEM observation showed that pure PMNEu formed micelles in water solution, while the size-controllable aggregations of PMNEu with DNA were obtained when PMNEu was mixed with DNA at various concentration ratios. A good biocompability of PMNEu was demonstrated through in vitro cytotoxicity assays.