Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Biodegradation of s-triazine herbicide atrazine by Enterobacter cloacae and Burkholderia cepacia sp. from long-term treated sugarcane-cultivated soils in Kenya

In this study soils from sugarcane-cultivated fields were screened for bacterial species capable of atrazine (6-chloro-N2-ethyl-N4-isopropyl-1,3,5-triazine-2,4-diamine) degradation due to long exposure of the soils to this herbicide. To enrich for atrazine degraders, Minimal Salt Medium containing atrazine as the sole N source and glucose as the C source was inoculated with soils impacted with this herbicide and incubated. Bacterial growth was monitored by measuring optical density. The degradation of atrazine was followed by measuring residual atrazine in liquid cultures over a given time period by high performance liquid chromatography. Bacterial strains isolated from the enrichment cultures were characterized by biochemical tests and identified by 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Two bacterial strains coded ISL 8 and ISL 15 isolated from two different fields were shown to have 94 and 96% 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity to Burkholderia cepacia respectively. Another bacterial sp. , ISL 14 was closely related to Enterobacter cloacae with a 96% 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity. There was not much difference between the extents of atrazine degradation by the enrichment cultures with communities (79–82% applied amount) from which pure strains were isolated and the pure strains themselves in liquid cultures that showed a degradation of 53–83% of applied amount. The study showed existence of bacterial strains in different sugarcane-cultivated fields which can use atrazine as a nitrogen source. The bacterial strains isolated can be used to enhance the degradation of atrazine in contaminated soils where atrazine is still considered to be recalcitrant.
Extraction de Relations basées sur une Ontologie pour le Web Sémantique

La vision du Web Semantique decrit par Sir Tim Berners-Lee en 1998 veut structurer les informations disponibles sur le World Wide Web pour permettre a des agents logiciels de raisonner sur le contenu des pages. L'annotation semantique des documents Web est donc une etape cle pour la realisation du Web semantique a grande echelle. A terme, l'association des technologies du Web semantique et la mise a disposition de ressources annotees permettraient par exemple d'inferer une nouvelle connaissance a partir de la connaissance apportee par les ontologies. Depuis une dizaine d'annees, la majorite des recherches effectuees dans le domaine de l'annotation (semi-)automatique pour le Web semantique (SHOE, KA2) ont ete faites par des chercheurs issus de l'intelligence artificielle et comme nous fait remarquer A. Prareja-Lora : "[. ] these researchers have been neglecting, somehow, the decades of work and the results obtained in the field of Corpus Linguistics on corpus annotation, not only in the semantic level, but also in other linguistic levels. " Au vu des resultats peu convaincants obtenus en intelligence artificielle, il apparait clairement que l'automatisation du processus d'annotation de documents pour le Web semantique passe par l'utilisation de techniques issues du traitement automatique du langage naturel comme l'extraction d'information, la desambiguisation ou la reconnaissance de termes. La majorite des systemes d'annotation sont centres sur la reconnaissance d'entites nommees. Toutefois, certains travaux tentent de definir les relations entre les entites nommees avec des resultats encore limites. Cet article dresse tout d'abord un etat de l'art des approches proposees pour extraire les relations semantiques entre les entites nommees. Ensuite, nous presentons un systeme d'extraction d'information pour le francais base sur une ontologie et fonde sur une approche essentiellement linguistique. Cette approche permet d'extraire les relations semantiques entre les entites nommees en exploitant les contextes syntaxiques. Enfin, nous analysons les premiers resultats de notre experience obtenus a partir d'un corpus journalistique.
Preparing Teachers to Help Low-Literacy Adult ESOL Learners

1 Introduction Across the United States adult immigrants that do not speak English attend ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) classes in publicly-funded adult education programs. These classes are generally free or at very little cost to the learners, and frequently held in the evenings. Each state receives federal funds to provide these educational services and distributes them accordingly to programs within the state that meet their criteria for program standards and requirements for assessment and accountability. The programs vary in size, learner ethnicity and other characteristics, curriculum, structure, entry dates, and not least of all, level of expertise of the teachers. Many of the teachers that work with the ESOL population in these publicly-funded adult education classes, unfortunately, are untrained in working with the low-literate adult population. In fact, the majority have little training in teaching ESOL to adults in general, before they begin in the classroom. On a frequent basis in-service workshops are held for these teachers so that they can acquire the skills and knowledge to help their students learn English in order to successfully participate in their new communities, at work and at home. In Virginia these professional development workshops are provided by the Virginia Adult Learning Resource Center (VALRC) at no cost to the programs or teachers. The VALRC is the professional development entity of the Office of Adult Education and Literacy of Virginia's Department of Education. Its vision is that every adult education and literacy practitioner and organization has the tools to help build a better future for its learners. It provides adult education and literacy resources, publications, and training for teachers of adults in Virginia. As the ESOL Specialist at the VALRC, I am charged with providing support for Virginia's ESOL adult education programs and their staff in the areas of professional development, assessment, curriculum, and instructional resources. I organize trainings around the state, create curricula, disseminate the latest research that reflects best practices and generally respond to programs' needs and demands. The needs of the programs and teachers around the state vary from region to region. In the next sections I first present some demographics about Virginia, and after that I describe how the Virginia Adult Learning Resource Center tries to support teachers in the different regions in doing their jobs.
A survey on security and privacy issues in big data

Due to the reasons such as the rapid growth and spread of network services, mobile devices, and online users on the Internet leading to a remarkable increase in the amount of data. Almost every industry is trying to cope with this huge data. Big data phenomenon has begun to gain importance. However, it is not only very difficult to store big data and analyse them with traditional applications, but also it has challenging privacy and security problems. For this reason, this paper discusses the big data, its ecosystem, concerns on big data and presents comparative view of big data privacy and security approaches in literature in terms of infrastructure, application, and data. By grouping these applications an overall perspective of security and privacy issues in big data is suggested.
Population‐Based Case‐Control Association Studies

This unit provides an overview of the design and analysis of population‐based case‐control studies of genetic risk factors for complex disease. Considerations specific to genetic studies are emphasized. The unit reviews basic study designs, differentiating case‐control studies from others, discusses selection of genetic markers for use in studies, introduces basic methods of analysis of case‐control data, and discusses measures of association and impact. Controlling for confounding (including population stratification), consideration of multiple loci, and haplotype analysis are briefly discussed. Readers are referred to basic texts on epidemiology for more details on general conduct of case‐control studies.
The multiple roles of fatty acid handling proteins in brain

Lipids are essential components of a living organism as energy source but also as constituent of the membrane lipid bilayer. In addition fatty acid (FA) derivatives interact with many signaling pathways. FAs have amphipathic properties and therefore require being associated to protein for both transport and intracellular trafficking. Here we will focus on several FA handling proteins, among which the fatty acid translocase/CD36 (FAT/CD36), members of fatty acid transport proteins (FATPs), and lipid chaperones fatty acid-binding proteins (FABPs). A decade of extensive studies has helped decipher the mechanism of action of these proteins in peripheral tissue with high lipid metabolism. However, considerably less information is available regarding their role in the brain, despite the high lipid content of this tissue. This review will primarily focus on the recent studies that have highlighted the crucial role of lipid handling proteins in brain FA transport, neuronal differentiation and development, cognitive processes and brain diseases. Finally a special focus will be made on the recent studies that have revealed the role of FAT/CD36 in brain lipid sensing and nervous control of energy balance.
Analysis on the Equlibrium of Industrial Innovation Based on Creative Destruction

As the most basic activity of enterprises, innovation has been the focus in the field of industrial organization. Industrial innovation, which implies the idea of creative destruction, makes the new products render previous ones obsolete. Analyzing on the research input of industrial innovation model, findings indicate that there are three possible equilibriums: stationary equilibrium, two-cycle and no-growth trap, and no-growth trap should be averted in order to keep the steady industry growth. The welfare property of stationary equilibrium indicates the laissez-faire (that is, profit maximization) average economy’s growth rate may be greater or less than the socially optimal level, implying the high economic growth rate conflicts with high customer welfare.
Microbes in the coral holobiont: partners through evolution, development, and ecological interactions

In the last two decades, genetic and genomic studies have revealed the astonishing diversity and ubiquity of microorganisms. Emergence and expansion of the human microbiome project has reshaped our thinking about how microbes control host health—not only as pathogens, but also as symbionts. In coral reef environments, scientists have begun to examine the role that microorganisms play in coral life history. Herein, we review the current literature on coral-microbe interactions within the context of their role in evolution, development, and ecology. We ask the following questions, first posed by McFall-Ngai et al. (2013) in their review of animal evolution, with specific attention to how coral-microbial interactions may be affected under future environmental conditions: (1) How do corals and their microbiome affect each other's genomes? (2) How does coral development depend on microbial partners? (3) How is homeostasis maintained between corals and their microbial symbionts? (4) How can ecological approaches deepen our understanding of the multiple levels of coral-microbial interactions? Elucidating the role that microorganisms play in the structure and function of the holobiont is essential for understanding how corals maintain homeostasis and acclimate to changing environmental conditions.
Permissive role of nitric oxide in macula densa control of renin secretion.

Experiments were performed in neuronal (nNOS)- and endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS)-deficient mice to study the role of nitric oxide (NO) in macula densa control of renin secretion in vivo and in the isolated, perfused mouse kidney. Acute and chronic administration of loop diuretics was used as a method to stimulate macula densa-mediated renin secretion. Increases in plasma renin concentration (PRC) in response to a 3-day infusion of bumetanide (50 mg.kg(-1). day(-1)) or an acute injection of furosemide (50 mg/kg ip) were not markedly altered in nNOS-/- mice. Responses to furosemide were also maintained in eNOS-/- mice, but the administration of N(omega)-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester (L-NAME) markedly attenuated the PRC response to furosemide in these mice. In the isolated kidney preparation, bumetanide caused similar relative increases in renin secretion in kidneys of wild-type, nNOS-/-, and eNOS-/- mice. Bumetanide only marginally increased renin secretion in L-NAME-treated kidneys, but the bumetanide effect was normalized by S-nitroso-N-acetyl-penicillamine. Basal PRC was significantly reduced in male nNOS-/- mice compared with nNOS+/+ (189 +/- 28 vs. 355 +/- 57 ng ANG I.ml(-1). h(-1); P = 0.017). There was no significant difference in PRC between eNOS+/+ and eNOS-/- mice. Basal renin secretion rates in perfused kidneys isolated from nNOS-/- or eNOS-/- mice were markedly reduced compared with wild-type controls. Our data suggest that NO generated by macula densa nNOS does not play a specific mediator role in macula densa-dependent renin secretion. However, NO independent of its exact source permits the macula densa pathway of renin secretion to function normally.
Almost Fr echet di erentiability of Lipschitzmappings between in nite dimensional

We give several suucient conditions on a pair of Banach spaces X and Y under which each Lipschitz mapping from a domain in X to Y has, for every > 0, a point of-Fr echet diierentiability. Most of these conditions are stated in terms of the moduli of asymptotic smoothness and convexity, notions which appeared in the literature under a variety of names. We prove, for example, that for 1 > r > p 1, every Lipschitz mapping from a domain in an`r sum of nite dimensional spaces into an`p sum of nite dimensional spaces has, for every > 0, a point of-Fr echet diierentiability, and that every Lipschitz mapping from an asymptotically uniformly smooth space to a nite dimensional space has such points. The latter result improves, with a simpler proof, the result of 16]. We also survey some of the known results on the notions of asymptotic smoothness and convexity, prove some new properties, and present some new proofs of existing results.
Recovering Information from Summary Data

We formulate this task as an inverse problem, specifying a well-defined cost function that has to be optimized under constraints. We show that our formulation includes the uniformity and independence assumptions as a special case, and that it can achieve better reconstruction results if we maximize the smoothness as opposed to the uniformity. In our experiments on real and synthetic datasets, the proposed method almost consistently outperforms its competitor, improving the rootmean-square error by up to 20 per cent for stock price data, and up to 90 per cent for smoother data sets.
Quelles personnes sont susceptibles de développer une invalidité en raison de la douleuret comment intervenir en phase initiale? Les principes extraits des résultats de larecherche sur les facteurs prédisposants à l’invalidité

Disability due to pain is a significant problem owing to its personal, financial and societal costs. Scientific efforts are aimed towards the identification of the risk factors for the development of pain leading to a state which undermines the afflicted person’s ability to attend to his/her basic functions. These efforts highlight the key role that psychosocial factors play in each stage of the progression towards disability due to pain. Among the influencing factors are psychological difficulties (depression, anxiety, somatization, personality disorder, catastrophization and activity avoidance), dissatisfaction at work and the compensation context. In light of this awareness, industrialized countries have instituted policies for the management of acute pain with the aim of reducing costs, both for the patient and for society. Twenty years after the appearance of the first clinical practice guidelines and the subsequent publication of numerous other guides propounding essentially the same information, physicians are still struggling to apply the recommendations. Relying on the evidence from the scientific literature, this study proposes a critical synthesis of the results to provoke thought and to advance the process towards a reduction in the personal, financial and societal costs of pain.
Iterative feedforward control: a closed-loop identification problem and a solution

Feedforward control can significantly improve the performance of a system through compensation of disturbances. By exploiting measured data from previous tasks and a suitable feedforward parametrization, iterative feedforward control simultaneously attains high performance and good extrapolability of tasks. This paper aims to show that earlier contributions in this area suffer from a closed-loop identification problem. A novel solution is presented based on closed-loop identification techniques, which shows that existing feedforward control algorithms can be significantly enhanced. A simulation example confirms the existence of a closed-loop identification problem in earlier approaches and shows that the proposed solution is superior compared to pre-existing results.
A blueprint for vocal learning: auditory predispositions from brains to genomes

Memorizing and producing complex strings of sound are requirements for spoken human language. We share these behaviours with likely more than 4000 species of songbirds, making birds our primary model for studying the cognitive basis of vocal learning and, more generally, an important model for how memories are encoded in the brain. In songbirds, as in humans, the sounds that a juvenile learns later in life depend on auditory memories formed early in development. Experiments on a wide variety of songbird species suggest that the formation and lability of these auditory memories, in turn, depend on auditory predispositions that stimulate learning when a juvenile hears relevant, species-typical sounds. We review evidence that variation in key features of these auditory predispositions are determined by variation in genes underlying the development of the auditory system. We argue that increased investigation of the neuronal basis of auditory predispositions expressed early in life in combination with modern comparative genomic approaches may provide insights into the evolution of vocal learning.
How Should We Best Estimate the Mean Recency Duration for the BED Method?

BED estimates of HIV incidence from cross-sectional surveys are obtained by restricting, to fixed time T, the period over which incidence is estimated. The appropriate mean recency duration () then refers to the time where BED optical density (OD) is less than a pre-set cut-off C, given the patient has been HIV positive for at most time T. Five methods, tested using data for postpartum women in Zimbabwe, provided similar estimates of for C = 0.8: i) The ratio (r/s) of the number of BED-recent infections to all seroconversions over T = 365 days: 192 days [95% CI 168–216]. ii) Linear mixed modeling (LMM): 191 days [95% CI 174–208]. iii) Non-linear mixed modeling (NLMM): 196 days [95% CrI 188–204]. iv) Survival analysis (SA): 192 days [95% CI 168–216]. Graphical analysis: 193 days. NLMM estimates of - based on a biologically more appropriate functional relationship than LMM – resulted in best fits to OD data, the smallest variance in estimates of , and best correspondence between BED and follow-up estimates of HIV incidence, for the same subjects over the same time period. SA and NLMM produced very similar estimates of but the coefficient of variation of the former was >3 times as high. The r/s method requires uniformly distributed seroconversion events but is useful if data are available only from a single follow-up. The graphical method produces the most variable results, involves unsound methodology and should not be used to provide estimates of . False-recent rates increased as a quadratic function of C: for incidence estimation C should thus be chosen as small as possible, consistent with an adequate resultant number of recent cases, and accurate estimation of . Inaccuracies in the estimation of should not now provide an impediment to incidence estimation.
Spoken Document Retrieval (SDR) for Broadcast News in Indian Languages

Audio data carries much more information than text and are widely used in many applications like broadcast news. But there is a lack of good techniques for retrieving some information from such data. We are trying to address this problem, called the Spoken Document Retrieval (SDR) for Indian languages, by matching speech-segments without actual recognition. The objective is to index the audio data in suitable format so that we can search in this indexed database for a given query. The output can be some audio file(s) or segment(s). At present, the experiments are done on labeled data and text query. The system is interactive and works based on probabilistic searching. Further work is being done on partially labeled as well as unlabeled speech data and speech query. The techniques being explored involve hypothesizing the word boundaries, developing phoneme-level Hidden Markov Models (HMMs), phoneme-boundary marking using segmental k-means algorithm, deriving syllable-level models, and Vector Quantization. We provide the outline and various issues related to both these scenarios: labeled and transcribed data, and unlabeled and nontranscribed data. The implementation details of the former case is given and the latter case is analyzed. We show that we could achieve reasonably well precision and recall for speech documents, too.
Formal specification and simulation of the robot path planner

Simulation software plays a very important role in education and research applications. They provide a safe, easy and flexible environment for developing and testing new methods. However developing a simulation software that reflects the exact behavior of the real system is a difficult and complicated task. In this paper we used hybrid process algebra to build a formal model that describes the exact behavior of the path planner module of autonomous mobile robots. The robot path planner is described by a powerful recursive process. The robot moves in four modes heading-regulation, move-to-goal, move-to-inter-goal, and obstacle-avoidance mode. Each motion mode is described by a process. The overall behavior of the path planner is the result of the communication between the four processes. The developed model is then implemented as simulator for mobile robots.