Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Assessment of Exserohilum turcicum using molecular markers for sustainable maize production in Tanzania

The Exserohilum turcicum fungus causes the Northern leaf blight (NLB) of maize all over the world. In Tanzania, this disease is considered as a major foliar disease with yield losses of 23.9 to 62.8%. To understand the genetic variations of E. turcicum from maize fields in Tanzania, a survey was conducted in four regions, including Morogoro, Iringa, Njombe, and Mbeya. Leaf samples were collected from diseased plants exhibiting NLB symptoms. Using aseptic technique, pure colonies of fungal pathogens were isolated on selective media followed with molecular analysis. The internal transcribed ribosomal DNA (ITS), six microsatellite markers of simple sequence repeat (SSR) nature, and two specific mating type primers (MAT) designed to amplify MAT1 and MAT2 gene sequences were used in this study. With ITS marker, 14 isolates were amplified, Sanger sequenced, and their sequences were deposited to GenBank with accession numbers MT124699-MT124712. The SSR results were scored using base pairs in each genotype and subjected to power marker software to determine genetic variations. A total of four alleles across two loci were detected, with gene diversity (0.26 - 0.58). Polymorphic bands revealed 4 and 5 genotypes using SSR 06 and SSR 024, respectively. The polymorphic information content (PIC) of SSR 06 and SSR 024 loci were 0.25 and 0.52, respectively. The specific MAT markers demonstrated dominance of MAT 2 over MAT 1 . The distribution of MAT 1 and MAT 2 in humid highlands of Mbeya, Njombe, and Iringa regions indicated possibility of sexual reproduction and good potential for sexual recombination than in the dry lowland of Morogoro region. This study is the first report on genetic diversity of E. turcicum in Tanzania , further studies using robust molecular and sequencing techniques is imperative in Tanzania.
Jet Models for Flaring in Sgr A

Last year, the X-ray mission Chandra observed a factor of ∼50 flaring in the Galactic Center supermassive black hole candidate Sgr A*. The smallest timescale of ∼600 seconds argues for an origin within ∼40 rg of the central engine, which narrows the source down to the inner regions of either the accretion flow or jet outflows. Because the variability in the radio has never shown similar levels of flaring over its observed history, a simple jump of order 50 in the accretion rate is likely not the cause of the fluctuations. We argue that additional electron heating near the base of a jet can account for the flaring which, depending on the underlying physical mechanism, predicts significantly different simultaneous multi-wavelength behavior. For the case of direct heating of the thermal electrons by a factor of a few, the flare would be a result of increased synchrotron-self Compton emission. Non-thermal particle acceleration, on the other hand, could account for the flare via high-energy synchrotron emission. We discuss these mechanisms in the context of the jet model, and the respective signatures which would allow us to distinguish between them in future flaring events. We briefly discuss these predictions in light of the newest flare observations.
In silico characterization of interferon-stimulated gene (ISG15) as a biomarker for early pregnancy diagnosis in Bubalus bubalis

Reproductive management of livestock is the foremost requirement for increasing production from any dairy animal. High reproductive efficiency can be achieved by implementation of one of the crucial management practices which involves early differentiation of pregnant and non-pregnant animals. The early and precise pregnancy diagnosis is the major problem in Bubalus bubalis (buffalo) due to absence of estrous signs instead of normal cyclicity of reproductive organs. Therefore, in the present study, one of the conceptus derived protein interferon stimulated protein (15 kDa) released during 18 to 21 days after insemination in response to implantation of embryo was in silico characterized. The protein expressed by interferon-stimulated gene-15 (ISG15) was analyzed by isolation and sequencing of coding region of mRNA. The primary and secondary structures were predicted from the protein sequence to decipher the interaction of ISG15 protein with other molecules. The functional characterization identifies various motifs present in ISG15 protein which are responsible for its interaction with other proteins. Physiochemical properties predicted the ISG15 protein nature during in vitro conditions which are required for any of the assays development. In addition, immunogenic studies revealed ISG15 protein is strongly antigenic in nature and can be used for antibody production. In conclusion, ISG15 protein expression from buffalo is a good indicator of conceptus implantation and has suitable properties for being used as target to develop early pregnancy diagnostic kits.
Some stability estimates for Cauchy problems for elliptic equations

In this paper we consider Cauchy problems for elliptic equations on a cylinclric domain in M. A series of stability estimates for the Cauchy problems in Sobolev spaces are derived, which turn out to be optimal. From the stability estimates, several regularization methods are proposed for which error estimates are available. The regularization methods can be used for computing numerical approximations which will be demonstrated by the classical Hadamard example.
Drug Repurposing at the Interface of Melanoma Immunotherapy and Autoimmune Disease

Cancer cells have a remarkable ability to evade recognition and destruction by the immune system. At the same time, cancer has been associated with chronic inflammation, while certain autoimmune diseases predispose to the development of neoplasia. Although cancer immunotherapy has revolutionized antitumor treatment, immune-related toxicities and adverse events detract from the clinical utility of even the most advanced drugs, especially in patients with both, metastatic cancer and pre-existing autoimmune diseases. Here, the combination of multi-omics, data-driven computational approaches with the application of network concepts enables in-depth analyses of the dynamic links between cancer, autoimmune diseases, and drugs. In this review, we focus on molecular and epigenetic metastasis-related processes within cancer cells and the immune microenvironment. With melanoma as a model, we uncover vulnerabilities for drug development to control cancer progression and immune responses. Thereby, drug repurposing allows taking advantage of existing safety profiles and established pharmacokinetic properties of approved agents. These procedures promise faster access and optimal management for cancer treatment. Together, these approaches provide new disease-based and data-driven opportunities for the prediction and application of targeted and clinically used drugs at the interface of immune-mediated diseases and cancer towards next-generation immunotherapies.
Formal Structure of the Cluster Variation Method

A review is given of the formulations of the cluster variation method, focusing on the formal structure. We consider the variational method and the method of consistencies in statistical mechanics. Comparisons are made of formulations of the cluster variation method in the variational method. In the final part, a derivation is given of the equations in the corresponding formulation in the method of consistencies
How Do Logistics Disruptions Affect Rural Households? Evidence from COVID-19 in China

Using a comprehensive survey of rural households during the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic in China, we find that logistics disruptions due to the lockdown have resulted in severe economic losses for rural households. Insufficient production inputs and perishable outputs can aggravate the impact of logistics disruptions on losses, while the purchase of agriculture insurance and higher regional GDP can mitigate this effect. We further examine the mechanisms by which logistics disruptions affect rural households, including both sales and production channels in agricultural supply chains. The former includes changes in product prices and reduced sales, while the latter includes changes in input prices and shortages of raw materials, capital, and labor. Of these channels, logistics has the most severe impact on sales. Opening up the logistics of sales channels is the primary policy choice. More storage warehouses and insurance are also important preemptive measures. Building stable and sustainable agricultural supply chains can ensure rural household viability during the pandemic.
Two simple flux observers for induction motors

The induction motor has very good qualities—reliability, ruggedness, relatively low cost, etc., for industrial applications. The reason for this is that there is no mechanical commutation: the rotor consists simply of closed windings in which currents are induced by a rotating magnetic field set up by the stator, hence creating a torque. But the control of the induction motor is not so easy, mainly because of the three following points: the model is rather non-linear, some variables (in particular, the magnetic fluxes, or equivalently, the rotor currents) cannot easily be measured, and some parameters (rotor resistance, load torque, inertia) vary a lot in operation. This has motivated a growing literature in the control community. We propose here two simple flux observers assuming that the rotor velocity and the stator currents are measured: the first observer makes use of a natural “passivity” property (in fact, it requires only velocity measurements); the second observer [1] relies on a “reparametrization of time” and can be rendered as fast as desired. It is worth mentioning that all the computations are straightforward mainly because they are carried out using the complex variable notation (time-varying phasor) model of the induction motor. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The Einstein Observatory Medium Sensitivity Survey - Optical identifications for a complete sample of X-ray sources

It is suggested that virtually all the X-ray sources in the Einstein Observatory's Medium Sensitivity Survey flux range can be identified with objects visible on the POSS, on the basis of the complete identification of all sources north of -25 deg declination. There is no evidence for a significant population of 'blank field' X-ray sources at this flux level, and therefore no evidence for any new X-ray source class with very high L(x)/L(v). Most of the quasars detected in the present survey are spectroscopically similar to optical or radio-selected quasars. About 25 percent of the quasar sample, however, had reddish colors, and permitted lines dominated by a narrow-line component. These objects form a second sequence of active galactic nuclei, distinct in their optical properties from the broad line objects.
Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) in Multiple Sclerosis

Multiple sclerosis has an increasing prevalence and incidence. There are many articles showing that early treatment can prevent possible disability. Expanded disability status scale assessmenthas great importance both in pivotal studies and in clinical practice to evaluate treatment efficacy. For this reason, this review has been written to be well known and not to miss the details.
A Simple Model of Spectral-Line Profiles from Contracting Clouds

A simple analytic model of radiative transfer in two parts of a contracting cloud matches a wide range of line profiles in candidate infall regions and provides a sensitive estimate of Vin, the characteristic inward speed of the gas forming the line. The model assumes two uniform regions of equal temperature and velocity dispersion σ, whose density and velocity are attenuation-weighted means over the front and rear halves of a centrally condensed, contracting cloud. The model predicts two-peak profiles for “slow” infall, Vin ≪ σ, and red-shoulder profiles for “fast” infall, Vin ~ σ. A simple formula expresses Vin solely in terms of σ and of observable parameters of a two-peak line. We apply the model to fit profiles of high and low optical depth lines observed in a dense core with no star (L1544, Vin = 0.006 km s-1), with an isolated protostar (L1527, 0.025 km s-1), and with a small group of stars (L1251B, 0.35 km s-1). The mass infall rate obtained from Vin and the map size varies from (2-40) × 10-6 M☉ yr-1 and agrees within a factor ~2 in each core with the independently determined rate ~σ3 G-1 for a gravitationally collapsing isothermal sphere. This agreement suggests that the inward motions derived from the line profiles are gravitational in origin.
Near-field plasmon effects in extraordinary optical transmission through periodic triangular hole arrays

Abstract. We present a theoretical investigation of the transmission properties of light through a metallic film perforated with different arrays of compound triangular holes. The extraordinary optical transmission (EOT) in the optical region is obtained by employing the finite-difference time-domain method. The excitation of localized surface plasmon resonances (LSPRs) at the top corners and surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) on the metal surface, plasmon coupling effects between adjacent apertures, and the waveguide modes for delivering light mainly contribute to the EOT in such structures. The optical characteristics can be effectively tailored by changing the arrangement of triangular holes and the structural parameters. This study may be helpful for plasmonic nanostrucutres based on EOT, and has potential applications in optoelectronic devices.
Potential oral probiotic Lactobacillus pentosus MJM60383 inhibits Streptococcus mutans biofilm formation by inhibiting sucrose decomposition

ABSTRACT Streptococcus mutans is known as a contributor to dental caries. In this work, Lactobacillus pentosus MJM60383 was selected for its strong antagonistic activity against S. mutans and was characterized by good oral probiotic properties including lysozyme tolerance, adhesive ability to oral cells, good aggregation (auto-aggregation, co-aggregation) ability, hydrogen peroxide production and inhibition of biofilm formation of S. mutans. L. pentosus MJM60383 also exhibited safety as a probiotic characterized by no hemolytic activity, no D-lactate production, no biogenic amine production, and susceptibility to antibiotics. Furthermore, the biofilm formation of S. mutans was also significantly inhibited by the supernatant of L. pentosus MJM60383. An anti-biofilm mechanism study revealed that sucrose decomposition and the production of water-insoluble exopolysaccharides by S. mutans were inhibited by the treatment with L. pentosus MJM60383 supernatant. Real-time PCR analysis indicated that the supernatant of L. pentosus MJM60383 significantly inhibited the mRNA expression of S. mutans glycosyltransferases, which synthesize glucan to construct biofilm architecture and mediate bacterial adherence. Our study demonstrated L. pentosus MJM60383 as a potential oral probiotic and revealed its anti-biofilm mechanism.
Development of a Method for Detecting and Estimating Moniliophthora roreri Spore Loads Based on Spore Traps and qPCR

Frosty pod rot, caused by Moniliophthora roreri, is the most damaging disease of cacao in Latin America and, to better comprehend its epidemiology, we must understand its dissemination and proliferation. However, we do not know how M. roreri spores loads fluctuate in time and space due to the lack of a reliable technique to quantify M. roreri spores in the fields. Therefore, we developed a method that relies on spore traps and qPCR to detect and quantify M. roreri spore loads. This study demonstrated that the qPCR protocol can detect down to 0.025 ng of M. roreri DNA and quantify between 0.006 ng and 60 ng. Moreover, it demonstrated that qPCR protocol can detect and quantify DNA extracted from spore suspension and spore traps containing at least 2.9 × 104 M. roreri spores. However, the variability of the estimates for spore samples was high. Finally, we described a spore-trap device designed to carry spore traps in the field. The qPCR protocol and spore-trap device here developed will help in the understanding of the M. roreri dissemination patterns since they can be used to assess the environmental loads of M. roreri spore in cacao fields.
A Comprehensive Study of Privacy Risks in Curriculum Learning

Training a machine learning model with data following a meaningful order, i.e., from easy to hard, has been proven to be effective in accelerating the training process and achieving better model performance. The key enabling technique is curriculum learning (CL), which has seen great success and has been deployed in areas like image and text classification. Yet, how CL affects the privacy of machine learning is unclear. Given that CL changes the way a model memorizes the training data, its influence on data privacy needs to be thoroughly evaluated. To fill this knowledge gap, we perform the first study and leverage membership inference attack (MIA) and attribute inference attack (AIA) as two vectors to quantify the privacy leakage caused by CL. Our evaluation of nine real-world datasets with attack methods (NN-based, metric-based, label-only MIA, and NN-based AIA) revealed new insights about CL. First, MIA becomes slightly more effective when CL is applied, but the impact is much more prominent to a subset of training samples ranked as difficult. Second, a model trained under CL is less vulnerable under AIA, compared to MIA. Third, the existing defense techniques like DP-SGD, MemGuard, and MixupMMD are still effective under CL, though DP-SGD has a significant impact on target model accuracy. Finally, based on our insights into CL, we propose a new MIA, termed Diff-Cali, which exploits the difficulty scores for result calibration and is demonstrated to be effective against all CL methods and the normal training method. With this study, we hope to draw the community's attention to the unintended privacy risks of emerging machine-learning techniques and develop new attack benchmarks and defense solutions.
Effect of Lycopene Intake on the Fasting Blood Glucose Level: A Systematic Review with Meta-Analysis

Lycopene is a lipophilic unsaturated carotenoid exhibiting a strong singlet oxygen-quenching ability. Herein, we investigated the effect of lycopene intake on the fasting blood glucose (FBG) level by conducting a systematic review and meta-analyses. We searched 15 databases (from the earliest date to June 2022 for PubMed or to August or September 2018 for the other databases) and included human interventional studies that assessed the effects of oral lycopene intake on FBG levels of participants ≥ 18 years of age. Three authors independently selected applicable studies and then assessed the study quality. Data were pooled as standardized mean difference (SMD) and analyzed by the random-effects model. Heterogeneity was assessed by I2 statistics. A meta-analysis including 11 trial arms (n = 750) revealed a tendency towards a significant decrease in FBG level with not-important heterogeneity [SMD = −0.15 (95% CI: −0.31, 0.00), p = 0.05, I2 = 9%]. Subgroup meta-analysis including two studies (n = 152) in type 2 diabetes patients revealed significantly decreased FBG levels with not-important heterogeneity [SMD = −0.37 (95% CI: −0.69, −0.05), p = 0.02, I2 = 0%]. Most studies meeting the eligibility criteria had a moderate risk of bias. The funnel plot for FBG suggested an absence of publication bias. In conclusion, this systematic review and meta-analyses suggested that lycopene intake exerted an FBG-decreasing effect.
Assessment of Two Advanced Aluminium-Based Metal Matrix Composites for Application to High Energy Physics Detectors

The Outer Tracker of the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS), one of the large experiments at the CERN Large Hadron Collider, will consist of about 13,200 modules, each built up of two silicon sensors. The modules and support structures include thousands of parts that contribute to positioning and cooling the sensors during operation at −30 °C. These parts should be low mass while featuring high thermal conductivity, stiffness and strength. Their thermal expansion coefficient should match that of silicon to avoid deformations during cooling cycles. Due to their unique thermal and mechanical properties, aluminium-carbon fibre (Al/Cf) Metal Matrix Composites are the material of choice to produce such light and stable thermal management components for High Energy Physics detectors. For the CMS Outer Tracker, about 500,000 cm3 of Al/Cf raw material will be required to be produced through a reliable process to guarantee consistent properties throughout parts manufacturing. Two Al/Cf production routes are currently considered: liquid casting by gas-pressure infiltration and a powder metallurgy process based on continuous semi-liquid phase sintering. The dimensional stability of the resulting material is of paramount importance. Irreversible change of shape may be induced by moisture adsorption and the onset of galvanic corrosion at the discontinuous interfaces between Cf and Al. This paper presents the results of an extensive investigation through Computed Microtomography, direct microscopical investigations, analysis of the interfaces and metrology measurements aimed at comparing and interpreting the response to different environments of the respective products. The results obtained confirm the suitability of the two investigated Al/Cf MMCs for application to components of the CMS Outer Tracker, requiring tight geometrical control and microstructural stability over time. However, for PM parts sintered through the semi-liquid phase process, a multilayered protective noble metal coating is necessary the make them impervious to moisture, allowing dimensional stability to be guaranteed and the onset of corrosion phenomena to be avoided, while the product obtained by gas-pressure infiltration has shown less sensitive even to extreme temperature-humidity cycles and may be used uncoated.
Part of Something Bigger: Critical, Digital, and Global Literacies in the Global Read Aloud

ABSTRACT The purpose of this mixed methods, multi-year study was to explore aspects of a virtual international literacies project, the Global Read Aloud, that promoted students’ multiple literacies. Guided by theories of critical, digital, and global literacies, we analyzed survey (N = 436) and interview (N = 21) data from K-12 literacy educators. Data revealed that educators perceived GRA-related benefits of virtual collaboration for digital literacies learning, of reading quality multicultural literature, and of teaching critical literacies as foundational to global meaning making. The results of this study contribute teachers’ voices to discussions on the importance of developing critical, digital, and global literacies in this interconnected world. Data suggest that using shared readings and virtual collaboration can foster a community of readers, locally and globally, that create possibilities for students to experience and use literacies as a part of participating in authentic global meaning making.
Attenuation inner-window in the amplifier- and modulator-integrated laser diode

To better control the input power of an amplifier, which is monolithically integrated with an electroabsorptive-modulated laser, an inner window is implemented by removing a section of the waveguide to realize an attenuator. It also reduces the effect of amplified spontaneous emission on the integrated laser. Attenuation around -10 dB is obtained by adjusting the length of the inner window. Because of different focal depths, unguided stray light from the inner window is not coupled to a fiber on which the amplifier output is focused through a lens.