Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Systematic identification of independent functional non-coding RNA genes in Oxytricha trifallax

OF THE DISSERTATION Systematic Identification of Independent Functional Non-coding RNA Genes in Oxytricha trifallax by Seolkyoung Jung Doctor of Philosophy in Biology and Biomedical Sciences (Computational Biology) Washington University in St. Louis, 2011 Sean R. Eddy and Barak A. Cohen, Co-Chairmen Functional noncoding RNAs participate in a variety of biological processes: for example, modulating translation, catalyzing biochemical reactions, sensing environments etc. Independent of conventional approaches such as transcriptomics and computational comparative analysis, we took advantage of the unusual genomic organization of the ciliated unicellular protozoan Oxytricha trifallax to screen for eukaryotic independent functional noncoding RNA genes. The Oxytricha macronuclear genome consists of thousands of gene-sized “nanochromosomes”, each of which usually contains only a single gene. Using a draft Oxytricha genome assembly and a custom-written noncoding nanochromosome classifier, we identified a subset of nanochromosomes that lack any detectable protein-coding gene, thereby strongly enriching for nanochromosomes that carry noncoding RNA genes. Surprisingly, we found only a small proportion of noncoding nanochromosomes, suggesting that Oxytricha has few independent functional noncoding RNA genes besides homologs of already known noncoding RNAs. Other than new members of known noncoding RNA
A Comparitive Study on Inulin and Esculin Content of In vitro and In vivo Plants of Chicory (Cichorium intybus L. Cv. Lucknow Local)

3 Abstract: Chicory (Cichorium intybus L.) is an important medicinal plant used traditionally to cure various diseases. The whole plant contains various medicinally important compounds and the concentrations of the compounds vary in different tissues. In the present study, a comparison was made between the field grown and in vitro plantlets for the production of inulin and esculin. Highest amount of inulin was detected from the in vitro regenerated root followed by the callus, whereas esculin content was high in the in vitro root followed by in vitro leaves.
Study of Six Sigma Implementation in SMES in Developing Countries in Asia

Due to expanding global supply chain network, some of the giant organizations are encouraging their supplier‟s i.e. small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to adopt Six sigma in order to improve product and process quality for gaining competitive advantage. Earlier studies have shown that SMEs face issues for implementation of Six sigma. This study identified the factors affecting implementation of Six sigma identified through a literature review of 70 journals. The factors identified are awareness, training, management support and commitment, organization culture and resource constraints. A survey of SME professionals was performed to check the influence of the above factors on Six sigma implementation. For analysing the response data and constructing structure equation model, ADANCO 1.1. 1 software tool has been used. The result shows that SMEs are aware about the Six sigma, however, there is lack of management support and commitment. Organization culture is most significant factors affecting implementation of Six sigma, followed by resource constraints and training.
Job Satisfaction, Employee Loyalty and Job Performance in the Hospitality Industry: A Moderated Model

Examining the interrelationships among job satisfaction, employee loyalty, and job performance in the hospitality sector in Vietnam is rarely done. This study provided a deeper understanding of the relationships between job satisfaction, employee loyalty and job performance, and the effect of job positions as a moderator on these relationships. This study synthesized theories from past research to derive a conceptual model to clarify this phenomenon. This work applied structural equation modelling (SEM) and a multi-group analysis to test four hypotheses, with data from 315 employees of lodging enterprises in Danang city, Vietnam. Empirical results showed that: (1) job satisfaction has a positive direct impact on employee loyalty and job performance; (2) employee loyalty positively affects job performance; and, (3) the effect on the relationship between job satisfaction and employee loyalty differs by job position. Lastly, these findings have implications for lodging managers.
Subsea Automated Ultrasonic Inspection

Aging platforms, tighter maintenance schedules and the demand for quantitative and operator independent data as input for advanced RBI systems are all leading to an increase in the use of automated ultrasonic inspection systems also for inspection of subsea components like platform structures and pipelines. Whether automated ultrasonic subsea inspections are performed as diver assisted or ROV assisted, the challenges are much higher than for similar inspections performed topside, and so is the demand for quality documentation as inspection and repair costs are significantly higher for subsea components. The high costs achieved by involving supply ships, divers, ROV and automated systems makes it cost worthy to perform strict preparations for each job and to qualify each step in the operation in order to avoid costly mistakes found during the offshore operation. This paper describes the process of equipment development, personnel training, qualification of the entire inspection system and the subsea inspection process, based on actual subsea inspections performed in the North Sea.
Probabilistic Graph Convolutional Network via Topology-Constrained Latent Space Model

Although many graph convolutional neural networks (GCNNs) have achieved superior performances in semisupervised node classification, they are designed from either the spatial or spectral perspective, yet without a general theoretical basis. Besides, most of the existing GCNNs methods tend to ignore the ubiquitous noises in the network topology and node content and are thus unable to model these uncertainties. These drawbacks certainly reduce their effectiveness in integrating network topology and node content. To provide a probabilistic perspective to the GCNNs, we model the semisupervised node classification problem as a topology-constrained probabilistic latent space model, probabilistic graph convolutional network (PGCN). By representing the nodes in a more efficient distribution form, the proposed framework can seamlessly integrate the node content and network topology. When specifying the distribution in PGCN to be a Gaussian distribution, the transductive node classification problems can be solved by the general framework and a specific method, called PGCN with the Gaussian distribution representation (PGCN-G), is proposed. To overcome the overfitting problem in covariance estimation and reduce the computational complexity, PGCN-G is further improved to PGCN-G+ by imposing the covariance matrices of all vertices to possess the identical singular vectors. The optimization algorithm based on expectation–maximization indicates that the proposed method can iteratively denoise the network topology and node content with respect to each other. Besides the effectiveness of this top-down framework demonstrated via extensive experiments, it can also be deduced to cover the existing methods, graph convolutional network, graph attention network, and Gaussian mixture model and elaborate their characteristics and relationships by specific derivations.
Identification and purification of a novel high-affinity receptor BTR250 from Pink Bollworm (Pectinophora gossypiella) for Bacillus thuringiensis Cry1A toxins

The pink bollworm Pectinophora gossypiella Saunders (PBW) is a devastating cotton pest worldwide. Bacillus thuringiensis Cry1A toxins are lethal to pink bollworm (P. gossypiella) larvae. Cry1Ac binds to ~250, 200, 120, and 115 kDa proteins in the brush border membrane vesicles. The toxin binds specifically and with high affinity (Kd ~10 nM) to the receptors binding sites. A competition ligand blot using unlabeled Cry1Ac to compete with 125 I-Cry1Ac shows that binding is abolished by Cry1Ac. Consequently, Cry1Ac binding to the mentioned proteins is specific and more likely to be of a mediating toxicity in P. gossypiella. The Cry1Ac immuno-precipitation gives rise to three major bands of ~200 and 120/115 kDa. Interestingly, a novel 250 kDa band was observed to bind with 125I-Cry1Ac. The work was focused on the purification of the 250 kDa protein using ion exchange chromatography and 2D gel electrophoresis. Collectively, these results demonstrate that BTR250 in junction with the 200 kDa Cadherin-like receptor may play an important role in Cry1A toxicity to P. gossypiella. Protein sequencing and DNA cloning of this new receptor will help in identification of the novel receptor and deciphering its nature. Understanding the molecules involved in toxin binding will help in developing strategies for insect resistance management and development of better bio-pesticides.
PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT OF GENERIC OBJECT RECOGNITION BY USING SEAM CARVING AND SALIENCY MAP

Recently, a demand for object recognition is increasing due to explosive increase of digital images. In the field of the general object recognition, we need many learning images whose content is already-known. However, it is difficult to construct such a learning dataset beforehand by ourselves. Therefore, it is general to use learning datasets that are made by third parties. However, many images of the datasets contain wide background areas other than the object area which is focused in the recognition. We think that this is one of the factors which bring recognition difficulty, and we aim at removing areas that are thought to be unnecessary beforehand to improve learning efficiency and recognition rate of the object recognition.
High Prevalence of Antibiotic Resistance in Escherichia coli Isolated from Fecal Sample of Cows and Assessment of Antibacterial Efficacy of Indigenous Medicinal Plants from Assam, India

Cow dung is the most common organic manure in agriculture in Assam, India. Escherichia coli were isolated from cow dung samples in between January to May, 2013. The isolates were tested for antibiotic sensitivity to multiple antibiotics and production of ESBLs as per the NCCLS guidelines, 2002 and genotypically through PCR for the presence of bla genes. E. coli were isolated in 80% of the total 100 samples, of which 15% showed resistance to multiple drugs. Of these 80 isolates, 59 (73.75%) were found to be resistant to at least one of the 3GCs. PCR data revealed blaTEM in 25/28 isolates, blaSHV in 6/28 isolates, blaCTX-M in 8/28 isolates and blaAmpC in 27/28 isolates; both blaTEM and blaSHV were present in 21.42%, blaTEM and blaCTX-M in 28.57%, blaSHV and blaCTX-M in 10.71%. ESBLs are the main cause of resistance to beta-lactam antibiotics in E. coli. ESBL mediating resistance to 3GC was found in 35% of isolates. The leaves of Holarhenna antidysenterica wall, and flowers of Woodfordia fructicosa (L.) Kurz were collected at the same time and its antibacterial activity was assessed against antibiotic resistant isolates. Methanolic crude extracts from these medicinal plants exhibited inhibitory activity against TEM+SHV encoding enteric isolates from cow. Detection of enteric ESBL producers in cows in Assam, India in high numbers imply the risk of dissemination of antibacterial resistance into the environment being relatively high and thus, warrant preventive measures.
의료분야에서의 햅틱 피드백 응용

ˇˇMedicine is one of great application fields where Virtual Reality (VR) technologies have been successfully utilized. The VR technologies in medicine bring together an interdisciplinary community of computer scientists and engineers, physicians and surgeon, medical educator and students, military medical specialists, and biomedical futurists. The primary feedback of a VR system has been visual feedback. The complex geometry for graphic objects and utilizing hardware acceleration can be incorporated with in order to produce realistic virtual environments. To enhance human-computer interaction (HCI), in term of immersive experiences perceived by users, haptic, speech, olfactory and other non-traditional interfaces should also be exploited. Among those, hapic feedback has been tightly coupled with visual feedback. The combination of the two sensory feedbacks can give users more immersive, realistic and perceptive VR environments. Haptic feedback has been studied over decades and many haptic based VR systems have been developed. This paper focuses on haptic feedback in term of its medical usages. It presents a survey of haptic feedback techniques with their applications in medicine.
A meta-analytic assessment of the e ects of inequality on growth

Over the last two decades there has been a growing interest in determining the impact of inequality on growth. The empirical literature has, however, produced controversial results regarding both the signal and the magnitude of such impact. This paper develops a meta-analysis on this literature on an attempt to systematize and explain the diversity in studies' results. We nd that most of the heterogeneity is due to di erences in studies' methodological characteristics, such as the structure of the data, the sample coverage, the type of distribution, the de nition of income, and the estimation technique. These results suggest that there is not one but several underlying e ects of inequality on growth, which are likely to di er in their nature and operate in opposing directions. We also nd traces of publication bias, as, on the one hand, authors and journals are more willing to report and publish statistically signi cant results, and, on the other hand, studies' results tend to follow a predictable cycle of fashion and novelty over time.
UTILIZATION OF HAZELNUT SHELLS AS FILLER IN LDPE/PP BASED POLYMER COMPOSITES

Polymer based composites manufactured using thermoplastic and lignocellulosic materials are increased recently. Hazelnut shells as lignocellulosic were considered as a potential filler for polymer composites. This study measured the effect of filler loading on the mechanical properties of low density polyethylene (LDPE) and polypropylene (PP) based polymer composites. PP and LDPE were used as thermoplastic polymer. Hazelnut shells flours (HSF) were used as filler. The blends of PP, LDPE and HSF were compounded using single screw extruder and test samples were prepared through injection molding. The tensile, flexural and impact properties of the produced composites were determined in accordance with ASTM D638, ASTM D790, and ASTM D256, respectively. As a result, with increase of filler loading for PP, tensile strength (TS), elongation at break (EatB) and flexural strength (FS) were decreased while tensile modulus (TM) and flexural modulus (FM) were increased. Impact strength (IS) of PP based polymer composites were not changed. Also the addition of filler loading into LDPE matrix reduced TS, EatB, and IS while FS, FM and TM were increased. In this study, manufactured all composites provided flexural properties for the plastic lumber applications by the ASTM D 6662 (2001) standard.
Non-parametric distributions, uncertainty, and asset prices

This paper studies asset pricing under non-parametric dividend distributions and Hansen and Sargent’s robust preferences, and it shows how to perform asset-pricing calculation efficiently in this case. If the dividend process is non-normal, robust agents right-skew the whole distribution and this helps improve the asset pricing implications materially. At the same time, a given belief distortion is easier to detect when the actual distribution is not gaussian. Hence, there is little difference between using a normal and non-parametric distribution for any given level of distortion detectability. That is, asset pricing is mostly unaffected by assumptions about the underlying distribution of dividends. However, there are implications for stress-testing: skewness and kurtosis take precedence over mean stressing.
Universal free choice from concessive conditionals

I develop a new approach to universal free choice which does not prescribe universal force, but rather ensures this result through the use of a scalar particle. ‘Even’ associatingwith awh-indefinite in a conditional clausewill ensure that themodal/temporal operator restricted by the conditional has universal force. A pronoun referring to a referent described by this conditional will thus have wide-scope universal force, parasitic on the modal/temporal quantification. Evidence for such an approach for free choice comes from the overt morphology of universal free choice items in Tibetan, as well as similar expressions in Japanese and Dravidian languages.
Multi-attributes decision-making method for hesitant fuzzy linguistic term sets based on regret theory

In this paper, we study hesitant fuzzy linguistic multi-attributes decision-making (MADM) problems with incomplete weight information. We developed a new decision-making method considering the regret aversion of the decision makers. Firstly, we discussed three linguistic scale functions according to DMs’ evaluation attitudes, and defined a novel score function to efficiently compare HFLTSs. Then, we defined a computational formula for the perceived utilities of alternatives under multi attributes to obtain DM’s regret/rejoice values. Subsequently, on the premise that the attribute weights are completely unknown or partially unknown and different decision makers may have different psychological behaviors, optimism, neutrality and pessimism respectively, we set up a mathematical programming to determine the optimal attribute weights based on the maximum total comprehensive perceived utility in decision making, and compute the DM’s weighted perceived utility values of the feasible alternatives and obtain the ranking order of them. Finally, an illustrative example is given to clarify the feasibility and practicality of the proposed method.
Medicinal and nutraceutical genetic resources of mushrooms

Mushrooms are the fungi that have been used as food since time immemorial. Nutritionally they are a valuable source of health food, which is low in calories, and rich in carbohydrates, essential amino acids, fibre, important vitamins and minerals. Mushrooms have also been used in medicine for centuries in the Orient but their potential as health potentiators and elicitors of immune system is recent. In the last two decades there has been an upsurge on the use of mushrooms as nutraceuticals and many edible species have been thoroughly investigated and authenticated for medicinal use. The species that have been properly analysed for medicinal value are: Ganoderma lucidum (Reishi), Lentinus edodes (Shiitake), Grifola frondosa (Maitake), Agaricus blazei (Hime-matsutake), Cordyceps militaris (Caterpillar fungus), Pleurotus ostreatus (Oyster mushroom) and Hericium erinaceous (Lions mane). There are many more species of cultivated and wild edible and non-edible mushrooms that have been analysed for both their nutritional and nutraceutical components but to a lesser extent than those listed above. The active constituents found in mushrooms are polysaccharides, dietary fibres, oligosaccharides, triterpenoids, peptides and proteins, alcohols and phenols, and mineral elements such as zinc, copper, iodine, selenium and iron, vitamins, amino acids etc. These have been found to boost the immune system, have anti-cancerous properties, act as anti-hypercholesterolaemic and hepato-protective agents, show anti-HIV activity and anti-viral activity, and ameliorate the toxic effect of chemo- and radiotherapy. Many of the species are known to be aphrodisiacs. Many commercial products from these mushrooms are available in the market. Prominent among these are: Lentinan from Lentinus edodes, Concord Sunchih and Reishi Plus from Ganoderma lucidum, Grifon from Grifola frondosa and Didanosine from Cordyceps militaris. The nutraceuticals have been found to relieve the stress and pressure of modern society by stimulating both basic and secondary immune responses of the immune system. There are more than 5000 species of mushrooms recorded from all over the world out of which around 2000 are identified as edible. A large number of the species are yet to be analysed for their nutraceutical/medicinal potential.
Therapeutic role of dietary lactobacilli and lactobacillic fermented dairy products

Lactic acid bacteria present in the human and animal gut are introduced through fermented milk products, food and feed supplements containing viable bacteria. Lactobacillus species, such as L. acidophilus, L. bulgaricus, L. lactis along with B. bifidum and Streptococcus faecium constitute an integral part of the healthy gastro-intestinal microecology and are involved in the host metabolism. They impart nutritional and therapeutic benefits to the consumer. The vitamins and enzymes produced by the lactic acid bacteria contribute to host metabolism. The antimicrobial substances produced by these bacteria control the proliferation of undesired pathogens. They also elaborate enzymes that aid host metabolism. This is particularly true in case of lactase nonpersistent individuals. Their anticholesteremic properties assist in lowering serum cholesterol. It has been suggested that the tumor suppression trait of these microbes reduces the incidence of colon cancer.
Defining Species When There is Gene Flow.

Whatever one's definition of species, it is generally expected that individuals of the same species should be genetically more similar to each other than they are to individuals of another species. Here we show that in the presence of cross-species gene flow, this expectation may be incorrect. We use the multispecies coalescent model with continuous-time migration or episodic introgression to study the impact of gene flow on genetic differences within and between species and highlight a surprising but plausible scenario in which different population sizes and asymmetrical migration rates cause a genetic sequence to be on average more closely related to a sequence from another species than to a sequence from the same species. Our results highlight the extraordinary impact that even a small amount of gene flow may have on the genetic history of the species. We suggest that contrasting long-term migration rate and short-term hybridization rate, both of which can be estimated using genetic data, may be a powerful approach to detecting the presence of reproductive barriers and to define species boundaries.
THREE MECHANISMS OF 2n POLLEN FORMATION IN DIPLOID POTATOES

Three mechanisms of 2n pollen formation observed in diploid hybrids between Solatium tuberosum Group Phureja (2x) and haploids of S. tuberosum Group Tuberosum (4x) are termed parallel spindles (ps), premature cytokinesis 1 (pc 1) and premature cytokinesis 2 (pc 2). A II spindles are parallel to each other in many cells of clones producing 2n pollen by ps. A single cleavage furrow follows and forms a dyad which generates two 2n microspores. The other two mechanisms, pc 1 and pc 2, produce 2n pollen by omission of the second meiotic division. Premature cytokinesis 1 (pc 1) involves asynchronized movement of bivalents to and from the M I plate and falling apart of chromatids at T I. A cleavage furrow follows the first meiotic division, no second division occurs and products of meiosis are dyads. Premature cytokinesis 2 (pc 2) exhibits no abnormalities at the first meiotic division. However, cytokinesis occurs prematurely at P II, no second division occurs, and only dyads are formed. Genetic data suggested th.