Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Functional male-sterility expressed in eggplant (Solanum melongena L.) containing the cytoplasm of S. kurzii Brace & Prain

Summary In order to develop a male-sterile eggplant (Solanum melongena L.), cytoplasm substitution lines of eggplant were produced by continuous backcrossing using S. kurzii Brace & Prain as cytoplasm donor and eggplant as nucleus donor. Analyses of chloroplast DNA and mitochondrial DNA confirmed that all backcross progenies had the cytoplasm from S. kurzii. Anthers in some BC1 and BC2 plants, and in most BC3 plants, were of the indehiscent-type (i.e., pollen non-release type). Pollen fertility remained low in all backcross progenies. The number of seeds per fruit in the backcross progenies increased in successive generations. Functional male-sterility of the anther- indehiscent-type was shown to be attributed to incompatibility between the cytoplasm of S. kurzii and nuclear genes of S. melongena. The present male-sterile lines are potentially valuable to reduce the cost of developing hybrid cultivars and to produce seedless eggplant fruit.
Machine Learning-Based Lightning Localization Algorithm Using Lightning-Induced Voltages on Transmission Lines

In this article, we present a machine learning-based method to locate lightning flashes using calculations of lightning-induced voltages on a transmission line. The proposed approach takes advantage of the preinstalled voltage measurement systems on power transmission lines to get the data. Hence, it does not require the installation of additional sensors such as extremely low frequency, very low frequency, or very high frequency. The proposed model is shown to yield reasonable accuracy in estimating two-dimensional geolocations for lightning strike points for different grid sizes up to 100 × 100 km2. The algorithm is shown to be robust against the distance between the voltage sensors, lightning peak current, lightning current rise time, and signal to noise ratio of the input signals.
Polymeric Planar Microcavities Doped with a Europium Complex

Organo-metallic europium complex tetrakis (dibenzoyl methide) triethylammonium (EuD4TEA) shows a sharp emission spectrum, which makes it interesting for photonic applications. In this work, we embedded it into all-polymeric planar microcavities and investigated the effect of the photonic environment on its emission spectrum. To this end, submicron-sized EuD4TEA crystals were loaded into a blend of polystyrene and carboxylic terminated polystyrene matrix, which served to stabilize the emitter in the polymer and to make the composite processable. The new composite was then casted by spin-coating as a defect layer in a polymeric planar microcavity. Spectroscopic studies demonstrate that fine spectral tuning of the cavity mode on the sharp organometal luminescence is possible and produces spectral redistribution of the fluorophore emission, along with a remarkable cavity quality factor.
Patient Safety Culture Change over Time-Health Care Staffs’ Perceptions

Rationale and Aim: Patient safety is of great interest in health care organisations, worldwide. In Sweden, a national patient safety initiative was launched in 2011. The aim of this study was to examine and compare patient safety culture change over time from health care staffs’ perspective. A further aim was to examine factors that have had an effect on patient safety culture. Methods: Patient safety culture was assessed in 2009, 2011 and 2013 using the Swedish version of the Hospital Survey of Patient Safety Culture. Respondents in this study were registered nurses (n = 2149), enrolled nurses (n = 959), physicians (n = 355) and managers (n = 159) working in three health care divisions in a Swedish county council. Results: Patient safety culture decreased significantly over time for all but two dimensions. The dimension “Information to Patients/Relatives” was the only dimension to increase significantly over time. Health care staffs’ profession and health care division belonging had significant main effects on 14 and 8 dimensions, respectively. Managers and enrolled nurses scored patient safety culture significantly higher than registered nurses and physicians. Health care staff working in a mixed medical-surgical health care division scored significantly higher than those working in medical or surgical divisions did. Conclusions: Despite efforts for patient safety work in the county council, health care staffs’ perceptions of patient safety culture decreased over time. To improve hospital patient safety culture, managers and staff groups must meet and communicate with each other in order to create a common view of patient safety.
Urban water security: a comparative study of cities in the arid Americas

In this study we analyse how three cities in the arid Americas have addressed urban growth while facing water scarcity: Hermosillo, Mexico; Mendoza, Argentina; and Tucson, USA. We use the urban water security framework to examine five domains of water management: sociodemographic, economic, technological, ecological and governance (SETEG). Our analysis indicates that, in spite of water scarcity, urban growth has been promoted in the three cities. We argue that this expansion, although encouraged for economic development, is not sustainable in the long term. In the three cities, groundwater plays a major role in water supply, but growth has negatively affected riparian ecosystems, the health of the aquifers and access to domestic water. In order to pursue water security, several options are essential to enhance social–ecological system resilience. These include limits or reduction of urban expansion, reuse of treated effluent for riparian conservation, and community conservation efforts such as rainwater harvesting and other green infrastructure practices.
MFHS: A modular scheduling framework for heterogeneous system

Current innovative distributed architectures, proposing on‐line services, involve more and more computing resources. From a provider point of view, the platform management leads to challenging problematic relating to resource allocation, which involve different kind of quality of service parameters, the provider has to focus on to keep his platform reliable and efficient. MFHS is a modular generic framework, which can be adapted to any distributed computing environment. Structured in modules, MFHS allows to discover the existing computing resources in terms of computing performance, network throughput and disk I/O speeds (Resources Discovery module) and to predict how the experiment should behave (Pi value). As the setting up of real experiments is often complex, MFHS allows: to make theoretical experimentation (based on models), to use any kind of distributed emulators, or to deploy experiments on real‐experimental platforms. In this article, these three environments are used to highlight the reliability of MFHS (measured Pi=90% against 94% for the predicted Pi). Deployment and scheduling studies have also been achieved using an experimental Cloud based on OpenStack while Emulab test‐bed has been used as emulator. During experiments, four QoS parameters are taken into account (Resources Monitoring module): energy consumption, cost, resource utilization, and makespan. These studies also includes a new heuristic called MMin, based on Max‐Min and Min‐Min algorithms. Experimentation section, proposes a detailed comparative analysis of these algorithms in terms of QoS results, while the abilities of the proposed heuristic MMin regarding the makespan metric is shown.
Public Preference for Increasing Natural Gas Generation for Reducing CO2 Emissions in South Korea

To meet international efforts to prevent climate change, the South Korean government is seeking to transform its main power source from coal to natural gas (NG), which emits less carbon dioxide (CO2) than coal. The government needs information about public preferences for increasing NG-fired generation. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to provide the government with this information by gathering the data on public preferences for increasing NG-fired generation for reducing CO2 emissions, analyzing these data, and obtaining the implications from the analysis. To this end, a survey of 1000 people, after explaining the merits and demerits of NG-fired power, were asked to determine the proper ratio of NG-fired generation by choosing one of six examples: lower than 10%, 10%–20%, 20%–30%, 30%–40%, 40%–50%, and higher than 50%. An interval data model was employed to deal with the data. The average value of the ratio was estimated to be 26.7% with statistical significance, which is greater than the actual value of 22.2% from 2017. Finally, whether and how much some variables such as education level, age, gender, and income level of the respondent affected their preferences for NG-fired generation were investigated.
Erythropoietin in the clinical trials of the cardiac disease, what is and what is not

Erythropoietin (Epo) is the main erythropoiesis hormone, activate the progenitor red blood cells through proliferation, differentiation and maturation of red blood cells. However, it's another receptor in other tissues, including heart and endothelium, confirm its pluripotent activities. A numerous preclinical studies have shown Epo would be cardioprotective against ischemic events, reperfusion injury and apoptosis. The results of Epo in clinical studies were inconclusive with even associated increased risk of adverse outcomes. In this article, a comprehensive review of the Epo effects is evaluated in the coronary artery disease, cardiac surgery, heart failure and its safety through the results of the most recent clinical trials related to Epo in the cardiovascular disease. The analysis of the available clinical trials demonstrates the most determining factors; Epo dose and administration time related to myocardial ischemia onset. It seems the low dose Epo treatment has tissue protective effect through its receptors, while the higher doses of Epo stimulates the other Epo receptors responsible for erythropoiesis. The safety of high dose Epo therapy to increase risk of thrombotic complications has been controversial. The erythropoiesis-stimulating agents have been proven to successfully correct hemoglobin levels, reduce the need to blood products after surgery and can improve the clinical outcomes, without an increased thromboembolic risk.
H∞ control for networked switched systems with mixed switching law and an event-triggered communication mechanism

This paper studies the event-triggered control problem for networked switched systems with a mixed time and state-dependent switching law. By the event-triggering strategies, only necessary samplings of feedback signals are determined to be released. The advantages are that redundant transmissions and updates can be reduced. By the adopted switching law, each sub-system will work for a minimum dwell time, and then a state-dependent switching starts to work. Specifically, by using discrete event-triggering strategies and considering the effects of transmission delays, a time-delay closed-loop switched system is first established. Then, by utilising multiple Lyapunov functions method, sufficient conditions are presented to ensure the stability of the closed-loop switched system with a certain performance level. In particular, since the switching instants and the event-triggered instants may be coupled, typical cases are discussed in detail. Moreover, the co-design conditions for state-feedback sub-controller gains and event-triggering parameters are developed. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by numerical simulations.
Caracterización de señales de EEG relacionadas a potenciales evocados visuales en estado estacionario

Uno de los paradigmas más utilizados en la literatura para la implementación de un sistema EEG BCI son los potenciales evocados visuales en estado estacionario, estos normalmente surgen en la corteza occipital del cerebro. Para poder visualizar, extraer y clasificar estos, se requieren una serie de etapas. La metodología del estudio se dividió en las fases iniciales en el diseño de un sistema BCI: adquisición, preprocesamiento, extracción y clasificación. En este estudio, se realizó una caracterización de estos potenciales desde la adquisición utilizando el equipo g. Nautilus con el estándar 10-20 de la Universidad Antonio Nariño hasta la clasificación de los datos utilizando los métodos matemáticos CCA y SED en diferentes ventanas de tiempo. Así pues, puesto que en la implementación de un sistema BCI en tiempo real se espera que el tiempo de clasificación sea lo más corto posible para la ejecución rápida de un comando, este tipo de estudios permiten identificar cuáles métodos son los más válidos en la clasificación de estos datos, así como algunas variables a tener en cuenta. Los resultados permiten identificar, entonces, una mejor efectividad en la clasificación de datos con CCA que con SED, además del comportamiento del sistema según las ventanas de tiempo.
Inflammatory Mediators and Enterovirus Infections in Human Islets of Langerhans

Enterovirus (EV) infections have been associated with the pathogenesis of type 1 diabetes (T1D). They may cause β-cell destruction either by cytolytic infection of the cells or indirectly by triggering the autoimmune response. Evidence for EV involvement have been presented in several studies, EV-IgM antibodies have been reported in T1D patients, EV-RNA has been found in the blood from T1D patients at onset, and EV have been isolated from newly diagnosed T1D. Our aim was to study infections with EV isolates from newly diagnosed T1D patients in human pancreatic islets in vitro. Two of them (T1 and T2) originated from a mother and her son diagnosed with T1D on the same day, the other two (A and E) were isolated from a pair of twins at the time of diagnosis of T1D in one of them. Isolated human pancreatic islets were infected and viral replication, viability and degree of cytolysis as well as insulin release in response to high glucose were measured. All four EV isolates replicated in the islet cells and virus particles and virus-induced vesicles were seen in the cytoplasm of the β-cells. The isolates varied in their ability to induce cytolysis and to cause destruction of the islets and infection with two of the isolates (T1 and A) caused more pronounced destruction of the islets. Infection with the isolate from the healthy twin boy (E) was the least cytolytic. The ability to secrete insulin in response to high glucose was reduced in all infected islets as early as 3 days post infection, before any difference in viability was observed. To conclude, strains of EV isolated from T1D patients at clinical presentation of T1D revealed β-cell tropism, and clearly affected the function of the β-cell. In addition, the infection caused a clear increase in the number of dead cells.
Research on the development of rural female human resources under the background of targeted poverty alleviation

Rural women in China are the important labor force in agricultural production, as well as the nurturer of human resources and the carrier of regeneration. The improvement of the rural female human capital investment is not only related to their own quality and social status, but also plays an important role in rural economic and social development and social progress. Rural women are developed in areas including strengthening basic education, vocational skills training and modern lifestyle, so as to promote the coordinated development of rural economy and society.
Molecular and Topographical Organization: Influence on Cicada Wing Wettability and Bactericidal Properties

Numerous natural surfaces have micro/nanostructures that result in extraordinary functionality, such as superhydrophobicity, self‐cleaning, antifogging, and antimicrobial properties. One such example is the cicada wing, where differences in nanopillar geometry and composition among species can impact and influence the degree of exhibited properties. To understand the relationships between surface topography and chemical composition with multifunctionality, the wing properties of Neotibicen pruinosus (superhydrophobic) and Magicicada cassinii (hydrophobic) cicadas are investigated at time points after microwave‐assisted extraction of surface molecules to characterize the chemical contribution to nanopillar functionality. Electron microscopy of the wings throughout the extraction process illustrates nanoscale topographical changes, while concomitant changes in hydrophobicity, bacterial fouling, and bactericidal properties are also measured. Extract analysis reveals the major components of the nanostructures to be fatty acids and saturated hydrocarbons ranging from C17 to C44. Effects on the antimicrobial character of a wing surface with respect to the extracted chemicals suggest that the molecular composition of the nanopillars plays both a direct and an indirect role in concert with nanopillar geometry. The data presented not only correlates the nanopillar molecular organization to macroscale functional properties, but it also presents design guidelines to consider during the replication of natural nanostructures onto engineered substrates to induce desired properties.
Iron Nutritional Status of Karate Players: A Review

It has been suggested that iron depletion before anemia may impair performance. Karate players have risk factors for iron depletion. This study reviewed the related literature with respect to the iron nutritional status of karate players and dietary treatments. Examining iron intake in related studies indicated that the iron intakes of female players were lower than those of male players. A high prevalence of iron deficiency was reported only in female karate players. A high prevalence of hemolysis was found not only in sparring players, but also in kata (forms performed alone) players. Dietary modification is the preferred strategy to ensure adequate iron intake, maintenance of iron levels, and as the first line of action to prevent iron deficiency. Because most reports on iron nutrition status of karate players are from Japan and all studies are cross sectional, future research investigating the iron nutritional status of karate players should include (i) Studies from Western countries and (ii) Longitudinal studies. These studies should focus on adolescents since there is a paucity of information in the literature in this area.
Improving Speaker-Attribute Estimation by Voting Based on Speaker Cluster Information

This paper proposes a general post-processing method for improving speaker-attribute estimation. Estimating speaker-specific attributes such as age and gender is an important task with a wide range of applications. While the recent proposed deep neural network-based end-to-end approach achieves high performance, the model tends to over-fit to specific speakers when the amount of training data is limited or imbalanced. To solve this over-fitting problem, we propose a general framework for correcting unreliable results. The proposed algorithm first clusters the target utterances into speaker clusters by speaker similarity based on i-vectors. Then, for each of the speaker cluster, the speaker-attribute class of the cluster is determined by voting on the utterances assigned to the cluster. By then replacing the result of each utterance with the clusters’ speaker-attribute class, we can correct the result of unreliable utterances. We used two tasks to evaluate the proposed algorithm including age estimation using the NIST-SRE10 and age-gender classification using an in-house read speech corpus, yielding significant improvements in mean absolute and classification errors.
Fonction et dysfonction des systèmes d'efflux actif chez les souches cliniques de pseudomonas aeruginosa

Chez P. aeruginosa, la surproduction constitutive du systeme MexXY/OprM s'accompagne d'une augmentation de laresistance aux aminosides, fluoroquinolones et a certaines (3-lactamines. La caracterisation des mecanismes genetiquesconduisant a la surproduction de cette pompe parmi une collection de 57 isolats cliniques non redondants a permisd'identifier 3 types de mutations affectant, soit le gene mexZ dont le produit reprime l'operon mexXY (mutants agrZ,77,2%), soit les genes parRS codant pour un systeme a deux composants (mutants agrWl, 8,8%) ou d'autres cibles dontl'inactivation perturbe la synthese proteique et entraine la surexpression du gene PA5471 dont le produit, ArmZ, est unanti-represseur de MexZ (mutants agrWl,\4%). Si certaines populations de P. aeruginosa tendent a devenir plusresistantes aux aminosides en surproduisant le systeme MexXY/OprM, d'autres evoluent paradoxalement vers unehypersensibilite aux p-lactamines sous l'effet de mutations inactivant MexAB-OprM (MexAB-). L'analyse d'unecollection de 275 souches isolees de 36 patients CF nous a permis d'identifier des souches MexAB- hypersensibles a laticarcilline (37%) et des souches MexAB- non hypersensibles en raison d'une surproduction de la B-lactamase AmpC(16%). Au total, 53% des isolats sont apparus deficients dans le systeme MexAB-OprM. L'etude de l'activite ou de laproduction de divers facteurs de virulence a indique que la perte de fonction de MexAB-OprM n'etait pas associee acelle de caracteres de virulence. Au final, notre travail apporte un eclairage nouveau sur la capacite de P. aeruginosa amoduler l'activite de ses pompes d'efflux pour s'adapter a diverses situations cliniques.
Bias-Compensated Minimum Error Entropy Algorithms With Polynomial Sparsity Penalty Constraints

This brief proposes a polynomial bias-compensated adaptive filtering algorithm for sparse system identification under minimum error entropy criterion, which outperforms in a sparse environment with noisy input and impulsive output noise. In previous studies, the minimum error entropy criterion (MEE) has been widely used in lots of works to develop adaptive filtering algorithms, which show better performance than the traditional algorithms under impulsive noise. However, the MEE algorithm not only has the essential assumption of no-noise input, but also loses the ability to identify the sparse system. To address above two issues, a bias-compensated vector is introduced into the previous traditional MEE algorithm and propose a bias-compensated adaptive filtering algorithm under minimum error entropy criterion named BCMEE algorithm, which compensates the bias caused by the input noise. By taking advantage of the capability of the sparse penalty term in sparse system identification, an attempt has been made to design a polynomial sparse BCMEE algorithm, named PZA-BCMEE algorithm. Simulation results prove the excellent performance of the proposed algorithms.
Phylogeography of the Japanese Giant Flying Squirrel, Petaurista leucogenys, Based on Mitochondrial DNA Control Region Sequences

Abstract To investigate genetic diversity among populations of the Japanese giant flying squirrel Petaurista leucogenys, the mitochondrial DNA control region sequences (1,052–1,054 bases) were determined in 37 specimens from 17 localities on the Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu Islands of Japan. Of the 37 animals examined, 24 haplotypes were identified. All haplotypes from Kyushu consisted of 1,052 bases, whereas those from Honshu and Shikoku consisted of 1,054 bases including two insertions, except for three haplotypes (which had 1,052 or 1,053 bases). Phylogenetic relationships reconstructed using neighbor-joining and maximum parsimony methods indicated that P. leucogenys is essentially separated into three major lineages: Group A consisting of a single haplotype from Kyushu, Group B consisting of some haplotypes from Kyushu and one haplotype from Honshu, and Group C consisting mostly of haplotypes from Honshu and Shikoku. Animals with the Kyushu haplotypes were split into two lineages (Groups A and B), suggesting that Group A diverged at an earlier point from the other groups. Genetic distances in Group C were not related to geographic distances between sampling localities, indicating that ancestral populations of this group recently expanded their distribution in a short time, possibly after the last glacial stage.