Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Inorganic carbon utilization in marine angiosperms (seagrasses).

The mechanisms by which marine angiosperms, or seagrasses, utilize external inorganic carbon (Ci) include, in addition to uptake of CO2 formed spontaneously from HCO3-: (i) extracellular carbonic anhydrasemediated conversion of HCO3- to CO2 at normal seawater pH, or in acid zones created by H+ extrusion, and (ii) H+-driven utilization (direct uptake? ) of HCO3-. The latter mechanism was recently indicated for Zostera marina, Halophila stipulaceaand Ruppia maritima, and manifested itself as a sensitivity of photosynthesis to buffers, as well as a relative insensitivity to acetazolamide under buffer-free conditions, especially at high pH. Seagrasses have until recently been viewed as having Ci utilization systems that are less 'efficient' than macroalgae, and this has, for example, led to the thought that future rises in atmospheric and thus dissolved CO2 would have a stronger effect on seagrasses than on macroalgae. However, most of the experiments leading to such conclusions were carried out in the laboratory on detached leaves, and buffers were used to keep HCO3-/CO2 ratios stable during Ci additions. The revelation that seagrass photosynthesis is sensitive to buffers as well as to physical perturbations, has led to new experiments in which initial pH values are set by appropriate HCO3-/CO32-ratios, and/or O2 measurements on leaf pieces are replaced with pulse amplitude-modulated fluorometry on whole, attached leaves, often in situ. Under such conditions, the photosynthetic responses of seagrasses to Ci match those obtained for macroalgae. Thus, the paradigm of 'inefficient' Ci utilization by seagrasses as compared with macroalgae may no longer be valid. Consequently, it seems that the generally observed high productivity of seagrass beds may have its background in very efficient, H+-driven, means of HCO3- utilization.
Maize root system growth and development as influenced by phosphorus deficiency

cept light was severely reduced so that root growth was finally reduced. Effects on leaf growth, biomass accumulation and root morphogenesis associated with the establishment of Key words: Zea mays L. , maize, phosphorus, root, root phosphorus (P) deficiency were studied on maize in morphogenesis. order to test the hypothesis that the root system response can be accounted for by the effect of P
The Adaptive Significance of Variations in Life History among Local Populations of Atlantic Salmon in North America

In this paper variations in life history data among local populations of Atlantic salmon have been examined. The following patterns emerge: (1) The mean age of first spawning increases with the difficulty of upstream migration as estimated by the distance the fish ascend into freshwater. Other indices of river harshness yield similar results. (2) The effect of commercial fishing has been to eliminate larger and older fish from the run. Available evidence suggests that this has selected for an early age of first return on the Miramichi River and that the frequencies of genes coding for different ages of first spawning have been altered. (3) The mean age of first spawning is positively correlated with marine growth rates after the grilse stage. Rapid growth at sea subsequent to the grilse stage is associated with delayed reproduction; slower growth with an earlier age of first breeding. This result suggests different paths of high—seas migration. (4) The variability about the mean age of first spawning first increases and then decreases as one moves north over the salmon's range from Maine to Ungava. In addition, we have observed that these results are in accord with predictions made by recent theoretical analyses of the optimal reproductive response to differing environmental conditions. We, therefore, conclude that the observed patterns of variation in life history are adaptive. We further take the agreement between theory and nature as a validation of the hypothesis that populations will in general differ from each other in the manner of their respective optima.
A comparative study of phytochemical profile and in vitro antioxidant activities of dark and light dried fig (Ficus carica L.) varieties

To study bioactive compounds of the dried fig, nine varieties (3 dark and 6 light varieties) were analyzed for their phytochemical profile and antioxidant activities. The antioxidant activity was evaluated using four methods, including 2,2-diphenyl-1-picryl-hydrazyl radical, hydrogen peroxide, superoxide scavenging effects and phosphomolybdenum assay. The results showed that the fig varieties with a dark skin contain higher amounts of total phenolics, total flavonoïds, anthocyanins, flavonols and proanthocyanidins than the lighter varieties. Our results also revealed that the antioxidant activities of the dark varieties were markedly better than those of the light ones. High correlations were found between phytochemical contents and antioxidant activities. Principal component analysis (PCA) manifests 86.91 of cumulative variance which indicates that the fig varieties were well distinguished by their bioactive phytochemical contents and antioxidant activities. PCA plot confirms a net separation between the dark and light dried fig varieties.
Host-Parasite Relations, Vectors, and the Evolution of Disease Severity

A widespread contention in the parasitological and medical literature is that severe disease represents a lack of coadaption between host and parasite2 because parasite species that do not harm their hosts have the best chance of long-term survival. This view has been proposed throughout this century (89, 91, 97) and was extensively developed by Dubos, who concluded: "Given enough time a state of peaceful coexistence eventually becomes established between any host and parasite" (33, p. 190). In other words, commensalism was believed to be the ideal evolutionary end point for both host and parasite. Although several authors have suggested that evolution may sometimes result in increased virulence (6, 7, 14, 27, 28, 61), the former view is often accepted as fact in current texts and. reviews (e.g. 4, 48). One of the major problems with this view, however, is that disease severity is analyzed in terms of the survival of the species or of a large subgroup of the species rather than in terms of the effects on gene frequencies within the species. Evolutionary theory, on the other hand, emphasizes that it is the effects on gene frequencies that yield the evolutionary changes within a species (10 1).
Book Reviews

Judging the volume as a whole, Generative Processes in Music is surelv a success. In terms of production it is marred by a number of unfortunate lapses in editing, and the number of typographical errors suggests that the authors never examined the galley proofs. The above difficulties aside, this volume remains a major contribution to music scholarship. It contains a number of valuable survey articles and several landmark contributions.
A genetic study of resistance to African Rice Gall Midge in West African rice cultivars.

Gene mapping relies on good phenotyping and subsequently on an efficient assessment of the damage, mainly when dealing with genes conferring resistance to insect pests. To develop an accurate method of assessing AfRGM damage during phenotyping, studies were initiated during the dry 2009 and wet 2010 seasons at the research station of the International institute of tropical agriculture (IITA)-Ibadan, to compare four methods of assessment of damage caused by AfRGM in three different plot sizes. The four methods included the International rice research institute (IRRI)’s Standard Evaluation System (SES) for rice and three methods based on resistance index (RI) assessment. Each plot contained 50, 100 and 150 test entries for the Small (24.4 m 2 ), the Medium (48.8m 2 ) and the Large (73.2 m 2 ) plot sizes, respectively. The RIbased assessments (RI-BA) were named RI-BA1, RI-BA2 and RI-BA3 and differed in the computing of the percentage of tillers with galls on the resistant check variety. The RI-BA methods provided better evaluations of AfRGM damage than the SES method, regardless of the trial size. Within RI-BA methods, comparison based on the known reaction of ITA306 and TOS14519 (considered as control entries) against AfRGM showed that RI-BA2 was more accurate than RI-BA1 and RI-BA3 when the plot is large because it is the only assessment method which provides the reactions of the control entries. No significant difference was observed between the two novel methods, RI-BA2 and RI-BA3, when the plot size was small. However, RI-BA2 and RI-BA3 provided better resistance estimates than RI-BA1.When the plot was of medium size, RI-BA2 was significantly better than RI-BA3, and RI-BA3 was significantly better than RI-BA1. The best method of assessing AfRGM damage was found to be RI-BA2, regardless of the plot size.
Mammal hunting by the Shuar of the Ecuadorian Amazon: is it sustainable?

Abstract Although hunting is still critical to the subsistence of many people throughout Amazonia, this practice may not be sustainable under current socio-economic conditions. Native societies are rapidly undergoing socio-economic changes that exacerbate the pressure on wildlife and habitats, indicating the urgent need to assess the impacts of subsistence hunting. In a 12-month study we assessed hunting patterns in four Shuar native communities in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Hunting patterns and impact of hunting activities were documented using interviews, direct observations, self-monitoring records, community landscape mapping and mammal surveys. Although Shuar harvest a wide-range of wildlife species, including insects, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals we only report information about mammals. A total of 3,181 individuals (c. 26,000 kg) of 21 mammal species were hunted during the 12 months. We used three algorithms for assessing the sustainability of hunting: the production, stock-recruitment and harvest models. Of the 21 mammal species hunted there were sufficient data to assess 15, 12 of which were hunted above maximum sustainable levels within the 243 km2 hunting catchment area. The immediate need to conserve wildlife populations is not obvious to Shuar hunters who still enjoy what they perceive to be an inexhaustible source of wild meat. In this context management of Shuar hunting practices to control harvest levels is complex. The assessment presented here is the first step of what needs to be a long-term wildlife management process.
Embodied Spirituality

The main findings on embodied spirituality within the Toronto Blessing are presented in this article. The aim of this study is to interpret ecstatic religious experiences from a psychological point of view. The theoretical framework is interdisciplinary, using theories from ego-psychology, social psychology, sociology, cultural anthropology, and ritual theory. Regarding the latter notion, Thomas Csordas has developed cultural phenomenology, which is a culturally constructed way of understanding a situation through using bodily senses in a sort of sensory engagement that is linked with inter-subjectivity. This way of thinking assumes that the body can impart knowledge and help us understand apparently non-rational phenomena. Ecstatic phenomena can be interpreted as bodily knowledge, a habitus, stored or saved in the body to be later activated in a cultural and ritual context.
The Comparison of Mindfulness Techniques Teaching Effects on Improving Teachers Occupational and Students Academic Performance

The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of Mindfulness Training on teachers' job performance and academic performance of students. The present study was a pre-test and post-test design with control groups. The statistical population of the study consisted of all students and teachers of Shahid Mahdavi's sophomore non-governmental elementary school in Kerman province in the academic year 1397-1398. Using random sampling method, 40 teachers from all bases and 40 students were randomly selected and the subjects of both groups were randomly divided into two experimental and control groups (each group, 20 students and teachers). Subsequently, awareness sessions were conducted on them. After completing the training, they were re-tested. The tool used in this research was the teacher-occupation performance questionnaire 2010 and Pham and Tyler's (1999) academic performance questionnaire. Data were analyzed using SPSS-24 software and covariance analysis. The results showed a significant improvement in the teachers' job performance scores and the academic performance of the students in the experimental group compared with the control group at the level of p <0.05). The present study showed that mindfulness education can help to improve the occupational and academic performance of teachers and students groups. From the tables and the results of the research hypotheses, it is concluded that Mindfulness training in occupational performance has not been affected by the function of task performance. Mindfulness education has been more influential on the underlying performance and further increased. Mindfulness education in academic performance exerts much emotional impact but it has not influenced planning. The impact on moderate motivation will slightly increase self-efficacy, but little impact on the lack of outcome control. And finally, the result of the covariance analysis revealed that teaching mindfulness techniques had been more effective on teachers’ occupational performance than students’ academic improvement. Original Article PII: S232247702000002-10 Rec. 04 January, 2020 Acc. 20 March, 2020 Pub. 25 March, 2020
Characterization and Modeling of FTJ Memristive Devices for in-Memory Computing

Introduction In the context of in-memory computing, emerging nonvolatile memristive devices can be used as the memory computing element, storing learned features of incoming data while also performing computation at the location of the memory, drastically decreasing power consumption promoted by the intrinsic non-vonNeumann architecture of the system [1]. For successful adoption, memory elements employed in such circuits have a minimum set of requirements: nano-scale size, low-current operation, low device operation variability and analogue predictable switching under pulsing input [2]. Recently, analogue FTJ devices have received some attention as their gradual switching behavior is akin to memristive dynamics [3] and can offer promise in implementation as in-memory computing elements. Usually, FTJ devices exhibit binary switching, where the ferroelectric layer (FE) is maximally polarized in one direction to achieve binary operation [4][5]. However, under controlled pulsing, partial domains of the FE layer can be gradually switched and such allowing continuous modulation of the tunneling current across the device. Past efforts have shown partial characterization of CMOS-incompatible devices [3]. We present a pulsing study on HfSiO FTJ nano-scale memristive devices showing promising behavior suitable for novel inmemory computing systems.
Speech-Based Detection of Dementia in Spontaneous Conversational Speech

The worldwide population is aging. With a larger population of elderly people, the numbers of people affected by dementia are growing. Unfortunately, there is no known cure for Alzheimer’s disease. The only way to alleviate it’s serious effects is to start therapy very early before the disease has wrought too much irreversible damage. Current diagnostic procedures require a lot of time by specialists. In my PhD project I am working on automatic detection of dementia using spontaneous conversational speech in a longitudinal context in order to meet the demands for frequent mass screening required to mitigate the consequences of cognitive impairments on the global scale.
Vascular Failure

Background: It is not clear whether pulse pressure (PP) is a predictor of incident cardiovascular events in treated hypertensives. We sought to examine whether brachial and central PP predict incident cardiovascular events in subjects in the Antihypertensives and Blood pressure of Central artery in Japan II study, which included 3,566 patients from 27 institutions. Methods: Brachial and central hemodynamics were evaluated with a semi-automatic tonometry device. The mean age was 66.0±10.9 years, and 50.6% of the subjects were men. The mean brachial and central PP were 60.0±14.5 and 50.4±15.2 mmHg, respectively. An incident cardiovascular event was defined as stroke, myocardial infarction, sudden cardiac death, or acute aortic dissection. We performed multivariable Cox regression analysis with incident cardiovascular events as a dependent variable, and brachial and central PP as independent variables. Results: The hazard ratio per 10-mmHg increase in brachial PP was 1.16 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.97-1.39, p=0.11) and that per 10-mmHg increase in central PP was 1.17 (95% CI 0.99-1.39, p=0.07). The relationship remained insignificant even when PP was divided by quintiles. The spline curve between brachial or central PP and the relative incidence of cardiovascular events showed a sigmoid relationship. Linear relationships were seen only in the range of 50-70 mmHg in brachial PP and 40-60 mmHg in central PP. Conclusions: In treated hypertensive patients, brachial and central PP were not markers for incident cardiovascular events. These relationships were not linear, and PPs were associated with incident cardiovascular events only in a limited range.
Revising Documents with Text Editors, Handwriting Recognition, and Speech Recognition Systems

A m a i n t a s k o f s e c r e t a r i e s a n d t y p i s t s i s t o r e t y p e d o c u m e n t s a f t e r t h e y h a v e b e e n e d i t e d i n p e n c i l by p r i n c i p a l s . I n c r e a s i n g l y , t h e y u s e w o r d p r o c e s s i n g s y s t e m s t o do t h i s . I n a d d i t i o n , some p r i n c i p a l s t y p e t h e i r own r e v i s i o n s a f t e r f i r s t m a k i n g t h e m i n p e n c i l . We h a v e i n f o r m a l l y o b s e r v e d t h a t p e o p l e u s i n g t e x t e d i t o r s s p e n d much o f t h e i r t i m e i n ( a ) v i s u a l s e a r c h ( l o o k i n g b a c k a n d f o r t h b e t w e e n t h e m a n u s c r i p t a n d t h e s c r e e n ) ; ( b ) d e c i s i o n m a k i n g ( d e c i d i n g how t o l o c a t e t h e r i g h t p l a c e i n t h e c o m p u t e r f i l e , d e c i d i n g how t o make t h e r e v i s i o n ) ; a n d ( c ) r e r e a d i n g . A c t u a l t i m e s p e n t e x e c u t i n g a command seems s m a l l i n c o m p a r i s o n . Human f a c t o r s r e s e a r c h h a s n o t b e e n d i r e c t e d a t u n d e 7 s t a n d i n g t h i s p r o c e s s .
Invited Expert Review SQUAMOSA Promoter-Binding Protein-Like Transcription Factors: Star Players for Plant Growth and Development

SQUAMOSA Promoter-Binding Protein-Like (SPL) genes encode plant- specific transcription factors that play important roles in plant phase transition, flower and fruit development, plant architecture, gibberellins signaling, sporogenesis, and response to copper and fungal toxins. In Arabidopsis ,m anySPL genes are post-transcriptionally regulated by the microRNA (miRNA) miR156, among which AtSPL9 in turn positively regulates the expression of the second miRNA miR172. This miR156- AtSPL9-miR172 regulatory pathway plays critical roles during juvenile to adult leaf development and the miR156-SPLs feedback interaction persists all through the plant development, which may be conserved in other plants. In the present paper, we provide a concise review on the mostrecentprogressintheregulatorymechanismsassociatedwithplant SPL transcription factors, especially in relation to miRNAs. The potential application of these discoveries in agriculture is briefly discussed.
The Impact of Alpha-lipoic Acid Dietary Supplementation on Growth Performance, Liver and Bone Efficiency, and Expression Levels of Growth-Regulating Genes in Commercial Broilers

1 Biochemistry, Nutritional Deficiency Diseases and Toxicology Unit, Animal Health Research Institute – Kafrelsheikh (ARC), Egypt 2 Nutrition and Clinical Nutrition Department, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Kafrelsheikh University, Egypt. 3 Biochemistry Dept., Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Matrouh University, Matrouh, Egypt. 4 Pharmacology Department, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Kafrelsheikh University, Egypt. 5 Clinical Pathology Department, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Kafrelsheikh University, Egypt. 6 Animal, Poultry and Fish Breeding and Production, Department of Animal Wealth Development, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Kafrelsheikh University, Egypt *Corresponding author's Email: nourmallak@yahoo.com; ORCID: 0000-0001-5541-6159 Received: 29 Jan. 2020 Accepted: 09 Mar. 2020 ABSTRACT
An overview of the microbial α-amylase family

Amylases are enzymes which hydrolyze the starch molecules into polymers composed of glucose units. α-Amylases are ubiquitous in distribution, with plants, bacteria and fungi being the predominant sources. Most of the microbial α-amylases belong to the family 13 glycosyl hydrolases, and they share several common properties. But different reaction specificities have been observed across the family members. Structurally α-amylases possess (β/α)8 or TIM barrel structures and are responsible for hydrolysis or formation of glycosidic bonds in the α-conformation. Stability of the α-amylases has been widely studied; pH and temperature have very important roles to play. Engineering the enzymes for improved stability enhances their use industrially. This review focuses on the distribution, structuralfunctional aspects and factors for enhancing the stability of α-amylases.
Building a Scalable Swarm Application Using Sphero Robots

Swarm robotics as an approach to the coordination of multi-robot systems is guided in its design by swarm intelligence principles. This thesis aims to implement a swarm scenario using spherical robots, called Spheros which were developed by Orbotix. Using the Robot Operating System and an external robot localization framework, we design a scalable swarm of spherical robots to display aggregation behavior. We investigate the application of swarm algorithms to the robot platform and evaluate if global complex behavior can be achieved by using simple rules on relatively simple robots. The experiments conducted in this thesis show that theoretical concepts of swarm intelligence can be applied to a swarm of spherical robots to achieve complex behavior. The number of individuals in our robot swarm can be scaled up but results convey that typical swarm robotic challenges aggravate in the process of doing so.