Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Bioaccumulation of Cr, Hg, As, Pb, Cu and Ni with the ability for hyperaccumulation by Amaranthus dubius

Amaranthus dubius is a nutritious leafy vegetable that is widely distributed in Africa, Asia and South America. The rapid growth and biomass makes them one of the highest yielding leafy crops, which may be valuable for phytoremediation. Thus, this study investigates the potential of A. dubius for the hyperaccumulation and distribution of chromium (Cr), mercury (Hg), arsenic (As), lead (Pb), copper (Cu) and nickel (Ni) in the different plant organs. The phytoremediation was calculated by the bioconcentration factor and translocation factor of plants grown under controlled conditions in a tunnel house. The metal accumulated was investigated using inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopy (ICPMS). Following exposure to 25, 75 and 100 ppm of Cr, Hg, As, Pb, Cu and Ni respectively for four days, A. dubius accumulates Cr, Hg and Pb at the low concentration (25 ppm) and translocates it to the shoots, but at higher concentrations (75 and 100 ppm) the metal is only stored in the roots. In the case of As accumulation at all concentrations, the metal is translocated to the shoots; Cu and Ni indicate that the metal is stored in the roots mainly. This study indicates that A. dubius has limited potential for the bioaccumulation of Cr, Hg, Pb, Cu and Ni, but is capable of hyperaccumulating of As. Key words: Amaranthus dubius, bioconcentration factor, translocation factor, inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopy.
Search Agent Model: A Conceptual Framework for Search by Algorithms and Agent Systems

We describe challenges using search systems designed for algorithms and agent systems rather than humans. As information access systems become more complex the users of retrieval systems are increasingly shifting from humans to agents that use search as a sensor for acquiring and interpreting knowledge of the world. First, we discuss work on prior search applications that fit into this agent model of search. We identify key challenges for current and future search systems including: confidence estimation, task state, and expressing complex long-term retrieval models. We propose a conceptual framework for understanding and creating search-focused agents that addresses these challenges, the Search Agent Model (SAM). SAM provides a shared model for complex search tasks requiring a variety of information processing and orchestration. Its main components include formalizing task state, an action policy, and a query language for agent interaction. We describe how this proposed agent model provides a roadmap for future research and system design in search.
Estimation of Platelet Count As A Prognostic Marker for Feto-Maternal Outcome in Preeclampsia & Eclampsia

Introduction: Preeclampsia and eclampsia contribute greatly to the maternal morbidity and mortality.Thrombocytopenia is the most common hematological abnormality of all that occur in preeclampsia, and the frequency of maternal thrombocytopenia is dependent on the intensity of the disease process and duration of preeclampsia syndrome. Material and methods: A hospital based observational study was conducted which included 150 normotensive pregnant females as controls and 150 cases of preeclampsia of varying severity (mild preeclampsia, severe preeclampsia and eclampsia). Study subjects were studied with Haemoglobin, Bleeding time, Clotting time and Platelet count and feto-maternal outcome was compared between both study groups. Results: Platelet Count was found to be significantly lower in preeclampsia cases as compared to control group. The feto-maternal outcome was observed to be poor in thrombocytopenic cases as compared to their normal platelet count counterpart subjects. Conclusion: Thrombocytopenia correlates well with the disease severity and poor perinatal and maternal outcome in patients of preeclampsia syndrome. Platelet count being a low cost, rapid and easily available investigation, hence can be used as a tool for screening the patients for prediction of disease severity and clinical outcome.
Experimental demonstration of topological waveguiding in elastic plates with local resonators

The recent emergence of topological insulators in condensed matter physics has inspired analogous wave phenomena in mechanical systems. However, to date, the design of these mechanical systems has been limited mostly to discrete lattices or perforated structures. Here, we take a ubiquitous design of a bolted elastic plate and demonstrate that it can guide flexural waves crisply around sharp bends. We show that this continuum system eliminates unwanted in-plane plate modes and allows the manipulation of low-frequency flexural modes by exploiting the local resonance of the bolts. We report the existence of a pair of double Dirac cones near the resonant frequency of the bolts, one of which leads to the creation of a topological complete bandgap that forbids all the plate modes. These findings open new possibilities of managing multiple wave modes in elastic solids for applications in energy harvesting, impact mitigation, and structural health monitoring.
Insights into New Media Use by International Students: Implications for Cross-Cultural Adaptation Theory

The current study uses a longitudinal, mixed-method approach to investigate the role that new media, such as social networking sites and video chat, play in cross-cultural adaptation and international student friendship network development. Results indicate that international students significantly increase and adapt their new media use while abroad to communicate globally with their friends and family, and locally with their newly formed relationships. Furthermore, social networking site host national friends do not necessarily lead to the development of face-to-face host national friends; however, interaction with established face-to-face host national friends and friend groups via new media platforms leads to an increased understanding of host communication patterns. Finally, this study proposes that researchers who apply Kim’s [1] cross-cultural adaptation theory consider incorporating Host New Media Communication as a principal concept.
Diabetes Self-Management in a Community Health Center: Improving Health Behaviors and Clinical Outcomes for Underserved Patients

Self-management is a crucial element of good diabetes care. Several large-scale trials have demonstrated that comprehensive interventions that include self-management can prevent complications from type 11,2 and type 2 diabetes.3 In addition, interventions that promote the adoption of healthy behaviors have been shown to significantly prevent or delay the onset of type 2 diabetes in patients at increased risk for this disease.4 A review and meta-analysis of self-management interventions for diabetes concluded that, although education alone does not lead to improved outcomes, self-management interventions can improve glycemic control.5 However, outside of the research arena, “real-world” settings face challenges when seeking to replicate self-management programs such as those found in clinical trials. Such interventions are resource intensive and not generally designed to meet the needs of patients from underserved populations. Issues such as low literacy, limited English proficiency, poverty, and cultural differences present additional barriers to promoting diabetes self-management. To combat the growing diabetes epidemic, it is crucially important that such barriers be overcome. Diabetes self-management interventions must be developed and tested to meet the needs of all patients, particularly underserved minority populations. Hispanic and African-American patients in the United States have nearly two times the prevalence of type 2 diabetes as non-Hispanic whites.6-8 Rates for Native Americans are even higher.8 In addition to higher prevalence, ethnic and racial minority patients with diabetes have higher mortality and higher rates of diabetic complications.9 Although the pathophysiology and treatment may be the same for different ethnic and racial groups, differences in behaviors, cultures, and health beliefs have a significant impact on how patients understand their illness and engage in self-management. Programs that account for these differences can improve diabetes outcomes.10-13 An additional barrier to effective diabetes self-management is the …
C Chromium Isotopes

Chromium has four naturally occurring stable isotopes (Cr, Cr, Cr, and Cr) with natural abundances of 4.35%, 83.79%, 9.50%, and 2.36%, respectively. Among these, Cr, Cr, and Cr are nonradiogenic, while Cr is the radiogenic product of Mn, an extinct nuclide with a halflife of 3.7 Myr. Chromium isotope variations in terrestrial samples are reported using the ratio Cr/Cr, expressed in conventional delta notation (dCr) relative to NIST SRM 979, a metallic Cr standard from the National Institute of Standards and Technology. In meteorite samples, the ratio Cr/Cr is sometimes used to report nuclear synthetic anomalies (conventionally reported in epsilon notation). Chromium isotopes have a wide range of applications in cosmochemistry, geochemistry, and environmental remediation efforts.
Text-message abbreviations and language skills in high school and university students

This study investigated the use of text-message abbreviations (textisms) in Australian adolescents and young adults, and relations between textism use and literacy abilities. Fifty-two high school students aged 13–15 years, and 53 undergraduates aged 18–24 years, all users of predictive texting, translated conventional English sentences into textese using two methods: writing messages down and typing them into mobile phones. Participants produced a variety of textisms, and in both translation methods, adolescents and young adults used textisms in nearly identical ways. This was true for the proportion and types of textisms used, textism categories produced and consistency with which textisms were spelled. The use of textisms was negatively correlated with scores for reading, nonword reading, spelling and morphological awareness, but some of these relationships were accounted for by participants' usual text-messaging frequency. For these age groups, concerns that frequent texting may mask or even contribute to poor linguistic skills cannot be dismissed.
In-Vitro Antibacterial Activity of Two Medicinal Pl ants Neem (Azadirachta indica) and Peppermint

The use of medicinal plants is a universal phenomen on. Every culture on earth has relied on the huge v ariety of natural chemistry found in healing plants for their therape utic properties. All drugs of the past were substan ces with a particular therapeutic action and they were extracted from pla nts. Thus, medicinal plants may define as any plant that may have medicinal use. The objective of the present study w as to evaluate the antibacterial activity of Neem ( Azadirachta indica ) and Peppermint ( Mentha piperita ) by using agar diffusion assay and gel filtration chromatography. The bacterial strains used in this research work were Escherichia coli, Bacillus subtilius, Salmonella ty phi, Pseudomonas, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Staphylococcus epide rmitis . The Neem leaves ( Azadirachta indica ) were macerated in different organic solvents including pure, ethanol, acetone and methanol whereas Peppermint leaves (Mentha piperita ) were macerated in acetone, methanol and ethanol. Then, b y using agar diffusion assay antibacterial activity of these medicinal plants was estimated. The zones of inhibition were measured by scaling and represented by tables and g raphs. The Neem extract of Acetone and Peppermint Oil showed the maximum antibacterial activity as compared to other s olvent extracts. Then, distilled water macerated form of Neem and Peppermint were used for gel filtration chromatograph y technique in order to determine the fraction containing the acti ve components. Fraction 8 of both Neem and Peppermint showed maximum antibacterial activity against all above me ntioned bacterial strains. Furthermore, this study recommended for the isolation and separation of bioactive compounds res ponsible for the antibacterial activity which would be done by using thin layer chromatography (TLC) and High-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC).
Anticoccidian effects of the Artemisia absinthium L. extracts in broiler chickens

SUMMARY Herbs are common resources in, both pure products and traditional drug production. This study aimed to investigate the occurrence of artemisinin in Artemisia absinthium L . and test the anticoccidian effects of plant extract in broilers. Anticoccidial effects of the plant extract were tested on chicken challenged with Eimeria tenella. The in vivo investigation was carried out on 150 heavy line broilers (Arbor acres) of both sexes. One hundred fifty, 21 day old chickens were divided into five groups consisting of 30 chicks each. At the age of 21 day, the chicken from first four groups (A to D) were infected with Eimeria tenella sporulated oocysts at a dose of 20.000 per chicken. The negative control consisted of group E chickens that were not infected or treated. The infected chickens were treated with absinthium extracts at the dosages of 1, 2 and 3 mg/kg per day. The results indicated that Artemisia absinthium extract can reduce the severity of coccidial infection induced by Eimeria tenella. The anticoccidial effects of A. absinthium extracts caused significant decrease in output number of oocysts per gram of faeces in
Natural Variation in OsLG3 Increases Drought Tolerance in Rice by Inducing ROS Scavenging1[OPEN]

Natural variation in the promoter of the transcription factor gene OsLG3 is associated with drought tolerance, and OsLG3 positively regulates drought stress tolerance by inducing reactive oxygen species scavenging. Improving the performance of rice (Oryza sativa) under drought stress has the potential to significantly affect rice productivity. Here, we report that the ERF family transcription factor OsLG3 positively regulates drought tolerance in rice. In our previous work, we found that OsLG3 has a positive effect on rice grain length without affecting grain quality. In this study, we found that OsLG3 was more strongly expressed in upland rice than in lowland rice under drought stress conditions. By performing candidate gene association analysis, we found that natural variation in the promoter of OsLG3 is associated with tolerance to osmotic stress in germinating rice seeds. Overexpression of OsLG3 significantly improved the tolerance of rice plants to simulated drought, whereas suppression of OsLG3 resulted in greater susceptibility. Phylogenetic analysis indicated that the tolerant allele of OsLG3 may improve drought tolerance in cultivated japonica rice. Introgression lines and complementation transgenic lines containing the elite allele of OsLG3IRAT109 showed increased drought tolerance, demonstrating that natural variation in OsLG3 contributes to drought tolerance in rice. Further investigation suggested that OsLG3 plays a positive role in drought stress tolerance in rice by inducing reactive oxygen species scavenging. Collectively, our findings reveal that natural variation in OsLG3 contributes to rice drought tolerance and that the elite allele of OsLG3 is a promising genetic resource for the development of drought-tolerant rice varieties.
A New Possibilistic Optimization Model for Multiple Criteria Assignment Problem

This paper presents a new multiple criteria optimization model of an assignment problem with imprecise coefficients. Besides, minimizing the total cost, total time of finishing jobs, and maximization of the overall achieved quality, we introduce a new criterion that minimizes the number of workers employed to finish all jobs. It contributes significantly in multi-job assignment to adjust the number of workers assigned to at least one job for balancing work allocation among the workers. Furthermore, we employ new diversification constraints to obtain a reasonable tradeoff between the number of workers employed and number of jobs assigned. A new interactive possibilistic programming approach is developed for trapezoidal possibility distributions, which uses <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX"> $\alpha$</tex-math></inline-formula>-level sets to incorporate confidence levels of the decision maker in his fuzzy judgments leading to <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\alpha$</tex-math></inline-formula>-efficient solutions. Numerical experiments are conducted using data coming from a manpower planning problem to demonstrate working of the proposed multiple criteria assignment model and effectiveness of the fuzzy interactive approach.
A Novel PZT-Based Traveling-Wave Micromotor With High Performance and Unconstrained Coaxial Rotation

Traveling-wave ultrasonic micromotor is a promising technology for microactuation and nanopositioning. A special designed annular stator was proposed with the combination of two separate buffer structures to achieve high performance. Traveling-wave propagation with moving antinodes was observed and analyzed. The fabricated stator exhibits large displacement of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$4.71~\mu \text{m}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> at 1 V and high quality factor of 220 with the central frequency of 101.6 kHz. The assembled rotor was actuated, and controllable rotate speed was achieved. The measured maximum torque reached to <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$2.63~\mu $ </tex-math></inline-formula>Nm at 1.3 V and 101 kHz. Besides, unconstraint rotation with no lateral slip was found during the entire rotation process, indicating stable, uniform, and highly reliable actuation of the micromotor. [2018-0026]
Postsplicing-Derived Full-Length Intron Circles in the Protozoan Parasite Entamoeba histolytica

Noncoding circular RNAs are widespread in the tree of life. Particularly, intron-containing circular RNAs which apparently upregulate their parental gene expression. Entamoeba histolytica, the causative agent of dysentery and liver abscesses in humans, codes for several noncoding RNAs, including circular ribosomal RNAs, but no intron containing circular RNAs have been described to date. Divergent RT-PCR and diverse molecular approaches, allowed us to detect bona fide full-length intronic circular RNA (flicRNA) molecules. Self-splicing reactions, RNA polymerase II inhibition with Actinomycin D, and second step of splicing-inhibition with boric acid showed that the production of flicRX13 (one of the flicRNAs found in this work, and our test model) depends on mRNA synthesis and pre-mRNA processing instead of self-splicing. To explore the cues and factors involved in flicRX13 biogenesis in vivo, splicing assays were carried out in amoeba transformants where splicing factors and Dbr1 (intron lariat debranching enzyme 1) were silenced or overexpressed, or where Rabx13 wild-type and mutant 5′ss (splice site) and branch site minigene constructs were overexpressed. Whereas SF1 (splicing factor 1) is not involved, the U2 auxiliary splicing factor, Dbr1, and the GU-rich 5′ss are involved in postsplicing flicRX13 biogenesis, probably by Dbr1 stalling, in a similar fashion to the formation of ciRNAs (circular intronic RNAs), but with distinctive 5′-3′ss ligation points. Different from the reported functions of ciRNAs, the 5′ss GU-rich element of flicRX13 possibly interacts with transcription machinery to silence its own gene in cis. Furthermore, introns of E. histolytica virulence-related genes are also processed as flicRNAs.
Linguistic Search Optimization for Deep Learning Based LVCSR

Recent advances in deep learning based large vocabulary con- tinuous speech recognition (LVCSR) invoke growing demands in large scale speech transcription. The inference process of a speech recognizer is to find a sequence of labels whose corresponding acoustic and language models best match the input feature [1]. The main computation includes two stages: acoustic model (AM) inference and linguistic search (weighted finite-state transducer, WFST). Large computational overheads of both stages hamper the wide application of LVCSR. Benefit from stronger classifiers, deep learning, and more powerful computing devices, we propose general ideas and some initial trials to solve these fundamental problems.
Time-Division Multiplexing Control of Multi-Input Converters for Low-Power Solar Energy Harvesters

Many autonomous sensor nodes use small photovoltaic (PV) panels oriented toward the direction that provides the highest energy yield in the worst case scenario. Since all those panels operate at similar irradiance and temperature conditions, they can be properly biased at the same bias point by using a single maximum power point tracker (MPPT). But in applications that involve several PV panels with dissimilar orientations, using an MPPT tailored to each panel would increase system cost. A better design option is to implement the MPPT with a single multiple-input converter shared through time-division multiplexing (TDM) control. However, existing TDM controls are usually based on pulsewidth modulation converters wherein the high switching frequency of transistors results in excessive power losses for low-power systems. Consequently, low-power MPPTs are instead usually based on pulse frequency modulation (PFM) converters. This paper proposes a novel TDM control method for MPPTs based on PFM converters.
Efficient Mutually Orthogonal Golay Complementary Set-Based Zero-Correlation Zone Sequence Set Correlator

An efficient implementation of zero-correlation-zone (ZCZ) sequence set correlators is of particular interest for integrated circuit realizations of phase-coded continuous-wave multiple-input multiple-output radar systems. Such systems require a correlation with all transmitted sequence set members at every receiver. We present an approach for an efficient circuit realization of such a sequence set correlator for a subset of mutually orthogonal Golay complementary set-based ZCZ sequence sets. Furthermore, we analyze and optimize the resource requirement. A logarithmic instead of a linear growth of the required adders could be achieved by the proposed implementation.
Maximal-Discernibility-Pair-Based Approach to Attribute Reduction in Fuzzy Rough Sets

Attribute reduction is one of the biggest challenges encountered in computational intelligence, data mining, pattern recognition, and machine learning. Effective in feature selection as the rough set theory is, it can only handle symbolic attributes. In order to overcome this drawback, the fuzzy rough set model is proposed, which is an extended model of rough sets and is able to deal with imprecision and uncertainty in both symbolic and numerical attributes. The existing attribute selection algorithms based on the fuzzy rough set model mainly take the angle of “attribute set,” which means they define the object function representing the predictive ability for an attribute subset with regard to the domain of discourse, rather than following the view of an “object pair. ” Algorithms from the viewpoint of the object pair can ignore the object pairs that are already discerned by the selected attribute subsets and, thus, need only to deal with part of object pairs instead of the whole object pairs from the discourse, which makes such algorithms more efficient in attribute selection. In this paper, we propose the concept of reduced maximal discernibility pairs, which directly adopts the perspective of the object pair in the framework of the fuzzy rough set model. Then, we develop two attribute selection algorithms, named as reduced maximal discernibility pairs selection and weighted reduced maximal discernibility pair selection, based on the reduced maximal discernibility pairs. Experiment results show that the proposed algorithms are effective and efficient in attribute selection.