Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Characterization of Freeze-Dried Boron Nanopowders and Parameter Optimization in Ex Situ MgB2 Wire Production

This article reports a study to identify optimal synthesis parameters for a pure boron precursor prepared following a patented process developed at CNR-SPIN laboratories, performed in the framework of a collaboration between CNR-SPIN and CERN. Boron is a precursor that plays a crucial role in the MgB2 wire manufacturing, as a consequence, the synthesis parameters of the superconducting phase have been investigated. In this article, we report results for MgB2 samples synthesized at 870 °C for 17nbsp;h under Ar/5% H2 flow and 760 °C for 0.2 h. Magnesiothermic amorphous nanoboron (MANB) and commercial boron nanopowders (purchased from Pavezyum) have been compared in terms of morphological features. MgB2 derived from both sources has been characterized and the superconductive properties in the wire form have been compared. Results demonstrate that the MANB performance is comparable with the nanoboron obtained via gas synthesis.
Inflammasome-Mediated Immunogenicity of Clinical and Experimental Vaccine Adjuvants

In modern vaccines, adjuvants can be sophisticated immunological tools to promote robust and long-lasting protection against prevalent diseases. However, there is an urgent need to improve immunogenicity of vaccines in order to protect mankind from life-threatening diseases such as AIDS, malaria or, most recently, COVID-19. Therefore, it is important to understand the cellular and molecular mechanisms of action of vaccine adjuvants, which generally trigger the innate immune system to enhance signal transition to adaptive immunity, resulting in pathogen-specific protection. Thus, improved understanding of vaccine adjuvant mechanisms may aid in the design of “intelligent” vaccines to provide robust protection from pathogens. Various commonly used clinical adjuvants, such as aluminium salts, saponins or emulsions, have been identified as activators of inflammasomes - multiprotein signalling platforms that drive activation of inflammatory caspases, resulting in secretion of pro-inflammatory cytokines of the IL-1 family. Importantly, these cytokines affect the cellular and humoral arms of adaptive immunity, which indicates that inflammasomes represent a valuable target of vaccine adjuvants. In this review, we highlight the impact of different inflammasomes on vaccine adjuvant-induced immune responses regarding their mechanisms and immunogenicity. In this context, we focus on clinically relevant adjuvants that have been shown to activate the NLRP3 inflammasome and also present various experimental adjuvants that activate the NLRP3-, NLRC4-, AIM2-, pyrin-, or non-canonical inflammasomes and could have the potential to improve future vaccines. Together, we provide a comprehensive overview on vaccine adjuvants that are known, or suggested, to promote immunogenicity through inflammasome-mediated signalling.
6 Bacterial Adhesion

Although bacteria adhere to many different types of surfaces present in their habitat, this review focuses on bacterial adhesion to animal cells and tissues as a first step in the ability of pathogens to colonize and subsequently cause tissue damage. Accordingly, basic principles that govern the interaction of bacterial adhesinsto theircognate receptors on animalcellsarepresented, such as fimbriae as adhesin structures. Significantly, we discuss the types of receptor-adhesin relationship, the phenomenon of multiple adhesins each specific for distinct receptors produced by pathogenic clones, the identity of glycoconjugates as receptors for lectins that serve as adhesins, and the interaction of bacterial adhesins with the extracellular matrix on animal tissues. Finally, a specific section is devoted to recent developments in preventing or treating infections by blocking bacterial adhesion to animal cells. In this context, a review of the different approaches of antiadhesion therapy is discussed, including the use of receptor and adhesin analogs, dietary constituents, sublethal concentrations of antibiotics, and adhesin-based vaccines. A discussion and summary of these topics focus on the in vivo data, including human trials, whereby plant extracts are used as a source of antiadhesion agents to prevent or treat urinary tract infections caused by Escherichia coli and infectious gastritis or peptic ulcer diseases induced by Helicobacter pylori and to maintain oral health.
Habitat complexity and invertebrate species richness and abundance in tropical seagrass meadows

Two potential measures of habitat complexity, plant species number and aboveground plant biomass, are considered in relation to the species richness and abundance of motile macroinvertebrates inhabiting tropical sea- grass (Thalassia testudinum (Konig)) meadows. Plant species number was not significantly related to either invertebrate species number or abundance and therefore does not appear to adequately represent habitat complexity for the invertebrate species being considered. However, aboveground plant biomass is significantly correlated with both invertebrate species number and abundance and appears to be a reasonable measure of habitat complexity for these species. A consideration of several alternative explanations for these results suggests that the significant correlation between aboveground plant biomass and inverte- brate species number probably results from the addition of cryptic species which inhabit protected habitats that are formed among the foliose branches of certain plant species when they are very dense. The significant aboveground plant biomass-invertebrate abundance correlation is most likely due to the protection from predators that thick vegetation provides, but may also be partly a result of the greater plant surface area that is available for habitation in heavily vegetated areas. The results of this first step toward quantifying relationships among plants and animals in seagrass meadows clearly indicate that experimental studies are needed to differentiate conclusively among the competing explanations which seek to explain community organization in seagrass meadows.
Dynamical Frequency Displacement Scheme for Fault-tolerant LLC Topology

Gallium-nitride high-electron-mobility transistor (GaN HEMT) is a promising candidate for implementing next-generation power converter owing to wide semiconductor bandgap with excellent Johnson’s figure of merit [1]. GaN HEMT has matured noticeably over the past decade and opened up the avenue to performance revolution in a wide variety of applications, ranging from active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar systems [2] to ultra-eco-friendly power converter [3]. In this work, a GaN & Silicon hybrid fault-tolerant LLC topology complemented by a deep-learning-based migration control (DLM) and a computation-free migration control (CFM) are introduced. This combination allows one to leverage the intrinsic fault-recovery mechanism of the proposed topology and empower the converter to recuperate from a failing system, an analog to N+1 redundancy power system at a fraction of the cost and reduced point-of-failure.
Enhancing the Learning of Computing/IT Students with Open Educational Resources

With the advent of the Internet, there is now a vast amount of useful learning resources available. These public resources or Open Educational Resources (OERs) can complement traditional teaching/lectures and student learning. In this paper, we make two contributions to the development of OERs for the global education community. First, we analyze the popular computing/IT-related OERs at MERLOT, one of the major OER repositories in the world. Through the analysis of peer reviews and other data, we present interesting findings and valuable insights for the development of OERs, particularly for the computer science discipline. Second, we present an innovative 3E (Enrich, Extend, Elevate) strategy/pedagogy for the use of OERs with the aim of enhancing student learning from different perspectives. In particular, students can play an important role, to find and even create OERs to enhance their learning to a new dimension.
Theoretical Analysis of the Referencing Scheme in WGM Sensors

In a referencing scheme, some of the whispering gallery mode (WGM) sensors are functionalized for detecting particular substances and some are not functionalized for monitoring effects of unwanted perturbations. It is known that in principle the same perturbation can cause different shifts for WGM peaks with different polarizations and orders. We studied such effects using 2-D finite difference time domain (FDTD) modeling for sensing the index variations in the surrounding medium. Our results show that the assumption of referencing scheme that the sensing and reference resonators identically respond to the same perturbation holds only for the same order WGM subsets with the same polarization. This means that the application of referencing scheme requires identification of polarization and order of the WGM spectral peaks in sensing and reference resonators prior to sensing experiments.
Managing resistance to chemical treatments in stored products pests

Purpose of the review: This review focuses on key trends in resistance to chemical treatments in stored product pests, and advances in resistance management, with an emphasis on resistance to the fumigant phosphine. Findings: Phosphine resistance continues to be a major concern. In particular, phosphine resistance in Cryptolestes ferrugineus has emerged as a serious issue, with some populations exhibiting the strongest level detected so far for this fumigant. In response, a ‘quick knock down test’ has been established to deliver industry and scientists ‘same day’ advice on the resistance status of field samples; sulfuryl fluoride is being developed as a ‘resistance breaker’ and phosphine dosages are being revised to manage this problem. There has been major progress in identifying the genes responsible for phosphine resistance and the development of molecular resistance diagnostics for key pests. Several studies on Rhyzopertha dominica have demonstrated that molecular screening can be used to determine the frequency of resistance alleles in samples collected from farm storages. Despite on-going research in several pests, there is no definitive answer to the question of whether there is a fitness cost associated phosphine resistance, with some studies showing a clear cost and others none. Evidence continues to emerge of resistance to grain protectants, including the juvenile hormone analogue methoprene. The development and adoption of spinosad, as a next generation ‘green’ treatment, and the use of protectant combinations provides opportunities to counter the problem of protectant resistance. Directions for future research: A uniform set of protocols should be developed for phosphine resistance detection for all major species. It should combine ‘quick tests’ and molecular diagnostics to be adopted internationally. Research is required on the establishment of a decision making system that integrates newly developed grain protectants and fumigants, other alternative control methods, as well as an accurate and rapid resistance detection system for early warning of the emergence of new resistances.
Investigation of the Influence of Acoustic Field on Vapor Precipitation over Plating Bath

The influence of acoustic field on vapor precipitation process taking place above the plating bath is analyzed in the article. Lateral exhaust hood was used to remove aerosol from open surface tank. It is shown that acoustic field generator generates sound waves with sound level of 130–140 dB at 1–4 kHz frequencies. Such acoustic field increases aerosol coagulation and its precipitation back to the liquid. This results in the reduction of aerosol concentration in the air, reduction of costs of air purification equipment and increase of its removal efficiency.
Aerobic microbial communities in the sediments of a marine oxygen minimum zone

ABSTRACT The ecology of aerobic microorganisms is never explored in marine oxygen minimum zone (OMZ) sediments. Here we reveal aerobic bacterial communities along ∼3 m sediment-horizons of the eastern Arabian Sea OMZ. Sulfide-containing sediment-cores retrieved from 530 mbsl (meters beneath the sea-level) and 580 mbsl were explored at 15–30 cm intervals, using metagenomics, pure-culture-isolation, genomics and metatranscriptomics. Genes for aerobic respiration, and oxidation of methane/ammonia/alcohols/thiosulfate/sulfite/organosulfur-compounds, were detected in the metagenomes from all 25 sediment-samples explored. Most probable numbers for aerobic chemolithoautotrophs and chemoorganoheterotrophs at individual sample-sites were up to 1.1 × 107 (g sediment)-1. The sediment-sample collected from 275 cmbsf (centimeters beneath the seafloor) of the 530-mbsl-core yielded many such obligately aerobic isolates belonging to Cereibacter, Guyparkeria, Halomonas, Methylophaga, Pseudomonas and Sulfitobacter which died upon anaerobic incubation, despite being provided with all possible electron acceptors and fermentative substrates. High percentages of metatranscriptomic reads from the 275 cmbsf sediment-sample, and metagenomic reads from all 25 sediment-samples, matched the isolates’ genomic sequences including those for aerobic metabolisms, genetic/environmental information processing and cell division, thereby illustrating the bacteria's in-situ activity, and ubiquity across the sediment-horizons, respectively. The findings hold critical implications for organic carbon sequestration/remineralization, and inorganic compounds oxidation, within the sediment realm of global marine OMZs.
Murmured Speech Recognition Using Hidden Markov Model

When criminals or militants are injected with a dose to extract the truth, they murmur the truth. It is very difficult to understand by human ear. Also in war field when the commando has to give confidential instructions to his soldiers present at distant locations. This paper proposes a method to capture, send and convert Non audible murmur (NAM) speech to ordinary speech. To capture speech data from human beings behind the ear as whispered voice or non-audible murmur, NAM microphone is used in this paper. This murmured speech can then be transferred via wi-fi transmitters for voice Conversion and detection systems. A quality articulated murmur is captured by the NAM microphone progressively associated with wi-fi handset is attached backside of the ear of a murmured human. This kind of set up can also be used for communicating securely. The output speech is robust against the environmental noises, because NAM microphone sequentially connected with Wi-Fi hand set directly transmits the signal to conversion and recognition system. Speech recognition system in this work uses dictionary of the murmured voices to achieve better accuracy in recognition. Generally, in the mechanism of body conduction, a poor quality of voice is achieved so far. This paper proposes a trained state transition conversion model to improve the quality of speech based on Hidden Markov Model (HMM) through body conduction.
Improved Blockchain Consensus Mechanism Based on PBFT Algorithm

Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (PBFT) is a blockchain consensus mechanism that is widely used at present, but the confidence of blockchain node in PBFT cannot be guaranteed, and a large amount of communication resources will be consumed in the process of reaching consensus. The paper proposes a new consensus mechanism, namely the Dynamic Grouping Byzantine Fault Tolerance Mechanism (DGBFT) based on confidence. The principles of DGBFT are as follows: 1) By extending the node’s attributes with the confidence, and designing a mechanism to evaluate the node’s confidence, therefore, the confidence adjustment and grouping adjustment can be performed on the nodes in the system. By grouping the confidence nodes by the confidence group, the communication complexity is greatly reduced, and the malicious nodes can be effectively excluded. Finally, the experimental results show that the blockchain applying the improved mechanism can significantly improve the communication efficiency of the system and the overall confidence of the system.
Prediction of LME lead spot price by neural network and NARX model

This paper presents a system for predicting the current price of lead based on artificial neural networks and NARX models. Using the London Metal Exchange (LME) spot metal price dataset for about 30 years, the proposed smart lead price prediction system can achieve prediction error of less than 10% (that‘s, approximately equal to $100). This article believes that in the near future, it can be expanded to predict futures prices from lead to other industries and even precious metals.
Antenna Tracking Techniques for Long Range Air-to-Ground Communication Systems Using a Monopulse Method

In this paper, we consider long range air-to-ground (AG) communication systems which support airborne platforms including unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for real-time applications. In this system, we design tracking techniques for directional ground antennas which enable reliable AG communication regardless of dynamic maneuvers of the UAV. We apply a simple monopulse method and a fixed gain filtering algorithm to develop a single channel monopulse tracking system with an angular estimation filtering, which exploits a downlink signal without requiring a dedicated channel. Through the AG communication prototype and realistic flight tests, we evaluate the tracking accuracy performance at the distance of hundreds of kilometers and demonstrate the auto-tracking capability of the angular estimation filter. The flight test results show that the tracking accuracy of our proposed system is sufficient for long range transmission with a narrow beam antenna. Also, in the absence of the downlink signal, it is observed that the ground prototype can resume the monopulse tracking procedure, and successfully maintains the tracking accuracy.
Trichoderma: A Most Powerful Bio-control Agent-A Review

Fungi in the genus Trichoderma have long been known as bio-control agents of plant diseases, and have become a valued part of agricultural disease management. Trichoderma by virtue of its broad spectrum action against a number of plant diseases caused by fungi, bacteria, viruses and even nematodes has occupied the top position among the bio-protectants developed for plant diseases management. Trichoderma based bio-pesticides have been proved successful in a large number of field, vegetable, fruit and flowering crop for the management of diseases. Because of its eco-friendly nature and low cost when compared with chemical protectant has been widely adopted all over the world. Research in the past few years has clearly shown that selected strains of the fungi provide an eco-friendly well balanced plant health management system through systemic resistance to diseases of biotic and a biotic nature, increasing seed vigour, improving nitrogen fertilizer use efficiency, enhancement of root area.
Increased lipolysis after infusion of acylated ghrelin: a randomized, double‐blinded placebo‐controlled trial in hypopituitary patients

Acylated ghrelin increases growth hormone (GH) and adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH) secretion from the anterior pituitary gland. Additionally, it increases free fatty acid levels independently of GH and ACTH, but the impact of ghrelin on fatty acid turnover has not been determined. This study was designed to test whether acylated ghrelin directly increases the turnover rate of fatty acids.
Carbon-Based Liner for RESET Current Reduction in Self-Heating Phase- Change Memory Cells

The use of carbon-based (C-based) liners is investigated for RESET current reduction in self-heating, pillar-shaped phase-change memory (PCM) cells for storage class memory (SCM) technologies. The liner is inserted between the top electrode and the phase-change layer. A finite element analysis (FEA) is done to simulate the effect of this liner on the RESET current, using the melting current as a proxy. From this FEA, we see that the high resistance of the C-based liner increases the heat generation at the interface with the phase-change layer, changing the cell from being solely self-heated by the phase-change layer to a combination of the phase-change layer’s self-heating and heating from the C-based liner. The simulation results are validated against experimental results from fabricated pillar cells. We show the liner reduces the melting current of the pillar cell by 60%. The effect of the thickness of the C-based liner and the phase-change layer on the melting current is quantified, showing a strong dependence on the liner thickness and a weak dependence on the phase-change layer thickness. These findings can guide the design of PCM cells with high-resistance liners between the electrode and phase-change layer for RESET current reduction.
Implications of Carbohydrate Binding Modules of Cellulases Summarized from Visualization

Cellulase is an important enzyme in biotechnology, and has signal domain, catalytic domain, carbohydrate binding module (CBM) and linker. CBM helps the association of soluble cellulases with insoluble cellulose in cellulosic hydrolysis. We review the visualizations of CBM from three aspects: CBM adsorption to cellulose, CBM occupying space in cellulose and cellulose surface accessibility to CBM. Our review reveals: the most effective crystal faces are 220 and $2\overline{2}0$ for cellulose; cellulase is more efficient to catalyze the cellulose with at least 50 cellobioses; and a bunch of celluloses can be stratified into not only traditional amorphous and crystalline regions, but also disordered/dislocated region, and each region is subject to a specific type of CBM. Our review implies: cellulases usually approach cellulose through 100, $1\overline{1}0$ and 010 crystal faces although $\beta$-1,4-glycosidic bond is located near to crystal faces 220 and $2\overline{2}0$; and it requires the small sized cellulases to access to fragment of cellulose because cellulases appear much larger for cellulose smaller than 50 cellobioses.
Resource Depedency Analysis in Multi-Core Systems

In this paper, we evaluate different methods for statistical determination of application resource dependency in multi-core systems. We measure the performance counters of an application during run-time and create a system resource usage profile. We then use the resource profile to evaluate the application dependency on the specific resource. We discuss and evaluate two methods to process the data, including moving average filter and partitioning the data into smaller segments in order to interpret data for correlation calculations. Our aim with this study is to evaluate and create a generalizeable methods for automatic determination of resource dependencies. The final outcome of the methods used in this study is the answer to the question: "To what resources is this application dependent on? ". The recommendation of this tool will be used in conjunction with our last-level cache partitioning controller (LLC-PC), to make decision if an application should receive last-level cache partition slices.