Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Very low oral exposure to prions of brain or saliva origin can transmit chronic wasting disease

The minimum infectious dose required to induce CWD infection in cervids remains unknown, as does whether peripherally shed prions and/or multiple low dose exposures are important factors in CWD transmission. With the goal of better understand CWD infection in nature, we studied oral exposures of deer to very low doses of CWD prions and also examined whether the frequency of exposure or prion source may influence infection and pathogenesis. We orally inoculated white-tailed deer with either single or multiple divided doses of prions of brain or saliva origin and monitored infection by serial longitudinal tissue biopsies spanning over two years. We report that oral exposure to as little as 300 nanograms (ng) of CWD-positive brain or to saliva containing seeding activity equivalent to 300 ng of CWD-positive brain, were sufficient to transmit CWD disease. This was true whether the inoculum was administered as a single bolus or divided as three weekly 100 ng exposures. However, when the 300 ng total dose was apportioned as 10, 30 ng doses delivered over 12 weeks, no infection occurred. While low-dose exposures to prions of brain or saliva origin prolonged the time from inoculation to first detection of infection, once infection was established, we observed no differences in disease pathogenesis. These studies suggest that the CWD minimum infectious dose approximates 100 to 300 ng CWD-positive brain (or saliva equivalent), and that CWD infection appears to conform more with a threshold than a cumulative dose dynamic.
Association between Coronary Artery Disease and rs10757278 and rs1333049 Polymorphisms in 9p21 Locus in Iran.

Background Coronary arteries disease (CAD) has been recognized as one of the most common causes of death worldwide, with an estimated seven million deaths annually. Methods Two hundred blood samples from Iranian CAD patients and normal healthy controls were collected. CAD and the 9p21 locus variants rs1333049 and rs10757278 were analyzed for potential associations. Results No significant differences in rs10757278 and rs1333049 polymorphisms were found between patients and controls, but a significant relationship was found between rs10757278 and rs1333049 in CAD patients at the genotype level (p= 0.0323). At the haplotype level and on the basis of diplotype analysis, a significant relationship was found between patients and controls (OR= 5.16, p= 0.047, 95% CI: 1.02-26.0). In CAD patients, rs10757278 and rs1333049 were associated at locus 9p21. Conclusion The inconsistency between the results of this and other studies on different CAD populations may be due to high population, different ethnicities, low prevalence of some alleles in populations, and interactions of different genes.
Microscopic magnetic and high frequency properties of a stress sensor using FeCoBSi magnetorestrictive thin films

Magnetoelastic thin films are applied in remote interrogatable high-frequency devices. Integrated LC circuits operating at a frequency of 350 MHz are demonstrated. Due to the incorporation of the magnetic thin films, their inductance is sensitive to the applied external stress. A demonstrator was built, allowing a visualization of the effect of tensile and compressive strain on the device response. A comparison of the demonstrator measurement with high-frequency properties and the domain structure of the magnetoelastic layer proves an efficient integration of the magnetic material. The differences between predicted and measured device performance are related to an additional local stress distribution inside the magnetic device thus leading to an inhomogeneous stress and a locally varying magnetic anisotropy distribution. The investigations are essential for future applications of the devices as strain gauges or torque sensors.
Investigação da presença de Escherichia coli em canários que vieram a óbito por doença respiratória

O canario ( Serinus canarius ) e um pequeno passaro canoro, membro da familia Fringillidae , originaria dos Acores, da Ilha da Madeira e das Ilhas Canarias. A criacao destas aves em cativeiro e bem sucedida, mas existem alguns aspectos importantes que devem ser considerados, como a higiene das instalacoes e utensilios, alimentacao adequada, controle de insetos, roedores e das doencas infectocontagiosas. As doencas infecciosas respiratorias sao relatadas por muitos criadores como um dos principais problemas de saude destas aves, no entanto existem poucos estudos cientificos sobre o assunto no Brasil. Em aves em geral (principalmente nas de producao, como galinhas e perus), duas das principais infeccoes sao a doenca cronica respiratoria (DCR), causada por micoplasmas (como Mycoplasma gallisepticum, MG, e Mycoplasma synoviae, MS), e a doenca respiratoria cronica complicada (DRCC) causada por cepas da bacteria Escherichia coli. Em estudo recente, demonstramos a ausencia de MG e MS em canarios que vieram a obito com sintomatologia respiratoria. Em razao disso, o presente estudo teve como objetivo investigar a possivel presenca de E. coli nos orgaos destas mesmas aves. A metodologia consistiu na analise de 79 amostras de traqueias vindas de canarios que vieram a obito no Campeonato Brasileiro de Ornitologia, 2a. Etapa, Itatiba - Sao Paulo. Os criadores eram oriundos de diferentes regioes do pais: Sul (24), Sudeste (50) e Centro-Oeste/Nordeste (6). As amostras foram submetidas a extracao do DNA pelo metodo de adsorcao em silica, utilizando o kit comercial NewGene (Simbios Biotecnologia, Cachoeirinha - Brasil). A deteccao de E. coli foi realizada pela amplificacao de cinco genes alvo relacionados a fatores de virulencia ( iutA, iss, iroN, ompT e hlyF ) pela tecnica de reacao em cadeia da polimerase em tempo real. Todas as amostras analisadas tiveram resultados negativos demonstrando que caso haja a infeccao de canarios por E. coli esta nao ocorre de forma generalizada.
Hydroxyapatite Biosynthesis by a Serratia sp. and Application of Nanoscale Bio-HA in the Recovery of Strontium and Europium

ABSTRACT A Serratia sp. expresses a high level of acid phosphatase when grown continuously under carbon limitation. In the presence of CaCl2, biosynthesis of nanocrystalline hydroxyapatite (bio-HA) was achieved by utilizing phosphate released via enzymatic cleavage of an applied substrate (glycerol 2-phosphate: G2P). Hydroxyapatite crystals were identified by energy dispersive X-ray emission (EDX) and selected area diffraction (SAD). X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) analysis gave a mean crystallite size of ∼21–32 nm, with the smallest crystals (21–24 nm) obtained using 1 mM Ca2+ and 1 mM G2P. The uptake of Eu3+ and Sr2+ by bio-HA made by continuously pregrown cells (0.42 mg/mg and 0.043 mg/mg respectively) was ∼20% greater for Sr2+ than was previously reported for bio-HA material of size ∼40 nm made by batch-pregrown cells, while the corresponding uptake of Eu3+ was increased by > 1.8-fold. This was attributed to the localization of Eu (III) at grain boundaries by reference to previous work and highlights the potential of bio-HA as a sequestration agent for recovery of rare earth elements and trivalent actinides.
DAMAGE EVALUATION OF RC BUILDING WITH SOIL- STRUCTURE INTERACTION BY SEISMIC INTERFEROMETRY: A NUMERICAL CASE STUDY

A numerical study is presented representing a realistic soil-structure interaction (SSI) model under seismic loading. The studied case is composed of an 8-story reinforced concrete building founded over a layered soil. The aim of this work is to assess numerically the role of the non-linear soil behaviour on both the seismic response of structure and on its seismic damage assessment. Several 2D finite element models are carried out using a realistic nonlinear elastoplastic model to represent both the soil behaviour and the building. Thus, several nonlinear dynamic analyses are performed in a parametric analysis. For this reason, appropriate input ground motions are chosen to enforce the inelastic behaviour of the soil. In order to track the evolution of induced structural damage, seismic interferometry by deconvolution of the numerical signals allows easy identification of normal modes of the SSI system and the structure alone (i.e. rigid base condition). Apparent wave velocities in the building estimated from the deconvolved signals (Impulse Response Functions IRF) are consistent with the input model parameters. Special focus on the different contributions of seismic attenuation and strategies to measure them from the IRF are discussed.
Improving PHY-Security of UAV-Enabled Transmission with Wireless Energy Harvesting: Robust Trajectory Design and Power Allocation

In this paper, we consider an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) assisted communications system, including two cooperative UAVs, a wireless-powered ground destination node leveraging simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) technique, and a terrestrial passive eavesdropper. One UAV delivers confidential information to destination and the other sends jamming signals to against eavesdropping and assist destination with energy harvesting. Assuming UAVs have partial information about eavesdropper's location, we propose two transmission schemes: friendly UAV jamming (FUJ) and Gaussian jamming transmission (GJT) for the cases when jamming signals are known and unknown a priori at destination, respectively. Then, we formulate an average secrecy rate maximization problem to jointly optimize the transmission power and trajectory of UAVs, and the power splitting ratio of destination. Being non-convex and hence intractable the formulated problem, we propose an iterative algorithm based on block coordinate descent and successive convex approximation to efficiently solve it. Finally, numerical results are provided to substantiate the effectiveness of our proposed multiple-UAV schemes, compared to other existing benchmarks. Specifically, we find that the FUJ demonstrates significant secrecy performance improvement in terms of the optimal instantaneous and average secrecy rate compared to the GJT and the conventional single-UAV counterpart.
Zero-Based Budget System and its Active Role in Choosing the Best Alternative to Rationalise Government Spending

The zero-based budget represents a system for preparation of the financial budget which includes all the expenses that must be allocated for each new fiscal year. The budget starts from the "zero points" and any function within the unity government is analysed according to their needs and costs. Then a budget is prepared based on the requirements of the next stage, regardless of whether the budget is more or less than its predecessor. This study was processed in one of the sub-units of the government in the province of Al Muthanna, Iraq. It is the municipality of the city of Samawah circle to a survey sample of accountants working in that department and auditors' opinions, as well as the practical use of the experimental method to determine the benefit of using the zerobased budget system. This study aims to develop the budget system in the sub-units of government, including the city of Samawah in the province of Muthanna, Iraq. The aim is to use the zero-based budget system, make the necessary steps to implement those budget applications and then reduce the waste in the public fund by reducing unnecessary public expenditure. Results of the study showed through statistical analysis that there is full acceptance by the respondents of the importance of adopting and implementing the zero-based budget system. The results of the study applied also showed that there is significant financial feasibility obtained by the sub-units of government through the trade-offs between the alternatives available for the use of the zero-based budget system. The study found a set of recommendations, the most important is the need to move the process of budgeting in government units from the traditional budget (budget items) to a zero-based budget. When applied it has several characteristics, the most prominent being flexibility.
Blind Kalman Filtering for Short-Term Load Forecasting

In this work we address the problem of short-term load forecasting. We propose a generalization of the linear state-space model where the evolution of the state and the observation matrices is unknown. The proposed blind Kalman filter algorithm proceeds via alternating the estimation of these unknown matrices and the inference of the state, within the framework of expectation-maximization. A mini-batch processing strategy is introduced to allow on-the-fly forecasting. The experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms the state-of-the-art techniques by a considerable margin, both on load profile estimation and peak load forecast problems.
Can Customer Misbehavior Be Controlled? Case study on Retail Industry Consumer Behavior in Indonesia

Retail industry is one of the fastest growing industries in Indonesia, with Hypermart as one of the biggest retail companies. As it provides consumer goods for large percentage of Indonesians, Hypermart faces intense and frequent interaction with its customer. As such, various misbehaviors from the customers’ part will negatively and significantly affect the company. In this paper, misbehavior is defined as a behavior within the exchange setting that deliberately violates the generally accepted norms of conduct in such situation (Daunt and Harris, 2011). The aim of this study is to understand the connection between past and future probabilities of customers’ misbehavior. In previous studies on customer misbehavior, this connection has not been adequately researched. Additionally, five personality-based variables (consumer alienation, Machiavellianism, sensation seeking, aggressiveness, and self-esteem) are also examined to see their connection with past customer misbehavior, which in turn will affect future misbehavior. 200 respondents were evaluated, and the data were analyzed using multiple regressions with SPSS 16. The result of this study can be utilized by companies facing customer misbehavior problems and in shaping a strategy to reduce such problems.
Phaseolus vulgaris L.): COMPOSIÇÃO QUÍMICA E DIGESTIBILIDADE PROTÉICA Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) lines: chemical composition and protein digestibility

Bean represents the main source of proteins for the low income populations, though the digestibility of those proteins is relatively low. Consequently, the programs of plant genetic breeding have been working on the search for new lines with higher protein levels. Thus, with the purpose of supplying information to the researchers, in this work 21 bean ( Phaseolus vulgaris L.) lines were analyzed for the centesimal and mineral composition, protein digestibility, phenolic compounds and trypsin inhibitor. The entirely randomized experimental design was used with 21 treatments (lines) and three repetitions. All values were within the following ranges: 22.34 to 36.28g of crude protein/100g of dry matter (DM); 7.56 to 20.91g of neutral detergent fiber/100g DM; 0.53 to 2.55g of fat/100g DM and 2.97 to 4.87g of ashes/100g DM. The levels, in g/100g DM, of P, K, Ca, Mg and S varied from 0.45 to 0.72; 1.51 to 2.48; 0.03 to 0.28; 0.18 to 0.34 and 0.28 to 0.45, respectively. Regarding Cu, Mn, Zn and Fe, the levels in mg/kg DM, varied from 11.37 to 17.73; 14.93 to 28.90; 36.67 to 69.90 and 71.37 to 126.90, respectively. The in vitro protein digestibility varied from 18,03% to 48,32%. The levels of phenolic compounds varied from 0.28 to 1.08mg of acid tanic/100g DM and the one of trypsin inhibitor from 59.93 to 151.07 TIU/mg DM. Among the lines with higher protein contents, ESAL 569 (beige with brown stripe) presented the largest protein digestibility and also considerable levels of minerals. P-180 (beige with brown stripe) was one of the lines with higher crude protein contents and digestibilities, and also presented high levels for most of the minerals. No relationship between protein digestibility and the contents of phenolic compounds and trypsin inhibitor was observed.
Indo-Pak Conflicts Ripe to Resolve?

Co-authored by D. Suba Chandran, Deputy Director, IPCS, this volume looks as the Indo-Pak and the recent peace process through the prism of various ripeness theories, especially William Zartman's: when the parties engaged in the conflict realize that a stalemate is reached which is hurting, they look towards reaching a compromise. Has the Indo-Pak conflict reached the mutually hurting stalemate stage? What made General Musharraf adopt a political approach towards India after initiating a military confrontation in Kargil? Why did the Vajpayee government decide to change its policy towards Pakistan after a year long confrontation in 2002? Has there been a realization that the confrontational policy/military option had failed? Or was it due to the external pressure from the international community led by the US? Numerous changes have been taking place inside Jammu and Kashmir. The Indian Government has organized a successful election for the state legislative assembly. The new state government in J and K has initiated a 'healing touch' policy, which is yet to make changes at the ground level. The Hurriyat stands vertically divided and the armed non-state actors including the militant and jihadi organizations have their own objectives. The bus service between the two Kashmirs has started and is welcomed by people despite opposition from a section of militants and separatists. Is the Kashmir conflict finally ripe to resolve? The book also looks into certain preconditions essential to make the conditions ripe and suggest measures that would initiate a process towards a final compromise between India and Pakistan. "
Importance of the European Neighbourhood Policy

as an important tool of security policy, given the close link­ age between integration and security. There are reasons to assume that successful association of the neighbouring countries to the EU may produce the same results. In a recent report, Stefan Lehne (2014) recommends that the Neigh­ bourhood Policy should expand the ENP framework to more countries and that engagement should be more diversified according to the needs and capacities of the individual coun­ tries. Further, notes Lehne, there is a need to improve the ENP toolbox and develop capacity for rapid reaction, as well as developing a more sophisticated approach to promoting democratic values; and finally, the EU needs to strengthen the political leadership of the ENP (Lehne 2014).
IJSRD-International Journal for Scientific Research & Development| Vol. 4, Issue 10, 2016 | ISSN (online): 2321-0613

The study of Plant Diseases refers to the studies of visually observable patterns of a particular plant. Now a day’s crops face many diseases. It also affected the agriculture sector of our country. This paper provides a method to detect disease by calculating leaf area through pixel number statistics. The method studied is for increasing throughput and reducing subjectiveness arising from human experts in detecting the leaf disease. Leaf spots can be indicative of crop diseases, where leaf batches are examined manually and subjected to expert opinion. In this paper an Image Processing system is developed to automate the inspection of these leaf spots.
Now is not the time to be afraid of debt

Governments are trying to alleviate the widespread liquidity problems caused by the COVID-19 crisis by facilitating access to loans and guaranteeing debt. However, entrepreneurs frequently do not apply for a loan, even if the company would be in need of financing (Nguyen et al., 2020). In the context of an economic downturn, this self-rationing behavior is expected to become more pronounced, and can generate large economic problems. Research suggests self-rationing can be related to burdensome application procedures and the anticipation of being refused a loan, but is often also motivated by inherent debt aversion that is likely grounded in cultural factors. To reduce the risk of widespread underuse, effective credit support programs should therefore not only be designed with streamlined application procedures and simple-to-understand features, but should also be accompanied by a communication effort targeted at reducing debt aversion and other forms of borrower discouragement.
A review of implementations in wearables to detect stress

In this era where robustness is in high demand, relying on medical professionals for your regular health checkup is a bit tedious. One of the major concerns in today’s world is the stress experienced by a user, which can have adverse effects on health, also known as cognitive stress, psychological stress or psychosocial stress. There are a lot of devices present to monitor and record rudimentary information of a user’s physiology. Groundbreaking and advanced technologies such as Polyplethysmography (PPG) which provides a wide spectrum of features which can be used to observe physiological changes and compute the stress level of a person. Use of wearable devices in health monitoring has increased exponentially over the past few years. In all these devices PPG sensor has been a key component. In this paper uses of PPG sensors are discussed for obtaining values for parameters such as blood flow, heartbeat, oxygen consumption etc. These features are further used to derive complex features, e.g. heartbeat is used to get heart rate variability which in turn can be used to detect sleep stages. Other sensors in smart watches can provide skin conductance which when collaborated with features like body temperature can provide hydration level of the body. In this paper, multiple algorithms and state-of-the-art researches that use PPG technology in wearables to monitor the above mentioned features are mentioned. It is discussed that stress can be detected using sleep history, hydration, heart rate variability and oxygen consumption.
Genetic regulation of vascular development in Arabidopsis thaliana

Vascular tissues distribute water and nutrients throughout the plant. To achieve this, cells of the vascular system are elongated and interconnected and undergo specialized differentiation. Manipulation of auxin distribution has shown that this hormone plays a pivotal role in vascular patterning and differentiation, although the molecular genetic basis of this is largely missing. Here we show that the expression of PIN I, an auxin efflux carrier, is gradually narrowed down to the sites ofleaf vein . formation and that PIN I is a potential component of a positive feedback loop involving auxin and the transcription factor MP. In a separate study, we assessed whether auxininduced vascular overgrowth could be used to identify genes expressed in vascular tissues based on increased mRNA abundance as assessed by microarray analysis. We found strong support for this hypothesis as we analyzed the expression of40 up-regulated genes in detail and initiated a phenotypic study.
Mn katkılı ZnS Nanopartiküllerinin Yapısal ve Optik Özellikleri: Sol-gel ve Kuantum Kimyasal Çalışmaları

In the present work, undoped and Mn-doped ZnS nanoparticles (ZnS:Mn) were growth by the sol-gel method at room temperature and characterized by X-ray diffraction method. The concentration of the Mn ions was changed from 2 to 6%. The influence of Mn doping on the optical properties of un-doped ZnS thin films was reported. These results were also compared to the ZnS:Mn thin films produced by different techniques. In UV-Vis. studies, the band gap energy was found to be 3.45–3.67 eV depending on the Mn doping ratio. In addition, undoped and Mn-doped ZnS nanoparticles were theoretically performed as a cluster by semi empirical calculations. In these calculations, the Zn7S7 and Zn5Mn2S7 were optimized by semi-empirical pm6 level. The theoretical band gaps for both molecules were calculated with same method. KeywordsSol-gel Process, Nanoparticles, Thin Film, PM6 BŞEÜ Fen Bilimleri Dergisi 6(2), 511-518, 2019 BSEU Journal of Science DOI: 10.35193/bseufbd. 613777 e-ISSN: 2458-7575 (http://dergipark.gov.tr/bseufbd)