Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effect of Carbon Sources and Their Various Concentrations for Optimize in In vitro Micro propagation of Banana Musa (spp.) Basrai

Banana fruit is the second vital food crop. Although the significant business crop value, the major production restrain is the accessibility of reliable and harmless material for planting. For in vitro growth of excited tissues, sources of carbon have been considered as one of the most significant factor. Types of sugars and concentrations are identified to affect the in vitro protocol success. Crop micro propagation is also facing the challenges which require to be addressed in order to improvement in its production. In this study, influence of three carbon sources such as (dextrose, sucrose and sorbitol) used to increase Murashige and Skoog medium at four applications control, 15, 30, 45 and 60g/l respectively. This study is accomplished at the laboratory of tissue culture of Plant Pathology Section, Sindh Agricutlure Research Insitute, Tandojam, Pakistan in 2017. Randomized Block Design (RBD) method with 3 replications was used for each treatment. Results indicated that sucrose give maximum result as compared to dextrose and sorbitol. Though, significant result was found in sucrose 30g/l as compared to dextrose and sorbitol concentrations.
Growth of stunted elver of the Indonesian shortfin eel Anguilla bicolor McClelland, 1844 rearing in semi-natural media

This study aimed to evaluate the growth of stunted elver Anguilla bicolor from three different periods of stunting process. Prior to experiment, the stunting process of elver was carried out by limiting the feeding rate at 2% of the fish biomass and temperature media with 24 oC for 2, 4, and 6 months period. The study used a completely randomized design with three different sources of stunted elvers (i.e., A = 2 months; B = 4 months; C = 6 months) as treatments with three replications. Measurement of RNA:DNA ratio, protein content, profile blood description and elver otolith growth was carried out at the beginning and end of rearing process. Post-stunting elvers were reared on artificial media designed according to elver habitat and controlled. Elver was stocked with 15 individuals in the artificial semi-natural media with a temperature of 28 oC and fed with 1 kg media-1 day-1 tubifex worm for three months. The results showed that the compensatory growth of stunted elvers increased two to three times with 100% of survival rate after three months of rearing process. Stunting has a significant effect on treatment B, indicated by the value of weight specific growth rates, RNA : DNA ratio, protein content, blood glucose levels and otolith growth of elvers. This study revealed that the growth performance of stunted elver reared in semi-natural media for four months is better than other treatments.
Pharmacokinetics and Tissue Residues of Tilmicosin in Normal and Experimentally Mycoplasma Gallisepticum-Infected Broiler Chickens

The present study was conducted to investigate the pharmacokinetics of tilmicosin (25 mg/kg b.wt.) following single and repeated oral administration (once daily for three consecutive days) as well as tissue residues in normal and experimentally Mycoplasma gallisepticum-infected broiler chickens. Following single administration of tilmicosin in normal chickens, the drug reached its maximum serum concentrations (Cmax) after 2.45±0.01 h of administration with value of 0.97±0.04 μg/ml. Absorption half-life (t0.5ab) of tilmicosin was 0.89±0.02 h and the elimination half-life (t0.5el) was 14.73 ±1.24 h. The repeated oral administration of tilmicosin in normal and Mycoplasma gallisepticuminfected chickens revealed a lower significant serum tilmicosin concentration after all times of sampling in infected chickens compared to those of normal chickens. Tilmicosin residues was assayed in lung, kidney, liver, heart, breast muscle, thigh muscle, fat and skin after 24, 48, 72, 96, 120 and 144 h post last dose. The results showed that the highest residue values were recorded in lung followed by liver and kidneys while the lowest values were recorded in heart. Tilmicosin residues were not detected in all tested tissues except in lung till 5 day after sessation of drug administration. However, all the tested tissues were free from tilmicosin residues after 5 day after sessation of tilmicosin administration and this suggest a withdrawal period of five days for tilmicosin in broiler chickens. In conclusion, timicosin has rapid absorption, long elimination half-life, rapid and extensive penetration from blood into tissues especially lungs. Additionally, timicosin had a short withdrawal time.
Development of an Ecoregional Floristic Quality Assessment Method for the Northeastern United States

Abstract Floristic quality assessments (FQA) are widely used to assess ecological condition, based on plant species' coefficients of conservatism, or C values, but these values are typically assigned at the state level, limiting their regional consistency. We developed ecoregional C values (eC) using standard expert-based team review, partly informed by preexisting state C values for the 5 EPA ecoregions that cover New England and part of New York. We evaluated a total of 3686 taxa, with separate eC values for each ecoregion in which they occurred. We compared the performance of the C and eC values using the response of FQA metrics (mean C, cover-weighted mean C) to a disturbance gradient, based on readily available datasets in Maine and Vermont. The eC values typically performed moderately better than state values and provide a region-wide tool for assessment methods. All eC values are available on the Universal FQA website.
Formation and Effect of Social Media Usage Habit

ABSTRACT The widespread of social media (SM) provides information system (IS) research with a great opportunity to examine IS usage habit. This study adapts habit perspectives of social psychology into social media use and contextualizes findings from both service marketing and IS usage literature for developing a model of SM usage habit. The model suggests a set of behavior-, goal-, affect-, and expectation-based factors that drive the formation of habit for SM use, which in turn influences future usage behavior. By testing the model with a longitudinal field survey of 518 social networking service (SNS) users, this study provides an integrative context-specific view of SM usage habit and addresses unconscious habitual IS use beyond the traditional perspectives of conscious intentional behavior. The findings have important implications for promoting sustainability of social media applications and services.
Diversification of mitogenomes in three sympatric Altica flea beetles (Insecta, Chrysomelidae)

The Asian flea beetles Altica cirsicola, Altica fragariae and Altica viridicyanea are broadly sympatric and morphologically highly similar but feed on distantly related host plants. They have been suggested as a model for ecological speciation studies. However, their phylogeny and species limits remain uncertain. In this study, we added mitochondrial genomes from multiple individuals of each species to the growing database. Phylogenetic analyses based on 15 genes showed clear interspecific divergences of A. fragariae from the other species, but A. cirsicola and A. viridicyanea were not distinguishable by distance‐based or tree‐based methods of species delimitation due to non‐monophyly of mitogenomes relative to the morphologically defined entities, possibly affected by interspecific introgression. This was confirmed by wider sampling of mitochondrial COX1 (58 individuals) and the second internal transcribed spacer of nuclear ribosomal RNA cluster (ITS2; 68 individuals), which showed that ITS2, but not COX1, coincided with the morphological species limits. The full mitochondrial genomes are not able to shed further light on the species status, even with the most sensitive approach based on diagnostic characters, yet the whole mitogenome is useful to get improved estimates of intra‐ and interspecific variation, not affected by the stochastic error seen in individual genes.
Single unit activity in marmoset posterior parietal cortex in a gap saccade task

Abnormal saccadic eye movements can serve as biomarkers for patients with several neuropsychiatric disorders. To investigate cortical control mechanisms of saccadic responses, the common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) is a promising non-human primate model. Their lissencephalic brain allows for accurate targeting of homologues of sulcal areas in the macaque brain. Here we recorded single unit activity in the posterior parietal cortex of two marmosets using chronic microelectrode arrays, while the monkeys performed a saccadic task with Gap trials (stimulus onset lagged fixation point offset by 200ms) interleaved with Step trials (fixation point disappeared when the peripheral stimulus appeared). Both marmosets showed a gap effect—shorter saccadic reaction times (SRTs) in Gap vs. Step trials. On average, stronger gap-period response across the entire neuronal population preceded shorter SRTs on trials with contralateral targets, although this correlation was stronger among the 15% ‘gap neurons’, which responded significantly during the gap. We also found 39% ‘target neurons’ with significant visual target-related responses, which were stronger in Gap trials and correlated with the SRTs better than the remaining cells. Compared with slow saccades, fast saccades were preceded by both stronger gap-related and target-related response in all PPC neurons, regardless of whether such response reached significance. Our findings suggest that the PPC in the marmoset contains an area that is involved in the modulation of saccadic preparation and plays roles comparable to those of area LIP in macaque monkeys in eye movements. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Abnormal saccadic eye movements can serve as biomarkers for different neuropsychiatric disorders. So far, processes of cerebral cortical control of saccades are not fully understood. Non-human primates are ideal models for studying such processes, and the marmoset is especially advantageous since their smooth cortex permits laminar analyses of cortical microcircuits. Using electrode arrays implanted in the posterior parietal cortex of marmosets, we found neurons responsive to key periods of a saccadic task in a manner that contribute to cortical modulation of saccadic preparation. Notably, this signal was correlated with subsequent saccadic reaction times and was present in the entire neuronal population. We suggest that the marmoset model will shed new light on the cortical mechanisms of saccadic control.
Microwave Dielectric Properties of Water Saturated Carbonate Rocks

The electromagnetic properties of forty water saturated limestone samples were measured at 9.54 GHz and reported. Measured average relative permittivity of the water saturated rocks was approximately (11.12, 0.0985). In addition to the dielectric measurements, the bulk density (ρT) and porosity (ΦT) were measured for all the 40 limestone samples. The porosity of the samples varies between 2% and 15%. The dielectric data (e′ and e″) were strongly correlated with Ð¤T and ρT. The measured dielectric data were fitted with Bottcher, Looyenga, Maxwell, Bruggeman mixture formulae and TP model. There is a good correlation between the observed data and the data calculated from the models. The potential of using microwave tomography on limestone rock was examined based on the resulting properties.
L'analyse de l'interactome du facteur de transcription M2-1 du Virus Respiratoire Syncytial révèle une interaction avec PABPC1 (polyA-binding protein cytoplasmic 1)

Bien que le Virus Respiratoire Syncytial, responsable de la bronchiolite du nourrisson, soit aujourd’hui un probleme de sante publique majeur, il n’existe encore aucun vaccin ou antiviral curatif contre ce pathogene. Le manque de donnees sur les etapes cles du cycle viral et sur les interactions virus-cellule freine le developpement de nouvelles molecules antivirales.Nous avons etudie l’interactome de deux proteines virales : la polymerase L et le facteur de transcription M2-1. Dans ce but, nous avons mis au point un crible s’appuyant a la fois sur des criteres d’interactomique et sur des criteres fonctionnels.La premiere etape consistait a identifier des partenaires potentiels de M2-1 et L par des co-immunoprecipitations couplees a une approche de proteomique quantitative. Pour plus de pertinence, ce crible a ete realise sur cellules infectees, grâce des virus recombinants produits par genetique inverse. Ceci nous a permis d’identifier 45 et 137 partenaires potentiels de L et M2-1 respectivement. Une etude systematique de l’impact de l’inhibition de 15 partenaires potentiels de M2-1 sur la multiplication virale a mis en avant trois candidats : ILF2, PABPN1 et PABPC1.Nous nous sommes par la suite concentres sur PABPC1. L’inhibition de l’expression de PABPC1 altere la multiplication virale, mais nous n’avons pas pu mettre en evidence un effet specifique sur la transcription ou la traduction virale. Son interaction avec M2-1 a ete confirmee, et le domaine MLLE de PABPC1 a ete identifie comme le site de liaison a M2-1. L’interaction entre M2-1 et PABPC1 a ete observee a la fois dans le cytoplasme et dans les IBAGs, des sous-structures concentrant les ARNm viraux au sein des corps d’inclusion viraux. Nous avons formule l’hypothese que M2-1, liee a PABPC1, accompagne les ARNm viraux apres leur sortie des corps d’inclusion. Ceci suggere un role de M2-1 dans le devenir des ARNm viraux en aval de leur transcription.
Robust approach for AMC in frequency selective fading scenarios using unsupervised sparse-autoencoder-based deep neural network

Application of deep learning in the area of automatic modulation classification (AMC) is still evolving. An unsupervised sparse-autoencoder-based deep neural network (SAE-DNN) is proposed to deal with the problem of AMC for much neglected frequency selective fading scenarios with Doppler shift. The authors propose a set of low complexity spectral and cumulant based features for training SAE-DNN. The network is designed using forced dimensionality reduction and sparsity constraint to achieve a low complexity solution with improved ability to learn more refined and robust features from the input training data. A unique training method is presented in this study which incorporates a range of SNR values for the entire span of the training dataset, as compared to the conventional approach which only uses a single SNR value for all the training examples. A comprehensive performance analysis shows that the proposed method outperforms many conventional counterparts in the literature. Generalisation test verifies that network is feasible for all channel conditions. A robust classification behaviour is observed against phase-frequency impairments and Doppler shift for frequency selective fading scenarios.
Magnetic manipulation of axonal endosome transport in live neurons

Noninvasive control of axonal cargos in live neurons is a challenging prospect that can enable novel research on the mechanisms of axonal cargo transport, cargo-mediated signaling and axonal traffic jams in neurons. However, conventional techniques for force manipulation such as optical traps are limited to a few micron-sized cargos and are not applicable to the small axonal cargos in live neurons. Here, we present a new methodology that permits the external control of axonal endosome transport via tailored magnetic forces. By culturing neurons in a microfluidic device made up of microfabricated magnetic arrays, we can exert 3 – 48 pN forces on retrograde axonal endosomes carrying fluorescent magnetic nanoparticles, 100 – 260 nm in size. The magnetic force counters the forces exerted by molecular motors driving the endosomes and results in a wide range of perturbations on endosome transport in axons. These perturbations, captured by oblique illumination fluorescence imaging, reveal new insights on the collective function of dyneins and the nature of paused and stationary states during retrograde endosome transport in axons. Most notably, we demonstrate controllable capture and release of retrograde endosomes in axons by toggling the external magnetic field. This technical advance has great potential to elucidate the spatiotemporal origins of long-distance endosome signaling pathways as well as the ramifications of axonal traffic jams in neurons.
Consumer Preferences for Sustainably Produced Bananas: A Discrete Choice Experiment

Even though sustainability has become an omnipresent mega-trend, very little related research has been done in Europe. The objective of the present paper is to discover consumers’ perceptions concerning sustainably produced bananas. To this end, 316 German consumers participated in a discrete choice experiment and filled in a questionnaire. The results confirm that trust in the standard setter plays a particularly important role for the success of a label. Generally there is need for further simplification and information.
Nutrient losses from cattle co-digestate slurry during storage

Among environmental issues related to intensive livestock activity, emissions to air from manure management are of increasing concern. Thus the knowledge of the effect of treatment application on subsequent emissions from manure is required to assess the environment impact of management solutions. This work addresses the effect of anaerobic digestion and phase separation on emissions during storage by studying nitrogen losses from lab-scale stores and field pilot-scale stores of a co-digestate cattle slurry and its respective separated fractions. Lab-scale experiment was carried in temperature-controlled room where each fraction (untreated, separated liquid and separated solid) was stored in duplicate for a period of 32 days in 30 L vessel. Pilot-scale experiment was carried out both during the cold season and during warm season for 90 days of storage. In both experimentations samples of the manure were analysed periodically for total Kjeldahl nitrogen (TKN), total ammonia nitrogen, dry matter and volatile solids and pH. These analyses allow estimating nitrogen losses in different storage conditions. Effects of mechanical separation and season were assessed by ANOVA (Wilcoxon test, P<0.05). In temperature controlled conditions nitrogen losses measured account for 13% and 26% of TKN for unseparated and separated slurries respectively. In field conditions during cold season nutrient losses were limited. On average unseparated and separated slurries lost respectively 6.8% and 12.6% of their initial TKN content. Much higher were the TKN losses from the slurries examined in warm season where losses raised up to 40% of the initial TKN content. Generally mechanical separation increases nutrient losses, but the differences were not significant in field conditions. The results highlighted that nutrient losses, in particular the nitrogen ones, can be considerable especially during summer storage. The latter, in case of separated slurries, are mainly related to the liquid fraction, which is responsible for up 92% of the losses. When phase separation after anaerobic digestion is used, mitigation options, as covers or slurry acidification, are advisable in order to limit the negative environmental impact.
Design of Bridges Against Seismic Faulting : Methodology and Applications

This paper presents a methodology for design of bridge–foundation systems against seismic faulting. The problem is decoupled in two steps. Step 1 deals with the response of a single bridge pier and its foundation subjected to faulting–induced deformation ; Step 2 deals with the detailed model of the superstructure, which is subjected to differential displacements computed in Step 1. We analyze typical viaduct and underpass bridges, founded on piles or caisson foundations. Piled foundations are found to be vulnerable to faulting– induced deformation. While end–bearing piles cannot really sustain any appreciable bedrock offset, floating piles may perform better, especially if combined with hinged pile–to–cap connections. Statically–determinate superstructures are shown to be less sensitive to faulting– induced differential displacements and rotations. Finally, an application of the method is shown for a major bridge, demonstrating the feasibility of design against seismic faulting. INTRODUCTION In a large magnitude earthquake, structures on top of a fault outcrop may undergo significant differential movements that could lead to failure. Seismic codes have thus prohibited construction in the “immediate vicinity” of seismically active faults. But for long facilities and structures such as water channels, tunnels, pipelines, embankments, and long bridges crossing several geologic formations, such a prohibition has often been impossible to respect. Moreover, past and recent earthquakes have revealed that survival of structures “on top of a fault” is not impossible ― even when fault displacements are large (of the order of meters). In fact, the three 1999 earthquakes in Turkey (Kocaeli and Duzce-Bolu) and Taiwan (Chi-Chi), provided many examples of satisfactory structural performance [Youd et al., 2000; Erdik, 2001; Bray, 2001; Ulusay et al., 2002], serving as an actual confirmation of the older belief that structures can be designed against large tectonic displacements [Duncan & Lefebvre, 1973; Youd, 1989; Berrill, 1983]. Nevertheless, several bridges were damaged due to surface faulting in the 1999 Chi-Chi earthquake [Kawashima, 2001; Pamuk et al., 2005]. One such example is illustrated in Fig. 1, referring to a prestressed concrete bridge, the Bei-Fung viaduct in Fung-Yan City [photos adapted from Hwang, 2000]. The Chelungpu thrust fault crossed its south abutment with an upthrust of about 7 m. The result: collapse of two spans of the bridge due to differential displacement between the piers. Bridge failures, but also successes, were also reported after the 1999 Turkey earthquakes [Ulusay et al., 2002; Pamuk et al., 2005]. One such case is the failure of the 100 m Arifiye Overpass, near Adapazari. Consisting of four simply supported pre-stressed concrete spans, it was crossed by the 2 m offsetting fault: all spans fell off due to unseating. Fig. 1. Collapse of two spans of the Bei-Fung bridge due to tectonic dislocation in the 1999 Chi-Chi (Taiwan) earthquake.
Experience of mobile web-based condition monitoring technology for partial discharge detection and analysis

The implementation of a condition based monitoring system requires the integration of a variety of hardware and software components. A complete system is composed of a number of functional capabilities such as sensing and data acquisition, data manipulation, health diagnostics and prognostics. In addition there are a broad range of system level requirements that include communication and integration with legacy systems, protection of proprietary data, need for upgradeability, and reduction of engineering time and cost. The successful development of such robust, mobile systems with this level of capability requires significant difficulties to be overcome. This paper presents the architecture employed when designing and developing a PD monitoring system and the experiences learnt during testing.