Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Root Morphology and Secretion of two subtropical tree species to NH4+-N and NO3–-N Deposition

Background: Both NH4+ and NO3– are capable of greatly influencing plants’ growth and biomass. However, the belowground responses of subtropical trees to either NH4+ or NO3– deposition remain poorly understood. Here, we discuss how these two forms of N deposition can affect root development, and experimentally analyzed how they could impact nitrogen and phosphorus absorption in two types (broadleaved with a fibrous root system vs. conifer with a tap root system) of subtropical tree species. Results: In a greenhouse in southern China, 1-year-old S. superba and P. massoniana seedlings grown on P-limited and P-normal soil were treated with NaNO3 and NH4Cl solutions of 0, 80, and 200 kg N ha–1 year–1, corresponding to the control, N80, and N200 groups, respectively. Root phenotype characteristics and metabolism ability were measured after 8 months of growth. The results showed that the root morphology and physiology variables differed significantly between the two species under different N and P treatments. Although S. superba had a larger quantity of roots than P. massoniana, both its root growth rate and root absorption were respectively lower and weaker. N addition differentially affected root growth and activity as follows: (1) NO3–-N80 and NH4+-N80 increased root growth and activity of the two species, but NH4+-N80 led to thicker roots in S. superba; (2) NO3–-N200 and NH4+-N200 had inhibitory effects on the roots of P. massoniana, for which NH4+-N200 led to thinner and longer roots and even the death of some roots; and (3) NH4+-N could promote metabolic activity in thicker roots (> 1.5 mm) and the NO3–-N was found to stimulate activity in thinner roots (0.5–1.5 mm) in the fibrous root system having a larger quantity of roots, namely S. superba. By contrast, NO3–-N and NH4+-N had an opposite influence upon functioning in the tap root system with a slender root, namely P. massoniana. Conclusion: We conclude P. massoniana has a much higher root absorption efficiency; however, nitrogen deposition is more beneficial to the root growth of S. superba.
Ultrasound-Based Interprofessional Education: Priming Students for Interprofessional Collaboration

Introduction: Health sciences education programs must prepare students to work in interprofessional teams in accordance with the interprofessional core competencies delineated by the Interprofessional Education (IPE) Collaborative. Using ultrasound to teach gross anatomy provides an opportunity to introduce IPE experiences and facilitate interprofessional interactions. This pilot study uses a validated survey to assess interprofessional attitudes before and after an ultrasound-based IPE intervention. Methods: Medical and physical therapy students (n = 65) were randomly assigned to uniprofessional or interprofessional groups of 3 or 4 students to scan the shoulder and review the relevant anatomy for 30minutes. Participants completed the University of the West of England Interprofessional Questionnaire (UWE-IPQ) before and after the IPE intervention to assess interprofessional attitudes and readiness. Results: Student attitudes and perceptions about interprofessional collaboration did not change significantly following the ultrasound-based IPE intervention. The early timing of the IPE intervention in the curriculum and the brief and singular nature of the interaction may explain the results. Conclusion: Using ultrasound to teach clinically relevant anatomy remains a useful way to facilitate IPE interactions. However, we recommend sustained, repeated efforts that are introduced early in curricula to improve interprofessional competencies like establishing relationships, communication, interprofessional learning and relationships, interprofessional experiences.
Core Loss Analysis of Soft Magnetic Composites Based on 3D Model Considering Temperature Influence

Soft magnetic composite (SMC) is composed of ferromagnetic particles surrounded by an electrical insulation layer. The unique structure of SMC makes it difficult to calculate the eddy current loss of SMC. In addition, the temperature rise in the working condition affects the magnetic properties of the material, which makes it necessary to consider the temperature effect in the process of core loss prediction. In this paper, a magnetic property test platform that considers the influence of temperature is established. The core losses of the SMC ring sample were measured at 20–100 °C, and the experimental results show that core loss decreases as the temperature increases. Then, based on the method of using the SMC model to calculate the core loss, the effect of temperature increase on hysteresis loss and eddy current loss was analyzed, and the existing model was improved to consider the effect of temperature on the core loss. Finally, the measured core losses at different temperatures were compared with the calculated ones, and it is shown that the improved model considering the influence of temperature agreed well with the experimental results, which improves the accuracy and convenience of core loss calculation for the electromagnetic device with SMC cores.
Reversible Vesicle–Spherical Micelle Transition in a Polyion Complex Micellar System Induced by Changing the Mixing Ratio of Copolymer Components

The mixing ratio dependence of the morphology of a polyion complex micelle formed of an anionic–neutral double-hydrophilic block copolymer (AP) and a cationic–neutral double-hydrophilic block copolymer (MP) in 0.1 M aqueous NaCl solution was investigated by using small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), electrophoretic light scattering (ELS), and isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC), under the condition that the anionic and cationic block chains are much longer than the neutral block chains. When the anionic and cationic monomer units in the solution are nearly equimolar, the net charge of the polyion complex micelle is close to zero, and the bilayer vesicle is formed. However, when the anionic or cationic monomer units in the solution are richer than the other, the polyion complex micelle is charged by including the excess block copolymer component to form the smaller spherical micelle. The morphology transition between the vesicle and spherical micelle can take place reversibly by simply adding AP or MP i.
Joint Traffic-Aware Consolidated Middleboxes Selection and Routing in Distributed SDNs

Software middlebox-based services can be flexibly managed by software defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV). Meanwhile, traffic routing can be simplified and the number of routing rules in the SDN-enabled switches can be reduced through the consolidated middlebox model. However, different network functions in middleboxes may alter the volume of processed traffic, so high congestion may occur in specific bottleneck links if middlebox selection and traffic routing are not well jointly planned. Besides, in a statically switch-controller configured SDN, traffic dynamics will not only affect the link load in the data plane, but also pose a challenge to controller load balancing. Therefore, it’s necessary to achieve better quality-of-service (QoS) performance in both control and data planes. In this article, we first formulate this problem as a joint traffic-aware consolidated middleboxes selection and routing (JTMSR) problem and prove its NP-hardness. Then, we design a two-phase algorithm to achieve the controller and link load balancing where the first phase is to redirect selected flows by applying wildcard rules and the second phase is to find fine-grained routing path by a rounding-based algorithm with bounded approximation factor. Finally, compared with the existing algorithms through extensive simulations, it demonstrates that our method has near-optimal controller load balancing and link load balancing performance and can improve response time by 9.7% compared with static scheme.
Moringa oleifera Lam. leaf extract as bioregulator for improving growth of maize under mercuric chloride stress

ABSTRACT The contamination of agriculture soils with heavy metals is increasing due to both natural and anthropogenic activities. This has resulted in lowering the yield and quality of agriculture crops. The aim of the present investigation was to determine the effect of Moringa oleifera (M. oleifera) aqueous leaf extract (MALE) on growth and Hg phytoextraction potential of maize cv. Azam under mercuric chloride (HgCl2)-induced stress. Soil was contaminated with different concentrations of HgCl2 (1 and 0.5 mg/kg). The MALE was applied at 5% and 2.5% as seed soaking prior to sowing of seeds in the pots. The M. oleifera leaf was a good source of macronutrients (Na, K, Ca and Mg) and micronutrients (Fe, Zn, Mn, Co and Ni) as well as natural phenolics. The induced HgCl2 stress significantly reduced seed germination (%), shoot dry weight, root dry weight, chlorophyll content and carotenoids content. The HgCl2-induced stress was associated with accumulation of phenolics and Hg in roots. The accumulation of Hg in roots was significantly correlated with phenolics content (r = .8007, p = .000). The exogenous application of MALE significantly ameliorated adverse effects of HgCl2 stress on maize plants. The accumulation of Hg in roots was significantly increased by MALE. It is inferred from findings of the present investigation that MALE served as bioregulator and can be applied to reduce adverse effects of HgCl2 on maize. Moreover, MALE can enhance the Hg phytoremediation potential of maize.
Numerical Modeling of Surface Water and Groundwater Interactions Induced by Complex Fluvial Landforms and Human Activities in the Pingtung Plain Groundwater Basin, Taiwan

The landforms and human activities play important roles in quantifying surface water and groundwater interactions (SGIs) for water resources management. The study uses the groundwater and surface water flow (GSFLOW) model to quantify the dynamics of SGIs in the Pingtung Plain groundwater basin (PPGB) in southern Taiwan. Specifically, the study uses a physical-based numerical model to quantify the spatial and seasonal variations of water cycles influenced by complex fluvial landform conditions and human activities. Results of the model calibrations show good agreement with the data obtained from the available groundwater monitoring network and the selected stream stations. The basin-scale water budgets show highly nonuniform precipitation in the study area, and over 80% annual precipitation is from wet seasons in the PPGB. With high permeable surficial deposits in the PPGB, the year-averaged surface runoff and infiltration are approximately 57% and 40% of the total precipitation. The fluvial landforms with the high slope in the PPGB lead to 70% of annual surface runoff that becomes the streamflow, and the interflow dominates water interactions near streambeds. Results show that the interflow rate in the wet seasons is 200% more than that in the dry seasons. The net groundwater discharge to the streams is relatively small as compared to the interflow. Only 10% of the river flow is from the net groundwater discharge. In the PPGB, The pumping-induced variations of groundwater levels are insignificant as compared with the factor of the natural landforms. Because of the relatively small area of the proposed artificial lake, the contribution of the artificial lake on the local water budgets is insignificant, indicating the low impact of the artificial recharge lake on the surface water environment.
The future of edible crops in Europe and their maximum point of resistance in temperature increase

In the last decades, knowledge about the climate has increased significantly. Climate change today is the subject of many sciences, including meteorology, climatology, geology, geography, geophysics, astronomy, etc. The present predictions with updated meteorological data and with data of the number of particles of CO2 in the troposphere may give satisfying results. Forecasting for industrial grains such as maize, soybean, and wheat will be essential for industry and everyday life. Within the last agreement of climate change in Paris, global temperatures will continuously be increasing by 2100. In this research, we used a synthetic grid with agroclimatological data which comprises predictions until 2100. These data were found in the sub-section called World Clim Version 1 or in the CMIP5 database. After numerical and geospatial GIS analysis, we got the following predictions: (i) slight- no temperature changes or changes including the increase of temperature by 0.5 °C, (ii) moderate- temperature increases by 2.0 °C, (iii) severe- temperature increases by 5.0 °C, and (iv) incredible- temperature increases to extreme values, incase of which the survival of plants will be endangered.
DEGRADATION KINETICS OF POLYCARBONATE IN SUPERCRITICAL METHANOL

Depolymerization of polycarbonate(PC) in supercritical methanol was studied to develop a chemical process for waste plastics recycling.Degradation experiments were carried out in a batch-type autoclave at 230—265 ℃,7.76—9.96 MPa without any catalyst.Reaction products were analyzed by infrared spectrometer(IR), size exclusion chromatography(SEC) and gas chromatography/mass spectrometer(GC/MS). The number average molecular mass (M n) of around 27700 for the original PC decreased to 1600 at 245 ℃ within 15 min, meanwhile monomers of PC,dimethyl carbonate (DMC) and bisphenol (A), and byproducts yielded in supercritical methanol.Percent conversion of PC and the yield of monomers and byproducts were measured;and a mechanism of methanolysis was proposed in this paper.A mathematical model based on the continuous distribution kinetics for random degradation process and secondary reactions for monomer components can be used to interpret the results.The activity energy obtained was 75.72 kJ·mol -1 for the random degradation.
Occlusal Plane Dictated Skeletal and Dental Malocclusion with Concomitant Postural Diagnostic Findings-A Pilot Study Using Functional Positioning Overlays

Objective: Aim of this investigation is to find evidence that the correction of the class II malocclusion and/or deep bite in children with mix dentitions using Functional Positioning Overlays (FPO) is faster and more stable than traditional approach and associated with an improvement in head posture and cervical spine. Material and Method: Twenty patients (aged of the patients ranged from 6 to 9 years, mean age 7.5 years) presenting a dental class II occlusion 1) Underwent to preliminary instrumental evaluation: photos, models, cephalometrics and condilography (cadiax compact), GPA (Global Postural Analysis) 2) They were divided in two homogeneous groups (matching by age and sex) ● Ten patients were treated with acrylics crowns FPO (Functional Position Overlay) according to German Patent Number 1
Análise de Desempenho e de Requisitos Computacionais Utilizando o Modelo Rooﬂine: Um estudo para Aplicações de Inteligência Artiﬁcial e do NAS-HPC

In this work, we propose the use of the Roofline model for an understanding of the computational requirements of the applications. NAS-HPC benchmarks and Artificial Intelligence algorithms were executed, analyzed, and classified according to their computational bottlenecks. The results were very positive for the understanding and classification of the different computational requirements of the applications, highlighting the different patterns among them. Resumo. Neste trabalho é proposto a utilização do modelo Roofline para a compreensão dos requisitos computacionais de aplicações cientı́ficas. Foram analisados e caracterizados, de acordo com seus gargalos computacionais, aplicações do NAS-HPC e de Inteligência Artificial. Os resultados foram muito positivos para o entendimento e a caracterização dos diferentes requisitos computacionais das aplicações, destacando os diferentes padrões entre eles.
Species conservation in the face of global environmental changes: surface-based modelling of geo-environmental data to identify vulnerable populations

5 Résumé . 6 List of Figures . 11 List of Tables . 12 Introduction . 13 1.1 What is Biodiversity and why should we preserve it? 13 1.2 Environmental changes and biodiversity crisis . 14 1.3 Biodiversity conservation . 15 1.4 Modelling of geo-environmental data . 16 1.5 Thesis contribution . 16 1.5.1 Research questions . 16 1.5. 2 Objectives . 19 Species ecological niche . 21 2.1 Research context . 21 2.1.1 Definitions: habitat and ecological niche . 21 2.1.2 Threats to the ecological niche . 21 2.1.3 Ecological niche modelling (ENM) . 22 2.1.4 Maxent . 23 2.1.5 Model evaluation . 24 2.1. 6 Applications for conservation . 26 2.2 Scientific contribution . 26 2.2.1 Problem statement . 26 2.2.2 Objectives . 28 2.2.3 Case study . 28 2.2. 4 Main conclusions . 29 2.3 PAPER A: Ixodes ricinus and Chlamydiales Swiss distributions . 31 2.3.1 Abstract . 31 2.3.2 Importance . 32 2.3.3 Introduction . 32 2.3. 4 Material and Methods . 34 2.3. 5 Results . 40 2.3. 6 Discussion . 50 2.3. 7 Conclusion . 53 2.3. 8 Acknowledgments . 54 2.3. 9 Code availability . 54 Connectivity and genetic diversity . 55 3.1 Research context . 55 3.1.1 Landscape fragmentation: a limit to dispersal and adaptation . 55 3.1.2 Adaptive capacity . 57 3.1.3 Adaptive evolution and genetic diversity . 57 3.1.4 Measuring the genetic diversity . 58 3.1.5 Conservation of genetic diversity . 60 3.1. 6 Estimating the landscape connectivity . 61 3.1. 7 Genetic simulations . 63 3.2 Scientific contribution . 64 3.2.1 Problem statement . 64 3.2.2 Objectives . 65 3.2.3 Case study . 66 3.2. 4 Main conclusions . 66 3.3 PAPER B: Fragmentation reduces persistence and genetic diversity . 68 3.3.1 Abstract . 68 3.3.2 Introduction . 69 3.3.3 Material and Methods . 70 3.3. 4 Results . 76 3.3. 5 Discussion . 81 3.3. 6 Additionnal figure . 84 Locally adapted genetic variants. 87 4.1 Research context . 87 4.1.1 Local adaptation . 87 4.1.2 Identification of signatures of local adaptation . 88 4.1.3 Spatial Analysis Method (SAM) . 90 4.2 Scientific contribution . 93 4.2.1 Problem statement . 93 4.2.2 Objectives . 94 4.2.3 Case study . 94 4.2. 4 Main conclusions . 95 4.3 PAPER C: Spatial Areas of Genotype Probabilities . 97 4.3.1 Abstract . 97 4.3.2 Introduction . 98 4.3.3 Material and Methods . 99 4.3. 4 Results . 106 4.3. 5 Discussion . 116 4.3. 6 Code availability . 119 Towards a conservation framework . 121 5.1 Combining modelling tools . 121 5.1.1 ENM and connectivity . 121 5.1.2 ENM and locally adapted genetic variants . 122 5.1.3 Adaptation and connectivity . 122 5.1.4 Modelling framework .
Primary Healthcare Seeking Behaviour of Low-income, Uninsured Patients Across the Public and Private Health Sectors in South Africa

Background: The proposed National Health Insurance (NHI) system aims to re-engineer primary healthcare (PHC) in South Africa, envisioning both private sector providers and public sector clinics as independent contracting units to the NHI Fund. In 2017, 16% of the South African population had private medical insurance and predominately utilised private providers. However, it is estimated that up to 28% of the population access private PHC services, with a meaningful segment of the low-income, uninsured population paying for these services out-of-pocket. The study objective was to characterise the health seeking behaviour of low-income, uninsured patients accessing PHC services in both the public and private sectors, patient movement between sectors, and factors influencing their facility choice. Methods: We conducted once-off patient interviews on a random sample of 153 patients at 7 private PHC providers (primarily providing services to the low-income uninsured patient population) and their matched public PHC clinic (7 facilities). Results: The majority of participants were economically active (96/153, 63%), 139/153 (91%) did not have health insurance, and 104/153 (68%) earned up to $621/month. A multiple response question found affordability (67%) and convenience (60%) were ranked as the most important reasons for choosing to usually access care at public clinics (48%); whilst convenience (71%) and quality of care (59%) were key reasons for choosing the private sector (32%). There is movement between sectors: 23/76 (30%) of those interviewed at a private facility and 8/77 (10%) of those interviewed at a public facility indicated usually accessing PHC services at a mix of private and public facilities. Results indicate cycling between the private and public sectors with different factors influencing facility choice. Conclusions: It is imperative to understand the potential impact on where PHC services are accessed once affordability is mitigated through the NHI as this has implications on planning and contracting of services under the NHI.
Graphene Nanoflakes: Thermal Stability, Infrared Signatures, and Potential Applications in the Field of Spintronics and Optical Nanodevices

We investigate the structural, electronic, and vibrational properties of graphene nanoflakes (GNFs) with a small number of atoms (<250) and distinct shapes (triangular, rectangular, and hexagonal) through classical molecular dynamics (CMD) and density functional theory (DFT) calculations. We show that these graphene nanostructures are able to retain their planarity for simulated temperatures up to 1500 K, starting to degrade into amorphous nanocarbon for temperatures above 3000 K. The shapes and types of border of the GNFs have a strong influence on their electronic properties and spin. The HOMO−LUMO energy gap of the studied nanoflakes spans the full range of the visible spectrum, suggesting potential applications in the fabrication of optical emission nanodevices, which is confirmed by TDDFT calculations to obtain the UV−vis absorption spectra of triangular armchair GNFs. In particular, the UV−vis maximum absorption energies and intensities scale linearly with the linear size of the GNF. In the special .