Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Impact of an antarctic rhizobacterium on root traits and productivity of soybean (Glycine max L.)

Abstract Inoculation of crop plants with beneficial root-associated microorganisms may be a useful strategy for sustainable intensification of agriculture. In recent years, interest has grown in using rhizobacteria from extreme environments to develop high-performing inoculants, as some strains may possess plant-growth promoting traits and increase host fitness under abiotic stress. Only two vascular plant species – Antarctic hair grass (Deschampsia antarctica) and Antarctic pearlwort (Colobanthus quitensis) – are currently found on the Antarctic continent, one of the most extreme environments on Earth. Few studies have examined the rhizosphere microorganisms associated with these two plants and their potential contribution to crop nutrition, productivity, and stress tolerance. The present study assesses the potential of a novel rhizobacterium extracted from the rhizosphere of Deschampsia antarctica, Pseudomonas sp. ATCC PTA-122608, to improve growth of soybean (Glycine max L.) and investigates potential underlying mechanisms. Soybean plants were grown for 118 days in a glasshouse study and plant growth, nutrition, and root systems were analyzed. Inoculation with both the bacterial treatment and sometimes the kaolin substrate increased root biomass, the production of medium-diameter and coarse roots, nodulation by Bradyrhizobium japonicum, total biomass production, and C/N accumulation. These results indicate that ATCC PTA-122608 inoculation with kaolin substrate can promote soybean nutrition and productivity, potentially via modification of root system architecture and enhancement of the soybean-rhizobia symbiosis. Broadly, our work demonstrates the potential for rhizosphere microorganisms from extreme environments to promote the growth of economically and nutritionally important crops by influencing plant root architectural traits and plant-microbe interactions.
Mutual Fund Herding and Return Comovement in Chinese Equities

This paper explores the role mutual fund herding plays on the return comovement in Chinese equities. The results show that mutual fund herding significantly reduces the return comovement among Chinese stocks, providing evidence for the existence of a rational herding behavior by mutual funds. We find that the negative effect of mutual fund herding on return comovement is larger for stocks with low volatility and high mutual fund ownership. We also observe that mutual fund herding has a stronger impact on return comovement after the implementation of financial reforms in China in 2011 which allowed all shares to be traded freely among all market participants.
Changes in Oral Health-Related Quality of Life during Pregnancy

PurposeTo evaluate the evolution of perceived quality of life in relation to oral health during pregnancy and to determine the risk factors involved in this process. MethodsA follow-up study was carried out with pregnant Spanish women. Two oral examinations and an oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL) assessment, using the OHIP-14 questionnaire, were performed in the first and third trimester of pregnancy. Data on sociodemographic characteristics, medical history, O’Sullivan Test measures, oral hygiene habits, history of caries, and periodontal status of participants were collected through structured medical-dental questionnaires. ResultsA complete dataset comprising 246 pregnant women was available for analysis. Overall scores for negative impacts on the OHIP questionnaire were significantly higher during late pregnancy (74%). This indicated a deterioration in oral health-related quality of life amongst participants. Items describing “painful aching”, “self-consciousness”, “unsatisfactory diet”, and “interrupted meals” showed the greatest increase between the first and third trimester of gestation. Multivariate analysis showed that pre-gestational/gestational diabetes mellitus and poor oral hygiene habits during the first trimester of gestation were directly associated with worse oral health-related quality of life during the third trimester of gestation (hyperglycemia: OR: 2.86; 95% CI: 1.019-8.050: p=0.043 / Oral Hygiene: OR: 1.33; 95% CI: 0.970-1.836; p=0.076). ConclusionsIn the present research, hyperglycemia during pregnancy and poor oral hygiene habits during the first trimester of gestation led to a higher risk of poor oral quality of life during late pregnancy.
Thermal performance assessment of a thermal energy storage tank: effect of aspect ratio and tilted angle

Latent heat thermal energy storage is essential for a broad range of multidisciplinary thermal applications, due to its capability of keeping a relative constant temperature during thermal energy storage/release. The aspect ratio (AR) and installation angle (tilted angle) for a latent heat energy storage tank play important roles in addressing the issue of thermal energy storage/release efficiency. In this work, the coupled effects of tank aspect ratio and tilted angle upon melting phase change were both experimentally and numerically investigated. Wide range of tank aspect ratios from 0.1 to 8.0 was studied with respect to four representative tilted angles (0°, 30°, 60°, and 90°). The detailed features of melting front propagation, temperature distribution, and free convection development in the melt phase were quantified. Results indicated that melting heat transfer was markedly affected by the tilted angle, regardless of tank aspect ratio. However, the fastest melting occurred at different tilted angles, if different tank aspect ratios were considered. With AR < 1.0, the highest melting rate was found at 0° inclination. As for AR > 2.0, the fastest melting was achieved at an inclination of 60°.
A super-hydrophilic surface enhanced by the hierarchical reticular porous structure on a low-modulus Ti–24Nb–4Zr–8Sn alloy

In this study, we fabricated a super-hydrophilic (θ < 5°) hierarchical reticular porous structure on the surface of Ti–24Nb–4Zr–8Sn (Ti2448) by combining sandblasting, dual acid-etching, and alkali thermal treatment. The super-hydrophilic hierarchical structure on the surface contained fine well-distributed nanopores with random microscale structures, leading to extremely high surface hydrophilicity. The sand blasting and dual acid-etching processes (SLA) and alkaline treatment (AT) resulted in the formation of microscale structures and nanopores, respectively. The formation mechanism of the hierarchical reticular porous structures was also examined. The average size of the nanopores on the surface of the SLA + AT Ti2448 sample was 86.3 nm, and the hierarchical structure contained several biocompatible components, including TiO2, Ti2ZrO, ZrTiO4, Nb2O5, Ti2O3, and ZrO2. Because of their super-hydrophilic and chemically biocompatible characteristics, hierarchical Ti2448 structural candidates are expected to be more suitable as implants for successful osseointegration.
Peat depth as a control on Sphagnum moisture stress during seasonal drought

Peatlands are globally important long‐term sinks of carbon, however there is concern that enhanced peat decomposition and moss moisture stress due to climate change mediated drought will reduce moss productivity making these ecosystems vulnerable to carbon loss and associated long‐term degradation. Peatlands are resilient to summer drought moss stress because of negative ecohydrological feedbacks that generally maintain a wet peat surface, but where feedbacks may be contingent on peat depth. We tested this ‘survival of the deepest’ hypothesis by examining water table (WT) position, near‐surface moisture content, and soil water tension in peatlands that differ in size, peat depth, and catchment area during a summer drought. All shallow sites (<40 cm depth) lost their WT (i.e., the groundwater well was dry) for considerable time during the drought period. Near‐surface soil water tension increased dramatically at shallow sites following WT loss, increasing ~5–7.5× greater at shallow sites compared to deep sites (≥40 cm depth). During a mid‐summer drought intensive field survey, we found that 60–67% of plots at shallow sites exceeded a 100 mb tension threshold used to infer moss water stress. Unlike the shallow sites, tension typically did not exceed this 100 mb threshold at the deep sites. Using species dependent water content – chlorophyll fluorescence thresholds and relations between volumetric water content and WT depth, Monte Carlo simulations suggest that moss had nearly twice the likelihood of being stressed at shallow sites (0.38 ± 0.24) compared to deep sites (0.22 ± 0.18). This study provides evidence that mosses in shallow peatland may be particularly vulnerable to warmer and drier climates in the future, but where species composition may play an important role. We argue that a critical ‘threshold’ peat depth specific for different hydrogeological and hydroclimatic regions can be used to assess what peatlands are especially vulnerable to climate change mediated drought.
Performance of Pediatric Emergency Medicine Faculty After Point-of-Care Ultrasound Credentialing Implementation

Objective As point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) continues to evolve, a national standardized curriculum for training and credentialing pediatric emergency medicine (PEM) physicians is still lacking. The goal of this study was to assess PEM faculty in performing and interpreting POCUS during implementation of a training curriculum. Methods Sixteen full-time PEM faculty with either limited or no prior POCUS experience were trained to perform 4 ultrasound studies. Twelve of the 16 completed the training with a goal of credentialing within 12 months of implementation. For each faculty, we assessed competency by comparing precurriculum and postcurriculum test assessments and by evaluating quality of POCUS acquisition and accuracy of interpretation. We also monitored the amount of continuing medical education (CME) hours completed to ensure a minimum didactic component. Results We found a significant improvement in POCUS competency comparing precurriculum to postcurriculum test assessments (55.4% vs 75.6%, P < 0.0002). One thousand two hundred seventy images were submitted over the course of the curriculum. Accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity were 98.23% (confidence interval [CI] = 97.18–98.97), 97.01% (CI = 92.53–99.81), and 98.43% (CI = 97.33–99.81), respectively. Faculty self-rating of image quality was significantly higher than expert reviewer rating of image quality (3.4 ± 0.86 vs 3.2 ± 0.56, P < 0.0001). We found no change in expert reviewer rating of image quality over time. Faculty completed a combined 232.5 CME hours (average, 17.4 ± 10.8), with the majority of hours coming from an institutional POCUS CME workshop. Conclusions These results show that a structured curriculum can improve PEM faculty POCUS competency.
Stock and Bond Return Comovement as a Different Way to Assess Information Content: The Case of Debt Covenant Violation Disclosures

We propose a supplementary way to assess the information content of a financial statement disclosure based on the comovement of asset returns in different markets in response to information that has price implications for both. The influence of a signal that strongly influences at least two asset markets measures a dimension of information content less clearly reflected in single-market responses. We apply our method to debt covenant violation (DCV) disclosures. These are the outcome of a debt renegotiation when the covenant promises in a debt agreement to manage the agency costs of debt are broken. We find that stock and bond return comovement is highest one day before DCV disclosure and differs depending on whether the debt covenant is waived or not waived. We find that stock and bond return comovement in the days following a DCV disclosure decreases more for non-waiver disclosures than waiver disclosures. This supports the theory that a non-waiver outcome shifts control rights and bargaining power to the creditors. Consistent with this theory, single-market tests show that bonds with a non-waiver disclosure versus a waiver disclosure earn positive excess returns following a DCV disclosure whereas the reverse is true for stocks.
Corporate sustainable growth models: the impact of capital structure

The key internal aim of each corporation is to reach the sustainable development for the long period of time. Capital structure is the one of the financial factors influenced on the sustainable growth of the corporations. The research is based on the hypothesis of the obvious impact of the capital structure on the sustainable growth of the corporation and is devoted to the issue of the corporate governance based on the models of sustainable growth in the case of manipulating the capital structure of corporations. The study is based on public financial statements of 50 Russian corporations - participants in the financial market for 2012-2018 years and is based on the use of the most well – known models of sustainable growth. It is established that by changing the share of borrowed capital in its total value, and using the mechanism of influence of factors of a certain model, make the right managerial financial decision, leading to its sustainable growth will be made by the management team of the corporation. At the same time, important factors influencing the choice of capital structure are as follows: industry, financial stability, the balance between the rate of accumulation and amount of dividend payments, reasonable borrowing at a high level of risk.
FLASH Irradiation with Proton Beams: Beam Characteristics and Their Implications for Beam Diagnostics

FLASH irradiations use dose-rates orders of magnitude higher than commonly used in patient treatments. Such irradiations have shown interesting normal tissue sparing in cell and animal experiments, and, as such, their potential application to clinical practice is being investigated. Clinical accelerators used in proton therapy facilities can potentially provide FLASH beams; therefore, the topic is of high interest in this field. However, a clear FLASH effect has so far been observed in presence of high dose rates (>40 Gy/s), high delivered dose (tens of Gy), and very short irradiation times (<300 ms). Fulfilling these requirements poses a serious challenge to the beam diagnostics system of clinical facilities. We will review the status and proposed solutions, from the point of view of the beam definitions for FLASH and their implications for beam diagnostics. We will devote particular attention to the topics of beam monitoring and control, as well as absolute dose measurements, since finding viable solutions in these two aspects will be of utmost importance to guarantee that the technique can be adopted quickly and safely in clinical practice.
Hekzakopter insansız hava aracı için eşdeğer bozucu etki tahmini kullanılarak bozucu etki önleyici denetleyici tasarımı

Özet Abstract İnsansız Hava Araçları (İHA’lar) video kamera, fotoğraf makinesi, lazer tarama cihazı, vb. araçlar ile donatılmış ve görevlerini uzaktan kumandalı veya otonom olarak icra edebilmektedirler. Hızla gelişmekte olan bilgisayarın veri işleme kapasitesi, sensör ve yarı iletken teknolojileri küçük boyutlu döner kanatlı İHA’ların tasarlanmasına imkân sağlamaktadır. Küçük boyutlu döner kanatlı İHA sistemleri, mevcut otonom denetim yöntemlerinin henüz yeterli seviyeye gelememesinden dolayı, ani rüzgâr durumu gibi rastgele çevresel etkenler ve dışarıdan gelen değişik karakteristik özelliklere sahip bozucu etkilere karşı yeterli düzeyde dayanıklı değildirler. Bu çalışmada hekzakopter İHA sistemlerinin bozucu etkililere rağmen kararlılığını koruyup görevini etkin bir şekilde yerine getirmesi amacıyla bozucu etki önleyici denetleyici tasarlanmıştır. İHA sisteminin yönelim kararlılığı için lineer kuadratik regülatör yöntemi kullanılarak dayanıklı geri besleme kazancı hesaplanmıştır. Ayrıca gözlemci kazancı ve alçak geçiren filtreden oluşan bozucu etki eşdeğerini tahmin mekanizması da tasarlanmıştır. Bu yapı sistemdeki bilinmeyen bozucu etkilerin zamanında tahmin edilmesine olanak sağlamaktadır. Tasarlanan bozucu etki önleyici denetleyicisi kapalı çevrim İHA sisteminin gürbüz kararlılığını garanti eder. Benzetim sonuçları hekzakopter İHA için tasarlanan bozucu önleyici denetleyicinin etkinliğini göstermiştir. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) equipped with video camera, camera, laser scanning device, etc. and perform their duties remotely or automatically. Recently, rapid progress in development of computers' data processing capacities, sensors, and semiconductor technologies have resulted in the emergence of small-sized rotary-wing UAVs. Small size rotary-wing UAV systems are more sensitive to environmental conditions such as gust and external disturbances because existing autonomous control systems are not sufficient to cope with these disturbances. In this study, an anti-disturbance controller has been designed for that a hexacopter UAV maintains its stability and are able to perform their duties in the despite of the external disturbances. Optimal gain has been calculated by linear quadratic regulator method for the attitude stability of the UAV system. In addition, a mechanism of equivalent disturbance estimation, which is consisting of an observer gain and a low pass filter, is designed. This structure estimated the unknown disturbing effects in the UAV system in time. The designed anti-disturbance controller guarantees the robust stability of the closed-loop UAV system. The simulation results demonstrated the effectiveness of the designed anti-disturbance controller for the hexacopter UAV.
Model Predictive Current Control of Multiphase Motor at Low Carrier Ratio

Multiphase motors have multiple control planes, and harmonics are decoupled in different planes. Multiphase motors can improve magnetic field distribution, power density and core utilization by injecting certain harmonic currents into the harmonic planes. In the harmonic plane control process, due to the switching frequency of the inverter being limited, the ratio of the switching frequency to the current frequency (the carrier ratio) of the harmonic plane is low, the digital control delay increases, and the inverter output current contains more harmonics, which makes it difficult for the proportional-integral (PI) current controller to effectively control the d-axis and q-axis currents of the harmonic plane and thus unable to track the given values stably. Moreover, the PI current controller is relatively dependent on the motor parameters. For these reasons, a model predictive current control method with predictive error compensation is proposed. Taking a nine-phase induction motor as an example, the control voltage is calculated by the cost function and corrected by the current predictive error, which realizes the current control method at a low carrier ratio. Additionally, the robustness of the control method is analyzed after the parameters of the multiphase motor have large errors. The experimental results show that the proposed method can control the current of the harmonic plane at low carrier ratio, accurately track the harmonic current commands and attain strong robustness for the motor parameters.
Technical requirements for cultured meat production: a review

Abstract Environment, food, and disease have a selective force on the present and future as well as our genome. Adaptation of livestock and the environmental nexus, including forest encroachment for anthropological needs, has been proven to cause emerging infectious diseases. Further, these demand changes in meat production and market systems. Meat is a reliable source of protein, with a majority of the world population consumes meat. To meet the increasing demands of meat production as well as address issues, such as current environmental pollution, animal welfare, and outbreaks, cellular agriculture has emerged as one of the next industrial revolutions. Lab grown meat or cell cultured meat is a promising way to pursue this; however, it still needs to resemble traditional meat and be assured safety for human consumption. Further, to mimic the palatability of traditional meat, the process of cultured meat production starts from skeletal muscle progenitor cells isolated from animals that proliferate and differentiate into skeletal muscle using cell culture techniques. Due to several lacunae in the current approaches, production of muscle replicas is not possible yet. Our review shows that constant research in this field will resolve the existing constraints and enable successful cultured meat production in the near future. Therefore, production of cultured meat is a better solution that looks after environmental issues, spread of outbreaks, antibiotic resistance through the zoonotic spread, food and economic crises.
Urban infrastructure in the framework of mega-event exceptionalism: Glasgow and the 2014 Commonwealth Games

ABSTRACT In the context of urgency-filled mega-event preparations, contested urban projects can be fast-tracked to completion in the name of event. This leads to deviations from the existing urban agenda and undermines democratic decision-making processes – all while having longer-term socio-economic and physical influences. Since its post-industrial transition Glasgow prioritized event-led urban regeneration. Parallel to the preparations of the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games, projects labeled as vital for this event were realized, including the previously contested 657-million-pound M74 motorway extension. This extension, heavily relying on legal and political exceptions, was presented as detrimental for the successful hosting of the event and promised to solve the city’s traffic problems. This article explores the exceptional powers of mega-events in the delivery of troubled urban infrastructure projects via a case study of the 2014 Games. It demonstrates role the event plays in enabling the government to mobilize discourses to finally realize the controversial M74 extension.
Análise comparativa de protocolos para extração de DNA genômico em Prosopis juliflora (Sw.) DC

The objective of the present research was to compare the efficiency among seven protocols adapted for the extraction of genomic DNA from the species Prosopis juliflora (Sw.) DC. The protocols used were based on their buffers: SDS 10%, CTAB 5%, Sorbitol, CTAB 3% and Sorbitol, SDS 0.7% and NaCl, CTAB 2%, CTAB 2% and NaCl 1.4M. In all tests, the use of β-mercaptoethanol, liquid nitrogen, proteinase K and RNAses was eliminated. The samples consisted of leaf primordia in each specimen in triplicate. The quantity and quality of the extracted DNA were evaluated by electrophoresis in 1% agarose gel and by reading the absorbances in a spectrophotometer. For amplification reactions, the ISSR primer was used. Among the tested extraction buffers, SDS 10%, CTAB 5% and CTAB 3%, and Sorbitol were the most efficient for P. juliflora. Of these three protocols, CTAB 3% and Sorbitol showed a better level of purity despite the lower amount of DNA (123 ng/µL) compared to 10% SDS and 5% CTAB buffers (312 and 321 ng/µL, respectively, and high content of contaminants). We conclude that it is possible to use extraction protocols without additives that are harmful to human health and at a lower cost in the extraction process.