Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Biological Characteristics of Novel H5N6 Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Virus and Its Pathogenesis in Ducks

Clade 2.3. 4.4 H5Nx highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses (HPAIVs) have caused outbreaks in poultry in the world. Some of these viruses acquired internal genes from other subtype avian influenza viruses (AIVs) such as H9 and H6 for the generation of novel reassortant viruses and continually circulated in poultry. Here, we applied a duck-origin virus DK87 and a chicken-origin virus CK66 to assess the biological characteristics of novel reassortant H5N6 HPAIVs and its pathogenesis in ducks. A genetic analysis indicated that the HA genes of the two H5N6 HPAIVs were closely related to the H5 viruses of clade 2.3. 4.4 circulating in Eastern Asia and classified into H5 AIV/Eastern Asia (EA)-like lineage. Their NA genes fell into Eurasian lineage had close relationship with those of H5N6 viruses circulating in China, Laos, Vietnam, Japan, and Korea. All internal genes of DK87 were aggregated closely with H5 AIV/EA-like viruses. The internal genes (PB1, PA, NP, M, and NS) of CK66 were derived from H9N2 AIV/SH98-like viruses and the PB2 were derived from H5 AIV/EA-like viruses. These results indicate that clade 2.3. 4.4 H5N6 AIVs have continually evolved and recombined with the H9N2 viruses circulating in Southern China. Pathogenicity test showed that the two viruses displayed a broader tissue distribution in ducks and caused no clinical signs. These results indicated that ducks were permissive for the replication of the chicken-origin reassortant virus CK66 without prior adaptation, but the duck-origin virus DK87-inoculated ducks showed significantly higher viral titers in some organs than the CK66-inoculated ducks at 5 day post-inoculated (DPI). The recovery of viruses from oropharyngea and cloacal swabs of contacted ducks indicated that they transmitted in native ducks by direct contact. Quantitative reverse transcription PCR (qRT-PCR) results revealed that the immune-relative genes (PRRs, IFNs, Mx-1, IL-6, and IL-8) in the lungs of inoculated ducks were expressed regardless of virus origin, but the expression of these genes was significantly higher in response to infection with the DK87 virus compared to the CK66 virus at 3 DPI. Overall, we should provide further insights into how clade 2.3. 4.4 H5N6 AIVs undergo genetic and pathogenic variations to prevent outbreaks of this disease.
Potential of Immune-Related Therapy in COVID-19

At the beginning of 2020, a sudden outbreak of new coronavirus, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), infections led to anxiety, panic, and crisis among people worldwide. The outbreak first occurred in Wuhan, China, in late December 2019 and then spread rapidly across the globe, thus becoming a major public health emergency. Although the current epidemic situation in China tends to be stable, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) continues to spread globally. At present, no specific therapeutic drugs and vaccines are available against COVID-19. Also, the pathogenesis of the SARS-CoV-2 is not fully clear. Human immunity is important in SARS-CoV-2 infection. Studies have shown that excessive inflammation caused by SARS-CoV-2 infection and subsequent induced uncontrolled cytokine storm are the main causes of disease deterioration and death of severe patients. Therefore, immune-related research is of great significance for the prevention, control, and prognosis of COVID-19. This study aimed to review the latest research on immune-related treatment of COVID-19.
A Time-Dependent DFT Study on Band Gaps and Effective Conjugation Lengths of Polyacetylene, Polyphenylene, Polypentafulvene, Polycyclopentadiene, Polypyrrole, Polyfuran, Polysilole, Polyphosphole, and Polythiophene

The chain length dependence of excitation energies of oilgomers of polyene, p-phenylene, pentafulvene, cyclopentadiene, pyrrole, furan, silole, phosphole, and thiophene was studied employing the time-dependent density functional theory with B3LYP functional. Band gaps and effective conjugation lengths of the corresponding polymers were obtained by extrapolating vertical excitation energies of trimers through pentamers to infinite chain length. Polypentafulvene, polycyclopentadiene, polysilole, and polyphosphole were predicted to have smaller band gaps than polythiophene, and polypentafulvene has the smallest band gap. Among the studied cyclopentadiene-based polymers, those with the third row heteroatoms were found to have narrower band gaps than their second row counterparts.
"Getting sick has been good to me, not bad": understanding the experience of growth in face of adversity

In the literature and public opinion chronic illness is mostly presented as a negative experience. However, this article shows that people can experience their illness also in a positive way. Posttraumatic growth and adversity-activated-development are concepts, which derive from psychology and describe a positive transformation after a challenging lifeevent. People who experience personal growth have an increased appreciation for life and may change their priorities and approach to life. By means of empirical examples of people who have been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis the author shows how people positively experience their illness and may grow from this experience. Further the author attempts to answer why some people experience personal growth and development after being diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, while others struggle with their illness.
Lithium Intercalation into Layered LiMnO2

Recently Armstrong and Bruce 1 reported a layered modification of lithium manganese oxide, LiMnO 2 , isostructural with LiCoO 2 . LiMnO 2 obtained by ion exchange from α-NaMnO 2 synthesized in air is characterized by x-ray diffraction and by electrochemical insertion and extraction of lithium in a series of voltage ranges between 1.5 and 4.5 V relative to a lithium electrode. During cycling, voltage plateaus at 3.0 and 4.0 V vs. Li develop, indicating that the material is converted from its original layered structure to a spinel structure. This finding is confirmed by x-ray diffraction. Contrary to expectations based on thermodynamics, insertion of larger amounts of lithium leads to a more complete conversion. We suggest that a relatively high mobility of manganese leaves Li and Mn randomly distributed in the close-packed oxygen lattice after a deep discharge. This isotropic Mn distribution can relatively easily relax to the Mn distribution characteristic of spinels whereas the anisotropic distribution characteristic of layered structures is not reformed when excess lithium is extracted
Organic Solar Cells: A Review of Materials, Limitations, and Possibilities for Improvement

Significant attention has been given during the last few years to overcome technological and material barriers in order to develop organic photovoltaic devices (OPVs) with comparable cost efficiency similar to the inorganic photovoltaics (PVs) and to make them commercially viable. To take advantage of the low cost for such devices, major improvements are necessary which include: an efficiency of around 10%, high stability from degradation under real-world conditions, novel optically active materials, and development of novel fabrication approaches. In order to meet such stringent requirements, the research and development in OPVs need to improve upon the short diffusion length of excitons, which is one of the factors that are responsible for their low power conversion efficiency. This review discusses some of the most significant technological developments that were presented in the literature and helped improve photovoltaic performance, such as tandem architectures, plasmonics, and use of graphitic nanostructural materials, among others. Tandem organic solar cells with embedded plasmonics are a promising approach to further increase the power conversion efficiency of organic solar cells, by harvesting complementary spectral regions with high quantum efficiencies. Polymeric nanocomposites incorporating graphitic nanostructures were extensively investigated for the next generation of efficient and low-cost solar cells, since such nanomaterials show excellent electrical and mechanical properties, excellent carrier transport capabilities, and provide an efficient pathway to the dissociated charge carriers.
On OH production in water containing atmospheric pressure plasmas

In this paper radical production in atmospheric pressure water containing plasmas is discussed. As OH is often an important radical in these discharges the paper focuses on OH production. Besides nanosecond pulsed coronas and diffusive glow discharges, several other atmospheric pressure plasmas which are of interest nowadays have a typical electron temperature in the range 1–2 eV and an ionization degree of 10−5–10−4. These properties are quite different from the typical plasma properties known from low pressure gas discharges. In the plasma physics literature OH production is primarily ascribed to be due to electron, metastable induced or thermal dissociation of water, processes which are dominant in (low pressure) gas discharges and in combustion and hot flames. It is shown in this paper that for several atmospheric pressure plasmas also dissociative recombination can be an effective method of OH radical production. Several examples are presented in detail. This paper provides a basic framework for OH production in atmospheric pressure plasmas and shows that accurate knowledge of ne, Te, Tg, the dominant ionic species, radical and neutral species are indispensable to obtain a complete view on the chemical kinetics in these challenging complex atmospheric pressure plasmas. A few relevant plasma diagnostics together with their limitations are also briefly discussed in this context.
Thermal Processing of Toxic Flame-Retarded Polymers Using a Waste Fluidized Catalytic Cracker (FCC) Catalyst

Waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) plastics are particularly problematic to recycle because they contain a variety of brominated flame retardants, some of which are extremely toxic. Pyrolysis has been proposed as a viable processing route for toxic WEEE plastics, but it has been found that the volatile pyrolysis products contain toxic brominated compounds. In this work, we have built on previous work where we reported that zeolite catalysts were capable of destroying toxic organobromines during pyrolysis (Hall, W. J.; Williams, P. T. J. Anal. Appl. Pyrolysis 2008, 81, 139—147). We have investigated the pyrolysis of brominated high-impact polystyrene and acrylonitrile—butadiene—styrene in the presence of a waste fluidized catalytic cracker (FCC) catalyst. It is reported that, unlike Y-zeolite, the FCC catalyst did not completely destroy the organobromine compounds; however, the catalyst did lower the yield of bromine found in the liquid pyrolysis products by a mechanism that is as yet unclear. The waste FCC catalyst did not greatly alter the composition of the nonbrominated pyrolysis products, and valuable single-ring aromatics were present in the pyrolysis oil.
Effectiveness of different precipitated phosphates as phosphorus sources for plants

Abstract. Eleven precipitated phosphates were evaluated as sources of phosphorus (P) for plant growth by comparing their effectiveness with that of monocalcium phosphate, a source of water soluble P that is generally considered to be fully plant available. The precipitated phosphates comprised struvites recovered from waste water discharges (mainly magnesium ammonium phosphate), laboratory synthesised struvites, a synthetic iron phosphate and a recovered calcium phosphate. Precipitating phosphates in these forms could be a way for removing P from waste water before it is discharged to rivers, so reducing the risk of eutrophication. Application to agricultural land would be one potential use for such phosphates. Evaluation was by pot experiments with a sandy loam soil and with a sandy clay loam soil using perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne) as the test crop. The soils differed in pH (6.6 and 7.1) and in Olsen P (28 and 11 mg L−1). Measured variables were grass dry matter (DM) yield and grass P concentration which were used to calculate offtake of P in the harvested grass. DM yields of ryegrass and P offtakes given by the synthetic and recovered struvites were not significantly different statistically either between themselves or to MCP applied at the same rate. On this basis these struvites could be used to recycle P to similar soils and the effect of the P on crop yield should be similar to that of MCP
Concatenation of Coded OFDM Communications System over AWGN and Rayleigh Fading Channels

: The high bit error rate of the wireless communications system requires Forward Error Correction (FEC) methods to be implemented on the data to be transmitted. Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) technique exhibits some challenges which are Inter Carrier Interference (ICI), high Peak to Average Power Ratio (PAPR), and inadequate spectral efficiency at higher subcarrier channels. Many researchers have attempted to mitigate these mentioned challenges by using different error coding techniques but there is still room for further improvement. Therefore, this paper evaluated the performance of convolutional, Reed-Solomon, and Concatenated Convolutional with Reed-Solomon (CC-RS) coding schemes over AWGN and Rayleigh fading channels in order to improve the spectral efficiency at higher subcarriers. These schemes were implemented in MATLAB R2015b environment and simulation results were validated by comparing these coding techniques with the non-coded OFDM scheme using Bit Error Rate (BER) and Signal to Interference Ratio (SIR) as performance metrics.
Security in 1-wire system. Case study: Home automation

Home automation is a technology that is permanently growing thanks to te development of devices that reduces the costs of these kind of systems. This makes domotics an affordable option to everyone. Thanks to the appearance of this low cost devices, and the recent popularity around the Internet of Things (IoT) technology, the domotics industry has changed to a new level. Having ability to control devices through the Internet creates numerous vulnerabilities to an unprotected system, allowing an attacker to control or see everything. In this work, we present a domotic system which uses the 1-wire communication protocol. Originally, the system lacks of any kind of security. Our objective is to implement information security through the encryption of the system’s commands, so we can assure the CIA triad (Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability). The results show not only the successful implementation of the cryptographic modulo into the system to provide security, but we also prove that adding this extra process would not affect the way the final users handle and use their devices.
trans-AUTOMATIC RECOGNITION OF SPOKEN DIGIT STRINGS IN NOISY ENVIRONMENTS WITH THE PARAT MICROPHONE

This paper presents experimental results for a novel microphone solution to ASR in very noisy environments. PARAT is an intelligent hearing protector and communication terminal implemented as a lightweight earplug. The inner microphone in PARAT captures the speech signal behind a seal in the auditory canal that impedes contamination from external noise sources. Experiments on a stereo speech database contaminated with noise show that the PARAT microphone compares favourably with a noise cancelling close-talking microphone of high quality on a speaker dependent connected digit task.
An updated version of the global interior ocean biogeochemical data product, GLODAPv2.2020

Abstract. The Global Ocean Data Analysis Project (GLODAP) is a synthesis effort providing regular compilations of surface-to-bottom ocean biogeochemical data, with an emphasis on seawater inorganic carbon chemistry and related variables determined through chemical analysis of seawater samples. GLODAPv2.2020 is an update of the previous version, GLODAPv2.2019. The major changes are data from 106 new cruises added, extension of time coverage to 2019, and the inclusion of available (also for historical cruises) discrete fugacity of CO2 (fCO2) values in the merged product files. GLODAPv2.2020 now includes measurements from more than 1.2 million water samples from the global oceans collected on 946 cruises. The data for the 12 GLODAP core variables (salinity, oxygen, nitrate, silicate, phosphate, dissolved inorganic carbon, total alkalinity, pH, CFC-11, CFC-12, CFC-113, and CCl4) have undergone extensive quality control with a focus on systematic evaluation of bias. The data are available in two formats: (i) as submitted by the data originator but updated to WOCE exchange format and (ii) as a merged data product with adjustments applied to minimize bias. These adjustments were derived by comparing the data from the 106 new cruises with the data from the 840 quality-controlled cruises of the GLODAPv2.2019 data product using crossover analysis. Comparisons to empirical algorithm estimates provided additional context for adjustment decisions; this is new to this version. The adjustments are intended to remove potential biases from errors related to measurement, calibration, and data-handling practices without removing known or likely time trends or variations in the variables evaluated. The compiled and adjusted data product is believed to be consistent to better than 0.005 in salinity, 1 % in oxygen, 2 % in nitrate, 2 % in silicate, 2 % in phosphate, 4 µmol kg−1 in dissolved inorganic carbon, 4 µmol kg−1 in total alkalinity, 0.01–0.02 in pH (depending on region), and 5 % in the halogenated transient tracers. The other variables included in the compilation, such as isotopic tracers and discrete fCO2, were not subjected to bias comparison or adjustments. The original data and their documentation and DOI codes are available at the Ocean Carbon Data System of NOAA NCEI (https://www.nodc.noaa.gov/ocads/oceans/GLODAPv2_2020/, last access: 20 June 2020). This site also provides access to the merged data product, which is provided as a single global file and as four regional ones – the Arctic, Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific oceans – under https://doi.org/10.25921/2c8h-sa89 (Olsen et al., 2020). These bias-adjusted product files also include significant ancillary and approximated data. These were obtained by interpolation of, or calculation from, measured data. This living data update documents the GLODAPv2.2020 methods and provides a broad overview of the secondary quality control procedures and results.
Enabling Context-aware Smart Home with Semantic Web Technologies

Context-awareness has emerged as a key enabling technology for future smart homes. In this paper, we propose a generic layered model (the Context Stack) to guide the context-aware system design. We investigate the use of Semantic Web technologies in context modeling and reasoning. A Web Ontology based context model (CONON) is defined to facilitate explicit context representation, semantic context sharing, and logic reasoning. We show how the use of logic reasoning enables context-aware services to deduce high-level, implicit context from low-level, explicit context. In particular, we integrate the temporal ontology into our ontology model to facilitate annotating and reasoning about temporal context information. Following the general layered model, we present an OSGi-based context-aware service architecture for smart homes. We also build the smart home prototype with context-aware services.
Real-time Digital Control of a Coupled-Tank Plant with a Cyber-Physical System Node

A real-time implementation of a digital proportional-integral controller on a Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) node for a coupled-tank plant to provide a testbed for verification of control algorithm and communication is described. The CPS node embedded computer is based on the ADuC841 8-bit microcontroller and the embedded real-time multitasking software was written in Pascal language. Â The node is interfaced to the Quanser's coupled-tank plant via the on-chip 12-bit analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converters, and a RS-485 communication network connects it to other nodes to form a CPS. Experimental results on the closed-loop control performances of the digital proportional-integral controller with three different tuning sets on the coupled-tank plant, verified the functionality of the digital control algorithm.
Dynamically induced shock oscillation in the accretion disc around black holes

We investigate the global accretion solution around a stati on ry black hole using the smooth particle hydrodynamics (SPH) me thod. With the suitable choice of the input parameters, accretion flow u ndergoes shock transition that are oscillatory in nature. Such unstable so lutions exhibit the modulation of the inner part of the disk, such as post-shock c rona (PSC) and perhaps be responsible as the source of Quasi Periodic Os cillations (QPOs) of emergent high energy radiation commonly observed in black hole sources.
Personalized Access to Contextual Information by using an Assistant for Query Reformulation. (Personnalisation et Adaptation de L'accès à L'information Contextuelle en utilisant un Assistant Intelligent)

Les travaux presentes dans cette these rentrent dans le cadre de la Recherche d'Information (RI) et s'interessent a une des questions de recherche actuellement en vogue dans ce domaine: la prise en compte du contexte de l'utilisateur pendant sa quete de l'information pertinente. Nous proposons une approche originale de reformulation automatique de requetes basee sur le profil utilisateur et sa tâche actuelle. Plus precisement, notre approche tient compte deux elements du contexte, les centres d'interets de l'utilisateur (son profil) et la tâche qu'il realise, pour suggerer des requetes appropriees a son contexte. Nous proposons, en particulier, toute une demarche originale permettant de bien interpreter et reecrire la requete initiale en fonction des activites realisees dans la tâche courante de l'utilisateur.Nous considerons qu'une tâche est jalonnee par des activites, nous proposons alors d'interpreter le besoin de l'utilisateur, represente initialement par la requete, selon ses activites actuelles dans la tâche (et son profil) et de suggerer des reformulations de requetes appropriees a ces activites.Une implementation de cette approche est faite, et elle est suivie d’une etude experimentale. Nous proposons egalement une procedure d'evaluation qui tient compte l'evaluation des termes d'expansion, et l'evaluation des resultats retournes en utilisant les requetes reformulees, appeles SRQ State Reformulated Query. Donc, trois facteurs d’evaluation sont proposes sur lesquels nous nous appuierons pour l'analyse et l'evaluation des resultats. L’objective est de quantifier l'amelioration apportee par notre systeme dans certains contextes par rapport aux autres systemes. Nous prouvons que notre approche qui prend en compte la tâche actuelle de l'utilisateur est effectivement plus performante que les approches basees, soit uniquement sur la requete initiale, ou encore celle basee sur la requete reformulee en considerant uniquement le profil de l'utilisateur.