Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fungal isolates and their bioremediation for pH, chloride, tph and some toxic heavy metals

In this paper, an attempt was made to evaluate the effectiveness of different strains of native soil fungi (isolated from oil-contaminated environments) in the restoration of oilfield water-based drill-cuttings. Potato Dextrose Agar (PDA) was used for the isolation of fungi. About 0.5 g of fungal hyphae containing fungal isolates (after special treatment) used for polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification. PCR product sequencing and Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST) analysis of isolates were sent to GenBank for molecular evolutionary analyses. The evolutionary analyses and phylogenetic tree then was built by MEGA Version4. Out of 68 native hydrocarbon-degrading fungi; only four isolates were identified as the most potent strains, namely; Aspergillus niger-MK452260.1 (F1) A. fumigatus-KU321562.1 (F2); A. flavus-MH270609.1 (F4) and Penicillium chrysogenum-MK696383.1 (F3). Bio-augmentation (in-situ) experiments (individual/mixed cultures) were tested in 10 triplicates, excluding the control. Results (after two months of bioremediation) revealed that; F2+F4 isolates rendered the pH of drill-cuttings from strong alkaline to nearly neutrality level. F3+F4 isolates reduced chloride content by 25 folds. The isolate F2 showed the highest percentage in a reduction of total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH). The isolate F3 showed the highest potential in the discount of lead, while the isolate F1 bioaccumulated arsenic more efficiently.
HAtt: Hybrid Remote Attestation for the Internet of Things With High Availability

The critical and sensitive nature of data that the Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices produce makes them an attractive target for cyber attacks. Among the various types of attacks, malware is becoming a major concern for the IoT device. This article proposes a remote attestation protocol, hybrid remote attestation, which ensures the high availability of IoT devices during the software attestation process. The proposed attestation technique uses a randomized approach to attest different parts of an IoT device’s memory. We use physical unclonable functions (PUFs) to protect the secrets of an IoT device from physical attacks. The security analysis shows that the proposed attestation technique can effectively detect roving malware. Implementation of the proposed protocol on Raspberry Pi and AVR/ARM-based ATMEL microcontrollers and comparison with existing techniques shows that the proposed protocol results in significantly higher availability and lower energy consumption.
Toward a Novel Laser-Based Approach for Estimating Snow Interception

Forests reduce snow accumulation on the ground through canopy interception and subsequent evaporative losses. To understand snow interception and associated hydrological processes, studies have typically relied on resource-intensive point scale measurements derived from weighed trees or indirect measurements that compared snow accumulation between forested sites and nearby clearings. Weighed trees are limited to small or medium-sized trees, and indirect comparisons can be confounded by wind redistribution of snow, branch unloading, and clearing size. A potential alternative method could use terrestrial lidar (light detection and ranging) because three-dimensional lidar point clouds can be generated for any size tree and can be utilized to calculate volume of the intercepted snow. The primary objective of this study was to provide a feasibility assessment for estimating snow interception volume with terrestrial laser scanning (TLS), providing information on challenges and opportunities for future research. During the winters of 2017 and 2018, intercepted snow masses were continuously measured for two model trees suspended from load-cells. Simultaneously, autonomous terrestrial lidar scanning (ATLS) was used to develop volumetric estimates of intercepted snow. Multiplying ATLS volume estimates by snow density estimates (derived from empirical models based on air temperature) enabled the comparison of predicted vs. measured snow mass. Results indicate agreement between predicted and measured values (R2 ≥ 0.69, RMSE ≥ 0.91 kg, slope ≥ 0.97, intercept ≥ −1.39) when multiplying TLS snow interception volume with a constant snow density estimate. These results suggest that TLS might be a viable alternative to traditional approaches for mapping snow interception, potentially useful for estimating snow loads on large trees, collecting data in difficult to access terrain, and calibrating snow interception models to new forest types around the globe.
Conceptual Design of BCI for Mobile Robot Control

This paper presents an application of Hierarchical Systems (HS) technology in conceptual and detailed design of Brain Computer Interface (BCI) system to control a mobile robot. The BCI is a biomechatronic system that includes biological (brain), computer (control PC), electronic (sensors), visual informatics (LCD—liquid crystal display, GUI—graphic user interface) and executive electro-mechanical (MR—mobile robot) subsystems. Therefore, the conceptual model of the designed BCI system should present connected formal models of the above subsystems presented in the general systemic basis. The structure of the BCI system, its dynamic realization as a unit in its environment and MR environment are presented formally as well. In addition, the conceptual model should also take into account the BCI inter-level relations performed by MR coordinator implemented in the form of the design and control system. Therefore, HS model (and its standard block aed—ancient Greek word) is selected and described as the formal basis of the conceptual model of BCI system in the first part of the given paper. BCI system detailed design is under consideration in the second part of the paper. BCI control system and MR design results, as well as MR control process are also described in the final part of the paper.
How do animal performance and methane emissions vary with forage management intensification and supplementation?

Context Yields from Brazilian beef-production systems do not always match the expected potential of a forage-based beef-production system. This efficiency is dependent on adjustments of grazing intensity and supplement utilisation to achieve higher bodyweight gain and lower methane emission. Therefore, more studies are necessary to evaluate the association between pasture management and supplement doses. Aims The aim of the present study was to determine nutrient intake, nutrient digestibility, animal performance, carcass characteristics and enteric methane emissions of young Nellore bulls grazing Urochloa brizantha cv. Marandu pastures. Methods One hundred and forty-eight yearling bulls (230 ± 17 kg) were randomly assigned to a grazing-by-supplementation strategy that was designed to allocate three different sward heights with differing levels of supplementation during the wet season. Treatment combinations were (1) low sward height with high supplementation (LH-HS, 15-cm sward height and supplementation at 0.6% of bodyweight (BW)); (2) low height with moderate supplementation (LH-MS, 15 cm and 0.3% BW); (3) moderate height with moderate supplementation (MH-MS, 25 cm and 0.3% BW); (4) moderate height with low supplementation (MH-LS, 25 cm and 0.1% BW); (5) high height with low supplementation (HH-LS, 35 cm and 0.1% BW); and (6) high height with no supplementation (HH-WS, 35 cm). Key results Bulls in the HH groups had a greater herbage intake than did those in the LH groups (P < 0.01). Bulls in the LH-HS treatment resulted in a greater (P < 0.01) carcass average daily gain than that obtained with LH-MS, MH-LS or HH-WS treatment. Higher stocking rate with the LH treatment resulted in greater gains per hectare in terms of both BW and carcass (P < 0.01). Carcass yield was greater for bulls maintained with the LH-HS treatment (54.3% BW). Higher enteric methane emissions were observed from bulls under the HH treatments (P < 0.01). Conclusions Comparing carcass gains per hectare and low methane emissions, the present study indicated that pasture management towards a low sward height combined with 0.3% or 0.6% BW supplementation can result in a greater nutrient utilisation efficiency of bulls. Implications Results provided information to obtain better gains per animals and area, also decreasing methane emission of beef cattle production system.
Obscure: Information-Theoretically Secure, Oblivious, and Verifiable Aggregation Queries on Secret-Shared Outsourced Data

Despite exciting progress on cryptography, secure and efficient query processing over outsourced data remains an open challenge. We develop a communication-efficient and information-theoretically secure system, entitled Obscure for aggregation queries with conjunctive or disjunctive predicates, using secret-sharing. Obscure is strongly secure (i.e., secure regardless of the computational-capabilities of an adversary) and prevents the network, as well as, the (adversarial) servers to learn the user’s queries, results, or the database. In addition, Obscure provides additional security features, such as hiding access-patterns (i.e., hiding the identity of the tuple satisfying a query) and hiding query-patterns (i.e., hiding which two queries are identical). Also, Obscure does not require any communication between any two servers that store the secret-shared data before/during/after the query execution. Moreover, our techniques deal with the secret-shared data that is outsourced by a single or multiple database owners, as well as, allows a user, which may not be the database owner, to execute the query over secret-shared data. We further develop (non-mandatory) privacy-preserving result verification algorithms that detect malicious behaviors, and experimentally validate the efficiency of Obscure on large datasets, the size of which prior approaches of secret-sharing or multi-party computation systems have not scaled to.
Precise multi‐dimensional temperature‐rise characterisation of switchgear based on multi‐conditional experiments and LPTN model for high‐capacity application

As the power load increases, the capacity of switchgear becomes larger so the problem of overheating of switchgears becomes more significant. Whether the switchgears operate safely and reliably affects the reliability and economy of the entire power system. Different methods have been tried to study the thermal problems of switchgears. However, there are few experimental studies on the switchgear entity. In this study, a series of temperature rise tests were carried out on medium-voltage high-capacity switchgear to explore laws of temperature rise. First, five groups of multi-conditional experiments were carried out including changes of the load current, ventilation conditions and loop resistance. Then, multi-dimensional temperature-rise characterisation was analysed based on the experimental results and the relating theory. Finally, a circuit-based lumped-parameter thermal network (LPTN) model was developed by analysing the heat dissipation in switchgear and used to determine the steady-state temperature distribution of the switchgear. The model is verified by comparing the simulation results with the experimental results.
Multi-Phase Shifting Autotransformer Based Rectifier

In this paper, a thorough analysis is carried out in order to achieve an optimal design of a forty-four pulse rectifier. In this study, a novel Multi-phase Shifting Autotransformer (MPSA) is introduced, discussed, simulated and implemented to forty-four pulse rectifier with acceptable power rates. Accordingly, the main purpose of the paper is focused on the power kVA rating reduction for power quality applications. It provides a more economical solution to achieve harmonic mitigation in electric power systems as compared with other rectifiers. The simulation and experimental results show that the input current THD is less than 3% using the proposed topology. The results indicate a significant reduction in the total cost and volume of the proposed forty-four pulse configuration in comparison with similar configurations. Also, it is shown that the proposed converter rating is about 42% of the DC load power.
Effects of optimum doses of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and calcium on silkworm, Bombyx mori L., growth and yield

Silkworm rearing has been an income source for small‐holding farmers in Pakistan. Over the years efforts have been made to improve silkworm quality and quantity and thus develop better prospects for increasing yield and income. Mulberry leaves Morus alba L. in a series of experiments have been supplemented with various nutrients in different doses and combinations. Relative success has been achieved in this context. In our present experiments on silkworm Bombyx mori L. , we fed the larvae on mulberry leaves supplemented with different doses of N (0.2%), P (0.1%), K (0.3%) and Ca (0.1%) at 26 ± 3°C with 65 ± 5% relative humidity. The results showed better outputs in terms of food consumption (72.55 g/10 larvae), coefficient of utilization (76.45%), body weight (70.07 g/10 larvae) and body length (8.56 cm/larvae) than where simple mulberry leaves were offered. Our net gains with these production parameters have been in terms of heavier cocoons with and without pupa (2.25 and 0.69 g/cocoon), respectively.
The relationship between fruit and leaf growth in lychee (Litchi chinensis Sonn.)

Summary The relationship between fruit and leaf growth was investigated in lychee (Litchi chinensis Sonn.) in a series of experiments in subtropical Australia (lat. 27°S). Panicles were removed at flowering to encourage new leaf growth on half the branches of each tree during fruit development. Some of the trees were pruned every week to prevent all vegetative growth, to test the effect of flower removal alone without subsequent leaf growth. In other experiments, the effect of pruning 50% of the branches was studied, but the pruning was scattered across the tree, rather than on one side. The yields of pruned trees with or without leaf flushes were more than 50% of the yield of the control plots in ten out of eleven cases, indicating that new leaves on one branch did not usually compete with fruit on adjacent branches. Concentrations of starch declined from flowering to harvest, and were higher in the branches than in the leaves, twigs, trunk and roots. In contrast, the effects of pruning were generally small. Concentrations of starch in the branches were sometimes higher when leaf or fruit growth was suppressed after pruning compared with branches with new growth. There were also slightly higher concentrations of starch in branches with leafy shoots than in those carrying fruit. These results suggest that the new leaves and fruit are more dependent on current assimilation than on stored reserves. New leaves on one branch do not reduce fruit growth in adjacent branches.
Effects of Eight Weeks of Aerobic Exercises on the Cardiac Function and Inflammatory Markers of Male Patients with Heart Failure After Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting

BackgroundCardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of mortality across the world. Coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) is frequently performed on patients with cardiac diseases, the outcomes of which are closely associated with lifestyle modification, especially physical exercise.ObjectivesThe present study aimed to evaluate the impact of aerobic exercises on the cardiac function and inflammatory markers of male patients with heart failure after CABG.MethodsThis clinical trial was conducted on 20 male patients with heart failure after CABG, who were randomly divided into the intervention and control groups (10 per each). In total, 24 aerobic exercise sessions were performed in the form of three 60-minutes weekly sessions with 60% - 70% maximal heart rate (MaxHR). Cardiac function was evaluated, and the levels of interleukin 6 (IL-6) high‐sensitivity C‐reactive protein (hsCRP) were measured before and after the intervention. Data analysis was performed in the PRISM software using independent and Paired t-test.ResultsAfter the intervention, left ventricular ejection fraction significantly increased in the intervention group, while no changes were observed in the control group (P = 0.0039). However, no significant changes were observed in the diastolic function of the groups after the intervention (P > 0.05). IL-6 had no significant changes in the control group, while it significantly reduced in the intervention group (P = 0.002). Furthermore, the hsCRP significantly decreased in the intervention group (P = 0.036), while no significant changes were observed in the control group in this regard (P < 0.05). ConclusionsAccording to the results, aerobic exercises could improve systolic cardiac function and decrease IL-6 and hsCRP in the patients with cardiac failure. Therefore, these exercises are recommended following CABG.
Effects of exogenously applied salicylic acid on the induction of multiple stress tolerance and mineral nutrition in maize (Zea mays L.)

Abstract It has been proposed that salicylic acid (SA) acts as an endogenous signal molecule responsible for inducing environmental stress tolerance in plants. In this study, the effects of seed soaked (1.0 mM for 24 h) and soil incorporated (0.1 mM and 0.5 mM) salicylic acid (SA) supply on growth and mineral concentrations of maize (Zea mays L., Hamidiye F1) grown under either salt, boron toxicity or drought-stressed conditions were investigated. Exogenously applied SA either with seed soaked (SS) or soil incorporated (SI) increased plant growth significantly in all the stresses conditions. Salicylic acid inhibited Na and Cl accumulation in saline conditions, and 0.5 mM of soil incorporated SA decreased B significantly in boron toxicity treatment. Except in drought condition, SA treatments stimulated N accumulation in plants. And P, K, Mg and Mn concentrations of SA received plants were increased in the stress conditions. These results suggest that SA regulates the response of plants to the environmental stresses and could be used as a plant growth regulator to improve plant growth and stimulate mineral nutrient concentrations under stress conditions.
Development of the Family System-Therapeutic Approach in the Addictions Treatment in Serbia

The roots of system-group family therapy in alcoholism, from which the Belgrade School, originated in the socio-psychiatric paradigm (medical model of addiction, psychodynamic orientation and socialization of psychiatry), Led by these socio-psychiatric paradigm was in 1963. formed the Institute for Mental Health and on the same day formed Socio-Therapeuttic-Club of treated alcoholics.Involvement of addict's wife and other family members, and later the professional environment in treatment began in the late 1970s, when The Day Hospital for Family Alcohol Therapy (1978) has been formed. A general system theory was introduced very consistently into this therapeutic model, which included emphasizing the psychoeducation of the identified patient and family members as well as the formation of therapeutic groups of multiple families as a form of prolonged treatment (stabilization phase), while, in the same time, preserving the concept of the therapeutic community and socio-therapeutic clubs as a form of prolonged treatment or recovery. The basis of the family-system therapy concept of the "Belgrade School of Addictology" is related to understanding the process of systemic equilibrium, through the processes of morphogenesis and homeostasis, namely through the understanding of pathological aspects of homeostasis called "processes of adjustment of the alcoholic family or system". Eco-system processes significantly determine the characteristics of individuals, families, social institutions, as well as the characteristics of health and specificity of the disease. With that on mind, it is necessary to understand the transformation of therapeutic models that obviously cannot be purely medical, not as purely psychiatric. It has to be understood as a variable and individualized living processes.
THE THE EFFECT OF CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY (CSR) ON COMPANY VALUES WITH COMPANY PROFITABILITY AS MODERATING VARIABLES IN PLANTATION COMPANIES LISTED IN INDONESIA STOCK EXCHANGE

This study aims to analyze the effect of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in terms of labor disclosure, product responsibility, economic performance, environment, and waste on firm value with profitability as a moderating variable on plantation companies on the IDX. This type of research is causal associative research. The research method uses secondary data collection techniques. The population in this study included plantation companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange from 2013 to 2017. The sampling method used in this study was purposive sampling. Data were processed using panel data regression analysis. The results showed that the workforce had a negative and not significant effect on firm value. Product liability has a positive and significant effect on firm value. Economic performance has a positive and not significant effect on firm value. Energy has a positive and not significant effect on firm value. Waste has a negative effect and is not significant to the firm value. Profitability is a moderating variable for the relationship between labor, product responsibility, and waste on firm value. But the profitability variable is not a moderating variable for the relationship between economic performance and energy on firm value.
Deficiency in interleukin 10 reverses the susceptibility phenotype of CBA/J mice during infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis. (43.23)

Interleukin 10 is a known correlate of susceptibility to tuberculosis (TB) in man and similarly, elevated levels of IL-10 (either natural or induced) in mice can accelerate TB disease progression. The CBA/J mouse strain is a model that naturally produces abundant IL-10 and is also highly susceptible to infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M.tb). We have generated CBA/J mice deficient in IL-10 (IL-10 KO) to determine the mechanisms of influence of IL-10 on TB disease progression in this highly susceptible mouse strain. In contrast to IL-10 KO on resistant mouse strain backgrounds where the lack of IL-10 has little impact on TB outcome, the CBA/J IL-10 KO was fully capable of limiting M.tb growth within the lung and spleen for an extended period of time, with over 2 Log fewer M.tb colony forming units (CFU), compared to CBA/J wild type. This reduction in bacterial growth correlated with a highly significant extension in survival, relative to CBA/J wild type mice. The ability to control M.tb infection was associated with an early detection of IFN-gamma within the lung and the detection of IFN-gamma producing antigen specific T cells throughout infection. Of particular significance was the finding that CBA/J IL-10 mice developed mature granulomas (encircled by collagen) with necrotic centers containing M.tb bacillus of variable acid-fast staining.