Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effect of Aspergillus japonicas culture filtrate on performance, carcase yield, digestive enzymes, intestinal microbiota and blood constituents of quail

Abstract This study was carried out to examine the beneficial role of organic acids and other beneficial compounds produced by Aspergillus japonicas and their effects on performance, carcase yield, digestive enzymes, intestinal microbiota and blood constituents of quail. 240 quails (7 days old) were allotted to 5 groups consisting of 48 quail chicks (4 replicates of 12 chicks). The first, second, third, fourth and fifth groups were fed basal diet with 0 (control), 1, 2, 3, and 4 mL A. japonicas culture filtrate/kg diet, respectively. The addition of A. japonicas culture filtrate up to 3 mL/kg feed increased body weight at 3 and 5 weeks-old and body weight gain from 1–3, 3–5 and 1–5 weeks, the best level was 3 mL/kg feed. Quails fed A. japonicas filtrate diets recorded the best feed conversion ratio in comparison with the control. Dietary addition of A. japonicas filtrate tended to decline triglyceride, LDL, and VLDL and increased HDL values in the plasma. Use of A. japonicas filtrate in diets up to 2 mL/kg improved the immune indices. The levels of SOD and TAC, GSH and CAT as well as digestive enzymes were improved due to A. japonicas filtrate supplementation compared to control. Plasma levels of MDA were decreased (p = .0001) in the quails fed Aspergillus filtrate (1 or 2 mL/kg). Quails fed rations enriched with filtrate exhibited lower colonisation of Escherichia coli, coliform and Salmonella. In conclusion, supplemental A. japonicas culture filtrate could improve the performance, digestive enzymes, immunity, antioxidant indices and mitigate intestinal pathogens. Highlights Use of Aspergillus filtrate improved in quail diets performance and digestive enzymes. Use of Aspergillus filtrate in quail diets improved immunity and antioxidant indices. Dietary addition of Aspergillus filtrate mitigated intestinal pathogens.
Design of a compact wideband CP metasurface antenna

In this article, a new compact metasurface circularly polarized (CP) antenna is presented, where the rotating 45° periodic ellipse patch is used to achieve polarization conversion from linearly polarized to CP. The meta‐surface is composed of 4 × 4 ellipse patches with 45° rotation, which are etched on the top layer of upper substrate. A slot ground plane and a coplanar waveguide structure are printed on both sides of bottom substrate, and the bottom substrate is directly connected to the upper substrate, which can make the antenna profile lower. As demonstrated in this article, the presented antennas have good characteristics of excellent 3‐dB axial ratio bandwidth of 17.4% (5.25‐6.25 GHz), and wide 10‐dB impedance bandwidth of 20.6% (5.0‐6.15 GHz).
Monitoring Approaches for Faecal Indicator Bacteria in Water: Visioning a Remote Real-Time Sensor for E. coli and Enterococci

A comprehensive review was conducted to assess the current state of monitoring approaches for primary faecal indicator bacteria (FIB) E. coli and enterococci. Approaches were identified and examined in relation to their accuracy, ability to provide continuous data and instantaneous detection results, cost, environmental awareness regarding necessary reagent release or other pollution sources, in situ monitoring capability, and portability. Findings showed that several methods are precise and sophisticated but cannot be performed in real-time or remotely. This is mainly due to their laboratory testing requirements, such as lengthy sample preparations, the requirement for expensive reagents, and fluorescent tags. This study determined that portable fluorescence sensing, combined with advanced modelling methods to compensate readings for environmental interferences and false positives, can lay the foundations for a hybrid FIB sensing approach, allowing remote field deployment of a fleet of networked FIB sensors that can collect high-frequency data in near real-time. Such sensors will support proactive responses to sudden harmful faecal contamination events. A method is proposed to enable the development of the visioned FIB monitoring tool.
Systemic Crop Signaling for Automatic Recognition of Transplanted Lettuce and Tomato under Different Levels of Sunlight for Early Season Weed Control

Conventional cultivation works to control weeds between the rows, but it ignores the weeds in crop rows which are most competitive with crops. Many vegetable crops still require manual removal of intra-row weeds not otherwise controlled by herbicides or conventional cultivation. The increasing labor costs of weed control and the continued emergences of herbicide-resistant weeds are threatening grower ability to manage weeds and maintain profitability. Intra-row weeders are commercially available but work best in low weed populations. One strategy for rapid weed crop differentiation is to utilize a machine-detectable compound to mark a crop. This paper proposes a new systemic plant signaling technology that can create machine-readable crops to facilitate the automated removal of intra-row weeds in early growth stages. Rhodamine B (Rh–B) is an efficient systemic compound to label crop plants due to its membrane permeability and unique fluorescent properties. The project involves applying solutions of Rh–B at 60 ppm to the roots of lettuce and tomato plants prior to transplantation to evaluate Rh–B persistence in plants under different levels of sunlight. Lettuce and tomato seedlings with the systemic Rh–B should be reliably recognized during their early growth stages. An intelligent robot is expected to be developed to identify the locations of plants based on the systemic signal inside. Reduced light treatments should help to alleviate the photodegradation of Rh–B in plants. After being exposed to full sunlight for 27 days, the systemic Rh–B would be detectable in tomato branches and lettuce ribs, and these plants are tolerant to root treatments with this fluorescent compound. This paper describes the project background and plan as well as the anticipated contributions of the research to allow the machine vision system to reliably identify the crop plants, and thus showing technical feasibility for outdoor weed control.
Infrared-Visible Person Re-Identification Via Cross-Modality Batch Normalized Identity Embedding And Mutual Learning

Cross-Modality Infrared-Visible Person Re-identification (IV-REID) is an important application in intelligent video surveillance. Compared to traditional single-modality person re-identification (re-ID) task, IV-REID aims at matching pedestrian images across different spectrum camera views. In this work, we propose a simple but effective framework to reduce the modality discrepancy. First, a batch normalized cross-modality Identity (ID) embedding method is designed to ease the vanishing gradient problem in IVREID. Second, we introduce a novel mutual learning strategy for different single-modality ID Embedding method to further learn discriminative representations under different modalities. Albeit simple, extensive experiments show that our method outperforms the state-of-the-art on RegDB and SYSU-MMOI datasets. Source code is publicly available at: https://giChub.com/linyq17/IV-REID
Transgenic Plant Production using Different T-DNA Technologies as a Tool of Genetic Engineering

The review study was carried out from different research data to find out the innovative latest technology in the transgenic plant production and its application in Agriculture like plant, fruit and vegetables. Transgenic plant production using T-DNA transformation by tissue culture with Agrobacterium mediated media in wild potato, potato, tomato, maize, apple, sweet orange, stawberry etc. has been described well. Transgenic plant production applied by dip, swabbing, drip, injection in xylem, phloem tissue, stem, flower and ovary method has been exhibited as innovative from different research data. In addition to that transgenic melon and squish production have been highlighted from different innovative research data. Moreover, Transgenic okra and hard wood plant production by injection using Agrobacterium mediated gene. Finally it can be summarized that transgenic ornamental plant, flower, fruit and vegetable can be produced by using different technologies like in vitro cell or tissue culture of leave disc, shoot and root slice having different concentration of Agrobacterium tumefaciens (used as Ti plasmid and genomic DNA) media by injecting in the stem, xylem and phloem tissue, bud, flower, ovary as well as swabbing, dipping, dripping and micro spraying technologies.
A Nature’s Curiosity: The Argonaut “Shell” and Its Organic Content

Molluscs are known for their ability to produce a calcified shell resulting from a genetically controlled and matrix-mediated process, performed extracellularly. The occluded organic matrix consists of a complex mixture of proteins, glycoproteins and polysaccharides that are in most cases secreted by the mantle epithelium. To our knowledge, the model studied here—the argonaut, also called paper nautilus—represents the single mollusc example where this general scheme is not valid: the shell of this cephalopod is indeed formed by its first dorsal arms pair and it functions as an eggcase, secreted by females only; furthermore, this coiled structure is fully calcitic and the organization of its layered microstructures is unique. Thus, the argonautid shell appears as an apomorphy of this restricted family, not homologous to other cephalopod shells. In the present study, we investigated the physical and biochemical properties of the shell of Argonauta hians, the winged argonaut. We show that the shell matrix contains unusual proportions of soluble and insoluble components, and that it is mostly proteinaceous, with a low proportion of sugars that appear to be mostly sulfated glycosaminoglycans. Proteomics performed on different shell fractions generated several peptide sequences and identified a number of protein hits, not shared with other molluscan shell matrices. This may suggest the recruitment of unique molecular tools for mineralizing the argonaut’s shell, a finding that has some implications on the evolution of cephalopod shell matrices.
Interactions between ecological, evolutionary, and environmental processes unveil complex dynamics of island biodiversity

Aims Understanding how biodiversity emerges and varies in space and time is central to ecology and biogeography. Multiple processes affect biodiversity at different scales and organizational levels, hence progress in understanding biodiversity dynamics requires the integration of these underlying processes. Here we present BioGEEM (BioGeographical Eco-Evolutionary Model), a spatially-explicit, process-based model that integrates all processes hypothesized to be relevant for biodiversity dynamics and that can be used to evaluate their relative roles. Location Hypothetical oceanic islands Methods The model is stochastic, grid-based, and integrates ecological (metabolic constraints, demography, dispersal, and competition), evolutionary (mutation and speciation), and environmental (geo-climatic dynamics) processes. Plants on oceanic islands served as model system. We used the full model to test hypotheses about emergent patterns at different spatio-temporal scales and organizational levels (populations, species, communities, and assemblages), switching off processes to assess the importance 1) of competition for realistic population and range dynamics; 2) metabolic constraints for endemism and community composition; 3) environmental dynamics and 4) speciation for biogeographical patterns. Results The full model generated multiple patterns matching empirical and theoretical expectations. For example, populations were largest on young, species-poor islands. Species, particularly endemics, were better able to fill their potential range on small, species-poor islands. Richness gradients peaked at mid-elevations. The proportion of endemics was highest on old, large, and isolated environments within the islands. Species and trait richness showed unimodal temporal trends. Switching off selected processes affected these patterns, and we found most of our hypotheses supported. Main conclusions Integrating ecological, evolutionary, and environmental processes is essential to simultaneously generate realistic spatio-temporal dynamics at population, species, community, and assemblage level. Finally, large-scale biodiversity dynamics emerged directly from biological processes which make this mechanistic model a valuable ‘virtual long-term field station’ to study the linkages between biogeography and ecology.
Spin States of 1D Iron(II) Coordination Polymers with Redox Active TTF(py)
 2
 as Bridging Ligand

In this manuscript, we report the solvent-dependent synthesis of 1D coordination polymers derived from two planar N2O2-coordinate iron(II) complexes FeL1 and FeL2, which incorporate TTF(py)2 as a bridging bis-monodentate ligand. The obtained 1D polymers were characterized through elemental analysis, Mössbauer spectroscopy, single crystal structure analysis for 2a·2 DMF, magnetic susceptibility measurements, X-ray powder diffraction, cyclic voltammetry and diffuse reflectance spectroscopy, supplemented by DFT computation. The results revealed additive electronic properties of the sub-units FeL and
Role of Earthworm in Improving Soil Structure and Functioning

Earthworms commonly occur within the soil. They alter physico-chemical and biological regimes of the soil through their activities, such as burrowing, casting, feeding and propagating, and therefore are known as 'ecosystem engineers'. Through their activities, they provide a number of ecosystem services which are ecologically and socio-economically important. This article reviews the role of earthworms in improving soil structural and functional properties, which serves as key determinants of soil ecosystem services and economic benefits for the farmers. A methodology of economic evaluation of the agro-ecosystem services provided by earthworms has been demonstrated. Further, the information gaps and future research have been discussed for ensuring sustainable agroecosystems management.
Phylogenomics enables biogeographic analysis and a new subtribal classification of Andropogoneae (Poaceae—Panicoideae)

The grass tribe Andropogoneae (Poaceae—Panicoideae) includes several important crops such as maize, sugarcane, and sorghum, and dominates the tropical grasslands of the world. We present here a plastome phylogeny of the tribe with the largest sample of genera to date (about 73%), including 65 newly assembled plastomes, together with a broad biogeographic analysis of Andropogoneae. Major relationships found in previous phylogenetic studies were confirmed here, with most nodes having higher resolution and support, including those of the backbone of the tree, which had been a major problem in previous phylogenies of the tribe. Our dated tree suggests that Andropogoneae diverged from Arundinelleae in the Early Miocene, while the “core Andropogoneae” clade originated in the Late Miocene. The tribe originated in East Asia, but intercontinental dispersal has been common, with many independent dispersal events to Africa and the New World. Based on the plastome phylogeny, we propose here a new classification of Andropogoneae as most of its previously accepted subtribes are not monophyletic. Our classification comprises 14 subtribes, 92 genera, and ∼1224 species. About 90% of the Andropogoneae species could be assigned to a subtribe, which represents a major step toward clarification of the taxonomy of the tribe. The remaining taxa were placed incertae sedis pending additional molecular data. The new subtribes Chrysopogoninae and Rhytachninae are described herein. Our plastome trees also indicate that several Andropogoneae genera are para‐ or polyphyletic and require additional studies to define their circumscriptions.
Effect of iron overload with ascorbic acid on experimental colon carcinogenesis in mice

cals, thereby leading to harmful effects on cancer and aging. Ascorbic acid is not only an antioxidant but also a co-factor of iron absorption. The effect of iron-overload with ascorbic acid on experimental colon carcinogenesis was investigated in male ICR mice. Animals were treated weekly with azoxymethane (AOM, 10 mg/kg b.w.) at 0, 1, and 2 week and then drunk 2% dextran sodium sulfate (DSS)-containing water for the next 1 week. There were four experimental groups: carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) alone (control), CMC + ascorbic acid (AA), CMC + Fe, CMC + Fe + AA. The animals fed on AIN-76A purified rodent diet for six weeks. AA or Fe2O3 at the dose of 450 mg/kg b.w. were daily and orally treated for 6 weeks. The colonic mucosa was stained with methylene blue and then aberrant crypt foci (ACF) and polyps were counted. Thiobarbituric acid-reactive substances (TBARS) in serum and liver were determined. Iron concentration in liver was measured by inductively coupled plasma spectrophotometer. Fe-overload with AA strongly increased liver iron contents compared to control or Fe group (p<0.05). There were no significant differences in the number of ACF or polyps among all groups, although ironoverloaded groups had slightly higher numbers compared with the control or AA group. TBARS values in the liver were increased in the iron-overloaded groups compared to control and AA only group (p<0.05), but serum TBARS values were not changed. These results indicate that the excessive iron treatment did not affect the experimental colon carcinogenesis regardless of presence of AA in mice.
Development of Porous Asphalt with Bitumen Emulsion, Electric arc Furnace Slag and Cellulose Fibers for Medium Traffic Roads

The construction of road infrastructure is one of the most polluting activities that exists today. Therefore, the use of waste from other industries is an excellent solution, since it reduces the consumption of raw materials, reduces CO2 emissions and avoids the disposal of waste in a landfill. In this study, electric arc furnace slag, cellulose fibers from the papermaking industry and bitumen emulsion were used for the conformation of sustainable and porous bituminous mixtures. Electric arc furnace slag was used as a high-resistance aggregate with a capacity sufficient to support traffic loads. Cellulose fibers were added to increase the percentage of binder in the mixture without bleeding problems, thereby achieving greater tensile strength. To do this, first the waste was physically and chemically characterized, then different mixtures were conformed and finally the mixtures were studied by means of the loss by wear and Marshall tests. The results reflected an optimal combination of materials that provided the best results in the mechanical tests, obtaining much better results than the mixtures with discontinuous grading and traditional bitumen emulsion. Therefore, a sustainable, porous and economical mixture for road use is obtained in this research.
Discriminant analysis as a tool to identify bovine and ovine meat produced from pasture or stall-fed animals

Abstract This work evaluated the reliability of the multivariate statistical analysis to discriminate the feeding system and the species of ruminants using their intramuscular fatty acids (FA) profile. FA composition of 53 meat samples (longissimus dorsi muscle) from animals of different species (sheep and cattle) raised with different feeding systems (pasture and stall-fed) (4 groups overall) was determined and expressed as % fatty acid methyl ester (FAME). A stepwise discriminant analysis (SDA) was applied to the full set of FA to select the variables that best discriminated between feeding systems and animal species. The selected variables were then submitted to a canonical discriminant analysis (CDA) to test the ability of those variables in discriminating against the four groups. Discriminant analysis (DA) was then exploited to classify meat samples. From the 62 initial variables detected in the FA profile, 24 were retained in the SDA. The subsequent CDA developed by using the selected variables, significantly discriminated the four groups (Hotelling's test p < 0.0001) by extracting three canonical functions. Heptadecenoic acid C17:1 c10, seemed to play a pivotal role both in discriminating species and feeding system while some 18:1 isomers (C18:1 c12, C18:1 c13 C18:1 t13/t14) together with CLA c9, t11 and ω-3 were important in discriminating feeding systems. Multivariate statistical analysis of FA was able to track both the species and the feeding system of source animals with good accuracy. Highlights The increasing interest in the ‘green image’ of meat obtained from grass-based systems guides the search for methods to trace the animal feeding system. Extracting more information from the large amounts of meat data provided by laboratory equipment is of utmost importance. Multivariate statistical analysis is able to trace with good accuracy meat samples back to their animal species and feeding system origin.
Topical co-delivery of indomethacin and nigella sativa L. essential oil in poly-cappa-caprolactone nanoparticles: in vitro study of anti-inflammatory activity

Indomethacin is a potent, nonselective Non-steroidal Antiinflammatory Drug (NSAID) but its low water-solubility precludes its use as topical dosage form. As with other NSAIDs, the systemic delivery is associated with high risk of serious gastrointestinal adverse events including bleeding, ulceration and perforation of stomach and intestines. Here we demonstrate a safer way of administration i.e via topical demonstrating synergistic effects when co-delivered with Nigella sativa L. seeds essential oil (NSSEO) in the form of coencapsulated particles (~200 nm) of poly--caprolactone. The particles showed penetrability across stratum corneum to dermis layer in ex-vivo human skin. Further study in the xyline-induced ear edema in mice was performed, and co-encapsulated particles demonstrated highest antiinflammatory effect compared to indomethacin particles and indomethacin gels. Despite slower onset compared to indomethacin gels, the inflamed ear continued to show reduction in thickness over 8 hours of observation demonstrating synergistic and pro-longed effect contributed by NSSEO. In immunohistochemistry study of CD45+, the mice ears treated with co-encapsulated particles showed considerable reduction in lesions, epidermal-dermal separation and inflammatory cells (lymphocytes and neutrophils) infiltration as compared to other formulation. Based on microscopic evaluation, the anti-inflammatory inhibition effect of co-encapsulated particles is the highest (90%) followed by indomethacin particles (79%) and indomethacin gel (49%). The findings suggest not only skin permeability of indomethacin significantly improved but also the therapeutic effects, all provided by the presence of NSSEO in the particles. This study paves the way to more co-encapsulation of any other contemporary medicines in combination with this wholesome natural oil, NSSEO.
Characterization of a Type 2 Diabetes–Associated Islet-Specific Enhancer Cluster in STARD10 by Genome Editing of EndoC-ßH1 Cells

Genome-wide association studies have identified >100 genetic loci associated with type 2 diabetes. We recently analysed one locus on chromosome 11q and mapped 5 causal variants in an islet-specific enhancer cluster within the STARD10 gene (Carrat, et al., Am J Hum Gen, 2017). Here, we aimed to understand the function of this cluster in beta cells and how causal variants influence enhancer activity. Using published ATAC-seq data (Varshney A, et al., PNAS, 2017) we analysed the transcriptional activity of 10 open chromatin regions (0.2-2 kb) using promoter-luciferase assay in EndoC-βH1 cells. Of these regions, HS1b displayed a 6.25-fold increase compared with empty vector [luciferase/renilla ratio: 6.25 ± 0.14; Student’s t-test, p Disclosure M. Hu: None. P. Gadue: None. G.A. Rutter: Research Support; Self; Servier.