Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Heterotrophic growth of cyanobacteria and phage-mediated microbial loop in soil: Examination by stable isotope probing (SIP) method

Cyanobacteria play an important role in maintaining soil fertility in rice fields. Some cyanobacterial members can grow heterotrophically under dark conditions, which might be an important trait for the survival of cyanobacteria during the drained period after harvest. This study aimed to elucidate the heterotrophic growth of cyanobacteria and the microbial loop mediated by cyanophages (cyanobacteria-cyanophages-dissolved organic carbon) in soil using carbon-13 (13C)-labeled dried callus cells as a model material of plant residues. This study used the stable isotope probing (SIP) method coupled with denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE). Although heterotrophic growth of cyanobacteria in soil was not observed, the phage-mediated microbial loop in the transformation of callus carbon was elucidated from the detection of 13C-labeled g20 genes in the heaviest fractions (buoyant density: 1.754 g mL−1). The closest relatives of eleven sequenced DGGE bands from the heaviest fractions were uncultured cyanophage g20 clones that had been obtained from rice field soils in Japan. Proliferation of bacteriophages having cyanophage-related g20 genes with no detectable heterotrophic growth of cyanobacteria strongly indicates that bacteriophages having these g20 genes infected bacteria other than cyanobacteria.
Recent Advances in the Use of TiO2 Nanotube and Nanowire Arrays for Oxidative Photoelectrochemistry

In this article, we present recent advances that we have achieved toward improving the properties of anodically formed semiconducting TiO2 nanotubes as well as nanowire arrays as electrodes for oxidative photoelectrochemistry. The morphology, crystallinity, composition, and illumination geometry of nanotube or nanowire arrays are critical factors in their performance as photoelectrodes. We discuss the key aspects relating to each factor and the advances achieved in improving each. With respect to the more fully investigated nanotube arrays, the ability to control the morphological parameters such as pore size, tube length, and wall thickness of the nanotube architecture has enabled high performance in applications such as water photoelectrolysis, photocatalysis, dye-sensitized solar cells, and heterojunction TiO2−polymer hybrid solar cells. We begin by reviewing the photoelectrochemical performance of state-of-the-art nanotube arrays fabricated on planar substrates. We then present more recent results rel.
Essential Oil Composition, Antibacterial and Antioxidant Activities of Mentha aquatica Growing in Ethiopia

The in vitro antibacterial and antioxidant activities of the essential oil of Mentha aquatica L. (Lamiaceae) growing in Ethiopia were studied. The chemical composition of the oil was also investigated by using capillary gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. A total of 34 compounds representing 99.4% of the oil have been identified. Menthofuran (70.5%) was characterized as the main component with limonene and pmenthone constituting 9.42 and 7.20% of the oil, respectively. In general, the oil showed a remarkable activity against the Gram-positive bacteria tested of which Staphylococcus aureus 29737, S. aureus ML267, Sarcina luteus 9341 and Bacilus pumilus 8241 strains were the most susceptible. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values of the oil against these organisms were found to be less than 5 μg/ml. The antioxidant activity of the oil was evaluated using 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and deoxyribose degradation assays and was found to possess good radical scavenging activity with IC50 values of 11.2 and 3.74 μl/ml, respectively. Keywords : antibacterial, antioxidant, Mentha aquatica , essential oil, capillary gas chromatography-mass spectrometry Ethiopian Pharmaceutical Journal Vol. 26 (1) 2008: pp. 9-16
Elements of quantum informatics on the states of equal spin-spin interactions model

The equal spin-spin interactions model is considered for development of the schemes of experimental implementation of universal set of gates, which is sufficient to construct the quantum algorithms of arbitrary complexity. This model is am imitation of the spin-system of the real molecule of a nematic liquid crystal, where the NMR spectrum with many resonance lines was observed. This system seems to be very perspective for quantum informatics.
Improving Paleoseismic Earthquake Magnitude Estimates with Rupture Length Information: Application to the Puget Lowland, Washington State, U.S.A.

Both earthquake displacement and rupture length correlate with magnitude, and, therefore, observations of each from past earthquakes can be used to estimate the magnitude of those earthquakes in the absence of instrumental records. We extend the Bayesian inversion method of Biasi and Weldon (2006), which estimates paleoearthquake magnitude from displacement observations, to incorporate both rupture length and surface displacement measurements into the magnitude inversion. We then use this method on 27 late-Pleistocene to Holocene paleoearthquakes in the Puget Lowland region of Washington. Observations of (typically vertical) fault separation per event range from 0.6 to 7 m, implying net displacement per event of up to 10±4 m for the largest event. Rupture lengths are estimated to vary between the smallest contiguous mapped scarps to the full extent of the faults mapped from geology and geophysical observations. Although, a few of the ruptures may be longer than 150 km, the ruptures have a median of 53 km, indicating that earthquakes in the Puget Lowland have relatively high displacement-to-length ratios. By considering both datasets, we find that all events were between M 6.3 and 7.5, generally consistent with the expected seismicity from the U.S. Geological Survey National Seismic Hazard Map for the region. The simultaneous use of both length and displacement data in the magnitude inversion decreases both the estimated earthquake magnitudes and the uncertainty. The magnitude reduction, in particular, is due to the relatively short rupture lengths possible for Puget Lowland faults. This implies a decrease in the seismic hazard (relative to a displacement-only assessment) to a highly populated and rapidly urbanizing region.
Knowledge-Sharing Strategies in Distributed Collaborative Product Development

Knowledge-sharing strategies are used across the industry as open innovation and distributed collaboration are becoming more popular to achieve technological competencies, faster time-to-market, competitiveness and growth. Sharing of knowledge can provide benefits to manufacturing and new product development (NPD) companies in improving their product quality and enhancing business potential. This paper examines the implementation of knowledge-sharing strategies in New Zealand aimed at bridging the physical locational issues to achieve collaborative benefits in NPD firms through an in-depth case study. The analysis of this only one, but interesting, case extends a holistic multi-mediation model by Pateli and Lioukas for the effect of functional involvement in a distributed collaborative product development environment. This study explores the external and internal knowledge transfer and how it affects early-stage, late-stage, and the overall product development process. Findings present a knowledge-sharing toolset that enhances innovation in all stages of product development overcoming the environmental factors to improve early and late-stage development through a two-way knowledge-transfer loop with distributed stakeholders. An encouraging management culture is found as key for transparent knowledge transfer across cross-functional teams. The organizational structure and management style play an important role for both external and internal distribution of knowledge.
Continuous Percolation in Organic Conducting Blends

Electronic transport properties of organic conductive blends made of doped poly(aniline) and conventional insulating matrices exhibit non-standard dependences on temperature T and conducting phase contents p. We propose a new analysis of conductivity data that accounts for the interplay of microscopic mechanisms - essentially hopping - and percolation effects. The continuous percolation scheme allows us to understand the T dependence of the conductivity exponent of percolation. This in turn is responsible for the apparent p dependence of the hopping parameters. It is possible to derive these effective parameters from those of the pure poly(aniline). We thus end up with a closed form formula to fit the whole set of conductivity data σ(p,T). The consequences of this analysis are discussed.
Dry film method with ytterbium as the internal standard for near infrared spectroscopic plasma glucose assay coupled with boosting support vector regression

A novel near infrared (NIR) spectroscopic measurement technique, dry film method, has been proposed for the determination of glucose in plasma. Rare earth element ytterbium (Yb) has been taken in the dry film method as the internal standard to compensate for the thickness variation of the dry films. This technique circumvents the interference from water absorption and requires only 50 µl of sample. Support vector regression (SVR) as a multivariate calibration method has been combined with boosting for the development of a boosting support vector regression (BSVR) method for the dry film measurement modeling. The introduction of boosting drastically enhances the performance of individual SVR model. The results show that the glucose in plasma can be determined over the 0.4–20 mmol/L concentration range with satisfactory accuracy using the dry film technique coupled with the BSVR method. Moreover, the performance of BSVR was compared favorably with that of the conventional SVR and PLS. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Interaction of Ionomers and Polyelectrolytes with Divalent Transition Metal Cations (Cu2+ and VO2+): A Study by Electron Spin Resonance (ESR) Spectroscopy and Viscosimetry

The interactions in aqueous media between ion-containing polymers (ionomers and polyelectrolytes) and the divalent cations Cu2+ and VO2+ were studied by electron spin resonance (ESR) at X and L bands and by viscometry. The polymeric systems studied were poly(ethylene-co-methacrylic acid) (EMAA) ionomer, perfluorinated ionomer (Nafion), poly(acrylic acid) (PAA), and poly(styrene sulfonic acid) (PSSA). ESR spectra indicate immobilization of both cations in EMAA solutions, due to cation ligation to two carboxylic groups from a multichain micelle. In PAA, the attachment of the cations to the polymer chain depends on the pH: no attachment at low pH (1.5), and progressive bonding as the pH is increased. Two types of Cu2+/PAA complexes were detected and were assigned respectively to ligation of the cation to one and to two carboxylic groups in the PAA chain. Only one type of complex with PAA was detected for VO2+ cations in the pH range up to 8.5. No evidence for complexation was detected for both cations in th.
Nontestability of instrument validity under continuous treatments

This note presents a proof of the conjecture in Pearl (1995) about testing the validity of an instrumental variable in hidden variable models. It implies that instrument validity cannot be tested in the case where the endogenous treatment is continuously distributed. This stands in contrast to the classical testability results for instrument validity when the treatment is discrete. However, imposing weak structural assumptions on the model, such as continuity between the observable variables, can re-establish theoretical testability in the continuous setting.
The Time Course of Face Representations during Perception and Working Memory Maintenance

Abstract Successful social communication requires accurate perception and maintenance of invariant (face identity) and variant (facial expression) aspects of faces. While numerous studies investigated how face identity and expression information is extracted from faces during perception, less is known about the temporal aspects of the face information during perception and working memory (WM) maintenance. To investigate how face identity and expression information evolve over time, I recorded electroencephalography (EEG) while participants were performing a face WM task where they remembered a face image and reported either the identity or the expression of the face image after a short delay. Using multivariate event-related potential (ERP) decoding analyses, I found that the two types of information exhibited dissociable temporal dynamics: Although face identity was decoded better than facial expression during perception, facial expression was decoded better than face identity during WM maintenance. Follow-up analyses suggested that this temporal dissociation was driven by differential maintenance mechanisms: Face identity information was maintained in a more “activity-silent” manner compared to facial expression information, presumably because invariant face information does not need to be actively tracked in the task. Together, these results provide important insights into the temporal evolution of face information during perception and WM maintenance.
Application of Chitosan in Plant Defense Responses to Biotic and Abiotic Stresses

Chitosan, a copolymer of N-acetyl-D-glucosamine and D-glucosamine, which possesses properties that make it useful in various fields, is produced by the deacetylation of chitin derivatives. It is used in agriculture as a biostimulant for plant growth and protection, it also induces several responsive genes, proteins, and secondary metabolites in plants. Chitosan elicits a signal transduction pathway and transduces secondary molecules such as hydrogen peroxide and nitric oxide. Under biotic stress, chitosan can stimulate phytoalexins, pathogenesis-related proteins, and proteinase inhibitors. Pretreatment of chitosan before exposure to abiotic stresses (drought, salt, and heat) induces plant growth, production of antioxidant enzymes, secondary metabolites, and abscisic acid (ABA). It also causes changes in physiology, biochemistry, and molecular biology of the plant cells. However, plant responses depend on different chitosan-based structures, concentrations, species, and developmental stages. This review collects updated information on chitosan applications, particularly in plant defense responses to biotic and abiotic stress conditions.
Surface morphology of epitaxial LiF(110) and CaF2(110) layers

Regular ridge-and-valley surface structures were spontaneously formed by the homoepitaxial growth of LiF(110) and CaF2(110). The surface structure was examined by in situ reflection high-energy electron diffraction (RHEED) and ex situ atomic force microscopy (AFM). The LiF(110) homoepitaxial surfaces exhibited regular ridge-and-valley structures composed of {100} facets and [001] macrosteps, and the ridge spacings increased with growth temperature. The CaF2(110) surfaces also exhibited regular ridge-and-valley structures composed of {111} facets and [11¯0] macrosteps when deposited above 400 °C. Annealing alone did not produce a well-developed ridge-and-valley structure. The highly mobile admolecules supplied during deposition played a central role on the morphological evolution of the surfaces. The heteroepitaxial growth of LiF and CaF2 on {100}-faceted NaCl(110) substrates was also examined. Although the LiF(110) exhibited a regular ridge-and-valley structure, CaF2(110) formed arrays of islands at the b.
Improving elementary students' mathematical reasoning abilities through sociohumanistic-based learning

This study aimed to determine the improvement of students' mathematical reasoning abilities through sociohumanistic-based learning. This research was a quasi-experimental study with a non-equivalent control group design. The population in this study were all class IV in one elementary school in Salatiga. The sample consisted of two classes, namely classes and selected by purposive sampling. The instrument used was a mathematical reasoning ability test. Data analysis used t-test (Independent Sample t-Test) and Mann Whitney. The analysis results show that: (1) based on the results on a limited, medium, and wide-scale try-out, the developed model is easy-practical-effective in its implementation; (2) the improvement in mathematical reasoning skill of the students taught using the model is higher than that of taught using direct instructions; and (3) Sociohumanistic-based learning has several advantages especially can generate endorphins (hormone of happiness) to make the students love math, can foster self-reliance of learners, able to activate the storage capabilities of the human brain into long-term memory. Based on the results of this research and development, it can be concluded that the developed model is easy, practical, and effective to improve the mathematical reasoning skill of elementary school students.
Hybrid Cuckoo Search for the Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem

Having the best solution for Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) is still in demand. Beside, Cuckoo Search (CS) is a popular metaheuristic based on the reproductive strategy of the Cuckoo species and has been successfully applied in various optimizations, including Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem (CVRP). Although CS and hybrid CS have been proposed for CVRP, the performance of CS is far from the state-of-art. Therefore, this study proposes a hybrid CS with Simulated Annealing (SA) algorithm for the CVRP, consisting of three improvements—the investigation of 12 neighborhood structures, three selections strategy and hybrid it with SA. The experiment was conducted using 16 instances of the Augerat benchmark dataset. The results show that 6 out of 12 neighborhood structures were the best and the disruptive selection strategy is the best strategy. The experiments’ results showed that the proposed method could find optimal and near-optimal solutions compared with state-of-the-art algorithms.
K2CO3/H2O in [omim][BF4] Ionic Liquid: A Green Medium for Efficient Room-Temperature Synthesis of N-Substituted 1,4-Benzoxazin-3-ones

A medium consisting of K2CO3 and H2O in [omim][BF4] ionic liquid (IL) was used to synthesize N-substituted 2H-benzo[b][1,4]oxazin-3(4H)-one derivatives from their corresponding o-aminophenols and 2-bromoalkanoates. As a result, chemoselective formation of benzoxazinones in high yields has been observed at room temperature. After the reactions and separation of the products, the IL was recovered and successfully reused in subsequent reactions without significant loss of activity.
Uptake/release of organic contaminants by microplastics: A critical review of influencing factors, mechanistic modeling, and thermodynamic prediction methods

Abstract The role of microplastics (MPs) as a vector of chemicals is generally recognized: a wide range of micropollutants have been detected in MPs sampled in different environmental compartments, and, due to their ubiquitous distribution, they can be transferred through aquatic and terrestrial organisms into the food chain. Providing representative models is challenging due to the intrinsic dynamic evolution characterizing the natural phenomena, which cannot be adequately investigated in lab experiments. On the other side, simulation/prediction tools are strongly required because of the long time-scale characterizing the MPs’ persistence in the environment. This article provides a review of the updated literature on mechanistic models and predictive thermodynamic methods applied (or applicable), to describe the uptake/release processes of pollutants by MPs. Intrinsic and environmental factors influencing the process kinetics and the equilibrium distribution are discussed in detail. Mechanistic models and thermodynamic prediction methods are analyzed and their potentialities for application to MPs highlighted with specific examples. Finally, a critical analysis of the limitations related to the simplifying assumptions in modeling and to the representativeness of the lab-scale data is performed to evaluate their effects on the reliability of the predictions and to identify knowledge gaps and address future research needs. Graphical Abstract
Imaging Techniques for the Assessment of the Bone Osteoporosis-Induced Variations with Particular Focus on Micro-CT Potential

For long time, osteoporosis (OP) was exclusively associated with an overall bone mass reduction, leading to lower bone strength and to a higher fracture risk. For this reason, the measurement of bone mineral density through dual X-ray absorptiometry was considered the gold standard method for its diagnosis. However, recent findings suggest that OP causes a more complex set of bone alterations, involving both its microstructure and composition. This review aims to provide an overview of the most evident osteoporosis-induced alterations of bone quality and a résumé of the most common imaging techniques used for their assessment, at both the clinical and the laboratory scale. A particular focus is dedicated to the micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) due to its superior image resolution, allowing the execution of more accurate morphometric analyses, better highlighting the architectural alterations of the osteoporotic bone. In addition, micro-CT has the potential to perform densitometric measurements and finite element method analyses at the microscale, representing potential tools for OP diagnosis and for fracture risk prediction. Unfortunately, technological improvements are still necessary to reduce the radiation dose and the scanning duration, parameters that currently limit the application of micro-CT in clinics for OP diagnosis, despite its revolutionary potential.
Dental sealants: knowledge, opinion, values and practice of portuguese dental hygienists

Objectives: The aim of this study is to characterize the sample of responders and to present the data obtained from the evaluation on the knowledge, opinion, values, and practice (KOVP) of dental hygienists in Portugal concerning pit and fissures sealants. Methods: A non-probabilistic sample of 142 individuals was obtained from the members of the Portuguese Association of Dental Hygienists. Participants answered an online questionnaire composed of four demographic questions and 31 statements regarding KOVP about dental sealants, graded from 0 to 5, with 5 being the most agreement with the statement. The Wilcoxon matched-pairs sign ranks test, the Mann-Whitney test, the Kruskal-Wallis test, the Spearman’s correlation, and the V-Cramer test were used to analyze the data. Results: Portuguese dental hygienists present positive feedback about the use of dental sealants. The mean scores for each of the studied variables were: knowledge = 3.63 ± 0.29; opinion = 2.87 ± 0.42; value = 2.92 ± 0.44, and practice = 3.76 ± 0.46. Knowledge differed with years of experience (p<0.01), and opinion and practice both also differed with type of clinical practice (p<0.01 in both). Statistically positive significant correlations were found between knowledge and practice (p<0.01). Conclusions: Portuguese dental hygienists have positive feelings about pit and fissure sealants. The positive correlation between knowledge and practice can be used to further increase the use of dental sealants in Portugal.