Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Intercropping and weed management effect on soil microbial activities in newly planted mango and citrus orchards

Application of herbicides and other agro-chemicals used in agriculture affects the vital functions and population dynamics of soil microorganisms. Soil microbial population was assessed in 30 days interval up to 90 days in mango and citrus orchards. Among the treatments, intercropping of greengram-peagreengram recorded higher bacterial population (21.7 x 106cfu/g), was followed by intercropping of cowpea-pea-cowpea (19.5x106 cfu/g) at 90 days after spraying. It was found that the highest fungi population was recorded in intercropping of greengram-pea-greengram combined with herbicide application treatment (14.4 x 103 cfu/g). Similarly, higher actinomycetes population was observed in intercropping of greengram-pea-greengram treatment (8.2 x 103cfu/g) followed by intercropping of cowpea-pea-cowpea (7.3 x 103cfu/g) in mango orchard. In citrus field, highest bacterial population was observed in intercropping of greengram-pea-greengram treatment (21.3 x 106cfu/g). This was followed by intercropping of cowpea-pea-cowpea (18.4 x 106 cfu/g). The maximum fungi population (14.8 x 103cfu/g) was observed in cowpea-pea-cowpea treatment and maximum actinomycetes (8.4 x 103 cfu/g) population was recorded in intercropping of greengram-pea-greengram treatment. Basal respiration was significantly more in treatments of intercropping systems. Among the treatments, intercropping of greengram-pea-greengram treatment (193 mg/kg of CO2-C) had more basal respiration rate during Kharif season in mango orchard. Similar trends were observed in citrus orchard.
Microbial Populations Are Shaped by Dispersal and Recombination in a Low Biomass Subseafloor Habitat

The cold, oxic subseafloor is an understudied habitat that is difficult to access, yet important to global biogeochemical cycles and starkly different compared to microbial habitats on the surface of the Earth. Our understanding of microbial evolution and population dynamics is largely molded by studies of microbes living in surface habitats that can host 10 to 1,000 times more microbial biomass than is frequently observed in the subsurface. ABSTRACT The subseafloor is a vast habitat that supports microorganisms that have a global scale impact on geochemical cycles. Many of the endemic microbial communities inhabiting the subseafloor consist of small populations under growth-limited conditions. For small populations, stochastic evolutionary events can have large impacts on intraspecific population dynamics and allele frequencies. These conditions are fundamentally different from those experienced by most microorganisms in surface environments, and it is unknown how small population sizes and growth-limiting conditions influence evolution and population structure in the subsurface. Using a 2-year, high-resolution environmental time series, we examine the dynamics of microbial populations from cold, oxic crustal fluids collected from the subseafloor site North Pond, located near the mid-Atlantic ridge. Our results reveal rapid shifts in overall abundance, allele frequency, and strain abundance across the time points observed, with evidence for homologous recombination between coexisting lineages. We show that the subseafloor aquifer is a dynamic habitat that hosts microbial metapopulations that disperse frequently through the crustal fluids, enabling gene flow and recombination between microbial populations. The dynamism and stochasticity of microbial population dynamics in North Pond suggest that these forces are important drivers in the evolution of microbial populations in the vast subseafloor habitat. IMPORTANCE The cold, oxic subseafloor is an understudied habitat that is difficult to access, yet important to global biogeochemical cycles and starkly different compared to microbial habitats on the surface of the Earth. Our understanding of microbial evolution and population dynamics is largely molded by studies of microbes living in surface habitats that can host 10 to 1,000 times more microbial biomass than is frequently observed in the subsurface. This study provides an opportunity to observe population dynamics within a low biomass, growth-limited environment and reveals that microbial populations in the subseafloor are influenced by changes in selection pressure and gene sweeps. In addition, recombination between strains that have dispersed from elsewhere within the aquifer has an important impact on the evolution of microbial populations. Much of the microbial life on the planet exists under growth-limited conditions, and the subseafloor provides a natural laboratory to explore how life evolves in such environments.
Life Cycle Inventory of Biodiesel and Petroleum Diesel for Use in an Urban Bus

This report presents the findings from a study of the life cycle inventories (LCIs) for petroleum diesel and biodiesel. An LCI is a comprehensive quantification of all the energy and environmental flows associated with a product from “cradle to grave. ” It provides information on raw materials extracted from the environment; energy resources consumed; air, water, and solid waste emissions generated.
Usage capacities of ICTs in emergent economies

Résumé Cette contribution à l’étude des modes d’allocation des facteurs en Technologies de l’information et de la communication (TIC) au sein des firmes dans les économies émergentes sort de l’approche duale concentrée sur le manque d’équipements et ses conséquences. Les auteurs se focalisent sur les capacités d’usage par les entreprises industrielles, par opposition aux dynamiques d’adoption. L’hypothèse est que les différentiels de compétitivité liés aux TIC sont aujourd’hui moins dépendants du niveau des investissements réalisés (le volume d’équipement), que de celui de l’usage des équipements existants. Cette approche introduit ainsi les notions de niveau de formation des individus, de dynamique de coopération, de niveaux d’information et de coordination
Ear biometrics in human identification

Biometrics are physical or behavioral characteristics that can be used for human identification. Security plays an increasingly important role in our daily life, and biometric technologies are becoming the solution to highly secure recognition and verification of identity. In this dissertation, we propose the ear as a biometric and investigate its potential with both 2D and 3D data. Our work is the largest experimental investigation of ear biometrics to date. The data set used for our experiments contains 415 persons, each with images acquired on at least two different dates. Approaches considered include a PCA (“eigen-ear”) approach with 2D intensity images and range images, a Hausdorff matching of edges from range images, and an ICP-based approach to matching the 3D data. Our experimental results demonstrate that the ICP-based approach outperforms the other approaches at a statistically significant level. Furthermore, we develop the first fully automated biometric system using 3D ear shape. It is a complete automatic system starting with a raw 3D image, through automated segmentation of the ear, and 3D shape matching for recognition. The automatic system achieves a rank-one recognition rate of 97.6% on a 415-subject dataset. Our algorithm also shows good scalability of recognition rate with size of dataset. The results suggest a strong potential for 3D ear shape as a biometric. In a biometrics scenario, gallery images are enrolled into the database ahead of the matching step, which provides the opportunity to build related information before the probe comes into the system. We present a novel approach, called “Precomputed Voxel Closest Neighbors”, to reduce the computational time for shape matching in a biometrics context. The approach shifts the heavy computation burden to the enrollment stage, which can be done offline. Experiments in 3D ear and face biometrics demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach. In addition, ear symmetry and partial ear shape experiments are investigated. The results indicate that most people’s left and right ears are approximately bilaterally symmetric. However, some people have ears with recognizably different shapes. Experimental results with partial ear shape suggest that minor hair covering does not affect the performance substantially, but large hair covering will certainly reduce the recognition rate. This suggests that even in circumstances where the complete ear shape cannot be captured, partial shape has potential for recognition. This lends support for using ear shape as a biometric. Our experiments use the biometric database collected at the University of Notre Dame. This data set is available to other research groups.
Designing, manufacturing, testing, and optimizing of micro-fuel cells

Micro-fuel cells are considered as promising electrochemical power sources in portable electronic devices. Performance of micro-fuel cells are closely related to many factors, such as processes of fabrication, designs of flow fields, and operating conditions. In the present research, micro-proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) and micro-direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs) were systematically investigated from the aspects of structure design, bipolar/end plates (BPs) fabrication, and fuel cells evaluation. In chapter 3, compared with conventional machining and rapid prototyping (RP) technology, microelectromechanical system (MEMS) technology was the practicable method to fabricate the BPs with channels of a few microns width. Experimental and modeling methods were employed to analyze performance of the micro-PEMFC in chapter 4. Contact resistance changed significantly the distribution of overpotential in the micro-PEMFC and decreased the current output. Small dimensions of the micro-channel drastically affected the species transport and resulted in a non-uniform current distribution along channel direction at low cell potential (high current). In chapters 5, four kinds of flow fields, mixed multichannel serpentine with wide channels, single channel serpentine, double channel serpentine, and mixed multichannel serpentine with narrow channels, were applied to micro-PEMFCs. Results suggested that the micro-PEMFC with good performance should use the flow field with a mixed multichannel design and long micro-channels.
Medicinal uses of agarwood

Agarwood from Aquilaria plants, also known as Chen Xiang (沉香), is traditionally used for the treatment of abdominal pain and as a sedative. Because of the great demand and the rareness of agarwood, extensive harvesting of Aquilaria plants has nearly led to the extinction of the species. To fully utilize this resource, the use of different parts of Aquilaria needs to be investigated. This article will focus on the pharmacological properties and the mechanism of action of different parts of Aquilaria plants.
Using Marker-Controlled Watershed Transform to Detect Baker's Cyst in Magnetic Resonance Imaging Images: A Pilot Study

Nowadays, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has a high ability to distinguish between soft tissues because of high spatial resolution. Image processing is extensively used to extract clinical data from imaging modalities. In the medical image processing field, the knee's cyst (especially Baker) segmentation is one of the novel research areas. There are different methods for image segmentation. In this paper, the mathematical operation of the watershed algorithm is utilized by MATLAB software based on marker-controlled watershed segmentation for the detection of Baker's cyst in the knee's joint MRI sagittal and axial T2-weighted images. The performance of this algorithm was investigated, and the results showed that in a short time Baker's cyst can be clearly extracted from original images in axial and sagittal planes. The marker-controlled watershed segmentation was able to detect Baker's cyst reliable and can save time and current cost, especially in the absence of specialists it can help us for the easier diagnosis of MRI pathologies.
Deep Learning Approach for Fusion of Magnetic Resonance Imaging-Positron Emission Tomography Image Based on Extract Image Features using Pretrained Network (VGG19)

Background: The fusion of images is an interesting way to display the information of some different images in one image together. In this paper, we present a deep learning network approach for fusion of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) images. Methods: We fused two MRI and PET images automatically with a pretrained convolutional neural network (CNN, VGG19). First, the PET image was converted from red-green-blue space to hue-saturation-intensity space to save the hue and saturation information. We started with extracting features from images by using a pretrained CNN. Then, we used the weights extracted from two MRI and PET images to construct a fused image. Fused image was constructed with multiplied weights to images. For solving the problem of reduced contrast, we added the constant coefficient of the original image to the final result. Finally, quantitative criteria (entropy, mutual information, discrepancy, and overall performance [OP]) were applied to evaluate the results of fusion. We compared the results of our method with the most widely used methods in the spatial and transform domain. Results: The quantitative measurement values we used were entropy, mutual information, discrepancy, and OP that were 3.0319, 2.3993, 3.8187, and 0.9899, respectively. The final results showed that our method based on quantitative assessments was the best and easiest way to fused images, especially in the spatial domain. Conclusion: It concluded that our method used for MRI-PET image fusion was more accurate.
A Content-Aware Interactive Explorer of Digital Music Collections: The Phonos Music Explorer

La tesi si propone di utilizzare le piu recenti tecnologie del Music Information Retrieval (MIR) al fine di creare un esploratore interattivo di cataloghi musicali. Il software utilizza tecniche avanzate quali riduzione di dimensionalita mediante FastMap, generazione e streaming over-the-network di contenuto audio, segmentazione e estrazione di descrittori da segnali audio. Inoltre, il software e in grado di adattare in real-time il proprio output sulla base di interazioni dell'utente
Beyond the financial audit: factors that can influence the presence of the largest accounting firms in the assurance market of sustainability reports in Brazil

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the factors that can influence the presence of the largest accounting firms in the assurance market of Sustainability Reports in Brazil. Method: The sample includes 47 public companies that assured their sustainability reporting from the period 2012-2018. Data were analyzed using the statistical techniques Anacor, HOMALS and hierarchical logistic regression for panel data. Findings: The evidence supports that the provision of audit and sustainability assurance services, as well as mimetic isomorphism, are factors that positively affect the entry of the largest accounting firms in the assurance market of sustainability reports in Brazil. These results suggest a potential competitive advantage for the largest accounting firms over other providers in this emerging market. Research implications: This work has important practical implications for professionals and standardization bodies in the accounting area, because the notarization of accounting professionals in the assurance market of sustainability reports should promote interest in developing institutional support for this practice.
NITROGEN UPTAKE UNDER INORGANIK AND ORGANIK FERTILIZER

Indonesia as the world's major producer and supplier of rattan, but most of Indonesia's rattan production relies on natural rattan sources. The fact that natural rattan is generally harvested after the age of more than 4 years, is not proportional to harvesting at any time, and threatens the preservation of rattan, so research on rattan cultivation is important. This study focuses on the growth and absorption of Noko rattan seedlings varieties (Daemonorops sp.) in response of organic and inorganic fertilization. Research was conducted in the glass house of UNTAD, using factorial design of 2 (two) factors. Factor I consists of 2 (two) levels, namely: (B0) without bokashi, and (B1) bokashi 10 t / Ha. Factor II consists of 7 (seven) variations of Nitrogen and Phosphorus treatments. The results showed that the treatment of organic fertilizer and inorganic fertilizer had no significant effect on dry weight or nitrogen uptake (N) or N network. However treatment with bokashi showed a tendency of dry weight and alsoN uptake or N tissue higher than treatment without bokashi. In this study, treatment with bokashi added Urea fertilizer gives the best influence on the growth of Noko rattan seedlings.
Study of bilateral HGS difference in DM and ND hand grip strength in Right-handed and Left-handed players

Background: The handgrip dynamometry measure expresses the physical ability of the player and can be used for comparisons with other sports. Handgrip power plays a vital role in cricket. Aims and Objectives: To study and find out bilateral HGS difference in DM and ND handgrip strength in Right-handed and Left-handed players. Material and Methods: A study was done by sampling 60 players of 50 players righthanded and 10 players of left-handed were recruited after screening for inclusion and exclusion criteria. All participants were tested for their handgrip ability using a handheld dynamometer. Results: The results of the present study showed Bilateral HGS difference of Right-handed players is 7.50% (less than 10%) and the Bilateral HGS difference of Left-handed players is 5.35% (less than 10%). Conclusion: We concluded that the Dominant handgrip strength (DM HGS) of players is higher than nondominant handgrip strength (NDM HGS) in both Right-handed and Lefthanded players.
Two-Fault Tolerant Electric Actuation Systems for Space Applications

Conventional mechanical feedback and servo-valve commanded hydraulic actuation technology has been used reliably in aerospace and industrial applications for many years; however these systems are facing increasing competition from “more” or all electric actuation technologies throughout the respective industries. Moog has been involved in the development and production of both hydraulic and electric actuation technologies for over fifty years, allowing for an accurate perspective of the benefits and shortfalls of each to be traded and optimized for specific applications. A major integration barrier, specifically with respect man-rated space flight actuation applications lies in system redundancy management and the requirement to maintain operational performance following single or dual internal failures. These requirements limit the entry and benefit realization of “more” or all electric actuation systems.
Quantum Barrier Devices for Sub-Millimetre Wave Detection

Resonant-Tunnelling Diodes (RTDs) are a specific class of Quantum Barrier Devices, which offer a lot of potential for customisation through careful engineering of their semiconductor layer structure. They exhibit characteristics that make them good candidates for use in both subharmonic mixers and signal amplifiers, that operate at millimetre and sub-millimetre frequencies. In this thesis RTDs fabricated at the University of Leeds from three different layer structures are investigated. Initially, device measurements are presented along with a device model for use in circuit simulation software. Planar transmission media circuits were designed for subharmonic mixers and two types of amplifiers, all using these devices. Additional circuits, implemented in waveguide technology, were also studied in preparation for realising the RTD based amplifiers at sub-millimetre and terahertz frequencies. The sub-harmonic mixer circuits were simulated at microwave, millimetre, and sub-millimetre frequencies. Best predicted conversion loss performance is on the order of 20 dB. It was found that amongst the devices used an optimum size exists, offering best trade-off between junction capacitance and current density. The amplifier circuits are divided into two groups, reflection based amplifiers and active transmission line. Their purpose would be to complement the mixers towards eventually building a receiver with low power requirements and low overall conversion loss. The former were found to either exhibit high narrow-band gain, while the latter had low wide-band gain, with an additional, resonant peak at frequencies in the sub-millimetre wave region. The project was primarily a parametric design study, rather than a build and test project. Therefore, the simulation results are used to determine what characteristics of the devices studied would make them suited for use in circuits at high frequencies; and to come up with recommendations for future optimum RTD layer design.
Conservation agriculture in soybean (Glycine max) -wheat (Triticum aestivum) cropping system-A review

Conservation agriculture is an important component of the overall strategy for enhancing productivity, improve environmental quality and preserve natural resources for food security and poverty alleviation. Soil tillage is one of the fundamental agro-technical operations in agriculture because of its influence on soil properties, environment and crop growth. Since continuous soil tillage strongly influence the soil properties, it is important to apply appropriate tillage practices that avoid the degradation of soil structure, maintain crop yield as well as ecosystem stability. The efficiency of input use viz. water, fertilizers, herbicides and others depend on tillage and crop establishment practices. It is therefore, essential that the soil environment be manipulated suitably for ensuring a good crop stand and improve resource-use efficiency. Sustaining production and productivity of any system is of paramount importance by improving the soil’s physical, chemical and biological properties. Conventional tillage operations will alter these properties in every cropping cycle thereby affecting the soil system. Resource conservation systems have drawn the attention of agronomists and other crop production scientists to devise innovative tillage and residue management techniques for efficient resource management and sustained productivity. To combat soil loss and preserve soil moisture soil conservation techniques were developed in USA known as conservation tillage (CT), this involves soil management practices that minimize the disruption of the soil’s structure, composition and natural biodiversity, thereby minimizing erosion and degradation, control annual weed and seed bank but also water contamination.
Autonomous motion planning using a predictive temporal method

3 To my parents 4 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to begin by thanking my family for supporting me and being patient through this long process that began almost 10 years ago as I came to the University of Florida as an undergraduate. They never placed any undue expectations on me and kept me motivated by their interest in the projects I worked on. I would also like to express my gratitude to my advisor Dr. Carl Crane for his guidance and support from the first day I set foot in CIMAR throughout my entire graduate education. for their valuable input and guidance the past few years. extend a special thanks to the staff that I was able to work with out there. Finally, I would like to thank all of my co-workers, and more importantly, friends at CIMAR. Nothing brings people together more than shared experiences, and we certainly shared some experiences. Along with the interesting projects I was fortunate enough to have worked on, it was them that made coming to work every day enjoyable.