Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Gastrointestinal Dynamics of Non-Encapsulated and Microencapsulated Salmonella Bacteriophages in Broiler Production

Simple Summary Bacteriophages are viruses that kill targeted bacteria and could be used as a therapy against multidrug-resistant bacteria in animal production. Gastrointestinal tract conditions throughout the broiler production cycle might compromise the efficacy of bacteriophage oral administration against Salmonella. Microencapsulation of phages could protect and prevent the premature release of the bacteriophage, thereby allowing targeted delivery to the colonization site of Salmonella, the caecum. This study was designed to assess the optimal timing of the phage intervention over a 42-day production cycle and to compare microencapsulated (delivered in animal feed) and non-encapsulated phages (delivered through the drinking water) delivery along the gastrointestinal tract. Results of this study suggest that microencapsulation of the phages in a Eudragit® L100 pH-responsive formulation allowed targeted delivery of the phage to the chicken caecum. Microencapsulation of phages administered orally through animal feed could be a promising method to control Salmonella in the field at any time during the animal rearing period. Abstract Bacteriophage therapy is being considered as a promising tool to control Salmonella in poultry. Nevertheless, changes in gastrointestinal tract environmental conditions throughout the production cycle could compromise the efficacy of phages administered orally. The main objectives of this study were to assess the optimal timing of the phage administration over a 42-day production cycle and to compare microencapsulated and non-encapsulated phages and the spatial and temporal dynamics of the phage delivery along the gastrointestinal tract. Phage FGS011 was encapsulated in the pH-responsive polymer Eudragit® L100 using the process of spray drying. At different weeks of the chicken rearing period, 15 broilers were divided into three groups. Over a period of 24 h, group 1 received non-encapsulated phages (delivered through drinking water), group 2 received microencapsulated phages (incorporated in animal feed), and group 3 did not receive any phages. Microencapsulation was shown to enable efficient delivery of the bacteriophages to the animal gut and cecum throughout the animal rearing period. During the six weeks of application, the crop displayed the highest phage concentration for both phage delivery methods. The L100 based encapsulation offered significant protection to the phages from the harsh environmental conditions in the PV-Gizzard (not seen with phages administered in drinking water) which may help in the delivery of high phage doses to the cecum. Future Salmonella challenge studies are necessary to demonstrate the benefits of microencapsulation of phages using L100 formulation on phage therapy in field studies during the rearing period.
A Novel Method of Aircraft Detection under Complex Background Based on Circular Intensity Filter and Rotation Invariant Feature

Aircraft detection in remote sensing images (RSIs) has drawn widespread attention in recent years, which has been widely used in the military and civilian fields. While the complex background, variations of aircraft pose and size bring great difficulties to the effective detection. In this paper, we propose a novel aircraft target detection scheme based on small training samples. The scheme is coarse-to-fine, which consists of two main stages: region proposal and target identification. First, in the region proposal stage, a circular intensity filter, which is designed based on the characteristics of the aircraft target, can quickly locate the centers of multi-scale suspicious aircraft targets in the RSIs pyramid. Then the target regions can be extracted by adding bounding boxes. This step can get high-quality but few candidate regions. Second, in the stage of target identification, we proposed a novel rotation-invariant feature, which combines rotation-invariant histogram of oriented gradient and vector of locally aggregated descriptors (VLAD). The feature can characterize the aircraft target well by avoiding the impact of its rotation and can be effectively used to remove false alarms. Experiments are conducted on Remote Sensing Object Detection (RSOD) dataset to compare the proposed method with other advanced methods. The results show that the proposed method can quickly and accurately detect aircraft targets in RSIs and achieve a better performance.
Mineralogy and Geochemistry of Qulqula Limestone in Shenrui, Halabja Governorate, Northeastern Iraq

This study focuses on the mineralogy and geochemistry of the limestone unit of the Qulqula Formation (Early Cretaceous). The age and stratigraphic position of this formation are controversial because of insufficient studies and the complex structure of the occurrence area. Twenty samples were selected and analyzed which represent six sections: Sarkan, Awera, Griana1, Griana2, Hawar, and Hawara Kon at the Mount of Shenrui in Halabja area located in Kurdistan Region, northeastern Iraq near the IraqiIranian borders. The mineralogical study by the X-ray diffraction technique shows that the samples are composed of 70.14 % calcite, and 28.07% quartz. The geochemical analysis shows that CaO is abundant in most of the studied samples, the increases of (SiO2, Al2O3, Fe2O3, TiO2, and K2O), and the decrease in (CaO and MgO) leads to the change of limestone to siliceous type. The limited dolomitization can be confirmed by the low concentration. The component Sr has a negative correlation for both major and trace elements. On the other hand, (Cr, Co, Ni, V, and Zr) have a positive correlation with (MgO, Fe2O3, SiO2, Al2O3, K2O, and TiO2), this may indicate the effect of the basic rocks in surrounding areas enriching limestone with these elements.
Self-consistent simulation of the impedance matching network for single frequency capacitively coupled plasma

Matching networks are of vital importance for capacitively coupled plasmas (CCPs) to maximize the power transferred to the plasma discharge. The nonlinear interaction between the external circuit and plasma has to be considered to design suitable matching networks. To study the effect of the matching circuit, we coupled particle in cell/MC(Monte Carlo) model and nonlinear circuit equations based on Kirchhoff’s laws, in a fully nonlinear and self-consistent way. The single-frequency capacitively coupled discharge with ‘L’-Type matching networks are simulated. Fully self-consistently results of circuit and plasma parameters are presented and then power absorbed by the plasma and efficiency are calculated. With the tune of the matching network, the efficiency can reach 28.7%, leading to higher potential as well as higher electron density at fixed source voltage. Besides, only very small components of the third harmonics are found in the plasma voltage and current while surface charge densities have multiple harmonics on account of the strong plasma nonlinearity. Finally, the effects of matching capacitors on discharge are analyzed, results show that smaller Cm1 and Cm2 of 500–1000 pF may be a proper choice for better matching, resulting in higher voltage across the CCP, and thus higher electron density and power absorption efficiency are obtained.
Growth and Deformation Simulation of Aluminum Bronze Grains Produced by Electron Beam Additive Manufacturing

When working out 3D building-up modes, it is necessary to predict the material properties of the resulting products. For this purpose, the crystallography of aluminum bronze grains after electron beam melting has been studied by EBSD analysis methods. To estimate the possibility of sample form changes by pressure treatment, we simulated structural changes by the method of molecular dynamics during deformation by compression of individual grains of established growth orientations. The analysis was carried out for free lateral faces and grain deformation in confined conditions. Simulation and experiments on single crystals with free lateral faces revealed the occurrence of stepwise deformation in different parts of the crystal and its division into deformation domains. Each domain is characterized by a shear along a certain slip system with the maximum Schmidt factor. Blocking the shear towards the lateral faces leads to selectivity of the shear along the slip systems that provide the required shape change. Based on the simulation results, the relationship between stress–strain curves and structural characteristics is traced. A higher degree of strain hardening and a higher density of defects were found upon deformation in confined conditions. The deformation of the columnar grains of the built material occurs agreed with the systems with the maximum Schmidt factor.
Back EMF Observer Based Sensorless BLDC Motor Drive With SEPIC Converter For EV Application

This paper deals with the design and development of observer-based position sensorless scheme of brushless DC motor (BLDCM) drive with optimal torque and current control for electric vehicle application. Conventional back EMF based rotor position detection algorithm fails in lower speed range as magnitude of back EMF is too small to measure directly. As, back EMF of the BLDCM is one of the few parameters, which gives accurate commutation instants, an indirect method of sensing back EMF using an observer is introduced here which estimates line back EMF even during starting with great accuracy. Secondary inverted polarity Cuk (SEPIC) converter is used for efficient maximum power point tracking (MPPT) operation with less input current ripple, ensuring soft starting of the motor. Non- inverted property of the SEPIC eliminates the need of sensing negative voltage at DC link. Coupled inductor is introduced with SEPIC, which reduces cost and space on PCB than two separate inductors. This BLDCM drive is capable of energy regeneration as a provision of having extended driving range. This system topology is designed and analyzed using the simulated results in MATLAB/SIMULINK environment.
Space borne tropospheric nitrogen dioxide (NO2) observations from 2005–2020 over the Yangtze River Delta (YRD), China: variabilities, implications, and drivers

Abstract. Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) is mainly affected by local emission and meteorology rather than long-range transport. Accurate acknowledge of its long-term variabilities and drivers are significant for understanding the evolutions of economic and social development, anthropogenic emission, and the effectiveness of pollution control measures on regional scale. In this study, we quantity the long-term variabilities and the underlying drivers of NO2 from 2005 to 2020 over the Yangtze River Delta (YRD), one of the most densely populated and highly industrialized city clusters in China, using OMI space borne observations and the multiple linear regression (MLR) model. We have compared the space borne tropospheric results to the surface in-situ data, yielding correlation coefficients of 0.8 to 0.9 over all megacities within the YRD. As a result, the tropospheric NO2 column measurements can be used as representatives of near-surface conditions, and we thus only use ground-level meteorological data for MLR regression. The inter-annual variabilities of tropospheric NO2 vertical column densities (VCDs) from 2005 to 2020 over the YRD can be divided into two stages. The first stage was from 2005 to 2011, which showed overall increasing trends with a wide range of (1.91 ± 1.50) to (6.70 ± 0.10) × 1014 molecules/cm2·yr−1 (p < 0.01) over the YRD. The second stage was from 2011 to 2020, which showed over all decreasing trends of (−6.31 ± 0.71) to (−11.01 ± 0.90) × 1014 molecules/cm2·yr−1 (p < 0.01) over each of the megacities. The seasonal cycles of tropospheric NO2 VCDs over the YRD are mainly driven by meteorology (81.01 % – 83.91 %) except during winter when anthropogenic emission contributions are pronounced (16.09 % – 18.99 %). The inter annual variabilities of tropospheric NO2 VCDs are mainly driven by anthropogenic emission (69.18 % – 81.34 %) except for a few years such as 2018 which are partly attributed to meteorology anomalies (39.07 % – 91.51 %). The increasing trends in tropospheric NO2 VCDs from 2005 to 2011 over the YRD are mainly attributed to high energy consumption associated with rapid economic growth which cause significant increases in anthropogenic NO2 emissions. The decreasing trends in tropospheric NO2 VCDs from 2011 to 2020 over the YRD are mainly attributed to the stringent clean air measures which either adjust high energy industrial structure toward low energy industrial structure or directly reduce pollutant emissions from different industrial sectors.
Design and Development of a Constant Current Constant Voltage Fast Battery Charger for Electric Vehicles

The issue of zero-emission mobility is one of the most topical, the electric vehicle market being in a continuous growth, which led to the development of new charging technologies. Unfortunately, limiting the autonomy of vehicles is a major problem, which can be solved, in a first phase, by developing fast charging technologies and developing an adequate infrastructure to serve the end user. This article comes in support of those mentioned, highlighting the limitations of the existing methods and proposing the design and development of a closed-loop DC-DC buck converter based battery charger for charging a plug-in electric vehicle using the constant-current and constant-voltage (CCCV) charging scheme. The motivation that led to the approach of this topic is presented in the introductory part, with emphasis on the extreme phenomena resulting from global warming, with direct involvement of the factors that lead to the burning and consumption of fossil fuels. The second chapter, very detailed and comprehensive, is dedicated to Three-phase Controlled Rectifier, starting with topologies, deepening the mathematical model, adopting the Voltage Oriented Control (VOC) strategy to control the three phase rectifier based on high performance direct-quadrature‐ coordinate controllers, ending with overall rectifier simulation, using MatLAB Simulink. The third chapter actually presents the simulation part, with emphasis on the related diagrams, presentation of parameters, highlighting the battery charge controller for CCCV charging and presentation of the final results. The final part is dedicated to the practical application itself, comprehensive and clear, as well as the whole work.
An Epidemiologic, Longitudinal, and Discordant-Twin Study of the Association Between Gambling Disorder and Suicidal Behaviors

Gambling disorder is associated with suicidal behaviors, but it is not clear whether the association is due to common etiologic factors or to gambling disorder being causally related to suicidality. This question was examined from the perspective of epidemiologic, longitudinal, and discordant-twin studies. The results suggested that the causes of the association with disordered gambling differed for suicidal ideation, plan, and attempt and differed for men and women. The association of suicidal thoughts with disordered gambling was noncausally explained by common genetic influences among women but not men. Conversely, there was evidence consistent with a potentially causal influence of disordered gambling on suicide attempt among men but not women, which might have been related to gambling-related financial problems. The use of monetary data to identify individuals experiencing financial harms associated with their gambling may represent a more practicable target for screening, intervention, and prevention and may reduce gambling-related financial crises, thereby warding off a potential gambling-related suicide attempt.
Stock Reduction Analysis of Bigeye Croaker Micropogonias megalops in the Upper Gulf of California, Mexico

A stock reduction analysis (SRA) of bigeye croaker Micropogonias megalops was performed based on commercial catch data. SRA solutions were restricted to a 2011 bigeye croaker stock biomass estimate of 14,412 t. The viable solution indicated a reduction in stock of 73.6% from 1983 to 2020 with an initial biomass of 22,186 t. In addition, a possible effect of hyperstability of the stock was evaluated by applying different versions of the Cobb–Douglas catch function. The most probable function based on a multi-model selection procedure was the one wherein the catch does not depend on biomass and is directly proportional to the applied fishing effort of small boats (~7 m) and vessels (~24 m). This situation suggests that in a free access regime, fishing can deplete the resource until it collapses, without observing a significant reduction in its catches until the event is very close.
Changing Patterns in Treatment, Remission Status, and Categories in a Long‐Term Nordic Cohort Study of Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis

To explore sustainability of achieved remission off medication and defined International League of Associations for Rheumatology (ILAR) categories in juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) and describe the trajectory of disease course over time by comparing treatment, disease activity, and ILAR categories from baseline, 8 years, and 18 years after disease onset.
Assessing farmer perceptions on livestock intensification and associated trade‐offs using fuzzy cognitive maps; a study in mixed farming systems in the mid‐hills of Nepal

Farming Systems Ecology Group, Plant Sciences, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands Colegio de Ciencias e Ingenierias, Ingenieria en Agronomía, Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Quito, Ecuador Development Impact Unit, Bioversity International, Maccarese (Fiumicino), Italy Sustainable Intensification Program, International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), Texcoco, Mexico Plant Production Systems, Plant Sciences, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands Laboratory of Geo-information Science and Remote Sensing, Environmental Sciences, Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands South Asia Regional Office, International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT), Kathmandu, Nepal Section of Soil and Crop Sciences, School of Integrative Plant Sciences, Ithaca, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA Agroecology, Environment and Systems Group, Instituto de Investigaciones Forestales y Agropecuarias de Bariloche (IFAB), INTA-CONICET, San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina Groningen Institute of Evolutionary Life Sciences, Groningen University, Groningen, The Netherlands
New denoising method for pulsar signal

In order to improve the signal-to-noise ratio(SNR) of the pulsar signal,this paper proposes a denoising algorithm based on bispectrum reconstruction for the pulsar signal.First,the noisy pulsar signal is transformed into the bispectral domain.The bispectrum phase and amplitude are filtered by the α-trimmed filter.Then,the power spectrum and phase of the pulsar signal can be recovered from the filtered bispectrum.Results indicate that this method can eliminate noise in the pulsar signals,and improve the SNR notably.
GRASP-ILS and set cover hybrid heuristic for the synchronized team orienteering problem with time windows

Wildﬁres are a natural phenomenon that regularly occurs in many terrestrial ecosystems. Due to global warming, the rate and the span of wildﬁres have remarkably increased during the last years, causing important economic losses and human casualties. Several initiatives have been undertaken in the last years in order to apply operations research tools to help ﬁreﬁghting teams schedule and optimize their protection activities when dealing with wildﬁres. Inthiscontext, a recent variant of the Team Orienteering Problem, referred to as the Asset Protection Problem, was proposed in [30]. In this problem, ﬁreﬁghting teams provide a protective service to a set of assets endangered by wildﬁres. These activities can be performed by a heterogeneous ﬂeet of vehicles and occur within speciﬁc time intervals estimated on the basis of ﬁre fronts progression. This problem incorporates three additional constraints: time windows , synchronized visits and compatibility constraints between vehicles and assets. In this paper, we propose a hybrid approach that combines a Greedy Randomized Adaptive Search Procedure coupled with an Iterated Local Search (GRASP × ILS) and a post-optimization phase based on a set covering formulation. Interestingly, GRASP × ILS incorporates an adaptive candidate list-based insertion heuristic and a Variable Neighborhood Descent search procedure. Detailed computational tests were carried out on benchmark instances from the literature. The results show that our method outperforms the other methods in the literature, since it improves all the best known solutions on medium-and large-size instances, while maintaining shorter computational times
Host-Microbe Interaction on the Skin and Its Role in the Pathogenesis and Treatment of Atopic Dermatitis

Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a condition with a complex and unclear aetiology. Possible causes of AD encompass alterations in the structure and function of the epidermal barrier, disturbances in the skin microbiome, immune factors, allergens, bacterial and fungal infections as well as environmental and genetic factors. In patients with AD, acute skin lesions are colonized by a greater number of bacteria and fungi than chronic lesions, clinically unchanged atopic skin and the skin of healthy people. Mechanisms promoting skin colonization by pathogens include complex interplay among several factors. Apart from disturbances of the skin microbiome, increased adhesion in atopic skin, defects of innate immune response resulting in the lack of or restriction of growth of microorganisms also contribute to susceptibility to the skin colonization of and infections, especially with Staphylococcus aureus. This review of the literature attempts to identify factors that are involved in the pathogenesis of AD-related bacterial and fungal skin colonization. Studies on the microbiome, commensal microorganisms and the role of skin microorganisms in maintaining healthy skin bring additional insight into the treatment and prevention of AD. In the light of presented mechanisms, reduction in colonization may become both causative and symptomatic treatment in AD.
Total Factor Energy Efficiency of China’s Thermal Power Industry

Coal-based thermal power generation has long been the main source of power generation in the mainland of China. The efficiency of power generation is an important factor that determines the energy conservation and emission reduction as well as the sustainable development of the power industry in China. By comparing the regional differences of 30 provinces in the mainland from 2013 to 2017, this study uses the Super-DDF model and the TFEE to comprehensively evaluate the energy efficiency of thermal power generation. Empirical results: Overall efficiency: eastern efficiency (1.181) is the highest, followed by western (0.956), central (0.951) and northeastern (0.926). Total factor energy efficiency: eastern efficiency (0.923) is the highest, followed by western (0.754), central (0.742) and northeastern (0.710). The government and power industry managers should fully consider the regional differences in the field of thermal power generation when formulating policies so as to improve the power efficiency and promote the green development of power industry in China. Based on the analysis results, although the coal-fired power industry is more mature than other alternative energy industries, the expansion of thermal power generation cannot be considered if CO2 emissions are to be reduced. Additionally, the market share and competitiveness of the local power industry can be increased based on the different conditions of the resource endowments of each region.