Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
EFFECTS OF CHROMIUM STRESS ON SEED GERMINATION AND EARLY SEEDLING GROWTH PERFORMANCES OF PEARL MILLET PENNISETUM GLAUCUM (L.) R. BR. (POACEAE)

Heavy metals are widely available in the environment due to the natural processes, industrial, anthropogenic activities and ultimately in the results contaminate the immediate environment. The presence of the heavy metals such as Pb, Cd, Cr, Ni, Fe and Cu in environment disturb the quality of ecosystems, soils, water, air and vegetation. The chromium metal at higher level in ecosystem is an alarming signal for both developed and developing countries. Pennisetum glaucum is an annual grass which is widely cultivated in drought, rain fed and high temperature areas. The limited amount of literature available on the impact of chromium stress on P. glaucum. This study was conducted to investigate the beneficial or harmful effect of chromium stress on seed germination and seedling growth performances of P. glaucum in in vitro conditions. The different concentration of chromium 0, 25, 50, 75 and 100 ppm was applied. In present study, the overall results suggests the variable response on the rate of seed germination percentage and plant growth of P. glaucum to chromium stress was recorded. Results showed that the chromium treatment at 25 ppm significantly (p<0.05) reduced root growth of P. glaucum. The chromium at 50 ppm level significantly decreased the rate of percentage of seed germination of P. glaucum. The seedling dry weight of P. glaucum seedling was decreased highly at 75 ppm chromium. Root / shoot ratio also decreased due to gradual increase in chromium from low (25 ppm) to higher (100 ppm) levels. Similarly, the chromium at 25 to 100 ppm gradually decreased the percentage of tolerance and seedling vigor index of P. glaucum. An effective efforts for minimize the chromium toxicity and tolerance in plants are required.
Metacyclogenesis as the Starting Point of Chagas Disease

Chagas disease is a neglected infectious disease caused by the protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi, primarily transmitted by triatomine vectors, and it threatens approximately seventy-five million people worldwide. This parasite undergoes a complex life cycle, transitioning between hosts and shifting from extracellular to intracellular stages. To ensure its survival in these diverse environments, T. cruzi undergoes extreme morphological and molecular changes. The metacyclic trypomastigote (MT) form, which arises from the metacyclogenesis (MTG) process in the triatomine hindgut, serves as a crucial link between the insect and human hosts and can be considered the starting point of Chagas disease. This review provides an overview of the current knowledge regarding the parasite’s life cycle, molecular pathways, and mechanisms involved in metabolic and morphological adaptations during MTG, enabling the MT to evade the immune system and successfully infect human cells.
A Hierarchical Optimization Strategy of the Energy Router-Based Energy Internet

Due to the capacity limitation and the renewable energy's uncontrollability, multiple energy hubs (EHs) are connected by energy routers (ERs) to form a network structure and further build the future energy internet. With concave objective functions and/or nonlinear operation constraints, the centralized optimal dispatch of interconnected EHs is difficult to solve. In order to reduce the complexity of centralized optimal dispatch on large-scale systems and protect the information privacy of different EHs, a hierarchical optimization strategy is put forward for the ER-based energy internet. Specifically, the lower level is the optimal dispatch within EHs, where the dispatch model of EH is further optimized by considering variable dispatch factors, and the information privacy of different EHs is preserved. The upper level is the energy routing control between EHs, where the end-to-end power transmission according to contract path is realized through the controllability of ERs and energy routing protocols. Finally, the effectiveness of the hierarchical optimization strategy and model are verified by simulations.
Hovenia dulcis Suppresses the Growth of Huh7-Derived Liver Cancer Stem Cells by Inducing Necroptosis and Apoptosis and Blocking c-MET Signaling

Liver cancer stem cells (LCSCs) contribute to the initiation, metastasis, treatment resistance, and recurrence of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Therefore, exploring potential anticancer agents targeting LCSCs may offer new therapeutic options to overcome HCC treatment failure. Hovenia dulcis Thunberg (HDT), a tree from the buckthorn family found in Asia, exhibits various biological activities, including antifatigue, antidiabetic, neuroprotective, hepatoprotective, and antitumor activities. However, the therapeutic effect of HDT in eliminating LCSCs remains to be confirmed. In this study, we evaluated the inhibitory activity of ethanol, chloroform, and ethyl acetate extracts from HDT branches on the growth of Huh7-derived LCSCs. The ethyl acetate extract of HDT (EAHDT) exhibited the most potent inhibitory activity against the growth of Huh7 LCSCs among the three HDT extracts. EAHDT suppressed the in vitro self-renewal ability of Huh7 LCSCs and reduced tumor growth in vivo using the Huh7 LCSC-transplanted chick embryo chorioallantoic membrane model. Furthermore, EAHDT not only arrested the cell cycle in the G0/G1 phase but also induced receptor-interacting protein kinase 3/mixed-lineage kinase domain-like protein-mediated necroptosis and caspase-dependent apoptosis in Huh7 LCSCs in a concentration-dependent manner. Furthermore, the growth inhibitory effect of EAHDT on Huh7 LCSCs was associated with the downregulation of c-MET-mediated downstream signaling pathways and key cancer stemness markers. Based on these findings, we propose that EAHDT can be used as a new natural drug candidate to prevent and treat HCC by eradicating LCSCs.
Automated Wood and Leaf Classification Using Coyote Optimization with Deep Learning Model for Terrestrial LiDAR Point Clouds

With the recent advancements in 3D acquisition technology, 3D sensors becomes ubiquitous and cheap, comprising different kinds of 3D laser scanners (or LiDAR) on diverse platforms. The application of deep learning (DL) models on 2D images gained significant interest in the area of computer vision applications. Recently, the DL models for point clouds (PC) begins to draw considerable attention. But it is still needed to deeply understand the role of DL and geometry domain knowledge to understand PC. Therefore, this study develops an Automated Wood and Leaf Classification using Coyote Optimization Algorithm with Deep Learning (AWLC-COADL) Model for Terrestrial LiDAR PC. The presented AWLC-COADL technique mainly aims to classify the leaf and woody elements on the TLS data. The precise distinction between leaf and woody elements is important to estimate the leaf area index (LAI) and wood area index (WAI). To accomplish this, the AWLC-COADL technique applies the PointNet model for object detection in 3D PC. In addition, the wood and leaf classification process can be performed by the use of bidirectional long short term memory. At last, the COA is exploited to adjust the hyperparameter values of the BiLSTM method to enhance its efficiency. A widespread simulation analysis is performed to assure the significance of the AWLC-COADL model. A brief comparison results reported the promising results of the AWLC-COADL model over other existing models.
Cholinergic Modulation of Locomotion and Striatal Dopamine Release is Mediated by α 6 α 4 * Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptors

Dopamine (DA) release in striatum is governed by firing rates of midbrain DA neurons, striatal cholinergic tone, and nicotinic ACh receptors (nAChRs) on DA presynaptic terminals. DA neurons selectively express α6* nAChRs, which show high ACh and nicotine sensitivity. To help identify nAChR subtypes that control DA transmission, we studied transgenic mice expressing hypersensitive α6L9′S* receptors. α6L9′S mice are hyperactive, travel greater distance, exhibit increased ambulatory behaviors such as walking, turning, and rearing, and show decreased pausing, hanging, drinking, and grooming. These effects were mediated by α6α4* pentamers, as α6L9′S mice lacking α4 subunits displayed essentially normal behavior. In α6L9′S mice, receptor numbers are normal, but loss of α4 subunits leads to fewer and less sensitive α6* receptors. Gainof-function nicotine-stimulated DA release from striatal synaptosomes requires α4 subunits, implicating α6α4β2* nAChRs in α6L9′S mouse behaviors. In brain slices, we applied electrochemical measurements to study control of DA release by α6L9′S nAChRs. Burst stimulation of DA fibers elicited increased DA release relative to single action potentials selectively in α6L9′S, but not WT or α4KO/α6L9′S, mice. Thus, increased nAChR activity, like decreased activity, leads to enhanced extracellular DA release during phasic firing. Bursts may directly enhance DA release from α6L9′S presynaptic terminals, as there was no difference in striatal DA receptor numbers or DA transporter levels or function in vitro. These results implicate α6α4β2* nAChRs in cholinergic control of DA transmission, and strongly suggest that these receptors are candidate drug targets for disorders involving the DA system.
Structural Outlier Detection and Zernike–Canterakis Moments for Molecular Surface Meshes—Fast Implementation in Python

Object retrieval systems measure the degree of similarity of the shape of 3D models. They search for the elements of the 3D model databases that resemble the query model. In structural bioinformatics, the query model is a protein tertiary/quaternary structure and the objective is to find similarly shaped molecules in the Protein Data Bank. With the ever-growing size of the PDB, a direct atomic coordinate comparison with all its members is impractical. To overcome this problem, the shape of the molecules can be encoded by fixed-length feature vectors. The distance of a protein to the entire PDB can be measured in this low-dimensional domain in linear time. The state-of-the-art approaches utilize Zernike–Canterakis moments for the shape encoding and supply the retrieval process with geometric data of the input structures. The BioZernike descriptors are a standard utility of the PDB since 2020. However, when trying to calculate the ZC moments locally, the issue of the deficiency of libraries readily available for use in custom programs (i.e., without relying on external binaries) is encountered, in particular programs written in Python. Here, a fast and well-documented Python implementation of the Pozo–Koehl algorithm is presented. In contrast to the more popular algorithm by Novotni and Klein, which is based on the voxelized volume, the PK algorithm produces ZC moments directly from the triangular surface meshes of 3D models. In particular, it can accept the molecular surfaces of proteins as its input. In the presented PK-Zernike library, owing to Numba’s just-in-time compilation, a mesh with 50,000 facets is processed by a single thread in a second at the moment order 20. Since this is the first time the PK algorithm is used in structural bioinformatics, it is employed in a novel, simple, but efficient protein structure retrieval pipeline. The elimination of the outlying chain fragments via a fast PCA-based subroutine improves the discrimination ability, allowing for this pipeline to achieve an 0.961 area under the ROC curve in the BioZernike validation suite (0.997 for the assemblies). The correlation between the results of the proposed approach and of the 3D Surfer program attains values up to 0.99.
Localized Thermal Effect Enhanced NBTI in Multifin pFinFETs Under Low Drain Bias

In this letter, we present new observations on the degradation of negative bias temperature instability (NBTI) in multifin pFinFETs under low drain bias stress conditions. By analyzing changes in fin numbers, <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\text{V}_{\text {gs}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> stress, and <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\text{V}_{\text {ds}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> stress as well as conducting forward and reverse measurements, we inferred that thermal-induced threshold voltage degradation rather than single hot carrier degradation, is the primary driver of threshold voltage degradation. Experimental results from fast-pulsed drain bias experiments revealed an increase in threshold voltage degradation as the pulse width shortened in the sub-nanosecond range. This finding contrasts with the observation that threshold voltage degradation decreases as the frequency increases from DC to 1 GHz. The physical mechanisms underlying this degradation and the nonequilibrium carrier temperature dependence on sub-nanosecond drain pulses are analyzed. In addition, under different drain bias conditions, the equivalent temperature inside a device is estimated by extracting the activation energy of normal NBTI.
Un modèle d’innovation pour l’enseignement public : le Cyber Home Learning System coréen

Depuis 2004, le ministere de l’Education et du developpement des ressources humaines, le KERIS (Korea Education & Research Information Service) et seize bureaux de l’education metropolitains et provinciaux ont participe ensemble a la mise en œuvre du Cyber Home Learning System, un systeme d’apprentissage en ligne a l’echelle de toute la Coree du Sud. Le Cyber Home Learning System permet aux eleves d’utiliser un systeme d’apprentissage personnalise. Il est constitue d’un Learning Management Sy.
A Novel Framework for Measuring the Popularity of Musicians

The directed network of musicians and its follower reveals how the influence of musicians passing through the network and the kinds of music change with time, and how others influence the style and characteristics of musicians. This paper presents a new framework to measure the influence of musicians by showing the processing of directed network data of musicians while demonstrating the basic process of solving this type of influence calculation. The framework we presented in this paper considers genre and time, respectively. Under this proposed framework, one can calculate the influence of a musician, determine specific characteristics of musicians, find out which genre a musician belongs and predict what type of music will dominate the future music market.
Secrecy Rate Analysis for the Cooperative Communications

Due to the character of low cost and easily to implemented, the cooperative communication is the future tendency. Three fundamental mode, Amplify-and-Forward (AF) mode, Decode-and-Forward (DF) mode and Compress and Forward (CF) mode are employed to the system. In the cooperative system, relays function to transmit the delivered signal to the destination. Each node in the system could play as the source station, the relay and the destination station. Currently, the issue of privacy and security are seriously requested in the communication. There could be the eavesdroppers pre-tend as the relay to steal the message. Hence, the secrecy protection becomes important. In the higher layer, the encryption scheme is applied to protect the message. However, it is difficult for those devices with low computing resources, the example of IoT (Internet of Things). With Shannon Theory, a secure communication could be supported with a positive secrecy rate. Hence, secure cooperative communication could be possible if there exist a positive secrecy rate between the two ends in the transmissions. Base on the secrecy rate analysis, the maximum secrecy rate is the initial step toward a secure communication. In the cooperative system, the delivered signal could be transmitted via relays. Hence, the path from the source to the destination could be a huge combination. With the exhaustive method to find the optimal secrecy rate could be realized. Hence, in this work, the numerical experiment, the AF and DF mode cooperative mode is adopted.
Pathological Lives: Disease, Space and Biopolitics

Pandemics, epidemics and food borne diseases have, for some at least, become key challenges for contemporary global society. They threaten progress in global health, compromise food security, and, along with climate change and global terrorism, seem to usher in a state of emergency and a radically uncertain future. The central claim of Pathological Lives is that any solution offered to these kinds of emerging and often communicable diseases requires a broad–based geographical scrutiny. The book marks an empirically and theoretically informed contribution to a world seemingly under constant microbiological threat, drawing together and extending empirically based geographical scholarship in human–environment relations, science and society, more than human geographies and spatial theory to understand and evaluate efforts at making life more secure. The focus is on the food and farming sector, where the generation and subsequent transmission of disease can reach pandemic proportions. The authors review current approaches to biosecurity or making life safe within those sectors, analyse underlying drivers and logics to existing programmes and ask whether the resulting solutions can succeed. They follow farmers, retailers and regulators, amongst others, asking how pathological lives can be successfully regulated without making life more dangerous as a result.
Lead Time Analysis for UAVs’ Failure Prediction in U-space

In recent years, UAVs have been increasingly used in urban environments due to agility in movement, simplicity in mechanics, low price, and ability to access locations that are difficult or impossible to reach by humans. A significant number of drones are expected to fly in the urban sky shortly. The profitable nature of commercial UAVs/drone applications in urban space will imply a high density of drones; therefore, avoiding mid-air collisions will be critical for the safe operation of the UAVs. In Europe, U-space services are being created to guarantee the safe operations of UAVs in urban Very Low Level (VLL) airspace. To avoid collisions, U-space considers a separation minima (i.e., the minimum safe distance between UAVs) surrounding each UAV. Thus, violating the separation minima, which might be caused by abnormal conditions (e.g., bad weather conditions), failure conditions (e.g., GPS failure in UAVs), or unreliable behavior of the system (e.g., inaccurate GPS positioning data or erratic position estimation by flight controller), could potentially result in conflicts that require immediate mitigation measures to avoid mid-air collisions. Failure prediction is a promising method for preventing separation minima violations in U-space services. However, in order to have effective failure prediction, the lead time, which is the time between the activation of a fault and its manifestation in a system as a failure, must account for both the prediction step and the subsequent mitigation actions. This paper aims to evaluate the lead time in UAV systems in the presence of positioning-related issues (as being critical for the safe operation of UAVs) from a U-space perspective. We used fault injection to inject 18 different types of faults (or emulating failures) in 28 different UAV missions. The results show that the lead time for 17 types of faults injected is at least 14 seconds (in some cases, no failure occurred). Thus, U-space has at least 14 seconds to predict and mitigate such faults. In the case of GPS failure (i.e., GPS signal is entirely missing), lead time is about 5 seconds, requiring faster strategies for failure prediction and mitigation plans.
Location Privacy Protection Method On Mobile Social Mode

With the development of smart handheld devices and location technology, users can use location-based services (LBS) to search for nearby friends and strangers to enjoy a better social experience. However, the disclosure of sensitive personal information may hinder the further development of LBS social services. Although many scholars have proposed privacy protection methods for LBS social services, there are challenges in the flexibility of privacy protection and the efficiency of location retrieval in the friend location query. Therefore, this paper proposed an efficient privacy protection method for location retrieval, which not only protects the privacy of users, but also provides a method named association grid to improve the location retrieval efficiency of LBS social services. In addition, by setting the user-defined access control policy proposed by this method, the flexible privacy protection requirements of users can be met. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by simulation experiments.
Millimeter-wave Substrate Integrated Waveguide Band-pass Filter Based Filtering Magneto Electric Dipole Antenna

This study proposes an integrated narrowband antenna system by combining SIW BPF technology with an ME dipole antenna, centered at the core frequency of 58 GHz within the range of 56.5 GHz to 59.2 GHz. The size of the combined structure is 4mm × 14mm. One of the components, the SIW BPF, has been designed with optimized parameters and resonates at 59 GHz with a fractional bandwidth (FBW) 4.23% through parametric analysis. The ME antenna covers the range of 54.56 GHz to 74.67 GHz using single feed line. The proposed structure demonstrates a downward phase shift of 1.25 GHz compared to the SIW BPF's range and achieved return loss of -14dB.
Genomics insights into a Mycobacterium pinnipedii isolate causing tuberculosis in a captive South American sea lion (Otaria flavescens) from Italy

Tuberculosis (TB) affects humans and other animals, and it is caused by bacteria within the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBC). In this study, we report the characterisation of Mycobacterium pinnipedii that caused a TB case in a sea lion (Otaria flavescens) kept in an Italian zoo. The animal died due to severe, progressive disorders involving the respiratory and gastro-enteric systems and the skin. At necropsy, typical gross lesions referable to a TB generalised form were found. In particular, nodular granulomatous lesions were detected in the lungs and several lymph nodes, and colonies referable to Mycobacterium spp. were isolated from lung, mesenteric, and mediastinal lymph nodes. The isolate was identified by PCR as a MTBC, had a spoligotype SB 1480 (“seal lineage”), and was characterised and characterised by whole-genome sequencing analysis confirming that the MTBC involved was M. pinnipedii. The analysis of the resistome and virulome indicated the presence of macrolide and aminoglycoside resistance genes intrinsic in M. tuberculosis [erm-37 and aac(2′)-Ic] and confirmed the presence of the region of difference 1 (RD1), harbouring the esxA and esxB virulence genes, differently from its closest taxon, M. microti. As for other MTCB members, M. pinnipedii infection can spill over into non-pinniped mammalian species; therefore, zoological gardens, veterinary practitioners, and public health officers should be aware of the hazard posed by tuberculosis from marine mammals. Since the isolate under study, as well as all available genomes of M. pinnipedii investigated in this study retains almost all the M. tuberculosis virulence genes, it could indeed cause infection, lesions, and disease in other animal species, including humans.
Local Birds in and around the Offshore Wind Park Egmond aan Zee (OWEZ) (T-0 & T-1)

The Dutch consortium "NoordzeeWind" operates the first offshore wind farm in Dutch North Sea waters. The park, consisting of 36 turbines on monopiles, is located NW of IJmuiden harbour, some 8 NM off the Dutch mainland coast. Named after the nearest town ashore, the park will be known as "Offshore Wind farm Egmond aan Zee" (OWEZ). A second offshore wind farm has also become operational, the Princess Amalia Windfarm (PAWF). This report deals with distribution patterns of local seabirds in an area of approximately 885 km2 around the OWEZ and PAWF parks