Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Use of Phosphonate Salts to Control Chestnut ‘Brown Rot’ by Gnomoniopsis castaneae in Fruit Orchards of Castanea sativa

The fungus Gnomoniopsis castaneae is the causal agent of the “brown rot” of sweet chestnut fruits. These days, this pathogen represents one of the main limiting factors for the sustainability of fruit production worldwide. Although heat treatment post-harvest is efficient in completely inactivating the pathogen, the application of appropriate protocols to control “brown rot” in chestnut orchards is required to help in reducing the latent population of the fungus in fruit tissues, and the consequent development of “brown rot” symptoms in the field before the post-harvest handling process. The present study aims to evaluate and compare the efficiency of products at a minimum environmental impact in experimental trials conducted in chestnut orchards in Central Italy for two consecutive years in 2019 and 2020. Phosphonate-based salts and, specifically, Zn-phosphonate were efficient in reducing the impact of the disease and the pathogen inoculum in fruits with an efficacy comparable to the fungicide Tebuconazole. A unique treatment at the blooming time produced the best results for both Zn-phosphonate and Tebuconazole, also giving indirect evidence of female flowers as a main site of infection. Phosphonate salts, and at first Zn-phosphonate, are highly effective to protect chestnut fruits from the ‘brown rot’ fungus G. castaneae. Its use in orchard management may complement the post-harvest heat treatment during the processing of fruits. Although a still ongoing debate on phosphonate salts use and efficacy in agriculture, they can be considered an optimal fungicide in chestnut orchards because of the low environmental impact when used at the recommended doses, the high translocability and stability, and the multiple mechanisms of action.
SUSY Tools for Dark Matter and at the Colliders

With present and upcoming SUSY searches both directly, indirectly and at accelerators, the need for accurate calculations is large. We will here go through some of the tools available both from a dark matter point of view and at accelerators. For natural reasons, we will focus on public tools, even though there are some rather sophisticated private tools as well.
Role of Exopolysaccharides of Pseudomonas in Heavy Metal Removal and Other Remediation Strategies

Pseudomonas biofilms have been studied intensively for several decades and research outcomes have been successfully implemented in various medical and agricultural applications. Research on biofilm synthesis and composition has also overlapped with the objectives of environmental sciences, since biofilm components show exceptional physicochemical properties applicable to remediation techniques. Especially, exopolysaccharides (ExPs) have been at the center of scientific interest, indicating their potential in solving the environmental issues of heavy metal land and water contamination via sorptive interactions and flocculation. Since exposure to heavy metal via contaminated water or soil poses an imminent risk to the environment and human health, ExPs provide an interesting and viable solution to this issue, alongside other effective and green remedial techniques (e.g., phytostabilization, implementation of biosolids, and biosorption using agricultural wastes) aiming to restore contaminated sites to their natural, pollution-free state, or to ameliorate the negative impact of heavy metals on the environment. Thus, we discuss the plausible role and performance of Pseudomonas ExPs in remediation techniques, aiming to provide the relevant available and comprehensive information on ExPs’ biosynthesis and their usage in heavy metal remediation or other environmental applications, such as wastewater treatment via bioflocculation and soil remediation.
Low-energy effects in a higher-derivative gravity model with real and complex massive poles

The most simple superrenormalizable model of quantum gravity is based on the general local covariant six-derivative action. In addition to graviton such a theory has massive scalar and tensor modes. It was shown recently that in the case when the massive poles emerge in complex conjugate pairs, the theory has also unitary $S$-matrix and hence can be seen as a candidate to be a consistent quantum gravity theory. In the present work we construct the modified Newton potential and explore the gravitational light bending in a general six-derivative theory, including the most interesting case of complex massive poles. In the case of the light deflection the results are obtained within classical and semiclassical approaches.
SU Lyncis, a hard X-ray bright M giant: clues point to a large hidden population of symbiotic stars

Symbiotic star surveys have traditionally relied almost exclusively on low resolution optical spectroscopy. However, we can obtain amore reliable estimate of their total Galactic population by using all available signatures of the symbiotic phenomenon. Here we report the discovery of a hard X-ray source, 4PBC J0642.9+5528, in the Swift hard X-ray all-sky survey, and identify it with a poorly studied red giant, SU Lyn, using pointed Swift observations and ground-based optical spectroscopy. The X-ray spectrum, the optical to UV spectrum, and the rapid UV variability of SU Lyn are all consistent with our interpretation that it is a symbiotic star containing an accreting white dwarf. The symbiotic nature of SU Lyn went unnoticed until now, because it does not exhibit emission lines strong enough to be obvious in low resolution spectra. We argue that symbiotic stars without shell-burning have weak emission lines, and that the current lists of symbiotic stars are biased in favour of shell-burning systems. We conclude that the true population of symbiotic stars has been underestimated, potentially by a large factor.
GW151226: Observation of Gravitational Waves from a 22-Solar-Mass Binary Black Hole Coalescence

We report the observation of a gravitational-wave signal produced by the coalescence of two stellar-mass black holes. The signal, GW151226, was observed by the twin detectors of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) on December 26, 2015 at 03:38:53 UTC. The signal was initially identified within 70 s by an online matched-filter search targeting binary coalescences. Subsequent off-line analyses recovered GW151226 with a network signal-to-noise ratio of 13 and a significance greater than 5 $\sigma$. The signal persisted in the LIGO frequency band for approximately 1 s, increasing in frequency and amplitude over about 55 cycles from 35 to 450 Hz, and reached a peak gravitational strain of $3. 4_{-0.9}^{+0.7} \times 10^{-22}$. The inferred source-frame initial black hole masses are $14. 2_{-3.7}^{+8.3} M_{\odot}$ and $7. 5_{-2.3}^{+2.3} M_{\odot}$ and the final black hole mass is $20. 8_{-1.7}^{+6.1} M_{\odot}$. We find that at least one of the component black holes has spin greater than 0.2. This source is located at a luminosity distance of $440_{-190}^{+180}$ Mpc corresponding to a redshift $0. 09_{-0.04}^{+0.03}$. All uncertainties define a 90 % credible interval. This second gravitational-wave observation provides improved constraints on stellar populations and on deviations from general relativity.
Statistical Mechanics: Theory The ratchet eﬀect in an ageing glass

We study the dynamics of an asymmetric intruder in a glass-former model. At equilibrium, the intruder diﬀuses with average zero velocity. After an abrupt quench to T deeply under the mode-coupling temperature, a net average drift is observed, steady on a logarithmic time scale. The phenomenon is well reproduced in an asymmetric version of the Sinai model. The sub-velocity of the intruder grows with T eﬀ /T , where T eﬀ is deﬁned by the response–correlation ratio, corresponding to a general behavior of thermal ratchets when in contact with two thermal reservoirs.
Cosmological brane systems in warped spacetime

In this paper, we discuss the time-dependent brane solutions in higher-dimensional supergravity theories. We particularly focus on the dynamical extensions of the intersecting brane solutions involving three branes. We also show that in the near-horizon limits, where the time dependence is negligible, these branes describe warped anti-de Sitter spacetimes as in the corresponding static solutions. We finally examine the lower-dimensional cosmological dynamics obtained after compactifications of the higher-dimensional solutions and show the solutions we have found give the four-dimensional universe with power-law expansion.
Microscopic approach to string gas cosmology

In this contribution to the proceedings of the Conference on Modern Physics of Compact Stars and Relativistic Gravity in Yerevan, Armenia (September 18-21, 2013), I review recent work attempting to give a fundamental definition to string evolution in a dynamical, fully compact universe, and present a sketch of how the resulting formalism can be used for addressing questions of phenomenological significance in the field of string gas cosmology.
X-RAYS FROM BLUE COMPACT DWARF GALAXIES

We measured the X-ray fluxes from an optically selected sample of blue compact dwarf galaxies (BCDs) with metallicities <0.07 and solar distances less than 15 Mpc. Four X-ray point sources were observed in three galaxies, with five galaxies having no detectable X-ray emission. Comparing X-ray luminosity and star formation rate (SFR), we find that the total X-ray luminosity of the sample is more than 10 times greater than expected if X-ray luminosity scales with SFR according to the relation found for normal-metallicity star-forming galaxies. However, due to the low number of sources detected, one can exclude the hypothesis that the relation of the X-ray binaries to SFR in low-metallicity BCDs is identical to that in normal galaxies only at the 96.6% confidence level. It has recently been proposed that X-ray binaries were an important source of heating and reionization of the intergalactic medium at the epoch of reionization. If BCDs are analogs to unevolved galaxies in the early universe, then enhanced X-ray binary production in BCDs would suggest an enhanced impact of X-ray binaries on the early thermal history of the universe.
Statistical Features of the Wind Field over the Indian Ccean for the period 1998-2008

We have done a statistical analysis of the wind field from the archive of NCEP/NOAA over the Indian Ocean for the period 1998-2008yy, which is given on a grid 1x1.25 of latitude-longitude with 3h time-step. Initial analysis includes mapping the average wind fields and fields of mean density of the wind-kinetic-energy flux , obtained with different periods of time averaging T, as well as the assessment of 11-year trends in these fields. The subsequent analysis is concerned with partition of the Indian ocean area into 6 zones, provided by the spatial inhomogeneity of the analyzed wind field. This analysis includes: a) an assessment of temporal variations for the wind speed field averaged over the Ocean and the zones and for the field of wind-energy flux; b) construction of time history series of these fields averaged with different scales, and estimating frequency spectra of these series; c) finding the extremes of the wind field (in the zones of Indian Ocean); d) construction of histograms of the wind field; and e) calculation of the first four statistical moments for the wind field (in zones and in the whole Ocean). The results obtained allow us to estimate the stored energy of the wind field in the Indian Ocean, its climate variability, and distribution of the above statistical characteristics of wind field in the Indian Ocean.
Effects of Mindfulness for Performance Programme on Actual Performance in Ecological Sport Context: Two Studies in Basketball and Table Tennis

Mindfulness For Performance is a programme that has been developed over 15 years. It aims to help athletes maintain effective attentional focus regardless of the disruptive sensations and thoughts induced by the performance situation. It is inspired by Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction and Acceptance Commitment Therapy programmes and has been adapted to the specificities of sport. It is composed of three steps: (a) psychoeducation and identification of the focus of attention, (b) mindfulness and acceptance training, and (c) integrating skills acquired into training and competition. This article reports the effects of MFP in two studies in national basketball players and in young table tennis players. The first study showed that mindfulness skills and free-throw accuracy during basketball games increased more in the experimental group than in the control group. Table tennis results revealed that participants who showed the highest percentage of adherence to the programme benefited more from MFP training in terms of performance outcome (i.e., accumulated points collected from published results compared with the baseline phase) than participants who showed weaker percentages of adherence to the programme. Both studies provided some evidence on the effects of MFP on specific performance indicators (i.e., free-throw accuracy in basketball and ranking points in table tennis), but this needs to be confirmed by further research measuring other relevant performance indicators. The impact and conditions of adherence also deserve more consideration.
Intensity Correlation Function of Light Scattering from a Weakly One-Dimensional Random Rough Surface

基于 Kirchhoff 近似和 Gaussian 时刻定理，我们在场紧张关联的一般表情从弱一个维的不平的表面散布了，它对由二不同波长或二个不同入射角的案例适用。 由使用一个 Gaussian 表面模型，我们特殊与二不同波长为紧张关联功能给数字结果。 结果与增加的表面粗糙和减少的表面关联长度显示出那，当调查不平的对象的统计参数时，关联函数在镜子的方向减少并且在另外的方向增加，它显示紧张的关联的学习是有用的。 另外，结果证明 rms 粗糙的增加能导致更狭窄的关联带宽。
LPCAT4 Knockdown Alters Barrier Integrity and Cellular Bioenergetics in Human Urothelium

Urothelium is a transitional, stratified epithelium that lines the lower urinary tract, providing a tight barrier to urine whilst retaining the capacity to stretch and rapidly resolve damage. The role of glycerophospholipids in urothelial barrier function is largely unknown, despite their importance in membrane structural integrity, protein complex assembly, and the master regulatory role of PPARγ in urothelial differentiation. We performed lipidomic and transcriptomic characterisation of urothelial differentiation, revealing a metabolic switch signature from fatty acid synthesis to lipid remodelling, including 5-fold upregulation of LPCAT4. LPCAT4 knockdown urothelial cultures exhibited an impaired proliferation rate but developed elevated trans-epithelial electrical resistances upon differentiation, associated with a reduced and delayed capacity to restitute barrier function after wounding. Specific reduction in 18:1 PC fatty acyl chains upon knockdown was consistent with LPCAT4 specificity, but was unlikely to elicit broad barrier function changes. However, transcriptomic analysis of LPCAT4 knockdown supported an LPC-induced reduction in DAG availability, predicted to limit PKC activity, and TSPO abundance, predicted to limit endogenous ATP. These phenotypes were confirmed by PKC and TSPO inhibition. Together, these data suggest an integral role for lipid mediators in urothelial barrier function and highlight the strength of combined lipidomic and transcriptomic analyses for characterising tissue homeostasis.
Condensates induced by interband coupling in a double-well lattice

We predict novel interband physics for bosons in double-well optical lattices (OLs). An intrinsic coupling between the s and the p{sub x} bands due to interaction gives rise to larger Mott regions on the phase diagram at even fillings than the ones at odd fillings. On the other hand, the ground state can form various types of condensates, including a mixture of single-particle condensates of both bands, a mixture of a single-particle condensate of one band and a pair condensate of the other band, and a pair condensate composed of one particle from one band and one hole from the other band. The predicted phenomena should be observable in current experiments on double-well OLs.
Cancelable Fingerprint Template Construction Using Vector Permutation and Shift-Ordering

The need for cancelable biometric techniques has seen a progressive rise due to the rapid deployment of biometric authentication systems. These techniques prevent compromising biometric data by generating and using their corresponding cancelable templates for user authentication. However, the non-invertible distance preserving transformation methods employed in various schemes are often vulnerable to information leakage since matching is performed in the transform domain. This paper proposed a non-invertible distance preserving scheme based on vector permutation and shift-order process. First, the dimension of feature vectors is reduced using kernelized principal component analysis before randomly permuting the extracted vector features. A shift-order process is then applied to the generated features to achieve non-invertibility and combat similarity correlation-based attacks. The generated hash codes are resilient to various security and privacy attacks such as ARM, masquerade, and brute-force preimage. Experimental evaluations conducted on eight fingerprint datasets from FVC2002, FVC2004, and FVC2006 reveal a high matching performance of the proposed method with better recognition accuracy than other existing state-of-the-art. The scheme also fulfills the revocability and unlinkability requirements of cancelable biometrics.
Heroes or traitors? Perception of whistleblowers depends on the self-relevance of the group being reported

Whistleblowing is the action by which members of an organization report misconduct that occurs within their group to other persons inside or outside the organization. In the present research, we examined perception of whistleblowers in terms of global impressions, emotions, and behavioural intentions. Study 1 reveals negative reactions to whistleblowers, while Study 2 shows positive reactions to whistleblowers. To reconcile these findings, Study 3 varies the self-relevance of the context and reveals that whistleblowers are derogated when the context is highly self-relevant (as in Study 1) and positively evaluated when it is not (as in Study 2). Across the studies, we also show that emotions and the subjective importance of loyalty and fairness influence the evaluation of whistleblowers. Our findings help unveiling the conditions in which whistleblowers are alternatively regarded as heroes or traitors, depending on the perceivers’ point of view.
Linear Time-Invariant Model Identification Algorithm for Mechatronic Systems Based on MIMO Frequency Response Data

This article describes a new frequency- domain multi-input multioutput linear time-invariant (LTI) system identification algorithm for accurate model construction suitable for motion control systems. The proposed method can capture the effects of time-delay, lightly damped poles (structural resonances), as well as highly damped complex or real poles, and direct or derivative-like terms. The effectiveness of the algorithm has been validated using experimental frequency response measurements obtained from different types of motion control mechanisms. The proposed algorithm has also been compared with “tfest” and “modalfit” functions in MATLAB. Over these methods, nearly two orders of magnitude improvement is observed in the closeness of the model prediction, in terms of root mean square of the frequencywise modeling error.
Dammarane-Type Triterpenoid from the Stem Bark of Aglaia elliptica (Meliaceae) and Its Cytotoxic Activities

Two new dammarane-type triterpenoid fatty acid ester derivatives, 3β-oleate-20S-hydroxydammar-24-en (1) and 3β-oleate-20S,24S-epoxy-25-hydroxydammarane (2) with a known dammarane-type triterpenoid compound, such as 20S-hydroxydammar-24-en-3-on (3), were isolated from the stem bark of Aglaia elliptica (C.DC.) Blume. The chemical structures were determined by spectroscopic methods, including FTIR, NMR (one and two-dimensional), and HRESITOF-MS analysis, as well as chemical derivatization and comparison with previous literature. Furthermore, the synthetic analog resulting from transesterification of 1 and 2 also obtained 3β,20S-dihydroxy-dammar-24-en (4) and 20S,24S-epoxy-3β,25-dihydroxydammarane (5), respectively. The cytotoxic effect of all isolated and synthetic analog compounds was evaluated using PrestoBlue reagent against MCF-7 breast cancer cell and B16-F10 melanoma cell lines. The 20S-hydroxydammar-24-en-3-on (3) showed the strongest activity against MCF-7 breast cancer and B16-F10 melanoma cell, indicating that the ketone group at C-3 in 3 plays an essential role in the cytotoxicity of dammarane-type triterpenoid. On the other hand, compounds 1 and 2 had very weak cytotoxic activity against the two cell lines, indicating the presence of fatty acid, significantly decreasing cytotoxic activity. This showed the significance of the discovery to investigate the essential structural feature in dammarane-type triterpenoid, specifically for the future development of anticancer drugs.
Effect of X-ray exposure on nano-mechanical properties of multi-walled carbon nanotube incorporated silicone polymer nanocomposites: An AFM-based study

Nano-mechanical properties of silicone polymer-based nanocomposites loaded with multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) as nanofillers are probed here using the atomic force microscopy (AFM) technique. Further, the effects of MWCNT concentration and X-ray exposure on the nano-mechanical and topographic properties of the polymer nanocomposites are systematically studied. The root mean square surface roughness is found to increase by ∼123% when the neat polymer matrix is loaded with 2.5 wt. % of MWCNT, whereas, for a fixed MWCNT concentration, the surface roughness is found to increase by ∼171% after X-ray irradiation. This is attributed to the X-ray induced polymer degradation, polymer pull-out and poor filler-matrix interaction leading to the aggregation of MWCNT. Adhesion force and adhesion energy are estimated from the AFM-based force-displacement curves. Both quantities are found to increase with MWCNT concentration. After an exposure to diagnostic X-rays (30–70 keV), the adhesion force is found to increase by ∼4 times, which is attributed to the increased tip-surface contact area due to the higher surface roughness of the X-ray exposed samples. Further, the variation of adhesion energy with filler concentration is found to be in agreement with the theoretical values obtained from the Johnson, Kendall and Roberts (JKR) model. The elastic modulus is found to increase with the filler concentration due to an increase in adhesion force. The obtained results are beneficial for the optimal design of nanofiller loaded polymer nanocomposites for various applications, including the fabrication of lead-free radio-opaque nanocomposites.