nils-herrmann/clean_scirepeval huggingface dataset:
Production, purification and immobilization of pectinase from Aspergillus ibericus onto functionalized nanoporous activated carbon (FNAC) and its application on treatment of pectin containing wastewater

The fungal strain Aspergillus ibericus was isolated from food waste for the production of pectinase. In this study response surface methodology (RSM) was employed to determine optimum conditions for the production of pectinase from citrus pectin. The optimum conditions for the production of pectinase were found to be pH, 4.0; temperature, 40 degC; incubation time, 120 h and substrate concentration (Citrus Pectin) 2% (w/v) The maximum activity of pectinase at optimum conditions was found to be 69.9 U mL 1. The purification by DEAE Cellulose increased the specific activity of pectinase by about 10.1 fold from 64 to 650 U mg 1 protein. The molecular weight of the purified pectinase was found to be 41 kDa and 43 kDa. The purified pectinase was immobilized onto functionalized nanoporous activated carbon (FNAC) the maximum immobilization capacity of pectinase onto FNAC was found to be 3360 U g 1 at optimum immobilization conditions; time, 150 min; pH, 5.0; temperature, 35 degC and initial concentration of pectinase, 52 x 103 U (80 mg) L 1. The immobilized pectinase showed better thermal and storage stability than free pectinase. The immobilization of pectinase onto FNAC obeyed the Freundlich isotherm model. The immobilization of pectinase onto FNAC was confirmed by FT IR, XRD, TGA, DSC and SEM analyses. The pectinase immobilized FNAC packed bed column reactor was used for the treatment of pectin containing wastewater under continuous mode. The maximum treatment efficiency for citrus pectin in synthetic wastewater was observed to be 82% at operating conditions: Hydraulic retention time, 180 min; pH, 5.0 and citrus pectin concentration 1% (w/v) Further, the citrus processing industrial wastewater was treated in pectinase immobilized FNAC packed bed column reactor and the system showed 94% of pectin treatment. The treatment of pectin in wastewater obeyed pseudo second order rate kinetic treatment model. The treatment of pectin in wastewater was confirmed by UV vis spectroscopy and FT IR spectrophotometer analyses.
Reuse of microalgae grown in full scale wastewater treatment ponds: Thermochemical pretreatment and biogas production.
Venue: Bioresource technology

This study assessed thermochemical pretreatment of microalgae harvested from a full scale wastewater treatment pond prior to its anaerobic digestion using acid and alkaline chemical doses combined with thermal pretreatment at 80degC. Results indicated that alkaline and thermal pretreatment contributed mostly to glycoprotein and pectin solubilisation; whilst acid pretreatment solubilised mostly hemicellulose, with lower effectiveness for proteins. Regarding the anaerobic biodegradability, biochemical methane potential (BMP) tests showed that final methane yield was enhanced after almost all pretreatment conditions when compared to non pretreated microalgae, with the highest increase for thermochemical pretreatment at the lowest dose (0.5% i.e. 82% and 86% increase for alkaline and acid, respectively. At higher doses, salt toxicity was revealed by K( concentrations over 5000mg/L. All BMP data from pretreated biomass was successfully described by the modified Gompertz model and optimal condition (thermochemical 0.5% HCl) showed an increase in final methane yield and the process kinetics.
Model for Transforming Engineering Education Using Technology Enhanced Learning

Engineering education is important for all countries to progress and to be competitive in the twenty first century. This is especially true for countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) which are developing very fast. MENA must train a large number of high quality engineers to meet the demand for engineers today and in the future. Engineering schools need to transform engineering education to be more flexible and more relevant, and deliver engineering programs in a blended format where students can complete part of the training anywhere and at any time and complete parts that require face to face instructions to complete on campus or in an industry placement. Engineering programs should implement problem based learning, games and simulation, and contextual learning to encourage outcome based learning and higher level learning. To cater for different learning styles, proven learning theories should be followed to develop quality programs to improve the completion rate. Technology enhanced learning consisting of e learning, online learning, mobile learning, and blended learning should be implemented for the new generation of students, to improve access for students who live in remote locations and those who cannot physically attend a campus. A model for engineering programs to develop quality learning materials is proposed. The model proposed is learner centered, will cater for different learning styles, and, if followed properly, will result in high level or deep learning. The proposed model consists of four components. These include a variety of strategies to prepare and motivate the student to start the course, different learning activities for different learning styles and independent learning, interaction strategies to promote high level learning, and transfer of training in the real environment.
Greed or good deeds: An examination of the relation between corporate social responsibility and the financial performance of U.S. commercial banks around the financial crisis

We examine the relation between banks' corporate social responsibility (CSR) and financial performance in a context of the recent financial crisis. We find that banks, in general, appear to be rewarded for being socially responsible as financial performance is positively and significantly related to CSR scores. We find that the biggest banks pursue socially responsible activities to a significantly greater extent than smaller banks. Further, the largest banks see a steep increase in CSR strengths and a steep drop in CSR concerns after 2009. Any modern economy needs a financial system, not only to process payments, but also to transform savings in one part of the economy into productive investment in another part of the economy. However, the Obama administration had decided, like the George W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations before it, that it needed this financial system a system dominated by the thirteen bankers who came to the White House in March. Their banks used huge balance sheets to place bets in brand new financial markets, stirring together complex derivatives with exotic mortgages in a toxic brew that ultimately poisoned the global economy. In the process, they grew so large that their potential failure threatened the stability of the entire system, giving them a unique degree of leverage over the government." (13 Bankers: Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown by Simon Johnson and James Kwak, Randomhouse, 2010.
A Review: Methods of Automatic Stomata Detection and Counting Through Microscopic Images of a Leaf

Stomata are the small pores in leaf epidermis of a plant which are important for the intake of carbondioxide and release of oxygen for the growth of plant. Our aim is to discuss methods to design a tool which can automatically detect number of stomata present on an epidermis of a leaf and count them. First method is by using morphological operation and another by using the template matching algorithm. These methods also measure their stomatal and morphological features.
Neutron Capture Element Abundances in Magellanic Cloud Planetary Nebulae

We present near infrared spectra of ten planetary nebulae (PNe) in the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds (LMC and SMC) acquired with the FIRE and GNIRS spectrometers on the 6.5 m Baade and 8.1 m Gemini South Telescopes, respectively. We detect Se and/or Kr emission lines in eight of these objects, the first detections of n capture elements in Magellanic Cloud PNe. Our abundance analysis shows large s process enrichments of Kr (0.6 1.3 dex) in the six PNe in which it was detected, and Se is enriched by 0.5 0.9 dex in five objects. We also estimate upper limits to Rb and Cd abundances in these objects. Our abundance results for the LMC are consistent with the hypothesis that PNe with 2 3 M$_{\odot} progenitors dominate the bright end of the PN luminosity function in young gas rich galaxies. We find no significant correlations between s process enrichments and other elemental abundances, central star temperature, or progenitor mass, though this is likely due to our small sample size. We determine S abundances from our spectra and find that [S/H] agrees with [Ar/H] to within 0.2 dex for most objects, but is lower than [O/H] by 0.2 0.4 dex in some PNe, possibly due to O enrichment via third dredge up. Our results demonstrate that n capture elements can be detected in PNe belonging to nearby galaxies with ground based telescopes, allowing s process enrichments to be studied in PN populations with well determined distances.
Safety of house dust mite sublingual immunotherapy standardized quality tablet in children allergic to house dust mites.
Venue: Annals of allergy, asthma immunology official publication of the American College of Allergy, Asthma, Immunology

Sublingual immunotherapy (SLIT) tablets could be an important alternative to subcutaneous immunotherapy for house dust mite (HDM) allergy in children.  To characterize the safety, tolerability, and duration of local adverse events (AEs) of an HDM SLIT tablet (MK 8237; Merck, ALK Abello, and Torii) in North American children 12 to 17 years old with HDM allergic rhinitis with and without conjunctivitis and with or without asthma.  In this phase 1, multicenter, double blinded, randomized trial (NCT01678807) children received placebo, HDM SLIT tablet 6 standardized quality (SQ) HDM, or 12 SQ HDM once daily for 28 days. The primary end point was the proportion of subjects with treatment emergent AEs receiving active treatment vs placebo. The secondary end point was the proportion of subjects who discontinued owing to AEs.  In total 195 subjects were randomized. The 2 HDM SLIT tablet doses were well tolerated. No anaphylactic reactions, systemic allergic reactions, AEs requiring epinephrine, serious AEs, or local swellings in the mouth or throat assessed as severe were reported. The proportion of subjects with treatment emergent AEs was 54% with 6 SQ HDM and 57% with 12 SQ HDM (nonsignificant vs 43% with placebo) Local AEs were the most commonly reported treatment emergent AEs. On day 1, the median duration of individual local AEs ranged from 1 to 43 minutes. The proportion of subjects who discontinued owing to AEs was 0% 6.2% and 6.2% and who experienced treatment related AEs was 25% 45% and 52% for the placebo, 6 SQ HDM, and 12 SQ HDM groups, respectively.  The 6 and 12 SQ HDM doses of the HDM SLIT tablet MK 8237 were well tolerated, and local AEs were of short duration.
Extinction of fish shaped marine reptiles associated with reduced evolutionary rates and global environmental volatility
Venue: Nature communications

Despite their profound adaptations to the aquatic realm and their apparent success throughout the Triassic and the Jurassic, ichthyosaurs became extinct roughly 30 million years before the end Cretaceous mass extinction. Current hypotheses for this early demise involve relatively minor biotic events, but are at odds with recent understanding of the ichthyosaur fossil record. Here, we show that ichthyosaurs maintained high but diminishing richness and disparity throughout the Early Cretaceous. The last ichthyosaurs are characterized by reduced rates of origination and phenotypic evolution and their elevated extinction rates correlate with increased environmental volatility. In addition, we find that ichthyosaurs suffered from a profound Early Cenomanian extinction that reduced their ecological diversity, likely contributing to their final extinction at the end of the Cenomanian. Our results support a growing body of evidence revealing that global environmental change resulted in a major, temporally staggered turnover event that profoundly reorganized marine ecosystems during the Cenomanian.
Weak and Compact Radio Emission in Early High Mass Star Forming Regions: I. VLA Observations

We present a high sensitivity radio continuum survey at 6 and 1.3$$cm using the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array towards a sample of 58 high mass star forming regions. Our sample was chosen from dust clumps within infrared dark clouds with and without IR sources (CMC IRs, CMCs, respectively) and hot molecular cores (HMCs) with no previous, or relatively weak radio continuum detection at the $1\$mJy level. Due to the improvement in the continuum sensitivity of the VLA, this survey achieved map rms levels of \sim$ 3 10 \mu$Jy beam$ 1} at sub arcsecond angular resolution. We extracted 70 centimeter continuum sources associated with 1.2$$mm dust clumps. Most sources are weak, compact, and are prime candidates for high mass protostars. Detection rates of radio sources associated with the mm dust clumps for CMCs, CMC IRs and HMCs are 6$ 53$ and 100$ respectively. This result is consistent with increasing high mass star formation activity from CMCs to HMCs. The radio sources located within HMCs and CMC IRs occur close to the dust clump centers with a median offset from it of 12,000$$AU and 4,000$$AU, respectively. We calculated 5 25$$GHz spectral indices using power law fits and obtain a median value of 0.5 (i.e. flux increasing with frequency) suggestive of thermal emission from ionized jets. In this paper we describe the sample, observations, and detections. The analysis and discussion will be presented in Paper II.
Experimental evidence for thermal generation of interstitials in a metallic crystal near the melting temperature.
Venue: Journal of physics. Condensed matter an Institute of Physics journal

The only intrinsic point defects of simple crystalline metals known from solid state physics are vacancies and interstitials. It is widely believed that while vacancies play a major role in crystal properties and their concentration reaches relatively big values near the melting temperature T m, interstitials essentially do not occur in thermodynamic equilibrium and their influence on properties is minor. Here, taking aluminum single crystals as an example, we present compelling experimental evidence for rapid thermoactivated growth of interstitial concentration upon approaching T m. Using high precision measurements of the shear modulus we found a diaelastic effect of up to  see text] near T m. It is argued that this effect is mostly due to the generation of dumbbell (split) interstitials. The interstitial concentration c i rapidly increases upon approaching T m and becomes only 2 3 times smaller than that of vacancies just below T m. The reason for this c i increase is conditioned by a decrease of the Gibbs free energy with temperature, which in turn originates from the high formation entropy of dumbbell interstitials and a decrease of their formation enthalpy at high c i Special molecular dynamic simulation confirmed all basic aspects of the proposed interpretation. The results obtained (i) demonstrate the significance of interstitial concentration near T m that could lead to the revaluation of vacancy concentration at high temperatures, (ii) suggest that dumbbell interstitials play a major role in the melting mechanism of monatomic metallic crystals and (iii) support a new avenue for in depth understanding of glassy metals.
PROBIOTICOS Y SU RELACION CON EL CONTROL DE CARIES. REVISION DE TEMA

RESUMEN. El desarrollo de estudios relacionados con el microbioma oral humano, asi como las ciencias y tecnicas aplicadas para investigarlo, han permitido replantear el entendimiento de la caries como una infeccion endogena causada por un consorcio de microorganismos. Ademas de identificar la gran diversidad de microorganismos implicados en los procesos cariosos, tambien se han realizado estudios similares en cavidad oral sana, y analisis de las interacciones entre los microorganismos y el hospedador. Los resultados estan abriendo paso a la viabilidad de implementar estrategias biotecnologicas que buscan interrumpir el inicio y la progresion de la enfermedad, y en este sentido los probioticos son una herramienta prometedora. Los probioticos son microorganismos beneficos que al entrar en contacto con la cavidad oral modifican la interaccion microbiana a favor de una homeostasis. Utilizando diferentes bases de datos (PubMed, ScienceDirect y Google Academico) se realizo la revision de literatura sobre los probioticos como una estrategia para el control de la caries, mediante el fundamento de su funcion en cavidad oral, asi como algunos de los estudios realizados hasta el momento y la descripcion de las caracteristicas de las cepas bacterianas mas estudiadas y las aisladas recientemente. El articulo concluye con la sustentacion de las caracteristicas ideales que deberian tener las cepas bacterianas para que sean eficientes como probioticos de cavidad oral.
Salt tolerant genes from halophytes are potential key players of salt tolerance in glycophytes

Crop productivity strongly depends on several biotic and abiotic factors. Salinity is one of the most important abiotic factors, besides drought, extreme temperatures, light and metal stress. The enhanced burden of secondary salinization induced through anthropogenic activities increases pressure on glycophytic crop plants. The recent isolation and characterization of salt tolerance genes encoding signaling components from halophytes, which naturally grow in high salinity, has provided tools for the development of transgenic crop plants with improved salt tolerance and economically beneficial traits. In addition understanding of the differences between glycophytes and halophytes with respect to levels of salinity tolerance is also one of the prerequisite to achieve this goal. Based on the recent developments in mechanisms of salt tolerance in halophytes, we will explore the potential of introducing salt tolerance by choosing the available genes from both dicotyledonous and monocotyledonous halophytes, including the salt overly sensitive system (SOS) related cation/proton antiporters of plasma (NHX/SOS1) and vacuolar membranes (NHX) energy related pumps, such as plasma membrane and vacuolar H+ adenosine triphosphatase (PM& V H+ATPase) vacuolar H+ pyrophosphatases (V H+PPase) and potassium transporter genes. Various halophyte genes responsible for other processes, such as crosstalk signaling, osmotic solutes production and reactive oxygen species (ROS) suppression, which also enhance salt tolerance will be described. In addition, the transgenic overexpression of halophytic genes in crops (rice, peanut, finger millet, soybean, tomato, alfalfa, jatropha, etc. will be discussed as a successful mechanism for the induction of salt tolerance. Moreover, the advances in genetic engineering technology for the production of genetically modified crops to achieve the improved salinity tolerance under field conditions will also be discussed.
Energy conservative data transmission using Z Mac technique in wireless sensor network for environmental monitoring
Venue: 2016 IEEE Technological Innovations in ICT for Agriculture and Rural Development (TIAR)

Wireless sensor networks (WSN) needs a communication protocol that is very efficient in Energy to reduce the consumption of energy to the maximum. The energy, memory, processor, low range bandwidth and communication of the sensor nodes are taken as resource constrained. The fading and irregularity of radio in multi hop cause are the unfavorable collision caused by WSN that reduces the sensor networks lifetime. Wireless sensor network in agriculture such as monitoring of environmental conditions like weather, soil temperature, soil fertility, weed disease detection, precision agriculture, automated irrigation facility, storage of agricultural products. Limited battery usage is enough to make the sensor nodes operate. But the battery power is much difficult to be replaced or recharged, when the entire sensor nodes die which in turn affects the overall performance of the network. By assimilating interactive sending and receiving nodes selection the scheme proposed extends the clustering algorithm and within clusters it enables multi hop transmissions. In efficiency of energy terms and solodity the proposed systems performance is evaluated. Results after simulations shows that by assuming tough lifetime of the network scheme saves tremendous energy among the cluster could be attained.
Forest fire monitoring and detection of faulty nodes using wireless sensor network
Venue: 2016 IEEE Region 10 Conference (TENCON)

Forests are considered as savior of earth's ecological balance and considered to be one of the most essential resource. However, due to some reasons forest fire occurs which can affect the life of people, wild animals, forest resources and hence a disastrous loss to the environment. Forest fire detection is one of the most safety critical application. In certain situations, sensor node may give incorrect data due to some faults in it. Since the network is unaware of the fault, it might lead to a serious problem. So, our objective is to detect the faulty nodes as well as the probability of fire to reduce the disastrous loss. In this paper, an algorithm was proposed to detect the faulty nodes and the probability of fire. We have calculated the probability of fire by using fuzzy logic. To validate the proposed algorithm we have conducted an experiment in an indoor laboratory environment.
Carbon capped Distribution Planning: A JIT Perspective
Venue: Comput. Ind. Eng.

We use a hybrid NSGA II to obtain the near Pareto front solutions in a Just In Time distribution network.We investigate different carbon constraints namely periodic, cumulative and global.We present the complexity analysis for the proposed model.We analyze the solution approach as well as identify some managerial and policy insights. Products distribution and transportation is one of the largest sources of CO2 emission in supply chains. To date, a number of researchers have argued that intensive transportation activities through popular distribution strategies such as Just In Time (JIT) could significantly increase carbon emissions within logistics chains. However, a systematic understanding of how JIT distribution affects carbon emissions is still lacking in current literature. In this study, we develop a bi objective optimization model for a carbon capped JIT distribution of multiple products in a multi period and multi echelon distribution network. The aims are to jointly minimize total logistics cost and to minimize the maximum carbon quota allowed per period (carbon cap) The considered problem is investigated under three different carbon emission constraints namely periodic, cumulative and global. Since the studied problem is NP Hard, a non dominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGA II) is developed and its parameters are tuned by Taguchi method. For further quality improvement of the developed solution approach, a novel local search approach called modified firefly algorithm incorporates NSGA II. Different sizes of the problem are considered to compare the performances of the proposed hybrid NSGA II and the classical one. Finally, the results are presented along with some policy and managerial insights. For policy makers, the findings show the impact of varying the carbon emission cap on total cost and total emissions under JIT distribution concept. From managerial perspectives, we analyze the relationships between average inventory holding and backlog level per period which can assist mangers to identify critical decisions for JIT distribution of products in carbon capped environment.