An exceptionally well-preserved herbaceous eudicot from the Early Cretaceous (late Aptian–early Albian) of Northwest China

A fossil eudicot, Gansufructus saligna gen. et sp. nov., is reported from the Early Cretaceous (late Aptian–early Albian) of the Gansu Province, Northwest China, based on numerous well-preserved axes with attached leaves and infructescences. The leaves are alternate, short petiolate and linear-lanceolate with low rank pinnate to reticulate venation. The infructescences are loose panicles bearing fruits in different stages of maturity, each containing four partly free carpels borne in a whorled arrangement. Each carpel has three to five seeds borne along its ventral margin. The nature of the leaves and axes indicates a terrestrial, herbaceous habit. In general organization, Gansufructus is closely similar to the fruit-bearing axes of Sinocarpus decussatus from the Early Cretaceous Jehol Biota, as well as other more or less contemporaneous angiosperms from the Far East, which together provide evidence of diverse eudicot angiosperms of low stature colonizing areas close to environments of deposition.     

Symbol error probability of decode and forward cooperative diversity in Nakagami-m fading channels

In this paper, we provide closed-form expressions for the symbol error probability of decode and forward cooperative diversity systems, when operating over independent but not necessarily identically distributed Nakagami-m fading channels. The results hold for arbitrary number of relays, and refer to the M-ary QAM and M-ary PSK modulations.     

Linking deep CO2 outgassing to cratonic destruction

Outgassing of carbon dioxide from the Earth''s interior regulates the surface climate through deep time. Here we examine the role of cratonic destruction in mantle CO₂ outgassing via collating and presenting new data for Paleozoic kimberlites, Mesozoic basaltic rocks and their mantle xenoliths from the eastern North China Craton (NCC), which underwent extensive destruction in the early Cretaceous. High Ca/Al and low Ti/Eu and δ²⁶Mg are widely observed in lamprophyres and mantle xenoliths, which demonstrates that the cratonic lithospheric mantle (CLM) was pervasively metasomatized by recycled carbonates. Raman analysis of bubble-bearing melt inclusions shows that redox melting of the C-rich CLM produced carbonated silicate melts with high CO₂ content. The enormous quantities of CO₂ in these magmas, together with substantial CO₂ degassing from the carbonated melt–CLM reaction and crustal heating, indicate that destruction of the eastern NCC resulted in rapid and extensive mantle CO₂ emission, which partly contributed to the early Cretaceous greenhouse climate episode.     

Evaluating the use of interactive virtual reality technology with older adults living in residential aged care

Background and objectivesAs technologies gain traction within the aged care community, better understanding their impact becomes vital. This paper reports on a study that explored the deployment of virtual reality (VR) as a tool to engage older adults in Residential Aged Care Facilities (RACF). The paper has two aims: 1) to identify the benefits and challenges associated with using VR with residents in aged care settings, and 2) to gather the views of older adult residents in RACF about the potential uses of VR in aged care.Research design and methodsFive RACF residents and five RACF staff members took part in an intensive two-week evaluation of a VR system. Qualitative data was collected from multiple interviews and via researcher notes and video recordings made during the VR sessions.ResultsResults highlight the usability issues that impacted on the aged care residents' ability to use interactive VR technology and the potential negative impact head mounted displays can have on those living with dementia; the role that VR can play in engaging residents who might otherwise self-isolate, and how this can extend to increased engagement with family and friends.Discussion and implicationsWe discuss the design challenges that will need to be met in order to ensure that interactive VR technology can be used by residents living in aged care, and the potential for VR to be used as a tool to improve the quality of life of some older residents, particularly those for whom traditional social activities do not appeal.     

pth Moment exponential stability of impulsive stochastic functional differential equations and application to control problems of NNs

This paper investigates the pth moment exponential stability of impulsive stochastic functional differential equations. Some sufficient conditions are obtained to ensure the pth moment exponential stability of the equilibrium solution by the Razumikhin method and Lyapunov functions. Based on these results, we further discuss the pth moment exponential stability of generalized impulsive delay stochastic differential equations and stochastic Hopfield neural networks with multiple time-varying delays from the impulsive control point of view. The results derived in this paper improve and generalize some recent works reported in the literature. Moreover, we see that impulses do contribute to the stability of stochastic functional differential equations. Finally, two numerical examples are provided to demonstrate the efficiency of the results obtained.     

Study of the standard model with weak decays of charmed hadrons at BESIII

A comprehensive review of weak decays of charmed hadrons (D^{0/ +}, and ) based on analyses of the threshold data from e⁺e⁻ annihilation in the BESIII experiment is presented. Current experimental challenges and successes in understanding decays of the charmed hadrons are discussed. Precise calibrations of quantum chromodynamics and tests of the standard model are provided by measurements of purely leptonic and semi-leptonic decays of charmed hadrons, and lepton universality is probed in purely leptonic decays of charmed mesons to three generations of leptons. Quantum correlations in threshold data samples provide access to strong phases in the neutral D meson decays and probe the decay dynamics of the charmed Λ_c baryon. Charm physics studies with near-threshold production of charmed particle pairs are unique to BESIII, and provide many important opportunities and challenges.     

The evolution of local production systems: the emergence of the “invisible mind” and the evolutionary pressures towards more visible “minds”

The aim of this paper is to propose an explanation of the changes of dynamic matching between systemic properties of local production systems (LPS) and characteristics of the competitive environment. An evolutionary sequence travelled during the last three decades by Italian LPS is identified and an explanation of long-term dynamics is based on how information flows and knowledge are structured within a local environment. The “traditional” pattern of interlocking behaviours of different agents is defined as cognitive architecture, which evolutionarily emerges as invisible mind. Evolutionary pressures lead new patterns of relationships and interlocking behaviours, which we define as a tendency for more visible “minds” to assert themselves.     

Organogenesis on apical buds in common fig (Ficus carica) var. Black Jack

BackgroundPlant tissue culture involves the use of explants obtained from plants to induce organogenesis with the help of plant growth regulators (PGRs). Micropropagation techniques provide a faster and economical solution to the limitations associated with traditional methods of plant cultivation. The present study focuses on the multiple shoot induction and proliferation of Ficus carica var. Black Jack. Factors that influence the growth of in vitro multiple shoots on the apical buds, which include growth media and PGRs, were investigated in this study. Different concentrations of cytokinins like 6-benzylaminopurine (BAP), Thidiazuron (TDZ), and Kinetin (Kin) were used on woody plant medium (WPM) for the optimization of media for multiple shoot induction and proliferation.ResultsApical buds of Ficus carica var. Black Jack growing in WPM supplemented with BAP produced the healthiest plantlets, with the highest number of multiple shoots. The most efficient medium composition which produced the highest number of multiple shoots (37.8) per growing explant was WPM supplemented with 20 µM BAP. Proliferated multiple shoots were efficiently rooted using WPM + 20 µM BAP + 8 µM indole-3-acetic acid (IAA). This optimized medium composition significantly enhanced the production of multiple, disease-free plantlets using single apical bud explants of Ficus carica var. Black Jack.ConclusionsIn the present study the observations indicate that WPM supplemented with 20 µM BAP is the best-suited medium for organogenesis and multiple shoot culture of Ficus carica var. Black Jack, and this technique can be potentially applied for commercialization of the plant.How to cite: Parab AR, Chew BL, Yeow LC, et al. Organogenesis on apical buds in common fig (Ficus carica) var. Black Jack. Electron J Biotechnol 2021;54. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejbt.2020.01.010     

On the syndemic nature of crises: A Freeman perspective

In this paper we draw a parallel between the insights developed within the framework of the current COVID-19 health crisis and the views and insights developed with respect to the long term environmental crisis, the implications for science, technology and innovation (STI) policy, Christopher Freeman analyzed already in the early 90′s. With at the time of writing, the COVID-19 pandemic entering in many countries a third wave with a very differentiated implementation path of vaccination across rich and poor countries, drawing such a parallel remains of course a relatively speculative exercise. Nevertheless, based on the available evidence of the first wave of the pandemic, we feel confident that some lessons from the current health crisis and its parallels with the long-term environmental crisis can be drawn. The COVID-19 pandemic has also been described as a “syndemic”: a term popular in medical anthropology which marries the concept of ‘synergy’ with ‘epidemic’ and provides conceptually an interesting background for these posthumous Freeman reflections on crises. The COVID-19 crisis affects citizens in very different and disproportionate ways. It results not only in rising structural inequalities among social groups and classes, but also among generations. In the paper, we focus on the growing inequality within two particular groups: youngsters and the impact of COVID-19 on learning and the organization of education; and as mirror picture, the elderly many of whom witnessed despite strict confinement in long-term care facilities, high mortality following the COVID-19 outbreak. From a Freeman perspective, these inequality consequences of the current COVID-19 health crisis call for new social STI policies: for a new “corona version” of inclusion versus exclusion.     

Joint reasoning with knowledge subgraphs for Multiple Choice Question Answering

Humans are able to reason from multiple sources to arrive at the correct answer. In the context of Multiple Choice Question Answering (MCQA), knowledge graphs can provide subgraphs based on different combinations of questions and answers, mimicking the way humans find answers. However, current research mainly focuses on independent reasoning on a single graph for each question–answer pair, lacking the ability for joint reasoning among all answer candidates. In this paper, we propose a novel method KMSQA, which leverages multiple subgraphs from the large knowledge graph ConceptNet to model the comprehensive reasoning process. We further encode the knowledge graphs with shared Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) and perform joint reasoning across multiple subgraphs. We evaluate our model on two common datasets: CommonsenseQA (CSQA) and OpenBookQA (OBQA). Our method achieves an exact match score of 74.53% on CSQA and 71.80% on OBQA, outperforming all eight baselines.     

Directed collaboration patterns in funded teams: A perspective of knowledge flow

Collaborations in funded teams are essential for understanding funded research and funding policies, although of high interest, are still not fully understood. This study aims to investigate directed collaboration patterns from the perspective of the knowledge flow, which is measured based on the academic age. To this end, we proposed a project-based team identification approach, which gives particular attention to funded teams. The method is applicable to other funding systems. Based on identified scientific teams, we detected recurring and significant subgraph patterns, known as network motifs, and under-represented patterns, known as anti-motifs. We found commonly occurred motifs and anti-motifs are remarkably characterized by different structures matching certain functions in knowledge exchanges. Collaboration patterns represented by motifs favor hierarchical structures, supporting intensive interactions across academic generations. Anti-motifs are more likely to show chain-like structures, hindering potentially various knowledge activities, and are thus seldom found in real collaboration networks. These findings provide new insights into the understanding of funded collaborations and also the funding system. Meanwhile, our findings are helpful for researchers, the public and policymakers to gain knowledge on research(ers) evolution, particularly in terms of primordial collaboration patterns.     

The role of Lean principles in supporting knowledge management in IT outsourcing relationships

Knowledge management (KM) in information technology outsourcing (ITO) is important to the organizations which pursue long-term strategic benefits and innovation. Effective KM mechanism in outsourcing enables both parties to continuously exchange knowledge and promotes collective learning. This paper investigates the role of Lean principles in supporting KM in ITO relationships. Drawn from the knowledge-based view of the firm, knowledge accessing and knowledge integration and utilization are identified as two key KM processes in outsourcing. Three case studies conducted in different service industries with 18 interviews indicate that the two KM processes were supported by four Lean principles: respect for people, continuous improvement, systems thinking, and proactive behavior. Those principles can be implemented with different tools at different organizational levels. This study reveals the relevance between Lean and KM in ITO relationships, which has not been reported by the KM literature. It also provides implications to ITO practitioners for the implementation of Lean principles.     

Focused ion beam milling of microchannels in lithium niobate

We present experimental and simulation results for focused ion beam (FIB) milling of microchannels in lithium niobate in this paper. We investigate two different cuts of lithium niobate, Y- and Z-cuts, and observe that the experimental material removal rate in the FIB for both Y-cut and Z-cut samples was 0.3 μm³/nC, roughly two times greater than the material removal rate previously reported in the literature but in good agreement with the value we obtain from stopping and range of ions in matter (SRIM) simulations. Further, we investigate the FIB milling rate and resultant cross-sectional profile of microchannels at various ion beam currents and find that the milling rate decreases as a function of ion dose and correspondingly, the cross-sectional profiles change from rectangular to V-shaped. This indicates that material redeposition plays an important role at high ion dose or equivalently, high aspect ratio. We find that the experimental material removal rate decreases as a function of aspect ratio of the milled structures, in good agreement with our simulation results at low aspect ratio and in good agreement with the material removal rates previously reported in the literature at high aspect ratios. Our results show that it is indeed easier than previously assumed to fabricate nanochannels with low aspect ratio directly on lithium niobate using the FIB milling technique.     

Vibrio sp. ArtGut-C1, a polyhydroxybutyrate producer isolated from the gut of the aquaculture live diet Artemia (Crustacea)

BackgroundVibrio species display variable and plastic fitness strategies to survive and interact with multiple hosts, including marine aquaculture species that are severely affected by pathogenic Vibrios. The culturable Vibrio sp. strain ArtGut-C1, the focus of this study, provides new evidence of such phenotypic plasticity as it accumulates polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB), a biodegradable polymer with anti-pathogen activity, particularly in the marine larviculture phase. The strain was isolated from the gut of laboratory-reared Artemia individuals, the live diet and PHB carrier used in larviculture. Its main phenotypic properties, taxonomic status and genomic properties are reported based on the whole-genome sequencing.ResultsVibrio sp. ArtGut-C1 yielded 72.6% PHB of cells’ dry weight at 25°C. The genomic average nucleotide identity (ANI) shows it is closely related to V. diabolicus (ANI: 88.6%). Its genome contains 5,236,997-bp with 44.8% GC content, 3,710 protein-coding sequences, 96 RNA, 9 PHB genes functionally related to PHB metabolic pathways, and several genes linked to competing and colonizing abilities.ConclusionsThis culturable PHB-accumulating Vibrio strain shows high genomic and phenotypic variability. It may be used as a natural pathogen biocontrol in the marine hatchery and as a potential cell factory for PHB production.How to cite: Yévenes M, Quiroz M, Maruyama F, et al. Vibrio sp. ArtGut-C1, a polyhydroxybutyrate producer isolated from the gut of the aquaculture live diet Artemia (Crustacea). Electron J Biotechnol 2021;49. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejbt.2020.10.003     

Cometabolic biodegradation of quizalofop-p-ethyl by Methylobacterium populi YC-XJ1 and identification of QPEH1 esterase

BackgroundQuizalofop-p-ethyl (QPE), a unitary R configuration aromatic oxyphenoxypropionic acid ester (AOPP) herbicide, was widely used and had led to detrimental environmental effects. For finding the QPE-degrading bacteria and promoting the biodegradation of QPE, a series of studies were carried out.ResultsA QPE-degrading bacterial strain YC-XJ1 was isolated from desert soil and identified as Methylobacterium populi, which could degrade QPE with methanol by cometabolism. Ninety-seven percent of QPE (50 mg/L) could be degraded within 72 h under optimum biodegradation condition of 35°C and pH 8.0. The maximum degradation rate of QPE was 1.4 mg/L/h, and the strain YC-XJ1 exhibited some certain salinity tolerance. Two novel metabolites, 2-hydroxy-6-chloroquinoxaline and quinoxaline, were found by high-performance liquid chromatography/mass spectroscopy analysis. The metabolic pathway of QPE was predicted. The catalytic efficiency of strain YC-XJ1 toward different AOPPs herbicides in descending order was as follows: haloxyfop-p-methyl ≈ diclofop-methyl ≈ fluazifop-p-butyl > clodinafop-propargyl > cyhalofop-butyl > quizalofop-p-ethyl > fenoxaprop-p-ethyl > propaquizafop > quizalofop-p-tefuryl. The genome of strain YC-XJ1 was sequenced using a combination of PacBio RS II and Illumina platforms. According to the annotation result, one α/β hydrolase gene was selected and named qpeh1, for which QPE-degrading function has obtained validation. Based on the phylogenetic analysis and multiple sequence alignment with other QPE-degrading esterases reported previously, the QPEH1 was clustered with esterase family V.ConclusionM. populi YC-XJ1 could degrade QPE with a novel pathway, and the qpeh1 gene was identified as one of QPE-degrading esterase gene.How to cite: Li X, Wang J, Wu W, et al. Co-metabolic biodegradation of quizalofop-p-ethyl by Methylobacterium populi YC-XJ1 and identification of QPEH1 esterase. Electron J Biotechnol 2020;46. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejbt.2020.05.003.     

The ethical attitudes of information technology professionals: a comparative study between the USA and the Middle East

This paper aims at investigating comparatively the ethical orientation of information technology (IT) professionals in the Middle East and the United States. It tests for attitudes toward and awareness of ethically-related issues, namely intellectual property, privacy and other general ethical IT aspects. In addition, through a comparison between the two regions, this paper intends to examine whether differences in IT professional demographics and characteristics, including gender and academic level, have any impact on attitudes to business ethics. A t test is used to establish significant differences between the targeted samples, while an ANOVA F-test is conducted to determine significant differences among the sample countries on a group basis. The results show a general awareness of ethical issues concerning information technology, and no significant differences are found between the two samples. However, different ethical attitudes are reported among respondents in terms of their reactions to the targeted IT ethical aspects. On an individual sample basis, the results about gender support the claim that male and female respondents are different, while mixed results are revealed for the influence of academic level on attitudes towards IT ethics. For intellectual property, the results are significant regarding ethical attitude differences between Middle-Eastern professionals and their counterparts in the US, while no significance differences are reported in terms of privacy.     

Production of wheat-doubled haploids resistant to eyespot supported by marker-assisted selection

BackgroundWheat is one of the most important crops cultivated all over the world. New high-yielding cultivars that are more resistant to fungal diseases have been permanently developed. The present study aimed at the possibility of accelerating the process of breeding new cultivars, resistant to eyespot, by using doubled haploids (DH) system supported by marker-assisted selection.ResultsTwo highly resistant breeding lines (KBP 0916 and KBH 4942/05) carrying Pch1 gene were crossed with the elite wheat genotypes. Hybrid plants of early generations were analyzed using endopeptidase EpD1 and two SSR markers linked to the Pch1 locus. Selected homozygous and heterozygous genotypes for the Pch1-linked EpD1b allele were used to produce haploid plants. Molecular analyses were performed on haploids to identify plants possessing Pch1 gene. Chromosome doubling was performed only on haploid plants with Pch1 gene. Finally, 65 DH lines carrying eyespot resistance gene Pch1 and 30 lines without this gene were chosen for the eyespot resistance phenotyping in a field experiment.ConclusionsResults of the experiment confirmed higher resistance to eyespot of the genotypes with Pch1 in comparison to those without this gene. This indicates the efficiency of selection at the haploid level.How to cite: Wiśniewska H, Majka M, Kwiatek M, et al. Production of wheat doubled haploids resistant to eyespot supported by marker-assisted selection. Electron J Biotechnol 2019;37. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejbt.2018.10.003     

FS-MLC: Feature selection for multi-label classification using clustering in feature space

Multi-label classification (MLC) has attracted many researchers in the field of machine learning as it has a straightforward problem statement with varied solution approaches. Multi-label classifiers predict multiple labels for a single instance. The problem becomes challenging with the increasing number of features, especially when there are many features and labels which depend on each other. It requires dimensionality reduction before applying any multi-label learning method. This paper introduces a method named FS-MLC (Feature Selection forMulti-Label classification using Clustering in feature-space). It is a wrapper feature selection method that uses clustering to find the similarity among features and example-based precision and recall as the metrics for feature rankings to improve the performance of the associated classifier in terms of sample-based measures. First, clusters are created for features considering them as instances then features from different clusters are selected as the representative of all the features for that cluster. It reduces the number of features as a single feature represents multiple features within a cluster. It neither requires any parameter tuning nor the user threshold for the number of features selected. Extensive experimentation is performed to evaluate the efficacy of these reduced features using nine benchmark MLC datasets on twelve performance measures. The results show an impressive improvement in terms of sample-based precision, recall, and f1-score with up to 23%-93% discarded features.