Search results for: biological molecular networks

Authors: Sandra C. L. Dorea, Joann K. Whalen, Yixin Shao, Oumarou Savadogo

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The major challenge for industries that rely on fossil fuels in manufacturing processes or to provide goods and services is to lower their CO2 emissions, as the case for the manufacture of Portland cement. Feasible materials for this purpose can include agro-industrial or agricultural wastes, which are termed 'biosilica' since the silica was contained in a biological matrix (biomass). Corn cob (CC) has some characteristics that make it a good candidate as biosilica source: 1) it is an abundant grain crop produced around the world; 2) more production means more available residues is left in the field to be used. This work aims to evaluate the CC collected from different farms in Canada during the corn harvest in order to see if they can be used together as a biosilica source. The characterization of the raw CC was made in the physical, chemical, and thermal way. The moisture content, the granulometry, and the morphology were also analyzed. The ash content measured was 2,1%. The Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA) and its Derivative (DTG) evaluated of CC as a function of weight loss with temperature variation ranging between 30°C and 800°C in an atmosphere of N2. The chemical composition and the presence of silica revealed that the different sources of the CC do not interfere in its basic chemical composition, which means that this kind of waste can be used together as a source of biosilica no matter where they come from. Then, this biosilica can partially replace the cement Portland making sustainable cementitious mixtures and contributing to reduce the CO2 emissions.

Keywords: biosilica, characterization, corn cob, sustainable cementitious materials

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Authors: T. H. Derdzyan, K. A. Ghazaryan, G. A. Gevorgyan

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Beta-glucosidase, chitinase, leucine-aminopeptidase, acid phosphomonoestearse and acetate-esterase enzyme activities in the soils under the impact of metallurgical industrial activity in Lori marz (district) were investigated. The results of the study showed that the activities of the investigated enzymes in the soils decreased with increasing distance from the Shamlugh copper mine, the Chochkan tailings storage facility and the ore transportation road. Statistical analysis revealed that the activities of the enzymes were positively correlated (significant) to each other according to the observation sites which indicated that enzyme activities were affected by the same anthropogenic factor. The investigations showed that the soils were polluted with heavy metals (Cu, Pb, As, Co, Ni, Zn) due to copper mining activity in this territory. The results of Pearson correlation analysis revealed a significant negative correlation between heavy metal pollution degree (Nemerow integrated pollution index) and soil enzyme activity. All of this indicated that copper mining activity in this territory causing the heavy metal pollution of the soils resulted in the inhabitation of the activities of the enzymes which are considered as biological catalysts to decompose organic materials and facilitate the cycling of nutrients.

Keywords: Armenia, metallurgical industrial activity, heavy metal pollutionl, soil enzyme activity

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Authors: Vanessa Kummer, Maik Meusel

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Real estate demand estimates are typically derived from transaction data. However, in regions with excess demand, transactions are driven by supply and therefore do not indicate what people are actually looking for. To estimate the demand for housing in Switzerland, search subscriptions from all important Swiss real estate platforms are used. These data do, however, suffer from missing information—for example, many users do not specify how many rooms they would like or what price they would be willing to pay. In economic analyses, it is often the case that only complete data is used. Usually, however, the proportion of complete data is rather small which leads to most information being neglected. Also, the data might have a strong distortion if it is complete. In addition, the reason that data is missing might itself also contain information, which is however ignored with that approach. An interesting issue is, therefore, if for economic analyses such as the one at hand, there is an added value by using the whole data set with the imputed missing values compared to using the usually small percentage of complete data (baseline). Also, it is interesting to see how different algorithms affect that result. The imputation of the missing data is done using unsupervised learning. Out of the numerous unsupervised learning approaches, the most common ones, such as clustering, principal component analysis, or neural networks techniques are applied. By training the model iteratively on the imputed data and, thereby, including the information of all data into the model, the distortion of the first training set—the complete data—vanishes. In a next step, the performances of the algorithms are measured. This is done by randomly creating missing values in subsets of the data, estimating those values with the relevant algorithms and several parameter combinations, and comparing the estimates to the actual data. After having found the optimal parameter set for each algorithm, the missing values are being imputed. Using the resulting data sets, the next step is to estimate the willingness to pay for real estate. This is done by fitting price distributions for real estate properties with certain characteristics, such as the region or the number of rooms. Based on these distributions, survival functions are computed to obtain the functional relationship between characteristics and selling probabilities. Comparing the survival functions shows that estimates which are based on imputed data sets do not differ significantly from each other; however, the demand estimate that is derived from the baseline data does. This indicates that the baseline data set does not include all available information and is therefore not representative for the entire sample. Also, demand estimates derived from the whole data set are much more accurate than the baseline estimation. Thus, in order to obtain optimal results, it is important to make use of all available data, even though it involves additional procedures such as data imputation.

Keywords: demand estimate, missing-data imputation, real estate, unsupervised learning

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Authors: Dr. Dionysis Panos Dpt. Communication, Internet Studies Cyprus University of Technology

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The widespread use of New Media and particularly Social Media, through fixed or mobile devices, has changed in a staggering way our perception about what is “intimate" and "safe" and what is not, in interpersonal communication and social relationships. The distribution of self and identity-related information in communication now evolves under new and different conditions and contexts. Consequently, this new framework forces us to rethink processes and mechanisms, such as what "exposure" means in interpersonal communication contexts, how the distinction between the "private" and the "public" nature of information is being negotiated online, how the "audiences" we interact with are understood and constructed. Drawing from an interdisciplinary perspective that combines sociology, communication psychology, media theory, new media and social networks research, as well as from the empirical findings of a longitudinal comparative research, this work proposes an integrative model for comprehending mechanisms of personal information management in interpersonal communication, which can be applied to both types of online (Computer-Mediated) and offline (Face-To-Face) communication. The presentation is based on conclusions drawn from a longitudinal qualitative research study with 458 new media users from 24 countries for almost over a decade. Some of these main conclusions include: (1) There is a clear and evidenced shift in users’ perception about the degree of "security" and "familiarity" of the Web, between the pre- and the post- Web 2.0 era. The role of Social Media in this shift was catalytic. (2) Basic Web 2.0 applications changed dramatically the nature of the Internet itself, transforming it from a place reserved for “elite users / technical knowledge keepers" into a place of "open sociability” for anyone. (3) Web 2.0 and Social Media brought about a significant change in the concept of “audience” we address in interpersonal communication. The previous "general and unknown audience" of personal home pages, converted into an "individual & personal" audience chosen by the user under various criteria. (4) The way we negotiate the nature of 'private' and 'public' of the Personal Information, has changed in a fundamental way. (5) The different features of the mediated environment of online communication and the critical changes occurred since the Web 2.0 advance, lead to the need of reconsideration and updating the theoretical models and analysis tools we use in our effort to comprehend the mechanisms of interpersonal communication and personal information management. Therefore, is proposed here a new model for understanding the way interpersonal communication evolves, based on a revision of social penetration theory.

Keywords: new media, interpersonal communication, social penetration theory, communication exposure, private information, public information

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Authors: Darshini Mahadevia, Kanika Gounder, Saumya Lathia

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Cities, an outcome of natural growth and migration, are ever-expanding due to urban sprawl. In the Global South, urban areas are experiencing a switch from public transport to private vehicles, coupled with intensified urban agglomeration, leading to frequent longer commutes by automobiles. This increase in travel distance and motorized vehicle kilometres lead to unsustainable cities. To achieve the nationally pledged GHG emission mitigation goal, the government is prioritizing a modal shift to low-carbon transport modes like mass transit and paratransit. Mixed land-use and urban densification are crucial for the economic viability of these projects. Informed by desktop assessment of mobility plans and in-person primary surveys, the paper explores the challenges around urban densification and travel patterns in two Indian cities of contrasting nature- Surat, a metropolitan industrial city with a 5.9 million population and a very compact urban form, and Udaipur, a heritage city attracting large international tourists’ footfall, with limited scope for further densification. Dense, mixed-use urban areas often improve access to basic services and economic opportunities by reducing distances and enabling people who don't own personal vehicles to reach them on foot/ cycle. But residents travelling on different modes end up contributing to similar trip lengths, highlighting the non-uniform distribution of land-uses and lack of planned transport infrastructure in the city and the urban-peri urban networks. Additionally, it is imperative to manage these densities to reduce negative externalities like congestion, air/noise pollution, lack of public spaces, loss of livelihood, etc. The study presents a comparison of the relationship between transport systems with the built form in both cities. The paper concludes with recommendations for managing densities in urban areas along with promoting low-carbon transport choices like improved non-motorized transport and public transport infrastructure and minimizing personal vehicle usage in the Global South.

Keywords: India, low-carbon transport, travel behaviour, trip length, urban densification

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Authors: Jeongyeon Park, Yeo Jun Yoon, Jiyoung Seo, In Seok Moon, Hae Jun Lee, Kiwon Song

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Cold Atmospheric Pressure Plasma (CAPP) is defined as a partially ionized gas with electrically charged particles at room temperature and atmospheric pressure. CAPP generates reactive oxygen species (ROS) and reactive nitrogen species (RNS), and has potential as a new apoptosis-promoting cancer therapy. With an annular type dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) CAPP-generating device combined with a helium (He) gas feeding system, we showed that CAPP selectively induced apoptosis in various cancer cells while it promoted proliferation of the adipose tissue-derived stem cell (ASC). The apoptotic effect of CAPP was highly selective toward p53-mutated cancer cells. The intracellular ROS was mainly responsible for apoptotic cell death in CAPP-treated cancer cells. CAPP induced apoptosis even in doxorubicin-resistant cancer cell lines, demonstrating the feasibility of CAPP as a potent cancer therapy. With the same device and exposure conditions to cancer cells, CAPP stimulated proliferation of the ASC, a kind of mesenchymal stem cell that is capable of self-renewing and differentiating into adipocytes, chondrocytes, osteoblasts and neurons. CAPP-treated ASCs expressed the stem cell markers and differentiated into adipocytes as untreated ASCs. The increase of proliferation by CAPP in ASCs was offset by a NO scavenger but was not affected by ROS scavengers, suggesting that NO generated by CAPP is responsible for the activated proliferation in ASCs. Usually, cancer stem cells are reported to be resistant to known cancer therapies. When we applied CAPP of the same device and exposure conditions to cancer cells to liver cancer stem cells (CSCs) that express CD133 and epithelial cell adhesion molecule (EpCAM) cancer stem cell markers, apoptotic cell death was not examined. Apoptotic cell death of liver CSCs was induced by the CAPP generated from a device with an air-based flatten type DBD. An exposure of liver CSCs to CAPP decreased the viability of liver CSCs to a great extent, suggesting plasma be used as a promising anti-cancer treatment. To validate whether CAPP can be a promising anti-cancer treatment or an adjuvant modality to eliminate remnant tumor in cancer surgery of vestibular schwannoma, we applied CAPP to mouse schwannoma cell line SC4 Nf2 ‑/‑ and human schwannoma cell line HEI-193. A CAPP treatment leads to anti-proliferative effect in both cell lines. We are currently studying the molecular mechanisms of differential physiological effect of CAPP; the proliferation of ASCs and apoptosis of various cancer cells and CSCs.

Keywords: cold atmospheric pressure plasma, apoptosis, proliferation, cancer cells, adult stem cells

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Authors: Maria P. Geneva, Ira V. Stancheva, Marieta G. Hristozkova, Roumiana D. Vasilevska-Ivanova, Mariana T. Sichanova, Janet R. Mincheva

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Hyssopus officinalis L., Lamiaceae, commonly called hyssop, is an aromatic, semi-evergreen, woody-based, shrubby perennial plant. Hyssop is a good expectorant and antiviral herb commonly used to treat respiratory conditions such as influenza, sinus infections, colds, and bronchitis. Most of its medicinal properties are attributed to the essential oil of hyssop. The study was conducted to evaluate the influence of inoculation with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi of in vitro propagated hyssop plants on the: activities of antioxidant enzymes superoxide dismutase, catalase, guaiacol peroxidase and ascorbate peroxidase; accumulation of non-enzymatic antioxidants total phenols and flavonoid, water-soluble soluble antioxidant metabolites expressed as ascorbic acid; the antioxidant potential of hyssop methanol extracts assessed by two common methods: free radical scavenging activity using free stable radical (2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl, DPPH• and ferric reducing antioxidant power FRAP in flowers and leaves. The successfully adapted to field conditions in vitro plants (survival rate 95%) were inoculated with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (Claroideoglomus claroideum, ref. EEZ 54). It was established that the activities of enzymes with antioxidant capacity (superoxide dismutase, catalase, guaiacol peroxidase and ascorbate peroxidase) were significantly higher in leaves than in flowers in both control and mycorrhized plants. In flowers and leaves of inoculated plants, the antioxidant enzymes activity were lower than in non-inoculated plants, only in SOD activity, there was no difference. The content of low molecular metabolites with antioxidant capacity as total phenols, total flavonoids, and water soluble antioxidants was higher in inoculated plants. There were no significant differences between control and inoculated plants both for FRAP and DPPH antioxidant activity. According to plant essential oil content, there was no difference between non-inoculated and inoculated plants. Based on our results we could suggest that antioxidant capacity of in vitro propagated hyssop plant under conditions of cultivation is determined by the phenolic compounds-total phenols and flavonoids as well as by the levels of water-soluble metabolites with antioxidant potential. Acknowledgments: This study was conducted with financial support from National Science Fund at the Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Science, Project DN06/7 17.12.16.

Keywords: antioxidant enzymes, antioxidant metabolites, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, Hyssopus officinalis L.

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Authors: Michela Quadrini

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Chord diagrams occur in mathematics, from the study of RNA to knot theory. They are widely used in theory of knots and links for studying the finite type invariants, whereas in molecular biology one important motivation to study chord diagrams is to deal with the problem of RNA structure prediction. An RNA molecule is a linear polymer, referred to as the backbone, that consists of four types of nucleotides. Each nucleotide is represented by a point, whereas each chord of the diagram stands for one interaction for Watson-Crick base pairs between two nonconsecutive nucleotides. A chord diagram is an oriented circle with a set of n pairs of distinct points, considered up to orientation preserving diffeomorphisms of the circle. A linear chord diagram (LCD) is a special kind of graph obtained cutting the oriented circle of a chord diagram. It consists of a line segment, called its backbone, to which are attached a number of chords with distinct endpoints. There is a natural fattening on any linear chord diagram; the backbone lies on the real axis, while all the chords are in the upper half-plane. Each linear chord diagram has a natural genus of its associated surface. To each chord diagram and linear chord diagram, it is possible to associate the intersection graph. It consists of a graph whose vertices correspond to the chords of the diagram, whereas the chord intersections are represented by a connection between the vertices. Such intersection graph carries a lot of information about the diagram. Our goal is to define an LCD equivalence class in terms of identity of intersection graphs, from which many chord diagram invariants depend. For studying these invariants, we introduce a new representation of Linear Chord Diagrams based on a set of appropriate topological operators that permits to model LCD in terms of the relations among chords. Such set is composed of: crossing, nesting, and concatenations. The crossing operator is able to generate the whole space of linear chord diagrams, and a multiple context free grammar able to uniquely generate each LDC starting from a linear chord diagram adding a chord for each production of the grammar is defined. In other words, it allows to associate a unique algebraic term to each linear chord diagram, while the remaining operators allow to rewrite the term throughout a set of appropriate rewriting rules. Such rules define an LCD equivalence class in terms of the identity of intersection graphs. Starting from a modelled RNA molecule and the linear chord, some authors proposed a topological classification and folding. Our LCD equivalence class could contribute to the RNA folding problem leading to the definition of an algorithm that calculates the free energy of the molecule more accurately respect to the existing ones. Such LCD equivalence class could be useful to obtain a more accurate estimate of link between the crossing number and the topological genus and to study the relation among other invariants.

Keywords: chord diagrams, linear chord diagram, equivalence class, topological language

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Authors: Naser Shagerdi Esmaeli, Mohsen Hamidpour, Parisa Hasankhani Tehrani

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Background: The TP53 mutation is frequently detected in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patients with complex karyotype (CK), but the stability of this mutation during the clinical course remains unclear. Material and Methods: In this study, TP53 mutations were identified in 7% of 500 patients with de novo AML and 58.8% of patients with CK in Tabriz, Iran. TP53 mutations were closely associated with older age, lower white blood cell (WBC) and platelet counts, FAB M6 subtype, unfavorable-risk cytogenetics, and CK, but negatively associated with NPM1 mutation, FLT3/ITD and DNMT3A mutation. Result: Multivariate analysis demonstrated that TP53 mutation was an independent poor prognostic factor for overall survival and disease-free survival among the total cohort and the subgroup of patients with CK. A scoring system incorporating TP53 mutation and nine other prognostic factors, including age, WBC counts, cytogenetics, and gene mutations, into survival analysis proved to be very useful to stratify AML patients. Sequential study of 420 samples showed that TP53 mutations were stable during AML evolution, whereas the mutation was acquired only in 1 of the 126 TP53 wild-type patients when therapy-related AML originated from different clone emerged. Conclusion: In conclusion, TP53 mutations are associated with distinct clinic-biological features and poor prognosis in de novo AML patients and are rather stable during disease progression.

Keywords: acute myloblastic leukemia, TP53, FLT3/ITD, Iran

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Authors: Hina Verma, Karine Le Guen, Mohammed H. Modi, Rajnish Dhawan, Philippe Jonnard

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Periodic multilayer mirrors have potential application as optical components in X-ray microscopy, particularly working in the water window region. The water window range, located between the absorption edges of carbon (285 eV) and oxygen (530eV), along with the presence of nitrogen K absorption edge (395 eV), makes it a powerful method for imaging biological samples due to the natural optical contrast between water and carbon. We characterized bilayer, trilayer, quadrilayer, and multilayer systems of Mg/Sc with ZrC thin layers introduced as a barrier layer and capping layer prepared by ion beam sputtering. The introduction of ZrC as a barrier layer is expected to improve the structure of the Mg/Sc system. The ZrC capping layer also prevents the stack from oxidation. The structural analysis of the Mg/Sc systems was carried out by using grazing incidence X-ray reflectivity (GIXRR) to obtain non-destructively a first description of the structural parameters, thickness, roughness, and density of the layers. Resonant soft X-ray reflectivity measurements in the vicinity of Sc L-absorption edge were performed to investigate and quantify the atomic distribution of deposited layers. Near absorption edge, the atomic scattering factor of an element changes sharply depending on its chemical environment inside the structure.

Keywords: buried interfaces, resonant soft X-ray reflectivity, X-ray optics, X-ray reflectivity

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Authors: Chao Jen-Chih, Hsu Kuo-Wei

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Climate change and natural disasters take effect on urban development. It has been discussed urban renewals can prevent natural disasters. Integrating green infrastructure and urban renewals may have great effect on adapting the impact of climate change. To highlight the economic value of green infrastructure development on urban renewals, some strategies need to be carry on to reduce environmental impact. A number of urban renewals studies has been conducted on right transfer, financial risk, urban renewal policy, and public participation. Little research has been devoted on the subject of the economic value of green infrastructure development on urban renewals. The purpose of this study is to investigate the affecting factors on the economic value of green infrastructure development on urban renewals. This study will present the benefits of green infrastructure development and summarize the critical factors of green infrastructure develop on urban renewals for real essence and non-real essence on economic value from literature. Our results indicate that factors of housing price, land value, floor area incentive, and facilitation of the construction industry affect the outcome of real essence economic value. Factors of enhancement of urban disaster prevention, improvement of urban environment and landscape, crime reduction, climate control, pollution reduction, biological diversity, health impacts, and leisure space affects the outcome of non-real essence economic value.

Keywords: economic value, green infrastructure, urban renewals, urban development

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Authors: Lea B. Milan

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This descriptive study evaluated the existing Food Safety Management in Central Elementary School Canteens of Region 3. It made used of survey questionnaires, interview guide questions and validated knowledge test on food for data gathering. Results of the study revealed that school principals and canteen managers shared responsibilities in food safety management of school canteen. It also showed that the schools applied different methods of communication, monitoring and evaluation of food safety management. The study further revealed that implementation of monitoring and evaluation of food safety compliance are not being practiced in all elementary schools in the region. The study also showed that school canteens in the Region 3 do not have the thermometers and timers to use to conduct proper monitoring of foods during storage, preparation and serving. It was also found out from the study that canteen personnel lacks the basic knowledge and trainings on food safety. Potential source of physical, chemical and biological hazards that could contaminate foods were also found present in the canteen facilities of the elementary schools in the region. Moreover, evaluation showed that the existing implementation of food safety management in the Central Elementary School Canteens of Region 3 were below the expected level and the need to strengthen the appreciation and advocacy on food safety management in school canteens of Region 3 is still wanting.

Keywords: food safety management, food safety school catering, food safety, school food safety management

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Authors: Soad Abubakr Abdelgalil, Gaber Attia Abo-Zaid, Mohamed Mohamed Yousri Kaddah

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Background: The Environmental Protection Agency has listed eggshell waste as the 15th most significant food industry pollution hazard. The utilization of eggshell waste as a source of renewable energy has been a hot topic in recent years. Therefore, finding a sustainable solution for the recycling and valorization of eggshell waste by investigating its potential to produce acid phosphatase (ACP) and organic acids by the newly-discovered B. sonorensis was the target of the current investigation. Results: The most potent ACP-producing B. sonorensis strain ACP2 was identified as a local bacterial strain obtained from the effluent of paper and pulp industries on basis of molecular and morphological characterization. The use of consecutive statistical experimental approaches of Plackett-Burman Design (PBD), and Orthogonal Central Composite Design (OCCD), followed by pH-uncontrolled cultivation conditions in a 7 L bench-top bioreactor, revealed an innovative medium formulation that substantially improved ACP production, reaching 216 U L⁻¹ with ACP yield coefficient Yp/x of 18.2 and a specific growth rate (µ) of 0.1 h⁻¹. The metals Ag+, Sn+, and Cr+ were the most efficiently released from eggshells during the solubilization process by B. sonorensis. The uncontrolled pH culture condition is the most suited and favored setting for improving the ACP and organic acids production simultaneously. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of produced organic acids were carried out using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). Lactic acid, citric acid, and hydroxybenzoic acid isomer were the most common organic acids produced throughout the cultivation process. The findings of thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), differential scan calorimeter (DSC), scanning electron microscope (SEM), energy-dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), and X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) analysis emphasize the significant influence of organic acids and ACP activity on the solubilization of eggshells particles. Conclusions: This study emphasized robust microbial engineering approaches for the large-scale production of a newly discovered acid phosphatase accompanied by organic acids production from B. sonorensis. The biovalorization of the eggshell waste and the production of cost-effective ACP and organic acids were integrated into the current study, and this was done through the implementation of a unique and innovative medium formulation design for eggshell waste management, as well as scaling up ACP production on a bench-top scale.

Keywords: chicken eggshells waste, bioremediation, statistical experimental design, batch fermentation

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Authors: Maxence Queyrel, Edi Prifti, Alexandre Templier, Jean-Daniel Zucker

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Analysis of the human microbiome using metagenomic sequencing data has demonstrated high ability in discriminating various human diseases. Raw metagenomic sequencing data require multiple complex and computationally heavy bioinformatics steps prior to data analysis. Such data contain millions of short sequences read from the fragmented DNA sequences and stored as fastq files. Conventional processing pipelines consist in multiple steps including quality control, filtering, alignment of sequences against genomic catalogs (genes, species, taxonomic levels, functional pathways, etc.). These pipelines are complex to use, time consuming and rely on a large number of parameters that often provide variability and impact the estimation of the microbiome elements. Training Deep Neural Networks directly from raw sequencing data is a promising approach to bypass some of the challenges associated with mainstream bioinformatics pipelines. Most of these methods use the concept of word and sentence embeddings that create a meaningful and numerical representation of DNA sequences, while extracting features and reducing the dimensionality of the data. In this paper we present an end-to-end approach that classifies patients into disease groups directly from raw metagenomic reads: metagenome2vec. This approach is composed of four steps (i) generating a vocabulary of k-mers and learning their numerical embeddings; (ii) learning DNA sequence (read) embeddings; (iii) identifying the genome from which the sequence is most likely to come and (iv) training a multiple instance learning classifier which predicts the phenotype based on the vector representation of the raw data. An attention mechanism is applied in the network so that the model can be interpreted, assigning a weight to the influence of the prediction for each genome. Using two public real-life data-sets as well a simulated one, we demonstrated that this original approach reaches high performance, comparable with the state-of-the-art methods applied directly on processed data though mainstream bioinformatics workflows. These results are encouraging for this proof of concept work. We believe that with further dedication, the DNN models have the potential to surpass mainstream bioinformatics workflows in disease classification tasks.

Keywords: deep learning, disease prediction, end-to-end machine learning, metagenomics, multiple instance learning, precision medicine

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Authors: Aravind Ravichandran, Marc Ramuz, Sylvain Blayac

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With the rapid development of wearable electronics and sensor networks, batteries cannot meet the sustainable energy requirement due to their limited lifetime, size and degradation. Ambient energies such as wind have been considered as an attractive energy source due to its copious, ubiquity, and feasibility in nature. With miniaturization leading to high-power and robustness, triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) have been conceived as a promising technology by harvesting mechanical energy for powering small electronics. TENG integration in large-scale applications is still unexplored considering its attractive properties. In this work, a state of the art design TENG based on wind venturi system is demonstrated for use in any complex environment. When wind introduces into the air gap of the homemade TENG venturi system, a thin flexible polymer repeatedly contacts with and separates from electrodes. This device structure makes the TENG suitable for large scale harvesting without massive volume. Multiple stacking not only amplifies the output power but also enables multi-directional wind utilization. The system converts ambient mechanical energy to electricity with 400V peak voltage by charging of a 1000mF super capacitor super rapidly. Its future implementation in an array of applications aids in environment friendly clean energy production in large scale medium and the proposed design performs with an exhaustive material testing. The relation between the interfacial micro-and nano structures and the electrical performance enhancement is comparatively studied. Nanostructures are more beneficial for the effective contact area, but they are not suitable for the anti-adhesion property due to the smaller restoring force. Considering these issues, the nano-patterning is proposed for further enhancement of the effective contact area. By considering these merits of simple fabrication, outstanding performance, robust characteristic and low-cost technology, we believe that TENG can open up great opportunities not only for powering small electronics, but can contribute to large-scale energy harvesting through engineering design being complementary to solar energy in remote areas.

Keywords: triboelectric nanogenerator, wind energy, vortex design, large scale energy

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Authors: Guanyu Jiang, Donghai Xu, Huanteng Liu

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After the Fukushima-Daiichi accident, the development of accident tolerant fuel cladding materials to improve reactor safety has become a hot topic in the field of nuclear industry. ZrO₂ has a satisfactory neutron economy and can guarantee the fission chain reaction process, which enables it to be a promising coating for zirconium alloy cladding. Maintaining a good corrosion resistance in primary coolant loop during normal operations of Pressurized Water Reactors is a prerequisite for ZrO₂ as a protective coating on zirconium alloy cladding. Research on the corrosion performance of ZrO₂ coating in nuclear water chemistry is relatively scarce, and existing reports failed to provide an in-depth explanation for the failure causes of ZrO₂ coating. Herein, a detailed corrosion process of ZrO₂ coating in lithiated water at 360 °C and 18.5 MPa was proposed based on experimental research and molecular dynamics simulation. Lithiated water with different LiOH solutions in the present work was deaerated and had a dissolved oxygen concentration of < 10 ppb. The concentration of Li (as LiOH) was determined to be 2.3 ppm, 70 ppm, and 500 ppm, respectively. Corrosion tests were conducted in a static autoclave. Modeling and corresponding calculations were operated on Materials Studio software. The calculation of adsorption energy and dynamics parameters were undertaken by the Energy task and Dynamics task of the Forcite module, respectively. The protective effect and failure mechanism of ZrO₂ coating on Zry-4 under varied LiOH concentrations was further revealed by comparison with the coating corrosion performance in pure water (namely 0 ppm Li). ZrO₂ coating provided a favorable corrosion protection with the occurrence of localized corrosion at low LiOH concentrations. Factors influencing corrosion resistance mainly include pitting corrosion extension, enhanced Li+ permeation, short-circuit diffusion of O²⁻ and ZrO₂ phase transformation. In highly-concentrated LiOH solutions, intergranular corrosion, internal oxidation, and perforation resulted in coating failure. Zr ions were released to coating surface to form flocculent ZrO₂ and ZrO₂ clusters due to the strong diffusion and dissolution tendency of α-Zr in the Zry-4 substrate. Considering that primary water of Pressurized Water Reactors usually includes 2.3 ppm Li, the stability of ZrO₂ make itself a candidate fuel cladding coating material. Under unfavorable conditions with high Li concentrations, more boric acid should be added to alleviate caustic corrosion of ZrO₂ coating once it is used. This work can provide some references to understand the service behavior of nuclear coatings under variable water chemistry conditions and promote the in-pile application of ZrO₂ coating.

Keywords: ZrO₂ coating, Zry-4, corrosion behavior, failure mechanism, LiOH concentration

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Authors: Carolina Arriagada, Yasna Contreras

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Since mid-2000, the migratory flows of Latin American migrants to Chile have been increasing constantly. There are two reasons that would explain why Chile is presented as an attractive country for the migrants. On the one hand, traditional centres of migrants’ attraction such as the United States and Europe have begun to close their borders. On the other hand, Chile exhibits relative economic and political stability, which offers greater job opportunities and better standard of living when compared to the migrants’ origin country. At the same time, the neoliberal economic model of Chile, developed under an extractive production of the natural resources, has privatized the urban space. The market regulates the growth of the fragmented and segregated cities. Then, the vulnerable population, most of the time, is located in the periphery and in the marginal areas of the urban space. In this aspect, the migrants have begun to occupy those degraded and depressed areas of the city. The problem raised is that the increase of the social spatial segregation could be also attributed to the migrants´ occupation of the marginal urban places of the city. The aim of this investigation is to carry out an analysis of the migrants’ housing strategies, which are transforming the marginal areas of the city. The methodology focused on the urban experience of the migrants, through the observation of spatial practices, ways of living and networks configuration in order to transform the marginal territory. The techniques applied in this study are semi–structured interviews in-depth interviews. The study reveals that the migrants housing strategies for living in the marginal areas of the city are built on a paradox way. On the one hand, the migrants choose proximity to their place of origin, maintaining their identity and customs. On the other hand, the migrants choose proximity to their social and familiar places, generating sense of belonging. In conclusion, the migration as international displacements under a globalized economic model increasing socio spatial segregation in cities is evidenced, but the transformation of the marginal areas is a fundamental resource of their integration migratory process. The importance of this research is that it is everybody´s responsibility not only the right to live in a city without any discrimination but also to integrate the citizens within the social urban space of a city.

Keywords: migrations, marginal space, resignification, visibility

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Authors: Byung Lee, Charles Perschau

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This study analyzes the development of a communication journal, the Journal of Advertising Education (JAE) over the past 20 years by examining citations of all research articles there. The purpose of a journal is to offer a stable and transparent forum for the presentation, scrutiny, and discussion of research in a targeted domain. This study asks whether JAE has fulfilled this purpose. The authors and readers who are involved in a journal need to have common research topics of their interest. In the case of the discipline of communication, scholars have a variety of backgrounds beyond communication itself since the social scientific study of communication is a relatively recent development, one that emerged after World War II, and the discipline has been heavily indebted to other social sciences, such as psychology, sociology, social psychology, and political science. When authors impart their findings and knowledge to others, their work is not done in isolation. They have to stand on previous studies, which are listed as sources in the bibliography. Since communication has heavily piggybacked on other disciplines, cited sources should be as diverse as the resources it taps into. This paper analyzes 4,244 articles that were cited by JAE articles in the past 36 issues. Since journal article authors reveal their intellectual linkage by using bibliographic citations, the analysis of citations in journal articles will reveal various networks of relationships among authors, journal types, and fields in an objective and quantitative manner. The study found that an easier access to information sources because of the development of electronic databases and the growing competition among scholars for publication seemed to influence authors to increase the number of articles cited even though some variations existed during the examined period. The types of articles cited have also changed. Authors have more often cited journal articles, periodicals (most of them available online), and web site sources, while decreased their dependence on books, conference papers, and reports. To provide a forum for discussion, a journal needs a common topic or theme. This can be realized when an author writes an article about a topic, and that article is cited and discussed in another article. Thus, the citation of articles in the same journal is vital for a journal to form a forum for discussion. JAE has gradually increased the citations of in-house articles with a few fluctuations over the years. The study also examines not only specific articles that are often cited, but also specific authors often cited. The analysis of citations in journal articles shows how JAE has developed into a full academic journal while offering a communal forum even though the speed of its formation is not as fast as desired probably because of its interdisciplinary nature.

Keywords: citation, co-citation, the Journal of Advertising Education, development of a journal

Procedia PDF Downloads 140

Authors: Rihana Hadjeb, Djamel Barkat

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Schiff bases derived from o-hydroxybenzaldehyde has attracted a great interest not only for its promising applications towards linear and non-linear optical properties, biological activity and technological applications but also used as model compounds for the theory of hydrogen bonding. Due to its intramolecular hydrogen bonding, depending on the position of proton in the hydrogen bond o-hydroxy salicylidene Schiff bases exhibit two tautomeric forms, enol-imine (E-form) and keto-enamine (K-form) both in solution and in crystalline state. A zwitterionic structure also appears due to a proton transfer in enol – imine and keto – amine tautomer. These classes of compounds also exhibit thermochromic and photochromic behavior. We undertook in this study the synthesis of ten compounds of hydroxy Schiff bases from the condensation of salicylic aldehyde and aniline substituted in the ortho, meta and para by the methyl, chloro and nitro groups. To study the keto-enol equilibrium of the compounds; UV-VIS spectra were studied in different polarity solvents. The compounds were in tautomeric equilibrium (enol imine O–H•••N, keto-amine O•••H–N forms). For some derivatives of salicylideneanilines the keto-amine form was observed in both ethanol and dioxane. IR results showed that all Schiff bases studied favor the enol-imine form over the keto form.

Keywords: salicylideneaniline, tautomerism, keto-enol equilibrium, UV-VIS spectroscopy, solvent effect

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Authors: Evans Iyamu

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Genes encoding hydrophobins play distinct roles at different stages of the life cycle of fungi, and they foster hyphal attachment to surfaces. The hydrophobin Sc4 is known to provide a hydrophobic membrane lining of the gas channels within Schizophyllum commune fruiting bodies. Here, we cultivated non-fruiting, monokaryotic S. commune 12-43 on glass surfaces that could be verified by micrography. Differential gene expression profiling of nine hydrophobin genes and the hydrophobin-like sc15 gene by quantitative PCR showed significant up-regulation of sc4 when S. commune was attached to glass surfaces, also confirmed with RNA-Seq data analysis. Another silicate, namely quartz sand, was investigated, and induction of sc4 was seen as well. The up-regulation of the hydrophobin gene sc4 may indicate involvement in S. commune hyphal attachment to glass as well as quartz surfaces. We propose that the covering of hyphae by Sc4 allows for direct interaction with the hydrophobic surfaces of silicates and that differential functions of specific hydrophobin genes depend on the surface interface involved. This study could help with the clarification of the biological functions of hydrophobins in natural surroundings, including hydrophobic surface attachment. Therefore, the analysis of growth on glass serves as a basis for understanding S. commune interaction with glass surfaces while providing the possibility to visualize the interaction microscopically.

Keywords: hydrophobin, structured glass surfaces, differential gene expression, quartz sand

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Authors: Vita Strazdina, Aleksandrs Jemeljanovs, Vita Sterna

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Not all proteins have the same nutritional value, since protein quality strongly depends on its amino acid composition and digestibility. The meat of game animals could be a high protein source because of its well-balanced essential amino acids composition. Investigations about biochemical composition of game meat such as wild boar (Sus scrofa scrofa), roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) and beaver (Castor fiber) are not very much. Therefore, the aim of the investigation was evaluate protein composition of game meat hunted in Latvia. The biochemical analysis, evaluation of connective tissue and essential amino acids in meat samples were done, the amino acids score were calculate. Results of analysis showed that protein content 20.88-22.05% of all types of meat samples is not different statistically. The content of connective tissue from 1.3% in roe deer till 1.5% in beaver meat allowed classified game animal as high quality meat. The sum of essential amino acids in game meat samples were determined 7.05–8.26g100g-1. Roe deer meat has highest protein content and lowest content of connective tissues among game meat hunted in Latvia. Concluded that amino acid score for limiting amino acids phenylalanine and tyrosine is high and shows high biological value of game meat.

Keywords: dietic product, game meat, amino acids, scores

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Authors: Youn Young Shim, Ji Hye Kim, Jae Youl Cho, Martin J. T. Reaney

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Flaxseed (Linum usitatissimum L.) is gaining popularity in the food industry as a superfood due to its health-promoting properties. The flax plant synthesizes an array of biologically active cyclic peptides or linusorbs (LOs, a.k.a. cyclolinopeptides) from three or more ribosome-derived precursors. [1–9-NαC]-linusorb B3 and [1–9-NαC]-linusorb B2, suppress immunity, induce apoptosis in human epithelial cancer cell line (Calu-3) cells, and inhibit T-cell proliferation, but the mechanism of LOs action is unknown. Using gene expression analysis in nematode cultures and human cancer cell lines, we have observed that LOs exert their activity, in part, through induction of apoptosis. Specific LOs’ properties include: 1) distribution throughout the body after flaxseed consumption; 2) induce heat shock protein (HSP) 70A production as an indicator of stress and address the issue in Caenorhabditis elegans (exposure of nematode cultures to [1–9-NαC]-linusorb B3 induced a 30% increase in production of the HSP 70A protein); 3) induce apoptosis in Calu-3 cells; and 4) modulate regulatory genes in microarray analysis. These diverse activities indicate that LOs might induce apoptosis in cancer cells or act as versatile platforms to deliver a variety of biologically active molecules for cancer therapy.

Keywords: flaxseed, linusorb, cyclic peptide, orbitides, heat shock protein, apoptosis, anti-cancer

Procedia PDF Downloads 123

Authors: Dumont Maxime, Correia Carlos, Sauvage Jean-François, Schwartz Noah, Gray Morgan

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Context: The concept of the segmented telescope is unavoidable to build extremely large telescopes (ELT) in the quest for spatial resolution, but it also allows one to fit a large telescope within a reduced volume of space (JWST) or into an even smaller volume (Standard Cubesat). Cubesats have tight constraints on the computational burden available and the small payload volume allowed. At the same time, they undergo thermal gradients leading to large and evolving optical aberrations. The pupil segmentation comes nevertheless with an obvious difficulty: to co-phase the different segments. The CubeSat constraints prevent the use of a dedicated wavefront sensor (WFS), making the focal-plane images acquired by the science detector the most practical alternative. Yet, one of the challenges for the wavefront sensing is the non-linearity between the image intensity and the phase aberrations. Plus, for Earth observation, the object is unknown and unrepeatable. Recently, several studies have suggested Neural Networks (NN) for wavefront sensing; especially convolutional NN, which are well known for being non-linear and image-friendly problem solvers. Aims: We study in this paper the prospect of using NN to measure the phasing aberrations of a segmented pupil from the focal-plane image directly without a dedicated wavefront sensing. Methods: In our application, we take the case of a deployable telescope fitting in a CubeSat for Earth observations which triples the aperture size (compared to the 10cm CubeSat standard) and therefore triples the angular resolution capacity. In order to reach the diffraction-limited regime in the visible wavelength, typically, a wavefront error below lambda/50 is required. The telescope focal-plane detector, used for imaging, will be used as a wavefront-sensor. In this work, we study a point source, i.e. the Point Spread Function [PSF] of the optical system as an input of a VGG-net neural network, an architecture designed for image regression/classification. Results: This approach shows some promising results (about 2nm RMS, which is sub lambda/50 of residual WFE with 40-100nm RMS of input WFE) using a relatively fast computational time less than 30 ms which translates a small computation burder. These results allow one further study for higher aberrations and noise.

Keywords: wavefront sensing, deep learning, deployable telescope, space telescope

Procedia PDF Downloads 85

Authors: Pinhas Dannon, Aviv Weinstein

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Impulsivity is raising major interest clinically because it is associated with various clinical conditions such as delinquency, antisocial behavior, suicide attempts, aggression, and criminal activity. The evolutionary perspective argued that impulsivity relates to self-regulation and it has predicted that female individuals should have evolved a greater ability to inhibit pre-potent responses. There is supportive evidence showing that female individuals have better performance on cognitive tasks measuring impulsivity such as delay in gratification and delayed discounting mainly in childhood. During adolescence, brain imaging studies using diffusion tensor imaging on white matter architecture indicated contrary to the evolutionary perspective hypothesis, that young adolescent male individuals may be less vulnerable than age-matched female individuals to risk- and reward- related maladaptive behaviors. In adults, the results are mixed presumably owing to hormonal effects on neuro-biological mechanisms of reward. Consequently, female individuals were less impulsive than male individuals only during fertile stages of the menstrual cycle. Finally, there is evidence the serotonin (5-HT) system is more involved in the impulsivity of men than in that of women. Overall, there seem to be sex differences in impulsivity but these differences are more pronounced in childhood and they are later subject to maturational and hormonal changes during adolescence and adulthood and their effects on the brain, cognition, and behavior.

Keywords: impulse control, male population, female population, gender differences, reward, neurocognitive tests

Procedia PDF Downloads 336

Authors: Valentina Marutyan

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Healthcare data mining is a rapidly developing field at the intersection of technology and medicine that has the potential to change our understanding and approach to providing healthcare. Healthcare and data mining is the process of examining huge amounts of data to extract useful information that can be applied in order to improve patient care, treatment effectiveness, and overall healthcare delivery. This field looks for patterns, trends, and correlations in a variety of healthcare datasets, such as electronic health records (EHRs), medical imaging, patient demographics, and treatment histories. To accomplish this, it uses advanced analytical approaches. Predictive analysis using historical patient data is a major area of interest in healthcare data mining. This enables doctors to get involved early to prevent problems or improve results for patients. It also assists in early disease detection and customized treatment planning for every person. Doctors can customize a patient's care by looking at their medical history, genetic profile, current and previous therapies. In this way, treatments can be more effective and have fewer negative consequences. Moreover, helping patients, it improves the efficiency of hospitals. It helps them determine the number of beds or doctors they require in regard to the number of patients they expect. In this project are used models like logistic regression, random forests, and neural networks for predicting diseases and analyzing medical images. Patients were helped by algorithms such as k-means, and connections between treatments and patient responses were identified by association rule mining. Time series techniques helped in resource management by predicting patient admissions. These methods improved healthcare decision-making and personalized treatment. Also, healthcare data mining must deal with difficulties such as bad data quality, privacy challenges, managing large and complicated datasets, ensuring the reliability of models, managing biases, limited data sharing, and regulatory compliance. Finally, secret code of data mining in healthcare helps medical professionals and hospitals make better decisions, treat patients more efficiently, and work more efficiently. It ultimately comes down to using data to improve treatment, make better choices, and simplify hospital operations for all patients.

Keywords: data mining, healthcare, big data, large amounts of data

Procedia PDF Downloads 56

Authors: K. A. Gladkova, N. P. Babushkina, E. Y. Bragina

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Purpose: Tuberculosis (TB), caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, is one of the major public health problems worldwide. It is clear that the immune response to M. tuberculosis infection is a relationship between inflammatory and anti-inflammatory responses in which Tumour Necrosis Factor-α (TNF-α) plays key roles as a pro-inflammatory cytokine. TNF-α involved in various cell immune responses via binding to its two types of membrane-bound receptors, TNFRSF1A and TNFRSF1B. Importantly, some variants of the TNFRSF1B gene have been considered as possible markers of host susceptibility to TB. However, the possible impact of such TNF-α and its receptor genes polymorphism on TB cases in Tomsk is missing. Thus, the purpose of our study was to investigate polymorphism of TNF-α (rs1800629) and its receptor TNFRSF1B (rs652625 and rs525891) genes in population of Tomsk and to evaluate their possible association with the development of pulmonary TB. Materials and Methods: The population distribution features of genes polymorphisms were investigated and made case-control study based on group of people from Tomsk. Human blood was collected during routine patients examination at Tomsk Regional TB Dispensary. Altogether, 234 TB-positive patients (80 women, 154 men, average age is 28 years old) and 205 health-controls (153 women, 52 men, average age is 47 years old) were investigated. DNA was extracted from blood plasma by phenol-chloroform method. Genotyping was carried out by a single-nucleotide-specific real-time PCR assay. Results: First, interpopulational comparison was carried out between healthy individuals from Tomsk and available data from the 1000 Genomes project. It was found that polymorphism rs1800629 region demonstrated that Tomsk population was significantly different from Japanese (P = 0.0007), but it was similar with the following Europeans subpopulations: Italians (P = 0.052), Finns (P = 0.124) and British (P = 0.910). Polymorphism rs525891 clear demonstrated that group from Tomsk was significantly different from population of South Africa (P = 0.019). However, rs652625 demonstrated significant differences from Asian population: Chinese (P = 0.03) and Japanese (P = 0.004). Next, we have compared healthy individuals versus patients with TB. It was detected that no association between rs1800629, rs652625 polymorphisms, and positive TB cases. Importantly, AT genotype of polymorphism rs525891 was significantly associated with resistance to TB (odds ratio (OR) = 0.61; 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.41-0.9; P < 0.05). Conclusion: To the best of our knowledge, the polymorphism of TNFRSF1B (rs525891) was associated with TB, while genotype AT is protective [OR = 0.61] in Tomsk population. In contrast, no significant correlation was detected between polymorphism TNF-α (rs1800629) and TNFRSF1B (rs652625) genes and alveolar TB cases among population of Tomsk. In conclusion, our data expands the molecular particularities associated with TB. The study was supported by the grant of the Russia for Basic Research #15-04-05852.

Keywords: polymorphism, tuberculosis, TNF-α, TNFRSF1B gene

Procedia PDF Downloads 168

Authors: Mekhaldi Abdelkader, Bouzned Ahcen, Djibaoui Rachid, Hamoum Hakim

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This study presents an attempt to evaluate the antioxidant and antimicrobial activity of methanolic extract and essential oils prepared from the leaves of sage (Salvia officinalis L.). The content of polyphenols in the methanolic extract of the leaves from Salvia officinalis extract was determined by spectrophoto- metrically, calculated as gallic acid and catechin equivalent. Antioxidant activity was evaluated by free radical scavenging activity using 2,2-diphenylpicryl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) assay. The plant essential oil and methanol extract were also subjected to screenings for the evaluation of their antioxidant activities using 2, 2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) test. While the plant essential oil showed only weak antioxidant activities, its methanol extract was considerably active in DPPH (IC50= 37.29µg/ml) test. Appreciable total phenolic content (31.25mg/g) was also detected for the plant methanol extract as gallic acid equivalent in the Folin–Ciocalteu test. The plant was also screened for its antimicrobial activity and good to moderate inhibitions were recorded for its essential oil and methanol extract against most of the tested microorganisms. The present investigation revealed that this plant has rich source of antioxidant properties. It is for this reason that sage has found increasing application in food formulations.

Keywords: antibacterial activity, antioxidant activity, flavonoid, polyphenol, salvia officinalis

Procedia PDF Downloads 395

Authors: Jana Soler Libran

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The primary aim of this paper is to analyze the relationship between power and knowledge suggested in Michel Foucault's theory. Taking into consideration the role of power in knowledge production, the goal is to evaluate to what extent genealogy can be presented as a practical method for epistemic resistance. To do so, the methodology used consists of a revision of Foucault’s literature concerning the topic discussed. In this sense, conceptual analysis is applied in order to understand the effect of the double dimension of power on knowledge production. In its negative dimension, power is conceived as an organ of repression, vetoing certain instances of knowledge considered deceitful. In opposition, in its positive dimension, power works as an organ of the production of truth by means of institutionalized discourses. This double declination of power leads to the first main findings of the present analysis: no truth or knowledge can lie outside power’s action, and power is constituted through accepted forms of knowledge. To second these statements, Foucaultian discourse formations are evaluated, presenting external exclusion procedures as paradigmatic practices to demonstrate how power creates and shapes the validity of certain epistemes. Thus, taking into consideration power’s mechanisms to produce and reproduce institutionalized truths, this paper accounts for the Foucaultian praxis of genealogy as a method to reveal power’s intention, instruments, and effects in the production of knowledge. In this sense, it is suggested to consider genealogy as a practice which, firstly, reveals what instances of knowledge are subjugated to power and, secondly, promotes aforementioned peripherical discourses as a form of epistemic resistance. In order to counterbalance these main theses, objections to Foucault’s work from Nancy Fraser, Linda Nicholson, Charles Taylor, Richard Rorty, Alvin Goldman, or Karen Barad are discussed. In essence, the understanding of the Foucaultian relationship between power and knowledge is essential to analyze how contemporary discourses are produced by both traditional institutions and new forms of institutionalized power, such as mass media or social networks. Therefore, Michel Foucault's practice of genealogy is relevant, not only for its philosophical contribution as a method to uncover the effects of power in knowledge production but also because it constitutes a valuable theoretical framework for political theory and sociological studies concerning the formation of societies and individuals in the contemporary world.

Keywords: epistemic resistance, Foucault’s genealogy, knowledge, power, truth

Procedia PDF Downloads 106

Authors: Esa Abiso Godana, Qiya Yang, Kaili Wang, Zhang Hongyin, Xiaoyun Zhang, Lina Zhao

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Blue mold decay caused by Penicillium expansum is among the recent identified diseases of grapes (Vitis vinifera). The increasing concern about use of chemical substance and pesticide in postharvest fruit push the trends of research toward biocontrol strategies which are more sustainable and ecofriendly. In this study, we determined the biocontrol efficacy of Pichia anomala alone and supplemented with 1% chitosan in the grapefruit against blue mold disease caused by P. expansum. The result showed that 1% chitosan better enhances the biocontrol efficacy P. anomala. Chitosan (1% w/v) also improved the number of population of P. anomala in grape wounds, surface and on nutrient yeast dextrose broth (NYDB). P. anomala supplemented with 1% w/v chitosan significantly reduced the disease incidence, lesion diameter and natural decay of grapefruits without affecting the fruit quality as compared to the control. The scanned electron microscope (SEM) concisely illustrates how the high number of yeast cells on the wounds reduced the growth of P. expansum. P. anomala alone or P. anomala supplemented with 1% w/v chitosan are presented as a potential biocontrol alternative against the postharvest blue mold of grapefruit.

Keywords: biocontrol, Pichia anomala, chitosan, Penicillium expansum, grape

Procedia PDF Downloads 96

Authors: Kurt Maxwell Kusterer, Sylvain Mignot, Annick Vignes

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To our best knowledge YouTube is the largest video hosting platform in the world. A high number of creators, viewers, subscribers and commentators act in this specific eco-system which generates huge sums of money. Views, subscribers, and comments help to increase the popularity of content creators. The most popular creators are sponsored by brands and participate in marketing campaigns. For a few of them, this becomes a financially rewarding profession. This is made possible through the YouTube Partner Program, which shares revenue among creators based on their popularity. We believe that the role of comments in increasing the popularity is to be emphasized. In what follows, YouTube is considered as a bilateral network between the videos and the commentators. Analyzing a detailed data set focused on French YouTubers, we consider each comment as a link between a commentator and a video. Our research question asks what are the predominant features of a video which give it the highest probability to be commented on. Following on from this question, how can we use these features to predict the action of the agent in commenting one video instead of another, considering the characteristics of the commentators, videos, topics, channels, and recommendations. We expect to see that the videos of more popular channels generate higher viewer engagement and thus are more frequently commented. The interest lies in discovering features which have not classically been considered as markers for popularity on the platform. A quick view of our data set shows that 96% of the commentators comment only once on a certain video. Thus, we study a non-weighted bipartite network between commentators and videos built on the sub-sample of 96% of unique comments. A link exists between two nodes when a commentator makes a comment on a video. We run an Exponential Random Graph Model (ERGM) approach to evaluate which characteristics influence the probability of commenting a video. The creation of a link will be explained in terms of common video features, such as duration, quality, number of likes, number of views, etc. Our data is relevant for the period of 2020-2021 and focuses on the French YouTube environment. From this set of 391 588 videos, we extract the channels which can be monetized according to YouTube regulations (channels with at least 1000 subscribers and more than 4000 hours of viewing time during the last twelve months).In the end, we have a data set of 128 462 videos which consist of 4093 channels. Based on these videos, we have a data set of 1 032 771 unique commentators, with a mean of 2 comments per a commentator, a minimum of 1 comment each, and a maximum of 584 comments.

Keywords: YouTube, social networks, economics, consumer behaviour

Procedia PDF Downloads 56