IDENTIFICATION OF THE ENTOMOPATHOGENIC FUNGI SAMPLE DL0069 BY COMBINATION OF MORPHOLOGICAL AND MOLECULAR PHYLOGENETIC ANALYSES

Species of Simplicillium are biological control agents against certain plant diseases caused by insects and nematodes due to their ability to parasite and kill the host. Recently, this anamorphic genus is classified under Cordycipitaceae as a monophyletic group apart from the type genus Cordyceps. In this current research, we reported the combination of morphological data and molecular phylogenies to identify an entomopathogenic fungal sample (DL0069) found in the mountainous regions of Langbian mountain, Lam Dong Province, Vietnam. Through formation of phialides and conidial chains, DL0069 was most likely a member of Simplicillium genus. From molecular phylogenetic analyses of a portion of the nuclear large ribosomal unit (nrLSU), it was confirmed that DL0069 was most closely related with Simplicillium chinense, a recently found Simplicillium species with a high potency as a biocontrol of nematodes parasiting plants

A multi-dimensional framework of interactive value formation within complex, prolonged and technology-based self-services

Firms attempt to co-create superior perceived value and/or avoid value co-destruction. There is, however, no guarantee of success especially within the consumption of complex, prolonged and technology-based self-services. In such services, the process of value co-creation and co-destruction may operate simultaneously to generate a multitude of tensions in each direction. As such, a multitude of interacting factors maybe at play during this interactive value formation (IVF) process. Adopting a grounded theory approach and in-depth interviews of users of such services, the author investigates for the first time the IVF process during an indirect service interaction process and introduce the role of operant resources as mediators during the inter-play between value co-creation and co-destruction process, i.e. during the IVF process. This study’s findings also identify factors that reduce and increase IVF intensity (customers’ subjective perception of the extent of effort and time invested in the IVF process), suggesting strategies to mitigate IVF intensity. This is meaningful since high IVF intensity results in value co-destruction and low level of loyalty while low IVF intensity might bring about value co-creation and high level of loyalty. Therefore, managers who offer complex, prolonged and TBSSs, especially wellness apps should, for instance, not only position services with low IVF intensity which can generate self-efficacy, but also encourage users to involve in more resource integration activities to achieve medium/high level of resource integration, hence higher value co-created and consequently increasing level of loyalty. This study represents an initial foray into the complexity between co-creation and co-destructive factors during prolonged and complex services

An effective beamformer for interference suppression without knowing the direction

This paper proposes an effective beamformer for uniform linear arrays of half-wave dipole antennas based on binary bat algorithm (BBA) by controlling complex weights (both amplitudes and phases) excited at elements in an array. The proposed beamformer can impose adaptive nulls at interferences without knowing directions in the sidelobe region by minimizing the total output power of an array, whereas the main lobe and sidelobe levels are maintained. To demonstrate this capability, the proposal will be evaluated in several scenarios, compared to a beamformer based on binary particle swarm optimization (BPSO)

Social Representations of American History and Academic Engagement and Performance of African American Students

Previous research has shown that social representations of one’s social groups can influence academic outcomes for racial and ethnic minority students in the United States. Other research has found that representations of American history have implications for identity and can impact the way people perceive and explain identity-relevant events. The current research uses a cultural psychological perspective to examine the consequences of exposure to social representations of American history on African American college students’ performance. It is hypothesized that history facts with positive implications for identity will positively influence performance for African American students, and history facts with negative implications for identity will negatively impact performance. The pilot study results did not support the hypotheses potentially due to the small African American sample size. The second study tested the same hypotheses with a larger sample of African American students by recruiting students from a historically Black university. Results did not support the main hypotheses. However, results revealed that high math and racial identity are positively related to performance. Other findings suggest that history conditions moderated the relationship between racial identity and saliency of stereotypes about African Americans. Racial ideologies correlated with academic measures differently across history conditions. This study has potential implications for African American students’ academic identity and engagement in academic settings. In particular, academic settings that promote a positive sense of identity through history teachings can foster positive academic consequences for African American students

Building on a sustainable 'high' the use on hemp as a sustainable building material

In a world currently finding itself in a dire state due global warming and pollution, industries, institutions and the general public are continuously seeking newer methods of sustainable and environmentally friendly ways of living and operating. Could the solution to this predicament, specific to the construction industry, be found in a plant that has existed around the world for millions of years? This research report will attempt to answer such a question by taking into consideration the cultivation of hemp and how it is beneficial to the environment, the type of building materials manufactured from hemp (hempcrete and hemp bricks/blocks), the science of why hemp is sustainable, possible finishes and alternative innovation and lastly the impact of hemp construction in South Africa and whether it is feasible to construct using hemp or not at this current point in time. The South African legislation and perception of hemp amongst the public and professionals shall furthermore be explored in addition to the country’s first hemp home constructed in November 2011

A Simulation Approach to Airline Cost Benefit Analysis

In this paper we conduct a cost benefit analyses using simulation for an Airline. This study pertains to using Towbarless Towing Vehicles (commonly referred to as supertugs) to transport aircraft to and from the terminal to airline’s maintenance hangar facility at their hub. This study attempts to investigate the possibility of reducing costs through saving jet fuel by adopting supertugs and identify if their high purchasing costs are justified. This study adopts simulation to analyze the annual savings by studying the numbers needed, as well as the utilization and operation cost for these supertugs. The results are very encouraging, enabling the airline to clearly evaluate their cost and benefits for purchasing new supertugs

A Constraint-based Recommender System via RDF Knowledge Graphs

Knowledge graphs, represented in RDF, are able to model entities and their relations by means of ontologies. The use of knowledge graphs for information modeling has attracted interest in recent years. In recommender systems, items and users can be mapped and integrated into the knowledge graph, which can represent more links and relationships between users and items. Constraint-based recommender systems are based on the idea of explicitly exploiting deep recommendation knowledge through constraints to identify relevant recommendations. When combined with knowledge graphs, a constraint-based recommender system gains several benefits in terms of constraint sets. In this paper, we investigate and propose the construction of a constraint-based recommender system via RDF knowledge graphs applied to the vehicle purchase/sale domain. The results of our experiments show that the proposed approach is able to efficiently identify recommendations in accordance with user preferences

Improving Semantic Similarity Measure Within a Recommender System Based-on RDF Graphs

In today's era of information explosion, more users are becoming more reliant upon recommender systems to have better advice, suggestions, or inspire them. The measure of the semantic relatedness or likeness between terms, words, or text data plays an important role in different applications dealing with textual data, as in a recommender system. Over the past few years, many ontologies have been developed and used as a form of structured representation of knowledge bases for information systems. The measure of semantic similarity from ontology has developed by several methods. In this paper, we propose and carry on an approach for the improvement of semantic similarity calculations within a recommender system based-on RDF graphs