A novel bio-inspired routing algorithm based on ACO for WSNs

The methods to achieve efficient routing in energy constrained wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is a fundamental issue in networking research. A novel approach of ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithm for discovering the optimum route for information transmission in the WSNs is proposed here for optimization and enhancement. The issue of path selection to reach the nodes and vital correspondence parameters, for example, the versatility of nodes, their constrained vitality, the node residual energy and route length are considered since the communications parameters and imperatives must be taken into account by the imperative systems that mediate in the correspondence procedure, and the focal points of the subterranean insect framework have been utilized furthermore. Utilizing the novel technique and considering both the node mobility and the existing energy of the nodes, an optimal route and best cost from the originating node to the target node can be detected. The proposed algorithm has been simulated and verified using MATLAB and the simulation results demonstrate that new ACO based algorithm achieved improved performance, about 30% improvement compared with the traditional ACO algorithm, and faster convergence to determine the best cost route, and recorded an improvement in the energy consumption of the nodes per transmission

Effects of bioenergy on biodiversity arising from land-use change and crop type

Understanding how the world's flora and fauna will respond to bioenergy expansion is critical. This issue is particularly pronounced considering bioenergy's potential role as a driver of land‐use change, the variety of production crops being considered and currently used for biomass, and the diversity of ecosystems that can potentially supply land for bioenergy across the planet. We conducted 2 global meta‐analyses to determine how 8 of the most commonly used bioenergy crops may affect site‐level biodiversity. One search was directed at finding data on biodiversity in different production land uses and the other at extracting energy‐yield estimates of potential bioenergy crops. We used linear mixed‐effect models to test whether effects on biodiversity varied with different individual bioenergy crop species, estimated energy yield, first‐ or second‐generation crops, type of reference ecosystem considered, and magnitude of vertical change in habitat structure between any given crop and the reference ecosystem. Species diversity and abundance were generally lower in crops considered for bioenergy relative to the natural ecosystems they may replace. First‐generation crops, derived from oils, sugars, and starches, tended to have greater effects than second‐generation crops, derived from lignocellulose, woody crops, or residues. Crop yield had nonlinear effects on abundance and, to a lesser extent, overall biodiversity; biodiversity effects were driven by negative yield effects for birds but not other taxa. Our results emphasize that replacing natural ecosystems with bioenergy crops across the planet will largely be detrimental for biodiversity, with first generation and high‐yield crops having the strongest negative effects. We argue that meeting energy goals with bioenergy using existing marginal lands or biomass extraction within existing production landscapes may provide more biodiversity‐friendly alternatives than conversion of natural ecosystems for biofuel production.Fil: Nunez Regueiro, Mauricio Manuel. University of Florida. Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation; Estados Unidos. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Salta. Instituto de Bio y Geociencias del NOA. Universidad Nacional de Salta. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales. Museo de Ciencias Naturales. Instituto de Bio y Geociencias del NOA; Argentina. Universidad Católica de Salta; ArgentinaFil: Siddiqui, Sharmin F.. University of Florida. Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation; Estados UnidosFil: Fletcher, Robert J.. University of Florida. Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation; Estados Unido

Pigment coloration research published in the Science Citation Index Expanded from 1990 to 2020: A systematic review and bibliometric analysis

A systematic review and bibliometric study were undertaken utilizing the Science Citation Index Expanded database from 1990 to 2020 to obtain insights into the trajectory of pigment coloration research. The study focused on the publication performance in terms of the yearly production and citations, as well as mainstream journals, categories of the Web of Sciences, leading nations, well-known institutions, and research trends. The survey found that the yearly output of scholarly publications on pigment coloration research climbed gradually throughout the first quarter of the study period and then increased substantially in the latter five years. The present research emphasis and future trends were examined after summarizing the paper title and abstract analyses, author keyword analysis, and the most regularly used keywords derived from words in KeyWords Plus. To expand its reach in numerous application areas, pigment coloration research will continue to focus on improving pigment qualities

Optical and morphological characterization of BaSe thin films synthesized via chemical bath deposition

Barium selinide (BaSe) thin films were deposited onto glass substrate via chemical bath deposition (CBD) method. The effect of deposition time on the thin film formation mechanism has been studied to understand the optimum conditions for synthesis process. The phase identification and surface morphology of thin coated films were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), respectively while the optical characterizations were conducted by means of ultraviolet visible (UV- Vis) spectroscopy. XRD study confirms the polycrystalline hexagonal structure of the thin films. The XRD peaks at 2θ =23.84° and 2θ = 23.86o showed the preferential orientation along the (021) and (201) plane with deposition time 20 hours and 22 hours respectively, whereas the major peak at (111) was obtained with a deposition time of 24 hours. With the increase in deposition time up to 24 hours, the film gradually grew thicker along with the fine increase in the grain size. The direct optical band gap of the films was measured to be varied from 1.33 to 3.37 eV

Petroleum Ether and Chloroform Soluble Fractions of Whole Plant Extract of Acanthus ilicifolis Linn. Possesses Potential Analgesic and Antioxidant Activities.

Background: Medicinal plants are the major sources of traditional treatment of disease and new drug discovery due to major side effects of synthetic drug. Objectives: The aim of study was to evaluate analgesic and antioxidant activities of petroleum ether and chloroform soluble fractions of whole plant extract of Acanthus ilicifoius. Materials and Methods: The plant extract, standard diclofenac, and distilled water as control was administered post orally in Swiss albino mice and observe the analgesic activity by acetic acid (0.6%) induced writhing method. The plant extract was also subjected to perform reducing power assay, DPPH free radical scavenging activity, and FRAP assay to evaluate antioxidant activity. Results: The pet ether, and chloroform soluble fraction of plant extract revealed significant analgesic activity on mice model. Notably, the pet ether and chloroform fraction showed (40.14 ± 2.32) % and (40.12 ± 0.9) % analgesic inhibition, whereas standard diclofenac revealed (52.79 ± 2.62) % analgesic inhibition. In antioxidant activity assay, the plant extract showed mild to moderate antioxidant activities compare to standard ascorbic acid. Conclusion: From the results, it could be concluded that, the pet ether and chloroform fractions of whole plant extract of A. ilicifolius possesses potential analgesic and antioxidant properties

Increased biomass, seed yield and stress tolerance is conferred in Arabidopsis by a novel enzyme from the resurrection grass Sporobolus stapfianus that glycosylates the strigolactone analogue GR24

Isolation of gene transcripts from desiccated leaf tissues of the resurrection grass, Sporobolus stapfianus, resulted in the identification of a gene, SDG8i, encoding a Group 1 glycosyltransferase (UGT). Here, we examine the effects of introducing this gene, under control of the CaMV35S promoter, into the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. Results show that Arabidopsis plants constitutively over-expressing SDG8i exhibit enhanced growth, reduced senescence, cold tolerance and a substantial improvement in protoplasmic drought tolerance. We hypothesise that expression of SDG8i in Arabidopsis negatively affects the bioactivity of metabolite/s that mediate/s environmentally-induced repression of cell division and expansion, both during normal development and in response to stress. The phenotype of transgenic plants over-expressing SDG8i suggests modulation in activities of both growth- and stress-related hormones. Plants overexpressing the UGT show evidence of elevated auxin levels, with the enzyme acting downstream of ABA to reduce drought-induced senescence. Analysis of the in vitro activity of the UGT recombinant protein product demonstrates that SDG8i can glycosylate the synthetic strigolactone analogue GR24, evoking a link with strigolactone-related processes in vivo. The large improvements observed in survival of transgenic Arabidopsis plants under cold-, salt- and drought-stress, as well as the substantial increases in growth rate and seed yield under non-stress conditions, indicates that overexpression of SDG8i in crop plants may provide a novel means of increasing plant productivity

Evaluating verification awareness as a method for assessing adaptation risk

Self-integration requires a system to be self-aware and self-protecting of its functionality and communication processes to mitigate interference in accomplishing its goals. Incorporating self-protection into a framework for reasoning about compliance with critical requirements is a major challenge when the system’s operational environment may have uncertainties resulting in runtime changes. The reasoning should be over a range of impacts and tradeoffs in order for the system to immediately address an issue, even if only partially or imperfectly. Assuming that critical requirements can be formally specified and embedded as part of system self-awareness, runtime verification often involves extensive on-board resources and state explosion, with minimal explanation of results. Model-checking partially mitigates runtime verification issues by abstracting the system operations and architecture. However, validating the consistency of a model given a runtime change is generally performed external to the system and translated back to the operational environment, which can be inefficient.This paper focuses on codifying and embedding verification awareness into a system. Verification awareness is a type of self-awareness related to reasoning about compliance with critical properties at runtime when a system adaptation is needed. The premise is that an adaptation that interferes with a design-time proof process for requirement compliance increases the risk that the original proof process cannot be reused. The greater the risk to limiting proof process reuse, the higher the probability that the requirement would be violated by the adaptation. The application of Rice’s 1953 theorem to this domain indicates that determining whether a given adaptation inherently inhibits proof reuse is undecidable, suggesting the heuristic, comparative approach based on proof meta-data that is part of our approach. To demonstrate our deployment of verification awareness, we predefine four adaptations that are all available to three distinct wearable simulations (stress, insulin delivery, and hearables). We capture meta-data from applying automated theorem proving to wearable requirements and assess the risk among the four adaptations for limiting the proof process reuse for each of their requirements. The results show that the adaptations affect proof process reuse differently on each wearable. We evaluate our reasoning framework by embedding checkpoints on requirement compliance within the wearable code and log the execution trace of each adaptation. The logs confirm that the adaptation selected by each wearable with the lowest risk of inhibiting proof process reuse for its requirements also causes the least number of requirement failures in execution.Computer Scienc

Caracterización del aceite de Leucaena (Leucaena leucocephala) por análisis directo en tiempo real (DART) y cromatografía de gases

For the first time, we report the characterization of triacylglycerols and fatty acids in Leucaena (Leucaena leucephala) oil [LUCO], an unexplored nontraditional non-medicinal plant belonging to the family Fabaceae. LUCO was converted to fatty acid methyl esters (FAMEs). We analyzed the triacylglycerols (TAGs) of pure LUCO and their FAMEs by time-of-flight mass spectrometry (TOF-MS) followed by multivariate analysis for discrimination among the FAMEs. Our investigations for the analysis of LUCO samples represent noble features of glycerides. A new type of ion source, coupled with high-resolution TOF-MS was applied for the comprehensive analysis of triacylglycerols. The composition of fatty acid based LUCO oil was studied using Gas Chromatography (GC-FID). The major fatty acid components of LUCO oil are linoleic acid (52.08%) oleic acid (21.26%), palmitic acid (7.91%) and stearic acid (6.01%). A metal analysis in LUCO was done by Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS). The structural elucidation and thermal stability of LUCO were studied by FT-IR, 1H NMR, 13C NMR spectroscopic techniques and TGA-DSC, respectively. We also measured the cytotoxicity of LUCO.Se presenta por primera vez la caracterización de triacilgliceroles y ácidos grasos del aceite de Leucaena (Leucaena leucephala) [LUCO], una planta no medicinal, no tradicional y no explorada, perteneciente a la familia Fabaceae. Se analizaron triacilgliceroles (TAGs) de LUCO y sus FAMEs por espectrometría de masas de tiempo de vuelo (TOF-MS) seguido de análisis multivariante para discriminación entre los FAME. Nuestras investigaciones para el análisis de muestras de LUCO presentaron características propias de los glicéridos. Un nuevo tipo de fuente de iones, junto con alta resolución TOF-MS se aplicó para el análisis exhaustivo de triacilgliceroles. La composición de aceite de LUCO basado en ácidos grasos se estudió usando Cromatografía de Gas (GC-FID). Los principales componentes de ácidos grasos del aceite LUCO fueron, linoleico (52,08%), oleico (21,26%), palmítico (7,91%) y esteárico 6,01%. El análisis de metales se realizó mediante Espectrometría de Plasma Acoplado Inductivamente a Masas (ICP-MS). La elucidación estructural y la estabilidad térmica de LUCO se estudiaron mediante FT-IR, 1H NMR, técnicas espectroscópicas de 13C NMR y TGA-DSC, respectivamente. También se midió la citotoxicidad de LUCO

POBOLJŠANJE SOMATSKE EMBRIOGENEZE PŠENICE (Triticum aestivml L.) UPOTREBOM L-ASPARGINA

Somatic embryos and plants were produced from mature and immature embryo derived callus of wheat. Immature embryo showed a better capacity for somatic embryogenesis and plant regeneration. Presence of 2, 4-D was shown to be essential for induction and maintenance of somatic embryogenesis. Organic nitrogenous additives (L-proline, L-asparagine and casein hydrolysate) marked an effect on somatic embryo formation when they were used in the callus maintenance medium. Histological analysis confirmed the formation of somatic embryo. The regenerated plants had the same morphology as the original plants.Somatski embriji i biljke proizvedeni su iz dozrelih i nedozrelih kalusa embrija pšenice. Nedozreli embrij pokazao je bolju sposobnost za embriogenezu i regeneraciju biljke. Prisutnost 2,4 – D pokazala se bitnom za idukciju i održavanje somatske embriogeneze. Organski dušični aditivi (L-prolin, L-aspargin i kazein hidrolizat) djelovali su na stvaranje somatskog embrija kad su upotrijebljeni u mediju za održavanje kalusa. Histološka analiza potvrdila je stvaranje somatskog embrija. Regenerirane biljke imale su istu morfologiju kao i izvorne biljke