INTEGRATING MULTI-SOURCE DATA TO QUANTIFY CHANGES IN BIOMASS AND SOIL ORGANIC CARBON DUE TO LAND-USE CHANGE IN THE BOREAL PLAINS ECOZONE, CANADA

Land use and cover change (LUCCs) is the second largest source of global carbon emission and there has been a growing interest in LUCCs to mitigate climate change effects. Global land-use change associated with cropland expansion, which is a major carbon source, was dominant in the last century. Abandoned cropland typically is a carbon sink and was observed in many regions in the recent decades. However, there has been little research on carbon balance resulting from LUCCs in agricultural landscapes, especially under abandoned cropland in Canada. Information on carbon balance resulting from LUCCs is necessary for national greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories as well as emission mitigation options. The primary objective of the study is to quantify carbon stocks and dynamics as consequences of LUCCs in the Boreal Plains Ecozone, Canada. Field measurement on carbon stocks in abandoned cropland was assessed at field sites in Saskatchewan. Vegetation C ranged from 7.6 to 90.1 Mg C ha-1 and increased linearly with stand age. Ecosystem C increased from 74.2 to 137.6 Mg C ha-1 after 41 years of abandonment (or net C sink of 1.9 Mg C ha-1 yr-1). In the agriculture region of the Boreal Plains Ecozone, land-use change accounted for 6.5% of the total area during the 1990-2000 period. Forest to cropland conversion was dominant on well-drained Chernozemic and Luvisolic soil orders. Abandoned cropland occurred mainly on poorly drained and acidic parent materials. LUCCs in agriculture region was estimated to be a net C sink of 0.76 ±0.3 Mg C ha-1 yr-1 during this period. In the agriculture-forest transition region of the Boreal Plains Ecozone, substantial land-use changes occurred in pasture (+76%) and summer fallow (-87.8%) over a 27-year period (1984 - 2011). The shrub and forest area was reduced -31.6% and -16.4%, respectively. Forest disturbances occurred mainly during 2005 – 2011. Substantial changes of summer fallow to annual cropland took place on the higher soil capability land and annual cropland to pasture conversion was more likely on lower capability soil classes. We estimated that LUCCs in the region was a net C source of approximately 552.7 Gg C across the research period or 0.07 Mg C ha-1 yr-1

Optimization for continuous overflow proteolytic hydrolysis of spent brewer’s yeast by using proteases

A large amount of spent yeast as by-product is annually generated from brewing industry and it contains about 50-55% protein with good balance of amino acids. The hydrolysate produced from spent brewer’s yeast may be used in food application. The yield of proteolylic hydrolysis for spent brewer’s yeast and amino acid contents of hydrolysates depend on factors such as temperature, pH value, type of used enzyme and ratio enzyme/substrate, time. Besides, applied hydrolysing methods (batch-, or continuous method) has effected on degree of hydrolysis. With the purpose of how proteolytic hydrolysis having effects on the spent brewer’s yeast for food application in industrial scale, continuous overflow method was used in this study. Bitterness of hydrolysate and the yield of continuous overflow proteolytic hydrolysis process are the two interested factors for protein hydrolysis. In this report, it is dealt with determination for optimal conditions to obtain the highest yield of hydrolysis process and the lowest bitterness of hydrolysate. Response surface methodology (RSM) was used to determine optimal condition for continuous overflow proteolytic hydrolysis of spent brewer’s yeast. The optimal conditions for obtaining high degree of hydrolysis and low bitterness are determined as followings: ratio of enzyme mixture (alcalase 7.5 U/g and flavourzyme 10 U/g), pH at 7.5, hydrolysis temperature at 51oC and hydrolysis time of 9 hours. Under the optimal conditions, the yield of hydrolysis was 59.62% ± 0.027 and the bitterness equivalently with concentration of quinine was 7.86 ± 0.033 μmol /ml

Modified moth swarm algorithm for optimal economic load dispatch problem

In this study, optimal economic load dispatch problem (OELD) is resolved by a novel improved algorithm. The proposed modified moth swarm algorithm (MMSA), is developed by proposing two modifications on the classical moth swarm algorithm (MSA). The first modification applies an effective formula to replace an ineffective formula of the mutation technique. The second modification is to cancel the crossover technique. For proving the efficient improvements of the proposed method, different systems with discontinuous objective functions as well as complicated constraints are used. Experiment results on the investigated cases show that the proposed method can get less cost and achieve stable search ability than MSA. As compared to other previous methods, MMSA can archive equal or better results. From this view, it can give a conclusion that MMSA method can be valued as a useful method for OELD problem

Property Ω and holomorphic functions with values in a pseudoconvex space having Stein morphism into a complex Lie group

It is shown that a nuclear Frechet space E with a Schauder basis has the property ΩF if and only if there exists a compact balanced convex set B in E such that every holomorphic function on (EB, τE), where EB is the Banach space spanned by B and τE is the topology of EB induced by the topology of E, with values in any pseudoconvex space having a Stein morphism into a complex Lie group, can be extended holomorphically to E. For the scalar case the proof was provided by Meise and Vogt [4]

One-pot microwave-assisted green synthesis of amine-functionalized graphene quantum dots for high visible light photocatalytic application

Nowadays, graphene quantum dots (GQDs) have gained a huge interest in the field of visible-range photocatalysts because of their tunable band gap and stable photochemical properties. In this work, amine-functionalized GQDs (AGQDs) were successfully prepared by one-step microwave-assisted conversion of glucose, H2O2, and NH3 solution. The obtained quantum dots possess the high quality of graphene structure with the average size of 3.78 nm as well as exhibit a strong green fluorescence with a high quantum yield. Interestingly, the amine-functionalized dots perform outstanding visible-light absorption. To further investigate photocatalytic properties, a composite of AGQDs and TiO2 was then prepared by a simple mixing route. The hybrid material showed high catalytic activity of dye degradation under visible light irradiation, which indicates the key role of AGQDs in enhancing light absorption and induced electron–hole separation. The current study may open a new way for construction of effective visible light photocatalytic systems with a cost-effective, simple approach.Scopu

Identify and predict incorrect prices by Machine Learning Model

Electronic commerce (e-commerce) brings huge advantages to businesses for selling products through multiple online shops. However, companies have difficulties in supervising the prices of products set by different retail shops on e-commerce platforms. Addressing these difficulties, we suggest a method to identify and predict products that sell at incorrect prices using a machine learning model combined price analysis. The study uses four machine learning models: K-nearest Neighbor (KNN), Random Forest (RF), Support Vector Machine (SVM), and Multinomial Naive Bayes (MNB) and two text-based information extraction methods: BoW and TF-IDF to find to the best method. The research results show that the RF model and text-based information extraction method by the BoW provide more average accuracy than other specific models, when experimenting on the filter dataset the average accuracy after 10 runs are RF: 98.06%, SVM: 83.92%, MNB: 92.21%, KNN: 94.06%. Experimental results on the product dataset have an accuracy of RF: 83.02%, SVM: 55%, MNB: 79.33%, KNN: 79.36%

Bridging Cultures in Academia: The Role of Mindfulness in Enhancing Intercultural Communication and Social Capital among Scholars

Studies that comprehensively incorporate mindfulness therapies and the theory of intercultural communication into the investigation of social capital are lacking in the body of existing literature. This restricts our comprehension of how these important components interact and affect social relationships in academic communities as a whole. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate how mindfulness practices affect cross-cultural communication and, in turn, build social capital in academic environments. A mixed method was adopted in the study. In the first stage, focused group interviews are employed in the first stage with seven groups of nine Australian alumni, for a total of 63 participants who have experience conducting research and teaching abroad or in multicultural settings. In the second stage, 149 alumni were surveyed, and Process Macro SPSS\u27s Hayes model was used to analyse the data. The results showed that those who practice mindfulness are more likely to approach cross-cultural encounters with a greater awareness of and respect for different points of view. According to the findings, mindfulness can be a potent instrument for boosting perception of the community, networking, trust and safety, scholarly participation, citizen power, life values and diverse perspectives among academics. Scholars who engage in mindfulness practices have the potential to cultivate closer ties within academic communities, which could result in joint research opportunities, information exchanges, and career assistance. This study might offer academics a fresh theoretical viewpoint that improves the conceptual frameworks for mindfulness practice for enhancing academic social capital via intercultural communication

PROBLEMS OF ENGLISH STUDIES STUDENTS ON LEARNING PHONOLOGY AND SUGGESTIONS, CAN THO UNIVERSITY, VIETNAM

The writers were concerned by the phonological challenges encountered by students of the Schools of Foreign Languages, Can Tho University. Foreign language majors are often difficult, and theory is quite tackled, which has caused many serious problems for students. This is no exception for students majoring in English Studies, at Can Tho University in the process of approaching the subject "Introduction to English Phonology". This study was conducted to clarify the phonological challenges that students at Can Tho University are facing, as well as suggest solutions to the problem of phonology learners. Using data from Google Questionnaire Forms, the research conducted an error analysis of 103 English majors who studied the subject. Based on the phonological problems, certain remedial activities were planned for the students, which helped improve their study process phonological problems considerably.   Article visualizations

Straightforward Procedure for Laboratory Production of DNA Ladder

DNA ladder is commonly used to determine the size of DNA fragments by electrophoresis in routine molecular biology laboratories. In this study, we report a new procedure to prepare a DNA ladder that consists of 10 fragments from 100 to 1000 bp. This protocol is a combination of routinely employed methods: cloning, PCR, and partial digestion with restriction enzymes. DNA fragments of 100 bp with unique restriction site at both ends were self-ligated to create a tandem repeat. Once being cloned, the tandem repeat was rapidly amplified by PCR and partially digested by restriction enzymes to produce a ladder containing multimers of the repeated DNA fragments. Our procedure for production of DNA ladder could be simple, time saving, and inexpensive in comparison with current ones widely used in most laboratories