AIM:To investigate lipopolysaccharide(LPS) related signal transduction in interstitial cells of Cajal(ICCs) from mouse small intestine.METHODS:For this study,primary culture of ICCs was prepared from the small intesti...AIM:To investigate lipopolysaccharide(LPS) related signal transduction in interstitial cells of Cajal(ICCs) from mouse small intestine.METHODS:For this study,primary culture of ICCs was prepared from the small intestine of the mouse.LPS was treated to the cells prior to measurement of the membrane currents by using whole-cell patch clamp technique.Immunocytochemistry was used to examine the expression of the proteins in ICCs.RESULTS:LPS suppressed the pacemaker currents of ICCs and this could be blocked by AH6809,a prostaglandin E2-EP2 receptor antagonist or NG-Nitro-Larginine Methyl Ester,an inhibitor of nitric oxide(NO) synthase.Toll-like receptor 4,inducible NO synthase or cyclooxygenase-2 immunoreactivity by specific antibodies was detected on ICCs.Catalase(antioxidant agent) had no action on LPS-induced action in ICCs.LPS actions were blocked by nuclear factor kB(NF-kB) inhibitor,actinomycin D(a gene transcription inhibitor),PD 98059(a p42/44 mitogen-activated protein kinases inhibitor) or SB 203580 [a p38 mitogen-activated protein kinases(MAPK) inhibitor].SB 203580 also blocked the prostaglandin E2-induced action on pacemaker currents in ICCs but not NO.CONCLUSION:LPS inhibit the pacemaker currents in ICCs via prostaglandin E2-and NO-dependent mechanism through toll-like receptor 4 and suggest that MAPK and NF-kB are implicated in these actions.展开更多
With the increasing population and the consequent needs for transport facilities, the construction of tunnels in urban environments is fast growing. Tunneling at each depth of the soil, causes changes in the earth’s ...With the increasing population and the consequent needs for transport facilities, the construction of tunnels in urban environments is fast growing. Tunneling at each depth of the soil, causes changes in the earth’s surface;this is more important about urban areas tunnels, especially when crossing the residential areas, so having knowledge of their performance is really important. Some of the consequences of underground tunneling are earth surface moving around the tunnel, movement of tunnel’s surrounding and changes in earthquake acceleration. The performance and behavior of underground structures have been studied by numerous researchers, but the effect of tunneling on earthquake records and its effects on aboveground structures have been getting less attention. The current article will try to study and examine the changes in seismic velocity at ground level, structural response spectrum, and Fourier spectrum with digging a circular tunnel. The results show that digging a circular tunnel at ground level will cause a change in the earthquake records profile.展开更多
According to technology development and relative facilitation in digging and underground structures, ways, highways, all types of tunnels, underground train network, and other underground settle, storage are number of...According to technology development and relative facilitation in digging and underground structures, ways, highways, all types of tunnels, underground train network, and other underground settle, storage are number of structure built and developed in advanced countries. In most situation, tunnel digging operations are done years after its construction or are not recorded in new structures regulations;therefore, this research investigates soil settlement and inserting force to tunnel coverage by limiting studies about effects of tunnel shapes on soil settlement using Plaxis, Seismo Signal, and Seismo Aspect. This study shows that rectangular tunnel has the most settlement in soil surface and circular tunnel has the least settlement but horseshoe tunnel has similar behavior to circular tunnel;however, earth subsidence level by digging this tunnel is more than circular tunnel. In addition, sectional shape has direct effect on inserting forces on tunnel coverage.展开更多
Biochar is normally produced as a by-product of bioenergy. However, if biochar is produced as a co-product with bioenergy from sustainably managed forests and used for soil amendment, it could pro- vide a carbon neutr...Biochar is normally produced as a by-product of bioenergy. However, if biochar is produced as a co-product with bioenergy from sustainably managed forests and used for soil amendment, it could pro- vide a carbon neutral or even carbon negative solution for current envi- ronmental degradation problems. In this paper, we present a comprehen- sive review of biochar production as a co-product of bioenergy and its implications. We focus on biochar production with reference to biomass availability and sustainability and on bioehar utilization for its soil amendment and greenhouse gas emissions reduction properties. Past studies confirm that northwestern Ontario has a sustainable and sufficient supply of biomass feedstock that can be used to produce bioenergy, with biochar as a co-product that can replace fossil fuel consumption, increase soil productivity and sequester carbon in the long run. For the next step, we recommend that comprehensive life cycle assessment of bio- char-based bioenergy production, from raw material collection to bioehar application, with an extensive economic assessment is necessary for making this technology commercially viable in northwestern Ontario.展开更多
The common walnut(Juglans regia)is one of the most economically important nut trees cultivated worldwide.Despite its importance,no comprehensive evaluation of walnut tree population genetics has been undertaken across...The common walnut(Juglans regia)is one of the most economically important nut trees cultivated worldwide.Despite its importance,no comprehensive evaluation of walnut tree population genetics has been undertaken across the range where it originated,Central Asia.In this study,we investigated the genetic diversity and population structure of 1082 individuals from 46 populations across Central Asia.We found moderate genetic diversity of J.regia across Central Asia,with 46 populations clustered into three groups with a weak relationship between genetic and geographic distance.Our findings reveal that the western Himalaya might be the core region of common walnut genetic diversity in Central Asia and that,except for two populations in Gongliu Wild Walnut Valley,humans might have introduced walnut populations to Xinjiang,China.The observed distribution of the genetic landscape has probably been affected by historical climate fluctuation,breeding system,and prolonged anthropogenic activity.We propose the conservation of the core genetic diversity resources in the western Himalaya and pay special attention to populations from Gongliu in Xinjiang.These findings enhance our understanding of the genetic variation throughout the distribution range of J.regia in Central Asia,which will provide a key prerequisite for evidence-based conservation and management.展开更多
Named Entity Recognition aims to identify and to classify rigid designators in text such as proper names, biological species, and temporal expressions into some predefined categories. There has been growing interest i...Named Entity Recognition aims to identify and to classify rigid designators in text such as proper names, biological species, and temporal expressions into some predefined categories. There has been growing interest in this field of research since the early 1990s. Named Entity Recognition has a vital role in different fields of natural language processing such as Machine Translation, Information Extraction, Question Answering System and various other fields. In this paper, Named Entity Recognition for Nepali text, based on the Support Vector Machine (SVM) is presented which is one of machine learning approaches for the classification task. A set of features are extracted from training data set. Accuracy and efficiency of SVM classifier are analyzed in three different sizes of training data set. Recognition systems are tested with ten datasets for Nepali text. The strength of this work is the efficient feature extraction and the comprehensive recognition techniques. The Support Vector Machine based Named Entity Recognition is limited to use a certain set of features and it uses a small dictionary which affects its performance. The learning performance of recognition system is observed. It is found that system can learn well from the small set of training data and increase the rate of learning on the increment of training size.展开更多
Biochar-based bioenergy production and sub- sequent land application of biochar can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by fixing atmospheric carbon into the soil for a long period of time. A thorough life cycle assessmen...Biochar-based bioenergy production and sub- sequent land application of biochar can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by fixing atmospheric carbon into the soil for a long period of time. A thorough life cycle assessment of biochar-based bioenergy production and biochar land application in Northwestern Ontario is conducted using SimaPro Ver. 8.1. The results of energy consumption and potential environmental impact of biochar-based bioenergy production system are compared with those of conventional coal-based system. Results show that biocbar land application consumes 4847.61 MJ per tonne dry feedstock more energy than conventional system, but reduces the GHG emissions by 68.19 kg CO2e per tonne of dry feed- stock in its life cycle. Biochar land application improves ecosystem quality by 18 %, reduces climate change by 15 %, and resource use by 13 % but may adversely impact on human health by increasing disability adjusted life years by 1.7 % if biomass availability is low to medium. Replacing fossil fuel with woody biomass has a positiveimpact on the environment, as one tonne of dry biomass feedstock when converted to biochar reduces up to 38 kg CO2e with biochar land application despite using more energy. These results will help understand a comprehensive picture of the new interventions in forestry businesses, which are promoting biochar-based bioenergy production.展开更多
Spam is a universal problem with which everyone is familiar. A number of approaches are used for Spam filtering. The most common filtering technique is content-based filtering which uses the actual text of message to ...Spam is a universal problem with which everyone is familiar. A number of approaches are used for Spam filtering. The most common filtering technique is content-based filtering which uses the actual text of message to determine whether it is Spam or not. The content is very dynamic and it is very challenging to represent all information in a mathematical model of classification. For instance, in content-based Spam filtering, the characteristics used by the filter to identify Spam message are constantly changing over time. Na?ve Bayes method represents the changing nature of message using probability theory and support vector machine (SVM) represents those using different features. These two methods of classification are efficient in different domains and the case of Nepali SMS or Text classification has not yet been in consideration;these two methods do not consider the issue and it is interesting to find out the performance of both the methods in the problem of Nepali Text classification. In this paper, the Na?ve Bayes and SVM-based classification techniques are implemented to classify the Nepali SMS as Spam and non-Spam. An empirical analysis for various text cases has been done to evaluate accuracy measure of the classification methodologies used in this study. And, it is found to be 87.15% accurate in SVM and 92.74% accurate in the case of Na?ve Bayes.展开更多
Introduction:In Central Himalaya,anthropogenic activities have led to the widespread replacement of Banj oak(Quercus leucotrichophora)forest by Chir pine(Pinus roxburghii)for decades.This study was conducted to determ...Introduction:In Central Himalaya,anthropogenic activities have led to the widespread replacement of Banj oak(Quercus leucotrichophora)forest by Chir pine(Pinus roxburghii)for decades.This study was conducted to determine how natural Banj oak,Chir pine,and mixed oak-pine forest would differ in soil microbial biomass and soil nutrients.Soil microbial biomass nitrogen(SMBN)and phosphorus(SMBP),soil organic carbon(SOC)total nitrogen(TN),and total phosphorus(TP)in the 0 to 15 cm soil layer were investigated in the Central Himalayan region in the stands of Banj oak,mixed oak-pine,and Chir pine forest.Results:The SMBN and SMBP were significantly higher in Banj oak and mixed oak-pine forest as compared to Chir pine forest.The ratios of SMBN to TN(SMBN/TN)and SMBP to TP(SMBP/TP)were significantly higher in the Chir pine forest,indicating that in this forest,the proportion of microbial biomass N and P to total soil N and P was higher as compared to Banj oak forest.A similar pattern of variation was found in relation to season across the forests,all with an apparent peak in the rainy season.Conclusion:These results indicate that low microbial biomass N and P may be one of the reasons to create a nutrient poor site in Chir pine forest.The collection of pine litter by local people also impairs the return of nutrients to the soil and makes it difficult for Banj oak to re-invade areas occupied by Chir pine.This calls for cautions in large-scale conversions of the Banj oak forests to coniferous plantations as a forest management practice on concerns of sustaining soil productivity.展开更多
This study aims at exploring the technical efficiency of lum- ber industry in northwestern Ontario, Canada using data envelopment analysis （DEA）. The DEA model analyzes relative technical efficiency of lumber mills ...This study aims at exploring the technical efficiency of lum- ber industry in northwestern Ontario, Canada using data envelopment analysis （DEA）. The DEA model analyzes relative technical efficiency of lumber mills with disproportionate inputs and outputs by dividing the 10- year time series data, for inputs and outputs of 24 lumber mills, over two periods （1999-2003 and 2004-2008）. Four inputs, namely, material （log volume）, labour （man-hours）, two types of energy （hog-fuel and electric- ity）, and one output （lumber volume） are used in this study. The trend analysis shows an annual reduction of 10%, 13% and 13% for lumber output, log consumption （input） and number of employees, respectively, during the period 1999-2008. The results from DEA with two scenarios with energy inputs and without energy inputs, for the two periods are found to be mixed and interesting. While some mills have improved their performance in terms of best use of available scarce inputs in the second period, some have shown negative per cent change in efficiency. In the with energy input and the without energy input scenario, some of the mills show a reduction in efficiency in the second period from the first period, with the highest estimated reductions of-13.9% and -47.6%, respectively. A possible explanation for these negative performances of mills in the latter period is the decline in production in the second period compared to the first period, where these mills were not able to adjust their inputs （mostly labour） as proportional lay-offs might not have been possible. These results provide policy makers and industry stakeholders with an improved understanding of the trends of efficiency and employ- ment as well as reallocation opportunities of future inputs in order to increase benefits from this sector.展开更多
Prediction of pollination stages in oil palm plantations is an important research area in precision agriculture.Oil palm is known as the most efficient commercial crop with the capacity to fulfill the growing global d...Prediction of pollination stages in oil palm plantations is an important research area in precision agriculture.Oil palm is known as the most efficient commercial crop with the capacity to fulfill the growing global demand for vegetable oil consumption.However,oil palm production dependence on pollination is experiencing issues with decreasing the actual yield.Consequently,alternative methods in commercial plantations such as humanassisted pollination and recently Wireless Sensor Network(WSN)have been deployed despite their high economic costs due to labor requirements.Oil palm assisted pollination requires precision,inspection,traceability,and validation processes in the field.Currently,all these processes are performed by humans that can be associated with false assumptions,uncertainty,and pollination latency.Therefore,Machine Learning(ML)approaches as a subset of the Artificial Intelligence(AI)domain provides efficient,cost-effective,and non-destructive solutions to determine these reproductive stages for future autonomous pollination system.Our goal was to reduce the variability of worker’s performance in oil palms,using ML algorithms to make expert decisions and reduce the risk related to a transient workforce.This comparative empirical study examined and compared the performance of the Random Forest(RF)against k Nearest Neighbor(kNN)and Support Vector Machine(SVM)for classification of oil palm pre-anthesis and anthesis stages,dividing into four classes(1,2,3,and 4).These models were tested using thermal features(endogenous)individually and in combination with meteorological variables(exogenous).The performance of models is evaluated with specific measures of performance,such as overall user’s and producer’s accuracies and F-measure values derived from the confusion matrix.The results showed that the RF model produced better results with regard to average Fmeasure(88.6%,71.83%),producer’s accuracies(88.70%,71.35%),and user’s accuracies(88.27%,72.36%)on test sets using exogenous+exogenous and endoge展开更多
A new type of gain flattening filter for amplified spontaneous emission （ASE） source based on erbium doped fiber （EDF） is proposed and demonstrated by fabricating and writing two series ultra-long period fiber gra...A new type of gain flattening filter for amplified spontaneous emission （ASE） source based on erbium doped fiber （EDF） is proposed and demonstrated by fabricating and writing two series ultra-long period fiber grating （ULPFG） on single mode fiber （SMF-28）. The novelty method in this research is based on writing the two ULPFGs as fat gratings. The LPG is written by a simple and available arc-discharge method. The pump power based on single-pass backward pump configuration is around 100mW, and the average wavelength is near to 974nm. The gain flattening profile is obtained by 3.4 （±1.7）dB ripple in the wavelength range between 1524nm and 1565nm with 41-nm band width.展开更多
Background： Replacement of fossil fuel based energy with biochar-based bioenergy production can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions while mitigating the adverse impacts of climate change and global warming. However,...Background： Replacement of fossil fuel based energy with biochar-based bioenergy production can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions while mitigating the adverse impacts of climate change and global warming. However, the production of biochar-based bioenergy depends on a sustainable supply of biomass. Although, Northwestern Ontario has a rich and sustainable supply of woody biomass, a comprehensive life cycle cost and economic assessment of biochar-based bioenergy production technology has not been done so far in the region. Methods： In this paper, we conducted a thorough life cycle cost assessment （LCCA） of biochar-based bioenergy production and its land application under four different scenarios： 1） biochar production with low feedstock availability; 2） biochar production with high feedstock availability; 3） biochar production with low feedstock availability and its land application; and 4） biochar production with high feedstock availability and its land applicationusing SimaPro, EIOLCA software and spreadsheet modeling. Based on the LCCA results, we further conducted an economic assessment for the break-even and viability of this technology over the project period. Results： It was found that the economic viability of biochar-based bioenergy production system within the life cycle analysis system boundary based on study assumptions is directly dependent on costs of pyrolysis, feedstock processing （drying, grinding and pelletization） and collection on site and the value of total carbon offset provided by the system. Sensitivity analysis of transportation distance and different values of C offset showed that the system is profitable in case of high biomass availability within 200 km and when the cost of carbon sequestration exceeds CAD S60 per tonne of equivalent carbon （CO2e）. Conclusions： Biochar-based bioenergy system is economically viable when life cycle costs and environmental assumptions are accounted for. This study provides a medium scale slow-pyrolysis plant scenario and we展开更多
Objective:To isolate and characterize endosulfan-degrading bacteria from Kerman pistachio orchards.Methods:Endosulfan-degrading bacteria were enriched in Bushnell-Hass medium.Identification and sequencing of prevalent...Objective:To isolate and characterize endosulfan-degrading bacteria from Kerman pistachio orchards.Methods:Endosulfan-degrading bacteria were enriched in Bushnell-Hass medium.Identification and sequencing of prevalent degrading strains was performed by using PCR based on amplifying 16S rDNA.Results:The results showed that the soils of pistachio orchards have some degrading bacteria that are suitable for elimination of endosulfan from soils and the environment.Four endosulfandegrading bacteria strains belong to Achromobacter xylosoxidans(strain EN3),Pseudomonas azotoformans(strain EN4),Pseudomonas brassicacearum(strain EN7)and Pseudomonas thivervalensis(strain EN8),respectively.The best degrading strain(EN7),up to 100 mg/L,illustrated a good growth,whereas the growth was reduced in concentration higher than 100 mg/L.The results of gas chromatography confirmed the decomposition of organic pesticide by degrading-bacteria.Conclusions:By using these strains and other biological reclamation methods we can eliminate bio-environmental problems.展开更多
In order to determine the relationship between physiographical factors and regeneration changes in forests, and to improve and model natural regeneration status, Gorazbon district in Kheyrod Forest was selected for th...In order to determine the relationship between physiographical factors and regeneration changes in forests, and to improve and model natural regeneration status, Gorazbon district in Kheyrod Forest was selected for the study. All available regeneration patches in the area were selected. To achieve spatial structure and quantify metrics related to regeneration patches, the analysis of landscape metrics was used. The results show that 692 regeneration patches were identified at the level of different directions. LAND Metric show the most regeneration percent is related to the western (9%), southern (8.66%), flat areas (8.33%), northern (5.68%) and eastern (4.73%), respectively. In total, the patch coverage level percentage was calculated in the landscape (8.31%). The results related to patch shape metric show that most shapes of patches follow polygon structures and do not have fixed shapes. Results related to the average area of the patch metric show that the average level of patches is between 4 and 5 R. The maximum and minimum distance between patches was observed in the survey between 39 and 520 m respectively. According to the results of the distance average between patch metric, the distribution of patches is random in the southern and western directions, flat areas and pile, but it is uniform in northern directions. It should be noted that the distribution and structure of patches in the northern directions has a better distribution and homogeneity than the other directions. Its canals are used as a natural regeneration model to follow the natural phenomena in forest sustainable management.展开更多
基金Supported by Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea funded by the Ministry of Education,Science and Technology,No.2012-0001335
文摘AIM:To investigate lipopolysaccharide(LPS) related signal transduction in interstitial cells of Cajal(ICCs) from mouse small intestine.METHODS:For this study,primary culture of ICCs was prepared from the small intestine of the mouse.LPS was treated to the cells prior to measurement of the membrane currents by using whole-cell patch clamp technique.Immunocytochemistry was used to examine the expression of the proteins in ICCs.RESULTS:LPS suppressed the pacemaker currents of ICCs and this could be blocked by AH6809,a prostaglandin E2-EP2 receptor antagonist or NG-Nitro-Larginine Methyl Ester,an inhibitor of nitric oxide(NO) synthase.Toll-like receptor 4,inducible NO synthase or cyclooxygenase-2 immunoreactivity by specific antibodies was detected on ICCs.Catalase(antioxidant agent) had no action on LPS-induced action in ICCs.LPS actions were blocked by nuclear factor kB(NF-kB) inhibitor,actinomycin D(a gene transcription inhibitor),PD 98059(a p42/44 mitogen-activated protein kinases inhibitor) or SB 203580 [a p38 mitogen-activated protein kinases(MAPK) inhibitor].SB 203580 also blocked the prostaglandin E2-induced action on pacemaker currents in ICCs but not NO.CONCLUSION:LPS inhibit the pacemaker currents in ICCs via prostaglandin E2-and NO-dependent mechanism through toll-like receptor 4 and suggest that MAPK and NF-kB are implicated in these actions.
文摘With the increasing population and the consequent needs for transport facilities, the construction of tunnels in urban environments is fast growing. Tunneling at each depth of the soil, causes changes in the earth’s surface;this is more important about urban areas tunnels, especially when crossing the residential areas, so having knowledge of their performance is really important. Some of the consequences of underground tunneling are earth surface moving around the tunnel, movement of tunnel’s surrounding and changes in earthquake acceleration. The performance and behavior of underground structures have been studied by numerous researchers, but the effect of tunneling on earthquake records and its effects on aboveground structures have been getting less attention. The current article will try to study and examine the changes in seismic velocity at ground level, structural response spectrum, and Fourier spectrum with digging a circular tunnel. The results show that digging a circular tunnel at ground level will cause a change in the earthquake records profile.
文摘According to technology development and relative facilitation in digging and underground structures, ways, highways, all types of tunnels, underground train network, and other underground settle, storage are number of structure built and developed in advanced countries. In most situation, tunnel digging operations are done years after its construction or are not recorded in new structures regulations;therefore, this research investigates soil settlement and inserting force to tunnel coverage by limiting studies about effects of tunnel shapes on soil settlement using Plaxis, Seismo Signal, and Seismo Aspect. This study shows that rectangular tunnel has the most settlement in soil surface and circular tunnel has the least settlement but horseshoe tunnel has similar behavior to circular tunnel;however, earth subsidence level by digging this tunnel is more than circular tunnel. In addition, sectional shape has direct effect on inserting forces on tunnel coverage.
文摘Biochar is normally produced as a by-product of bioenergy. However, if biochar is produced as a co-product with bioenergy from sustainably managed forests and used for soil amendment, it could pro- vide a carbon neutral or even carbon negative solution for current envi- ronmental degradation problems. In this paper, we present a comprehen- sive review of biochar production as a co-product of bioenergy and its implications. We focus on biochar production with reference to biomass availability and sustainability and on bioehar utilization for its soil amendment and greenhouse gas emissions reduction properties. Past studies confirm that northwestern Ontario has a sustainable and sufficient supply of biomass feedstock that can be used to produce bioenergy, with biochar as a co-product that can replace fossil fuel consumption, increase soil productivity and sequester carbon in the long run. For the next step, we recommend that comprehensive life cycle assessment of bio- char-based bioenergy production, from raw material collection to bioehar application, with an extensive economic assessment is necessary for making this technology commercially viable in northwestern Ontario.
基金supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China(32170398,42211540718,32260149,41971071)the Top-notch Young Talents Project of Yunnan Provincial“Ten Thousand Talents Program”(YNWR-QNBJ-2018-146)+5 种基金CAS“Light ofWest China”Program,and Natural Science Foundation of Yunnan(202201AT070222)the Fund of Yunnan Key Laboratory of Crop Wild Relatives Omics(CWR-2024-04)the Jiangxi Provincial Natural Science Foundation(20224BAB215012)the Science and Technology Research Project of Jiangxi Provincial Department of Education(GJJ2202401)Key Research Program of Frontier Sciences,CAS(ZDBSLY-7001)Yunnan Fundamental Research Projects(202201BC070001).
文摘The common walnut(Juglans regia)is one of the most economically important nut trees cultivated worldwide.Despite its importance,no comprehensive evaluation of walnut tree population genetics has been undertaken across the range where it originated,Central Asia.In this study,we investigated the genetic diversity and population structure of 1082 individuals from 46 populations across Central Asia.We found moderate genetic diversity of J.regia across Central Asia,with 46 populations clustered into three groups with a weak relationship between genetic and geographic distance.Our findings reveal that the western Himalaya might be the core region of common walnut genetic diversity in Central Asia and that,except for two populations in Gongliu Wild Walnut Valley,humans might have introduced walnut populations to Xinjiang,China.The observed distribution of the genetic landscape has probably been affected by historical climate fluctuation,breeding system,and prolonged anthropogenic activity.We propose the conservation of the core genetic diversity resources in the western Himalaya and pay special attention to populations from Gongliu in Xinjiang.These findings enhance our understanding of the genetic variation throughout the distribution range of J.regia in Central Asia,which will provide a key prerequisite for evidence-based conservation and management.
文摘Named Entity Recognition aims to identify and to classify rigid designators in text such as proper names, biological species, and temporal expressions into some predefined categories. There has been growing interest in this field of research since the early 1990s. Named Entity Recognition has a vital role in different fields of natural language processing such as Machine Translation, Information Extraction, Question Answering System and various other fields. In this paper, Named Entity Recognition for Nepali text, based on the Support Vector Machine (SVM) is presented which is one of machine learning approaches for the classification task. A set of features are extracted from training data set. Accuracy and efficiency of SVM classifier are analyzed in three different sizes of training data set. Recognition systems are tested with ten datasets for Nepali text. The strength of this work is the efficient feature extraction and the comprehensive recognition techniques. The Support Vector Machine based Named Entity Recognition is limited to use a certain set of features and it uses a small dictionary which affects its performance. The learning performance of recognition system is observed. It is found that system can learn well from the small set of training data and increase the rate of learning on the increment of training size.
基金supported by Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada through Industrial Postgraduate Scholarships(NSERC-IPS)Ontario Graduate Scholarship (OGS)Ontario Power Generation(OPG)
文摘Biochar-based bioenergy production and sub- sequent land application of biochar can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by fixing atmospheric carbon into the soil for a long period of time. A thorough life cycle assessment of biochar-based bioenergy production and biochar land application in Northwestern Ontario is conducted using SimaPro Ver. 8.1. The results of energy consumption and potential environmental impact of biochar-based bioenergy production system are compared with those of conventional coal-based system. Results show that biocbar land application consumes 4847.61 MJ per tonne dry feedstock more energy than conventional system, but reduces the GHG emissions by 68.19 kg CO2e per tonne of dry feed- stock in its life cycle. Biochar land application improves ecosystem quality by 18 %, reduces climate change by 15 %, and resource use by 13 % but may adversely impact on human health by increasing disability adjusted life years by 1.7 % if biomass availability is low to medium. Replacing fossil fuel with woody biomass has a positiveimpact on the environment, as one tonne of dry biomass feedstock when converted to biochar reduces up to 38 kg CO2e with biochar land application despite using more energy. These results will help understand a comprehensive picture of the new interventions in forestry businesses, which are promoting biochar-based bioenergy production.
文摘Spam is a universal problem with which everyone is familiar. A number of approaches are used for Spam filtering. The most common filtering technique is content-based filtering which uses the actual text of message to determine whether it is Spam or not. The content is very dynamic and it is very challenging to represent all information in a mathematical model of classification. For instance, in content-based Spam filtering, the characteristics used by the filter to identify Spam message are constantly changing over time. Na?ve Bayes method represents the changing nature of message using probability theory and support vector machine (SVM) represents those using different features. These two methods of classification are efficient in different domains and the case of Nepali SMS or Text classification has not yet been in consideration;these two methods do not consider the issue and it is interesting to find out the performance of both the methods in the problem of Nepali Text classification. In this paper, the Na?ve Bayes and SVM-based classification techniques are implemented to classify the Nepali SMS as Spam and non-Spam. An empirical analysis for various text cases has been done to evaluate accuracy measure of the classification methodologies used in this study. And, it is found to be 87.15% accurate in SVM and 92.74% accurate in the case of Na?ve Bayes.
文摘Introduction:In Central Himalaya,anthropogenic activities have led to the widespread replacement of Banj oak(Quercus leucotrichophora)forest by Chir pine(Pinus roxburghii)for decades.This study was conducted to determine how natural Banj oak,Chir pine,and mixed oak-pine forest would differ in soil microbial biomass and soil nutrients.Soil microbial biomass nitrogen(SMBN)and phosphorus(SMBP),soil organic carbon(SOC)total nitrogen(TN),and total phosphorus(TP)in the 0 to 15 cm soil layer were investigated in the Central Himalayan region in the stands of Banj oak,mixed oak-pine,and Chir pine forest.Results:The SMBN and SMBP were significantly higher in Banj oak and mixed oak-pine forest as compared to Chir pine forest.The ratios of SMBN to TN(SMBN/TN)and SMBP to TP(SMBP/TP)were significantly higher in the Chir pine forest,indicating that in this forest,the proportion of microbial biomass N and P to total soil N and P was higher as compared to Banj oak forest.A similar pattern of variation was found in relation to season across the forests,all with an apparent peak in the rainy season.Conclusion:These results indicate that low microbial biomass N and P may be one of the reasons to create a nutrient poor site in Chir pine forest.The collection of pine litter by local people also impairs the return of nutrients to the soil and makes it difficult for Banj oak to re-invade areas occupied by Chir pine.This calls for cautions in large-scale conversions of the Banj oak forests to coniferous plantations as a forest management practice on concerns of sustaining soil productivity.
基金a part of broad project,‘Lakehead University-FPInnovations- Forintek Division:Partnership Development
文摘This study aims at exploring the technical efficiency of lum- ber industry in northwestern Ontario, Canada using data envelopment analysis （DEA）. The DEA model analyzes relative technical efficiency of lumber mills with disproportionate inputs and outputs by dividing the 10- year time series data, for inputs and outputs of 24 lumber mills, over two periods （1999-2003 and 2004-2008）. Four inputs, namely, material （log volume）, labour （man-hours）, two types of energy （hog-fuel and electric- ity）, and one output （lumber volume） are used in this study. The trend analysis shows an annual reduction of 10%, 13% and 13% for lumber output, log consumption （input） and number of employees, respectively, during the period 1999-2008. The results from DEA with two scenarios with energy inputs and without energy inputs, for the two periods are found to be mixed and interesting. While some mills have improved their performance in terms of best use of available scarce inputs in the second period, some have shown negative per cent change in efficiency. In the with energy input and the without energy input scenario, some of the mills show a reduction in efficiency in the second period from the first period, with the highest estimated reductions of-13.9% and -47.6%, respectively. A possible explanation for these negative performances of mills in the latter period is the decline in production in the second period compared to the first period, where these mills were not able to adjust their inputs （mostly labour） as proportional lay-offs might not have been possible. These results provide policy makers and industry stakeholders with an improved understanding of the trends of efficiency and employ- ment as well as reallocation opportunities of future inputs in order to increase benefits from this sector.
文摘Prediction of pollination stages in oil palm plantations is an important research area in precision agriculture.Oil palm is known as the most efficient commercial crop with the capacity to fulfill the growing global demand for vegetable oil consumption.However,oil palm production dependence on pollination is experiencing issues with decreasing the actual yield.Consequently,alternative methods in commercial plantations such as humanassisted pollination and recently Wireless Sensor Network(WSN)have been deployed despite their high economic costs due to labor requirements.Oil palm assisted pollination requires precision,inspection,traceability,and validation processes in the field.Currently,all these processes are performed by humans that can be associated with false assumptions,uncertainty,and pollination latency.Therefore,Machine Learning(ML)approaches as a subset of the Artificial Intelligence(AI)domain provides efficient,cost-effective,and non-destructive solutions to determine these reproductive stages for future autonomous pollination system.Our goal was to reduce the variability of worker’s performance in oil palms,using ML algorithms to make expert decisions and reduce the risk related to a transient workforce.This comparative empirical study examined and compared the performance of the Random Forest(RF)against k Nearest Neighbor(kNN)and Support Vector Machine(SVM)for classification of oil palm pre-anthesis and anthesis stages,dividing into four classes(1,2,3,and 4).These models were tested using thermal features(endogenous)individually and in combination with meteorological variables(exogenous).The performance of models is evaluated with specific measures of performance,such as overall user’s and producer’s accuracies and F-measure values derived from the confusion matrix.The results showed that the RF model produced better results with regard to average Fmeasure(88.6%,71.83%),producer’s accuracies(88.70%,71.35%),and user’s accuracies(88.27%,72.36%)on test sets using exogenous+exogenous and endoge
文摘A new type of gain flattening filter for amplified spontaneous emission （ASE） source based on erbium doped fiber （EDF） is proposed and demonstrated by fabricating and writing two series ultra-long period fiber grating （ULPFG） on single mode fiber （SMF-28）. The novelty method in this research is based on writing the two ULPFGs as fat gratings. The LPG is written by a simple and available arc-discharge method. The pump power based on single-pass backward pump configuration is around 100mW, and the average wavelength is near to 974nm. The gain flattening profile is obtained by 3.4 （±1.7）dB ripple in the wavelength range between 1524nm and 1565nm with 41-nm band width.
基金Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada through Industrial Postgraduate Scholarships(NSERC-IPS)Ontario Graduate Scholarship(OGS)Ontario Power Generation(OPG)
文摘Background： Replacement of fossil fuel based energy with biochar-based bioenergy production can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions while mitigating the adverse impacts of climate change and global warming. However, the production of biochar-based bioenergy depends on a sustainable supply of biomass. Although, Northwestern Ontario has a rich and sustainable supply of woody biomass, a comprehensive life cycle cost and economic assessment of biochar-based bioenergy production technology has not been done so far in the region. Methods： In this paper, we conducted a thorough life cycle cost assessment （LCCA） of biochar-based bioenergy production and its land application under four different scenarios： 1） biochar production with low feedstock availability; 2） biochar production with high feedstock availability; 3） biochar production with low feedstock availability and its land application; and 4） biochar production with high feedstock availability and its land applicationusing SimaPro, EIOLCA software and spreadsheet modeling. Based on the LCCA results, we further conducted an economic assessment for the break-even and viability of this technology over the project period. Results： It was found that the economic viability of biochar-based bioenergy production system within the life cycle analysis system boundary based on study assumptions is directly dependent on costs of pyrolysis, feedstock processing （drying, grinding and pelletization） and collection on site and the value of total carbon offset provided by the system. Sensitivity analysis of transportation distance and different values of C offset showed that the system is profitable in case of high biomass availability within 200 km and when the cost of carbon sequestration exceeds CAD S60 per tonne of equivalent carbon （CO2e）. Conclusions： Biochar-based bioenergy system is economically viable when life cycle costs and environmental assumptions are accounted for. This study provides a medium scale slow-pyrolysis plant scenario and we
基金financially supported by Kerman Branch,Islamic Azad University,Kerman,Iran.
文摘Objective:To isolate and characterize endosulfan-degrading bacteria from Kerman pistachio orchards.Methods:Endosulfan-degrading bacteria were enriched in Bushnell-Hass medium.Identification and sequencing of prevalent degrading strains was performed by using PCR based on amplifying 16S rDNA.Results:The results showed that the soils of pistachio orchards have some degrading bacteria that are suitable for elimination of endosulfan from soils and the environment.Four endosulfandegrading bacteria strains belong to Achromobacter xylosoxidans(strain EN3),Pseudomonas azotoformans(strain EN4),Pseudomonas brassicacearum(strain EN7)and Pseudomonas thivervalensis(strain EN8),respectively.The best degrading strain(EN7),up to 100 mg/L,illustrated a good growth,whereas the growth was reduced in concentration higher than 100 mg/L.The results of gas chromatography confirmed the decomposition of organic pesticide by degrading-bacteria.Conclusions:By using these strains and other biological reclamation methods we can eliminate bio-environmental problems.
文摘In order to determine the relationship between physiographical factors and regeneration changes in forests, and to improve and model natural regeneration status, Gorazbon district in Kheyrod Forest was selected for the study. All available regeneration patches in the area were selected. To achieve spatial structure and quantify metrics related to regeneration patches, the analysis of landscape metrics was used. The results show that 692 regeneration patches were identified at the level of different directions. LAND Metric show the most regeneration percent is related to the western (9%), southern (8.66%), flat areas (8.33%), northern (5.68%) and eastern (4.73%), respectively. In total, the patch coverage level percentage was calculated in the landscape (8.31%). The results related to patch shape metric show that most shapes of patches follow polygon structures and do not have fixed shapes. Results related to the average area of the patch metric show that the average level of patches is between 4 and 5 R. The maximum and minimum distance between patches was observed in the survey between 39 and 520 m respectively. According to the results of the distance average between patch metric, the distribution of patches is random in the southern and western directions, flat areas and pile, but it is uniform in northern directions. It should be noted that the distribution and structure of patches in the northern directions has a better distribution and homogeneity than the other directions. Its canals are used as a natural regeneration model to follow the natural phenomena in forest sustainable management.
