Regular Application Research Articles

On a Stochastic Approach to Extensions of the Susceptible‐Infected‐Susceptible (SIS) Model Applied to Malaria

This work presents a stochastic model of malaria spread. We first calculated the basic reproduction number R0 of the models (ShIhRhSh‐SvIv) and (ShLhIhRhSh‐SvLvIv) in order to show that the malaria‐free equilibrium is asymptotically stable; then, we used a finite Markov chain model to describe the interactions between the different compartments of the model (SeLeIeReSe‐SaLaIaRaSa‐SvIv). We carried out numerical simulations of our results for two types of transmission zones: a zone with low malaria transmission and an endemic zone. Through these simulations, we first determined the invariant stationary distribution π∗ of the model, and then, we found that the use of the indoor residual spraying (IRS) method by regular application of insecticides is more effective for the elimination of malaria than the use of long‐acting impregnated mosquito nets (LLINs).

Soil health and carbon storage in community gardens in the Perth metropolitan area, Australia

AbstractCommunity gardens, as common spaces where people gather to grow food, help foster public health, greener urban environments, life‐long learning and vibrant communities. However, despite being promoted as sustainable horticulture and conservation agriculture, their soil health and carbon (C) sequestration potential, with implication for climate change mitigation, remains underexplored. This study assessed soil samples collected from raised beds (gardening area) and adjacent bare ground (control) at six community gardens in the Perth metropolitan area, Australia. These sites covered three soil mapping units (SMUs): calcareous deep sands, coloured sand and pale sands The soil in raised beds exhibited superior characteristics than surrounding urban soil including lower bulk density, higher pH buffering capacity, available nutrients including nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K), cation exchange capacity (CEC), total C and microbial biomass. Notably, we estimated that raised bed soils accumulated significant levels of C in the top 10 cm layer (0.55 kg/m2 or 5.5 T/ha). Our findings also indicate no significant heavy metal contamination in any of the community garden soils. Although the global area of community gardens is marginally small, these results suggest they hold potential for carbon sequestration, especially in urban and peri‐urban environments. The improved soil health and C storage potential in community garden soil are largely attributed to the regular application of compost produced within the community gardens.

Smartphone-Based Fluorescent Profiling of Quaternary MicroRNAs in Urine for Rapid Diagnosis of Urological Cancers Using a Multiplexed Isothermal Exponential Amplification Reaction.

Urological cancers such as bladder or prostate cancer represent one of the most malignant tumors that accounts for an extremely high mortality. However, conventionally standard diagnostics for urological cancers are hardly available in low-resource settings. We developed herein a hand-held fluorescent imaging platform by integrating a multiplexed isothermal exponential amplification reaction (EXPAR) with a microgel-enriched methodology for sensitive profiling of quaternary microRNAs (miRNAs) in urine and quick diagnosis of urological cancers at the early stage. The target miRNA mixtures in the urine underwent four parallel EXPARs without cross-reactivity, followed by surface concentration and hybridization by the encoded polyacrylamide microgels. This mix-and-read strategy allowed for one-pot analysis of several key miRNAs simultaneously and provided 5-fold enhancement in fluorescent detection sensitivities compared to the individual EXPAR-based assays. Four urinary miRNAs (let-7a, miRNA-155, -223, and -143) could be quantitatively determined in a wide linear range from 50 fM to 30 nM, with the limits of detection at femtomolar levels. Using a smartphone-based imaging microreader, healthy and cancerous cohorts with prostate, bladder, and renal cell cancers could be discriminated in 30 min with the accuracy >83% using linear discriminant analysis. The developed detection platform has proven to be a portable, noninvasive, and useful complement to the toolbox for miRNA-based liquid biopsies, which holds immense potential and advantage for regular and large-scale applications in early cancer diagnosis.

Surface profile measurement using nonlinear optimization approach in diffraction phase microscopy

Nanoscale measurement of surface profile has important application in the field of non-destructive surface testing and evaluation. We propose a nonlinear optimization based phase retrieval approach in diffraction phase microscopy for nanoscale surface profile measurement. The proposed approach relies on minimizing an objective function derived from the interferogram signal and the application of total variation regularization. The performance of the method is demonstrated via numerical simulations for processing interferograms affected by sharp phase variations, noise and non-uniform amplitude fluctuations. In addition, the practical application of the method is validated for nanoscale surface topography by processing experimental interferograms obtained in diffraction phase microscopy.

Bacillus subtilis engineered for topical delivery of an antifungal agent.

Fungal skin infections are a common condition affecting 20-25 percent of the world population. While these conditions are treatable with regular application of an antifungal medication, we sought to develop a more convenient, longer-lasting topical antifungal platform that could increase patient adherence to treatment regimens by using Bacillus subtilis, a naturally antifungal bacteria found on the skin, for drug production and delivery. In this study, we engineered B. subtilis for increased production of the antifungal lipopeptide iturin A by overexpression of the pleiotropic regulator DegQ. The engineered strain had an over 200% increase in iturin A production as detected by HPLC, accompanied by slower growth but the same terminal cell density as determined by absorbance measurements of liquid culture. In an in vitro antifungal assay, we found that despite its higher iturin A production, the engineered strain was less effective at reducing the growth of a plug of the pathogenic fungus Trichophyton mentagrophytes on an agar plate compared to the parent strain. The reduced efficacy of the engineered strain may be explained by its reduced growth rate, which highlights the need to address trade-offs between titers (e.g. measured drug production) and other figures of merit (e.g. growth rate) during metabolic engineering.

Precise temperature reconstruction in acoustic pyrometry: Impact of domain discretization and transceiver count

The present study delves into the complex relationship of domain discretization and transceiver allocation in enhancing the accuracy of acoustic pyrometry. Six distinct cases encompassing variations in resolution and transceiver numbers are examined. Each case involves the central and edge region cell size adjustments ranging from coarse to fine, achieved through bias factor. The temperature reconstruction process is evaluated with three different intricate temperature profiles. In the present study, two inverse methodologies namely, pseudo-inverse and Tikhonov regularization are critically evaluated in the presence of 5% and 10% additive noise. Findings highlighted the decisive role of the bias factor in influencing the accuracy of the reconstructed temperature profiles while understanding the significant impact of discretization error. Across various noise conditions, instances where the transceiver count matches the number of domain cells exhibit exceptional performance when employing the pseudo-inverse approach. Conversely, the strategic application of Tikhonov regularization emerges as a potent strategy, resulting in a substantial reduction of reconstruction errors across multiple orders of magnitude. This reduction along with the role of bias factor not only paves the way for a judicious reduction in transceiver count without compromising resolution and overall reconstruction accuracy, but also offers a new dimension to the advancement of acoustic pyrometry.

Renormalization in a wavelet basis

Discrete wavelet-based techniques hold the potential to establish a robust framework for the non-perturbative examination of quantum field theories. This study explores facets of renormalization within theories investigated through the wavelet-based framework. We showcase the non-perturbative application of regularization, renormalization, and the emergence of a flowing coupling constant within this framework. This is assessed using a model of a particle in an attractive 2-dimensional Dirac delta function potential in two spatial dimensions. This model is recognized for demonstrating fundamental features encountered in typical relativistic quantum field theories.

Harmful Impact of Synthetic Fertilizers on Growing Agriculture and Environment

Soil provides essential environmental benefits for life as well as crucial for nutrition and survival of plants. Management of soil health is a critical practice for the preservation of biodiversity and to ensure long-term agricultural production. Scientific management of soil health is an important step for ecosystem sustainability. Some of the important factors like physicochemical and biological parameters that influence soil health. Fertilizers are heavily used in modern farming practices to control unavoidable challenges being faced in Agriculture. Nonetheless, they remain critical tools for global food safety. Sustainable agriculture practices have been used on a global scale by reducing the negative consequences of chemical fertilizers because they drop in soil organic content as well as decline soil quality. They also harden soil, reducing soil fertility, depleting vital soil mineral nutrients, polluting air, water and soil all of which poses serious environmental hazard. Microbial activity in the cropping system has become low due to the application of chemical fertilizers alone. Regular application of chemical fertilizers can alter soil pH, increase resistance in pests, acidification of soil crust resulting in decreased organic matter and stunted plant growth. Hence, Long-term persistence of chemical fertilizers in the soil harms the biodiversity of soil. Present review paper deals with functioning and role of mineral elements in plant growth and development. Various types of organic and synthetic fertilizers are involved in fulfillment of basic needs of plants. Soil with poor nutrient content needs different types of fertilizers for regulation of physiochemical cycle of plants. The literature reviewed information suggested that our agriculture sector has not been dependent on synthetic fertilizers for plant growth and development i.e., directly linked with the crop productivity at industrial level. Chemicals associated synthetic fertilizers have been harmful for plant health and this will lead to drastic health damaging effect on new generations. In this way we again need to focus on development of natural fertilizers with their environmentally friendly inputs and health promoting activity.

The Fabrication and Characterization of Silicon Surface Grooving Using the CV Etching Technique for Front Deep Metallic Contact Solar Cells

This study experimentally investigated the use of the chemical vapor etching method for silicon surface grooving for regular front deep metallic contact solar cell applications. The thickness of silicon wafers is a crucial parameter in the production of solar cells with front and back buried contacts, because silicon surface grooves result in a larger contact area, which in turn improves carrier collection and increases the collection probability for minority carriers. A simple, low-cost HNO3/HF chemical vapor etching technique was used to create grooves on silicon wafers with the help of a highly effective anti-acid mask. The thick porous layer of powder that was produced was easily dissolved in water, leaving patterned grooved areas on the silicon substrate. A linear dependence was observed between the etched thickness and time, suggesting that the etching process followed a constant etch rate, something that is crucial for ensuring precise and reproducible etching results for the semiconductor and microfabrication industries. Moreover, by creating shorter pathways for charge carriers to travel to their respective contacts, front deep contacts minimize the overall distance they need to traverse and therefore reduce the chance of carrier recombination within the silicon material. As a result, the internal quantum efficiency of solar cells with front deep metallic contacts improved by 35% compared to mc-Si solar cells having planar contacts. The use of front deep contacts therefore represents a forward-looking strategy for improving the performance of silicon solar cells. Indeed, this innovative electrode configuration improves charge carrier collection, mitigates recombination losses, and ultimately leads to more efficient and effective solar energy conversion, which contributes to sustainable energy development in the areas of clean energy resources. Further work needs to be undertaken to develop energy sustainably and consider other clean energy resources.

Biochar preparation and its effects with reduced compound fertilizer on nutrients, phenolic acid and fungal community in tobacco rhizosphere soil

Biochar is a carbon-rich soil conditioner produced from pyrolysis of biomass, it has been widely used to enhance soil quality because of its physical adsorption as well as water and fertilizer conservation functions. This work aimed to improve the soil quality of continuously cropped flue-cured tobacco fields using biochar prepared from agricultural waste. To explore the impact of reduced compound fertilizer with biochar application on nutrients, phenolic acid contents and fungi diversity in the rhizosphere soil, 4 treatments were set: regular compound fertilizer application (T1), and biochar with reduced compound fertilizer in different proportions (T2, T3, T4, with 100, 75, 50% of compound fertilizer, respectively). The physicochemical properties of the prepared biochar were characterized and observed using electron microscopy. The results indicated that, a noticeable increase in the content of soil organic matter (SOM) and soil organic carbon (SOC) in T2 treatment compared to T1 treatment. Moreover, T2 treatment demonstrated a significant improvement in the contents of alkali-hydrolyzable nitrogen (AN), available phosphorus (AP), and available potassium (AK), with increases of 9.29%, 15.85% and 25.42% compared to T1 treatment, respectively. While a gradual decrease in soil AN, AP, and AK content was observed with the reduction of compound fertilizer application (T2–T4), there was no obvious difference between T3 and T1. For total phenolic acid, the content in T2 treatment significantly decreased by 35.99% compared to T1 treatment, while T3 and T4 treatments showed significant reductions of 15.30 and 18.73% respectively, compared to T2 treatment. Biochar application could enhance the fungal community’s abundance and diversity in the rhizosphere soil. Fungal community exhibited the highest richness under T3 treatment, while the relative abundance ofFusariumandMortierellareduced as the decrease of compound fertilizer (T2–T4). In conclusion, the reduced compound fertilizer with biochar application could reduce nutrient loss, phenolic acids accumulation, and improving the abundance of fungal community in the rhizosphere soil. This paper provides a reference for biochar combined with compound fertilizer to improve soil from the regulation of allelochemicals and soil fungi.

Management of Melasma through <i>Ayurveda</i> – A Case Report

Melasma is a pigmentary disorder hyperpigmentation primarily occurring on the cheeks, forehead, and bridge on the nose, upper lip, and occasionally elsewhere on the face. It is painless, superficial brownish macular patches. Modern science recommends laser therapy and various types of steroid use for treating melasma. Laser therapy is very expensive, and steroids have many side effects. So, in this study management of melasma has been done through Ayurveda, which is cost-effective, and easily available with the least side effects. From the signs and symptoms, melasma looks identical to Vyanga as per Ayurvedic texts that come under Kshudraroga (minor disease). In Ayurveda, external therapy Lepa (local application), is prescribed as one of the therapeutic measures for effectively managing melasma. A 32-year-old female patient was diagnosed clinically with melasma. She got treatment from a dermatologist and applied an allopathic care cream over the brownish patches. After regular application of the cream, a brownish patch does not decrease. She has no history of sunray exposure and has no family history. So, she went to Ayurvedic treatment. She was treated with Ayurvedic Lepa for local application and Panchanimbadi Churna internally for 21 days. The content of Ayurvedic Lepa was Nutmeg (Myristica fragrans Houtt.) Churna (powder), and Dugdha (milk). In ancient science, Nutmeg is known by the name of Jatiphala. Nutmeg is a very useful drug utilized therapeutically, and spice and Panchanimbadi are useful in all types of Raktavikara (blood disorders). The result was assessed with subjective and objective parameters, i.e., colour score and MASI score. After 21 days of treatment, significant changes were observed without any side effects. The colour score decreases from 3 to 1, and the MASI score from 15.2 to 10.1.

Influence of perfluorohexyloctane (Evotears®) on higher order aberrations

PurposeTo prospectively assess the effect of regular application of perfluorohexyloctane (F6H8; Evotears®) on the tear film lipid layer, higher order aberrations (HOA) and the repeatability of measurements in healthy eyes.MethodsThis prospective clinical study included 104 eyes treated with F6H8 four times daily for four weeks (group A) and 101 eyes that served as controls (group B). Measurements were performed with the WASCA aberrometer (Carl Zeiss Meditec GmbH, Jena, Germany). Main outcome measurement in addition to subjective refraction were the root mean square values of HOA measured before and after the intervention.ResultsRegular use of F6H8 over a period of four weeks significantly increases HOA in healthy eyes (p < 0.05). In addition, the repeatability of measurement increases after the application of F6H8.ConclusionF6H8 may be a suitable treatment option to improve the accuracy of refractive assessment, although it increases HOA. Further studies are needed to confirm the effect on HOA and the repeatability of measurement.

PHONOLOGY OF ACEHNESE REDUPLICATION: APPLYING OPTIMALITY THEORY

Reduplication in Acehnese serves many functions, such as plurality, reciprocity, emphasis, continuity, and repetitions. This word formation process has been previously analyzed in terms of morphology and phonology. The present study aimed to discover the constraint ordering of reduplication to determine the rules that govern each pattern of reduplication in the language. The study employed Correspondence Theory under the umbrella of Optimality Theory, focusing on total and partial reduplication, leaving out rhyming reduplication due to framework limitation. The results show that all patterns of reduplication in Acehnese follow regular application where well-formedness proceeds faithfulness (MAX-IO) and precedes reduplicative identity (MAX-BR). The well-formedness for total reduplication only includes the constraint of the complex nucleus, where a final diphthong in the base changes to a monophthong in the reduplicant. For partial reduplication, the constraint for well-formedness is that the syllable should be open, preceded by a reduplicant size of no more than one syllable, and alignment (either left for reduplicating prefixes or right for reduplicating suffixes). In addition, the well-formedness is proceeded by no insertion (DEP-BR). This study indicates the need to establish a ranking of constraints that govern the phonology of Acehnese outside the context of reduplication, which is a suggestion for future studies.

Automated crack detection on metallic materials with flying-spot thermography using deep learning and progressive training

ABSTRACT In non-destructive testing for metallic materials, ‘Flying-spot’ thermography allows the detection of cracks thanks to the scanning of samples by a local laser heat source observed in the infrared spectrum. However, distinguishing a crack from other surface structures such as air ducts or non-planar shapes on the material surface can be challenging in an automation perspective. To address this, we propose to use deep learning techniques, which can exploit contextual information but require a significant amount of labelled data. This study presents a training method based on curriculum learning and recent denoising diffusion models to generate synthetic images. The protocol progressively increases the complexity of training images, using successively simulated data from a multi-physics finite-element software, synthetically generated data with diffusion process, and finally real data. Several detection scores are measured for various machine learning and deep learning architectures, demonstrating the benefits of the proposed approach for regular application cases and degraded experimental conditions, consisting of limited thermal enlightenment recordings.

Development and Evaluation of a Novel Anti-Ageing Cream Based on Hyaluronic Acid and Other Innovative Cosmetic Actives.

The importance of incorporating hyaluronic acid (HA) as a cosmetic ingredient in skin care formulations emerged lately because the amount of HA naturally found in the epidermis decreases with age, and when applied to the skin through cosmetic products, it confers hydration and reduces the appearance of wrinkles. Currently, the diversity of cosmetic products for mature skin and the use of various and innovative active ingredients supporting their anti-ageing effect represent ample proof that the cosmetic industry is currently relying on these actives. The main objective of this study was the development of an anti-ageing formulation, incorporating HA and different other active ingredients. The developed formulation contains a novel complex of natural waxes, with an essential role in the restoration of the skin's hydro-lipid barrier, in combination with innovative active ingredients-like low-molecular hyaluronic acid (LMW-HA), sodium hyaluronate (NaHA), ectoin, gold, and an anti-ageing botanical complex-contributing to optimal skin hydration specifically designed to reduce the visible signs of ageing. An important objective was represented by the skin compatibility and topography assessment after 28 days (D28) of regular application of the developed cream. Stability testing, physicochemical characteristics, and microbiological control, including efficacy testing of the used preservative (challenge test) were performed for the cosmetic formulation. In silico approaches were applied to demonstrate the safety of cosmetic-related substances and the risk assessment of the cosmetic formulation. Safety and instrumental evaluation were performed to demonstrate the skin tolerance-the compatibility and the efficacy, respectively-of the developed anti-ageing cream. As result, quality control of the developed cosmetic formulation evidenced an appropriate cosmetic preparation with desirable aspect and adequate physicochemical characteristics. The concentrations of restricted ingredients like preservatives and UV filters were in accordance with those recommended by the Regulation (EC) No. 1223/2009 and so were considered to be safe. Additionally, according to the margin of safety (MoS) calculation, cosmetic ingredients incorporated in the developed formulation could be considered safe. The developed formulation was very well tolerated, and wrinkle depth and length in the periorbital area were significantly reduced after 28-day cosmetic treatment. Subjects' assessment questionnaires revealed self-perceived benefits referring to the cosmetic qualities and efficacy of the anti-ageing cream. This study confirmed the skin tolerance and efficacy of the new complex anti-ageing cream incorporating HA, microencapsulated sodium hyaluronate, ectoin, and a botanical extract. The formulated cosmetic product could serve as a daily care for mature skin to alleviate the effects of skin ageing.

Application of Sparse Regularization in Spherical Radial Basis Functions-Based Regional Geoid Modeling in Colorado

Spherical radial basis function (SRBF) is an effective method for calculating regional gravity field models. Calculating gravity field models with high accuracy and resolution requires dense basis functions, resulting in complex models. This study investigated the application of sparse regularization in SRBFs-based regional gravity field modeling. L1-norm regularization, also known as the least absolute shrinkage selection operator (LASSO), was employed in the parameter estimation procedure. LASSO differs from L2-norm regularization in that the solution obtained by LASSO is sparse, specifically with a portion of the parameters being zero. A sparse model would be advantageous for improving the numerical efficiency by reducing the number of SRBFs. The optimization problem of the LASSO was solved using the fast iterative shrinkage threshold algorithm, which is known for its high efficiency. The regularization parameter was selected using the Akaike information criterion. It was specifically tailored to the L1-norm regularization problem. An approximate covariance matrix of the estimated parameters in the sparse solution was analytically constructed from a Bayesian viewpoint. Based on the remove–compute–restore technique, a regional geoid model of Colorado (USA) was calculated. The numerical results suggest that the LASSO adopted in this study provided competitive results compared to Tikhonov regularization; however, the number of basis functions in the final model was less than 25% of the Tikhonov regularization. Without significantly reducing model accuracy, the LASSO solution provides a very simple model. This is the first study to apply the LASSO to SRBFs-based modeling of the regional gravity field in real gravity observation data.

Super Visa Program: Immigration Policy Changes and Social Injustice under the Neoliberal Governmentality in Canada

Abstract:&#x0D; In November 2011, Citizenship and Immigration Canada paused the parents/grandparents (PGP) sponsorship immigration and announced a new Super Visa program simultaneously to facilitate family reunification, specifically among older adults waiting to be reunified with their children in Canada. We conducted a qualitative study to understand the experiences of immigrant families with the Super Visa Program. In total, 19 semi-structured interviews were conducted in Toronto with Chinese immigrants and parents holding a Super Visa. Our findings revealed that Super Visa program is helpful for family reunification, especially for those whose regular visa applications are not successful. However, Super Visa is still a visitor visa and parents/grandparents have to leave after a maximum of two years. This temporary status of their parents does not promote among immigrants a sense of belonging in Canada, but reinforces their feeling of being treated as “foreigner”. They also debunked the stigma that older parents/grandparents come to Canada for better welfare and are non-contributor and a burden to Canadian society. We observe older parents/grandparents are categorized as “undesirable” and their unpaid contributions to immigrant family and Canada society are rendered invisible. We argue there exits an inherent link between PGP policy changes and social injustice. Behind the negative portrayal of older parents/grandparents and policy changes on them is State’s neoliberal governmentality grounded upon market norms and mechanism. The immigration and social injustice inflicting on older PGP migrants manifests that neoliberal immigration regime is still structurally raced, gendered, classed, and may be intertwined with other stigmatizing dynamics such as ageist, ableist etc. within the State’s power relationship.&#x0D;

One-time application of controlled-release bulk blending fertilizer enhances yield, quality and photosynthetic efficiency in late japonica rice

Controlled-release urea (CRU) releases nitrogen (N) at the same pace that rice takes it up, which can effectively improve N use efficiency, increase rice yield and improve rice quality. However, few studies have described the effects of CRU application on the photosynthetic rate and endogenous enzyme activities of rice. Accordingly, a two-year field trial was conducted with a total of seven treatments: CK, no N fertilizer; BBF, regular blended fertilizer; RBBF, 20% N-reduced regular blended fertilizer; CRF1, 70% CRU+30% regular urea one-time base application; CRF2, 60% CRU+40% regular urea one-time base application; RCRF1, CRF1 treatment with 20% N reduction; and RCRF2, CRF2 treatment with 20% N reduction. Each treatment was conducted in triplicate. The results showed that the N recovery efficiency (NRE) of the controlled-release bulk blending fertilizer (CRBBF) treatments was significantly greater over the two years. There were significant yield increases of 4.1–5.9% under the CRF1 treatment and 5.6–7.6% under the CRF2 treatment compared to the BBF treatment, but the differences between the reduced-N treatments RBBF and RCRF2 were not significant. Photosynthetic rates under the CRF1 and CRF2 treatments were significantly higher than under the other treatments, and they had significantly greater RuBPCase, RuBisCO, glutamate synthase (GOGAT) and glutamine synthetase (GS) enzyme activities. Additionally, the soil NH4+-N and NO3−-N contents under the CRBBF treatments were significantly higher at the late growth stage of rice, which was more in-line with the fertilizer requirements of rice throughout the reproductive period. CRBBF also led to some improvement in rice quality. Compared with the BBF and RBBF treatments, the protein contents under the CRBBF treatments were reduced but the milling, appearance, eating and cooking qualities of the rice were improved. These results showed that the application of CRBBF can improve the NRE, photosynthetic rate and endogenous enzyme activities of rice, ensuring sufficient N nutrition and photosynthetic material production during rice growth and thereby achieving improved rice yield and quality.

Features of growing new cultivars of annual flowering plants in Kola Subarctic

Annual flower plants are widely used in landscaping of cities of Kola Subarctic. The selection of sustainable, promising species of annuals and the development of agricultural technology for their cultivation are priorities. For the first time in the conditions of the Murmansk region, 7 new cultivars of annuals were tested: Callistephus chinensis (L.) Nees cv. Fan var. Deep rose and White, Antirrhinum majus L. cv. Potomac Cherry Rose, Calendula officinalis L. cv. Costa Yellow and cv. Calypso Orange with Black Center, Tagetes erecta L. cv. Big Top Gold, Tagetes patula L. cv. Hot Pack Gold and cv. Alumia Cream Brulee. Flowering time ranged from 55 (Callistephus chinensis cv. Fan) to 120 days (Calendula officinalis cv. Calypso Orange with Black Center). The main biometric indicators (height, diameter of flowers and inflorescences) fully corresponded to plants grown in more southern regions for 4 cultivars (Callistephus chinensis cv. Fan, Calendula officinalis cv. Costa Yellow and cv. Calypso Orange with Black Center, Tagetes patula cv. Hot Pack Gold), 3 others were rated lower. According to most indicators, the cultivar Calypso Orange with Black Center had high decorativeness, due to compactness of bushes and duration of flowering (120 days). The features of agricultural technology of the tested cultivars at the seedling stage were the following: adjustment of timing of sowing seeds, obligatory 3-4-week hardening, regular application of fertilizers and growth stimulants. On the whole, the new cultivars have successfully adapted to the conditions of the region, retaining their decorative properties. therefore, they can be considered promising for flower decoration of populated areas of the Kola Subarctic.

A Chinese–Kazakh Translation Method That Combines Data Augmentation and R-Drop Regularization

Low-resource languages often face the problem of insufficient data, which leads to poor quality in machine translation. One approach to address this issue is data augmentation. Data augmentation involves creating new data by transforming existing data through methods such as flipping, cropping, rotating, and adding noise. Traditionally, pseudo-parallel corpora are generated by randomly replacing words in low-resource language machine translation. However, this method can introduce ambiguity, as the same word may have different meanings in different contexts. This study proposes a new approach for low-resource language machine translation, which involves generating pseudo-parallel corpora by replacing phrases. The performance of this approach is compared with other data augmentation methods, and it is observed that combining it with other data augmentation methods further improves performance. To enhance the robustness of the model, R-Drop regularization is also used. R-Drop is an effective method for improving the quality of machine translation. The proposed method was tested on Chinese–Kazakh (Arabic script) translation tasks, resulting in performance improvements of 4.99 and 7.7 for Chinese-to-Kazakh and Kazakh-to-Chinese translations, respectively. By combining the generation of pseudo-parallel corpora through phrase replacement with the application of R-Drop regularization, there is a significant advancement in machine translation performance for low-resource languages.