Code smells indicate problems in design or code which makes software hard to change and maintain. It has become a sign of software systems that cause complications in maintaining software quality. ...The detection of harmful code smells which deteriorate the software quality has resulted in a favourable shift in interest among researchers. Therefore, a significant research towards analysing the impact of code smells on software quality has been conducted over the last few years. This study aims at reporting a systematic literature review of such existing empirical studies investigate the impact of code smells on software quality attributes. The results indicate that the impact of code smells on software quality is not uniform as different code smells have the opposite effect on different software quality attributes. The findings of this review will provide the awareness to the researchers and a practitioner regarding the impact of code smells on software quality. It would be more advantageous to conduct further studies that consider less explored code smells, least or not investigated quality attributes, involve industry researchers and use large commercial software systems.
Abstract
Malnutrition affects growth and development in humans and causes socio-economic losses. Normal maize is deficient in essential amino acids, lysine and tryptophan; and vitamin-A. Crop ...biofortification is a sustainable and economical approach to alleviate micronutrient malnutrition. We combined favorable alleles of
crtRB1
and
lcyE
genes into
opaque2
(
o2
)-based four inbreds viz
.
QLM11, QLM12, QLM13, and QLM14 using marker-assisted backcross breeding. These are parents of quality protein maize versions of two elite hybrids viz
.
Buland and PMH1, grown in India. Gene-based SSRs for
o2
and InDel markers for
crtRB1
and
lcyE
were successfully employed for foreground selection in BC
1
F
1
, BC
2
F
1
, and BC
2
F
2
generations. The recurrent parent genome recovery ranged from 88.9 to 96.0% among introgressed progenies. Kernels of pyramided lines possessed a high concentration of proA (7.14–9.63 ppm), compared to 1.05 to 1.41 ppm in the recurrent parents, while lysine and tryptophan ranged from 0.28–0.44% and 0.07–0.09%, respectively. The reconstituted hybrids (RBuland and RPMH1) showed significant enhancement of endosperm proA (6.97–9.82 ppm), tryptophan (0.07–0.09%), and lysine (0.29–0.43%), while grain yield was at par with their original versions. The dissemination of reconstituted hybrids holds significant promise to alleviate vitamin-A deficiency and protein-energy malnutrition in developing countries.
Face detection is important part of face recognition system. In face recognition, face detection is taken not so seriously. Face detection is taken for granted; primarily focus is on face ...recognition. Also, many challenges associated with face detection, increases the value of TN (True Negative). A lot of work has been done in field of face recognition. But in field of face detection, especially with problems of face occlusion and non-uniform illumination, not so much work has been done. It directly affects the efficiency of applications linked with face detection, example face recognition, surveillance, etc. So, these reasons motivate us to do research in field of face detection, especially with problems of face occlusion and non-uniform illumination. The main objective of this article is to detect face in still image. Experimental work has been conducted on images having problem of face occlusion and non-uniform illumination. Experimental images have been taken from public dataset AR face dataset and Color FERET dataset. One manual dataset has also been created for experimental purpose. The images in this manual dataset have been taken from the internet. This involves making the machine intelligent enough to acquire the human perception and knowledge to detect, localize and recognize the face in an arbitrary image with the same ease as humans do it. This article proposes an efficient technique for face detection from still images under occlusion and non-uniform illumination. The authors have presented a face detection technique using a combination of YCbCr, HSV and L × a × b color model. The proposed technique improved results in terms of Accuracy, Detection Rate, False Detection Rate and Precision. This technique can be useful in the surveillance and security related applications.
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•Octahedral shaped Cu-BTC MOF was prepared using ultrasonic assisted hydrothermal method.•Cu-BTC was applied for the adsorption of MB dye.•Cu-BTC showed 96.4 mg/g equilibrium ...adsorption capacity.
Herein, we report the synthesis, characterization and enhanced adsorption studies of porous octahedral shaped Cu-BTC (copper benzene-1,3,5-tricarboxylate) metal organic frameworks (MOFs). The Cu-BTC MOFs were synthesized by facile hydrothermal process and characterized by various techniques in order to examine the structural, morphological, thermal and adsorption-desorption properties. The synthesized Cu-BTC MOFs were used as potential scaffold for the adsorption of highly toxic azo dye, i.e. methylene blue (MB). Detailed adsorption studies on the effect of initial pH, concentration, reaction time and temperature on adsorption of MB were analysed and it was observed that the removal of MB followed pseudo-2nd order kinetic model. Freundlich model fitted well as compared to Langmuir model with R2 of 0.975 and thereby signifying a multilayer adsorption of MB on the surface of Cu-BTC MOFs. The observed maximal adsorption capacity for MB removal (200 mg/L) was ∼101.21 mg/g using Langmuir isotherm. The Cu-BTC MOFs exhibited 42.3 mg/g adsorption capacity after fourth cycle of MB dye adsorption. These features exhibited that Cu-BTC MOF have potential for the adsorption of MB and can efficiently be used to treat wastewater.
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease with no clinically accepted treatment to cure or halt its progression. The Food and Drug Administration has approved drugs (e.g., ...rivastigmine, donepezil, galantamine, and memantine) that at best provide marginal benefits, thus emphasizing the urgent need to explore other molecular entities as future drug candidates for AD. Looking at the wide pharmaceutical applications of heterocyclic compounds and particularly those containing benzofuran and indole ring systems, these molecular frameworks have drawn special attention from medicinal chemists for further evaluation in numerous diseases. This article focuses on the history and recent advances of benzofuran‐ and indole‐based compounds as inhibitors of butyrylcholinesterase, acetylcholinesterase, γ‐secretase, β‐secretase, tau misfolding, and β‐amyloid aggregation.
A trip down memory lane: Alzheimer's disease is a progressive neurodegenerative disease with no clinically accepted treatment to cure or halt its progression. This review focuses on recent developments and future perspectives of benzofuran‐ and indole‐based compounds in treating Alzheimer's disease.
Heat shock proteins (HSPs) have a significant role in protein folding and are considered as prominent candidates for development of heat-tolerant crops. Understanding of wheat HSPs has great ...importance since wheat is severely affected by heat stress, particularly during the grain filling stage. In the present study, efforts were made to identify HSPs in wheat and to understand their role during plant development and under different stress conditions. HSPs in wheat genome were first identified by using Position-Specific Scoring Matrix (PSSMs) of known HSP domains and then also confirmed by sequence homology with already known HSPs. Collectively, 753 TaHSPs including 169 TaSHSP, 273 TaHSP40, 95 TaHSP60, 114 TaHSP70, 18 TaHSP90 and 84 TaHSP100 were identified in the wheat genome. Compared with other grass species, number of HSPs in wheat was relatively high probably due to the higher ploidy level. Large number of tandem duplication was identified in TaHSPs, especially TaSHSPs. The TaHSP genes showed random distribution on chromosomes, however, there were more TaHSPs in B and D sub-genomes as compared to the A sub-genome. Extensive computational analysis was performed using the available genomic resources to understand gene structure, gene expression and phylogentic relationship of TaHSPs. Interestingly, apart from high expression under heat stress, high expression of TaSHSP was also observed during seed development. The study provided a list of candidate HSP genes for improving thermo tolerance during developmental stages and also for understanding the seed development process in bread wheat.
Quorum sensing (QS) and signal molecules used for interspecies communication are well defined in mesophiles, but there is still a plethora of microorganisms in which existence and mechanisms of QS ...need to be explored, thermophiles being among them. In silico analysis has revealed the presence of autoinducer-2 (AI-2) class of QS signaling molecules in thermophiles, synthesized by LuxS (AI-2 synthase), though the functions of this system are not known. In this study, LuxS of
Meiothermus ruber
was used for understanding the mechanism and functions of AI-2 based QS among thermophilic bacteria. The
luxS
gene of
M. ruber
was expressed in
luxS
−
deletion mutant of
Escherichia coli
. Complementation of
luxS
resulted in significant AI-2 activity, enhanced biofilm formation, and antibiotic susceptibility. Transcriptome analysis showed significant differential expression of 204 genes between the
luxS
-complemented and
luxS
−
deletion mutant of
E. coli
. Majority of the genes regulated by
luxS
belonged to efflux pumps. This elucidation may contribute towards finding novel alternatives against incessant antibiotic resistance in bacteria.
Key Points
• Expression of luxS in luxS
−
E. coli resulted in increase in biofilm index.
• Reduction in the MIC of antibiotics was observed after complementation of luxS.
• Downregulation of efflux pump genes was observed after complementation of luxS.
• Transcriptome analysis showed that 204 genes were differentially regulated significantly
.
In the hospital, a limited number of COVID-19 test kits are available due to the spike in cases every day. For this reason, a rapid alternative diagnostic option should be introduced as an automated ...detection method to prevent COVID-19 spreading among individuals. This article proposes multi-objective optimization and a deep-learning methodology for the detection of infected coronavirus patients with X-rays. J48 decision tree method classifies the deep characteristics of affected X-ray corona images to detect the contaminated patients effectively. Eleven different convolutional neuronal network-based (CNN) models were developed in this study to detect infected patients with coronavirus pneumonia using X-ray images (AlexNet, VGG16, VGG19, GoogleNet, ResNet18, ResNet500, ResNet101, InceptionV3, InceptionResNetV2, DenseNet201 and XceptionNet). In addition, the parameters of the CNN profound learning model are described using an emperor penguin optimizer with several objectives (MOEPO). A broad review reveals that the proposed model can categorise the X-ray images at the correct rates of precision, accuracy, recall, specificity and F1-score. Extensive test results show that the proposed model outperforms competitive models with well-known efficiency metrics. The proposed model is, therefore, useful for the real-time classification of X-ray chest images of COVID-19 disease.
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•Ag/Fe2O3/ZnO heterostructure was prepared via precipitation method.•76.4% CPX was degraded with Ag/Fe2O3/ZnO after 210 min of solar illumination.•CPX degradation largely succeeded by ...defluorination, hydroxylation and cleavage of piperazine ring.•Heterostructure exhibited antibacterial characteristics against Escherichia coli.
This paper reports on the multitasking potential of a silver/iron oxide/zinc oxide (Ag/Fe2O3/ZnO) heterostructure, which was used for the photocatalytic decomposition of ciprofloxacin (CPX) and bacterial disinfection. The Ag/Fe2O3/ZnO heterostructure was successfully prepared using a facile precipitation method, and characterization results showed interesting structural, morphological, compositional and luminescent properties. The morphological results of the prepared heterostructure confirmed the deposition of Ag nanoparticles onto the surface of ZnO nanoplates and Fe2O3 nanorods. Treatment studies showed that the Ag/Fe2O3/ZnO heterostructure had superior solar light driven photocatalytic activity towards CPX degradation (76.4%) compared to bare Fe2O3 nanorods (43.2%) and ZnO nanoplates (63.1%), Ag/Fe2O3 (28.2%) and Ag/ZnO (64.5%) under optimized conditions (initial CPX concentration: 10 mg/L; pH 4; catalyst loading: 0.3 g/L). Reactive species study confirmed the roles of e−, h+, OH and O2− in the photocatalytic degradation process. This photocatalytic behaviour of the Ag/Fe2O3/ZnO heterostructure could be attributed to the improved full solar spectrum harvesting capacity, separation of charge carriers and migration of e−/h+ across the heterostructure interface. In addition, the Ag/Fe2O3/ZnO heterostructure also showed good antibacterial activity against Escherichia coli (E. coli) under both dark and visible light conditions. This might be due to generation of reactive oxygen species during the reaction. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study till date on the utilization of Ag/Fe2O3/ZnO heterostructure for the photocatalytic degradation of CPX and E. coli bacteria disinfection. Therefore, this work offers an attractive path to design ZnO-based ternary heterostructures for solar-driven applications in wastewater remediation.
Key message
A total of seven
glutathione reductase
(
GR
) genes were identified in
Triticum aestivum
, which were used for comparative structural characterization, phylogenetic analysis and ...expression profiling with the
GR
genes of other cereal plants. The modulated gene expression and enzyme activity revealed the role of GRs in abiotic stress response in
T. aestivum
.
Glutathione reductase (GR) is an enzymatic antioxidant that converts oxidized glutathione (GSSG) into reduced glutathione (GSH) through the ascorbate–glutathione cycle. In this study, a total of seven
GR
genes forming two homeologous groups were identified in the allohexaploid genome of bread wheat (
Triticum aestivum
). Besides, we identified three
GR
genes in each
Aegilops tauschii, Brachypodium distachyon, Triticum urartu
and
Sorghum bicolor
, which were used for comparative characterization. Phylogenetic analysis revealed the clustering of GR proteins into two groups; class I and class II, which were predicted to be localized in cytoplasm and chloroplast, respectively. The exon–intron and conserved motif patterns were almost conserved in each group, in which a maximum of 10 and 17 exons were present in chloroplastic and cytoplasmic
GRs
, respectively. The protein structure analysis confirmed the occurrence of conserved pyridine nucleotide disulfide oxidoreductase (Pyr_redox) and pyridine nucleotide disulfide oxidoreductase dimerization (Pyr_redox_dim) domains in each GR. The active site of GR proteins consisted of two conserved cysteine residues separated by four amino acid residues. Promoter analysis revealed the occurrence of growth and stress-related
cis
-active elements. Tissue-specific expression profiling suggested the involvement of
GRs
in both vegetative and reproductive tissue development in various plants. The differential expression of
TaGR
genes and enhanced GR enzyme activity suggested their roles under drought, heat, salt and arsenic stress. Interaction of GRs with other proteins and chemical compounds of the ascorbate–glutathione cycle revealed their coordinated functioning. The current study will provide a foundation for the validation of the precise role of each
GR
gene in future studies.
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