Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mobilization Strategies for Effective Community Relations between Bitumen Companies and Stakeholders in Nigeria

Abstract This paper examines the mobilization strategies for effective community relations among mineral producing companies and the stakeholders in their areas of operation especially in the South-Western Geopolitical Zone of Nigeria. The subject comprised 200 participants who were randomly selected and were tested using t-test statistical analysis at 0.05 alpha test. The result of the study showed that no significance difference existed between informal and formal communication strategies as means of reaching the largest stakeholders. (t-cal = 7547.452; Df = 0.05), there is also no significant difference between the perception of both the youths and adults on the strategies of mobilizing the inhabitants of bitumen producing communities. (t-cal = 5837.561; Df = 0.05), while the male and female respondents agreed that infrastructural development, socio-political and economic consideration, and environmental management were indicators for effective community relations in the zone. (t-cal = 7337.405; Df = 0.05). It was therefore recommended that bitumen company’s corporate social responsibility policy should be put in place to complement government efforts at developing the areas for harmonious working relations.
The Climacteric Rise in Respiration Rate of the Fuerte Avocado Fruit

The relationship between carbon dioxide evolution and fruit ripening has been investigated widely for some of the deciduous fruits. With the apple and pear, in particular, it has been shown (4, 5) that changes in certain manifestations of maturity are accompanied by a greatly accelerated rate of respiration. Similar observations were made for the banana (2). This rapid increase in carbon dioxide production is referred to by workers in this field as the "climacteric" rise in respiration. Not all fruits appear to exhibit this respiratory trend, however. In the lemon and orange, which have relatively low respiring power, no climacteric has thus far been observed (1).
Coping with potential bi‐parental inbreeding: limited pollen and seed dispersal and large genets in the dioecious marine angiosperm Thalassia testudinum

Abstract The high prevalence of dioecy in marine angiosperms or seagrasses (>50% of all species) is thought to enforce cross‐fertilization. However, seagrasses are clonal plants, and they may still be subject to sibling‐mating or bi‐parental inbreeding if the genetic neighborhood is smaller than the size of the genets. We tested this by determining the genetic neighborhoods of the dioecious seagrass Thalassia testudinum at two sites (Back‐Reef and Mid‐Lagoon) in Puerto Morelos Reef Lagoon, Mexico, by measuring dispersal of pollen and seeds in situ, and by fine‐scale spatial autocorrelation analysis with eight polymorphic microsatellite DNA markers. Prevalence of inbreeding was verified by estimating pairwise kinship coefficients; and by analysing the genotypes of seedlings grown from seeds in mesocosms. Average dispersal of pollen was 0.3–1.6 m (max. 4.8 m) and of seeds was 0.3–0.4 m (max. 1.8 m), resulting in a neighborhood area of 7.4 m2 (range 3.4–11.4 m2) at Back‐Reef and 1.9 (range 1.87–1.92 m2) at Mid‐Lagoon. Neighborhood area (Na) derived from spatial autocorrelation was 0.1–20.5 m2 at Back‐Reef and 0.1–16.9 m2 at Mid‐Lagoon. Maximal extensions of the genets, in 19 × 30 m plots, were 19.2 m (median 7.5 m) and 10.8 m (median 4.8 m) at Back‐Reef and Mid‐Lagoon. There was no indication of deficit or excess of heterozygotes nor were coefficients of inbreeding (F IS) significant. The seedlings did not show statistically significant deficit of heterozygotes (except for 1 locus at Back‐Reef). Contrary to our expectations, we did not find evidence of bi‐parental inbreeding in this dioecious seagrass with large genets but small genetic neighborhoods. Proposed mechanisms to avoid bi‐parental inbreeding are possible selection against homozygotes during fecundation or ovule development. Additionally, the genets grew highly dispersed (aggregation index Ac was 0.09 and 0.10 for Back‐Reef and Mid‐Lagoon, respectively); such highly dispersed guerrilla‐like clonal growth form likely increases the probability of crossing between different potentially unrelated genets.
Zinc is essential for the transcription function of Nrf2 in human renal tubule cells in vitro and mouse kidney in vivo under the diabetic condition

Increasing evidence from human and laboratory studies showed the effect of zinc (Zn) on diabetic complications. Nuclear factor‐erythroid 2‐related factor 2 (Nrf2) plays important role in the prevention of oxidative damage. This study was to define whether Zn statues (deficiency or supplement) affect the Nrf2 expression and function, and also affect the damage severity of human renal tubular (HK11) cells exposed to high glucose (HG) with palmitate (Pal) and kidney of diabetic mice induced by multiple low‐dose streptozotocins. For Zn deficiency diabetic mice were treated with Zn chelator PTEN at 5 mg/kg bw daily for 4 months. Results showed that HG/Pal significantly increased the expression of pro‐fibrotic mediators, connective tissue growth factor and PAI‐1, in HK11 cells, which was exacerbated by TPEN that depleted intracellular free Zn and decreased Nrf2 expression and transcription. Zn supplement prevented the effects of TPEN and also increased Akt and GSK‐3β phosphorylation with a decrease in Nrf2 nuclear exporter, Fyn. All these effects of Zn were abolished by Akt inhibitor. Therefore, Zn up‐regulates Nrf2 function via activating Akt‐mediated inhibition of Fyn function. Treatment of diabetic mice with TPEN decreased renal Zn level and Nrf2 expression and transcription, with an exacerbation of renal oxidative damage, inflammation and fibrosis. These results suggest the essentiality of Zn for Nrf2 expression and transcription function.
Reproducing organizational networks in laboratory with mirror neurons perspective

The paper analyses the development of new organizational arrangements focusing on inter-organizational forms building and adopting the mirror neurons perspective. This approach could be tested with the Practice Management (Simulimpresa) methodology, based on learning by doing, for two reasons: first, it consists in the reproduction of a real organization in a simulated environment and, secondly, it is a didactical methodology addressed to develop behaviours oriented to networks management. The paper investigates the dynamics of internal and external ties developed by Perting, the Practice Firm established since2001 inBologna University, still in use for didactical and research purposes. The hypothesis is concerning the existing of a correspondence between internal and external ties produced during experimentation. This would be an attempt to study the appliance of mirror neurons theories to the building of organizational forms starting from the virtual ones realized by Practice Management, as a way to facilitate the reproduction of organizations in the real world. The findings point out that intra-inter organizational ties developed by Perting in simulation laboratory seem to have a significant relation to new forms of organizing created by the symmetry real-simulated environment and as a structured feedback from managerial activities realized by participants.
Efficiency of solarization and biofumigation on tomato bacterial wilt control in the field

The objective of this work was to evaluate the efficiency of soil solarization and biofumigation under diverse application conditions, on tomato bacterial wilt control in the field and their effects on soil chemical and microbiological properties. The soil was evaluated after two, four and six months of solarization and biofumigation with 2 and 5% of chicken litter amendment. The study was carried out in a field highly infested with Ralstonia solanacearum. There was no interaction between solarization and biofumigation on bacterial wilt control. Only solarization for four months and biofumigation with 5% chicken litter amendment reduced significantly the incidence of tomato bacterial wilt. Soil solarization caused reduction in soil Na and K content, only in the 4 and 6 months of application, and had no significant effect on other soil chemical properties, but reduced microbial biomass and microbial respiration. Nevertheless, microbial respiration increased 60 days after solarization period. Biofumigation increased soil nutrient levels, microbial biomass and respiration. Soil solarization for four months and biofumigation with 5% chicken litter amendment are efficient in soil treatment for reduction of tomato bacterial wilt incidence in highly infested areas.
Investigating the Adaptive Loop Filter in Next Generation Video Coding

Current trends on video technologies and services are demanding higher bit rates, higher video resolutions and better video qualities. This issue results in the need of a new generation of video coding techniques to increase the quality and compression rates of previous standards. Since the release of HEVC, ITU-T VCEG and ISO/IEC MPEG have been studying the potential need for standardization of future video coding technologies with a compression capability that significantly exceeds the ones from current standards. These new e↵orts of standardization and compression enhancements are being implemented and evaluated over a software test model known under the name of Joint Exploration Model (JEM). One of the blocks being explored in JEM is an Adaptive Loop Filter (ALF) at the end of each frame’s processing flow. ALF aims to minimize the error between original pixels and decoded pixels using Wiener-based adaptive filter coe cients, reporting, in its JEM’s implementation, improvements of around a 1% in the BD MS-SSIM rate. A lot of e↵orts have been devoted on improving this block over the past years. However, current ALF implementations do not consider the potential use of adaptive QP algorithms at the encoder. Adaptive QP algorithms enable the use of di↵erent quality levels for the coding of di↵erent parts of a frame to enhance its subjective quality. In this thesis, we explore potential improvements over di↵erent dimensions of JEM’s Adaptive Loop Filter block considering the potential use of adaptive QP algorithms. In the document, we explore a great gamut of modification over ALF processing stages, being the ones with better results (i) a QP-aware implementation of ALF were the filter coe cients estimation, the internal RD-optimization and the CU-level flag decision process are optimized for the use of adaptive QP, (ii) the optimization of ALF’s standard block activity classification stage through the use of CU-level information given by the di↵erent QPs used in a frame, and (iii) the optimization of ALF’s standard block activity classification stage in B-frames through the application of a correction weight on coded, i.e. not predicted, blocks of B-frames. These ALF modifications combined obtained improvements of a 0.419% on average for the BD MS-SSIM rate in the luma channel, showing each modification individual improvements of a 0.252%, 0.085% and 0.082%, respectively. Thus, we concluded the importance of optimizing ALF for the potential use of adaptive-QP algorithms in the encoder, and the benefits of considering CU-level and frame-level metrics in ALF’s block classification stage. This thesis was developed in cooperation with Ericsson Research.
Pearls and Perils of Caring for the Postbariatric Body Contouring Patient

Summary: Postbariatric body contouring surgery has grown in prevalence, mirroring the ascent of weight loss surgery. With the rise in prevalence of this subset of plastic surgery procedures, we are gaining wisdom about technique, safety, and outcomes associated with this patient population. The pearls of patient management include discussion about characteristics specific to massive weight loss patients, patient preparation for surgery, intraoperative safety measures, markings, surgical options in a landscape of scars, management of the total body lift, volumetric augmentation, and postoperative care. The aim of this review is to share these pearls and pitfalls to assist in patient management and in optimization of outcomes.
Nitric oxide: discovery and impact on clinical medicine

Between 1987 and 1988 our research group made a couple of interesting findings. First, we discovered that vascular endothelial cells are able to generate nitric oxide gas (NO)1, thus explaining the actions of the 'endothelium-derived relaxing factor' that had been described some seven years earlier2. And subsequently we found that NO was synthesized directly from the aminoacid L-arginine3. Here I present an overview of the new understanding that NO has brought to physiology and pathophysiology, with particular emphasis on the therapeutic possibilities that have arisen as a consequence.
Exaggerated neuroinflammation and sickness behavior in aged mice after activation of the peripheral innate immune system

Acute cognitive impairment (i.e., delirium) is common in elderly emergency department patients and frequently results from infections that are unrelated to the central nervous system. Since activation of the peripheral innate immune system induces brain microglia to produce inflammatory cytokines that are responsible for behavioral deficits, we investigated if aging exacerbated neuroinflammation and sickness behavior after peripheral injection of lipopolysaccharide (LPS). Microarray analysis revealed a transcriptional profile indicating the presence of primed or activated microglia and increased inflammation in the aged brain. Furthermore, aged mice had a unique gene expression profile in the brain after an intraperitoneal injection of LPS, and the LPS‐induced elevation in the brain inflammatory cytokines and oxidative stress was both exaggerated and prolonged compared with adults. Aged mice were anorectic longer and lost more weight than adults after peripheral LPS administration. Moreover, reductions in both locomotor and social behavior remained 24 h later in aged mice, when adults had fully recovered, and the exaggerated neuroinflammatory response in aged mice was not reliably paralleled by increased circulating cytokines in the periphery. Taken together, these data establish that activation of the peripheral innate immune system leads to exacerbated neuroinflammation in the aged as compared with adult mice. This dysregulated link between the peripheral and central innate immune system is likely to be involved in the severe behavioral deficits that frequently occur in older adults with systemic infections.
Clinicopathological study of posterior fossa intracranial lesions

Tumors of the posterior fossa of brain leads to complications like brain stem compression, herniation and death because of its critical location, limited space and involvement of vital brain stem nuclei. This study has been conducted in the department of Pathology and Neurosurgery, Gandhi Medical College, Secunderabad from December 2008 to December 2010. The aim and objectives of this study were to analyze the histological types and to determine the frequency of posterior cranial fossa tumors in children and adults at Gandhi Hospital, Hyderabad and to study the different clinical presentations of posterior fossa space occupying lesion (SOL) and its correlation with radiological and pathological findings. Each tumor type has a different mode of presentation according to the site. With advent of modern diagnostic modalities early diagnosis and treatment is possible.
Africa-China-EU Cooperation in Africa Prospects and Pitfalls

Origins of Trilateral Dialogue The Africa-China-EU cooperation initiative has been driven largely by the EU, especially the Commission, with the Chinese and Africans only gradually beginning to engage on the issue of trilateral cooperation. Though China’s growing presence on the African continent was increasingly evident by 2000, Brussels and member states were slow to recognise the magnitude of the changes occurring in Africa. Even as late as 2005, the fact that China was only invited by the British to the G8 Gleneagles summit as an afterthought indicated the myopia within policy circles regarding the rapidly changing circumstances on the ground. Controversy over the Sudanese government’s actions in Darfur brought China, the most important backer of and key trading partner with the regime, into sharp focus. The spectacle of a rising tide of criticism from EU member states damaging the otherwise warming ties between the EU and China pointed to the need for some form of dialogue on Africa, global governance and development issues. Integrating these concerns into the EU’s broader aspirations for the relationship with China, the EU set about constructing a dialogue through a series of conferences, workshops and shared discussions on how the two might cooperate with Africa. At the 2006 EU-China summit, the joint communiqué noted that: [T]he Leaders agreed to pursue a structured dialogue on Africa and explore avenues for practical cooperation on the ground in partnership with the African side, including with the support of NEPAD initiatives and with the aim of attaining the Millennium Development Goals . Both the EU and China are signatories of the Paris Declaration on aid effectiveness. The two parties will continue to promote the effectiveness principles contained in the Paris Declaration.
MNL-Bandit: A Dynamic Learning Approach to Assortment Selection

We consider a dynamic assortment selection problem where in every round the retailer offers a subset (assortment) of N substitutable products to a consumer, who selects one of these products according to a multinomial logit (MNL) choice model. The retailer observes this choice, and the objective is to dynamically learn the model parameters while optimizing cumulative revenues over a selling horizon of length T. We refer to this exploration–exploitation formulation as the MNL-Bandit problem. Existing methods for this problem follow an explore-then-exploit approach, which estimates parameters to a desired accuracy and then, treating these estimates as if they are the correct parameter values, offers the optimal assortment based on these estimates. These approaches require certain a priori knowledge of “separability,” determined by the true parameters of the underlying MNL model, and this in turn is critical in determining the length of the exploration period. (Separability refers to the distinguishability of the true optimal assortment from the other suboptimal alternatives.) In this paper, we give an efficient algorithm that simultaneously explores and exploits, without a priori knowledge of any problem parameters. Furthermore, the algorithm is adaptive in the sense that its performance is near optimal in the “well-separated” case as well as the general parameter setting where this separation need not hold.
The Distortive Effects of Too Big To Fail: Evidence from the Danish Market for Retail Deposits

We study the impact of too-big-to-fail (TBTF) guarantees on the market for retail deposits. Exploiting information about all personal deposit accounts in Denmark and salient changes to the deposit insurance limit, we provide evidence that systemically important banks successfully retain and attract uninsured deposits in a crisis at the expense of other banks even as they differentially lower their interest rates. The funding shock suffered by nonsystemic banks causes a decrease in their lending. The results point to the distortive effects of TBTF guarantees in the market for retail deposits. Received March 15, 2018; editorial decision January 15, 2019 by Philip Strahan.
ANALYSIS AND EXAMINATION OF AGGRESSION LEVELS AND EMPATHETIC TENDENCY LEVELS OF SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS ACCORDING TO THE TYPE OF SCHOOL AND GENDER ( CASE OF ÇORUM PROVINCE )

This study was performed to examine the difference between the offensiveness levels and empathetic tendency levels of secondary school students according to the type of school and gender. As data collection tool "Aggression Inventory" developed by Kiper (1984) and "Empathic Tendency Scale" developed by Dökmen (1988) were applied to randomly selected 514 secondary school students (266 male; 248 female) who are having education in secondary schools in Çorum Province. Multivariate Analyses Of Variance (MANOVA), One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) were used in analysis of data and Scheffe test was used in order to determine the source of the difference as a result of variance analysis. According to data collected from 514 secondary students included in the study, while no significant differences were found between genders in terms of destructive, passive and general aggression scores (p>0.05), significant difference was found between genders in terms of impulsive aggression (p<0.05). Female students (56,26±9,48) showed higher scores than males (54,29±8,61) in terms of impulsive aggression. Significant difference was found between genders in terms of empathic tendency. Female students (68,20±10,38) showed higher scores than male students (65,60 ± 8,56) in terms of emphatic sensitivity. Findings related to hardiness and empathic tendency was found to be in favor of women. Statistical analysis performed in terms of general, passive and impulsive aggression and empathic tendency according to school type revealed that there were no significant differences between students (p>0.05), while significant differences were found in terms of destructive aggression and empathic tendency (p<0.05). There was significant difference found between schools in terms of empathic tendency (p<0.05). Significant differences were found between vocational high school and science high school, anatolian teacher high school and anatolian high school (p<0.05). Empathic tendency scores of science high school, anatolian teacher high school and anatolian high school (68,39±9,63) showed higher scores than vocational high school and general high school.
Release of prostaglandin D2 and leukotriene C4 in response to hyperosmolar stimulation of mast cells

Background: Mannitol‐induced bronchoconstriction in subjects with exercise‐induced asthma is associated with increased urinary excretion of 9α, 11β‐PGF2, a metabolite of prostaglandin D2 (PGD2) serving as a mast cell marker. It has however been questioned whether or not human mast cells release PGD2 and leukotriene C4 (LTC4) after osmotic challenge with mannitol in vitro.
Morbidity and mortality in heart failure patients treated with cardiac resynchronization therapy: influence of pre-implantation characteristics on long-term outcome.

AIMS Cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) improves cardiac function, heart failure symptoms, and prognosis in selected patients. Many baseline characteristics associated with heart failure may influence prognosis after CRT. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of several baseline characteristics in relation to long-term prognosis in heart failure patients treated with CRT. METHODS AND RESULTS A total of 716 consecutive heart failure patients treated with CRT were included in an observational registry. All available data, including clinical and echocardiographic measurements, were analysed in relation to two endpoints: all-cause mortality and a combined endpoint of all-cause mortality or major cardiovascular event. Outcome data were collected by chart review, device interrogation, and telephone contact. Mean follow-up was 25 ± 19 months. During follow-up, 141 patients (20%) died (primary endpoint). Most of these patients (61%) died due to worsening heart failure. A total of 214 patients (30%) reached the secondary endpoint. Larger left ventricular end-systolic volume, less distance covered in the 6 min walking test, poor renal function, more severe heart failure, male gender, presence of atrial fibrillation, no posterolateral left ventricular (LV) lead, and no LV dyssynchrony were associated with poor prognosis after CRT. CONCLUSION In this large single-centre registry, several baseline clinical and echocardiographic characteristics were associated with prognosis after CRT. Worsening heart failure was the main cause of death in heart failure patients treated with CRT.