Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
INTEGRATED NUTRIENT MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES FOR INCREASING ANNUAL FORAGE CROPS PRODUCTIVITY – A REVIEW

The scope of increasing the area cultivated for forages is rather limited, because of mounting pressure and preferential need for food and commercial crops. Hence, fodder production has to be increased per unit area per unit time. In recent years, there has been adverse effect of continuous and indiscriminate use of inorganic fertilizers on deterioration of soil structure, soil organic matter, increase in salinity, sodicity, increased soil pollutants, reduced soil health, hazards of pests and diseases and environmental pollution. Judicious use of manures and fertilisers in integrated manner is best alternative for maintaining crop productivity, while maintaining soil fertility status in forage crops. Integrated nutrient management (INM) improves crop productivity and soil fertility status rather than mineral fertilizers alone. Most of the research findings reviewed in this review indicated that among the integrated nutrient management combinations, application of chemical fertilizers integrated with organic manures in equal proportion improved sustainable forage productivity, nutrient uptake and soil nutrient status. Use of organic manures has been found to be promising in arresting the decline in productivity through correction of deficiency of secondary and micronutrients and influencing the physical and biological properties of soil. Combined application of inorganic fertilizers with different sources of organic manures in different proportions has significant role to boost forage productivity, improve nutrient uptake by plants and maintain soil nutrient status in foragebased cropping systems. Keeping these points in view, the literature pertaining to the nutrient management in different forage crops to obtain higher biomass production and good quality fodder has been reviewed.
Conservation Tillage and Crop Rotation : Win-Win Option for Sustainable Maize Production in the Dryland , Central Rift Valley of Ethiopia

To ensure sustainable maize crop production in the dryland Ethiopia, the effect of tillage and cropping system on maize yield and some soil properties were investigated at Malkassa Agricultural Research Center and Wolenchity Research Substation. A spilt plot field experiment with tillage as main plot and cropping system as sub-plot was conducted on a sandy loam and loam soil types. Soil organic matter content on weight basis at a depth of 0-15 cm was significantly greater under conservation tillage (1.6%) than under conventional tillage (1.2%). The total nitrogen content on weight basis was increased from low to medium level (0.13%) in conservation tillage while it remained under low category (0.07%) in conventional tillage. These characters of conservation tillage were reflected in its higher grain and straw yields. Maize monocropping had resulted in grain yield reduction and the adverse effect of monocropping in yield reduction was more than double on conventional tillage. However, a rotation system that used maize as a test crop, increased yield by 184.4% and 140% when maize followed tef and haricot bean crops at Wolenchity and Malkassa when compared to the maize monocrop, respectively. Based on this study, it can be concluded that conservation tillage and crop rotation system could be regarded as a win-win crop management option for sustainable maize production in locations where soil water was limiting such as in the dryland, central rift valley of Ethiopia.
Enhanced line integral convolution with flow feature detection

The line integral convolution (LIC) method, which blurs white noise textures along a vector field, is an effective way to visualize overall flow patterns in a 2D domain. The method produces a flow texture image based on the input velocity field defined in the domain. Because of the nature of the algorithm, the texture image tends to be blurry. This sometimes makes it difficult to identify boundaries where flow separation and re-attachments occur. We present techniques to enhance LIC texture images and use colored texture images to highlight flow separation and re- attachment boundaries. Our techniques have been applied to several flow fields defined in 3D curvilinear multi-block grids and scientists have found the results to be very useful.
Hydrological and environmental issues of inter-basin water transfers in India: a case study of the Krishna River Basin

The National River Linking Project (NRLP) was proposed as ‘the solution’ to water-related problems in India. It envisages transferring the waters of the Ganga, Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers through Mahanadi and Godavari river basins—all normally referred to as , ‘water surplus’ basins—to the ‘water deficient’ basins in the south and the west (e.g., http:// www.riverlinks.nic.in/). The NRLP is a contentious issue in Indian society, the media and among academics. Many scholars argue that the needs assessment of the NRLP is inadequate. Others are of the view that the assessment of water surplus/deficits in Indian river basins, conducted as part of the NRLP proposal, has ignored environmental issues. And there are others who think that definitions of surplus and deficient basins need to be made more explicit and that alternative water management options—those that are less costly, easier to implement and more environmentally acceptable—have not been considered. Extensive work has been done in India on various aspects of water transfers relating to the NRLP. However, the project as a whole has not reached implementation which, to a certain degree, mirrors the fate of certain other large-scale water transfer projects in the world. At the same time however, certain individual NRLP links are about to be constructed. Perhaps, one of the major reasons for the slow development of the project is the lack of clarity and transparency in technical design, justification of transfers and in decision-making on the one hand, and the enormity of both the challenge and the scale of the transfer, on the other. In an ideal world, any water transfer project may be justified if it satisfies the following broadly defined criteria (Inter-basin water transfer 1999):
Ascending Bloom's Pyramid: Fostering Student Creativity and Innovation in Academic Library Spaces

Our research examined the degree to which behaviors and learning associated with creativity and innovation were supported in five academic library spaces and three other spaces at a mid-sized university. Based on survey data from 226 students, we apply a number of statistical techniques to measure student perceptions of the types of learning and behavior associated with the selected spaces. We found that the on-campus makerspace located outside the library encouraged the most innovative behaviors and exploration of new ideas. Within the library, collaboration rooms were the best spaces for encouraging creativity. There is an opportunity for the academic library to be reconceptualized as a place to foster creativity and innovation in students. We believe that academic libraries should continue to offer a variety of spaces for students, including quiet spaces for reflection, noisy spaces for collaboration and networking, and makerspaces for experimentation.
Tumor Necrosis Factor-α Suppresses Sustained Potassium Currents in Rat Small Diameter Sensory Neurons

Tumor necrosis factor-￻ (TNF-￻ ), a pro-inflammatory cytokine, produces pain and hyperalgesia by activating and/or sensitizing nociceptive sensory neurons. In the present study, using whole-cell patch clamp techniques, the regulation of potassium currents by TNF-￻ was examined in acutely dissociated small dorsal root ganglion neurons. We found that acute application of TNF-￻ inhibited, in a dose-dependent manner, the non-inactivating sustained potassium current without changing the rapidly inactivating transient current or the voltage-dependence of steady-state inactivation. The effects of TNF-￻ on potassium currents were similar to that of prostaglandin E2 as reported previously and also demonstrated in the current study. Furthermore, indomethacin, a potent inhibitor for both cyclo-oxygenase (COX)-1 and COX-2, completely blocked the effect of TNF-￻ on potassium currents. These results suggest that TNF-￻ may sensitize or activate sensory neurons by suppressing the sustained potassium current in nociceptive DRG neurons, possibly via stimulating the intracellular production i.e. the synthesis and/or release of endogenous prostaglandins.
Mental Illness in Correctional Populations : The Use of Standardized Screening Tools for Further Evaluation or Treatment References

CRIMINAL JUSTICE AGENCIES have become de facto settings for mental health treatment and other clinical services (Lurigio & Swartz, 2000). The growing number of persons with serious mental illness (SMI) who appear at each step in the criminal justice process—from arrest to post-incarceration release—has forced professionals in corrections, who usually have no backgrounds or experiences in the mental health field, to continually face the challenges of identifying, referring, and case managing the mentally ill. With or without special training or guidelines, most criminal justice professionals (such as police officers, probation officers, prison intake workers, and parole agents) screen individuals for mental illness in their daily practice. They do so in order to make decisions about such options as diversion, segregated housing, treatment, or other specialized interventions.
Estimation of Semi-varying Coefficient Models for Counting Process with Applications

Recurrent events are very common in many different fields, including biological, medical, engineering, and finance. Existing research has developed methodologies to model constant covariate effects and time-dependent covariate effects. However, in reality, for instance medical cases, covariate effects can be depending on other covariates as well. Therefore, in this dissertation, we investigate a semiparametric model for recurrent events, which incorporates both time-varying covariate effects and covariate-varying effect. In our model, we use fixed parameters to model constant covariate effects, while we assume both time-dependent effects and covariate-varying effects to be unknown functions. An estimation procedure is proposed to estimate the unknow parameters and functions. Local linear smoothing method is adopted in our estimation procedure. Detailed computation is carried out by using Newton-Raphson iterative method. The asymptotic properties including asymptotic normality and consistency are established for the proposed estimators. In order to assess the finite-sample performance of the proposed estimators and estimation procedure, simulation studies are conducted for different cases. The simulation results show that the proposed estimators perform very well with small bias and an empirical coverage probability close to its nominal level 95%. Department of Mathematics and Statistics, UNC Charlotte, Charlotte, NC 28223
Functional Networks in Emotional Moral and Nonmoral Social Judgments

Reading daily newspaper articles often evokes opinions and social judgments about the characters and stories. Social and moral judgments rely on the proper functioning of neural circuits concerned with complex cognitive and emotional processes. To examine whether dissociable neural systems mediate emotionally charged moral and nonmoral social judgments, we used a visual sentence verification task in conjunction with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We found that a network comprising the medial orbitofrontal cortex, the temporal pole and the superior temporal sulcus of the left hemisphere was specifically activated by moral judgments. In contrast, judgment of emotionally evocative, but non-moral statements activated the left amygdala, lingual gyri, and the lateral orbital gyrus. These findings provide new evidence that the orbitofrontal cortex has dedicated subregions specialized in processing specific forms of social behavior.
Maternal employment and child cognitive outcomes in the first three years of life: the NICHD Study of Early Child Care. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

With increased numbers of women employed in their children's first year of life and with increased attention being paid by parents and policy makers to the importance of early experiences for children, establishing the links that might exist between early maternal employment and child cognitive outcomes is more important than ever. Negative associations between maternal employment during the first year of life and children's cognitive outcomes at age 3 (and later ages) have been reported using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-Child Supplement. However, it was not known whether these findings would be replicated in another study, nor whether these results were due to features of child care (e.g., quality, type), home environment (e.g., provision of learning), and/or parenting (e.g., sensitivity). This study explored these issues using data on 900 European American children from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care, which provides information on child cognitive scores at 15, 24, and 36 months, as well as data about the home environment (as assessed by the Home Observation of the Measurement of the Environment Scale), parental sensitivity, and child-care quality and type over the first 3 years of life. Maternal employment by the ninth month was found to be linked to lower Bracken School Readiness scores at 36 months, with the effects more pronounced when mothers were working 30 hr or more per week and with effects more pronounced for certain subgroups (i.e., children whose mothers were not sensitive, boys, and children with married parents). Although quality of child care, home environment, and maternal sensitivity also mattered, the negative effects of working 30 hr or more per week in the first 9 months were still found, even when controlling for child-care quality, the quality of the home environment, and maternal sensitivity. Implications for policy are also discussed.
The Role of Microstructure on the Corrosion Behaviour of as cast AlCu4MgSi and MgAl2Si Alloys

In this work, the effect of the microstructure on corrosion behavior of selected Mgand Al-based as cast alloys, was evaluated. The electrochemical examinations were carried out, and then a morphology of corrosion products formed due to local polarization on materials surface, was analyzed. It was documented that the presence of Mg2Si phase plays an important role in the corrosion course of Mg-based alloy. A selective etching was observed in sites of Mg2Si precipitates having “Chinese script”like morphology. Analogous situation was found for Al-based alloy, where the key role was played by cathodic θ-CuAl2 phase.
Reconceiving digital textures with customizable haptic rendering

In this study, we develop a method to touch and feel images of textured wall paints by organizing the image pixels into regions based on their gray-scale values. All the image pixels inside a given region have a common haptic property. This approach is intended to solve a domain problem for textured wall paint manufacturers who can create digital versions of their textured wall paint designs instead of maintaining a physical catalogue. The number of regions in an image and the haptic properties of each region can be customized to replicate the tactile sensation of real world wall paint textures. A study conducted with 20 participants revealed an 87% probability, that an end user can make a buying decision for a textured wall paint based on this experience.
DISTRIBUTION OF SIX ALIEN PLANT SPECIES IN UPLAND HABITATS ON THE ISLAND OF HAWAI ` I

The 1976-1981 distribution, elevation, and median annual rainfall of six alien plant species in upland habitats on the island of Hawai`i are described based on data collected at 7,864 sampling points (stations) along 117 transects within a 1,930-mi (5,000-km ) study area. Focal species were Malabar melastome (Melastoma candidum), banana poka (Passiflora mollissima), fountain grass (Pennisetum setaceum), strawberry guava (Psidium cattleianum), yellow Himalayan raspberry (Rubus ellipticus), and German ivy (Senecio mikanioides). Three species, strawberry guava, fountain grass, and banana poka, were widely distributed throughout the study area, while the remaining three species were found on less than 2% of the stations sampled. Relatively xeric habitats (median annual rainfall 49 in. or < 1,250 mm) and low-elevation areas (1,640-4,265 ft or 500-1,300 m) were found to be consistently invaded by three or more of the species. Forty-six (72%) of the 64 vegetation types sampled contained at least one of the six alien plant species. Portions of the two largest vegetation units, `ohì a (Metrosideros polymorpha) rain forest, and `ohi`a-koa (Acacia koa) rain forest, were colonized by five of the six species analyzed. Elevation and median annual rainfall ranges were used to predict the potential geographical distribution of each species in the study area, assuming no restriction in plant invasion over time. Four of the six species (banana poka, German ivy, strawberry guava, and yellow Himalayan raspberry) showed great potential for expansion of their ranges if they continue to invade areas with environmental conditions similar to those where they were found during this survey. INTRODUCTION Nearly 5,000 taxa of flowering plants have been purposely or accidentally introduced to Hawai`i during the past 200 years (St. John 1973). Fortunately, of this large number of alien species, fewer than 15% are established outside cultivation, and less than 2% are currently considered serious threats to native ecosystems (Smith 1985; Wester, this
Randomization Inference in the Regression Discontinuity Design: An Application to the Study of Party Advantages in the U.S. Senate ∗

In the Regression Discontinuity (RD) design, units are assigned a treatment based on whether their value of an observed covariate (the " score ") is above or below a fixed cutoff. Under the assumption that the distribution of potential confounders changes continuously around the cutoff, the discontinuous jump in the probability of treatment assignment can be used to identify the treatment effect. Although a recent strand of the RD literature advocates interpreting this design as a local randomized experiment, the standard approach to estimation and inference is based solely on continuity assumptions that do not justify this interpretation. In this article, we provide precise conditions in a randomization-inference context under which this interpretation is directly justified, and develop exact finite-sample inference procedures based on them. Our randomization-inference framework is motivated by the observation that only a few observations might be available close enough to the threshold where local ran-domization is plausible, and hence standard large-sample procedures may be suspect. Our framework is general and applicable to any RD design where small sample sizes constrain researchers' ability to make inferences. We illustrate our methodology with a study of party-level advantages in the U.S. Senate that compares states where the Democratic party barely won a Senate election to states where the Democratic party barely lost. Since the Senate has only one hundred seats up for election every six years, the number of close races is small and our framework is ideally suited for the analysis. We find large effects in the Senate when the incumbent party competes for its seat but, in contrast to results from standard RD estimation methods, negative effects when the party competes for a seat after having won the other seat in the state's Senate delegation.
Author's response to reviews Title:HIV vaccine acceptability among high-risk drug users in Appalachia: A cross-sectional study

Background: A vaccine could substantially impact the HIV epidemic, but inadequate uptake is a serious concern. Unfortunately, people who use drugs, particularly those residing in rural communities, have been underrepresented in previous research on HIV vaccine acceptabi lity. This study examined HIV vaccine acceptability among high-risk drug users i n a rural community in the United States. Methods: Interviewer-administered questionnaires included questions about risk behavior and attitudes toward HIV vaccination from 433 HIV-negative drug users (76% with hist ory of injection) enrolled in a cohort study in Central Appalachia. HIV vaccine accepta bility was measured on a 4-point Likert scale. Generalized linear mixed models were us ed to determine correlates to self-report of being "very likely" to receive a 90% effec tiv HIV vaccine (i.e. "maximum vaccine acceptability", or MVA). Adjusted odds ratios (AORs) and corre sponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs) are reported. Results: Most (91%) reported that they would accept a preventive HIV vaccine, but concerns about cost, dosing, transportation constraints, vaccine-induced seropositivity, and confi dentiality were expressed. Cash incentives, oral-administration, and peer/partner enco uragement were anticipated facilitators of uptake. In multivariate analysis, men were sig nificantly less likely to report MVA (AOR: 0.33, CI: 0.21 – 0.52). MVA was more common among participants who believed that they were susceptible to HIV (AOR: 2.31, CI: 1.28 – 4.07), that an HIV vaccine would benefit them (AOR: 2.80, CI: 1.70 – 4.64), and who had positive experiential attitudes toward HIV vaccination (AOR: 1.85, CI: 1.08 – 3.17). MVA was also more common among
Constant-velocity steering control design for unmanned bicycles

Compared to unmanned cars, unmanned bicycles have the inherent problem of keeping balance. This paper proposes the design of a steering controller to achieve the balance control of bicycles when the forward velocity remains constant, bringing us closer to the autonomous driving of unmanned bicycles. Firstly, we introduce the modeling of the bicycle dynamics. Then, we design the constant-velocity steering controller, combining feedback with feedforward control, and verify the effectiveness of the controller using Matlab simulations. Finally, we proceed to test the steering controller on our prototype bicycle, finding that the bicycle can achieve stable motion and turning with flexibility, thus proving the effectiveness of our steering controller design.
A Search-based Approach to Annexation and Merging in Weighted Voting Games

Weighted voting games are classic cooperative games which provide a compact representation for coalition formation models in multiagent systems. We consider manipulation in weighted voting games via annexation and merging, which involves an agent or some agents misrepresenting their identities in anticipation of gaining more power at the expense of other agents in a game. We show that annexation and merging in weighted voting games can be more serious than as presented in the previous work. Specifically, using similar assumptions as employed in a previous work, we show that manipulators need to do only a polynomial amount of work to find a much improved power gain, and then present two search-based pseudo-polynomial algorithms that manipulators can use. We empirically evaluate our search-based method for annexation and merging. Our method is shown to achieve significant improvement in benefits for manipulating agents in several numerical experiments. While our search-based method achieves improvement in benefits of over 300% more than those of the previous work in annexation, the improvement in benefits is 28% to 45% more than those of the previous work in merging for all the weighted voting games we considered.