Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Alleviation of Certain Heavy Metals Toxicity on Zea mays by Arbuscular Mycorrhiza

Soil pollution with heavy metals causes a lot of hazards especially when they accumulate in plant tissues. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi have a magic role in soil remediation that polluted with heavy metals. So, a greenhouse experiment was conducted at the nutrition greenhouse, Soil, Water and Environment institute (SWERI), ARC, Giza, Egypt during summer 2011 to study the interaction of Arbuscular mycorrhizal with certain heavy metals (Zinc and Copper) when soil polluted with three concentrations 0.1, 1 and 5 mM of ZnSO or CuSO, and the impact on metal mobilization and accumulation by Zea mays. Results confirmed the ability of mycorrhizal to increase plant root and shoot lengths, dry weights and yield parameters. The increase of mycorrhizal colonization (%) in roots, the plant content of nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, crude protein (%) and total carbohydrates were also detected in this study. Increase in soil enzyme activities urease and dehydrogenase were resulted from incorporation of AMF and metals in the soil. Results illustrated that the concentrations of heavy metals in Zea mayze plants were limited according to the actual requirements of plant. Mycorrhizal plants led to the increase of tolerance index against Zn and Cu concentrations and also alleviated the reduction rate in plant. That proved the vital role of AMF to limit heavy metals translocations and gave the possibility to use it as an inoculum in remediation of polluted soil with these fatal metals.
What does the Purchasing Orientation Tell about the Buyer , the Organization , and the Supplier Selection Criteria ?

Companies can select from different purchasing orientations in relation to how they manage their supplier relationships, what supplier selection criteria they use, and how many suppliers they employs for a specific product. One of the most commonly used categorizations divides the purchasing orientations into buying orientation, procurement orientation, and supply management orientation. This research concerns purchasing orientation. More precisely, the study focuses on the effects and implications of purchasing orientation on purchasing manager profile, company characteristics, and the criteria that companies employ in selecting their suppliers. The study analyzed the responses of 85 Finnish purchasing managers working in a businessto-business environment. The overall results show that reliability is ranked as the most critical supplier selection criterion among purchasing managers. Managers who emphasized low purchasing prices were significantly less interested in the reliability or the reputation of the supplier. In addition, managers who saw long-term relationships as critical in their business were focused more on single sourcing relationships and required more personal supplier relationships. Regardless of purchasing orientation, the managers did not emphasize lifetime costs as important.
Chapter 6 A prospective study on elective umbilical hernia repair in patients with liver cirrhosis and ascites

Background: Patients with both cirrhosis and ascites have a 20% risk of developing umbilical hernia. A retrospective study from our center comparing conservative management of umbilical hernia with elective repair in these patients showed a significant risk of mortality as a result of hernia incarceration in conservatively treated patients. The goal of this study was to assess the safety and efficacy of elective umbilical hernia repair in these patients prospectively. Methods: Patients with liver cirrhosis and ascites presenting with an umbilical hernia were included in this study. For all patients, the expected time to liver transplantation was more than 3 months, and they did not have a patent umbilical vein in the hernia sac. The following data were collected prospectively for all patients: Child-PughTurcotte (CPT) classification, model for endstage liver disease (MELD) score, kidney failure, cardiovascular comorbidity, operation-related complications, and duration of hospital stay. Mortality rates were registered in hospital records and verified in government records during follow-up. Mortality rates were registered in hospital records and verified in government records during follow-up. On completion of the study, a retrospective survey was performed to search for any patients who met the study inclusion criteria but were left out of the study cohort. Results: In total, 30 patients (25 males) underwent operation at a mean age of 58 years (standard deviation [SD] ± 9 years). Of these 30 patients, 6 were classified as CPT grade A (20%), 19 (63%) as grade B, and 5 (17%) as grade C. The patients’ median MELD score was 12 (interquartile range [IQR], 8–16). In 10 (33%) of the 30 patients hernia repair was performed with mesh. The median duration of hospital stay was 3 days (IQR, 2–4). None of the patients were admitted to the intensive care unit. Postoperative complications included pneumonia and decompensation of cirrhosis (1 case each), resulting in prolonged hospital stay for those 2 patients. After a median follow-up period of 25 months (IQR, 14–34), 2 (7%) of the 30 patients died; neither of the deaths were attributable to the umbilical hernia repair. A total of 2 patients suffered recurrence. Conclusion: Elective umbilical hernia repair is safe and the preferred approach in cirrhotic patients with ascites. 2 Erasmus Medical Center Rotterdam
Comparison and Revision of the Earthquake Early Warning Methods for Different Regional Seismic Data

Earthquake early warning (EEW) system is one of the most useful tools to mitigate seismic hazards. Although EEW methods have already been developed worldwide, the applicability of these processes in China is still unclear. Therefore, we tested and compared these methods by applying them to the seismic data recorded at the western area of China and attempted to provide a revised model for the earthquake early warning. The adopted data herein mainly consisted of the main-shock and aftershocks of the 2008 Ms 8.0 Wenchuan earthquake, where hundreds of three-component acceleration waveforms were treated to investigate the early warning theories. For the purpose of an EEW, reliable techniques for automatic seismic phases’ identification are essential for the subsequent real-time analysis, thus we combined the short-term and long-term average ratio (STA/LTA CF) detector with the AIC function of higher order statistics to lock on the phase with a higher accuracy. Because the estimation of the event magnitude is the central objective of EEW, comparison and selection of the parameters including the average ground motion period τc and the cumulative absolute velocity (CAV) were investigated according to their performance as magnitude estimators. Then we established the regression relationship using our dataset and the impacts of the geological conditions and earthquake occurrence environments on the earthquake early warning were also studied.
Using Apache Spark TM for Distributed Computation on a Network of Workstations

As data and computational demand continues to grow, the demand for high performance computing clusters grows, especially in the scientific community. Access to large computing resources, however, is expensive and precious. To solve this problem, we evaluate Apache SparkTM’s performance as a framework for distributing work across a network of workstations. We evaluate its scaling ability for both clusters where all nodes are identical as well as clusters of nodes with different hardware specifications. In summary we find Spark scales well for homogeneous clusters, but has some issues balancing a cluster of heterogeneous nodes. For clusters of heterogeneous nodes, Spark’s performance often resembles a weighted average of the performance of the different node specifications involved. In conclusion, we find Apache SparkTM to be a suitable framework for mediumsized numerical simulations or data-intensive simulations, where computational load is comparatively low.
Ghana’s agricultural transformation: Past patterns and sources of change

Ghana’s agriculture has performed reasonably well by African standards since the 1980s in terms of its growth, labor productivity, farm incomes, and the decline in rural poverty. Yet it has not exploited its potential to become a more important source of export earnings beyond cocoa, or to reduce the country’s growing dependence on many imported foods. As noted in Chapter 2, agriculture needs to become a more powerful engine of growth in the future if Ghana is to sustain its economic transformation and continue to grow its national per capita income. There are also concerns about the sustainability of the recent pattern of agricultural growth with its heavy dependence on expanding the cropped area rather than shifting to more intensive farming practices that can increase land productivity. Given the importance of agriculture in the Ghanaian economy, this chapter and Chapters 5–9 aim to provide a comprehensive review of the agricultural transformation that has occurred, the underlying reasons for why it has evolved the way it has, and to identify options for future growth. This chapter is structured as follows. Section 4.1 describes the main features of the agricultural transformation that has occurred since the policy reforms of the 1980s, focusing on changes in: a) production (area, yield, output, crop mix); b) technology (fertilizer, seeds, pesticides, mechanization); c) land and labor (employment, wages, productivity, farm size distribution); and d) rural incomes (farm income, nonfarm income diversification, total income, expenditure). We provide regional as well as national insights. Then in Section 4.2 we examine important factors that may have driven this pattern of transformation: the policy environment; growing population pressure on the land base; and rapid urbanization. Section 4.3 contains our conclusions. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 31/7/2019, SPi
A Review of Sheep Blowfly Pathogen Control

© 2019 Australian Wool Innovation Limited. All rights reserved. AWI invests in research, development, innovation and marketing activities along the global supply chain for Australian wool. AWI is grateful for its funding, which is primarily provided by Australian woolgrowers through a wool levy and by the Australian Government which provides a matching contribution for eligible R&D activities. Project No: ON-00620 Contract No: PO4500012271 AWI Project Manager: Bridget Peachey Contractor Name: AgResearch Prepared by: David Wright, Mark Hurst & Dave Leathwick Publication Date: August 2019
TERM CHRONIC TOXICITY OF CYCLOSPORINE EXPOSURE ON TESTIS , HEART AND LUNGS AND THE POSSIBLE PROTECTIVE EFFECTS OF L-ARGININE IN ADULT ALBINO RATS

Objective: Cyclosporine A (CsA) is an immunosuppressive drug widely used after organ transplantation or in treatment of auto-immune diseases. However, several side effects are commonly associated with CsA long term intake. The Aim of the present study was to evaluate the sub-chronic toxicity (8 weeks) of CsA on testis, heart and lungs in adult male albino rats, and to determine the potential protective effect of amino acid L-arginine. Material and Methods: A total of 48 adult male albino rats divided into in to 4 groups. Group I (control group) which is subdivided into 3 groups each of 8 rats: Group I.anegative control group each rat received only regular diet and water. Group I.bpositive control group: each rat received olive oil (0.5 cc) emulsion daily by oral gavage. Group I.cpositive control group: each rat received distilled water (0.5 cc) daily by oral gavage. Group II. Cyclosporine CsA group: (8 rats) each rat received Cyclosporine CsA 74 mg/kg (1\20 of LD50) in an olive oil emulsion (0.5 cc) daily by oral gavage . Group III. L-Arginine group: (8 rats) each rat received L-Arginine 300 mg/ kg daily by oral gavage . Group IV. Cyclosporine CsA plus L-Arginine group: (8 rats) each rat received 300 mg/ kg/day of LArginine by oral gavage a week before CsA treatment was initiated. The rats then received Cyclosporine CsA (74mg/kg in an olive oil emulsion) by oral gavage for 8 weeks. After the end of the study, blood samples were taken to measure serum testosterone levels. Testis, heart, and lungs were removed and subjected to histopathological study. Results: In CsA treated (group II), there was a significant decrease in the serum testosterone levels. Histopathological changes were in the form of (testis showed extensive degeneration of seminiferous tubules, necrosis and interstitial edema), (heart showed extensive connective tissue formation among myocardial fibers with disorganization of myocardial fibers confirmed by Masson’s Trichrome Stained sections revealing extensive fibrosis( and (lungs showed large area of acute bronchopneumonia, many alveolar walls are covered by fibrin exudates and inflammatory cellular infiltrate). While Cyclosporine CsA plus L-Arginine group (group IV) revealed partial improvement in the previous histopathological changes. The heart, showed mild myocardial disorganization and sparse connective tissue among myocardial fibers. The lung showed edematous thickening of the alveolar walls and sparse inflammatory cellular infiltrate and the testis showed that most of seminiferous tubules retain its normal structure, few show degeneration and necrosis. Conclusion: From the previous results, it can be concluded that CsA induced toxic effects in the testis as evidenced by biochemical and histopathological changes. Also, Alaa-Eldin and Abouhashem 96 Egypt J. Forensic Sci. Appli. Toxicol Vol 16 (1) June 2016 Heart and lungs showed histopathological damage. Pre-treatment with L-Arginine group (IV) reduced the subsequent CsA injury in testis, heart and lungs.
Chapter 9 Leisure Time Activities as Cognitive Training : Can Cognitive Fitness Improve Well-Being of Older Adults ?

Economic reports show that traditional economic variables are becoming insufficient in indicating nation’s progress and that self-reported well-being is emerging as an important indicator of nation’s prosperity and quality of life of its inhabitants. Since average life expectancy is consistently increasing all over the world, practitioners and scholars are increasingly confronted with the question of what can be done to improve the well-being of growing elderly population. An often highlighted characteristic of older adults is cognitive decline, and interventions aimed at improving or maintaining cognitive abilities of elderly are being extensively designed. In this chapter we will review studies indicating a link between cognition and well-being in aging and advocate (long-term) involvement in leisure activities as a form of cognitive training. Apart from its availability to a much wider audience than those participating in cognitive interventions, a key argument in favor of leisure activities is its unambiguous positive association with well-being.
Extracting bilingual word pairs from Wikipedia

A bilingual dictionary or word list is an important resource for many purposes, among them, machine translation. For many language pairs these are either non-existent, or very often unavailable owing to licensing restrictions. We describe a simple, fast and computationally inexpensive method for extracting bilingual dictionary entries from Wikipedia (using the interwiki link system) and assess the performance of this method with respect to four language pairs. Precision was found to be in the 69–92% region, but open to
Progression free survival related to F-FDG PET / CT 131 uptake and I uptake in lung metastases of differentiated thyroid cancer

Objectives: The lungs are the distant organ most frequently having metastases from di erentiated thyroid cancer (DTC). Positive uorine-18uorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomog18 raphy ( F-FDG PET/CT) scan can detect pulmonary metastases (PM) and thus suggest prognosis in DTC patients. The prognostic value of such a positive scan in DTC patients has not been speci ed. In this paper we 18 131 studied the prognostic value of F-FDG PET/CT scan uptake and also of iodine-131 ( I) in DTC patients with PM. Subjects and Methods: Out of 4500 DTC patients we retrospectively studied 83 patients having 131 PM and treated with thyroidectomy and I ablation. Clinical data were also studied. Therapeutic response assessment was based on serum thyroglobulin (Tg) levels, Tg antibodies (TgAb) and tumor size on CT 131 before and after I treatment. The mean follow-up period after the diagnosis of PM was 111.9±91.6 mon131 ths (range: from 15 to 159 months). Sixty two (62/83) patients with PM were diagnosed soon after I 131 ablation, 8 patients at 6months, 6 at 12 months and 4 at 18 months after I ablation. The remaining 3 pati131 ents were diagnosed at 30, 36 and 60 months after I ablation, respectively. The progression-free survival 18 was estimated by the Kaplan-Meier method. Results: Out of the 83 patients, 25 showed F-FDG uptake in 18 PM of DTC with elevated Tg. Weak signi cant di erence in the primary tumor size was found between F131 131 FDGpositive and negative PM of DTC (P=0.05). After I ablation 57/83 patients had positive to I PM and 18 also positive Tg. These patients were not statistically related to patients with positive or negative F-FDG 131 PM according to CT and Tg levels (P=0.35, 0.47). The presence of I uptake in the lung lesions and the ab18 sence of F-FDG uptake in these lesions were independently related to a better progression-free survival 18 (P=0.00). Conclusion: So, we conclude that F-FDG avidity predicates poor therapeutic e ect on tumor size, high risk of disease progression and less favorable prognosis. Iodine-131 avidity remains the key factor suggesting a positive therapeutic e ect on PM. Hell J Nucl Med 2019; 22(2): 123-130 Epub ahead of print: 7 July 2019 Published online: 20 July 2019
Recovering from Critical Incidents: Evidence from Paramedic Performance

Problem definition: In service operations settings where the difficulty of jobs is unpredictable, workers can encounter critical incidents (CIs)—jobs that are sufficiently disturbing to challenge workers’ coping mechanisms. We examine the impact of encountering CIs on subsequent operational performance of workers. Academic/practical relevance: Prior work has examined the effects of CIs on the long-term psychological health of workers. We demonstrate that encountering CIs has a practically meaningful impact on operational performance. We also examine the time-dependency and process-dependency of the effect and analyze whether it is mitigated by individual characteristics such as age or experience. Methodology: We use data on 902,002 ambulance activations conducted by paramedics at the London Ambulance Service (LAS). We define CIs as incidents where patients have a high probability of dying at the scene and examine the impact of such events on the paramedics’ performance for the remainder of their shifts. Our outcomes are the completion time of the ambulance activation and each of its five subprocesses. The exogenous assignment of CIs to paramedic crews allows a clean identification of our effect using a shift-level difference-in-differences specification. Results: Crews who have encountered one prior CI (two prior CIs) spend on average 2.6% (7.5%) more time completing each remaining ambulance activation in the shift. The impact is strongest for the jobs immediately following a CI but persists throughout the shift. The largest effects come from the subprocesses that are least standardized and where paramedics cannot rely on standard operating procedures. The duration effect is larger for teams of older paramedics but is simultaneously mitigated by experience. Managerial implications: Our results show that CIs increase subsequent job duration and that more than one CIs have a compounding, negative effect on operational performance. As a result, managers in settings where performance consistency is key would be advised not to assign new jobs to teams with recent CI experiences.
lmpact of Developmental , Physiological and Environmental Studies on the Commercial 12 Cultivation of Mushrooms

Fungi are an ideal food because crude protein typically represents 20-30% of fungal dry matter and contains all of the amino acids which are essential to human and animal nutrition. Fungal biomass is digested to leave their chitinous walls as a source of dietary fibre. Fungi contain B vitamins and are characteristically low in fat. An extremely important attribute of all fungal food is that it is virtually free of cholesterol. Fungal protein foods can compete successfully with animal protein foods like meat on health grounds. Since fungal foods can be produced readily, in principle, using waste products as substrates, fungal foods should also be able to compete successfully on grounds of primary cost. Agaricus bisporus (J.E. Lange) Imbach is by far the most commonly cultivated mushroom, accounting for over 7Oo/o of total global mushroom production in the mid1970s (Moore and Chiu , 2OO 1). Currently, it accounts for something closer to 30% even though production tonnage has more than doubled in the intervening years. A major change during the last quarter of the ZOth century was the increasing interest shown in so-called 'exotic' mushrooms. Fresh Lentinula (shiang-gu in Chinese or shiitake in Japanese) and Pleurotus (oyster mushrooms) are routinely found alongside Agaricusin supermarkets around the world. One reason for the remarkable increases seen in production of certain mushrooms has been the use of industrial waste products as substrates. Oyster mushrooms are easily grown on a variety of agro-industrial wastes, including cotton wastes. Similarly, while the paddy straw mushroom (Volvariella volvacea
Interactive comment on “ Long-range isentropic transport of stratospheric aerosols over Southern Hemisphere following the Calbuco eruption in April 2015 ” by Nelson Bègue et al .

First all, we thank you for attention that you wiil grant to our manuscript :"Long-range transport of stratospheric aerosols in the Southern Hemisphere following the 2015 Calbuco eruption" (acp-2017-544). Please, find attached our responses to your comments and the revised manuscript. In the revised manuscript, we made an effort to improve the quality of the English and the figures. The English of the revised manuscript was checked by a native English speaker. The modifications are indicated by italic and red bold fonts in the revised manuscript.
Lexical and sublexical effects on visual word recognition in Greek: comparing human behavior to the dual route cascaded model

ABSTRACT We evaluated the dual route cascaded (DRC) model of visual word recognition using Greek behavioural data on word and nonword naming and lexical decision, focusing on the effects of syllable and bigram frequency. DRC was modified to process polysyllabic Greek words and nonwords. The Greek DRC and native speakers of Greek were presented with the same sets of word and nonword stimuli, spanning a wide range on several psycholinguistic variables, and the sensitivity of the model to lexical and sublexical variables was compared to the effects of these factors on the behavioural data. DRC pronounced correctly all the stimuli and successfully simulated the effects of frequency in words, and of length and bigram frequency in nonwords. However, unlike native speakers of Greek, DRC failed to demonstrate sensitivity to word length and syllabic frequency. We discuss the significance of these findings in constraining models of visual word recognition.