Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cytogenetic and molecular markers reveal the complexity of the genus Piabina Reinhardt, 1867 (Characiformes: Characidae)

Cytogenetic and molecular analyses were carried out in fish representative of the genus Piabina. This study specifically involved the species P. argentea and P. anhembi collected from areas of the Paranapanema and Tiete River basins, Brazil. Our findings suggest that fish classified as Piabina argentea in the Paranapanema and Tiete Rivers may represent more than one species. The samples analyzed differed by cytogenetic particularities and molecular analyses using partial sequences of the genes COI and CytB as genetic markers revealed three distinct groups of P. argentea with genetic distances sufficient to support the conclusion that the three samples analyzed are three distinct taxonomic units. Foram realizadas analises citogeneticas e moleculares em representantes do genero Piabina. O estudo envolveu especificamente as especies P. argentea e P. anhembi coletadas nas areas das bacias hidrograficas dos rios Paranapanema e Tiete (Brasil). Os dados sugerem que a especie P. argentea coletada nas bacias dos rios Paranapanema e Tiete podem representar mais de uma especie. As amostras analisadas diferem por particularidades citogeneticas e nas analises moleculares utilizando-se sequencias parciais dos genes COI e CytB, revelando tres grupos distintos de P. argentea com distâncias geneticas suficientes para sustentar a conclusao de que as tres amostras analisadas sao unidades taxonomicas distintas.
Improving quality of life in self-reported gastrointestinal disorders: An open trial of a food elimination diet guided by the ImmunoBloodprint food sensitivity test *

Purpose: Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and gastrointestinal (GI) disorders are genuine health problems that have serious consequences on a patient’s quality of life (QoL). IBS is a functional disorder characterized by chronically recurring symptoms, including abdominal pain or discomfort, altered stool frequency and consistency, and abdominal bloating in the absence of structural or biochemical abnormalities. Studies have indicated that symptoms and disability related to IBS and GI disorders correlate with QoL measures. Additionally, those who respond to therapy have an improvement in QoL. Therefore, we explored an open trial of a food elimination diet guided by the ImmunoBloodprint food sensitivity test and its effect on QoL in patients self-reporting an unresolved GI disorder. Methods: Eighty-four subjects aged 18 and above participated in the study. Subjects eliminated all IgG-mediated reactive foods from their diet for 90 days. QoL was assessed with the Irritable Bowel Syndrome-36 (IBS-36) and the Medical Outcomes Study Short Form-36 (SF-36) at baseline and 30-, 60-, and 90-day follow-up. The data were analyzed with linear mixed models. Results: Subjects had statistically significant improvements in all indicators of QoL according to the IBS-36 and SF-36 from baseline to 90- day follow-up. Conclusions: Subjects with unresolved self-reported GI disorders were able to improve all indicators of QoL in response to eliminating IgG- reactive foods from the diet. Given the inconvenience of keeping track of foods and symptoms to eliminate intolerant foods, a food sensitivity test combined with an elimination diet may be an effective method for improving subjective markers of QoL and health.
Modelling Combustion of Ammonia/Hydrogen Fuel Blends under Gas Turbine Conditions

: To utilize ammonia as an alternative fuel for future power generation, it is essential to develop combustion chemical kinetic mechanisms which can describe in some detail the reaction characteristics and combustion properties. In present study, a detailed chemical-kinetics mechanism is developed to validate premixed combustion characteristics of ammonia and hydrogen fuel blends comprehensively. In order to obtain a useful model for gas turbine applications, the proposed kinetic mechanism is verified in terms of NO x emission, laminar burning velocity and ignition delay times, focusing particularly on elevated conditions which are encountered during gas turbine operation. Results have shown that the proposed kinetic model performs with satisfactory accuracy under different practical equivalence ratio conditions. The comparison with other mechanisms from the literature also demonstrates that the model can comprehensively describe the reaction process of ammonia/hydrogen fuels in terms of different combustion properties especially under gas turbine conditions. Finally, to develop the kinetic model for more practical applications, the proposed mechanism is reduced and appraised in a 2D Large-Eddy-Simulation simulation representing turbulent combustion for ammonia/hydrogen fuels under gas turbine conditions. The reduced mechanism shows good agreement with the parent model, whilst offering considerably greater computationally efficiency, hence providing optimism for the application of detailed ammonia chemistry for future CFD analysis under gas turbine combustion conditions.
Why do buyers complain about online purchases

Consumers who make purchases in online channels do not feel fully satisfied and complaints on different stages of the service are frequent. To identify motives for such complaints, 720 communications, posted in one–year period on the main Brazilian website for complaints and addressed to the three online retailers who received most complaints, were randomly selected and submitted to content analysis. Results reveal the most frequent motives for complaints by online consumers: failures in after-sale service, delays and failures in deliveries and failures related to the policies of exchange and return. The method used in this work and the results obtained are a relevant contribution to the literature on the subject. Thanks to its simplicity and low cost of application, the method can easily be used by companies to reveal motives of dissatisfaction of consumers with online channels, offering elements to improve processes.
Effects of augmentative releases of the coccinellid, Adalia bipunctata, and of insecticide treatments in autumn on the spring population of aphids of the genus Dysaphis in apple orchards

The impact of augmentative releases of indigenous predators and insecticide applications to control the autumn aphid forms of the genus Dysaphis (Homoptera: Aphididae), major pest insects on apple trees, was assessed in one‐year field experiments in Switzerland. Eggs and larvae of the two‐spot ladybird beetle Adalia bipunctata (L.) (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) were released on 4‐year old apple trees in various numbers at five different dates in autumn 1998 when sexuales of the aphids were present. Additionally, Pyrethrum HP was sprayed at the same five dates to compare the effectiveness of these augmentative releases to a commonly applied insecticide. Augmentative releases of larvae before mid‐October significantly prevented the deposition of overwintering eggs by aphids of the genus Dysaphis and consequently reduced the number of hatched fundatrices in spring, 1999. There was a significant negative functional response among the number of released coccinellid larvae in autumn 1998 and the number of observed fundatrices on apple trees in spring 1999. Applications of Pyrethrum HP before mid‐October were more effective than augmentative releases of larvae of A. bipunctata. The release of coccinellid eggs had no impact on the number of fundatrices of the genus Dysaphis in the next spring because they did not hatch due to bad weather conditions. The weather conditions in autumn seemed to have an impact on the autumn migration of the winged aphids back to their primary host. The prevention of egg deposition of aphids in autumn is a promising control strategy and deserves further exploration for practical use.
Atlantic Multidecadal Variability as a Modulator of Precipitation Variability in the Southwest United States

Two independent atmospheric general circulation models reveal that the positive (negative) phase of Atlantic multidecadal variability (AMV) can reduce (amplify) the variance of the shorter time-scale (e.g., ENSO related) precipitation fluctuations in the United States, especially in the Southwest, as well as decrease (increase) the long-term seasonal mean precipitation for the cold season. The variance is modulated because of changes in 1) dry day frequency and 2) maximum daily rainfall intensity. With positive AMV forcing, the upper-level warming originating from the increased precipitation over the tropical Atlantic Ocean changes the mean vertical thermal structure over the United States continent to a profile less favorable for rain-inducing upward motions. In addition, a northerly low-level dry advection associated with the local overturning leaves less available column moisture for condensation and precipitation. The opposite conditions occur during cold AMV periods.
Evaluating the Capability of the Flux-Limiter Schemes in Capturing the Turbulence Structures in a Fully Developed Channel Flow

Turbulence modelling is still evolving, and efforts are on to improve and develop numerical methods to simulate the real turbulence structures by using the empirical and experimental information. The monotonically integrated large eddy simulation (MILES) is an attractive approach for modelling turbulence in high Re flows, which is based on the solving of the unfiltered flow equations with no explicit sub-grid scale (SGS) model. In the current work, this approach has been used, and the action of the SGS model has been included implicitly by intrinsic nonlinear high-frequency filters built into the convection discretization schemes. The MILES solver is developed using the opensource CFD OpenFOAM libraries. The role of flux limiters schemes namely, Gamma, superBee, vanAlbada and van-Leer, is studied in predicting turbulent statistical quantities for a fully developed channel flow with a friction Reynolds number, ReT = 180, and compared the numerical predictions with the well-established Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) results for studying the wall generated turbulence. It is inferred from the numerical predictions that Gamma, van-Leer and van-Albada limiters produced more diffusion and overpredicted the velocity profiles, while superBee scheme reproduced velocity profiles and turbulence statistical quantities in good agreement with the reference DNS data in the streamwise direction although it deviated slightly in the spanwise and normal to the wall directions. The simulation results are further discussed in terms of the turbulence intensities and Reynolds stresses averaged in time and space to draw conclusion on the flux limiter schemes performance in OpenFOAM context. Keywords—Flux limiters, MILES, OpenFOAM, turbulence structures, TVD schemes.
The Structure of Student Engagement in Community College Student Success Programs: A Quantitative Activity Systems Analysis

Community colleges increasingly implement various student success programs, including 1st-year seminars, college skills courses, learning communities, and orientation, in an effort to boost degree completion. However, it is unclear how success programs’ curricular designs may contribute to these and associated student outcomes. Such inquiry is limited, in part, by the lack of methodological frameworks for program impact heterogeneity research. This study proposes a new conceptualization of nominally different student success programs as instances of a broader activity, which also provides a way to operationalize their curricular structures in comparable ways. Second, to briefly illustrate this approach, the study leverages matched program and student data to investigate how variations in student engagement—an emergent intermediate outcome for fostering successful college going—are related to variation in program design. Findings reveal that structural and underutilized curricular elements may be more impactful than skills-based curricula that are typically the organizing focus of these programs.
Measuring Individual Economic Well‐Being and Social Welfare within the Framework of the System of National Accounts

While the agenda of “beyond GDP” encompasses measurements that lie outside boundaries of the System of National Accounts, key aspects of individual well‐being and social welfare can be incorporated into an SNA framework. We bring together the relevant theoretical literature and the empirical tools needed for this purpose. We show how consumption‐based measures of economic welfare can be integrated into the national accounts without changing their production or asset boundary. At the same time, explicit normative and methodological choices are required to select a social welfare function. The paper provides guidance how to make these choices transparent and how to present social welfare measures.
Spatial Analysis of Weather Crash Patterns

Spatial statistical techniques can be an effective tool for analyzing patterns and autocorrelation in crash data, especially weather-related crashes. Since weather is a geographic phenomenon, it tends to show distinct geographic patterns affecting certain locations more than others. Accordingly, “weather-related” crashes may also display similar distinct patterns or clustering. The objective of this research was to use spatial statistical techniques to identify significant patterns of weather-related crashes. Weather-related crashes, defined as those crashes which occurred in adverse weather conditions, were analyzed using the Getis-Ord Gi* (d) statistic. The statistic reveals spatial patterns for weather-related crashes which are clustered at different locations depending upon weather conditions (snow, rain, and fog). The results also show geographic areas (counties) of statistically significant high and low relative crash rates for each weather condition. Furthermore, the resulting patterns of crashes w.
Photo-Modulation of Single-Molecule Magnetic Dynamics of a Dysprosium Dinuclear Complex via a Diarylethene Bridge

A photo-switchable single molecule-magnet (SMM) with two Dy ions bridged by a bis-bipyridine-dithienylethene ligand was synthesised. Isomerisation effects on the magnetic properties were investigated. Particular attention was paid to the slow relaxation of the magnetisation in order to determine precisely the role played by the ligand. Photo-isomerization of the ligand induced a geometric rearrangement of the complex and an electronic reconfiguration. The changes were studied by solid and solution state magnetic measurements.
Organizational competitiveness factors

The objective of this article is to identify in the business administration literature the elements considered most important to improve business performance, based on content analysis of academic articles on subjects related to competitiveness, productivity, efficiency and performance. The data come from periodicals available from sources listed at the CAPES portal in the period from 2000 to 2009. From the analysis of 486 articles, we identified 15 organizational competitiveness factors: strategic alliances, human capital, reliability, knowledge, cost, cultural factors, flexibility, innovation, quality, speed, customer relations, social responsibility, control systems, production techniques, and information and communication technologies. These factors have the potential to contribute to the establishment of organizational priorities and can be considered as guides for the construction of management instruments and the implementation of actions to improve competitiveness.
Large Eddy Simulation of gravity currents with a high order DG method

Abstract This work deals with Direct Numerical Simulations (DNS) and Large Eddy Simulations (LES) of a turbulent gravity current in a gas, performed by means of a Discontinuous Galerkin (DG) Finite Elements method employing, in the LES case, LES-DG turbulence models previously introduced by the authors. Numerical simulations of non-Boussinesq lock-exchange benchmark problems show that, in the DNS case, the proposed method allows to correctly reproduce relevant features of variable density gas ows with gravity. Moreover, the LES results highlight, also in this context, the excessively high dissipation of the Smagorinsky model with respect to the Germano dynamic procedure.
Financial Openness & Institutions in Developing Countries

Abstract The paper examines for foreign portfolio investment recent result that foreign direct investment has positive effect on institutions in developing countries. Promise of firms to improve governance (in order to raise funds from outsiders) is more credible if they cross-list on the U.S. stock exchange. Stringent disclosures required by the U.S. are available to domestic regulators who become under pressure to follow global standards. Using 48 developing countries, I show greater openness of stock and bonds markets leads to better quality relevant institutions. I use both a natural experiment, viz. 2008 financial crisis outflows, and 2SLS/IV estimation to examine the endogeniety issues.
Corruption, Norm Enforcement and Cooperation

In many societies, the power to punish is granted to a centralized authority. While the punishment of free-riders has been shown to play an important role in the provision of public goods, corruption might strongly disrupt the ability of a centralized authority to foster cooperation. In this paper, we show that cooperation is reduced by 30% if the punishment authority can be bribed. Two concurrent channels lead to this result. First, low contributors use bribery as a way to tame the punishment authority. The punishment authority tends to reciprocate these bribes by assigning fewer punishment points. These low levels of punishment do not suffice to discipline the free-riders, who never raise their contributions. Second, bribery has negative spillovers on high contributors, who get discouraged and gradually decrease their contributions down to the level of low contributors. Overall, our paper highlights a potential peril of centralization: the sensitivity of the punishment authority to bribery.
Preventing Manipulation in Aggregating Value-Based Argumentation Frameworks

Recently, connections between abstract argumentation and decision making have gained increasing attention. In particular, value-based argumentation attempts to capture the specificity of deliberation concerning a choice of actions. This approach assumes that in such debates arguments appeal to certain values. Each agent ranks the values and evaluates arguments in accordance with her own preferences over values that they appeal to. The model assumes that an agent disregards attacks on strong arguments by weaker attackers. This move creates agent-specific argumentation frameworks. Another recent line of research in abstract argumentation involves situations in which agents aggregate agents’ views on acceptability of arguments, or on the structure of argumentation. In the thesis I study strategic behavior in argumentation based on values. The thesis consists of two major parts. The first one considers the single agent scenario. Here, I investigate the possibility for an agent to enforce that an argument supporting her desired decision is accepted when her preference ordering over values does not allow this acceptance. Then, methods of finding the closest preference ordering to the agent’s original hierarchy of values sufficient to achieve this goal are considered. In the second part I investigate the problem of manipulating the outcome discussion based on values in the multi-agent setting. Here, manipulation is understood as communicating an insincere preference ordering over values to ensure that a desired decision is made. A challenge tackled in this part is concerned with providing a procedure for aggregating opinions about the relative strength of arguments based on values that they appeal to. Two approaches to this problem are considered. In the first of them agents’ preferences over values are aggregated directly with employment of preference aggregation functions. The other approach involves aggregation of argumentation frameworks corresponding to agents’ views on the relative strength of arguments.
An Analysis of the critical strategic dimensions for internalization of Brazilian firms in global base-of-pyramid (BOP) markets

This paper presents the critical strategic dimensions to operate in international Base-of-Pyramid (BOP) markets. The variables studied are reasons for internationalizing: prices, promotion, distribution, products, innovation, entrance into markets and processes. A descriptive, exploratory, multiple-case research was developed with the Brazilian firms Natura, O Boticario, AmBev, Embraco, Perdigao and Havaianas. Longitudinal and comparative analyses led to the conclusion that the main reason for entrance in international BOP markets is increased long-term sales and earnings. Critical strategic dimensions are brand management, adequate product mix, process innovation, relationships with stakeholders and corporation culture strengthening.
Nasal carriage of methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus (mrsa) among health care workers in a tertiary care hospital

Aim and Background: The aim of this study was to detect the carrier rate of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) among the health care workers (HCWs) in a tertiary care hospital and determine the antimicrobial susceptibility for topically used antimicrobial agents. Increasing number of infections are caused by MRSA strains in the hospitals. About 5% of HCWâ€™s become colonized with MRSA and frequently act as vectors of transmission[1]. Methods: Nasal swabs from 200 healthcare workers were collected in the month of October 2017. These swabs were processed using standard laboratory techniques. Results: Of the samples of 200 HCWs we have collected, 52(26%) were nasal carriers of S. aureus and among them 17(32.7%) were carriers of MRSA. The overall carrier rate of MRSA was 8.5 %(17/200). All isolates were sensitive to bacitracin; 76.47 %(13/17) were sensitive and 23.5%(4/17) were resistant to minocycline; 82.35%(14/17) were sensitive and 17.6%(3/17) were resistant to mupirocin. Conclusion: This study emphasizes the need for active surveillance of HCWs to detect MRSA colonization and take appropriate measures. The carriers should be treated with topical mupirocin 3 times daily for 5 days for decolonization of MRSA.Strict adherence to infection control practices can limit the spread of MRSA infection by HCWs to susceptible individuals.