Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
New Developments in the field of Didactics: Application for Enhancement of Excellence in Agriculture Education and Training

The study was carried out in uMzingwane district of Matabeleland South province in Zimbabwe to identify practical strategies that can be used to enhance agricultural knowledge among agriculture scholars. The research applied both tacit and informal theories (Schraw and Moshman, 1995) to identify ideal approaches in adult learning aimed to create scope for researching on agriculture learning didactics. A multi-stage random sampling was used to select 65 agriculturists (farmers) to which structured questionnaires were randomly administered. The data was analysed using a Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS, 2013). Farmers prefer learning through demonstrations (63%), participatory appraisals (17%) and question and answer (10%). There was an association in learning didactics using demonstration methods and word instruction: (X 2 =11.673, P<0.05). There was also strong positive correlation (r=0.8) between knowledge application using field trials and open or field days. Role plays seemed to out of be out of fashion (r=0.2). Training in agriculture should be holistic and emphasize on application of theory into practice. Some developments in the field of didactics are in harmony with training methods and approaches but they underscore the importance of matching training goals to individual, sector and national skills. There is need to rationalize and select cost effective teaching methods that consider institutional and national resource.
Dynamic Pricing, Advance Sales and Aggregate Demand Learning in Airlines

This paper uses a unique U.S. airlines panel data set to empirically study the dynamic pricing of inventories with uncertain demand over a finite horizon. I estimate a dynamic pricing equation and a dynamic demand equation that jointly characterize the adjustment process between prices and sales as the flight date nears. I find that the price increases as the inventory decreases, and decreases as there is less time to sell. Consistent with aggregate demand learning and price adjustment, demand shocks have a positive and much larger effect on prices than the positive effect of anticipated sales.
Monitoring Costs, Credit Constraints and Entrepreneurship

The vast majority of firms in developing economies are micro and small enterprises owned by families whose members also provide the labour to the units. Often, they fail to grow in size even with the relaxation of credit constraints. In this paper, we show that frictions in the labour market leading to monitoring costs tend to reduce the growth of the firm via two channels: (1) it forces the entrepreneur to devote more time on monitoring hired labour from outside family which curtails her time on productive activities leading to failures of firm's projects. (2) The need to pay a premium wage over the market rate in order to incentivize workers makes it costlier for the firm to expand in size via hiring outside labour. In this framework, we show that possibility of an inverted U- shaped relationship between the credit supply and the size of the firm, measured by hiring of non family labour, indicating frictions in the labour market may outweigh the effects of the easing of borrowing constraints of the firm. We then use a unique data-set comprising large nationally representative surveys of small and micro-enterprises in Indian manufacturing and find support for the existence of such a non-monotonic relationship attributed to both frictions in the credit and labour markets.
The Effect of APS on Pregnancy APS and Early Pregnancy Complications

Antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) predominantly affects young women and there has been a growing awareness of this condition amongst obstetricians and gynecologists over the last 15 years. In this chapter we discuss the association between APS and adverse pregnancy outcome and present some of the dilemmas in the management of on-going pregnancies in women with APS. Although clinicians are becoming increasingly familiar with these management options, knowledge of the pathogenesis of poor pregnancy outcome in APS remains incomplete, and in the last part of this chapter we outline some of the areas of research in this rapidly evolving field.
News from the Galactic suburbia: the chemical composition of the remote globular cluster NGC 2419 ⋆

We present the chemical analysis of 49 giant stars of the globular cluster NGC 2419, using medium resolution spectra collected with the multi-object spectrograph DEIMOS@Keck. Previous analysis of this cluster revealed a large dispersion in the line strength of the infrared Ca ii triplet, suggesting an intrinsic star-to-star scatter in its Fe or Ca content. From our analysis, we assess that all the investigated stars share the same [Fe/H], [Ca/Fe] and [Ti/Fe] abundance ratios, while a large spread in Mg and K abundances is detected. The distribution of [Mg/Fe] is bimodal, with ∼40 per cent of the observed targets having subsolar [Mg/Fe], down to [Mg/Fe] ∼ −1 dex, a level of Mg deficiency never observed before in globular clusters. It is found that the large dispersion in Mg abundances is likely the main origin of the observed dispersion of the Ca ii triplet lines strengths (that can be erroneously interpreted in terms of Fe or Ca abundance scatter) because Mg plays a relevant role in the atmosphere of giant stars as an electron donor. A strong depletion in the Mg abundance leads to an increase of the line strength of the Ca ii triplet, due to the variation in the electronic pressure, at a constant Fe and Ca abundance. Finally, we detect an anti-correlation between Mg and K abundances, not easily explainable within the framework of the current nucleosynthesis models.
Producing liquid organic fertilizer from water hyacinth; A case of lake Victoria, Kenya

Water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) is a free floating freshwater plant of the family Pontederiaceae that has proven to be a significant economic and ecological burden to many sub-tropical and tropical regions of the world. Water hyacinth has infested the fresh waters of Lake Victoria threatening the ecological health of the lake, and the livelihoods of lakeshore communities that depend on it for their income. Many methods have been used to completely eradicate the weed from the lake which include; mechanical / physical removal of the hyacinth, biological control and chemical control but none of these has been able to eradicate the weed from Lake Victoria. This study therefore endeavored to determine an integration of water hyacinth management and control with community involvement in the production of liquid organic fertilizer. The specific objectives were: to determine the chemical composition of water hyacinth, to prepare liquid samples of water hyacinth in different concentrations for application in the vegetable farm and to determine the responses of crotalaria ochroleuca vegetable to water hyacinth as a liquid organic fertilizer, The study area was along the beaches of Kisumu, Homabay and Kendubay. Chemical composition of water hyacinth was determined by the use of Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer. Prepared samples of the hyacinth were administered along with the chemical fertilizer (DAP) to crotalaria ochroleuca vegetables planted in pots and placed in a greenhouse to determine crop responses on water hyacinth applications as fertilizer. Completely Randomized Design (CRD) and a one-way ANOVA technique were used to analyze data. Water hyacinth samples from the three study areas contained significant amounts of chemical components. These were; Chlorine, Nitrogen, Phosphorous, Sulphur, Copper, Calcium, Magnesium and Lead. It was found that at 5% level of significance, one liter water hyacinth sample significantly increased the plant height, number of leaves per plant and the leaf area, of crotalaria ochroleuca vegetable. The study recommends that the government should encourage the production of organic fertilizer from hyacinth and involve the community in their production since these will empower the community economically and help rid the lake of the weed.
Study about the Relationship of Some Aerobic Anaerobic Bacteria of Acne and its Resistance to Some of Antibiotic Yasameen

Acne vulgar is a common chronic skin disease involving blockage and/ or inflammation of pilosebaceous unit (hair follicle) and their accompanying sebaceous glands). Acne develops as results of an interplay of the following four factors one of them the presence and activity of commensal bacteria Propionibacterium acnes. Methods: (438) samples were collected from (312) infected patients with acnes from both sexes (132 males) and (180 female) for the period from January 2015 to February 2016 where the comedone samples were (116) and pustules samples (322) samples. Samples were distributed in different agricultural medium where identified their depending upon appearance characteristics and biochemistry tests. (12) Plant extracts were used, testing microbe sensitivity of plant extracts and all the results were analyzed by using variance analysis (ANOVA table). Moral valued at level (P< 0.05). Results: Clinical results showed that repetition of infections at females was more than the male. Domination of (P. acnes) bacteria in comedone while domination of (S. epidermidis) bacteria in pustules. it was noticed that the Antibiotic Doxycycline was the most effective in killing all micro-organism under consideration comparing with extracts of used plants. Conclusion: The study revealed that QuercesRobur L. has fatal effectiveness at rate of (100%) to all positive and negative isolates to gram stain comparing with other plant extracts. We recommend using new medical herbs not used before for the treatment of acne which must have fatal effect upon bacteria (Antibacterial Activity).
Compact heterotic orbifolds in blow-up

We compare heterotic string models on orbifolds with supergravity models on smooth compact spaces, obtained by resolving the orbifold singularities. Our main focus is on heterotic E8 × E'8 models on the resolution of the compact T6/3 orbifold with Wilson lines. We explain how different gauge fluxes at various resolved fixed points can be interpreted in blow down as Wilson lines. Even when such Wilson lines are trivial from the orbifold perspective, they can still lead to additional symmetry breaking in blow-up. Full agreement is achieved between orbifold and resolved models, at the level of gauge interactions, massless spectrum and anomaly cancellation. In this matching the blow-up modes are of crucial importance: they play the role of model-dependent axions involved in the cancellation of multiple anomalous U(1)'s on the resolution. We illustrate various aspects by investigating blow-ups of a 3 MSSM model with two Wilson lines: if all its fixed points are resolved simultaneously, the SM gauge group is necessarily broken. Finally, we explore in detail the anomaly cancellation on the complex two dimensional resolution of 2/2.
Growth and Crisis in Transition: A Comparative Perspective

The paper provides an empirical analysis of the growth performance of transition countries in a comparative perspective, separating episodes of crises from those of growth. Performance is measured by the output response following recessions, rather than average rates of growth that aggregate periods of recessions and periods of growth. Results highlight significant differences between transition and non-transition countries, and heterogeneity within the transition group. Distinguishing the performance following the so-called "transitional recession" from that of "normal recessions", the analysis allows separating the role of initial conditions, pre-transition, from the effects determined by the economic structure that emerged after the launch of market reforms. The post-recession behavior of output in Central-Eastern Europe resembles that of emerging and developing countries in the aftermath of banking and financial crises, often following significant liberalizations. In contrast, the post-crisis performance of CIS countries resembles the output response observed during episodes of civil wars, and remains significantly different from the normal response of an average market country. Therefore, the ability to rebound after a crisis is a key element of the growth performance of different transition countries. We observe that such performance depends on economic reforms and especially on the complementarities among different reforms.
Influence of Explicit Ions on Titration Curves and Conformations of Flexible Polyelectrolytes: A Monte Carlo Study

Acid/base and conformational properties of a weak polyelectrolyte chain surrounded by explicit ions (counterions and salt particles) are investigated using Monte Carlo simulations. The influence of the pH, monomer size, presence of explicit ions, salt particles, salt size, and valency on the polyelectrolyte titration process is systematically investigated. It is shown that the presence of explicit ions, the increase in pH and monomer sizes, and the decrease in salt radius are parameters that favor the monomer deprotonation processes hence affecting the global acid/base polyelectrolyte chain properties. The competition between attractive and repulsive, long-range and local electrostatic interactions leads to a heterogeneous distribution of charges and ions along the polyelectrolyte backbones. This subtle electrostatic competition leads to equilibrated chain conformations ranging from extended to globular conformations. A simple screening effect is achieved with monovalent salt resulting in a slight limitat.
Effects of Land Use Conversion from upland to Paddy Field on Ammonia-oxidizing Archaeal and Ammonia-oxidizing Bacterial Communities in Jianghan Plain, Hubei Province, China

The current study investigated the relationships between genes of two key microorganisms (Arch-amoA and Bac-amoA,) and soil physicochemical properties for the upland conversion to paddy field in Jianghan plains of China. Randomized complete block design was used for three treatments: Upland, paddy field and upland to paddy field. Our results revealed that ammonia oxidizing archaea (AOA) and soil properties such as ammonium nitrate, pH, and nitrate contents showed a positive correlation with upland and upland to paddy field treatments. While on the other hand, total available nitrogen was negatively correlated with paddy field treatment. Redundancy analysis of ammonia oxidizing bacteria (AOB) and soil properties like pH, ammonium nitrate, and nitrate contents were positively correlated with the upland and upland to paddy field treatments whereas the paddy field treatment was negatively correlated with the total available nitrogen. Total number of Operational taxonomic unit numbers shared by three treatments in the archaeal community was 41, whereas 134 for bacterial community. However, it is concluded that land conversion from upland to paddy field significantly altered the structure of bacterial and archaeal ammonia oxidizing community simultaneously. © 2019 Friends Science Publishers
Space geodesy validation of the global lithospheric flow

SUMMARY Space geodesy data are used to verify whether plates move chaotically or rather follow a sort of tectonic mainstream. While independent lines of geological evidence support the existence of a global ordered flow of plate motions that is westerly polarized, the Terrestrial Reference Frame (TRF) presents limitations in describing absolute plate motions relative to the mantle. For these reasons we jointly estimated a new plate motions model and three different solutions of net lithospheric rotation. Considering the six major plate boundaries and variable source depths of the main Pacific hotspots, we adapted the TRF plate kinematics by global space geodesy to absolute plate motions models with respect to the mantle. All three reconstructions confirm (i) the tectonic mainstream and (ii) the net rotation of the lithosphere. We still do not know the precise trend of this tectonic flow and the velocity of the differential rotation. However, our results show that assuming faster Pacific motions, as the asthenospheric source of the hotspots would allow, the best lithospheric net rotation estimate is 13.4 ± 0.7 cm yr −1 . This superfast solution seems in contradiction with present knowledge on the lithosphere decoupling, but it matches remarkably better with the geological constraints than those retrieved with slower Pacific motion and net rotation estimates. Assuming faster Pacific motion, it is shown that all plates move orderly ‘westward’ along the tectonic mainstream at different velocities and the equator of the lithospheric net rotation lies inside the corresponding tectonic mainstream latitude band ( ≈± 7 ◦ ), defined by the 1σ confidence intervals.
CONFIDENCE IN COOPERATIVE RELATIONS BETWEEN ENTREPRENEURS AND VCs: THE ROLE OF SOCIAL AND FORMAL CONTROL MECHANISMS

This study examines how VCs' strategic and managerial involvement mediates the relationships between social control mechanisms and entrepreneurs' confidence in VCs' cooperation. Based on data collected from 120 Israeli entrepreneurs, the findings indicate that VCs' strategic involvement is found to be positively associated with entrepreneurs' confidence in VCs' cooperation whereas, VCs' managerial involvement is found to be negatively associated with entrepreneurs' confidence in VCs' cooperation. Specifically, it was found that VCs' strategic involvement mediates the positive relationships between shared beliefs and similarities, fairness and justice, entrepreneurs' influence on decision-making and their confidence in VCs' cooperation. VCs' managerial involvement mediates the negative relationships between shared beliefs and similarities and entrepreneurs' confidence in VCs' cooperation. However, contrary to the expectations, VCs' managerial involvement does not mediate the relationships between fairness and justice and entrepreneurs' confidence in VCs cooperation. Furthermore, entrepreneurs' influence on decision-making is found to be positively associated VCs' managerial involvement although this involvement was found to be negatively associated with entrepreneurs' confidence in VCs cooperation. The contributions and limitations of the study findings are further discussed, providing additional directions for research.
DYNAMIC MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF PARTICULATE REINFORCED METAL-MATRIX COMPOSITES AT LOW TEMPERATURES

Dynamic mechanical properties, particularly the damping capacity, of the material are important parameters that the engineers need to consider when they select materials for space structure application. The materials studied in this paper are two SiC particulate reinforced aluminum composites, which have the same volume fraction of ceramic particulate and same type of matrix, but are fabricated by different processing techniques one by powder metallurgy and another by squeeze casting. Microstructures of two composites were studied using optical and scanning electron microscopes. Changes in damping capacity of the composites at sub-ambient temperature region were studied using Dynamic Mechanical Analyzer (DMA). The result shows that sub-ambient temperature has little effect on the damping characteristics of squeeze cast processed composite, but significantly influence the damping capacity of samples processed by powder metallurgy. Analysis shows that such difference in damping behavior of two composites at sub-ambient temperature is due to the significant difference in their microstructures.
A glacier inventory for South Tyrol, Italy, based on airborne laser-scanner data

Abstract A new approach to glacier inventory, based on airborne laser-scanner data, has been applied to South Tyrol, Italy: it yields highly accurate results with a minimum of human supervision. Earlier inventories, from 1983 and 1997, are used to compare changes in area, volume and equilibrium-line altitude. A reduction of 32% was observed in glacier area from 1983 to 2006. Volume change, derived from the 1997 and 2006 digital elevation models, was –1.037 km3, and an ELA rise of 54 m, to almost 3000 m a.s. l. , was calculated for this period. Losses vary widely for individual glaciers, but have accelerated for all South Tyrolean glaciers since the first inventory in 1983.
A lowering effect of reconstructed Holocene changes in sea surface temperatures on the atmospheric CO2 concentration

One of the mechanisms proposed to explain the roughly 20 ppmv increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration from the early to late Holocene is a warming of the ocean surface that reduces CO2 solubility (Indermühle et al., 1999). Here we show that this hypothesis is not supported by reconstructed changes in sea surface temperatures (SSTs) because of an inhomogeneous distribution of SST changes across the globe during the course of Holocene. While alkenone‐based SST reconstructions compiled in the GHOST database (Kim et al., 2004; Kim and Schneider, 2004) suggest a net warming of the surface ocean on a global scale by 0.2 ± 0.2°C, both data and model results support a significant cooling trend for the North Atlantic during the last 8000 years. In response to the reconstructed cooling of the North Atlantic by 1.1 ± 0.2°C, a zonally averaged model of oceanic biogeochemistry simulates a drawdown of atmospheric CO2 by 7 ± 0.8 ppmv, while a reconstructed warming of the Pacific Ocean by 0.6 ± 0.4°C counterbalances this effect by about 1 ppmv. On a global scale, this model simulates a lowering of atmospheric CO2 from the Holocene to pre‐industrial times by 6 ± 2 ppmv due to changes in SSTs, while more complex, three‐dimensional biogeochemistry model indicates a moderate decrease by 1 ppmv after 300 years of the model integration. Our study suggests that changes in SSTs may have altered atmospheric CO2 in a direction opposite to the observed trend and that other mechanisms, presumably related to the changes in carbonate chemistry, could be responsible for the CO2 increase during the Holocene.
Analogies between Colloidal Sedimentation and Turbulent Convection at High Prandtl Numbers

The study of the motions of small particles suspended in a fluid has always been an interesting subject in physics. The dynamics of the particles is determined by the statistical properties of the random forces resulting from interactions between the particle and the surrounding fluid. Brownian diffusion of small particles in a fluid at thermal equilibrium is one of the classical and best understood examples. The motion of particles in a nonequilibrium fluid, on the other hand, represents an anomalous diffusion process in which hydrodynamic dispersion coefficients might diverge@1#. Sedimentation of heavy colloidal particles under gravity through a quiescent fluid is an example of such a process. The main issue in colloidal sedimentation is to understand how hydrodynamic interactions created by the motion of many surrounding particles in the fluid affect a test particle’s mean sedimentation velocity vand its variance dv g at different particle concentrations @2#. Because the disturbance flow produced by a particle decays as 1/l , where l is the radial distance from the particle, simple theoretical calculations @3# as well as computer simulations @4# have indicated that the velocity variance dv g might diverge with increasing sample size L. Experiments, however, find no dependence ofdv g on
A Matrix Model for Static Configurations of M-Theory

We suggest that the static configurations of M-theory are described by the matrix regularisation of the supermembrane theory in static gauge. We compute long range interaction between a M-2-brane and an anti-M-2-brane in agreement with the 11 dimensional supergravity result. E-mail: ardalan@theory.ipm. ac.ir E-mail: fath@theory.ipm. ac.ir E-mail: kaviani@theory.ipm. ac.ir E-mail: parvizi@netware2.ipm. ac.ir 0