Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Responses of Macroinvertebrate Community Metrics to a Wastewater Discharge in the Upper Blue River of Kansas and Missouri, USA

The Blue River Main wastewater treatment facility (WWTF) discharges into the upper Blue River (725 km2), and is recently upgraded to implement biological nutrient removal. We measured biotic condition upstream and downstream of the discharge utilizing the macroinvertebrate protocol developed for Kansas streams. We examined responses of 34 metrics to determine the best indicators for discriminating site differences and for predicting biological condition. Significant differences between sites upstream and downstream of the discharge were identified for 15 metrics in April and 12 metrics in August. Upstream biotic condition scores were significantly greater than scores at both downstream sites in April (p = 0.02), and in August the most downstream site was classified as non-biologically supporting. Thirteen EPT taxa (Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera, Trichoptera) considered intolerant of degraded stream quality were absent at one or both downstream sites. Increases in tolerance metrics and filtering macroinvertebrates, and a decline in ratio of scrapers to filterers all indicated effects of increased nutrient enrichment. Stepwise regressions identified several significant models containing a suite of metrics with low redundancy (R2 = 0.90 - 0.99). Based on the rapid decline in biological condition downstream of the discharge, the level of nutrient removal resulting from the facility upgrade (10% - 20%) was not enough to mitigate negative effects on macroinvertebrate communities.
Prospect of payments for environmental services in the Blue Nile Basin: examples from Koga and Gumera watersheds, Ethiopia

In transboundary river basins, like the Blue Nile, conflicts over the use of water resources are growing and recent advances in sustainable resource management recognizes the need for approaches that coordinate activities of people dependent on a common resource-base to realize sustainability and equity. Payments for Environmental Services (PES) are a component of a new and more direct conservation paradigm and an emerging concept to finance conservation programs by fostering dialogue between upstream and downstream land users. Those kinds of approach are particularly useful if applied in basins where irrigation schemes are emerging and the service life of reservoir and irrigation canals, in downstream areas are threatened by the sediments moved from upstream region. Here we report the results of our study on the determinants of Willingness to Pay (WTP) and Willingness to Compensate (WTC) for improved land and water management practices in the Blue Nile Basin (Gumera and Koga watersheds). A total of 325 sample households were selected using a multi-stage sampling technique, and a structured and pre-tested questionnaire was used to collect data from the sample households. We applied Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) to elicit WTP using monetary and material payment vehicles. Our results showed that more households are willing to pay in labor than in cash. The mean WTP for improved land and water management was estimated at US$1.06 and US$1.3 months-1 household-1 for upstream and downstream farmers, respectively. Besides, 83.56% of the sample farm households showed WTC the upstream farmers in cash. However, the aggregate WTP falls far short of the estimated investment cost needed for ecosystem restoration. Among others, the number of livestock, size of arable land, access to education and credit by the sample farm households were identified to positively influence sample farmers\u2019 WTP for restoration of ecosystem services and downstream farmers\u2019 WTC for improved ecosystem regulation services. Therefore, institutions and policy measures that enhance environmental education, reduce poverty and foster stakeholders\u2019 cooperation must be promoted. Prospect of Payments for Environmental Services in the Blue Nile Basin: Examples from Koga and Gumera Watersheds.
SINK OR SWIM ? LEARNING AND SOCIAL CAPITAL IN MMOGS 1 Sink or Swim ? Learning and Social Capital in Massively Multiplayer Online Games

Massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) present participants with complex and multifaceted worlds complete with their own language, rule structures and conceptions of success or failure. How do players adapt and learn to survive in this environment? What are the long-term implications of various learning strategies for social development within the game? This paper seeks to answer these questions through a self-reported survey of 541 players from the popular MMOG EVE Online. The survey responses were drawn from three distinct fan communities. Analysis of participant responses revealed that while joining in-game training organizations as a student did not significantly affect social capital development, the decision to act as a mentor to newer players did. In addition, findings reinforced previous research about importance of voice communication and permeability of the in-game/outside game barrier with respect to social relationships. These findings offer insights into the relationship between commercial MMOGs and the social process of learning within computer mediated environments.
Examining Mathematics Pre-service Teachers’ Experiences of School Practicum

This article presents findings from research about a practice teaching course designed to help mathematics pre-service teachers to learn from the practices of school teachers and supervisors. For this reason, the aim of this study is to research the contribution of the practicum course to the teacher candidates understanding of the teaching process. The participants in this study were 61 pre-service teachers, enrolled in a required six-hour teaching practicum course taught in the last year of the mathematics education program at a large state university located on the north coast of Turkey. To answer the research question, information was primarily obtained from reflection reports prepared by the supervisor. Content analysis was completed to reveal the emerging themes and codes. The results indicate that practicum contributed in several ways to novice teachers’ view of teaching. These include preparing for the profession; application of theory-practice; getting to know students and being aware of the difficulties.
Lake‐Atmosphere Heat Flux Dynamics of a Thermokarst Lake in Arctic Siberia

We conducted eddy covariance measurements from April to August 2014 on a Siberian thermokarst lake. The study site is located in the Lena River Delta and characterized as a floating ice lake. Heat fluxes differed in magnitudes, directions and temporal patterns depending on the lake surface conditions (“frozen” ice cover, ice cover melt, and open water). Significant heat release during frozen ice cover conditions highlighted the importance of lakes for the landscape heat budget and water balance. The energy balance was nearly closed during the open water period and highlighted the impact of melting energy on its closure during the ice cover period. Sensible and latent heat dynamics were driven by temperature and water vapor gradients scaled by wind speed, respectively. We calculated bulk aerodynamics transfer coefficients and evaluated the performance of the derived in situ and three independent heat flux parameterization schemes. We found that bulk transfer models perform moderately to poorly for the different lake surface conditions. During the open water period small‐scale temporal variability could not be represented by the models, particularly in case of latent heat flux. The model results were less sensitive to the specific model type than to the accuracy of the surface water temperature measurement, which is dependent on a well‐thought‐out measurement design. Our study stresses considerations that are crucial for similar campaigns in the future, in order to face the measurement challenges encountered on arctic lakes especially during the ice cover period.
Seismic assessment of a URM building and effect of floor diaphragm stiffness

The seismic behaviour of a previously calibrated Finite Element Model of a typical vintage unreinforced masonry building from the end of XIX century found in Lisbon, Portugal, was investigated using Time History Analysis and Pushover Analysis. The response of the building was analysed using DIANA software package and strain maps were obtained in order to identify the global failure mode, potential local damage and localised failure modes of the subject building. A subsequent comparison between the results obtained with the two analysis methods determined the pros and cons of each method and assisted in establishing the confidence level when using Pushover Analysis in comparison with Time History Analysis. Finally, a parametric analysis was carried out, using both Time History Analysis and Pushover Analysis on models that featured floor diaphragms with different stiffness values, to investigate the effect of the floor diaphragms stiffness on the overall response of the building.
Heating of Plant Oils-Fatty Acid Reactions versus Tocopherols Degradation

Relationship between polymerised triacylglycerols formation and tocopherols degradation was studied during heating of four commercially accessible vegetable oils (rapeseed oil, classical sunflower oil, soybean oil and olive oil) on the heating plate with temperature 180°C. The content of polymerised triacylglycerols 6% (i.e. half of maximum acceptable content) was achieved after 5.3, 4.2, 4.1, and 2.6 hours of heating for olive oil, soybean oil, rapeseed oil and sunflower oil, respectively, while decrease in content of total tocopherols to 50% of the original content was achieved after 3.4, 1.6, 1.3, and 0.5 hours of heating for soybean oil, rapeseed oil, sunflower oil and olive oil, respectively. Because of the high degradation rate of tocopherols, decrease in content of total tocopherols to 50% of the original content was achieved at content of polymerised triacylglycerols 0.6%, 1.9%, 2.8% and 4.9% for olive oil, rapeseed oil, sunflower oil and soybean oil, respectively, i.e. markedly previous to the frying oil should be replaced.
Structure and freedom in creativity: The interplay between externally imposed structure and personal cognitive style

Summary This research investigates how creativity is influenced by externally imposed structure (how structured the task is), internal, cognitively produced, structure (how structured the individuals’ cognitive style is), and the interaction between these two factors. Reviewing past literature, we find a contradiction. Studies that focused on the situational perspective found that externally imposed structure increases creativity. In contrast, studies that focused on the individual found that systematic (structured) cognitive style decreases creativity. In two empirical studies we investigated this seeming contradiction. We focused on two aspects of externally imposed structure: The construction of the task (Study 1) and the instructions provided (Study 2). The findings of both studies revealed that creativity was higher under structured conditions. We also show that intuitive individuals are more creative than systematic individuals, but mainly under free conditions, where structure is not externally imposed. Copyright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Aflatoxin M1 in Milk and Milk Products in Jordan and Methods for its Reduction: A Preliminary Study

Aims: The aim of this study was to assess Aflatoxin M1 (AFM1) levels in liquid and powdered milk and other dairy products in Jordan using ELISA technique and antiaflatoxin M1 (AFM1 reduction) effect of fermentation, high heat treatments and the addition of plant extracts during milk fermentation. Place and Duration of Study: Department of Nutrition and Food Technology, The University of Jordan, Amman, Jordan during July 2006 and March 2007. Methodology: A total of 22 samples of milk and dairy products were randomly collected from local markets and were grouped as follows: Raw (n=3), pasteurized (n=4) and powdered milk (n=3), infant formula (n=3), yoghurt (n=3), labaneh (low moisture sour yoghurt) (n=3) and jameed (traditional dry yoghurt) (n=3). Dairy products were analyzed for their AFM1 content. Anti-aflatoxin treatments of fermentation, high heat, garlic (Allium sativum), black cumin (Nigella sativum) and Original Research Article Al-Delaimy and Mahmoud; BJAST, 6(6): 597-605, 2015; Article no.BJAST. 2015.114 598 carrot (Ducaus carota sativus) water extracts were studied to determine their influence on AFM1 content. Results: The results show that AFM1 was detected in 81.8% of tested samples with varying levels ranging from 25 ppt to no detection. The highest levels were found in 2 labaneh samples purchased from local brands (25.8 and 22 ppt of AFM1). Levels of AFM1 of 19, 15.5, and 14 ppt were detected in a yoghurt, raw milk, and jameed samples respectively. No AFM1 was detected in imported infant formula samples, pasteurized milk and one labaneh brand. Carrot water extract had the highest impact by decreasing AFM1 by 72% of the total toxin followed by heating (56%) and fermentation (40%). Conclusion: These AFM1 levels found in milk and dairy products in Jordan are considered low and within the European maximum limit of 50 ppt. An important finding for AFM1 reduction was our finding that a natural product such as carrot extract can be effective in lowering AFM1 in milk samples.
Gated Residual Networks With Dilated Convolutions for Monaural Speech Enhancement

For supervised speech enhancement, contextual information is important for accurate mask estimation or spectral mapping. However, commonly used deep neural networks (DNNs) are limited in capturing temporal contexts. To leverage long-term contexts for tracking a target speaker, we treat speech enhancement as a sequence-to-sequence mapping, and present a novel convolutional neural network (CNN) architecture for monaural speech enhancement. The key idea is to systematically aggregate contexts through dilated convolutions, which significantly expand receptive fields. The CNN model additionally incorporates gating mechanisms and residual learning. Our experimental results suggest that the proposed model generalizes well to untrained noises and untrained speakers. It consistently outperforms a DNN, a unidirectional long short-term memory (LSTM) model, and a bidirectional LSTM model in terms of objective speech intelligibility and quality metrics. Moreover, the proposed model has far fewer parameters than DNN and LSTM models.
Deep structure of peninsular Italy from seismic tomography and subcrustal seismicity

The upper mantle structure beneath penisular Italy is investigated through tomographic reconstruction of the Pwave velocity field down to 600 km and spatial distribution of subcrustal earthquakes. The tomographic images are computed using a non-linear technique to invert an improved dataset of teleseismic arrival times recorded by the Italian National seismic network in the last fifteen years. For the deep seismicity analysis, we selected 445 events from the database of subcrustal earthquakes that occurred in the period 1988-2004 (1191 events). A subset of 30 earthquakes including most of the deepest foci were relocated using the Hypoellipse location program and an upper mantle velocity structure based on the spherical ak135 global model. The velocity maps show a remarkable complexity of the lithosphere-asthenosphere system of the region, depicting different styles of lithospheric sinking along peninsular Italy from the Northern Apennines to the Calabrian Arc. The subducting slabs include most of the upper mantle events, but only in part they are seismically active.
International Journal of Business, Economics and Law, Vol. 4, Issue 1 (June) ISSN 2289-1552

This objective of this study was to assess the relationship between the food quality, price fairness, staff performance, and ambiance of the university cafeteria with students’ satisfaction. A quantitative survey was conducted with the aims to testing the proposed hypotheses via a structured self-administered questionnaire. A total of 79 undergraduates from Institut Pendidikan Guru Gaya Sabah campus, Malaysia were selected for questioning via convenience sampling method. Structural equation modeling (SEM) technique via AMOS 21.0 computer program with maximum likelihood estimation was performed to generate the results. The empirical results provided strong support for the hypothesis that students’ satisfaction with the university cafeteria is very much influenced by food quality than staff performance, price fairness and degree of ambiance. Implications of the study from managerial and theoretical perspectives together with directions for future research are also indicated.
Cosmological phase space analysis of the F(X)-V(ϕ) scalar field and bouncing solutions

We analyze the dynamical system defined by a universe filled with a barotropic fluid plus a scalar field with modified kinetic term of the form L = F (X) - V (phi). After a suitable choice of variables that allows us to study the phase space of the system we obtain the critical points and their stability. We find that they reduce to the ones defined for the canonical case when F (X) = X. We also study the field energy conditions to have a nonsingular bounce.
Organic aerosol source apportionment by offline-AMS over a full year in Marseille

We investigated the seasonal trends of OA sources affecting the air quality of Marseille (France), which is the largest harbor of the Mediterranean Sea. This was achieved by measurements of nebulized filter extracts using an aerosol mass spectrometer (offline-AMS). In total 216 PM 2.5 (particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter < 2.5 µm) filter samples were collected over 1 year from August 2011 to July 2012. These filters were used to create 54 composite samples which were analyzed by offline-AMS. The same samples were also analyzed for major water-soluble ions, metals, elemental and organic carbon (EC / OC), and organic markers, including n-alkanes, hopanes, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), lignin and cellulose pyrolysis products , and nitrocatechols. The application of positive matrix factorization (PMF) to the water-soluble AMS spectra enabled the extraction of five factors, related to hydrocarbon-like OA (HOA), cooking OA (COA), biomass burning OA (BBOA), oxygenated OA (OOA), and an industry-related OA (INDOA). Seasonal trends and relative contributions of OA sources were compared with the source apportionment of OA spectra collected from the AMS field deployment at the same station but in different years and for shorter monitoring periods (February 2011 and July 2008). Online-and offline-AMS source apportionment revealed comparable seasonal contribution of the different OA sources. Results revealed that BBOA was the dominant source during winter, representing on average 48 % of the OA, while during summer the main OA component was OOA (63 % of OA mass on average). HOA related to traffic emissions contributed on a yearly average 17 % to the OA mass, while COA was a minor source contributing 4 %. The contribution of INDOA was enhanced during winter (17 % during winter and 11 % during summer), consistent with an increased contribution from light alkanes, light PAHs (fluoranthene, pyrene, phenanthrene), and selenium, which is commonly considered as a unique coal combustion and coke production marker. Online-and offline-AMS source apportionments revealed evolving lev-oglucosan : BBOA ratios, which were higher during late autumn and March. A similar seasonality was observed in the ratios of cellulose combustion markers to lignin combustion markers, highlighting the contribution from cellulose-rich biomass combustion, possibly related to agricultural activities .
Absence of uPAR Protects against the Development of Atherosclerosis inLDL Receptor-Null Mice

We have previously identified unrokinase plasminogen activator receptor [uPAR] as one of several genes differentially induced in human aortic endothelial cells [HAEC] by Oxidized-L-alpha-1-Palmitoyl-2-Arachidonoyl-snglycero- 3-Phosphorylcholine [Ox-PAPC], which is a key biologically active component oxidized low-density lipoprotein [Ox-LDL]. The role of uPAR in the development of atherosclerosis is not known. In this report, we show that uPAR message and protein are induced in HAEC within hours of Ox-PAPC treatment. We developed uPAR-/- mice on an LDLR-/- background [uPAR-/-/LDLR-/-] and show that uPAR plays a proatherogenic role in the aortic vascular milieu. When compared to LDLR-/- mice, uPAR-/-/LDLR-/- mice fed a Western diet for 12 weeks had i] an anti-atherogenic serum lipid profile, ii] less atherogenic lipoproteins, iii] reduced accumulation of macrophages in the aortic sinus lesions, and iv] significantly reduced atherosclerosis in the entire aortic tree and the aortic sinus. Our results suggest, for the first time, that uPAR inhibition is a potential therapeutic approach to prevent atherosclerosis development.
welcome Powerful Independent Directors

Shareholder valuations are economically and statistically positively correlated with more powerful independent directors, their power gauged by social network power centrality measures. Sudden deaths of powerful independent directors significantly reduce shareholder value, consistent with independent director power “causing” higher shareholder value. Further empirical tests associate more powerful independent directors with fewer value-destroying M&A bids, more high-powered CEO compensation and accountability for poor performance, and less earnings management. We posit that more powerful independent directors can better detect and counter managerial missteps because of their better access to information, their greater credibility in challenging errant top managers, or both. JEL CODES: G3 G34 G38 G02 D85 K22 L2 Z13
Allometry of cadmium and zinc concentrations and bioaccumulation in the scallop Chlamys nobilis

Scallops (Bivalvia: Pectinidae) contain very high concentrations of cadmium (Cd) and zinc (Zn) in their body tissues. We investigated the allometry of Cd and Zn concentrations in the scal- lop Chlamys nobilis and the underlying biokinetic mechanisms. The metal influx rate from the dis- solved phase and the weight-specific clearance rate decreased with body size, whereas the dietary assimilation efficiency (AE) increased with increasing body size. The dietary AEs of metals in the scallops were comparable when measured by the mass balance and the dual radiotracer techniques. The efflux rate of Cd in the scallops was lower than those in other bivalves, whereas the efflux of Zn was comparable to those in other bivalves. Growth dilution appeared to be important in the overall metal accumulation in the scallops. The allometric dependencies of the biokinetic parameters were then combined with the measurements of metal concentrations in the water to predict the likely metal concentrations in scallops of different sizes using the biokinetic model. The modeling suggested that the very high AE and low efflux rate for Cd explained the high Cd concentrations in the scallops. Dietary uptake dominated the overall metal accumulation in the scallops. Both the predicted metal concentrations and the allometric coefficients of metals were comparable to the measured values. This study shows, for the first time, that the biokinetic model can be used to predict the effects of body size on the bioaccumulation of metals in marine invertebrates. The allometry of ingestion rate, com- pared to other biokinetic parameters, is mainly responsible for the allometry of metal bioaccumula- tion in the scallops.