Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Spatial‐temporal Analysis of Gummosis in Three Cashew Clones at Northeastern Brazil

The cashew gummosis caused by the fungus Lasiodiplodia theobromae is one of the most important disease of cashew in the northeast of Brazil. The lack of studies about method of early detection, pathogen dissemination, host predisposition, mechanisms of attack and defence and efficient control measures assures this disease as a limiting factor as to growing of cashew under semi-arid conditions. Therefore, the characterization of spatial patterns of gummosis development under commercial orchards may provide important insights into the mechanisms involving in dissemination and disease progress of this disease, as well as in the understanding of dynamic of host, pathogen and environmental interactions for this pathossystem. This work aimed to characterize gummosis temporal and special dynamics in three commercial orchards of cashew clones of cashew with different levels of susceptibility by studying the special arrangement of diseased plants. Disease incidence and severity, quantified determined by a descriptive scale in clones BRS 226 (resistant), Embrapa 51 (slightly resistant) and Faga 11 (susceptible) in a commercial orchard located in Pio IX district (Piaui state, Brazil), were monitored and mapped. Data were collected within three blocks of 90 plants for each clone. Indices of dispersion were estimated to study the spatial dynamic. The dynamics and structure of gummosis foci were also analysed. As expected, data showed different degrees of gummosis incidence and severity for the three clones. Even under different levels of disease, a random dispersion pattern model of dispersion could be observed at the beginning of epidemic for all clones. However, as disease develops, a clustered model is likely to fit. The increase in disease incidence resulted from the increasing in both focus number and size.
NUTRITIVE VALUE INDEX OF TREATED WHEAT STRAW WITH Pleurotus FUNGI

Wheat straw was inoculated with spawns of two species of Pleurotus fungi (coded: PF and PO) and incubated in a fermentation room at 22±5oC and 70±5, relative humidity. After 17 days of spawning, when the substrate was completely covered by fungal mycelia, half of the bags were removed from the fermentation room, sun dried and used for in vitro measurements and in vivo study as well, using of sheep. For the remainder of the bags, fermentation was allowed for seven weeks during which the fruiting mushroom was harvested two times, and then spent straw was collected and dried under the sun. In a feeding trial, in vivo digestibility and voluntary intake of treated straw was compared with initial straw in cattle, when the dietary treatments were: 1) Initial wheat straw (IWS); 2) Fungal (PF) treated wheat straw before mushroom formation (FTWS); 3) Fungal (PF) spent wheat straw (SPWS) after mushroom was harvested. Results showed that, the fungal treatments significantly (P<0.05) affected the nutrient composition of wheat straw by increasing the CP and ash, but decreasing the OM, NDF, ADF, ADL, cellulose (CL) and hemi cellulose (HCL) contents. The in vitro digestibility of DM and OM were significantly (P<0.05) the highest for PF treated straw but the lowest for the initial straw. The in vivo digestibility of most components were significantly (P<0.05) increased, in sheep, however treatment PF showed the higher amounts of digestibility than that of the PO with exception for crude protein CP and HCL. Regarding the feeding trial by cow, results indicated that, the highest amount of DM and OM digestibility were found in FTWS followed by SPWS, but the initial straw had the lowest digestibility (P<0.05). Average daily intake of DM, OM, as well as the digestible DM and OM intake were significantly (P<0.05) affected by the treatments. In comparison to the IWS, PO inoculated straw increased the voluntary intake of digestible DM and OM, at the stage of mycellial running, however, the digestibility and intake of SPWS were significantly (P<0.05) reduced to the level of initial straw. In conclusion, fermentation of wheat straw by Pleurotus florida and P. ostreatus, improved the nutritive value of straw although the effect of P.F. was more than that of the P.O. In addition, fungal treatment of straw before mushroom formation, improved the nutritive value index, but no enhancement was found in SPWS comparing with the initial straw.
Another argument against negotiated grants: how the bill for local corruption is distributed

The objective of this paper is to indicate another argument against negotiated grants (NGs): the possibility of local leaders seeking NGs in order to transfer the bill for local corruption to the whole country. Our argument is that local leaders cause this movement in their attempt to avoid corruption having a negative impact on their re-election chances when voters observe the corruption that exists. Since revenues and corruption have problems of reverse causality, we use random auditing (i.e., audits conducted by the Controladoria Geral da Uniao [Office of the Federal Controller General]) as an IV of corruption to overcome this problem. Moreover, we reinforce the mechanism described with two placebos showing that both the audit per se and non-observed corruption (i.e., corruption of the next term considered in the current term) does not modify statistically the mix of revenue in the budget. We also observe that governors facing elections that are more competitive allow for an increase in transfers that are negotiated with corrupt local leaders. We performed our investigation on the years between 2005 and 2011 using Brazilian local governments where the local leaders (mayors) are elected in a competitive system, have autonomy to define the budget, and the municipal accounting system offers data about NGs with higher levels of government.
Ship-based measurement of air-sea CO2 exchange by eddy covariance

A system for the shipboard measurement of air-sea CO2 fluxes by eddy covariance was developed and tested. The system was designed to reduce two major sources of experimental uncertainty previously reported. First, the correction for in situ water vapor fluctuations (the “Webb” correction) was reduced by 97% by drying the air sample stream. Second, motion sensitivity of the gas analyzer was reduced by using an open-path type sensor that was converted to a closed-path configuration to facilitate drying of the air stream. High-quality CO2 fluxes were obtained during 429 14 min flux intervals during two cruises in the North Atlantic. The results suggest that the gas analyzer resolved atmospheric CO2 fluctuations well below its RMS noise level. This noise was uncorrelated with the vertical wind and therefore filtered out by the flux calculation. Using climatological data, we estimate that the techniques reported here could enable high-quality measurements of air-sea CO2 flux over much of the world oceans.
Analogical effects in regular past tense production in Dutch

This study addresses the question to what extent the production of regular past tense forms in Dutch is affected by analogical processes. We report an experiment in which native speakers of Dutch listened to existing regular verbs over headphones, and had to indicate which of the past tense allomorphs, te or de, was appropriate for these verbs. According to generative analyses, the choice between the two suffixes is completely regular and governed by the underlying [voice]-specification of the stem-final segment. In this approach, no analogical effects are expected. In connectionist and analogical approaches, by contrast, the phonological similarity structure in the lexicon is expected to affect lexical processing. Our experimental results support the latter approach: all participants created more nonstandard past tense forms, produced more inconsistency errors, and responded more slowly for verbs with stronger analogical support for the nonstandard form.
EPICS IOCCORE REAL TIME PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENTS ON COLDFIRE MODULE

Since Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System (EPICS) is becoming more widely used in accelerator control systems and the EPICS Input/Output Controller (IOC) has ported to different operating systems, the performance of EPICS IOCcore on different hardware and software platforms is crucial. This paper will provide real-time performance measurements of EPICS IOCcore on a Coldfire module uC5282 and on two different OS platforms: RTEMS 4.9. 2 and uClinux 2.6. 21. The most recent EPICS base and extensions are used to build the test application.
Changing international health policy and changing international development goals

The World Health Organisation (WHO) was founded in 1948 with a remit to promote public health around the world. The WHO’s constitution sets out its objective as ‘the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health’ (WHO, 1948). The paper raises broad questions over the aspirations and practice of international health policy in its international political and development context. The paper explores how international health policy has been informed by evolving international development strategies, from the earlier modernisation approaches to the sustainable development approaches of recent decades. The final part considers international health policy today in a world of continuing international inequalities.
Evaluation of colostrum quality and new possibilities for its application.

Colostrum is the secretion from the mammary gland during the first 24 h after calving and is an important source of nutritional, growth, and antimicrobial factors for a newborn calf. Despite the importance of nutrients in colostrum, published data describing bovine colostrum composition in Latvia is extremely limited. Most researches, investigating colostrum, focuses narrowly on the total concentration of immunoglobulins (Ig) and ignores other nutrients, and separate Ig concentrations; therefore the aim of the present study was to evaluate quality of colostrum. A total 29 samples of colostrum were collected from the conventional farm located in Auce. The experiments were carried out in the Latvia University of Agriculture. The content of protein and fat, and pH detected according to the standard methods. Concentrations of IgA, IgG, IgM were determined by turbodynamic method. The data were processed by using the SPSS software package SPSS 11.0. and MS EXCEL. Research results show, that the concentration of separate nutrients is significantly different compared with data from literature. Due high nutritional value, particularly increased concentration of immunoglobulins, colostrum may find beneficial application in new functional food development.
Microplankton growth, grazing, and community structure in the northern Gulf of Mexico

Seawater dilution experiments were conducted during spring and fall in the continental shelf region of the northern Gulf of Mexico. Nutrient-enhanced phytoplankton growth rates of 0.7 to 2.2 d-' were measured for the entire phytoplankton community; highest growth rates were associated with > 8 pm cells. Phytoplankton growth was nutrient limited in all May experiments, and > 8 pm phytoplankton, primarily diatoms, showed the strongest response to nutrient addition: their growth rates increased the most and reached the highest values. Rates of microzooplankton grazing on the entire phytoplankton community were moderate (0 to 0.7 d-l). During a given experiment, patterns of grazing on 2 phytoplankton size fractions (<8 and > 8 pm) generally differed, and high rates of grazing (>l d-l) on both < 8 and >8 pm cells were sometimes observed. Across all experiments, grazing by microzooplankton averaged 30% of nutrient-enhanced phytoplankton growth. In May, when phytoplankton growth was strongly nutrient limited, grazing averaged 90% of natural (non-nutrient-enhanced) phytoplankton growth. These data indicate that microzooplankton can be a significant source of phytoplankton mortality, even in eutrophic coastal waters. The microzooplankton community, excluding cells < 5 pm, comprised primarily heterotrophic dinoflagellates and aloricate choreotrich ciliates. These organisms exhibited high net growth rates (mean = 0.8 d-l) during experiments at higher irradiance levels. Ingestion of c h a ~ n diatoms by the dinoflagellate Gyrodlnjum sp. was observed in preserved samples; such grazing pathways, in which relatively large phytoplankton cells are consumed by protozoa, may be quant~tatively important in this coastal ecosystem Due to the variety of taxa and feeding mechanisms within the microzooplankton, their grazing impact was not restricted to the smallest phytoplankton cells, indicating that size-based models of trophic structure could yield misleading predictions about patterns of energy flow in this coastal ecosystem.
Developmental Characteristics of Rat Testicular Tissue and the Impact of Chronic Noise Stress Exposure in the Prenatal and Postnatal Periods

Recently claims have been raised that noise stress may exert adverse effects on the reproductive functions. The present study was undertaken to investigate first; developmental histological characteristics of rat testis at 3 critical age periods namely; full term fetus, pre-pubertal and adult stages. Second, the impact of chronic noise stress exposure on testicular tissue at these age periods. Albino rats were used and assigned into 3 groups; pregnant rats (to obtain fetuses at day 20 of gestation), prepubertal and adult male rats. Each group was subdivided into control and experimental subgroups. Experimental subgroups were exposed to noise stress (100dB), 6 hours daily for 30 days for Pre-pubertal and adult groups. While, pregnant rats were exposed to noise stress from day 8-20 of gestation then rats were sacrificed, testicles of fetuses were extracted. At the end of experiment, all testicles were extracted from pre-pubertal and adult rats and processed for paraffin block embedding, light microscopic examination and immunohistochemical staining for apoptosis (TUNNEL assay). Histomorphometric measurements were done by image analysis. The current study demonstrated detailed histological, immunohistochemical and histomorphometric differences across developmental ages examined. The study also showed that noise stress induced several histopathological changes of testicular tissue, increased number of apoptotic germ cells, and decreased size and number of seminiferous tubules in prenatal and pre-pubertal groups. In Conclusion, the study demonstrated detailed histological features of early rat testicular development. Also, revealed that noise stress induced damage to rat testicular tissue at the three examined ages. Current findings support the notion that noise may adversely affect reproduction and fertility of exposed-males. Recommendations: Noise as a form of stress is not well investigated. People should be aware of the hazards of exposure to high intensity sounds especially young age and pregnant females to ensure them a future healthy reproductive life.
Amoxicillin / Clavulanic Acid and Cefotaxime Resistance in Salmonella Minnesota and Salmonella Heidelberg from Broiler Chickens

This study investigated the resistance of various Salmonella strains to beta-lactam antibiotics. Salmonella Minnesota (36 strains) and Salmonella Heidelberg (24 strains) were isolated from broiler chickens and carcasses by the Disk Diffusion Test and resistance genes blaCTX-M-8, blaACC-1 and blaCMY-2 were detected by PCR. Of the 60 strains tested, 80% were resistant to at least one antibiotic. Specifically, 66.7% were resistant to amoxicillin/clavulanic acid and 75% were resistant to cefotaxime. Among the amoxicillin/clavulanic acid resistant strains, the blaCMY-2 gene was detected in 40%, blaACC-1 in 37.5% and blaCTX-M-8 in 7.5%. Among the cefotaxime resistant strains, we detected the genes blaCTX-M-8 in 13.3%, blaACC-1 in 33.3%, and blaCMY-2 in 31.1%. The presence of cefotaxime- and amoxicillin/clavulanic acid-resistant Salmonella in poultry, and the prevalence of extended spectrum betalactamases and AmpC-betalactamases in these strains are of huge concern to public health and economy.
The Diffusion and Adoption of Green Revolution Technologies: Lessons and policy implications from Pigeonpea farmers in Kenya

Significant advances have been made in generating high yielding varieties which are part of the so called Green revolution technologies. Raising hopes for a pulse green revolution, a number of improved varieties of pigeonpea have also been developed and released in Africa. The key motivation of this study is that, despite their perceived advantages in raising productivity, the diffusion and adoption of such varieties remains low We apply a quasi-experimental approach to data obtained from rural Kenya to assess the patterns of adoption of improved pigeonpea varieties and their determinants. The sample adoption rate of improved pigeonpea is found to be 36% while the potential adoption rate is estimated at 48%. The adoption gap resulting from the incomplete exposure to the improved pigeonpea is 12%. Adoption is found to be prominent among farmers with residences close to the agricultural offices, and among younger and wealthier farmers. The findings suggest that there is scope for increasing the adoption of improved pigeonpea, especially among young farmers once they are exposed to the new technologies and once the associated policy and technical constraints are addressed.
Evaluation of interface shear strength properties of geogrid reinforced foamed recycled glass using a large-scale direct shear testing apparatus

The interface shear strength properties of geogrid reinforced recycled foamed glass (FG) were determined using a large-scale direct shear test (DST) apparatus. Triaxial geogrid was used as a geogrid reinforcement. The geogrid increases the confinement of FG particles during shear; consequently the geogrid reinforced FG exhibits smaller vertical displacement and dilatancy ratio than FG at the same normal stress. The failure envelope of geogrid reinforced FG, at peak and critical states, coincides and yields a unique linear line possibly attributed to the crushing of FG particles and the rearrangement of crushed FG after peak shear state. The interface shear strength coefficient α is approximately constant at 0.9. This value can be used as the interface parameter for designing a reinforced embankment and mechanically stabilized earth (MSE) wall when FG is used as a lightweight backfill and triaxial geogrid is used as an extensible earth reinforcement. This research will enable FG, recently assessed as suitable for lightweight backfills, to be used together with geogrids in a sustainable manner as a lightweight MSE wall. The geogrid carries tensile forces, while FG reduces bearing stresses imposed on the in situ soil. The use of geogrid reinforced FG is thus significant from engineering, economical, and environmental perspectives.
The acceptance of solar water pump technology among rural farmers of northern Pakistan: A structural equation model

Abstract The situation of electricity is deteriorating in Pakistan and load shedding prevails in all parts of the country which not only affect the general life but also leads to lower agricultural productivity in rural areas. The purpose of this study is to explore the factors that influence the acceptance of solar water pump (SWP) technology. For this purpose, a SWP technology acceptance model was proposed based on technology acceptance model (TAM) and unified theory of acceptance and use of technology. Six variables were used to assess the model which includes; perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, facilitating conditions (FC), cost tolerance (CT), awareness and attitude towards SWP usage. Data were collected from 450 rural farmers employing structured questionnaire through face to face interviews. The questions were orally translated to farmers due to lack of education. The method of structural equation modeling was used to test and confirm the hypothesized model. Results indicated that out of eight hypotheses, seven were supported while one was not supported. Moreover, the results show that better predictors of SWP technology usage were gender, age, education awareness, CT, FC, ease of use and usefulness. The study is valuable as it applied TAM to study the factors influencing the acceptance of SWP technology for the first time in the context of Pakistan.
Language Complexity, Accuracy and Fluency in Different Types of Writing Paragraph: Do the Raters Notice Such Effect

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of two types of paragraph on EFL learners’ written production. It addressed the issue of how three aspects of language production (i.e. complexity, accuracy, and fluency) vary among two types of paragraphs (i.e. paragraphs of chronology and cause-effect) written by EFL learners. Thirty intermediate level learners of English participated in the study. Each learner wrote the two specified types of paragraphs in the final exam of their writing course. In the first phase of the study, separate paired t-tests were conducted on each dependent variable to see whether there were any statistically significant differences in measures of complexity, accuracy, and fluency across the paragraph types. In the second phase of the study, to investigate if the raters detect the inconsistencies in the complexity, accuracy, and fluency of paragraphs written by a learner, four raters were asked to rate 12 paragraphs written by six learners whose paragraphs differed extremely in one of the three features. The findings revealed that EFL learners performed significantly better in paragraphs of chronology than the paragraphs of cause-effect in terms of fluency and accuracy. However, the analysis of complexity measures showed that there was no significant difference between the two types of paragraphs. In the qualitative analysis, it was found that raters did not consistently consider these three features in their examining the quality of the paragraphs. They paid attention to qualities such as coherence, cohesion and unity more consistently.
Poverty among Young Children in Black Immigrant, US-Born Black, and Non-Black Immigrant Families: The Role of Familial Contexts. Discussion Paper Series. DP 2010-02.

This study examines how familial contexts affect poverty disparities between the children of immigrant and US-born Blacks, and among Black and non-Black children of immigrants. Despite lower gross child poverty rates in immigrant than US-born Black families, accounting for differences in family structure reveals that child poverty risks among Blacks are highest in single-parent Black immigrant families. In addition, within two-parent immigrant families, child poverty declines associated with increasing assimilation are greater than the respective declines in single-parent families. The heads of Black immigrant households have more schooling than those of native-Black households. However, increased schooling has a weaker negative association with child poverty among the former than the latter. In terms of racial disparities among the children of immigrants, poverty rates are higher among Black than non-Black children. This Black disadvantage is, however, driven by the outcomes of first-generation children of African and Hispanic-Black immigrants. The results also show that although children in refugee families face elevated poverty risks, these risks are higher among Black than nonBlack children of refugees. In addition, the poverty-reducing impact associated with having an English-proficient household-head is about three times lower among Black than non-Hispanic White children of immigrants.