Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cosmic ray induced ionization in the atmosphere: Full modeling and practical applications

[1] We present a physical model to calculate cosmic ray induced ionization in the atmosphere. The model is based on the Monte Carlo CORSIKA tool, which simulates full development of an electromagnetic-muon-nucleonic cascade in the atmosphere, with the FLUKA package used for low-energy interactions. The direct ionization by primary cosmic rays is explicitly taken into account. The model is applicable to the entire atmosphere, from the ground up to the stratosphere. A comparison to fragmentary direct measurements of the ionization in the atmosphere confirms the validity of the model in the whole range of geographical latitudes and altitudes. Results of the full Monte Carlo simulation are tabulated in a form of the ionization yield function. These tables are given together with a detailed recipe, which allows a user to compute easily the cosmic ray induced ionization for given location, altitude and the spectrum of cosmic rays. This provides a new tool for a quantitative study of the space weather influence upon the Earth's environment. Some practical applications are discussed.
Effect of Pre-Germination Treatments on Germination and Watering Regimes on the Early Growth of Pycnanthus Angolensis (Welw) Warb

The study set to investigate the appropriate means of breaking the dormancy of Pycnanthus angolensis seed as well as determine the optimum watering regime for its early growth. It was conducted in the Department of Forest Resources and Wildlife Management nursery of the University of Benin, Benin City. Five pre-germination treatments (control (old), control (fresh), red aril removal, 48 hours soaking in water, aril and seed coat removal were used for germination studies while three watering regimes (daily, twice and once a week) were applied for growth studies. There were five (5) treatments and four (4) replications for germination studies while three (3) treatments and four (4) replications were used for early growth studies. Complete Randomized Design (CRD) was used. The data collected was analysed using descriptive statistics of frequency and percentages and inferential statistics using one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) at 5% level of significance. Ducan multiple range test was used to separate means. Germination started thirty-one (31) days after sowing and the period of germination was 18 days after emergence. The aril removal treatment had the best germination performance (83.33%), followed by seeds soaked for 48 hours (70%), aril and seed coat removal (36.6%), control (fresh) (3.3%) and control (old) (0%). At the termination of growth study, seedlings had a mean height of 21.15cm, 13.15cm and 11.62cm; mean collar girth of 3.83mm, 3.53mm and 3.51mm; mean number of leaves of 4.96, 4.70 and 4.62, fresh weight of 24.30, 18.30 and 12.75 and a dry weight of 11.45, 8.3 and 6.2 for daily, twice a week and once a week watering regimes respectively. There was significance in the height, fresh and dry weight values of seedlings between watering regimes, but not for collar girth and number of leaves. Fresh seeds with the red aril removed and daily watering regime has been recommended for raising the seedlings, but the species can also tolerate water stress in the nursery.
Household Behavior towards Debt in a Challenging Financial Environment: Malaysian evidence

The study of household behavior towards debt is important in this challenging financial environment. Escalating household debt can cause social and economic problems. For the past few years, Malaysia has emerged as the country with the highest household debt in the ASEAN region. This study aims to examine the predictors of intention to incur household debt among Malaysian households. Analysis on 100 fully completed and operational questionnaires in the preliminary study revealed financial literacy and subjective norm as significant predictors of attitude and the mediating relationship between attitude and intention to incur household debt was found to be negatively significant. © 2016. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies, Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia. Keywords : Household behavior; household debt; financial environment; financial literacy
Study on the Morphology of Genus Arabidopsis in Iran

In the present research, we have investigated morphologicaltraits of different organs of Arabidopsis species in Iran. Trichomes on the aerial parts of three species were studied under anatomical microscopy. The species exist in Iran include: Arabidopsis thaliana (Heynh), Arabidopsis pumila (steph) and Arabidopsis wallichii (Hook & thomas). The form of trichomes, basal and stemleaves, fruit length, the attitude of fruit, the existence of trichomes on the fruit, and the color ofpetal are morphological traits which separate the species. Anatomical traits of the leaf and stem of studied species were analyzed using an optical microscope. In the stem, some traits such as the shape of stem in transverse incision, the thickness of skin, the existence of supporting tissue around phloem, the number of xylem and phloem and the wavy form of stele were distinct in the three species. In the leaf, some traits such as the shape of leaf, the number of palisade parenchyma layers, the uniformity of mesophyll tissue, and the density of trichomes were different in the three species. No significant difference has been observed in the study of reproductive meristem, except in A. wallichii. The only difference was related to the size of reproductive meristem of two species and the number of flowers produced from the meristems.
Marketing audit in industrial companies in Romania

The present paper investigates the relationship between company size, the industry in which it develops its activity and intellectual capital. The aim of the paper is to identify if the system for measuring the performance in a company is directly related to the attitude to intelectual capital, as well as to analyse the existence of a marketing audit in a company. In this way research was conducted in 54 companies in Romania from the following counties: Alba, Sibiu, Hunedoara and Cluj. These companies belong to different sectors of the economy, which allows, to a certain degree, to generalise the results of survey.
An aesthetics of touch: investigating the language of design relating to form

How well can designers communicate qualities of touch? This paper presents evidence that they have some capability to do so, much of which appears to have been learned, but at present make limited use of such language. Interviews with graduate designer-makers suggest that they are aware of and value the importance of touch and materiality in their work, but lack a vocabulary to fully relate to their detailed explanations of other aspects such as their intent or selection of materials. We believe that more attention should be paid to the verbal dialogue that happens in the design process, particularly as other researchers show that even making-based learning also has a strong verbal element to it. However, verbal language alone does not appear to be adequate for a comprehensive language of touch. Graduate designers-makers’ descriptive practices combined non-verbal manipulation within verbal accounts. We thus argue that haptic vocabularies do not simply describe material qualities, but rather are situated competences that physically demonstrate the presence of haptic qualities. Such competencies are more important than groups of verbal vocabularies in isolation. Design support for developing and extending haptic competences must take this wide range of considerations into account to comprehensively improve designers’ capabilities.
The chronic toxicity of ammonia, nitrite and nitrate on juvenile farfantepenaeus brasiliensis (crustacea: decapoda)

In general, the adverse effect of a chemical compound present in water varies with the concentration and time of exposure to the compound, the nature of the chemical species and age of the exposed organisms. Thus, nitrogen does not necessarily cause adverse effects on shrimp, but may, instead, promote sub-lethal effects by long-term exposure. Juvenile Farfantepenaeus brasiliensis (initial mean weight = 0.61 g ± 0.07) were exposed to sub-lethal concentrations of ammonia (0.44 and 0.88 mg L-1), nitrite (5.30 and 10.60 mg L-1) and nitrate (45.60 and 91.20 mg L-1) corresponding to the safe levels for the species. After 40 days of exposure of juveniles to ammonia, nitrite and nitrate, all groups differed significantly (p<0.05) from the control group regarding the growth and survival. Based on the results, it was determined that the shrimp F. brasiliensis was susceptible to nitrogen compounds in concentrations equivalent to supposedly safe levels previously proposed for the specie. Thus, the security levels of ammonia, nitrite and nitrate for pink shrimp juveniles were 0.88 mg L-1, 10.60 mg L-1 and 91.20 mg L-1, respectively.
Petrological and geodynamical constraints of Chaldoran basaltic rocks, NW of Iran: evidence from geochemical characteristics

The Chaldoran area in the northwestern portion of Iran has a Mesozoic oceanic crust basement. The studied rocks of this region can be divided into three groups: ophiolitic gabbros and pillow lavas, ophiolitic volcanoclastics and Eocene lava flows. Ophiolitic mafic rocks exhibit a continental volcanic arc nature while Eocene lava flows are of an OIB-like nature. During the Mesozoic era, the Chaldoran region was situated in the active continental margin of the Iranian plate due to Neotetyhan subduction beneath the SSZ (Sanandaj-Sirjan Zone). As the Neo-Tethyan subduction regime changed, a rift in the Chaldoran area was generated which caused a continental back arc basin during the Upper Cretaceous period. A spreading basin in the oceanic ridge along with the creation of newly formed oceanic crust gave rise to oceanic islands which became active and formed volcanoclastic rocks in the Chaldoran Oceanic crust. These were the result of ascending continental arc nature plumes that formed in the sub-oceanic crust and extended up to the Neo-Tethys subducted slab in the mantle wedge. After the basin finished spreading in the early Paleocene, sedimentation followed continuing up to the Middle Eocene. During the Upper Eocene, alkaline and OIB-like volcanism was active in the Chaldoran area due to the breaking off of the Neo-Tethyan subducted slab in the sub-oceanic crust of the Chaldoran area causing the development of an asthenospheric window.
Image Segmentation Applied to the Study of Micrographs of Cellular Solids

The paper is proposing a method of image segmentation applied to the study of the micrographs of cellular solids. The segmentation is based on a thresholding which creates a binary (black and white) image of the micrograph. The binary image is divided in super-pixels which correspond to the microcells of the material. From the areas of the super-pixels it is easy to evaluate the distribution of the size of the cells and correlate this distribution to the properties of the material.
WHAT'S THE BENEFIT OF PROBLEM EXPLORATION?

Models of the design process often start with activities of problem exploration before generating ideas, but the benefits of exploration have not been properly investigated. We did an experiment with undergraduate industrial designers during a design course. Except for the exploration methods, all teams had to follow the same design process. We observed that exploration methods increased the design teams’ perceived knowledge about the problem, but no impact on the quality of their final designs was seen. This challenges a widely held assumption about the value of problem exploration in design.
Grazing in remnant woodland vegetation: changes in species composition and life form groups

Grazing by domestic livestock in native woodlands can have major effects on ecosystem functioning by the re- moval of plant species that form important functional groups. This paper documents the changes in floristics in a large group of remnants of native woodland left after agricultural clearing in southwestern Australia. Species richness and diversity were significantly reduced in remnants and the proportion of exotic species increased. Detrended Correspondence Analysis (DCA) was used to identify floristic and environmental patterns among plots and identified two distinct groups based on grazing intensity. This indicated that the significance of the relation- ship between grazing effects and DCA floristic axes was greater than edaphic characteristics that normally influence floristic patterns. Floristic characteristics of sites that were influencing the position of plots on the ordination diagram included proportion of exotic species and proportion of native perennial shrubs and herbs. Numbers of species of native shrubs and perennial herbs were significantly reduced in grazed plots and numbers of exotic annual grasses and herbs were significantly higher. Other life form groups such as native perennial grasses and geophytes were not significantly af- fected by grazing. Reproductive strategies of perennial spe- cies showed a significant decrease in numbers of resprouters and a significant increase in numbers of facultative seeder/ sprouters. Exclosure plots showed increases in number and cover of perennial shrubs and herbs after three years whereas number and cover of exotic species did not change. Time series DCA showed that the floristic composition of exclosure plots in grazed sites became closer to that of the ungrazed sites.
A Subsolidus Olivine Water Solubility Equation for the Earth's Upper Mantle

The pressure and temperature sensitivity of the two most important point hydrous defects in mantle olivine involving Si vacancies (associated to trace amounts of titanium [TiChu‐PD] or exclusively to Si vacancies [Si]) was investigated at subsolidus conditions in a fluid‐saturated natural peridotite from 0.5 to 6 GPa (approximately 20–200 km depth) at 750 to 1050°C. Water contents in olivine were monitored in sandwich experiments with a fertile serpentine layer in the middle and olivine and pyroxene sensor layers at the border. Textures and mineral compositions provide evidence that olivine completely recrystallized during the weeklong experiments, whereas pyroxenes displayed only partial equilibration. A site‐specific water solubility law for olivine has been formulated based on the experiments reconciling previous contradictory results from low‐ and high‐pressure experiments. The site‐specific solubility laws permit to constrain water incorporation into olivine in the subducting slab and the mantle wedge, as these are rare locations on Earth where fluid‐present conditions exist. Chlorite dehydration in the hydrated slab is roughly parallel to the isopleth of 50 ± 20 ppm wt H2O in olivine, a value which is independent of the pressure and temperature trajectory followed by the slab. Hydrous defects are dominated by [Si] under the relevant conditions for the mantle wedge affected by fluids coming from the slab dehydration (slab‐adjacent low viscosity/seismic low‐velocity channel, P > 3 GPa). In cold subduction zones at 5.5 km from the slab surface the storage capacity of the mantle wedge at depths of 100–250 km ranges from 400 to 2,000 ppm wt H2O.
ASSESSMENT OF PHYSICO-CHEMICAL PROPERTIES AND ANTI-NUTRITIONAL FACTORS OF FLOUR FROM YAM (DIOSCOREA BULBIFERA) BULBILS IN SOUTHEAST CÔTE D’IVOIRE

Jacques Y. Achy, Pamphile K. B. Koffi, Gbocho S. E. Ekissi٭, Hubert K. Konan and Lucien P. Kouame. Laboratory of Biochemistry and Food Technology, University Nangui Abrogoua (Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire), 02 BP 801Abidjan 02, Cote d’Ivoire. Manuscript Info Abstract . Manuscript History
FIRE DYNAMIC SIMULATION ON THERMAL ACTIONS IN LOCALIZED FIRES IN LARGE ENCLOSURE

Large enclosures commonly exist in many buildings like atria, open car parks and airport terminals. There is an international trend to prompt performance-based method (PBM) for fire resistance design. By PBM, the temperatures of structures in design fires should be determined. Localized fires are always adopted as design fires in large spaces. Currently, no agreed calculation method is available for the calculation of the heat flux from a localized fire to a vertical column. This paper aims at providing a feasible way of calculating the thermal actions in localized fires. Particularly, gas temperatures in localized fires and heat transfer from localized fires to steel vertical columns have been numerically investigated. The popular CFD code FDS is adopted as the numerical tool. A design fire scenario and four real localized fire tests are simulated in FDS. The effects of input parameters, including grid size and number of solid angles, on the accuracies of the numerical results have been investigated. Numerical results are compared with correlations and test data, which shows good agreement.
Carcass yield and characteristics of Karadi lambs as affected by dietary supplement of rumen undegradable nitrogen fed with Nigella sativa

The objective of this work was to investigate the effect of two levels of rumen undegradable nitrogen (7 and 10 g UDN/kg DM) fed with two levels of Nigella sativa (0 and 7.5 g NS/ kg DM) supplementation to rations of karadi lambs on carcass characteristics, using 2 x 2 factorial experiment. Sixteen individual Karadi male lambs were used (four lambs for each treatment). They were weighing approximately 34 kg live weight and 7 months old. The diets were formulated to be given a 40% NaOH-treated barley straw DM to 60% concentrates DM. At the end of feeding trial the lambs were slaughtered after over night with feeding draw. Differences in daily nutrients intake among treatments were not statistically significantly. The UDN and total N intake were followed the intended treatments composition (P < 0.01). Live weight gain was not significantly affected by levels of UDN and NS supplementation. Slaughter body weight, hot and cold carcass weights and killing out proportion were not significantly affected by both NS supplementation and levels of UDN. Moreover, no differences in leg cut tissue (lean, subcutaneous fat: intramuscular fat and bone) among treatments. The main wholesale cuts weights were not significantly different among treatments. The differences in fat-tail weights between the NS and UDN treatments were not statistically significant.
Poro‐acoustoelasticity of fluid‐saturated rocks

We generalize the classical theory of acoustoelasticity to the porous case (one fluid and a solid frame) and finite deformations. A unified treatment of non‐linear acoustoelasticity of finite strains in fluid‐saturated porous rocks is developed on the basis of Biot’s theory. A strain‐energy function, formed with eleven terms, combined with Biot’s kinetic and dissipation energies, yields Lagrange’s equations and consequently the wave equation of the medium. The velocities and dissipation factors of the P‐ and S‐waves are obtained as a function of the 2nd‐ and 3rd‐order elastic constants for hydrostatic and uniaxial loading. The theory yields the limit to the classical theory if the fluid is replaced with a solid with the same properties of the frame. We consider sandstone and obtain results for open‐pore jacketed and closed‐pore jacketed ‘gedanken’ experiments. Finally, we compare the theoretical results with experimental data.
Evaluation of herbicides alone and in combination for weed control in wheat

Metribuzin alone 210 g/ha resulted in significantly lower population of Phalaris minor than alone application of clodinafop 60 g/ha, pinoxaden 40 g/ha and sulfosulfuron 25 g/ha. Application of sulfosulfuron + metsulfuron 32 g/ha and 25 + 210 g/ha resulted in significantly lower population of P. minor and C. album, respectively. Sulfosulfuron + metsulfuron 32 g/ha resulted in 89.2% WCE which was at par with sulfosulfuron + metribuzin 25 + 210 g/ha. Weed control treatments produced significantly higher grain yield as compared to weedy check. Sulfosulfuron 25 g/ha being significantly superior to alone application of metribuzin 210 g/ha, clodinafop 60 g/ha and pinoxaden 40 g/ha produced higher wheat grain yield, which was evident from the higher WCE as compared to other herbicides. Ready-mix application of sulfosulfuron + metsulfuron at 32 g/ha produced the highest grain yield (6.42 t/ha) among different herbicide treatments but it was statistically at par with weed free.
What Makes Life Meaningful? A Study of Urban Youth and the Relationship Between Prosocial Tendencies, Civic Engagement, and Purpose in Life

While some suggest that humans are fundamentally driven towards ruthless or selfserving behaviors as a means of promoting their genetic characteristics throughout the larger population, others suggest that other-oriented behaviors emerge just as naturally. Despite the immediate advantages of acting selfishly, acting prosocially results in long-term health benefits (e.g., reducing mortality rates) while enhancing psychological functioning. Theorists have suggested that one psychological advantage is an augmented sense of purpose that a helper may identify in his or her life. This study examines the process by which urban, Hartford-residing, youth develop meaning in their lives and express prosocial behaviors throughout their communities. Participants originated in and around the Hartford urban area, and were recruited either through a community service organization in which they were participating, or through an organization from which they were receiving supportive services. Results showed that the participants who provided community service through their organizations were more civically engaged than those who had been the recipients of a social service organization. Furthermore, for highly civically engaged youth, a measure of prosocial tendencies correlated with a measure of identified purpose. Implications for future social service implementation are discussed. Purpose in Life, Prosocial Tendencies, Civic Engagement Douglas 3
Information technology deployment in a transition economy: Results from Slovenia

Information technology (IT) is increasingly establishing itself as one of the major topics of study in the OECD area. The resulting OECD studies found that IT has an enormous productive potential; however before an economy can gain most of IT’s benefits, several challenges need to be successfully addressed. The key challenges these studies identified are adequate organisational transformations of the enterprises and adequate reorganisation of key national institutions. How these two challenges are tackled by the economies that are going through the transition from a socialist towards a coordinated/liberal market economy is, unfortunately, not equally well documented. To improve this situation in this paper I present new findings from one transition economy concerning the issues that the developed OECD countries already highlighted as critical for the successful deployment of IT, and issues that seem specific to the transition environments. The presented findings are based on the study I conducted into 94 enterprises, representing the population of the 914 biggest added value generating enterprises in Slovenia. This article thus tries to allow Slovenia and other economies in a similar situation to draw broad and important conclusions with managerial and political implications on how to deploy all available IT potential.