Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
INFLUENCE OF SOIL MICROBIAL ACTIVITY AND PHYSICAL PROPERTIES ON SOIL RESPIRATION UNDER MAIZE (ZEA MAYS L.)

Soil respiration is an important indicator of soil fertility and biological activity, which has impact on plant yield. The aim of the present study was the evaluation of soil respiration intensity depending on different soil treatment practices in cultivation of maize and to determine the effect of biology activity on soil respiration. The study was based on the long-term field experiment located at the Agricultural Experimental Station at the Institute of Soil Science and Plant Cultivation – State Research Institute in Grabów (Poland). Three objects were included in this research: maize cropped continuously (monoculture) with direct sowing, maize monoculture cropped continuously with full tillage and crop rotation (spring barley, winter wheat, maize) with full tillage. Research indicates that soil respiration depends on cultivation method used before the maize is sown. The analysis showed that soil respiration was correlated with its biological activity and biochemical parameters. The statistically strongest negative correlation was found between soil respiration and evapotranspiration, changes in carbon dioxide concentration and acid phosphatase activity, while strongest positive correlation was found between soil respiration and ammonifying bacteria. The simple regression analysis showed linear relationship between soil respiration and such parameters as: acid phosphatase activity and ammonifying bacteria.
RRU_A_190140 215..221

Mads Hvid Poulsen Jørn Skibsted Jakobsen Mike Allan Mortensen Poul Flemming HøilundCarlsen Lars Lund 1Department of Urology, Odense University Hospital, Odense, Denmark; 2Academy of Geriatric Cancer Research (AgeCare), Odense University Hospital, Odense, Denmark; 3Department of Urology, Herlev and Gentofte University Hospital, Copenhagen, Denmark; 4Department of Clinical Research, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark; 5Department of Nuclear Medicine, Odense University Hospital, Odense, Denmark Objective: The effect of curative treatment for oligometastatic prostate cancer patients is unsolved, both with regard to morbidity and mortality. With this study, we provide some of the first long-term follow-up data on progression and mortality in oligometastatic prostate cancer patients after curative treatment of their primary tumor. Methods: A cohort of 210 patients with diagnosed prostate cancer was established between 2008 and 2010. All patients were scheduled for intended curative treatment, and all underwent blinded F-choline positron-emission tomography/computed tomography at inclusion prior to curative treatment. Upon unblinding, 12 patients (6%) were recategorized as being oligometastatic. They had a mean age of 64 years,median prostate-specific antigen of 18 ng/mL, and median Gleason score of 7. Six patients were staged as T3, one T2, and five T1. The patients had a medianof one bone metastasis (range 1–2). All underwent intended curative radiotherapy or prostatectomy. Mean follow-up was 10.1 (8.9–11.0) years. Results: During follow-up of the 12 patients, three (25%) had biochemical recurrence, two developed castration-resistant disease, and one died due to prostate cancer. Conclusion: Our results suggest that intended curative treatment of the primary tumor in oligometastatic prostate cancer may have a role in highly selected patients.
Enhanced Lycopene Production in Escherichia coli by Expression of Two MEP Pathway Enzymes from Vibrio sp. Dhg

Microbial production is a promising method that can overcome major limitations in conventional methods of lycopene production, such as low yields and variations in product quality. Significant efforts have been made to improve lycopene production by engineering either the 2-C-methyl-d-erythritol 4-phosphate (MEP) pathway or mevalonate (MVA) pathway in microorganisms. To further improve lycopene production, it is critical to utilize metabolic enzymes with high specific activities. Two enzymes, 1-deoxy-d-xylulose-5-phosphate synthase (Dxs) and farnesyl diphosphate synthase (IspA), are required in lycopene production using MEP pathway. Here, we evaluated the activities of Dxs and IspA of Vibrio sp. dhg, a newly isolated and fast-growing microorganism. Considering that the MEP pathway is closely related to the cell membrane and electron transport chain, the activities of the two enzymes of Vibrio sp. dhg were expected to be higher than the enzymes of Escherichia coli. We found that Dxs and IspA in Vibrio sp. dhg exhibited 1.08-fold and 1.38-fold higher catalytic efficiencies, respectively. Consequently, the heterologous overexpression improved the specific lycopene production by 1.88-fold. Our findings could be widely utilized to enhance production of lycopene and other carotenoids.
Unifying Concepts for Ion-Induced Leakage Current Degradation in Silicon Carbide Schottky Power Diodes

The onset of ion-induced reverse leakage current in SiC Schottky diodes is shown to depend on material properties, ion linear energy transfer (LET), and bias during irradiation, but not the voltage rating of the parts. This is demonstrated experimentally for devices from multiple manufacturers with voltage ratings from 600 to 1700 V. Using a device with a higher breakdown voltage than required in the application does not provide increased robustness related to leakage current degradation, compared to using a device with a lower voltage rating.
Variation of summer phytoplankton community composition and its relationship to nitrate and regenerated nitrogen assimilation across the North Atlantic Ocean

The North Atlantic Ocean is considered a nitrogen (N) limited system once vernal stabilisation of the water column alleviates light limitation and allows phytoplankton growth to deplete surface nutrients to virtually undetectable levels. Ammonium and other regenerated N forms are then the main surface N source for phytoplankton production. The effort to determine which phytoplankton groups contribute to long-term biological export production would be greatly aided by information on which phytoplankton groups are responsible for the assimilation of nitrate, as opposed to those assimilating predominantly regenerated N. In this study, we used the natural abundance N isotopes to examine basin-scale patterns of nitrate and regenerated N assimilation and evaluated the relationships between these trends and phytoplankton community composition. Samples were collected during a summertime cruise transect (August–September 2013) from the subtropical (36°N 73°W) to the subarctic (54°N 20°W) North Atlantic and analysed for the N isotopic composition (δN vs. N2 in air) of particulate nitrogen (PN) and nitrate, size-fractionated chlorophyll a, and phytoplankton group biomass using flow cytometry. The depth of the 300 nmol l nitrate isopleth shoaled from the subtropics (79 m), where phytoplankton stripped surface waters of nitrate, to the subarctic, where it intersected with the surface and the upward nutrient supply drove a summer phytoplankton bloom. The δN of PN above the nitracline increased from the subtropics (−0.3‰) to the subarctic (4.2‰), reflecting both a change in the δN of the subsurface nitrate source (from 2.4‰ to 5.1‰) and increased reliance by phytoplankton on nitrate relative to regenerated N. Throughout the transect, the phytoplankton community was mainly composed of picoand nano-sized cells ( > 88% of chlorophyll a in the < 20 μm size fraction). In the part of the transect southwest of the Grand Banks, Prochlorococcus and Synechococcus together dominated the picophytoplankton biomass (58% and 18% on average) and comprised 35% and 9%, respectively, of combined picoand nanophytoplankton biomass. Picoand nanoeukaryotes showed the opposite pattern, becoming more important closer to the subarctic (up to 31% and 86% of combined picoand nanophytoplankton biomass, respectively). The North Atlantic summertime patterns in N assimilation implied by the N isotopes were consistent with a higher degree of nitrate assimilation by larger eukaryotic cells and greater reliance on regenerated N by cyanobacterial picophytoplankton, congruent with the observed biomass distributions.
The effect of strategic and tactical cause‐related marketing on consumers' brand loyalty

Purpose – The first objective was to find out to what extent consumers reveal an effect of strategic and tactical cause‐related marketing on brand loyalty. Second, the article seeks to assess the moderating role of consumer involvement with a product on the relationship between cause‐related marketing and brand loyalty.Design/methodology/approach – An experimental design with 240 participants was used.Findings – The results show that consumers perceive a significantly enhanced level of brand loyalty as a result of strategic cause‐related marketing as long as the firm has a long‐term commitment to this campaign and the campaign is related to a low involvement product. Consumers do not exhibit a significant impact of tactical cause‐related marketing campaigns – whether related to high or low involvement products – on brand loyalty.Research limitations/implications – First, all respondents were students from a western European university. Second, the experiment relied on imaginary storyboards. Third, the pro.
EVALUATION OF CANADIAN SAMPLING PROGRAM FOR BLUEFIN TUNA, RESULTS OF NATAL ORIGIN STUDIES 2011-2012 AND ASSESSMENT OF LENGTH-WEIGHT CONVERSIONS

SUMMARY Results from the first two years of a three year long program of biological sampling of bluefin tuna caught in Canadian waters are presented. Approximately 20% of the landings by number were sampled, and the sampling effort appeared to follow the general spatial and temporal pattern of the fishery. Results of natal origin determinations generally support earlier studies showing that the Canadian catch is supported almost exclusively by western origin fish, but with some added finer-scale differences that require further evaluation. The process of obtaining size information from the fishery is also reviewed, and it is concluded that existing practices could be revised to avoid introducing biases from weight-length conversions. RESUME
University Students and Voting Behavior in General Elections: Perceptions on Malaysian Political Parties Leadership

Malaysia’s 13th General Election held on 5 May 2013 was one of the most exciting General Elections in Malaysia’s political history. The result showed that the ruling party Barisan Nasional (National Front) or BN and the opposition coalition Pakatan Rakyat (People’s Alliance) or PR contested closely in the 222 Parliamentary seats. Although the results showed a rather status quo in favour of the ruling party, the opposition coalition managed to increase their seats to 89 compared to 82 from the 2008 12th General Election while the seats obtained by the ruling party reduced to 133 from 140 seats. National Youth Survey by the Asia Foundation indicated that the political thinking of the youths in Malaysia are not static but have changed accordingly. This new shift allows this paper to discuss the position of the youth in Malaysia with a reference to the selected university students on Malaysian political parties’ leadership and which party will benefit from their role in Malaysian politics.
The effects of Forbush decreases on Antarctic climate variability: a re-assessment

In an attempt to test the validity of a relationship between Galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) and cloud cover, a range of past studies have performed composite analysis based around Forbush decrease (FD) events. These studies have produced a range of conflicting results, consequently reducing confidence in the existence of a GCR-cloud link. A potential reason why past FD based studies have failed to identify a consistent relationship may be that the FD events themselves are too poorly defined, and require calibration prior to analysis. Drawing from an initial sample of 48 FD events taken from multiple studies this work attempts to isolate a GCR decrease of greater magnitude and coherence than has been demonstrated by past studies. After this calibration composite analysis revealed increases in high level (10180 mb) cloud cover (of ~20%) occurred over the Antarctic plateau in conjunction with decreases in the rate of GCR flux during austral winter (these results are broadly opposite to those of past studies). The cloud changes occurred in conjunction with locally significant surface level air temperature increases over the Antarctic plateau (~4 K) and temperature decreases over the Ross Ice Sheet (~8 K). These temperature variations appear to be indirectly linked to cloud via anomalous surface level winds rather than a direct radiative forcing. These results provide good evidence of a relationship between daily timescale GCR variations and Antarctic climate variability.
NOISE TRADER RISK: EVIDENCE FROM VIETNAM

This paper investigates the existence of noise trader risk in Vietnam’s stock market and its effect on the daily returns of stock prices. The methodologies contain the estimation of GARCH (1,1) model to filter the residuals using the moving average method to calculate the impact of information traders. Noise trader risk or the risk that is caused by noise traders is derived by subtracting the residuals by the rational traders’ impact. We find that the noise trader risk does exist in Vietnam’s stock market and its impact on daily returns of stocks is unpredictable. Meanwhile, we find a positive impact of information traders on the stock returns. It increases the daily stock returns, and in turn, helps the market to correct itself because the stock prices move back to its fundamental value.
Examining and Predicting Under-the-Table Payments for Health Care in Albania : An Application of the Theory of Planned Behavior

The World Bank and the Albanian Ministry of Health report that the majority of Albanian citizens make illegal, under-the-table payments for health care. Qualitative studies have identified some factors associated with these informal payments, but the problem has not been systematically examined using established theoretical models. The purpose of this study was to examine and predict under-the-table payments using the theory of planned behavior (TPB). Self-administered surveys were completed by 222 Albanian citizens. The constructs of the theory explained 34% of the variance in intentions to make under-the-table payments, with attitude toward the behavior making the strongest contribution. Using the TPB to examine the practice of making under-the-table payments has indicated specific areas that can be targeted by policy interventions.
EQUIVALENCE CLASS FORMATION IN ELDERLY PERSONS

To study equivalence class formation in elderly persons, ten people 13- to 74-years old received training of the conditional discriminations required for equivalence and testing of symmetry, transitivity, and equivalence. First, samples A1 or A2 were randomly presented with comparisons B1 and B2; selections of B1 in the presence of A1 and selections of B2 in the presence of A2 were reinforced. Then, B1 or B2 were the sample and C1 and C2 were the comparisons; selections of C1 in the presence of B1 and selections of C2 in the presence of B2 were reinforced. Later, trials of these baseline discriminations were alternated with other trials in which former samples were the comparisons and former comparisons were the samples (e. g., B1 and B2 alternated as samples and A1 and A2 were the comparisons) but selections were not reinforced —symmetry tests. Also, probes in which A1 or A2 were the samples and C1 and C2 were the comparisons were presented without reinforcement —transitivity test. Finally, sample C1 or C2 and comparisons A1 and A2 were presented in other unreinforced trials —equivalence test. The four 13-to-53-years elderly people and two people older than 64 responded with almost no errors to the tests of symmetry; the remaining 4 people responded initially with errors but finally demonstrated symmetry. All participants, but one, made almost no errors in the probes of transitivity and equivalence. Thus, stimulus equivalence was demonstrated in elderly people. A comparison between the performance in the training and in the tests of transitivity and equivalence showed that elderly people remembered (had contextual recognition) less than younger adults in training trials but remembering was not affected in tests for stimulus equivalence.
Through thick and thin: kinematic and chemical components in the solar neighbourhood

We search for chemically distinct stellar components in the solar neighbourhood using a compilation of published data. Extending earlier work, we show that when the abundances of Fe, α elements and the r-process element Eu are considered together, stars separate neatly into two groups that delineate the traditional thin and thick disc components of the Milky Way. The group akin to the thin disc is traced by stars with [Fe/H] > −0.7 and [α/Fe] < 0.2. The thick disc-like group overlaps the thin disc in [Fe/H] but has higher abundances of α elements and Eu. Stars in the range −1.5 < [Fe/H] < −0.7 with low [α/Fe] ratios, however, seem to belong to a separate, dynamically cold, non-rotating component that we associate with tidal debris. The kinematically hot stellar halo dominates the sample for [Fe/H] < −1.5. These results suggest that it may be possible to define the main dynamical components of the solar neighbourhood using only their chemistry, an approach with a number of interesting consequences. With such definition, the kinematics of thin disc stars is found to be independent of metallicity: their average rotation speed remains roughly constant in the range −0.7 < [Fe/H] < +0.4, a result that argues against radial migration having played a substantial role in the evolution of the thin disc. The velocity dispersion of the thin disc is also independent of [Fe/H], implying that the familiar increase in velocity dispersion with decreasing metallicity is the result of the increasing prevalence of the thick disc at lower metallicities, rather than of the sustained operation of a dynamical heating mechanism. The substantial overlap in [Fe/H] and, likely, stellar age, of the various components might affect other reported trends in the properties of stars in the solar neighbourhood. A purely chemical characterization of these components would enable us to scrutinize these trends critically in order to understand which result from accretion events and which result from secular changes in the properties of the Galaxy.
Phylogenetic clustering increases with succession for lianas in a Chinese tropical montane rain forest

Previous research found that phylogenetic clustering increased with disturbance for tropical trees, suggesting that community assembly is mainly influenced by abiotic factors during early succession. Lianas are an important additional component of tropical forests, but their phylogenetic community structure has never been investigated. Unlike tropical trees, liana abundance is often high in disturbed forests and diversity can peak in old secondary forest. Therefore, phylogenetic structure along a disturbance gradient might also differ from tropical tree communities. Here we determined phylogenetic community structure of lianas along a disturbance gradient in a tropical montane forest in China, using the net relatedness index (NRI) from 100 equivalent phylogenies with varying branch length that were constructed using DNA-barcode sequences. Three additional phylogenetic indices were also considered for comparison. When NRI was used as index phylogenetic clustering of liana communities decreased with decreasing tree basal area, suggesting that liana competitive interactions dominate during early succession, which is in contrast to the pattern reported for trees. Liana communities in mature forests, on the other hand, were phylogenetic clustered, which could be caused by dispersal limitation and/or environmental filtering. The three additional phylogenetic indices identified different, sometimes contradicting predictors of phylogenetic community structure, indicating that caution is needed when generalizing interpretations of studies based on a single phylogenetic community structure index. Our study provides a more nuanced picture of non-random assembly along disturbance gradients by focusing on a non-tree forest component.
ANOMALOUS THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY OF NAV2O5 AS COMPARED TO CONVENTIONAL SPIN-PEIERLS SYSTEM CUGEO3

Submitted to: Phys. Rev. Lett. Abstract: A huge increase of thermal conductivity k is observed at the phase transition in stoichiometric NaV2O5. This anomaly decreases and gradually disappears with deviation from stoichiometry in Na(1-x}V2O5 (x = 0.01, 0.02, 0.03, and 0.04). This behavior is compared with that of pure and Zn-doped CuGeO3 where only modest kinks in the k(T) curves are observed at the spin-Peierls transition. The change of k at critical temperature Tc could be partially attributed to the opening of an energy gap in the magnetic excitation spectrum excluding the scattering of thermal phonons on spin fluctuations. However, the reason for such a strong anomaly in the k(T) may lie not only in the different energy scales of CuGeO3 and NaV2O5, but also in the different character of the phase transition in NaV2O5 which can have largely a structural origin, e.g. connected with the charge ordering.
Using the stated preference method for the calculation of social discount rate

The aim of this paper is to build the stated preference method into the social discount rate methodology. The first part of the paper presents the results of a survey about stated time preferences through pair-choice decision situations for various topics and time horizons. It is assumed that stated time preferences differ from calculated time preferences and that the extent of stated rates depends on the time period, and on how much respondents are financially and emotionally involved in the transactions. A significant question remains: how can the gap between the calculation and the results of surveys be resolved, and how can the real time preferences of individuals be interpreted using a social time preference rate. The second part of the paper estimates the social time preference rate for Hungary using the results of the survey, while paying special attention to the pure time preference component. The results suggest that the current method of calculation of the pure time preference rate does not reflect the real attitudes of individuals towards future generations.
Model for Time Series Imputation based on Average of Historical Vectors, Fitting and Smoothing

This paper presents a novel model for univariate time series imputation of meteorological data based on three algorithms: The first of them AHV (Average of Historical Vectors) estimates the set of NA values from historical vectors classified by seasonality; the second iNN (Interpolation to Nearest Neighbors) adjusts the curve predicted by AHV in such a way that it adequately fits to the prior and next value of the NAs gap; The third LANNf allows smoothing the curve interpolated by iNN in such a way that the accuracy of the predicted data can be improved. The results achieved by the model are very good, surpassing in several cases different algorithms with which it was compared.