Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Phytochemical and in vitro anti-bacterial properties of Hibiscus sabdariffa L (Roselle) juice

The anti-bacterial properties of aqueous and ethanol extracts of the calyces of Hibiscus sabdariffa on five bacteria genera, namely, Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella typhi, Shigella dysenteriae and Streptococcus mutans were evaluated using agar well and disc diffusion methods. Six bioactive compounds were identified from phytochemical analysis of the juice extract of H. sabdariffa. Analysis revealed the presence of the following in the water and ethanol extracts: saponins (1.46%), alkaloids (0.09%), tannins (0.19%), total phenols (0.07%), flavonoids (2.41%) and glycosides (0.13%). The results revealed that both water and ethanol extracts had significant anti-bacterial effects (P ≤ 0.05) against the tested pathogenic bacteria genera with the ethanol extract of Roselle having higher anti-bacterial effects against all the pathogens. S. aureus and E. coli were the most sensitive to Roselle juice extract (47.9 and 45. 8 mm zones of inhibition, respectively). The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) for the ethanol extract of H. sabdariffa was between 0.26 and 1.03 mg/ml. The results observed in this study contribute to scientific baseline data on the anti-bacterial activities of H. sabdariffa juice extract. Key words: Antimicrobial activity, minimum inhibitory concentration, pathogenic bacteria, phytochemical, Hibiscus sabdariffa.
National culture and operations management: a structured literature review

National culture has received a substantial amount of interest in the operations management literature. We present the first structured review of articles studying national culture in operations management. Our search returned 51 papers published in ten leading journals between 2000 and 2017. We sort and analyse the papers according to three focus areas of operations management (strategy, execution and improvement). We also analyse the papers according to whether they address the relevance of national culture, the impact of national culture or the actions managers can use to manage or mitigate the effects of national culture. We find that national culture appears as a relevant variable in all focus areas of operations management research but that the direction and strength of its impact remain undetermined. Only a handful of papers address how managers can actively deal with challenges related to national culture. We propose a research agenda and a guiding framework for future research.
Judicial Quality and Firm Performance: The Case of India

I extend Levchenko (2007) to provide a direct test of the importance of institutions on development at the most disaggregated level. The paper argues that judicial quality could aect a …rm's performance, especially, exports positively and signi…cantly by helping them to produce goods, which rely heavily on institutional-dependent inputs. I use data for Indian manufacturing that matches state-by-state …rm-level data with state-by-state data on a particularly important institution -judicial quality. The data covers all the major Indian states for 2000-2010. I explore whether judicial quality matters for exports, total sales and total trade of a …rm. My results show that the judicial quality is a signi…cant determinant of higher …rm performance, especially for exports, followed by total sales and no eect on total trade. I also …nd skill endowment rather than capital endowment to be more important for higher level of international trade. The …rms experience a higher degree of total sales in …nancially developed and high income states. My results are robust to a battery of robustness checks. Keywords: Judicial Quality, Firm Performance, Exports, Total Sales JEL: F1, F14, O43, D22
How leader states influence EU policy-making: Analysing the expert strategy

Research focusing on the leader-laggard dynamic in EU policy-making has significantly contributed to our understanding of why EU policies often go beyond the least common denominator and why policies look the way they do. The literature has also provided plausible arguments about the incentives for leader states to do so, but it has given less attention to the question of how leader states achieve this outcome. This article aims to shed some light on this question by focusing on the expert strategy: the mobilisation of government officials and related experts who possess a high level of content expertise to advance leader states' interest in EU policy-making. The expert strategy is analysed with reference to the Dutch government's involvement in EU chemical policy (REACH).
Opioid Abuse after Traumatic Brain Injury: Evaluation Using Rodent Models

Abstract : This project evaluated the effect of a moderate-level brain injury on risk for opioid abuse using preclinical models in rats. We assessed the effect of brain injury on the rewarding effects of oxycodone in three rat self-administration procedures and found significant differences in the acquisition and maintenance of oxycodone self-administration behavior between brain-injured and control rats. Data showed brain injured rats acquired self-administration behavior at lower doses, took higher total doses of oxycodone and worked significantly harder for a single infusion of drug suggesting oxycodone had stronger rewarding effects following injury. Conversely, brain-injured subjects showed lower responding in a model of relapse to oxycodone self administration. Testing of oxycodone for analgesic strength and development of tolerance showed no difference between sham controls and brain injured subjects. Nor was there any difference detected in the development of dependence. Overall, the analgesia studies demonstrate that moderate brain injury does not result in an altered pain state or diminished response to oxycodone analgesia and the dependence studies show withdrawal is not more severe. However, the self-administration studies suggest that brain-injured subjects could be at increased risk for developing opioid substance abuse disorders.
Immunoexpression of PCNA and α-SMA in gingival overgrowth tissues

Purpose: This study aimed to investigate proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) and isoform-α of the smooth muscle actin (α-SMA) immunoexpression, as well as the epithelial thickness in druginduced gingival overgrowth (DIGO) and idiopathic gingival fibromatosis (IGF) patients. Methods: Gingival samples were obtained from 11 users of nifedipine and phenytoin, 6 of patients with IGF and 4 fibrous inflammatory hyperplasia. The specimens were submitted to immunohistochemical and morphological analysis. Results: Our results show that PCNA-epithelial positive cells were slightly more common among IGF patients, but there were not statistically significant differences among the groups (p>0.05). Comparing the vessels counts with α SMA-positive pericyte or smooth muscular cells, there was not statistical differences, although the control group presented a discrete higher count (p>0.05). The epithelial thickness analysis revealed that the DIGO group presented the higher mean, evidencing statistically significant differences in relation to the control group (p=0,002). Conclusion: In conclusion, our results demonstrated similarities between DIGO and IGF according to PCNA and α-SMA immunoexpression, although the epithelial thickness was higher in DIGO group.
SOIL PROPERTIES, WINTER WHEAT YIELD, ITS COMPONENTS AND ECONOMIC EFFICIENCY WHEN DIFFERENT TILLAGE SYSTEMS ARE APPLIED

This research was aimed to identify the most suitable tillage systems for sustainable winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) yield levels, with best economic efficiency, assuring at the same time high quality soil physical and mechanical properties. The field experiments were carried out at Fundulea on a cambic chernozem soil type. Four tillage systems were tested to determine their influence on soil water content, soil macro-aggregates, resistance to soil penetration, wheat grain yield and its components, and crop economic efficiency. The following tillage systems were studied: traditional, with moldboard plough (TS); chisel plough tillage – primary tillage executed with chisel implement type without furrow over throwing (CS); disc/sweep tillage, providing a combined effect of vegetal remnants chopped with disc implements along with soil work with arrow type tools, without furrow over throwing (DS); No till (NT) – without any tillage work. In comparison with TS variant, soil conservation tillage systems (SCTS), as CS, DS and NT, increased the soil water content, recorded at seeding time, with 0.8%, 3.9%, and 4.1%, respectively. Soil water content, recorded at harvest time for CS and NT variants was 1.3% and 2.5% higher than in the case of TS (P 2mm with 5.5%, and the mean weighted diameter of soil particles resulted by dry sieving, with 5.5% and 10%, respectively. Yield components recorded for soil conservation tillage systems (CS, DS, and NT) did not differ significantly from those evaluated for traditional system (TS), but the superior values of 1000 kernels weight and spike density suggest that these components contributed more to higher yields, obtained with SCTS, than grain weight per spike, number of grain per spike, and number of grains per square meter. With regards to economic efficiency, the outputs of all tested SCTS were significantly greater than the TS. The present study, revealing important advantages of soil conservation tillage systems over the traditional one, revealing the improvement of soil physical and mechanical properties, higher winter wheat yield levels and higher crop economic efficiency, invites farmers from South Plain of Romania to adopt soon these new progressive systems.
Why Marry? The Role of Tradition in Women's Marital Aspirations

While the individualisation trend has given way to a relational, reflexive turn in the sociology of relationships, there continues to be a writing out of convention and tradition in understanding relationship processes (excepting Gilding 2010). This paper aims to write tradition back into discussions around relationships by drawing on the accounts of young women and the central role that tradition plays in their relationship narratives. The analysis focuses on: participants’ accounts of marital security reflecting the desire for permanence in an impermanent world; accounts of romance and fairy tales in contrast to pragmatic concerns; and participants’ use of bricolage in combining the desire for ‘invented’ traditions with an emphasis on personal choice and agency. This paper highlights the ambivalent nature of the young women's discourse around relationships, agency and tradition: ultimately, themes of individualisation are revealed in their restatement of tradition. This emerges in three distinct ways: the emphasis on marital security appears as a response to ‘risky’ relationships; participants aspire to the ‘traditional family’ in response to growing fluidity in family relationships; and romance is appealed to in order to counteract their often very pragmatic approach to the life course. Thus, while there are changes in the ways couples can and do live in their relationships, there remains continuity in the ways that tradition is used by participants to articulate relationship aspirations. Tradition becomes reaffirmed in a context of individualism and de-traditionalisation which reflects a pragmatic response to changing social norms and values.
Motivation and satisfaction of volunteers at a Florida natural resource agency.

Volunteer participation with park and recreation agencies has been growing in association with reduced agency budgets, broadened goals, an increasingly active population of senior citizens, and recognition of the benefits of stakeholder involvement. Yet research on the motivations of volunteers and influences on their satisfaction is lacking. Findings from this study of volunteers who make a range of contributions to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) should be useful for improving volunteer programs at park and nature-based recreation agencies. An understanding of volunteer motivations is important for improving or expanding volunteerism and ensuring the effective use of staff time and resources. We conducted a Web-based survey of 569 volunteers at FWC, with a cooperation rate of 59%. Slightly more than half of the respondents were male, and 95% were Caucasian. A motivation scale based on previous research measured the relative importance of seven motivations for volunteering: helping the environment, enhancing personal use of the environment, furthering career goals, engaging in social interactions, having opportunities for learning, being involved in effective projects, and expressing values and esteem. The strongest motivation of FWC volunteers was helping the environment, while furthering career goals was the weakest. Although volunteer activities such as office help or fence maintenance may be needed, it is important that supervisors link these activities to “helping the environment” by explaining the relevance of the activities to resource management goals. Motivations for volunteering vary with age and gender. Motivations to obtain career experience were more prevalent among newer volunteers who had been volunteering with FWC for less than a year and among younger volunteers. Females had higher mean scores in several categories, including helping the environment, career, learning, and values and esteem. Longer term volunteering was associated with reports of increased training and higher scores on a satisfaction index. A multiple regression analysis found that strength and type of motivation and two factors often associated with successful programs—training and recognition activities—predicted satisfaction of volunteers. Because motivations vary among volunteers, it is important for agencies to offer a variety of volunteer opportunities and advertise them so that potential recruits can select options that best meet their needs. In agencies where several motives, such as helping the environment and being socially engaged, are universally strong, supervisors may be able to adjust their volunteer program to help all volunteers better fulfill these important needs through their service. Such activities, along with appropriate training and recognition of the importance of volunteer work, will likely help agencies improve their volunteer programs and retain satisfied volunteers.
Quality assessment of fried potato wedges by fuzzy logic and texture analyses

Potato wedges were deep, shallow, and par-fried in soybean, sesame, and mustard oils using a laboratory formulated citric acid based antioxidant. The wedges were stored at –18 °C for 10, 20, 30, and 40 days. The quality of the wedges was assessed by subjective method (sensory analysis) and objective method (texture studies). Fuzzy logic was applied as a tool to analyze the linguistic data of subjective evaluation. Objective evaluation was conducted by studies on hardness, shear modulus and shear energy of the wedges. The wedges with highest defuzzified scores (obtained by sensory evaluation) and minimum changes in textural properties (P mustard > soybean (deep fry), mustard > soybean > sesame (shallow fry) and soybean > mustard > sesame (par-fry).
Shelf Life Of Minimally Processed Pineapples Treated With Ascorbic And Citric Acids [vida útil De Abacaxis Minimamente Processados Tratados Com ácido Ascórbico E ácido Cítrico]

Abstract The purpose of this research was to determine the shelf life of minimally processed (MP) ‘Perola’ pineapples treated with ascor -bic acid (AA) and citric acid (CA) based on physical, chemical, sensorial and microbiological attributes. Slices were dipped into drinking water (control) or combined solutions of AA:CA (%) (1.0:0.5 and 1.0:1.0) with sodium hypochlorite (NaClO 20 mg L –1 ) for 30 seconds. The samples were conditioned in polyethylene terephtalate packages and stored at 4±1 °C per 13 days. The low peroxidase activity in the slices treated with antioxidant combinations was related to low pH values observed in these samples. The treatments 1.0:0.5 and 1.0:1.0 (AA:CA, %) favored maintenance of the initial a* values and avoided the pulp browning. The ascorbic acid increased more than double on the 2 nd day in the treated slices. By the 4 th day the CO 2 values suggested a higher respiratory activity in the slices treated with anti-browning compounds. The antioxidant treatments did not produce detectable residual flavors in the MP pineapple. Regardless of microbiological safety during the 13 days of cold storage, the control slices can be kept by 6 days, afterwards the color and dehydration become strong enough to affect the appearance. On the other hand, MP ‘Perola’ pineapples treated with 1.0:0.5 (AA:CA, %) and NaClO (20 mg L
Nutritional indices and food utilization of tomato fruit worm , Helicoverpa armigera ( Hubner , 1808 ) ( Lepidoptera : Noctuidae ) on ten tomato cultivars

Nutritional performance of the larval stages (fourth, fifth, and sixth instars) of Helicoverpa armigera (Hubner) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) on unripe green fruit of ten tomato cultivars, including ‘Aras’, ‘Atrak’, ‘Korall’, ‘Mobil’, ‘Rio Grande Hed’, ‘Sivand’, ‘Super Chief’, ‘Super Mobil’, ‘Super Queen’ and ‘Super Urbana’, was studied at 26±1°C, 60±10% RH and a photoperiod of 16:8 L:D. Approximate digestibility values of the fourth instar larvae were highest (98.239±0.026%) and lowest (95.733±0.056%) on ‘Atrak’ and ‘Super Chief’, respectively. Fifth instar larvae fed on ‘Mobil’ showed the highest relative growth rate (RGR) and relative consumption rate (RCR) (0.316±0.038% and 7.369±0.669%, respectively). Approximate digestibility (AD) values of the sixth instar larvae were highest (96.264±0.114%) and lowest (92.349±0.120%) on ‘Super Chief’ and ‘Super Queen’, respectively. The highest ECI and ECD values of total larval instars (4th, 5th and 6th instars) was observed on ‘Rio Grande Hed’ (4.364±0.093% and 4.593±0.105%, respectively) and the lowest of both values was on ‘Super Urbana’ (3.034±0.021% and 3.187±0.022%, respectively). The results of nutritional indices and the cluster analysis indicated that ‘Sivand’ and ‘Super Queen’ were unsuitable hosts for feeding of H. armigera among tested cultivars.
Control flow, data flow and program complexity

There can be no real software engineering or programming science without objective measures for the factors which contribute to the complexity and, more generally, the quality of computer programs. Program complexity is a program attribute investigated by many researchers because of the increasing need to quantify the difficulty programmers have in writing and understanding programs and, to develop programming languages, programming methods and programming standards that yield clear and comprehensible programs. The goal of our research has been the formulation of a model of program complexity against which the complexities of alternative implementations of an algorithm can be compared. We have explored, in particular, how the concepts of control flow and data flow can be used to model the complexity of both small and large programs.
On extracting sediment transport information from measurements of luminescence in river sediment

Accurately quantifying sediment transport rates in rivers remains an important goal for geomorphologists, hydraulic engineers, and environmental scientists. However, current techniques for measuring long‐time scale (102–106 years) transport rates are laborious, and formulae to predict transport are notoriously inaccurate. Here we attempt to estimate sediment transport rates by using luminescence, a property of common sedimentary minerals that is used by the geoscience community for geochronology. This method is advantageous because of the ease of measurement on ubiquitous quartz and feldspar sand. We develop a model from first principles by using conservation of energy and sediment mass to explain the downstream pattern of luminescence in river channel sediment. We show that the model can accurately reproduce the luminescence observed in previously published field measurements from two rivers with very different sediment transport styles. The model demonstrates that the downstream pattern of river sand luminescence should show exponential‐like decay in the headwaters which asymptotes to a constant value with further downstream distance. The parameters from the model can then be used to estimate the time‐averaged virtual velocity, characteristic transport lengthscale, storage time scale, and floodplain exchange rate of fine sand‐sized sediment in a fluvial system. The sediment transport values predicted from the luminescence method show a broader range than those reported in the literature, but the results are nonetheless encouraging and suggest that luminescence demonstrates potential as a sediment transport indicator. However, caution is warranted when applying the model as the complex nature of sediment transport can sometimes invalidate underlying simplifications.
Insights into interaction profile and inhibitory potential of amentoflavone with ?-glucosidase, tyrosinase and 15-lipoxygenase as validated therapeutic targets.

Therapeutic benefits of amentoflavone, a 5',8"-biapigenin isolated from numerous medicinal plants, in the management of human ailments has been reported. However, the mechanisms of action and precise interaction of this biflavonoid with protein targets for such bioactivities have not been exhaustively documented. The present study shows the first binding model of amentoflavone with few selected human proteins (α-glucosidase, tyrosinase and 15-lipoxygenase) as validated therapeutic targets using computational procedures. Results obtained divulged amentoflavone interference with the metal ions within the active site of tyrosinase and lipoxygenase as part of its inhibitory mechanism against the proteins. The predicted inhibitory potential of the biflavonoid against 15-lipoxygenase correlates with IC50 value (0.04 µM). Its binding poses were comparable to that of acarbose on α-glucosidase with highest affinity (-11.4 kcal/mol) while the modest affinity (-9.4 kcal/mol) for tyrosinase indicates moderate inhibition for the compound possibly due to its interaction with only one of the two copper ions. It was observed that amentoflavone stably occupied the active sites of all the proteins with lesser ? G values and engaged one of its monoflavonoid subunits for penetration into binding pocket, preventing substrate access, binding and conversion. However, the relatively bulky structure of amentoflavone was prone to steric hindrance within the binding pockets. The polyhyroxyl groups of the biflavonoid participate critically in the formation of hydrophilic interaction. The aromatic rings enjoyed hydrophobic interactions with residues side chain and π-π stacking with the phenolic rings of aromatic amino acids. The unique binding configurations and interactions obtained against each protein in this study may be helpful in explaining the subtle differences of the biflavonoid potency (IC50 values). The data also validate amentoflavone as a useful candidate in treatment of diabetes, inflammation and hyperpigmentary disorders.
The Neolithic of the Balikh Valley, Northern Syria: A First Assessment

Cet article presente un apercu des recherches recentes sur le Neolithique dans la vallee du Balikh (Svrie du Nord). Fouilles et prospections ont livre de nouvelles donnees qui permettent d'ameliorer notre vision de l'evolution culturelle de cette region encore mal connue de la Syrie.