Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Ecophysiology of the holoparasitic angiosperm Cistanche phelypaea (Orobancaceae) in a coastal salt marsh

Cistanche phelypaea (L.) Cout. (Orobancaceae) was found parasitising the roots of the succulent shrublets Arthrocnemum macrostachyum (Moric.) K.Koch (Chenopodiaceae) in a coastal salt marsh in Qatar. Measurements were conducted to identify soil properties, host, and noninfected plants by soil excavations to expose the haustoria of the parasite attached to the host roots. The water potential, osmotic potential, pressure potential, and chemical analyses were determined in parasite, host, and noninfected plants. Crown diameter and dry mass of the host plants were smaller than in the noninfected plants. A gradient of water potential existed between the host root and the underground tuberous body of the parasite. Potassium was the major cation found in the parasite, while sodium was dominant in the host and noninfected plants. The nitrogen, soluble sugars, total amino acids, and starch contents of the parasite were higher than those of the host and noninfected plants. The high ratio of K+ to Ca2+ in the parasite indicates that it is phloem-feeding. The high nutrient element contents and metabolic products in the parasite are possibly related to the creation of osmotic and water potential gradients between the host and C. phelypaea.
The Relationship Between Generalized Joint Hypermobility and Adhesive Capsulitis of the Shoulder

Objectives: This study aims to investigate the possible relationship between generalized joint hypermobility (GJH) and adhesive capsulitis (AC) of the shoulder. Patients and methods: A total of 240 patients were enrolled in this study, including 120 patients diagnosed with AC in a study group and 120 patients diagnosed with primary subacromial impingement syndrome in the control group. We evaluated the pain severity, range of motion of the shoulder joint, functional status, disability, and hypermobility in both groups. The Beighton score was used to evaluate the GJH while the revised Brighton criteria were utilized for the patients with benign joint hypermobility syndrome (BJHS). Results: In the adhesive capsulitis group, GJH was significantly rare (p Conclusion: Our study results suggest that GJH may be a protective or preventive factor in the development of AC. In clinical practice, we believe that in GJH patients we can be more optimistic regarding the concern of the conversion of shoulder pain to AC. If this has already taken place, then these patients may respond more positively to treatment in cases involving GJH.
Ticona Zegarra An Energy-Aware Data Aggregation Algorithm for Data Collection in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks consist of hundreds or thousands of nodes with limited energy resources; thus, e cient use of energy is necessary in these networks. Given that transmissions are the most energy-demanding operation, routing algorithms should consider an e cient use of transmissions into their designs in order to extend the network lifetime. To tackle these challenges a centralized algorithm is proposed, named Improved Continuous Enhancement Routing (ICER), for computing routing trees of re ned quality based on data-aggregation while being aware of the batteries energy state. Comparisons between ICER and other known solutions in the literature are performed. Our experiments show that ICER is able to guarantee, on average, the survival of 99,6% and the connectivity of 99,3% of the network nodes against 90,2% and 72,4% in relation to the best compared algorithm. The obtained results show that ICER signi cantly extends the network lifetime while maintaining the quality of the routing tree.
Do children with developmental disorders have low gross motor abilities? -A comparison with normal children, using Motor Ability ests for young children

It has been noted that the symptoms of children with developmental disorders (DD) include problems such as high frequency of accidentally bumping into objects or people. However, as of yet there has been no clarification of the characteristics of gross motor abilities in children with DD. The purpose of this study was to clarify those characteristics by comparing the gross motor abilities of children with DD to that of normal children. Participants were 5- and 6-year-old children, of whom 9 had DD and 9 were normal. For testing, we used the motor ability tests for young children designed by Sugihara et al. [1]. We tested 6 skills, including 25 m runs and standing long-jumps to evaluate quickness, tennis-ball throws, repetitive jump-overs, and ball catches to evaluate coordination, and continuous body-support to evaluate endurance. When we compared children with DD to normal children, no significant differences were observed in any of the motor skills tested. Gross motor abilities of children with DD were equal to those of the normal children in terms of quickness, coordination, and endurance. Therefore, we infer that the high frequency of accidentally bumping into objects or people by children with DD cannot be attributed simply to underdeveloped gross motor abilities.
Assessing U.S. Farm Drainage: Can GIS Lead to Better Estimates of Subsurface Drainage Extent?

Extensive agricultural subsurface tile drainage in the midwestern U.S. has important implications for nutrient pollution in surface water, notably the “dead zone” in the Gulf of mexico. However, drainage data limitations have constrained efforts to effectively factor tile drainage into regional economic and environmental impact studies. Improved drainage data would be a valuable addition to future modeling applications. In light of this need, a methodology incorporating a geographic information system (GIS) analysis based on soil and land cover maps was implemented to create a set of county-level tile drainage extent estimates.
First assessment of interchange of humpback whales between Oceania and the East coast of Australia

The interchange of individual humpback whales between the wintering grounds of Oceania (South Pacific) and the east coast of Australia were documented by individual identification photographs collected from 1999 to 2004. Interchange was assessed using regional catalogues of fluke photographs, totalling 672 individuals from Oceania (represented by New Zealand, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Niue, Cook Island, French Polynesia and American Samoa) and 1,242 individuals from Hervey Bay and Byron Bay representing the southbound and the northbound migration along the east coast of Australia (EA). Overall, there were seven documented movements between EA and Oceania. Four instances of movement of four individuals were documented between EA and the closest breeding grounds of New Caledonia. A further three movements were recorded between EA and a small catalogue (n = 13) from the New Zealand migratory corridor. In contrast, during this same period, 20 cases of interchange were documented among nine breeding grounds: French Polynesia, Cook Islands, Niue, American Samoa, Samoa, Tonga, Fiji, Vanuatu and New Caledonia. The low level of interchange between Oceania and the east coast of Australia has important implications for understanding the stock structure and abundance of humpback whales in the South Pacific.
Drivers For Wireless Handheld Technology: Views From Queensland Nurses

The use of wireless hand held devices is becoming popular in healthcare due to its flexibility and mobility. In the nursing domain, the use of handheld devices, a specific component of wireles technology appears to be beneficial for data collection and other information management functions nurses may undertake. Studies in nursing literature have indicated that handheld devices deliver advantages and benefits at the point of care. In this study a set of 30 interviews with Queensland Nursing Staff in one district health centre was conducted over a period of three months to establish the drivers for the introduction of wireless technology among nurses. The outcome of these interviews is developed into a preliminary model and reported in this paper.
ASSESSMENT OF WASHING PROCEDURE FOR DETERMINATION SOME OF AIRBORNE METAL CONCENTRATIONS

This study was proposed to assess the suitability of washing technique to distinguish between airborne and soil borne several metal contaminants. For this reason, six plant species which grew under Mobarakeh Steel Company emissions were selected. Aluminum, iron, nickel, manganese, zinc, copper and lead concentrations were determined by inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES) in washed and unwashed leaves of plants. The water washing reduced Al, Fe and Ni concentrations significantly (p < 0.05 and 0.01) in the most species. The highest reduction percentage of three metals was observed in Nerium oleander which was 76, 84 and 69% for Al, Fe and Ni, respectively. Washing had no significant effect for removing Mn, Zn and Cu from the leaf surfaces of most species. Influence of washing procedure on Pb concentrations was different. Washing effect varied with various physico-chemical characters of contaminants, plant species, primary level of contaminants and washing time. The results of this study show that the use of distilled water is a good technique for removing atmospheric deposition of Al, Fe and Ni from plant leaves. Also, there were a significant positive correlation between Al, Fe, Ni and Zn which had anthropogenic source. Key words : Contaminants, airborne, soil borne, water washing, leaves, heavy metals, tree, shrub, washing effect.
REVIEW AND EVALUATION OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND STAFF ’ S JOB ENGAGEMENT INCREMENT AND DEVIANT BEHAVIORS ABATEMENT ( CASE STUDY : MAPNA MD 2 COMPANY )

The purpose of the current study was to review and evaluate the relationship between knowledge management and staff’s job engagement increment and deviant behaviors abatement in MAPNA MD2 Co. All Mapna MD2 Co. headquarter office employees (300 people) in Tehran had formed the intended statistical society. According to Krejcie and Morgan table, the sample of research was considered as 169 people which have been selected accidentally and were divided to 35 women and 134 men due to the number of staff in the office. This current research method was descriptive and correlational that have been performed as field research. A four pages’ s questionnaire with 54 questions that including three localized questionnaires according to the Newman-Konrad (2000) standard knowledge management questionnaire, Salanova-Schaufeli (2001) job engagement questionnaire and Bennett-Robinson (1964) deviant behaviors questionnaire, was utilized as data collection tool in this research. The results of statistical analysis show that there is a significant relationship between knowledge management and its dimensions with staff’s job engagement increment and deviant behaviors abatement in MAPNA MD2 Co. Furthermore, the result of research model fit show that the 65% of job engagement increment and 37% of deviant behavior Mehdi Kalantar Hormozi, Mehdi Kabiri Naeini REVIEW AND EVALUATION OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND STAFF’S JOB ENGAGEMENT INCREMENT AND DEVIANT BEHAVIORS ABATEMENT (CASE STUDY: MAPNA MD2 COMPANY) European Journal of Management and Marketing Studies Volume 2 │ Issue 1 │ 2017 57 decrement have been explained by knowledge management. Base on that, the Mapna MD2 Co. management is suggested to implement the knowledge management in company in order to increase the job engagement and degrease the deviant behaviors of employees. JEL: D83, J62, J28, J53
Strategic Management Practices in Turkish Construction Firms

This paper presents a study that aims to define the present position of Turkish construction companies in terms of strategic management. It is based on a survey measuring strengths and weaknesses in the “strategic management” practices of Turkish construction companies, and thus reveals potential opportunities and threats in a generalized manner. The results highlight the current strategic management practice of construction firms for designing their own future. Toward this aim, a detailed questionnaire was administered to 52 construction companies. The culture of companies and their perceptions of strategic management were shown to have serious shortcomings. However, specialization on different project types through joint venture companies established by their partners was found to be a major strength of many companies. These companies also pointed out the developing and unstable nature of both the political and economic structure of Turkey as their most significant threat. This disadvantage has inclined.
Stratigraphy and geological structure of the Lavrion area (Attica, Greece)

The geological mapping of the Lavrion area lead to a revision of the lithostratigraphic subdivision and the recognition of three superposed tectonic units. The lower unit, the so-called autochthonous system, consists of a Triassic Jurassic metamorphic Pelagonian series, a disconformity related to the Eohellenic orogenic phase, and a Tithonian Lower Cretaceous non-metamorphic transgressive cover. Upon the lower unit, the "phyllite" nappe lies (middle unit), having on the top some remnants of a non-metamorphic Pelagonian nappe (upper
Characterization of genetic variation within table grape varieties ( Vitis vinifera L.) based on AFLP markers

AFLPs were used to characterize a collection of 35 table grape varieties. A single AFLP reaction with a single combination of selective primers yielded an average of 50 polymorphic and scorable amplified bands in this collection and was enough to unequivocally identify each analyzed variety, Genetic similarity between different varieties was estimated, based on the results obtained with two primer combinations, to be between 0.65 and 0.90, while sibling varieties derived from the same cross showed a genetic similarity higher than 0.80, The analysis of several samples belonging to the same varieties, yet from different origins, showed stability of the AFLP patterns as to unequivocally and reproducibly identify them. Furthermore, some specific primer combinations detected a low level of variation that could be due to somatic variation and would be useful in clonal identification.
Characterization of aftershock‐fault plane orientations of the 1999 İzmit (Turkey) earthquake using high‐resolution aftershock locations

Joint inversion for hypocentral parameters and the velocity field is nowadays a state of the art tool to obtain high‐resolution images of seismically active regions. In this study, we focus on the location accuracy of aftershocks of the 1999 Mw = 7.4 İzmit (NW Turkey) earthquake. We obtained a new velocity model for the region, and depicted its improvement on absolute locations in terms of uncertainty and misfit. Two well‐developed aftershock clusters located in the Akyazı area and Karadere‐Düzce region, were analyzed in detail based on a waveform cross‐correlation approach that allowed improving the location accuracy by a factor of 6. Relocation results reveal that hypocenters form narrow planes of activity that can be correlated with focal mechanisms of the larger aftershocks as well as nearby clouds of activity with no internal structure down to the resolved scale of ∼300 m.
Nonlinear State Estimation with an Extended FMI 2.0 Co-Simulation Interface

In this paper we propose a method how to automatically utilize continuous-time Modelica models directly in nonlinear state estimators. The approach is based on an extended FMI 2.0 Co-Simulation Interface [1] that interacts with the state estimation algorithms implemented in a Modelica library [2]. Besides a short introduction to Kalman Filter based state estimation, we give details on a generic interface to cooperate with FMUs in Modelica, an implementation of nonlinear state estimation based on this interface, and the Dymola prototype used for the evaluation. Finally we show first results in a tire load estimation application [3] for DLR’s robotic electric research platform ROMO [4].
Clinico-radiological variability of pulmonary tuberculosis in young patients as compared to elder patients prior to RNTCP and after 18 years RNTCP

Background: Tuberculosis, a chronic disease causing high morbidity and mortality with multiple host related and socio-demographic risk factors. Incidence is 3-4 times among in diabetics. HIV is considered to be a most powerful risk factor other being malnutrition, Tubercular contacts, smoking habits and alcoholism. Many ecological and societal threats increase a vulnerability to infection and succession of the disease. Objective was to study and compare various clinico-radiological presentations and clinical risk factors for pulmonary tuberculosis in the young (<50yrs) and elderly (>50yrs) patients. Methods: Total 300 pulmonary tuberculosis patients each admitted in hospital during 1999 (group ‘A’) and 2016 (group ‘B’) respectively were included in our study. Socio-demographic risk factors and presence of any existing co morbidities and clinical as well radiological presentation data were evaluated. Results: Majority patients in both group ‘A’ and ‘B’ were males (67% and 61.3%), younger (71.3% and 63.3%) patients. Elder patients had more smokers in both groups (48.8% and 33.6%). COPD trends seems to be receding in group ‘B’ as compared to group ‘A’ in younger (6.3% vs. 8.9%) as well elder (13.6% vs. 29.1%) but on the contrary lifestyle disease trends like DM increased in group ‘B’ than group ‘A’ patients more in elder subgroup (30% vs. 9.3%). HIV infected was more in younger 2.1 % (elder 0.9%) group ‘B’ patients. Haemoptysis (17.8% and 18.6% vs. 13.7% and 9.1%) and cough (~87% vs. ~85%) were almost similar but fever (~90% vs. ~65%) was seen significantly higher in the young patients. Radiologically bilateral upper lobe cavitations (15%-30%) was a higher in group A patients as compared to negligible less than ~3% cavitations in group B, on the contrary infiltrations (15%-32%) was more in group B. Conclusions: Young adults are more likely to have fever while haemoptysis cough and advanced lung field involvement is more common in elderly. Elderly patients had a higher number of co-morbidities like COPD and DM. The present study reveals that various demographic, socioeconomic and clinical risk factors have a potential role in causation/augmentation of pulmonary tuberculosis hence life style modification, prevention and timely management of these risk factors could be helpful to reduce the burden of disease.
Exponential Stabilization of a Class of Time-Varying Delay Systems with Nonlinear Perturbations

This paper addresses the problem of exponential stabilization of a class of time-varying delay systems with nonlinear perturbations. These perturbations are related not only with current state and the delayed state but also with , where is a continuous function defined on . With the delay interval divided into two equidistant subintervals, a novel Lyapunov functional is introduced, and several new exponential stabilization criteria are derived in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) by employing reciprocally convex approach. Two examples are given to illustrate the effectiveness of the main results.
Testing Chronosequences through Dynamic Approaches: Time and Site Effects on Tropical Dry Forest Succession

Chronosequences, commonly used to assess succession, have been questioned because of their failure to project successional trajectories. Here, we develop a simple analytical approach combining both chronosequence and dynamic data to test the power of age of abandonment and site factors to explain and predict succession. The approach proceeds by first fitting statistical models relating age to attribute values (the chronosequence model) and their observed changes (the dynamic model) to test explanatory power. Predictive power is then tested by bootstrapping the chronosequence model to derive confidence intervals for expected changes and comparing them with the dynamic model. Finally, residuals from both models are tested against site factors. The procedure was applied to six attributes (basal area, plant density, mean plant height, species richness, evenness, and composition) of the woody community (plants >1 cm dbh within 0.1‐ha plots) in nine abandoned cattle pastures (0–12 yr) and three old growth tropical dry forests monitored over 6 yr. Age explained 60–97 percent of the variance in community attributes and only 32–57 percent in observed changes. It significantly overestimated basal area and mean height, while species richness and composition were highly predicted. Besides age, management history also explained successional dynamics. Our results suggest age is not necessarily a reliable predictor of short‐term successional dynamics, and explanatory power is not indicative of predictive power. Because of this low reliability, caution is needed when applying chronosequences to evaluate ecosystem services' recovery. The analytical approach developed here contributes to a better exploration of those possible limitations.
Effects of glibenclamide, metformin or their combination on the correlation between serum leptin levels with glycemic control and insulin levels in type 2 DM

Type 2 diabetes affects millions of people throughout the world. Among the various factors implicated in the causation of this disease, the role of leptin, an obesity gene product, is increasingly being investigated. This study was designed to investigate the relationship between leptin and insulin levels, insulin resistance and glycemic control in newly diagnosed males with type 2 diabetes before and after treatment with either glibenclamide, metformin or their combination. 60 type 2 diabetic patients were recruited for the study and were allocated into 3 groups; one receiving glibenclamide 5mg/day, the second receiving 850mg/day metformin, while the third one treated with combination of them for 90 days. Blood samples withdrawn from each patient at zero time and after 90 days for evaluation of HbA1c and plasma levels of glucose, leptin and insulin. The results demonstrated that although all the treatment approaches significantly improved glycemic control, the use of metformin only affects the correlation between plasma leptin levels with insulin and glycemic control. In conclusion, plasma leptin levels vary in type 2 DM patients beyond the state of adiposity, and can be used as an indicator for the choice of treatment pattern in those patients.
Empirical Fuel Consumption and CO2 Emissions of Plug‐In Hybrid Electric Vehicles

Plug‐in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) combine electric and conventional propulsion. Official fuel consumption values of PHEVs are based on standardized driving cycles, which show a growing discrepancy with real‐world fuel consumption. However, no comprehensive empirical results on PHEV fuel consumption are available, and the discrepancy between driving cycle and empirical fuel consumption has been conjectured to be large for PHEV. Here, we analyze real‐world fuel consumption data from 2,005 individual PHEVs of five PHEV models and observe large variations in individual fuel consumption with deviation from test‐cycle values in the range of 2% to 120% for PHEV model averages. Deviations are larger for short‐ranged PHEVs. Among others, range and vehicle power are influencing factors for PHEV model fuel consumption with average direct carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions decreasing by 2% to 3% per additional kilometer (km) of electric range. Additional simulations show that PHEVs recharged from renewable electricity can noteworthily reduce well‐to‐wheel CO2 emissions of passenger cars, but electric ranges should not exceed 200 to 300 km since battery production is CO2‐intense. Our findings indicate that regulations should (1) be based on real‐world fuel consumption measurements for PHEV, (2) take into account charging behavior and annual mileages, and (3) incentivize long‐ranged PHEV.