Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Photocatalytic Performance of NiO/NiTiO3 Composite Nanofiber Films

Photocatalytic degradation of pollutants is one of the cleanest technologies for environmental remediation. Herein, we prepared NiO/NiTiO3 heterostructure nanofiber (200 nm) films by electrospinning and high temperature heat treatment, using nickel acetate and tetrabutyltitanate as nickel and titanium sources, respectively. The NiO/NiTiO3 heterostructure has advantages of good photodegradation rate constant and stability. By controlling the temperature, we can optimize the phase composition of these nanofibers for better photocatalytic performance. Based on our findings of the Rhodamine B degradation results, the best performance was obtained with 10% NiO and 90% NiTiO3; 92.9% of the Rhodamine B (5 mg/L) was degraded after reaction under full spectrum irradiation for 60 min. More importantly, the repeating test showed that these nanofiber films can remain active and stable after multiple cycles. The mechanisms of the photocatalysis reactions were also discussed. This demonstration provides a guideline in designing a new photocatalyst that we hope will serve the environmental needs for this and the coming century.
Path coefficient analysis, a different approach to identify soil quality indicators

ABSTRACT Soil quality indicators related to water erosion reduction can assist with correct soil management. The objective of this research was to identify some variables that could be used as soil quality indicators with the aid of path coefficient analysis in order to reduce water erosion. The research was carried out in the field between May 2011 and April 2013 in southern Brazil on an Inceptisol. The following treatments were studied under simulated rainfall conditions: 1) no-tilled, cultivated and covered by cultural residue of ryegrass (Lolium multiflorum) (HCR); 2) no-tilled, cultivated and covered by crop residue of vetch (Vicia sativa) (HCV); 3) cultivated and scarified soil containing ryegrass roots (HRR); 4) cultivated and scarified soil containing vetch roots (HRV); and 5) bare and chiselled soil (BHR). Eight simulated rainfalls were applied in each treatment. Flow velocity, soil and water losses as well as variables or soil attributes influenced by management were quantified. Path coefficient analysis verified that the coverage, surface roughness, water infiltration rate and total organic carbon have the greatest direct or indirect relationships with soil and water losses or runoff velocity. These variables were indicative of soil quality, particularly its resistance to water erosion. In a rough soil, the total organic carbon, root mass and macroporosity of the soil are more important as indicators for soil resistance to water erosion.
Mathematical Evaluation of the Impact of Awareness on Epidemic Model using Weighted Network

The applications of graph theory in the area of networking are of great significance in system analysis of different varieties, including biological systems. In biological systems, the use of networks finds importance in the study of epidemic and its control. A practical example include the evaluation of the spread of disease within human population and the impact of awareness circulating admist the same population as a result of the infection. Agaba et al. in 2017 proposed a mathematical model that analysed the impact of awareness on the spread of infectious diseases. This was done using the stability analyses of the various steady states of the system of equations and also through the evaluation of some numerical simulations. This paper, with the aid of the system of equations developed by Agaba et al., 2017b, studies the impact of awareness spreading simultaneously with an infectious disease within human population using weighted network.
The Determination of Flavonoid Components, Total Phenolic Content, and Antioxidant Capacity in Dog Rose (Rosa canina L.) in Lorestan Province

Background and Aim: Dog rose (Rosa canina L.) is a valuable deciduous shrub, which has long been used for food and medicinal purposes in various parts of the world. This study was laid out for the quantitative determination of the flavonoid components such as kampferol and quercetin, total phenol content and antioxidant capacity in petals and the fruit of the dog rose (Rosa canina L.) ecotype collected in Lorestan province. Materials and Methods: Petals and fruit samples of wild dog rose were harvested in June and September 2014 respectively. The samples were kept in cold box during their transportation to laboratory. Subsequently, the pericarp and seeds were separated and dried at room temperature. The antioxidant capacities of petals and fruits were determined using DPPH method. The flavonoid components, including kampferol and quercetin, were analyzed by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The total phenol and flavonoids were measured using a spectrophotometric device. The results indicate that the amount of total phenol in petals (1957 mg.ml) was higher than that of fruits (937 mg.ml). The amount of total flavonoid in dog rose petals and fruits were 776 and 450 mg.ml respectively. Results: The antioxidant capacity of dog rose was measured and found to be 9.6% in fruits and 66.7% in petals. However, the fruits contained 141 μg. g of kampferol and petals contained 108 μg. g. The measured quercetin in petals (127μg.g) was higher than that of fruits (66μg.g). In this study, a direct relation was observed between the total phenol and flavonoid contents with antioxidant capacity. Conclusion: The results of this research showed that there are high amounts of total phenol and flavonoid contents, antioxidant capacity and also kampferol and quercetin in petals and fruits of dog rose grown in Lorestan. These results indicated the significance of dog rose in dietary and medical purposes.
Bayesian Semiparametric Methods for Functional Data

JAMIE LYNN BIGELOW: BAYESIAN SEMIPARAMETRIC METHODS FOR FUNCTIONAL DATA. (Under the direction of Dr. Amy Herring and Dr. David Dunson.) Motivated by studies of reproductive hormone profiles in the menstrual cycle, we develop methods for hierarchical functional data analysis. The data come from the North Carolina Early Pregnancy Study, in which measurements of urinary progesterone metabolites are available from a cohort of women who were trying to become pregnant. Methods for menstrual hormone data are needed that avoid standardizing menstrual cycle lengths while also allowing for flexible relationships between the hormones and covariates. In addition, it is necessary to account for within-woman dependency in the hormone trajectories from multiple cycles. All of the methods are developed for and applied to menstrual hormone data, but they are general enough to be applied in many other settings. The statistical approach is based on a hierarchical generalization of Bayesian multivariate adaptive regression splines. The generalization allows for an unknown set of basis functions characterizing both the overall trajectory means and woman-specific covariate effects and allows for the complex dependency structure of the data. To relax distributional assumptions, we use a Dirichlet process prior on the unknown distribution of the random basis coefficients in the spline model. This requires the development of methodology for the use of the Dirichlet process on the distribution of a parameter of varying dimension. While modeling the curves nonparametrically, the Dirichlet process also identifies clusters of similar curves. Finally, we combine our approach with Bayesian methods for generalized linear models, developing a procedure that clusters trajectories while jointly estimating the response distribution of each cluster.
Hydrofluoric Acid‐Free Digestion of Geological Samples for the Quantification of Rare Earth Elements by Inductively Coupled Plasma‐Optical Emission Spectrometry

Rare earth elements (REEs) are very important to technological development as well as to geochemical and environmental studies. In this work, hydrofluoric acid (HF) was replaced by condensed phosphoric acid (CPA) in the digestion of geological samples, and the quantification of REEs was performed by inductively coupled plasma‐optical emission spectrometry (ICP‐OES). Six international reference materials (RMs), named DC86318, CGL 111, CGL 124, CGL 126, OKA‐2 and COQ‐1 and three Brazilian ore samples, named Araxá, Catalão and Pitinga were analysed. Only zircon and xenotime, which are potential REE‐bearing minerals, were not completely dissolved. Nevertheless, no REE associated with zircon was detected. The investigated digestion method presented many advantages: It was relatively fast (3 h), avoided fluoride precipitation, it was less hazardous because handling diluted H3PO4 is safer than HF, NH4F or NH4HF2 aqueous solutions, it preserved the quartz fittings of the measurement equipment and the final solution contained lower levels of total dissolved solids than those produced by the fusion method.
On the Effectiveness of Manual and Automatic Unit Test Generation: Ten Years Later

Good unit tests play a paramount role when it comes to foster and evaluate software quality. However, writing effective tests is an extremely costly and time consuming practice. To reduce such a burden for developers, researchers devised ingenious techniques to automatically generate test suite for existing code bases. Nevertheless, how automatically generated test cases fare against manually written ones is an open research question. In 2008, Bacchelli et.al. conducted an initial case study comparing automatic and manually generated test suites. Since in the last ten years we have witnessed a huge amount of work on novel approaches and tools for automatic test generation, in this paper we revise their study using current tools as well as complementing their research method by evaluating these tools' ability in finding regressions. Preprint [\url{https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2595232}], dataset [\url{https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare. 7628642}].
Physiological and antioxidant responses of cape gooseberry (Physalis peruviana L.) seedlings to phosphorus deficiency

The main objective of present study was to understand the physiological effects of phosphorus (P) deficiency and the antioxidant response in cape gooseberry (Physalis peruviana L.) seedlings. Seedlings were grown in soil with five P levels: 0 (P0), 6 (P6), 12 (P12), 25 (P25) and 50 (P50) mg of P2O5 kg-1. The plant growth, gas exchange, chlorophyll content, membrane integrity and the antioxidant response in cape gooseberry were evaluated. In the P0, P6, P12 treatments, the seedlings showed a reduction in total biomass, the number of leaves, leaf area, root length density, shoot/root ratio, photosynthesis, transpiration, stomatal conductance, and chlorophyll content, as well as an increase in the electrolyte leakage, the proline content and the activity of catalase and peroxidase compared with the P50 treatment. The P25 treatment was not different compared to P50 in terms of photosynthesis, chlorophyll content and total biomass after 30 d of treatment, the number of leaves and root length density at 90 d of treatment, and in electrolyte leakage and peroxidase activity at 60 and 90 d of treatment. Doses below 25 mg of P2O5 kg-1 cause P deficiency in cape gooseberry seedlings, inducing antioxidant and protection response mechanisms to cope with stress.
Film breakup of tilted impinging spray under various pressure conditions

Fuel film on engine walls caused by spray impingement would dramatically cause engine friction deterioration, incomplete combustion, and significant cycle-to-cycle variations. In a previous work, it has been demonstrated that fuel film would break up via wave entrainment induced by the high-speed coflow. Meanwhile, the film breakup dynamics depend on various boundary conditions, such as injection pressure, ambient pressure, and so on. However, such impact on the wall film formation was not investigated thoroughly in existing literature. This work aims to perform a parameter study to investigate possible means to enhance wave entrainment effect as to reduce the amount of impingement fuel mass. In this study, simultaneous measurements of macroscopic structure and its corresponding footprint of impinging spray are conducted using a single-hole, prototype injector in a constant volume chamber. The macroscopic spray structure was captured by high-speed backlit imaging, and the film was obtained using laser-induced fluorescence under different conditions. The laser-induced fluorescence signal is converted to film thickness following a calibration procedure where laser-induced fluorescence signals from a series of known-thickness film are captured. A mathematical processing method is used to analyze both the dynamic behavior of film thickness and amount of droplet detachment caused by high-speed coflow. It is found that at the leading edge of film waves, a remarkable amount of liquid droplets detaches from the liquid film and the quantity of film mass on the wall decreases during this process. Quantitative analysis is conducted and the mass ratio of detached droplets over residual liquid film is estimated. We hold that the film breakup percentage increases with both ambient and injection pressure due to the enhanced high-speed coflow. Then, variation laws for various boundary conditions are obtained based on the observations.
A metrics-based comparison of secondary user quality between iOS and Android

htmlabstract Native mobile applications gain popularity in the commercial market. There is no other econom- ical sector that grows as fast. A lot of economical research is done in this sector, but there is very little research that deals with qualities for mobile application developers. This paper compares the qualities of the iOS and Android platforms, where developers have to deal with. The base of the research form 45 iOS and 35 Android apps that are developed since 2009 in a Dutch mobile service agency. With the help of the factor-criteria-metric model one project metric, three OO- metrics and two method metrics are defined to analyze the apps. Except the project metric, in all test are statistical significant results found, but with a practical view, only OO-metrics show big differences. These results show that the iOS framework acts more like a white-box frame- work compared to Android, that acts more like a black-box framework. The calculation to the sub factors show that iOS scores better with adaptability and modifiability. In modularity and testability is almost no difference found. Understandability and self-descriptiveness are better on Android. The geometric mean of all sub-qualities results in no difference.
Flake Typologies and alternative approaches: an experimental assessment

Flake debris produced from a series of lithic reduction experiments 1s used to investigate the utility of dorsal cortex as employed in some typological frameworks. Typologies that employ dorsal cortex as a major criterion for classifica tion are found to be unreliable. Several alterna tive methods of flake debris analysis are also examined. Both size distribution and Individual flake analysis methods which are grounded in experiment hold promise. Used in conjunction, these methods provide a more reliable means of analyzing flake debris than other methods. The use of a limited number of attributes aimed at providing the maximum amount of information makes such analyses time efficient and worthy of the effort.
Nitric Oxide Increases the Damaging Effects of Hydrogen Peroxide on a Crayfish Neuromuscular Junction

Hydrogen peroxide, a reactive oxygen species, causes damage to the neuromuscular junction by inhibiting synaptic transmission. Nitric oxide is a chemical that has been tested in conjunction with hydrogen peroxide and can either react with hydrogen peroxide to form peroxynitrite, which will further harm the cell, or bind with hydrogen peroxide and prevent it from negatively affecting the neuromuscular junction. We hypothesized that the addition of nitric oxide to hydrogen peroxide will impair the crayfish neuromuscular junction and diminish the excitatory junction potential. We tested this idea by using a dull suction electrode to stimulate the motor nerve to extensor muscles in the crayfish tail with the specimen submerged in three different solutions: Ringer’s saline (control), hydrogen peroxide, and hydrogen peroxide with nitric oxide. We found that the excitatory junction potential decreases significantly compared to the control when the crayfish is submerged in hydrogen peroxide, and the excitatory junction potential decreases further when nitric oxide is added.
Microwave assisted synthesis, characterization and investigation of antibacterial activity of 3-(5-(substituted-phenyl)-4,5-dihydro-1H-pyrazol-3-yl)-2H-chromen-2-one derivatives

Abstract A variety of 3-(5-(substituted-phenyl)-4,5-dihydro-1H-pyrazol-3-yl)-2H-chromen-2-one derivatives 3a–j were synthesized through microwave assisted thermal annulation of corresponding α,β-unsaturated ketones (chalcones) 2a–j via hydrazinolysis. Chalcones 2a–j were prepared from 3-acetyl-coumarin 1 which was previously accessed by Pechmann condensation reaction of salicylaldehyde. The series of pyrazoline-based coumarin motifs 3a–j synthesized, were structurally confirmed by analytical and spectral data. They were then evaluated for their antimicrobial activities using agar diffusion method. The result showed that microwave assisted method (MAM) for the reaction was remarkably successful and gave the targeted products 3a–j in higher yields at shorter reaction times compared to conventional synthetic method (CSM). The results showed that these skeletal frameworks exhibited marked potency as antibacterial agents. The most active antibacterial agent was 3-(5-(4-(diethylamino) phenyl)-4,5-dihydro-1H-pyrazol-3-yl)-2H-chromen-2-one 3j with MIC and MBC values of 3.92 ± 0.22 µg/mL and 7.82 ± 0.43 µg/mL respectively.
The Effect of Catalyst Type and Concentration on the Yield of Biodiesel from Jathropha/Moringa Oil Mix

The exhaustible nature of petroleum diesel has made biodiesel an attractive alternative to diesel, but efforts at reducing its high production costs through the use of cheap poor-quality oil feedstock are not sufficient. A careful choice of catalyst concentration and type is also necessary. Binary blends of oil-feedstock and alcohol-feedstock were used to increase the efficiency of transesterification process. The effect of changing alkaline catalysts on the yield of transesterification reactions was also examined for similar and varied process conditions. This allowed the examination of the impacts of catalyst on yield with changing feedstock type and processing condition. Results of oil and alcohol blending showed that the partial use of ethanol permitted reactions to be completed in 45 minutes instead of 60- 120 minutes common to conventional ethanolysis. Yields were comparable to those of methanolysis. Ester yield increased with increase in the concentration of KOH and CaO catalysts within the 0.5-2.5 w/w% range.
Model Checking of Trust-Based User-Centric Cooperative Networks

The success of user-centric networks depends on the willingness of the participants to cooperate by sharing resources and services. Reputation-based incentives and remuneration (based either on fiat money or on virtual currency) have emerged as two complementary incentive mechanisms to increase users’ motivation and to discourage selfish behaviors. In this paper, we conduct a formal study of the benefits of the joint application of these two mechanisms in the context of a cooperation model recently proposed for user-centric wireless networks. To this purpose, several performance properties of cooperation incentives mechanisms are defined and analyzed through model checking of probabilistic systems with an underlying Markov process semantics. Keywords-trust, virtual currency, model checking, usercentric networks.
Mobile Assisted Language Learning: Affordances and Limitations of Duolingo

This study aimed at analyzing how mobile assisted language learning (MALL) may be used to aid second/foreign language (L2) learning. So as to reach this goal, the Duolingo platform, one of the most popular apps among L2 learners, was analyzed in terms of its possibilities and limitations for L2 learning as perceived by its users. With that aim, a study was carried out with 80 participants, 45 of whom were L2 learners who answered an online survey about their preferences for L2 learning, 25 MALL users and 10 L2 teachers who were interviewed. Data analysis used a mixed methods design with predominantly qualitative data. Results of the study showed that participants recognize the relevance of MALL for L2 learning and think that the Duolingo may aid L2 learning to a certain extent, but agree that a teacher is necessary to foster interaction and the development of production skills in L2. Based on these results the study concluded that L2 teachers should consider using blended approaches combining MALL in traditional classes.
Bermuda grass foliar chlorophyll content influenced by luminosity and substrate

The objective of this work was to evaluate the influence of luminosity and different substrates on Bermuda grass (Cynodon dactylon x C. transvaalensis) chlorophyll a and b contents and root system evaluation. The experiment was conducted in a 5 x 4 factorial scheme (substrates x luminosities), in completely randomized design with 20 treatments and 3 replicates. The substrates were: S1 = Soil, S2 = Soil + sand (2:1), S3 = Soil + organic matter (1:1), S4 = Soil + organic matter + sand (2:1:1) and S5 = organic matter + sand (3:1), in four luminosity conditions: full sun, 30%, 50% and 80% of shading for six months. We evaluated chlorophyll a and b. After 180 days after planting, bigger contents of both chlorophyll were found according to increment of shading.
Probiotic Characteristics of Lactobacillus rhamnosus Isolated from Kefir

To search probiotic microorganisms, we isolated Lactobacillus sp. from kefir, The Lactobacillus sp. strain showed of identity to species Lactobacillus rhamnosus by API kit. Lactobacillus rhamnosus showed high resistances to acidic environment, which grew well even at pH 2.0 and bile salt Enzyme activity of Lactobacillus rhamnosus was higher in amylase () than that in xylanase (), cellulase() and phytase(). Especially, the Lactobacillus rhamnosus showed high heat stability which remained at . The maximum numbers of Lactobacillus rhamnosus on growth owe was reached at 24 h fermentation and pH was decreased to 4.6. The resistances of Lactobacillus rhamnosus to acidic pH and bile salt were better than that of Lactobacillus acidophilus used as control. When Lactobacillus rhamnosus was cultured with E. coli in MRS broth, E. coli was disappeared after 18 h. These result suggest that the isolated Lactobacillus rhamnosus has a useful probiotics properties.