Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Ecological Studies on Hydrophytic Vegetation of Irrigation and Drainage Canal Systems in Beni Suef, Egypt

The present study analyzed water plant vegetation in the different water bodies of the aquatic habitats associated with the River Nile system in Beni Suef, Egypt. Fifteen species belonging 11 genera and nine families were recorded. Large irrigation canal showed the richest habitat in species number, while small irrigation drain showed the lowest habitat. Higher salinity and macro elements were recorded in sediments and water of drainage canals more than those of irrigation canals. Eichhornia crassipes, Potamogeton pectinatus, P. crispus and Echinochloa staginina were the most recorded species in all habitats, while Myriophyllum spicatum was recorded in River Nile and large irrigation canal only. Bioaccumulation of heavy metals by some plants was measured. Potamogeton pectinatus was the most efficient species to accumulate heavy metal in its tissue. The maximal extent of heavy metal accumulation up to 5807, 4230 and 45 µgg -1 DW for Mn, Fe and Cu, respectively was found in fully immersed P. pectinatus, while the highest value of Mn accumulation (9730 µgg -1 DW) was recorded by Ceratophyllum demersum.
n improved in vitro encapsulation protocol , biochemical analysis and enetic integrity using DNA based molecular markers in regenerated lants of Withania somnifera

Non-embrogenic, synthetic seeds were produced by encapsulating nodal segments (containing axillary buds) of Withania somnifera L. in calcium alginate hydrogel containing Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium. A 3% sodium-alginate with 100 mM calcium cloride found to be the optimum concentration for the production of uniform synthetic seeds. Effect of different treatments (M1–M5), i.e. MS medium containing different concentrations of cytokinins (0.5, 1.0, 2.5, 5.0 & 10.0 M) along with optimal level of auxins NAA (0.5 M) on in vitro morphogenic response of synthetic seeds was evaluated. The maximum frequency (86.2%) of conversion of encapsulated beads into plantlets was achieved on MS (M3) medium containing 6-benzyladenine, BA (2.5 M) and -naphthalene acetic acid, NAA (0.5 M) after 4 weeks of culture. Rooting in plantlets was achieved on 1/2 MS + NAA (0.5 M). Plantlets obtained from stored synthetic seeds were hardened, acclimatized and established in field, where they grew well without any detectable malformation. Significant enhancement in the pigment contents (chlorophyll, carotenoids and net photosynthetic rates) with an increase in acclimatization days may be attributed to chlorophyll biosynthesis. Activities of antioxidant enzymes i.e. superoxide dismutase, catalase and peroxidase activity) were significantly increased which suggests their preventive role in membrane oxidation and damage to biological molecules. Also, an enhanced level of lipid peroxidation, as indicated by MDA content, a sensitive diagnostic index of oxidative injury clearly indicating its positive determining role in combating oxidative stress during acclimatization of plantlets. The generated RAPD and ISSR profiles from regenerated plantlets with mother plant were monomorphic which confirms the genetic stability among the ed tec ange clones. This synthetic se storage, germplasm exch
Electronic Word of Mouth (eWOM) on restaurants in Sarawak

Competitiveness in food service industry and the introduction of social media have created a challenge in restaurant industry. This is because restaurant operators need to adapt to the new trend of electronic communication technology which may give great impact to their companies. The purpose of this study is to identify the determinant factors of customer satisfaction which may direct or indirectly affect customer return intention and involvement of electronic word of mouth (eWOM) through social media. A review of the literature mentioning the type of restaurant experiences chosen and the development of eWOM was studied. Regression analysis was adopted to investigate the hypothesis formed. Identification and implementation of these technologies can help in building a sustainable competitive advantage for restaurants. The findings of this study revealed that restaurant experiences had a high positive relationship with customer satisfaction. Atmosphere and customer satisfaction also indicated the respective contributions made to eWOM. Key Words : Customer Satisfaction, Electronic Word of Mouth (eWOM), Restaurant experiences
The circumnuclear environment of NGC 613: a nuclear starburst caught in the act?

We present near-infrared (H- and K-band) integral-field observations of the inner �700 pc of the active spiral galaxy NGC 613, obtained with SINFONI on the Very Large Telescope. We use emission-line ratios to determine the dominant excitat ion mechanisms in different regions within our field-of-view, in particular the active nucleus a nd the star-forming circum-nuclear ring. Diagnostic diagrams involving [FeII] and H2 fluxes indicate that the gas is not only photoionized by the AGN in the nucleus of NGC 613, but also shock-heated. On the other hand, the emission line ratios measured in the “hot spots” al ong the ring are fully consistent with them being young star forming regions. We find no sign of r adial gas transport from the ring into the core region dominated by the AGN. The ring morphology appears disturbed by a radial outflow of material from the AGN, which is confirmed by the existence of a weak jet in archival radio maps. However, this jet does not seem to have any significant effect on the morphology of the large (�8×10 7 M⊙) reservoir of molecular gas that has accumulated inside the central �100 pc. Such a concentration of molecular gas around an AGN is unusual, and supports a scenario in which star formation is recurrent and episodic in spiral galaxies. In this context, NGC 613 appears to be in final stages of the gas accumu lation phase, and is likely to undergo a nuclear starburst in the near future.
DETECTING DIFFERENTIAL ROTATION AND STARSPOT EVOLUTION ON THE M DWARF GJ 1243 WITH KEPLER

We present an analysis of the starspots on the active M4 dwarf GJ 1243, using 4 years of time series photometry from Kepler. A rapid P = 0.592596 ± 0.00021 days rotation period is measured due to the ∼2.2% starspot-induced flux modulations in the light curve. We first use a light curve modeling approach, using a Monte Carlo Markov Chain sampler to solve for the longitudes and radii of the two spots within 5 day windows of data. Within each window of time the starspots are assumed to be unchanging. Only a weak constraint on the starspot latitudes can be implied from our modeling. The primary spot is found to be very stable over many years. A secondary spot feature is present in three portions of the light curve, decays on 100–500 day timescales, and moves in longitude over time. We interpret this longitude shearing as the signature of differential rotation. Using our models we measure an average shear between the starspots of 0.0047 rad day−1, which corresponds to a differential rotation rate of Δ &OHgr; ? > = 0.012 ± 0.002 rad day−1. We also fit this starspot phase evolution using a series of bivariate Gaussian functions, which provides a consistent shear measurement. This is among the slowest differential rotation shear measurements yet measured for a star in this temperature regime, and provides an important constraint for dynamo models of low-mass stars.
Measurement and Classification Methods Using the ASAE S572.1 Reference Nozzles

An increasing number of spray nozzle and agrochemical manufacturers are incorporating droplet size measurements into both research and development. Each laboratory invariably has their own sampling setup and procedures. This is particularly true about measurement distance from the nozzle and concurrent airflow velocities. Both have been shown to significantly impact results from laser diffraction instruments. These differences can be overcome through the use of standardized reference nozzles and relative spray classification categories. Sets of references nozzles, which defined a set of classification category thresholds, were evaluated for droplet size under three concurrent air flow velocities (0.7, 3.1 and 6.7 m/s). There were significant, though numerically small, differ- ences in the droplet size data between identical reference nozzles. The resulting droplet size data were used to categorize a number of additional spray nozzles at multiple pressure and air flow velocities. This was done to determine if similar classifications were given across the different airspeeds. Generally, droplet size classifications agreed for all airspeeds, with the few that did not, only differing by one category. When reporting droplet size data, it is critical that data generated from a set of reference nozzles also be presented as a means of providing a relative frame of reference.
The Multiscale Structure of Antarctica Part I : Inland Ice

The dynamics of polar ice sheets is strongly influenced by a complex coupling of intrinsic structures. Some of these structures are extremely small, like dislocation walls and micro-inclusions; others occur in a wide range of scales, like stratigraphic features; and there are also those collossal structures as large as megadunes and subglacial lakes. Their significance results from their interactions with the ice-sheet flow and the environment through an intricate Structure–Form–Environment Interplay (SFEI). Glaciologists are not unaware of the SFEI issue, as particular details of the problem are well documented in the literature. Nevertheless, many aspects of the SFEI remain unclear and a comprehensive perspective of the problem is missing. Here we present some selected results of a joint investigation of these structures via fieldwork, theoretical modeling, and experiments. The basic strategy is to conceive the Antarctic ice sheet as a heterogeneous system of structured media that interact in a hierarchical fashion via the SFEI. Special emphasis is given to snow and firn structures, interactions between microstructure, stratigraphy and impurities, and the interplay between subglacial structures and the overlaying ice.
Influence of Compacting Rate on the Properties of Compressed Earth Blocks

Compaction of blocks contributes significantly to the strength properties of compressed earth blocks. This paper investigates the influence of compacting rates on the properties of compressed earth blocks. Experiments were conducted to determine the density, compressive strength, splitting tensile strength, and erosion properties of compressed earth blocks produced with different rates of compacting speed. The study concludes that although the low rate of compaction achieved slightly better performance characteristics, there is no statistically significant difference between the soil blocks produced with low compacting rate and high compacting rate. The study demonstrates that there is not much influence on the properties of compressed earth blocks produced with low and high compacting rates. It was further found that there are strong linear correlations between the compressive strength test and density, and density and the erosion. However, a weak linear correlation was found between tensile strength and compressive strength, and tensile strength and density.
Physiological constraints on long-term population cycles: a broad-scale view

Background: Long-term cycles in animal abundance impact the dynamics of most major ecosystems, yet the drivers of broad-scale variability in these cycles are unclear. Aim: Examine potential relationships between the period of long-term population cycles and key life-history traits (generation time and its primary determinants – body mass and body temperature) across a broad range of primary consumer taxa (protists, zooplankton, insects, mammals, and birds). Results: We find that long-term cycle periods vary predictably with generation time, body mass and temperature. Cycle periods decreased exponentially with increasing body temperature, and increased as a power law with increasing body mass. Conclusions: These scaling relationships appear more consistent with predictions from models of population dynamics based on maternal effects than with those based on specialized consumer–resource interactions. More generally, the results provide a basis for understanding how changes in the size structure of populations, or the environmental temperatures populations experience, may affect their dynamics.
Internal and external dynamics of a strongly-coupled atom-cavity system

A system comprised of a small number of neutral atoms coupled to the mode of a high finesse optical resonator is a model system to study light-matter interaction at the quantum level and to explore fundamental effects like the influence of the measurement process on the atomic state. Promising proposals to generate entangled states in such systems are based on the simultaneous coupling of two atoms to one resonator mode. In chapter 1 of this thesis I shortly summarise the experimental tools to capture, trap, and transport single atoms using a magneto-optical trap and an optical conveyor belt. I discuss theoretical foundations to describe our system and present numerical simulations, the results of which enter the analysis of our experimental data. The average atom-cavity coupling strength is deduced from the measured cavity transmission and compared to a model taking atomic motion into account. The dynamics of the hyperfine spin state of one and two coupled atoms is the focus of chapter 2. I describe a nondestructive cavity-based state detection method, quantify the state detection fidelity, and identify optimum experimental parameters. This method is then used to record random telegraph signals, exhibiting quantum jumps on a timescale of milliseconds. Telegraph signals for two atoms are analysed employing Bayesian statistics, yielding additional information on the evolution of the hyperfine states. A good localisation of the atom is necessary to achieve stable coupling to the cavity mode. In chapter 3, I discuss two different aspects of how the motion of the atom can be controlled. Firstly an intracavity dipole trap is characterised and it is shown that it results in improved confinement of the atom. Secondly I examine the dependence of cavity-cooling forces on our experimental parameters and compare two different cooling regimes.
Influence of host plant on the physiological attributes of field-grown sandal tree (Santalum album).

ROCHAD, ASHOKAN PK, SANTHOSHKUMAR AV, ANOOP EV & SURESHKUMAR P. 2014. Influence of host plant on the physiological attributes of field-grown sandal tree (Santalum album). This paper examines the influence of host plant, Casuarina equisetifolia, on carbon assimilation, water and nutrient absorption in a 6-year-old field-grown sandal tree. Sandal trees growing with host showed carbon assimilation rate of 17.66 pmol cm"2 s"1 whereas sandal trees growing without host plant showed only 15.13 pmol cm*2 s"1. Sandal tree growing with host plant also showed higher pre-dawn plant water potential (-0.85 MPa) than sandal tree without host plant (-1.27 MPa). Leaf nutrient contents were higher in sandal tree with host plant (N = 2.65%, K = 0.24%, P = 2.31%) compared with sandal tree without host plant (N = 2.48%, P = 0.16%, K = 1.68%). The host plant supplemented N, P and K requirement of sandal trees through haustorial connections. The most outstanding influence of the host plant was in increasing the K status of sandal tree. Sandal tree depended on host plant mainly for maintaining plant water level and reducing water stress and the K status of the leaf played significant role in this. Host plant was not only essential for initial establishment of sandal tree but was also required in the main field.
Academic entrepreneurship in the life sciences

The increasing pressure to generate income from commercializing research is impacting universities and researchers. The way scientists participate in this process needs more investigation. While scientists and entrepreneurs often share similar characteristics (such as: internal locus of control; curiosity and creativity) they can differ significantly with respect to the core of any entrepreneurial function; namely, the intent to profit. Understanding researchers’ perceptions about their role in the process of commercialization provides an interesting framework for analyzing entrepreneurship as a process. Analyzing the responses to 25 interviewees from Australian universities (19 researchers, and 6 technology transfer officers) we conclude that the researcher’s self-perceived roles concerning an entrepreneurial intention can be classified into five main phases: non-entrepreneurial, semientrepreneurial, pre-entrepreneurial, entrepreneurial and post-entrepreneurial. Further, within each of these phases there are a number of different categories of roles. For example, within the nonentrepreneurial phase a researcher might be: “unaware” of the potential to commercialize his/her research; or might be opposed to commercialization (“antipreneur”); or might accept the commercialization of his/her research but not want to be involved (“uninvolved”). The aggregated results that emerge from an understanding of all the possible categories that potentially can exist across the five phases in the entrepreneurial process provides a more comprehensive map of the entrepreneurial mindset of life science academics than currently exists.
Disentangling food webs interactions in the littoral of temperate shallow lakes

Elucidation of food web interactions provides better understanding of ecosystem functioning, indicates anthropogenic impacts which often cause alterations in environmental conditions and detoriorations in feeding network in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. The importance of microfauna and macroinvertebrates in littoral zones of shallow waters has poorly been studied regarding their trophic interactions. This study compares invertebrate assemblage and food web interactions among epiphyton, zooplankton and benthic macroinvertebrates across structural heterogeneity in the littoral zone of three temperate shallow water bodies. Submerged and structurally-complex stands of Ceratophyllum demersum inhabited higher abundance of cladocerans and supported higher diversity and biomass of epiphytic protozoans and invertebrates in comparison to floating-leaved Nuphar lutea stands. Analysis of the ecosystem functioning illustrated the increased biomass of macroinvertebrate predators and a preference of predation over planktonic crustaceans in more complex macrophyte stands. Food webs displayed higher complexity and size with habitat heterogeneity, while epiphyton and zooplankton shared the important fraction in food resources among the invertebrate trophic network. Results of food web modelling indicated zooplankton and epiphyton as more vulnerable to invertebrate predation in the complex submerged macrophytes than in floating-leaved macrophyte stands. Integrated community, ecosystem and food web approaches in explanation of complex trophic interactions in the littoral zones justified an increase in diversity and food-web functional complexity with structural heterogeneity of microhabitats.
Beyond Lovelock gravity: higher derivative metric theories

We consider theories describing the dynamics of a four-dimensional metric, whose Lagrangian is diffeomorphism invariant and depends at most on second derivatives of the metric. Imposing degeneracy conditions we find a set of Lagrangians that, apart form the Einstein-Hilbert one, are either trivial or contain more than 2 degrees of freedom. Among the partially degenerate theories, we recover Chern-Simons gravity, endowed with constraints whose structure suggests the presence of instabilities. Then, we enlarge the class of parity violating theories of gravity by introducing new “chiral scalar-tensor theories. ” Although they all raise the same concern as Chern-Simons gravity, they can nevertheless make sense as low energy effective field theories or, by restricting them to the unitary gauge (where the scalar field is uniform), as Lorentz breaking theories with a parity violating sector.
A slide down a slippery slope – alpine ecosystem responses to nitrogen deposition

Background: Nitrogen (N) deposition in the Front Range of the southern Rocky Mountains has been increasing for several decades, and has exceeded the critical load for several ecological metrics. Aims: Our objective was to predict potential future ecological changes in alpine zones in response to anthropogenic N deposition based on a review of research from Niwot Ridge, Colorado. Results: Empirical observations and experimental studies indicate that plant, algal and soil microbe species compositions are changing in response to N deposition, with nitrophilic species increasing in abundance. Biotic sequestration of N deposition is insufficient to compensate for greater nitrate production, leading to the potential for acidification and base cation loss. Conclusions: Changes in biotic composition in both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems have important impacts on ecosystem functioning, including a lower capacity to take up and neutralise the acidifying effect of anthropogenic N, increasing phosphorus limitation of production in terrestrial and aquatic systems, and shifts in rates of N and carbon cycling. Continued elevated N deposition rates coupled with ongoing climate change, including warmer summer temperatures and lower snow cover of shorter duration, will influence the ecological thresholds for biotic and functional changes. We suggest that these thresholds will occur at lower inputs of N deposition under future climate change, meriting reconsideration of current N critical loads to protect sensitive alpine ecosystems.
Study on NO Heterogeneous Reduction Mechanism under Gasification Condition

Chemisorption of NO and successive heterogeneous reduction mechanisms on the well-defined char models under carbon/char-CO2 gasification condition were investigated using density functional theory at the B3LYP/6-31G (d) level of theory. The characteristics of gasification process were concluded and incorporated into the theoretical calculations by establishing three gasification char models and taking into account the presence of CO in ambient gas pool. The results indicate that both the configuration of char model and adsorption mode have significant influence on the NO adsorption energy. Intensive gasification surface is likely to be thermally unfavorable and the O-down mode is regarded as the most inactive approach for NO’s adsorbing. Finally, NO heterogeneous reduction mechanisms on the three char models under gasification are proposed based on detailed analysis on thermodynamic data and atomic bond populations.
Subsidies and financial performances of the microfinance institutions: Does management matter?

This paper uses a unique database from a leading microfinance rating agency to assess the impact of management on the functioning of microfinance institutions (MFIs). It focuses on MFIs’ financial performance, and on the level of subsidies received. The results show that the management skills are associated to the financial performances. The technical, organisational and communication competences of the top managers seem to play a key role among the four management dimensions analysed by the rating agency. Furthermore, the level of subsidies granted has a very limited impact on management quality. Results show that the well-managed MFIs are not significantly older or active in corrupted countries.