Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of arbuscular mycorrhiza fungi on growth characteristics of Dactylis glomerata L. under drought stress conditions.

Limited information is available regarding the selection of effective mycorrhizae and the exploitation of their beneficial effects on the enhancement of the forage production of Dactylis glomerata under the predicted warmer and drier conditions in the Mediterranean region. The objective of this study was to test the effects of Glomus intraradices, Glomus mosseae and their mix inoculation on growth characteristics and dry matter production of Dactylis glomerata in relation to full and limited irrigation. The experiment was conducted in Orestiada, Northeastern Greece. Limited irrigation significantly decreased yield and yield components of Dactylis glomerata over the full irrigation. Drought stressed plants had significantly higher root dry weight as a response for better survival under water deficit conditions. The Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) inoculated plants had significant higher shoot dry weight, tiller height and number of leaves in comparison to the non-inoculated plants. On the contrary, under drought stress conditions all AMF plants had lower root dry weights than control plants. Among the studied mycorrhizae species, Glomus intraradices performed better than Glomus mosseae and their mixture as it increased S/R ratio, tiller height and number of leaves.
Carbon cycling in the North American coastal ocean: a synthesis

Abstract. A quantification of carbon fluxes in the coastal ocean and across its boundaries with the atmosphere, land, and the open ocean is important for assessing the current state and projecting future trends in ocean carbon uptake and coastal ocean acidification, but this is currently a missing component of global carbon budgeting. This synthesis reviews recent progress in characterizing these carbon fluxes for the North American coastal ocean. Several observing networks and high-resolution regional models are now available. Recent efforts have focused primarily on quantifying the net air–sea exchange of carbon dioxide (CO2). Some studies have estimated other key fluxes, such as the exchange of organic and inorganic carbon between shelves and the open ocean. Available estimates of air–sea CO2 flux, informed by more than a decade of observations, indicate that the North American Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) acts as a sink of 160±80 Tg C yr−1, although this flux is not well constrained. The Arctic and sub-Arctic, mid-latitude Atlantic, and mid-latitude Pacific portions of the EEZ account for 104, 62, and −3.7 Tg C yr−1, respectively, while making up 51 %, 25 %, and 24 % of the total area, respectively. Combining the net uptake of 160±80 Tg C yr−1 with an estimated carbon input from land of 106±30 Tg C yr−1 minus an estimated burial of 65±55 Tg C yr−1 and an estimated accumulation of dissolved carbon in EEZ waters of 50±25 Tg C yr−1 implies a carbon export of 151±105 Tg C yr−1 to the open ocean. The increasing concentration of inorganic carbon in coastal and open-ocean waters leads to ocean acidification. As a result, conditions favoring the dissolution of calcium carbonate occur regularly in subsurface coastal waters in the Arctic, which are naturally prone to low pH, and the North Pacific, where upwelling of deep, carbon-rich waters has intensified. Expanded monitoring and extension of existing model capabilities are required to provide more reliable coastal carbon budgets, projections of future states of the coastal ocean, and quantification of anthropogenic carbon contributions.
Time Interval to Diagnosis of Bladder Cancer and Its Associated Outcomes

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether a prolonged delay in diagnosis of bladder cancer will result in worse outcomes for those patients, compared to those patients with a shorter diagnostic time interval. Data was collected on 247 patients newly diagnosed with transitional cell carcinoma of the bladder from January 1996 to December 2006 (10 years). The medical records of these patients were reviewed for demographics, pathological stage, date of consultation to the genitourinary (GU) service, and date of diagnosis by transurethral resection of bladder tumor (TURBT). The specialty delay was calculated as the time between the date of consultation to the GU service to the establishment of a diagnosis by TURBT. Univariate analyses were performed to test the association of specialty delay with clinical features and all-cause mortality. The median specialty delay in this study was 100 days. There was a trend towards a longer specialty delay for muscle-invasive disease (T2-T4) in comparison to superficial disease (Ta and T1). There was a significant correlation between all-cause mortality and increasing clinical stage (p=0.01). There was a paradoxical finding that patients with a specialty delay greater than 100 days had a significant reduction in all-cause death in comparison to patients with a specialty delay of 100 days or less (relative risk=0.59; 95% CI 0.36-0.90; p=0.01). In conclusion, this study did not confirm the hypothesis that a prolonged specialty delay in patients diagnosed with bladder cancer would result in a worse prognosis. In fact, there was a paradoxical finding that patients with a specialty delay greater than the median delay of 100 days had a better prognosis.
Corrosion of Permeable Concrete under Simulated Acid Rain

A long time immersion test of concrete specimens in dilute sulfuric acid is carried out to study the permeable concrete material aging rule under the action of the sulfuric acid. The experiment is designed by uniform design containing 4 factors and 10 levels and the soaking solution pH value is 4.00. To measure acid consumption, titration sulfuric acid with concentration of 0.125mol / L is used to keep original pH value of soaking solution, through which the corrosion rate of specimens can be determined. After certain immersion time, the specimens are dried and weighted and the weight changes of the specimens are recorded. The results show that corrosion rate of permeable concrete shares the same family of corrosion rate functions with those of ordinary concrete and mortar. However, the weight of specimen fluctuates with the soaking time, so that it may not be a proper index of corrosion.
How Does Grade Configuration Impact Student Achievement in Elementary and Middle School Grades?

Recently, there has been a move towards K-8 schools as opposed to separate elementary and middle schools, especially among urban districts. In this paper, we examine the effect of enrollment in separate elementary and middle schools relative to enrollment in a K-8 school using longitudinal data from an anonymous district in the United States. The choice to enroll in a K-8 or separate elementary and middle schools is potentially endogenous. While previous research has taken steps to address the possible endogeneity when estimating the effects for separate middle schools, previous research has not addressed the possible endogeneity when examining the effect at the elementary level. Without generating an unbiased estimate during the elementary grades, we cannot fully understand the impact of policies that have shifted the grade arrangement of separate elementary and middle schools to K-8 schools. In this paper, we employ a research design that leverages the fact that the anonymous district closed several schools and rezoned their students to other schools with new boundaries. We compare students on the side of the new boundaries who are assigned to a separate middle or elementary school to students on the other side of the new boundaries who are assigned to a K-8 school. When taking into the consideration the effect at the elementary level, our results are much less supportive of a K-8 policy than previous research.
The Ecology of Riffle Beetles (Coleoptera: Elmidae)

Abstract Riffle beetles in the family Elmidae are frequent members of the invertebrate community of running water. Over 80 species have been recorded in North America and 46 in Europe; this number decreases in the western and northern fringes of Europe with only 12 species in Britain, many rare, four in Ireland and three in Norway. The present review describes their habitat, food and predators, their life cycles, their dispersal, and human threats to their survival. All elmid species have aquatic larvae with five to eight instars, depending on the genus. Adults of a few species are terrestrial, but most are aquatic with plastron respiration. Most elmid species occur in well-aerated streams and rivers, but some also occur on wave-washed lake shores. A few species live in more unusual habitats, such as thermal pools and hot springs, subterranean habitats, and decaying wood. Little is known about the food of adults or larvae, but they appear to be collector-gatherers and scrapers that feed chiefly on algae and detritus. Adults and larvae are rarely taken by invertebrate predators, but are eaten by fish, especially salmonids. However, their proportion in the diet is always lower than that in the benthos, indicating low availability to the fish. To obtain a quantitative description of the life cycle, information is required on the number of larvae in each instar, the timing of oviposition, the number of eggs laid, the timing of pupation, and the number of adults. Few studies meet these criteria. However, three excellent studies from North America and a detailed study of the four commonest British species illustrate the variation in the life cycles of different species. Life tables, identifying critical periods for survival, are provided for the British species, these being the only such tables currently available for riffle beetles. The ability to disperse by flight varies among species and among individuals of the same species. Adults and larvae disperse downstream in the invertebrate drift, especially at night. In one study, drift densities of different life stages were related positively to their monthly losses in the benthos, but not to their benthic densities. Less information is available on their upstream-downstream movements on the substratum. There are ontogenetic shifts in diel drift periodicity and dispersal, and both relate to seasonal changes in drift density and critical periods for survival in the life cycle. Human threats to the survival of elmids include reduced oxygen concentrations, elevation of water temperature, extremes of flow, especially spates, and pollution, especially by soaps and detergents. Therefore, riffle beetles provide excellent indicators of water quality and perhaps also climate change.
Prognostic serum tumor necrosis factor-α in paediatric patients with sepsis

Objective: To study the association of tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) in paediatric patients with different etiological agents and levels of sepsis. Methodology: Seventy-nine patients with sepsis were studied. Blood cultures, along with other relevant specimens, were processed for bacterial and fungal etiology. TNF-α was detected by enzyme immunoassay. Results: In total, 42 (53.2%) of the patients had a microbiologically documented cause for sepsis. Of the gram-negative bacilli, Escherichia coli was the most common isolate followed by Klebsiella pneumoniae. Enterobacter spp. Serratia marscecens as well as Citrobacter koseri. Streptococcus pneumoniae and Staphylococcus aureus predominated among the gram-positive cocci. Patients with a positive culture had significantly higher TNF-α levels than patients with a negative culture (70 pg/ml vs. 33 pg/ml p = 0.01). Patients with a pure gram-negative infection had significantly higher TNF-α levels than those with pure gram-positive infection (83 pg/ml vs.52 pg/ml). The geometric mean TNF-α concentrations in patients with severe sepsis and those with late septic shock were 47 pg/ml (range 5-2720) and 59 pg/ml (range 5-3310) respectively. Conclusion: TNF-α was significantly raised in culture-positive cases in general and in gram-negative infections in particular. It can be used as a surrogate marker of sepsis and aggressive treatment initiated in patients with elevated levels of TNF alpha.
Propagation length enhancement of surface plasmon polaritons in gold nano-/micro-waveguides by the interference with photonic modes in the surrounding active dielectrics

Abstract In this work, the unique optical properties of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs), i.e. subwavelength confinement or strong electric field concentration, are exploited to demonstrate the propagation of light signal at 600 nm along distances in the range from 17 to 150 μm for Au nanostripes 500 nm down to 100 nm wide (30 nm of height), respectively, both theoretically and experimentally. A low power laser is coupled into an optical fiber tip that is used to locally excite the photoluminescence of colloidal quantum dots (QDs) dispersed in their surroundings. Emitted light from these QDs is generating the SPPs that propagate along the metal waveguides. Then, the above-referred propagation lengths were directly extracted from this novel experimental technique by studying the intensity of light decoupled at the output edge of the waveguide. Furthermore, an enhancement of the propagation length up to 0.4 mm is measured for the 500-nm-wide metal nanostripe, for which this effect is maximum. For this purpose, a simultaneous excitation of the same QDs dispersed in poly(methyl methacrylate) waveguides integrated with the metal nanostructures is performed by end-fire coupling an excitation laser energy as low as 1 KW/cm2. The proposed mechanism to explain such enhancement is a non-linear interference effect between dielectric and plasmonic (super)modes propagating in the metal-dielectric structure, which can be apparently seen as an effective amplification or compensation effect of the gain material (QDs) over the SPPs, as previously reported in literature. The proposed system and the method to create propagating SPPs in metal waveguides can be of interest for the application field of sensors and optical communications at visible wavelengths, among other applications, using plasmonic interconnects to reduce the dimensions of photonic chips.
Comparison of Single and Triple Platelet Rich Plasma Injections in the Treatment of Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome

ABS TRACT Objective: Patellofemoral pain syndrome (PFPS) is the most common problem in musculoskeletal system. Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) has been suggested to be beneficial in the treatment of sports injuries. The purpose of this study is to compare single and triple PRP injections in the treatment of PFPS and to show whether or not triple application of PRP injection may be more effective. Material and Methods: This is a randomized controlled clinical trial. A total of 30 patients with PFPS for more than 3 months, with age of 20 to 35 years, were included in this study. The patients were divided into three groups as single injection application group (n=20) or triple injection application group (n=10) and the unaffected opposite knees were used as controls (n=30). 2 mL of PRP injected into the knee joints. In triple injection group the injections were done a month apart. All patients received a six-week standard exercise program. The outcome measures proprioception, isokinetic test and Kujala patellofemoral score were assessed at baseline and 4 months after baseline. Results: Among the patients with PFPS treated with an exercise program, a triple PRP injection compared with a single PRP injection did not result in greater improvement in knee functions, balance and proprioception, isokinetic muscle strength and endurance during a 4-month follow-up (p<0.05). Conclusion: The triple PRP injection was found to be no more effective than single PRP injection.
Patterns of life‐history traits in open‐nesting palearctic passerines as a function of the climatic variation of their ranges

Latitude, a surrogate of climatic conditions, is commonly used in the examination of life-history variation. However, the climatic mechanisms underlying latitudinal life-history variation have only rarely been tested. Here, we test whether the number of climates to which species are subjected in their ranges predicts geographical life-history variation. In particular, we examine whether eurytopic species, the range of which covers more climates, show different reproductive effort to stenotopic species, which are distributed over climatically more homogeneous environments. We examined female body mass, egg mass controlled for female body mass, clutch size and the number of breeding attempts per season for 34 sedentary and short-distance migratory passerine species of the Western Palearctic. For each species, we assessed how many climate zones extend over the species’ wintering and breeding ranges. We found that avian body mass, and also clutch size, significantly increases with the number of climatic zones extended over the species’ wintering range. In turn, species whose breeding ranges span more climates show more breeding attempts per season. Whereas the mass of a single egg declines, clutch size increases with increasing climatic variation in breeding ranges. Our study suggests that the level of climatic variation over species’ ranges during and outside the breeding season might be responsible for variation in life-history traits in open-nesting Western Palearctic passerines.
Results from the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider

▪ Abstract This review describes the current status of the heavy ion research program at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). The new suite of experiments and the collider energies have opened up new probes of the medium created in the collisions. Our review focuses on the experimental discoveries to date at RHIC and their interpretation in light of the field's present theoretical understanding of the dynamics of relativistic heavy ion collisions and of the structure of strongly interacting matter at high energy density.
Effects of the Phloemic Stress on the Growth, Development and Quality of Wax Apple (Syzygium samarangense) cv. Jambu madu

A study was carried out to investigate the effects of different girdling techniques on the growth, development and quality of red wax apple fruits (Syzygium samarangense). Selected horticultural parameters were monitored at one week interval during the growth period from December 2008 to October 2010, using I, C, V shaped, 50%, and 100% girdling. Girdling was applied 2 weeks before flowering. The results showed that the C-shaped girdling technique produced the best results with regard to the fruit setting and chlorophyll content in comparison to the control and the other girdling techniques employed. Furthermore, C-shaped girdling enhanced faster fruit growth producing the best final fruit length and diameter. In addition to significantly increased yield, juice percentage, leaf dry matter, biomass and TSS content of fruits. It was also observed that 50% girdling decreased fruit dropping. V-shaped girdling also increased the number of bud and reduced bud dropping compared to control. 1-shaped girdle fruits produced the highest amount of K+ content in fruit juice compared to other treatments. The color development of the fruit peel in 100% girdling was also the highest among the treatments. From this study, it can be concluded that C-shaped girdling applied two weeks before flowering produced better fruit growth, yield and quality of red wax apple fruits under field conditions.
Physical and chemical quality of market milk sold at Tandojam, Pakistan.

The present study was conducted to evaluate the quality of milk sold at Tandojam, Pakistan. A total of 125 milk samples (25 samples from each source) collected from five milk marketing agencies viz direct seller (DS), milk collection center(MCC), milk vendor shop (MVS), hotel (HT) and buffalo dairy farm (DF), which served as control. Acidity of milk obtained from DS, MCC, MVS and HT averaged 0.13, 0.15, 0.12 and 0.13, respectively compared to 0.14 for DF milk. The pH values of milk from MVS (6.54) and HT (6.53) were significantly different (P 0.05) to that of DF milk i.e. 6.65. Viscosity, specific gravity and freezing point of milk procured from DS (1.48, 1.026 and –0.460, respectively), MCC (1.58, 1.026 and –0.470, respectively), MVS (1.34, 1.026 and – 0.440, respectively) and HT (1.46, 1.027 and –0.480, respectively) were significantly (P<0.001) lower than DF milk (1.86, 1.031 and -0.551, respectively). Chemical quality of milk procured from DS, MCC, MVS and HT compared to DF milk (control) averaged 13.45, 14.18, 13.19 and 14.06% vs. 16.30% for TS content, 8.25, 8.81, 8.06 and 8.51% vs. 9.79% for SNF content, 5.20, 5.41, 5.13 and 5.54% vs. 6.51% for fat content, 3.85, 3.96, 3.91 and 4.23% vs. 4.35% for protein content, 2.70, 2.77, 2.56 and 3.20% vs. 3.56% for casein content, 3.65, 4.03, 3.34 and 3.52% vs. 4.53% for lactose content and 0.75, 0.78, 0.74 and 0.76% vs. 0.91% for ash content, respectively. All the attributes of chemical quality of milk supplied through four agencies were significantly lower (P<0.05) than DF milk.
Minipivovary jako atraktivní cíl cestovního ruchu v České republice.

V Ceske republice je pivo historicky nejoblibenějsim napojem, na jejim soucasnem uzemi se vaři již přes tisic let. V minulosti bylo pivo významnou exportni komoditou a i v soucasnosti si i nadale udržuje tuto pozici a dale siři dobrou pověst ve vsech zemich světa. Zahranicni turiste považuji nase pivo po historických pamatkach jako druhou největsi atrakci v Ceske republice. Rozvoj mini- a mikropivovarů se stal fenomenem poslednich pěti let. Je možno se domnivat, že tyto male pivovary představuji sice atraktivni, ale doposud malo využivaný potencial pro turistický průmysl, který může jak v malých destinacich, tak i ve velkých městech zvýsit zajimavou nabidku pro dalsi rozvoj turistiky. Byly připraveny dva podprojekty rozsahleho výzkumneho projektu. V prvnim podprojektu bylo osloveno vybraných 100 minipivovarů a analyzovany jejich aktivity se zřetelem jejich nabidky turistům a jejich spoluprace s cestovnimi a dopravnimi a mistnimi uřady. Dale byla v ramci projektu vyhodnocovana aktivita těchto pivovarů z hlediska jejich přinosu pro větsi zviditelněni destinace a pro zvýseni poctu přichozich tuzemských a zahranicnich turistů. Ve druhem podprojektu byla analyzovana role minipivovarů a dopad jejich cinnosti na strategii předpokladaneho rozvoje obci a měst.
The Governing Elite and Democratic Consolidation in Nigeria: An Appraisal of the Fourth Republic

The general objective of this paper is to examine the impact of the political process through the governing elites on democratic consolidation in Nigeria‟s fourth republic. The paper argued that successive governing elites in Nigeria assimilated the character and attributes of the colonial administrators by being predatory and exploitative, thus have failed to maintain any form of social contract with the Nigerian people through governance. With the adoption of secondary method of data collection and Elite theory as framework of analysis, the paper observed that the much expected democratic dividends are still lacking and the requirements for democratic consolidation are yet to be in place. The paper suggested that the governing elite must tackle multiple tasks of building consensus in the political process, reform institutions, govern with sufficient accountability and uphold constitutionalism.