Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Winter Wheat Straw Decomposition under Different Nitrogen Fertilizers

The climate changes and increased drought frequency still more frequent in recent periods bring challenges to management with wheat straw remaining in the field after harvest and to its decomposition. The field experiment carried out in 2017–2019 in the Czech Republic aimed to evaluate winter wheat straw decomposition under different organic and mineral nitrogen fertilizing (urea, pig slurry and digestate with and without inhibitors of nitrification (IN)). Treatment Straw 1 with fertilizers was incorporated in soil each year the first day of experiment. The Straw 2 was placed on soil surface at the same day as Straw 1 and incorporated together with fertilizers after 3 weeks. The Straw 1 decomposition in N treatments varied between 25.8–40.1% and in controls between 21.5–33.1% in 2017–2019. The Straw 2 decomposition varied between 26.3–51.3% in N treatments and in controls between 22.4–40.6%. Higher straw decomposition in 2019 was related to more rainy weather. The drought observed mainly in 2018 led to the decrease of straw decomposition and to the highest contents of residual mineral nitrogen in soils. The limited efficiency of N fertilisers on straw decomposition under drought showed a necessity of revision of current strategy of N treatments and reduction of N doses adequately according the actual weather conditions.
Effective Leakage Current Reduction in GaN Ultraviolet Avalanche Photodiodes With an Ion-Implantation Isolation Method

We report high-performance homojunction GaN avalanche photodiodes (APDs) grown on a low-defect GaN substrate and fabricated with an ion-implantation isolation method. High-quality p-i-n GaN layers were grown using metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD), and an effective device isolation method using optimized nitrogen ion implantation was developed to provide significant leakage current suppression on the etched mesa sidewalls. Fabricated GaN APDs showed an ultralow dark current density < 10−9 A/cm2 up to 50% of the avalanching breakdown voltage region and achieved a photocurrent gain of >106 at a reverse bias of 71.5 V under deep-ultraviolet (DUV) illumination at $\lambda =280$ nm. A further temperature-dependent study of the dark current indicated that a trap-assisted tunneling process predominates the leakage current component that also contributes to the carrier multiplication process near the avalanching breakdown.
Efficacy of dynamic Swiss ball training in improving the core stability of collegiate athletes

Introduction: The training of core muscles is key in sports training to improve performance and reduce the risk of injuries. However the most effective method to improve core musculature is still controversial. Therefore the objective of this study was aimed at investigating the effectiveness of dynamic Swiss ball training in reinforcing the core stability of collegiate athletes. Materials and methods: This two-group, two-factor research involved 67, 18to 28-year-old collegiate athletes (18 females, 49 males) who were divided into experimental and control groups. The experimental group was provided dynamic Swiss ball training, whereas the control group was instructed to perform floor exercises. The groups underwent training for six weeks (three days per week). Four core stability tests (the Biering-Sorenson trunk extension, Side Bridge, prone bridge, and double leg lowering tests) were administrated preand post-training. Results: The mean scores of the participants in the core stability tests significantly improved after six weeks of training (p<0.05), but the between-group comparisons revealed that the experimental group significantly outperformed the control group in terms of enhancement in core stability (p<0.05). Conclusion: The relatively high improvement in core stability parameters after Swiss ball training suggested that these exercises are favorable alternatives to traditional floor exercises in strengthening the core muscles. The findings are expected to help athletes, coaches, trainers, and other strength and conditioning specialists involved in athletic training decide on appropriate training methods.
COVID-19 and Teachers’ Somatic Burden, Stress, and Emotional Exhaustion: Examining the Role of Principal Leadership and Workplace Buoyancy

The role of two leadership factors (autonomy-supportive and autonomy-thwarting leadership) and one personal resource (workplace buoyancy) were examined as predictors of three teacher outcomes: somatic burden, stress related to change, and emotional exhaustion. Data were collected from 325 Australian teachers in May, 2020 during the first wave of COVID-19. During this time, many Australian children were being taught remotely from home, while other students were attending schools in-person. Findings showed that autonomy-supportive leadership was associated with greater buoyancy and, in turn, lower somatic burden, stress related to change, and emotional exhaustion (while controlling for covariates, including COVID-19 work situation). Autonomy-thwarting leadership was positively associated with emotional exhaustion. In addition, autonomy-supportive leadership was indirectly associated with the outcomes. The findings provide understanding of factors that may be harnessed to support teachers during subsequent waves of COVID-19 and other future disruptions to schooling that may occur.
Toxicity of quaternary mixtures of phenolic compounds and formulated glyphosate to microbial community of river water

The toxicity of mixtures of formulated glyphosate, phenol, 4-chlorophenol and 2,4-dichlorophenol to river water microbial community was investigated using non specific dehydrogenase activity as endpoint. The microbial community was exposed to individual toxicant and quaternary mixture ratios at concentrations ranging from 50 mg L-1 to 3000 mg L-1 over 24 h. The ecological doses (EC50) as estimated from logistic or hormesis dose-effect models were 1317.946 ± 51.460 mg L-1, 1046.414 ± 65.534 mg L-1, 85.080 ± 4.468 mg L-1 and 60.897 ± 5.199 mg L-1 for formulated glyphosate, phenol, 4-chlorophenol and 2,4-dichlorophenol respectively. The toxicity and interaction of the mixtures were evaluated using concentration addition and toxic index models. The model deviation ratios (MDR) ranged from 0.553 ± 0.024 to 1.096 ± 0.021 while the toxic index (TI) varied between 0.912 ± 0.017 and 1.810 ± 0.078. However, the MDR and TI for all mixtures lie between 0.5 and 2.0. Thus, the joint action of the mixtures were considered additive.
Volatile Anesthetic Depression of Ca2+ Entry Into and Glutamate Release from Cultured Cerebellar Granule Neurons

Background: Volatile anesthetics (VAs) are known to have actions on a variety of ligand- and voltage gated ion channels, and thereby inhibit neuronal function. VA effects mediated by actions on voltage-gated Ca channels (VGCCs) were determined by studying their effects on the depolarization-induced rise in intracellular Ca2+ transients and the consequent glutamate release in cultured neonatal rat cerebellar granule neurons. Methods: Using a glutamate dehydrogenase-coupled assay for glutamate release, and fura-2 to measure intracellular [Ca2+] ([Ca2+]i), neurons at 37℃ were depolarized by a rapid increase in [K+]o from 5 to 55 mM. Actions of halothane, isoflurane, enflurane, and sevoflurane were compared with effects of altered [Mg2+]o, and by specific blockade of L-, P/Q- and/or N-type VGCC by nicardipine, ω-agatoxin IVA, and ω-conotoxin-GVIA, respectively. Whole-cell patch-clamp studies in these same neurons of VGCC Ba2+ currents were also performed at 22℃. Results: Clinical VA concentrations dose-dependently depressed both peak [Ca2+]i and glutamate release by 35-70%. With N- and/or L-type VGCC blockade, VAs caused a further marked decrease in [Ca2+]i transients. VAs depressed whole cell patch-clamped Ba2+ currents in these granule cell neurons by 35-40%. Conclusions: VAs depress Ca2+ entry by inhibiting a variety of VGCCs, and thereby reduce neuronal glutamate release. This action may contribute to the mechanism of anesthesia as well as provide protection during ischemic insults that cause neuronal injury. Citation: Carl Lynch III, Ning Miao, Kaoru Nagao, Joseph J. Pancrazio. Volatile anesthetic depression of Ca2+ entry into and glutamate release from cultured cerebellar granule neurons. J Anesth Perioper Med 2017; 4: 45-59. doi:10.24015/JAPM.2017. 0016This is an open-access article, published by Evidence Based Communications (EBC). This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium or format for any lawful purpose. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Defining criteria for the reintroduction of locally extinct populations based on contemporary and ancient genetic diversity: The case of the Adriatic Beluga sturgeon (Huso huso)

The restoration of the extinct Adriatic population of Beluga sturgeon, an iconic species with economic and traditional relevance, is a priority in upcoming conservation strategies but it must not occur without deep prior knowledge on the current diversity distribution. We defined informed criteria for the reintroduction of Beluga in Italian rivers by analysing its contemporary and ancient diversity based on a multi‐markers approach.
Evaluation of Geo-morphological characteristics of Devanayakanahalli micro-watershed in Tumkur district of Karnataka

Devanayakanahalli micro-watershed lies between 13˚ 4' 54" to 13˚ 6' 29" N latitude and 76˚ 39' 43" to 76˚ 41' 17" E longitude in Tumkur district of Karnataka. The drainage networks of micro-watershed were delineated from the Survey of India topographical map of 1:50,000 scale. ArcGIS software was used for evaluation of linear, areal and relief aspects of the micro-watershed. The present study reveals that, drainage pattern of the study area is dendritic with trunk order 3. The watershed area, perimeter, maximum length and width of the watershed were 453 ha, 10.10 km, 3.68 km and 1.23 km respectively. The mean value of bifurcation ratio is 2.20, the micro-watershed has been suffered less structural disturbance and drainage pattern has not been distorted. The value of drainage density is 2.30 km km -2 which indicated that, the region is having permeable subsoil material and good vegetative cover. The value of form factor indicates micro-watershed is approaching towards elongated shape of watershed. The present study reveales that, GIS based approach in evaluation of geo-morphological characteristics is more appropriate than conventional techniques. Over all study suggests that the micro-watershed should be treated with soil and water conservation measures.
A Dashboard to Monitor Self-Regulated Learning Behaviours in Online Professional Development

This paper reports on usage and impact on learning achievements of a dashboard developed to help monitor self-regulated learning behaviours in an online professional development path. The design of the path as well as of the dashboard were grounded on a pre-existing conceptual framework distinguishing between four different types of self-regulated learning behaviours taking place in professional learning networks and underpinning professional practice sharing. One of the objectives of the path was to promote such behaviours among participants, and the dashboard was designed to support their self-monitoring. Data were collected through usage log files analysis, a survey, and pretest and posttest. The results shed light on participants' actual usage of the dashboard, their opinion regarding its usefulness in relation of its capability to measure and support their SRL processes, and the dashboard's actual impact on their learning achievements. Moreover, some limitations in the current configuration of the dashboard emerged, which can guide further development.
The effect of plant mineral nutrition on yield and quality of green tea (Camellia sinensis L.) under field conditions

Field experiments were conducted in 2002 and 2003 to study the responses of tea yield and quality to fertilization. The optimum N application rate of 810 kg N ha-1 a-1 was calculated from 95% of the maximum yield, which was closer to the N level at the lowest TP/AA. The critical soil Nmin in 0-60 cm soil depth was 200-260 kg N ha-1 (spring) and 320-430 kg N ha-1 (autumn), respectively. In spring, the critical NO3- contents were 30-33, 6-7 and 10-11 mg L-1 in the young stem, new fully expanded leaves (NFEL) and in the top old leaves, respectively. The critical AAN content was 714-732 mg L-1 in NFEL. In autumn, the critical indicator contents were 5-6 mg L-1 NO3- and 495-510 mg L-1 AAN in mature leaves, respectively. The optimum N application rate within a season (Nopts) were 240-340 kg N ha-1 (spring) and 130-240 kg N ha-1 (autumn). In summer, shading had strong effects on the Nopty (810 kg N ha-1 a-1 in full sun and 700 kg N ha-1 a-1 under shading) and the critical NO3- levels in young stem (20-33 mg L-1 in full sun and 32-51 mg L-1 under shading). Shading had no effects on the critical soil Nmin and Nopts. The reduced activities of nitrate reductase (NR) under shading might inhibit the synthesis of precursor amino acids of cinnamic acid and the reduced activities of phenylalanine ammonia-lyase (PAL) under shading could inhibit the synthesis of the precursors of catechin. The increased polyphenol oxidase (PPO) under shading enhanced the degradation of polyphenols. The application of K, Mg and S fertilizers could slightly increase the yield and improve the quality in 2003. The activities of NR and PAL were slightly increased by sulphur, but the activity of PPO was inhibited.
Head Fusion: Improving the Accuracy and Robustness of Speech Emotion Recognition on the IEMOCAP and RAVDESS Dataset

Speech Emotion Recognition (SER) refers to the use of machines to recognize the emotions of a speaker from his (or her) speech. SER benefits Human-Computer Interaction(HCI). But there are still many problems in SER research, e.g., the lack of high-quality data, insufficient model accuracy, little research under noisy environments, etc. In this paper, we proposed a method called Head Fusion based on the multi-head attention mechanism to improve the accuracy of SER. We implemented an attention-based convolutional neural network(ACNN) model and conducted experiments on the Interactive Emotional Dyadic Motion Capture (IEMOCAP) data set. The accuracy is improved to 76.18% (weighted accuracy, WA) and 76.36% (unweighted accuracy, UA). To the best of our knowledge, compared with the state-of-the-art result on this dataset (76.4% of WA and 70.1% of WA), we achieved a UA improvement of about 6% absolute while achieving a similar WA. Furthermore, We conducted empirical experiments by injecting speech data with 50 types of common noises. We inject the noises by altering the noise intensity, time-shifting the noises, and mixing different noise types, to identify their varied impacts on the SER accuracy and verify the robustness of our model. This work will also help researchers and engineers properly add their training data by using speech data with the appropriate types of noises to alleviate the problem of insufficient high-quality data.
Etude de l'allumage par laser de mélanges en phase liquide dispersée et gazeuse

L'etude de l'allumage d'un melange gazeux combustible/comburant est d'un interet fondamentale et d'une importance cruciale dans les moteurs a combustion interne et dans les turbines a gaz. Une nouvelle methode d'allumage, recemment utilisee, consiste a creer une etincelle par focalisation d'un faisceau laser. L'objectif du present travail est d'effectuer une etude parametrique de ce mode d'allumage pour des melanges en phases liquides dispersees et gazeuses, ainsi que d'apporter une contribution a la comprehension des phenomenes physiques lies au claquage optique, aussi bien dans l'air que dans les melanges inflammables. Les plasmas rencontres sont caracterises, en termes de concentrations et de temperatures electroniques, avant d'aborder l'etude parametrique du claquage dans l'air et de l'allumage des melanges gazeux et diphasiques inflammables. L'importance de la dynamique induite par l'etincelle laser sur l'evolution de la structure et de la forme du noyau d'allumage est consideree. Le role des aberrations, et en particulier de l'aberration spherique, est soigneusement etudie du point de vue theorique. Des conclusions importantes sur l'interpretation des resultats experimentaux sont degagees. La determination des seuils de claquage, ainsi que l'identification des processus determinants, sont analyses a la lumiere d'un modele base sur la determination de l'evolution de la concentration d'electrons libres dans le volume focal. Finalement, la faisabilite de l'allumage laser a la sortie d'un injecteur prevaporise, premelange en regime pauvre est demontree.
Implementation of a Fast Link Rate Adaptation Algorithm for WLAN Systems

With a target to maximize the throughput, a fast link rate adaptation algorithm for IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n/ac is proposed, which is basically preamble based and can adaptively compensate for the discrepancy between transmitter and receiver radio frequency performances by exploiting the acknowledgment signal. The target system is a 1 × 1 wireless local area network chip with no null data packet or sounding. The algorithm can be supplemented by automatic rate fallback at the initial phase to further expedite rate adaptation. The target system receives wireless channel coefficients and previous packet information, translates them to amended signal-to-noise ratios, and then, via the mean mutual information, selects the modulation and coding scheme with the maximum throughput. Extensive simulation and wireless tests are carried out to demonstrate the validity of the proposed adaptive preamble-based link adaptation in comparison with both the popular automatic rate fallback and ideal link adaptation. The throughput gain of the proposed link adaptation over automatic rate fallback is demonstrated over various packet transmission intervals and Doppler frequencies. The throughput gain of the proposed algorithm over ARF is 46% (15%) for a 1-tap (3-tap) channel over 10 m–250 m (16 m–160 m) normalized Doppler frequencies. Assuming a 3-tap channel and 30 m–50 m normalized Doppler frequencies, the throughput of the proposed algorithm is about 31 Mbps, nearly the same as that of ideal link adaptation, whereas the throughput of ARF is about 24 Mbps, leading to a 30% throughput gain of the proposed algorithm over ARF. The firmware is implemented in C and on Xilinx Zynq 7020 (Xilinx, San Jose, CA, USA) for wireless tests.
Effects of Internal Control System on Performance of Local Governments in Sisaket Province

This study aimed to study the effects of internal control on performance of local governments in Sisaket Province. The independent variables used in this study were 5 factors of the internal control system: control environment, risk assessment, control activities, information and communications and monitoring. The dependent variables were the performances of the local governments in Sisaket Province, which consisted of operational efficiency and effectiveness, financial report reliability and compliance with applicable laws and regulations. The researcher used questionnaires as a tool to collect data from samples of 40 local governments in Sisaket Province by submitting 2 sets of questionnaires each. The 80 sets were replied, which represented 100%. The descriptive statistics and multiple regression were used in data analysis. The study found that all factors affected performances of local governments in Sisaket Province as follows: monitoring, control activities, information and communications, control environment and risk assessment, respectively, with the statistical significance at the level of p <0.01. Keywords—internal control, internal control and internal audit, accounting, performances, local governments
Kinesio Taping decreases healing area and modulates the tissue architecture on the cutaneous wound

The skin is an organ that promotes elasticity and also resistance against mechanical forces. After injury, its organization is altered by the repair process, compromising the physiological mechanical conditions of the skin. In this context, it has been demonstrated that Kinesio Taping (KT) accelerates the cicatricial process and prevents the development of skin adhesions, but other actions of this method in the cutaneous repair tissue remain indeterminate. Objective: To investigate the histological effects of KT in tissue repair of cutaneous wound. Methods: The procedure involved the preparation and suturing of an incisional wound of 5 cm in length on the epilated back of Wistar rats. After ten days, KT was applied with different stretch levels - 0, 20, 40, 60, 80 and 100% - for six hours. The skin fragment corresponding to the scar was collected and analysed by histological procedures. Results: KT decreased repair tissue area, regardless of the degree of strain, while mast cells activity was not affected by the treatment. 80% stretched KT increased the vascular density of repair tissue. Also, there was a predominance of type III collagen fibers over type I in all groups treated with KT and modulation in tissue architecture in GKT100.
Analytical taxonomy of challenges to the implementation of green building projects in South Africa

Abstract In an effort to promote green building and reduce the consumption of resources for the attainment of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 12, there is limited attention to the challenges related to green building in developing nations. This study investigates the challenges of implementing green building in four provinces of South Africa to categorise the key challenges. Drawing from a literature review and a quantitative inquiry approach, primary data were collected from 106 construction professionals with green building experience. This was complemented by descriptive and inferential statistics, namely exploratory factor analysis (EFA). The descriptive analysis using the mean score (MS) ranking technique revealed that higher up-front costs for green building and costs associated with green technologies and materials, and certification for green buildings were identified as key challenges to implementing green building projects. Furthermore, the EFA based on Monte Carlo parallel analysis revealed that the underlying grouped factors for the challenges were: ‘data and motivation management system’; ‘regulatory and steering factors’; ‘inadequate skilled professionals’; ‘behavioural barriers’ and ‘the cost of green building’. The results provide a valuable reference for construction professionals to institute a mechanism for evaluating performance periodically to identify challenges relating to green building projects. It is proposed that early identification of challenges and taking proactive steps to rectify problems is essential for green building to gain a competitive advantage over the traditional construction methods and may subsequently help ensure continual survival in the industry.