Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Copolymers of Poly(2,5‐benzimidazole) and Poly[2,2′‐(p‐phenylene)‐5,5′‐bibenzimidazole] for High‐Temperature Fuel Cell Applications

Copolymers of poly(2,5-benzimidazole) (ABPBI) and poly[2,2'-(p -phenylene)-5,5'-bibenzimidazole] (pPBI) were synthesized for use as fuel cell membranes to take advantage of the properties of both constituents. The composition of the copolymers were controlled by changing the feed ratio of 3,4-diaminobenzoic acid and terephthalic acid with 3,3'-diaminobenzidine in the polycondensation reaction. The copolymer membranes showed higher conductivities, better mechanical properties, and larger acid absorbing abilities than commercial poly[2,2'-(m -phenylene)-5,5'-bibenzimidazole] membranes.
Detection and attribution of nitrogen runoff 1 trend in China ’ s croplands 2 3

25 Reliable detection and attribution of changes in nitrogen (N) runoff from croplands are 26 essential for designing efficient, sustainable N management strategies for future. 27 Despite the recognition that excess N runoff poses a risk of aquatic eutrophication, 28 large-scale, spatially detailed N runoff trends and their drivers remain poorly 29 understood in China. Based on data comprising 535 site-years from 100 sites across 30 China’s croplands, we developed a data-driven upscaling model and a new simplified 31 attribution approach to detect and attribute N runoff trends during the period of 199032 2012. Our results show that N runoff has increased by 46% for rice paddy fields and 33 31% for upland areas since 1990. However, we acknowledge that the upscaling model 34 is subject to large uncertainties (20% and 40% as coefficient of variation of N runoff, 35 respectively). At national scale, increased fertilizer application was identified as the 36 most likely driver of the N runoff trend, while decreased irrigation levels offset to some 37 extent the impact of fertilization increases. In southern China, the increasing trend of 38 upland N runoff can be attributed to the growth in N runoff rates. Our results suggested 39 that increased SOM led to the N runoff rate growth for uplands, but led to a decline for 40 rice paddy fields. In combination, these results imply that improving management 41 approaches for both N fertilizer use and irrigation is urgently required for mitigating 42 agricultural N runoff in China. 43
Effects ofin VitroExposures to Cadmium, Mercury, Zinc, and 1-(2-Chlorophenyl)-1-(4-chlorophenyl)-2,2-dichloroethane on Steroidogenesis by Dispersed Interrenal Cells of Rainbow Trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss)

Abstract Numerous environmental xenobiotics can act as endocrine disrupters in wildlife species. Fish chronically exposed to pollutants exhibit a deficiency in the synthesis of cortisol, a glucocorticosteroid hormone secreted by interrenal steroidogenic cells in response to ACTH by a mechanism mediated by cAMP. The capacity of a series of heavy metals (CdCl 2 , ZnCl 2 , HgCl 2 , and CH 3 HgCl) and 1-(2-chlorophenyl)-1-(4-chlorophenyl)-2,2-dichloroethane (o,p′-DDD) to disrupt cortisol secretion was determined in dispersed interrenal cells of rainbow trout ( Oncorhynchus mykiss ) exposed in vitro to the toxicant, by measuring cortisol secretion stimulated with ACTH or dibutiryl-cAMP (dbcAMP) and by assessing cell viability. The effect of cadmium in presence of zinc on the interrenal cells was also determined. The median lethal concentration (LC50, dose that kills 50% of the cells), median effective concentration (EC50, dose that inhibits cortisol secretion by 50%), and LC50/EC50 ratio were determined for each chemical to compare its endocrine toxicity and to test the specificity of the toxicants to act as endocrine disrupters. HgCl 2 had the lowest EC50 and LC50; it was the most toxic of the chemicals tested. The LC50/EC50 ratio was the highest for ZnCl 2 and CdCl 2 , indicating that these toxicants had the most specific endocrine toxicity. The mechanism of toxicity of heavy metals on cortisol-secreting cells involves a site situated downstream from the step generating cAMP, while o,p′-DDD seemed to impair a step located between adenyl cyclase activation and the ACTH binding. No evidence for a protector effect of zinc against cadmium toxicity was found.
POLYVINYLPYRROLIDONE-DIRECTED CRYSTALLIZATION OF ZNO WITH TUNABLE MORPHOLOGY AND BANDGAP

A novel polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP)-directed crystallization route is successfully developed for the shape-selective synthesis of ZnO particles with distinctive shapes, including monolayer, bilayer, and multilayer structures, gears, capped pots, hemispheres, and bowls, at temperatures as low as 32 °C. This route is based on exploiting a new water/PVP/n-pentanol system. In the system, PVP can greatly promote ZnO nucleation by binding water and direct ZnO growth by selectively capping the specific ZnO facets, which is confirmed by IR absorption spectra. The bandgap of the ZnO particles is readily tuned by modifying the product morphology by adjusting the PVP chain length, PVP amount, water volume, and reaction temperature. The remarkable ZnO structures and the biomimetic method demonstrated here not only expand the structures and applications of ZnO but also provide a new approach to explore the unusual structures for novel physicochemical properties and technological applications. Furthermore, the novel ZnO/Au/ZnO sandwich structure is successfully fabricated by inserting a Au plate into the bilayer ZnO structure.
A Care-Led Recovery From Covid-19: Investing in High-Quality Care to Stimulate And Rebalance The Economy

The COVID-19 pandemic has both devastated employment prospects, particularly of women, and exposed the longstanding neglect of care systems and poor employment conditions of care workers. Most recovery programs propose to stimulate employment by focusing on investment in construction, ignoring gender equality issues. This paper argues for public investment in high-quality care services and better conditions for care workers to build a more gender-equal caring economy. Using input–output analysis, across selected European Union countries and the United States, the study shows a care-led recovery has superior employment outcomes to investment in construction, even when wages and hours are matched. In particular, matching employment and wages in care to the high levels of Scandinavian countries would raise employment rates by more than 5 percentage points and halve most gender employment gaps, while the net cost of investment in construction that achieved as much would generally be at least twice as high. HIGHLIGHTS Public investment in high-quality care is vital to building a more gender-equal economy. Recovery from COVID-19 requires investment in social, not just physical, infrastructure. A care-led, rather than construction-led, recovery program creates more jobs and reduces gender inequality. More jobs would be created even when employment conditions for care workers are improved. A more caring economy, employing more people in care jobs, is also a greener economy.
Exploring reversed conditions of early years pre-service teacher training on pretend play

ABSTRACT Pretend play in early years is considered key to the development of both children’s and pre-service teachers’ skills. Teachers’ involvement in pretend play might be an effective tool for supporting children’s play skills and self-confidence, communication, cooperation and decision-making. Drawing on qualitative interviews with pre-service and in-service teachers and on children’s observations, this study identifies the importance of pre-service training on pretend play in childhood. This is shown by examining the pre-service teachers’ skills development in organizing pretend-play activities with and for children. Eighty pre-service teachers, six in-service teachers and fifty children, aged between 2:6 and 4:0 years, participated in the study for three months, in Greece. Data was collected by video observations, dialogic interviews and field notes, all taken by the researcher, while descriptive statistical analysis was carried out. Results highlighted that pre-service teachers improved their own pretend play skills; overcame fears of exposure and were inspired by the children. According to in-teachers, children showed a greater willingness to participate in pretend-play games and became more confident in other activities. The paper concludes by reiterating the need to include active training with hands-on participation, and an emphasis on children’s play at the syllabus of the university courses.
Morphological Awareness Predicts Reading Comprehension in Adults

Abstract We investigated the contribution of morphological awareness to university students’ reading comprehension ability. Although there is considerable evidence that morphological awareness contributes to children’s reading ability, there is much less evidence concerning adults; the few studies of adults have not controlled other known predictors of reading comprehension. Furthermore, there is little information about the predictors of morphological awareness. Measures related to word reading (phonological decoding, orthographic processing), language comprehension (vocabulary, inferences, working memory), morphological awareness, and reading (reading speed and reading comprehension) were administered to 71 undergraduate students. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that (a) morphological awareness was predicted by orthographic processing and the three language comprehension measures, (b) morphological awareness was a significant predictor of both reading speed and reading comprehension, after controlling all of the other predictors, and (c) morphological awareness continued to predict reading comprehension after also controlling text reading speed. These results demonstrate that morphological awareness is still an important individual difference factor for proficient adult readers. We discuss the implications of these results for assessment and university instruction.
Rethinking reintegration in Nigeria: community perceptions of former Boko Haram combatants

Abstract Since the emergence of Boko Haram and its terrorist activities in Nigeria, policy initiatives have included deradicalisation and reintegration of former combatants to curtail extremism and bolster stability. Central to deradicalisation is the efficacy of reintegration programmes. While much emphasis is placed on recidivism as a basis for determining the efficacy of reintegration programmes, studies on how communities perceive the reintegration of deradicalised former combatants, and those labelled terrorists, are scarce. To address this issue of the quality of reintegration programmes, a qualitative method using semi-structured interviews was employed for this study. Twenty-four Christian and Muslim participants were recruited from Lagos and Plateau states in Nigeria. Thematic data analysis was deployed from a social identity theoretical framework. The study found perceived indifference and fear regarding the ability of former Boko Haram combatants to genuinely reform or repent from terrorist acts. The study therefore recommends the provision of context-specific counter-narratives that shift the perceived public fear of unrepentant former combatants to a more positive outlook. Such optimism can embrace reconciliation to aid the successful reintegration of former terrorist combatants into Nigerian communities.
Teasing Influence: News Teases, Elite Cues, and Information Use

ABSTRACT The impact of television news teases has not been explored from the standpoint of response to political positions featured in the tease taken by religious and business elites. We theorize that the novelty of these ostensibly nonpolitical elites offering their perspective in a news tease about a report on immigration and economic growth leads to increased audience attention to the news tease. Utilizing a randomized experimental design, we expose treated subjects to clergy or business CEOs agreeing, disagree, or offering no reaction to an economic report linking “illegal” immigration to economic growth. Results show that subjects are statistically more likely to notice the tease featuring the pastor agreeing with the report findings. The same “pastor agrees” tease also spurs treated subjects to engage in an information search of news stories related to the tease content and to look first at stories attributed to Fox News. Our results suggest multiple avenues for additional research on news tease effects featuring elite statements.
Feminist Economic Perspectives on the COVID-19 Pandemic

This article provides a contextual framework for understanding the gendered dimensions of the COVID-19 pandemic and its health, social, and economic outcomes. The pandemic has generated massive losses in lives, impacted people’s health, disrupted markets and livelihoods, and created profound reverberations in the home. In 112 countries that reported sex-disaggregated data on COVID-19 cases, men showed an overall higher infection rate than women, and an even higher mortality rate. However, women’s relatively high representation in sectors hardest hit by lockdown orders has translated into larger declines in employment for women than men in numerous countries. Evidence also indicates that stay-at-home orders have increased unpaid care workloads, which have fallen disproportionately to women. Further, domestic violence has increased in frequency and severity across countries. The article concludes that policy response strategies to the crisis by women leaders have contributed to more favorable outcomes compared to outcomes in countries led by men. HIGHLIGHTS Women from lowest-income households and marginalized groups bore the brunt of the COVID-19 crisis. Globally, more women than men are employed in sectors hardest hit by the pandemic. Essential and frontline workers at higher risk of exposure are predominantly women. Migrant workers are especially vulnerable to job loss, benefit exclusions, and travel bans. Countries with women leaders had more favorable outcomes during the pandemic.
Bribe or die: gender differences in entrepreneurship in emerging markets

ABSTRACT This paper examines the relation between gender differences in entrepreneurship and firm-level bribery, one of the most impactful business obstacles to private sector growth. Using data from a comprehensive survey covering 16,560 enterprises in 32 emerging economies, we find that female-led firms account for 19.2% of all enterprises, which is approximately 4 times lower than the share of male-led firms, and that female entrepreneurs experience a higher level of bribery than their peers. The impact of gender on bribery is more pronounced among firms located in countries that are more corruption-prone and becomes weaker among countries with a higher female graduation ratio at the tertiary level. In addition, female-run firms have a lower likelihood of obtaining a construction permit, securing a government contract, or holding an operating licence. Overall, the results suggest that a bribe-to-survive motive is a possible explanation for the higher level of bribery among female-led firms in emerging markets.
Exclusion effect of carbon dioxide on the crystallization of polypropylene

We investigated the crystallization growth of isotactic polypropylene under carbon dioxide (CO2) at various CO2 pressures and temperatures by in situ observation with a digital high-fidelity microscope and a specially designed high-pressure visualized cell. The fibrils within the spherulite were distorted and branched by crystallization under CO2 at pressures higher than 2 MPa, and this suggested the exclusion of CO2 from the growth front of the fibrils. The spherulite growth rate (G) at 140 °C increased with the CO2 pressure, attained a maximum value around 0.3 MPa, and then decreased. Above 6 MPa, it became slower than that under air at the ambient pressure. An analysis of the crystallization kinetics by the Hoffman–Lauritzen theory revealed that the pressure dependence of G could be ascribed to the change in the transportation rate of crystallizable molecules (βg) with pressure; that is, βg increased and then decreased with pressure. The increase in βg at a low pressure was caused by the plasticizing effect of CO2, whereas the decrease in βg at a high pressure was due to the exclusion of CO2 from the crystal growth front. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 42: 1565–1572, 2004
Improving Children’s Reading Comprehension by Teaching Inferences

Abstract Reading comprehension is the goal of reading, and making inferences is vital. Authors usually expect readers to make multiple types of inferences, including anaphoric, background knowledge, predictive, and retrospective. Common core assessments include all of these, yet instructional materials focus mostly on only one type, retrospective. This article describes how teachers in one school district in the Inter-Mountain West used each inference type to enhance instruction. They found that although common core materials provided them with some inferencing questions, they gave minimal support in how to teach inferences. These teachers successfully supplemented with Question-Answer Relationships (QAR), think-alouds, and sentence frames. By explicitly teaching all four inference types, inferencing took its place as the cornerstone of reading comprehension and helped students deepen their knowledge.
Naturally occurring quinones. Part XVIII. New spinochromes from Diadema antillarum, Spatangus purpureus, and Temnopleurus toreumaticus

The spines of Diadema antillarum are pigmented with 6-ethyl-2,3,7-trihydroxynaphthazarin and its 2- and 3-monomethyl ethers. The test of Temnopleurus toreumaticus contains 3-acetyl-2,6,7-trihydroxyjuglone and six other known spinochromes, and the pigments of Spatangus purpureus include two common naphthazarins and two novel binaphthaquinones, ethylidene-3,3′-bis(2,6,7-trihydroxynaphthazarin) and its anhydro-derivative. The latter is also present in S. raschi and in Stronglyocentrotus drobachiensis.
Landsat 8 monitoring of multi-depth suspended sediment concentrations in Lake Erie’s Maumee River using machine learning

ABSTRACT Satellite remote sensing has been widely used to map suspended sediment concentration (SSC) in waterbodies. However, due to the complexity of sediment-water interactions, it has been difficult to derive linear and non-linear regression equations to reliably predict SSC, especially when trying to estimate depth of integrated sediment. This study uses Landsat 8 OLI (Operational Land Imager) sensor to map SSC within the Maumee River in Ohio, USA, at multiple depth intervals (15, 61, 91, and 182 cm). Simple linear least squares regression (LLSR), and three common machine learning models: random forest (RF), support vector regression (SVR), and model averaged neural network (MANN) were used to estimate SSC at the depth intervals. All machine learning models significantly outperformed LLSR while RF performed the best. In both RF and MANN, R 2 (coefficient of determination) increases with depth with a maximum R 2 of 0.89 and 0.83, respectively, at a depth of 0–182 cm. The results show that machine learning models can implement nonlinear relationships that produce better predictions than traditional linear regression methods in estimating depth integrated SSC, especially when samples are limited.
Quantitative Demands, Burnout, and Allied Outcomes for Indian Police Officers

Policing job is quantitatively demanding and may draw upon officer’s resources. This study aimed to examine quantitative demands’ effects for officers’ burnout and allied outcomes. Specifically, the study examined a mediation model that incorporated burnout as a mediator of quantitative demands’ relationship with job satisfaction, commitment to the workplace, organizational citizenship behaviours, health, work–family conflict, and feeling to quit. Using a cross-sectional (paper–pencil version) design, the study examined the model in a non-random sample of 1,223 officers of an Indian state, Haryana. The results showed that quantitative demands were associated positively with burnout, and burnout partially transmitted quantitative demands’ effect on job satisfaction, work–family conflict, and feeling to quit. The results vis-à-vis other outcomes revealed inconsistent mediation of burnout (i.e., suppression situations). As expected, quantitative demands, via burnout, had a negative effect on commitment to the workplace, organizational citizenship behaviours, and health; however, the concerned direct effect was against expectation. Apart from contribution to knowledge, the study’s findings are potentially of value for the government and police administrators. Practical implications of the findings, limitations of the study, and directions for future research are discussed.
Influence of renin‐angiotensin‐aldosterone system inhibitors on plasma levels of angiotensin‐converting enzyme 2

Concern has been raised that treatment with angiotensin‐converting enzyme inhibitors and angiotensin receptor blockers may increase the expression of angiotensin‐converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), which acts as the entry receptor for SARS‐CoV‐2, and lead to an increased risk of death from SARS‐CoV‐2. We aimed to address this concern by evaluating the in vivo relationship of treatment with ACE inhibitors and angiotensin receptor blockers (ARB) with circulating plasma concentrations of ACE2 in a large cohort of patients with established cardiovascular disease (n = 1864) or cardiovascular risk factors (n = 2144) but without a history of heart failure.
Zero-Valent Iron-Assisted Autotrophic Denitrification

Porous reactive barriers containing metallic iron and hydrogenotrophic denitrifying microorganisms may potentially be suitable for in-situ remediation of nitrate-contaminated groundwater resources. The main objective of the research described here was to determine the type and concentration of metallic iron to be used in such reactive barriers so that ammonia formation through metallic iron-assisted abiotic nitrate reduction was minimized, while a reasonable rate of biological denitrification, sustained by hydrogen produced through metallic iron corrosion, was maintained. Initial experiments included the demonstration of autotrophic denitrification supported by externally supplied hydrogen, either from a gas cylinder or generated through anaerobic corrosion of metallic iron. Next, the effect of iron type on abiotic nitrate reduction was studied, and among those types of iron tested, steel wool, with its relatively low surface-area-to-weight ratio, was identified as the material that exhibited the least pr.
Financial incentives facilitate the neural computation of prosocial decisions stronger in low empathic individuals

Financial incentives are commonly used to motivate behaviours. There is also evidence that incentives can decline the behaviour they are supposed to foster, for example, documented by a decrease in blood donations if a financial incentive is offered. Based on these findings, previous studies assumed that prosocial motivation is shaped by incentives. However, so far, there is no direct evidence showing an interaction between financial incentives and a specific prosocial motive. Combining drift-diffusion modelling and fMRI, we investigated the effect of financial incentives on empathy, i.e., one of the key motives driving prosocial decisions. In the empathy-alone condition, participants made prosocial decisions based on empathy, in the empathy-bonus condition, they were offered a financial bonus for prosocial decisions, in addition to empathy induction. On average, the bonus enhanced the information accumulation in empathy-based decision. On the neural level, this enhancement was related to the anterior insula, the same region that also correlated with empathy ratings. Moreover, the effect of the financial incentive on anterior insula activation was stronger the lower a person scored on empathy. These findings show that financial incentives enhance prosocial motivation in the absence of empathy but have little effect on high empathic individuals.