Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Factors Influencing Interest in STEM Careers: An Exploratory Factor Analysis.

Identifying the factors that contribute to interest in STEM will provide guidance for successful interventions as well as contribute to our understanding of how students learn STEM content and how STEM career trajectories are developed. Thus, this study aimed to develop an instrument of STEM career interest. The process of the instrument development involved four stages, namely establishing content validity, conducting a pre-test, conducting exploratory factor analysis, and performing construct reliability. In this study, an 80-item questionnaire was administered to 354 middle secondary school students (14 years of age). Exploratory factor analysis indicated that the 80 items were grouped into four main factors, namely environmental factors, STEM self-efficacy, perception of STEM careers and interest in STEM careers. Four sub-constructs were grouped under environmental factors and these are activities in the classroom, activities outside the classroom, social influences and media influences. STEM self-efficacy consisted of abilities in science, technology, engineering and mathematics while perception of STEM careers consisted of two sub-constructs i.e., job prospects and skills needed in STEM careers. STEM career fields were divided into two sub-constructs i.e., life sciences and physical sciences. It is expected that this instrument would be helpful in research and evaluation that is aimed at measuring STEM career interest in students.
Multi-Locus Genome-Wide Association Studies Reveal Fruit Quality Hotspots in Peach Genome

Peach is one of the most important fruit crops in the world, with the global annual production about 24.6 million tons. The United States is the fourth-largest producer after China, Spain, and Italy. Peach consumption has decreased over the last decade, most likely due to inconsistent quality of the fruit on the market. Thus, marker-assisted selection for fruit quality traits is highly desired in fresh market peach breeding programs and one of the major goals of the RosBREED project. The ability to use DNA information to select for desirable traits would enable peach breeders to efficiently plan crosses and select seedlings with desired quality traits early in the selection process before fruiting. Therefore, we assembled a multi-locus genome wide association study (GWAS) of 620 individuals from three public fresh market peach breeding programs (Arkansas, Texas, and South Carolina). The material was genotyped using 9K SNP array and the traits were phenotyped for three phenological (bloom date, ripening date, and days after bloom) and 11 fruit quality-related traits (blush, fruit diameter, fruit weight, adherence, fruit firmness, redness around pit, fruit texture, pit weight, soluble solid concentration, titratable acidity, and pH) over three seasons (2010, 2011, and 2012). Multi-locus association analyses, carried out using mrMLM 4.0 and FarmCPU R packages, revealed a total of 967 and 180 quantitative trait nucleotides (QTNs), respectively. Among the 88 consistently reliable QTNs detected using multiple multi-locus GWAS methods and/or at least two seasons, 44 were detected for the first time. Fruit quality hotspots were identified on chromosomes 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8. Out of 566 candidate genes detected in the genomic regions harboring the QTN clusters, 435 were functionally annotated. Gene enrichment analyses revealed 68 different gene ontology (GO) terms associated with fruit quality traits. Data reported here advance our understanding of genetic mechanisms underlying important fruit quality traits and further support the development of DNA tools for breeding.
Exposure Elements in Disaster Databases and Availability for Local Scale Application: Case Study of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Exposure elements in open-access disaster databases that are relevant to critical infrastructure and basic services in the Sendai Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR) were transformed into spatial data, to investigate the impact of flash flood hazards in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. In this era of big data and hyper-connectivity, the availability of open-access data on exposure elements across scales and systems is largely unknown. Information on exposure elements and hazard susceptibility provide important insights to enhance community resilience, to move away from merely managing disasters to managing the risk of disasters, in line with the SFDRR. The case study of Kuala Lumpur enabled an assessment of information availability in existing disaster databases and within the national system, to facilitate informed decision-making. Findings reveal that there are a total of 26 databases on the internet that provide information on disasters and related elements; of which 18 are global, three are regional and four provide information at the national scale. However, only ten databases are open access where the user is able to easily retrieve information while others provide a “view only option”. The coverage of exposure elements in disaster databases is very poor where only five databases carried such information; and it is not useful for local scale application. Thus, information was sought from multiple open data sources within the national system and transformed into spatial data, to develop an exposure element data inventory for the city. There are 509 exposure elements within Kuala Lumpur, covering 33 private and government hospitals and community clinics; 189 public and private schools and institutions higher education; 261 facilities that provide basic services; and 26 features that represent of social and economic aspects. The exposure elements, which is coherent with the SFDRR, benefits decision-making when overlain with existing flood hazard zones and susceptible areas. Moving forward, emerging hazards due to climate change will be evaluated to strengthen informed decision-making and build community resilience in the city. The empowerment of local level research has great potential to advance open sharing of information on disaster and climate risks in the region.
Fine Mapping of the “black” Peel Color in Pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) Strongly Suggests That a Mutation in the Anthocyanidin Reductase (ANR) Gene Is Responsible for the Trait

Anthocyanins are important dietary and health-promoting substances present in high quantities in the peel and arils of the pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) fruit. Yet, there is a high variation in the content of anthocyanin among different pomegranate varieties. The ‘Black’ pomegranate variety (P.G.127-28) found in Israel contains exceptionally high levels of anthocyanins in its fruit peel which can reach up to two orders of magnitude higher content as compared to that of other pomegranate varieties’ peel anthocyanins. Biochemical analysis reveals that delphinidin is highly abundant in the peel of ‘Black’ variety. The pattern of anthocyanin accumulation in the fruit peel during fruit development of ‘Black’ variety differs from that of other pomegranates. High anthocyanin levels are maintained during all developmental stages. Moreover, the accumulation of anthocyanin in the fruit peel of ‘Black’ variety is not dependent on light. Genetic analysis of an F2 population segregating for the “black” phenotype reveals that it is determined by a single recessive gene. Genetic mapping of the F2 population using single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers identified few markers tightly linked to the “black” phenotype. Recombination analysis of the F2 population and F3 populations narrowed the “black” trait to an area of 178.5 kb on the draft genome sequence of pomegranate cv. ‘Dabenzi. ’ A putative anthocyanidin reductase (ANR) gene is located in this area. Only pomegranate varieties displaying the “black” trait carry a base pair deletion toward the end of the gene, causing a frame shift resulting in a shorter protein. We propose that this mutation in the ANR gene is responsible for the different anthocyanin composition and high anthocyanin levels of the “black” trait in pomegranate.
Comparative Investigations on the Leaf and Root Oils of Valeriana wallichii DC from Northwestern Himalaya

Abstract The leaf and root oils of Valeriana wallichii DC, native to Northwestern Himalaya, were investigated by GC and GC/MS. Twenty and 23 components were identifi ed in the leaf and root oil constituting about 83.2% and 89.3% of the oils, respectively. 3-Methylvaleric acid (26.5%) and maaliol (39.2%) were the major constituents of the leaf oil. The root oil was also rich in maaliol (64.3%) and β-gurjunene (7.2%).
The Behavior of Acoustic Wave Velocity in Some Paleozoic Sandstone Samples

Abstract Seismic properties of reservoir fluids are of greater importance and the elastic inversion is fast becoming a commodity data product that oil companies understand and use for risk reduction. This study is an attempt to determine the effect of some petrophysical parameters (porosity, permeability dry density, saturated density, and water saturation) on the behavior of both P-wave (compression wave velocity) and S-wave (shear wave velocity) in sandstone rock samples. Acoustic wave velocity has been carried out for 46 sandstone samples. The measurements have been done for both dry and fully saturated rock samples.
A Review of Multidimensional, Multifluid, Intermediate‐Scale Experiments: Flow Behavior, Saturation Imaging, and Tracer Detection and Quantification

A review is presented of original multidimensional, intermediate‐scale experiments involving nonaqueous phase liquid (NAPL) flow behavior, imaging, and detection and quantification with solute tracers. In a companion paper (Oostrom et al., 2006a), experiments related to aqueous dissolution and enhanced remediation were discussed. The experiments investigating flow behavior include infiltration and redistribution experiments with both light and dense NAPLs in homogeneous and heterogeneous porous medium systems. The techniques used for NAPL saturation mapping for intermediate‐scale experiments include photon‐attenuation methods such as gamma and X‐ray techniques, and photographic methods such as the light reflection, light transmission, and multispectral image analysis techniques. Solute tracer methods used for detection and quantification of NAPL in the subsurface are primarily limited to variations of techniques comparing the behavior of conservative and partitioning tracers. Besides a discussion of the experimental efforts, recommendations for future research at this laboratory scale are provided.
Comparative analysis of students’ emotional and motivational profiles in mathematics in grades 1–6

Introduction Mathematics continues to be a real stumbling block for many low-performing students. Research over the past decades has highlighted the joint and determining effects of emotions and motivation on learning and performance in mathematics and has shown an increase in negative emotions over the course of schooling. Inter-individual emotional differences and increasing classroom heterogeneity necessitate profile analysis that focuses on particular combinations of variables as they exist within groups of individuals. Methods The purpose of this cross-sectional research is twofold: (1) to identify the emotional profiles of 1,505 elementary school students (ages 6–12) in mathematics, and (2) to document, on the basis of expectancy-value theory, how these profiles differ in terms of beliefs about competence, perceived value, and performance. Results The results highlighted two profiles over the 6 years: positive and negative. Three other profiles were observed repeatedly throughout schooling: the anxious, the self-esteem focused, and the emotionally disengaged. Discussion Three pivotal years emerged from the analyses: the first year (transition to a more formal type of teaching), the third year (enculturation in normative evaluation practices and social comparison) and the final year (centering of learning around the external certification test). In terms of the dependent variables, the tendency of young children to overestimate their competences attenuates their negative emotions and the undesirable effects of these in terms of learning. Anxious and full-negative profiles performed the poorest and placed less value on mathematical learning. These findings indicate that interventions addressing the specific needs of each age and profile are needed.
Potential of Phytoremediation for Treatment of PAHs in Soil at MGP Sites

Phytoremediation is a natural, aesthetically pleasing, low-cost technology that employs plant-influenced microbial, chemical, and physical processes to remediate contaminated soils and waters. The Institute of Gas Technology (IGT) conducted a laboratory study to determine the potential of phytoremediation to remediate soils contaminated with polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). The soils used for the study were collected from a former manufactured gas plant (MGP) site in Newark, NJ. Phytoremediation was assessed both as a primary remediation technology and as a final polishing step for soil treatment. The following three plant species were used for the 6-month laboratory study: alfalfa (Medicago sativa), switch grass (Panicum virgatum), and little bluestem grass (Schizachyrium scoparium). Using both alfalfa and switch grass for primary treatment of PAH-contaminated soil, a 57% reduction in total PAH concentration was observed after 6-months of treatment. Final polishing of that soil using alfalfa fur.
Effect of the Leaf Drying and Geographic Sources on the Essential Oil Composition of Juniperus thurifera L. var. Africana Maire from the Tensift—Al Haouz, Marrakech Region

Abstract Essential oils of Moroccan Juniperus thurifera var. africana from three provenances (Forêt Islane, Ait Lkak and Plateau of Matat) in the Tensift-Al Haouz, Marrakech region, were analyzed by combined capillary gas chromatography/mass spectrometry. The oil yields from fresh leaves showed on differences among geographical sources. Air dried leaves appeared to yield more oil at the highest elevation (1.03%, Ait Lkak, 2900 m) than lower sites (0.67%, Plateau of Matat, 2200 m; 0.57%, Forêt Islane, 2000 m). The essential oils from each geographic site had very similar composition in fresh versus air dried leaves. The essential oils from provenance Ait Lkak and Plateau of Matat were very similar and characterized by a high sabinene content (21.2, 35.9%), in contrast to 10. % sabinene from the provenance Forêt Islane. The oil from Foret Islane had a high δ-cadinene content with 12.7%, whereas Aik Akak and Plateau of Matat contained only 0.6 and 0.8%. The Moroccan oils (J. thurifera var. africana) were compared to European J. thurifera var. thurifera (Spain) oil. Moroccan oils were found to be higher sabinene and limonene than the European oil
Photoabsorption cross sections of methane and ethane, 1380-1600 A, at T equals 295 K and T equals 200 K. [in Jupiter atmosphere]

Photoabsorption cross sections of methane and ethane gas have been determined from 1380-1600 A at room and dry-ice temperatures. A small decrease in cross section was measured near the molecular absorption edge for each gas. In addition, the photoabsorption cross sections of ethane at room temperature are found to be in agreement with the measurements of Okabe and Becker rather than more recently determined values.
Methane/n-Butane Ignition Delay Measurements at High Pressure and Detailed Chemical Kinetic Simulations

Autoignition delay time measurements were recorded for blends of CH4/n-C4H10 in “air” at pressures of approximately 10, 16, 20, 25, and 30 atm from fuel-lean to fuel-rich conditions at two different fuel compositions, 90% CH4/10% n-C4H10 and 70% CH4/30% n-C4H10, and temperatures from 660 to 1330 K in both a rapid compression machine and a shock-tube facility. A detailed chemical kinetic model consisting of 1328 reactions involving 230 species was validated using the ignition delay data from this study. This mechanism has already been used to simulate previously published ignition delay times over a wide range of conditions. It was found that the model quantitatively reproduces the ignition delays from both rapid compression and reflected shock waves, accurately capturing reactivity as a function of the temperature, pressure, equivalence ratio, and fuel composition.
Comparison of root growth and nitrogen absorbing ability between gramineae and leguminosae during the vegetative stage

Abstract Eight Gramineae crops (rice, spring wheat, barley, oat, maize, sorghum, redtop, and orchardgrass), and seven Leguminosae crops (soybean, field bean, adzuki bean, lupin, pea, alfalfa, and red clover) were grown in a field. The characteristics of nitrogen absorption were parametrized as root size (root length or dry weight), root activity (specific absorption rate of nitrogen per unit root dry weight; SARN), and photosynthetic factors (crop growth rate (CGR), leaf area index and net assimilation rate). The results were as follows. 1) The rate of nitrogen accumulation by plant (ΔN) was highly correlated with the crop growth rate (CGR), and dry matter accumulation per unit amount of nitrogen accumulated in plant was lower in Leguminosae than in Gramineae. 2) In Leguminosae, the length or weight of root (root size) was generally shorter or smaller than in Gramineae. However, SARN of Leguminosae was higher than that of Gramineae. Therefore, the increase in the root size was considered to contribute mor.
Adsorção de cobre em solos tropicais com diferentes mineralogias

This paper had the objective to evaluate the adsorption of copper in three different classes of soils of a toposequence present in the metropolitan region of the city of Maringa. The influence of pH and the mineralogic composition on the process of the metal adsorption were evaluated. Samples of soil, previously dried to air, were sieved in a 0,074 mm-mesh sieve. Fractions of 1,000g soil were weighted in test tubes and added to 7 mL of CaCl 2 . 2H 2 O 0,002 M solution containing 0, 5, 10, 20, 40, 60, 80, e 100mg . kg -1 copper in the CuCl 2 . 2H 2 O form. The process of adsorption was evaluated on the natural pH of the solutions (5,8) and pH 4,0. The samples were shaken, centrifuged, and the excess copper was read in an atomic absorption spectrometer. The Langmuir isotherm linear relation was used to obtain values referring to copper maximum adsorption capacity (CuMAC). The data revealed that CuMAC was higher for the V soil due to the significative presence of 2:1 phyllosilicates, but the amount of Cu adsorbed by m 2 of the total surface area was greater in LR soil, confirming the high metal adsorption capacity of tropical soils.
Recent advances in density functional methods

Applications of Density Functional Theory in Solid State Chemistry (S T Bromley et al.) On the Calculation of Ionization Energies within Density Functional Theory (H Chermette et al.) Modeling Molecular Magnetism Using DFT (I Ciofini et al.) Structural and Magnetic Properties of Model Spin Probes in Aqueous Solution: An Application of Recent Developments in Density Functional Theory and in the Polarizable Continuum Model (R Improta & V Barone) Correlation Energy for Isoelectronic Series of Atoms by the Line Integral Method (V V Karasiev et al.) Theory for a Single Excited State Differential Virial Theorem (? Nagy) Studies of the Nonadditive Kinetic Energy Functional and the Coupling between Electronic and Geometrical Structures (R F Nalewajski) The Description of the Photoionization Process by the B-Spline Density Functional Method (M Stener & P Decleva) Prediction of the Structural and Electronic Properties of Polymeric Systems (M E Vaschetto et al.) Hydroxyl Radical Reactions in Biological Media (S D Wetmore et al.) and other papers
Induced Optical Activity in Boronic-Acid-Protected Silver Nanoclusters by Complexation with Chiral Fructose†

Silver nanoclusters protected by achiral 3-mercaptophenylboronic acid (3-MPB) with a mean core diameter of about 0.8 nm are successfully synthesized. Addition of chiral d- or l-fructose into the basic aqueous solution of the silver nanoclusters does not practically alter their absorption spectra, whereas it brings about appreciable Cotton effects or circular dichroism (CD) signals with an opposite sign (mirror-image relationship) in metal-based electronic transition regions. The induced CD response is controllable by a concentration of the chiral fructose added. This phenomenon is due to the complexation of surface 3-MPB ligands with chiral diols (d-/l-fructose) to form optically active boronate esters. The optical/chiroptical studies of the chirally transformed 3-MPB-protected silver nanoclusters find that the induced optical activity is most likely due to the dissymmetric field of the phenylboronic acid-fructose complexes.
Transition phenomena for the maximum of a random walk with small drift

This thesis examines the tail behaviour of the maximum M (a) of a random walk with negative drift −a. It consists of four chapters. Chapter 1 contains an introduction to heavy tailed and subexponential distributions. It also comprises a brief introduction to the theory of random walks and a survey of some known results concerning the maximum of a random walk S(a). It is known that, for fixed x, the probability P(M (a) > x/a) is exponential as a → 0 (heavy traffic asymptotics) and, for (strong) subexponential distributions, P(M (a) > x) decays according the the integrated tail as x → ∞ for fixed a (heavy tail asymptotics). The second Chapter presents a link between these two asymptotics. In particular, the behaviour of the probability P(M (a) > x) is studied as a→ 0 for x such that x→∞ as a → 0 and the regions of x for which the heavy traffic asymptotics and the heavy tail asymptotics hold are identified. Furthermore, the distributions for which an intermediate zone between these two limits exists are identified and the exact limit in this zone is provided. The approach in this chapter is not based on a representation via geometric sums, like most of the results on the behaviour of P(M (a) > x) are. Instead, martingale arguments and inequalities are used. Chapter 3 contains non-asymptotic results on the maximum of a random walk. Namely, it comprises computable upper bounds for the probability P(M (a) > x) for fixed a and x in different settings of power moment existences. As it is usual for deriving upper bounds, these upper bounds are attained by truncation of summands. The approach used for the truncation is to split the time axis by stopping times into intervals of random but finite length and then choose a level of truncation on each interval. Hereby one can reduce the problem of finding upper bounds for M (a) to the problem of finding upper bounds for M (a) τz = maxn≤τz S (a) n , where τz = min{n ≥ 1 : S n 0. Additionally, the obtained inequalities are tested in the heavy traffic and heavy tail regime for regular varying tails and it is shown that they are asymptotically precise in this case. The fourth Chapter deals with the case of a family of ∆(a)-latticed random walks and provides a local version of the heavy traffic asymptotics for the probability P(M (a) = ∆(a)x) for x such that x→∞ and ax = O(1) as a→ 0. This local limit theorem follows from a representation of P(M (a) = ∆(a)x) via a geometric sum and a uniform renewal theorem, which is also proved in this chapter.