Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Soil chemical attributes, nutrient uptake and yield of no-till crops as affected by phosphogypsum doses and parceling in southern Brazil

ABSTRACT This study evaluated soil chemical attributes, leaf nutrient concentrations and grain yield of corn (Zea mays), barley (Hordeum vulgare), common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) and wheat (Triticum aestivum) as affected by phosphogypsum (PG) rates and split application to a Typic Hapludox under no-till from Southern Brazil. A Randomized complete block design was used, with factorial treatment structure (5 x 2) consisting of increasing PG rates (0, 3, 6, 9 and 12 Mg ha−1) either in single or split (half dose, two consecutive years) application. PG rates have reduced concentrations of Al3+, increasing Ca2+, SO42- and pH values in soil layers up to 0.8 m. Leaf concentrations of Ca (between 28 and 42%) and S (between 6% and to 50%) increased in all crops, while leaf levels of Mg decreased on corn (−16%), bean (−22%) and wheat (−14%) by PG rates. Compared to the control, PG rates between 4.0 and 6.1 Mg ha−1 promoted increases of 11%, 10% and 10% on corn, barley and wheat yields, respectively. There was no effect of PG on common bean’s yield. Phosphogypsum was effective for improving soil fertility, plant nutrition and crop yields. Applying the PG annually at one-half rate gave best overall results.
Developing a Coral Proxy System Model to Compare Coral and Climate Model Estimates of Changes in Paleo‐ENSO Variability

Coral records of surface‐ocean conditions extend our knowledge of interannual El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) variability into the preinstrumental period. That said, the wide range of natural variability within the climate system as well as multiple sources of uncertainties inherent to the coral archive produce challenges for the paleoclimate community to detect forced changes in ENSO using coral geochemical records. We present a new coral proxy system model (PSM) of intermediate complexity, geared toward the evaluation of changes in interannual variance. Our coral PSM adds additional layers of complexity to previously published transfer functions of sensor models that describe how the archive responds to sea surface temperature (SST) and salinity. We use SST and salinity output from the Community Earth System Model Last Millennium Ensemble 850 control to model coral oxygen isotopic ratios and SST derived from Sr/Ca. We present a detailed analysis of our PSM using climate model output for sites in the central and southwest Pacific before extending the analyses to span the broader tropical Pacific. We demonstrate how variable growth rates, analytical and calibration errors, and age model assumptions systematically impact estimates of interannual variance and show that the relative magnitude of the change in interannual variance is location dependent. Importantly, however, we find that even with the added uncertainties in our PSM, corals from many circum‐Pacific locations are broadly able to capture decadal and longer (decadal+) changes in ENSO variability. Our code is publicly available on GitHub to facilitate future comparisons between model output and coral proxy data.
Servant leadership and affective commitment: the role of psychological ownership and person–organization fit

Purpose Building on social exchange theory, this study aims to propose a research model to examine the relationship between servant leadership (SL) and employee affective commitment (AC) where psychological ownership (PO) and person–organization fit are theorized to play a mediating role. Design/methodology/approach The study used quantitative research methods with a deductive approach to examine the proposed relationships and the underlying mechanisms. Data were collected from 346 employees working at higher education sector in Palestine. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Findings The results reveal a significant mediating role of PO and person – organization (P-O) fit in explaining the relationship between SL and employee AC. Results indicate that the service orientation and humble attitude of servant leaders toward employees help employees develop a sense of ownership, leading to a better fit with organizational values and thus to a more committed workforce. Practical implications The results of this study may be useful for managers working in higher education in a non-Western context who are considering using SL behaviors to improve outcomes. Originality/value The study advances SL research currently in its early stages (Zhang et al., 2019). Moreover, it increases understanding of the mediating roles played by PO and P-O fit.
Digital Transformation and Knowledge Management in the Public Sector

Digitizing public services is, at the moment, an essential necessity for numerous governments around the world. An improved government through digitization will not only have a growing effect on businesses, but it will also be able to intensify citizen engagement and push for economic growth. During the last 10 years more countries have progressively begun to provide digital services to their citizens. Therefore, in order to address this development, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the evolution of the digital government literature in order to describe the aspects of digital transformation in the public sector and how it is related to knowledge management. In this study the methodology is quantitative and it is based on a review and a survey made with the main goal being the estimation from several collected data on how the digital transformation process in the Public Administration takes place and what its relationship is with knowledge management. The review study is based on articles found on Scopus database and it addresses the role that digital government research plays in the theory and practice of knowledge management. In the survey study, 54 employees working for the services of the two governmental areas of the Portuguese Ministry of the Environment were surveyed. The results show that the research on the theme is still at an exploratory stage due to the lack of studies relating digital government to knowledge management effectiveness in the public sector. The results also show that the success of digital government seems to be related with the quality of the organizations’ knowledge management, complementing each other for significant improvements in the public sector. In terms of originality, this study aims to contribute and stimulate data-driven discussions regarding the impacts of the digital transformation in the public sector and their relation with the implementation of knowledge management practices. The results offer insights into future research needs.
Knowlton's cactus ( Pediocactus knowltonii ): Eighteen years of monitoring and recovery actions

A BSTRACT . Pediocactus knowltonii is a rare, endemic cactus that is presently known to occur on a single 10-hectare hill in northwestern New Mexico near the Colorado border. It was listed as federally endangered in 1979. Population monitoring and recovery actions were initiated when the Recovery Plan was adopted in 1985. The land at the type locality has been donated to The Nature Conservancy and long-term monitoring plots have been annually studied since 1986. This population reached peak density in 1994 and is presently in decline. A total of 301 clones were made and transplanted to two nearby habitats above the Los Pinos arm of Navajo Lake, beginning in 1985. Transplant survival and flowering were good, but natural recruitment has been slow. Seeding trials were also conducted at both locations in 1985 and 1991. Only 4% of seeds planted became established as adult plants and no new recruitment has yet been observed.
Multiple modes of convergent adaptation in the spread of glyphosate-resistant Amaranthus tuberculatus

Significance While evolution has been thought of as playing out over millions of years, adaptation to new environments can occur very rapidly, presenting us with key opportunities to understand evolutionary dynamics. One of the most amazing examples of real-time evolution comes from agriculture, where due to the intense use of a few herbicides, many plant species have evolved herbicide resistance to become aggressive weeds. An important question has been whether herbicide resistance arises only rarely and then spreads quickly, or whether herbicide resistance arises all the time de novo. Our work with glyphosate resistance in US Midwestern and Canadian populations of Amaranthus tuberculatus reveals the answer to be, “it depends,” as we surprisingly find examples for both modes of evolution. The selection pressure exerted by herbicides has led to the repeated evolution of herbicide resistance in weeds. The evolution of herbicide resistance on contemporary timescales in turn provides an outstanding opportunity to investigate key questions about the genetics of adaptation, in particular the relative importance of adaptation from new mutations, standing genetic variation, or geographic spread of adaptive alleles through gene flow. Glyphosate-resistant Amaranthus tuberculatus poses one of the most significant threats to crop yields in the Midwestern United States, with both agricultural populations and herbicide resistance only recently emerging in Canada. To understand the evolutionary mechanisms driving the spread of resistance, we sequenced and assembled the A. tuberculatus genome and investigated the origins and population genomics of 163 resequenced glyphosate-resistant and susceptible individuals from Canada and the United States. In Canada, we discovered multiple modes of convergent evolution: in one locality, resistance appears to have evolved through introductions of preadapted US genotypes, while in another, there is evidence for the independent evolution of resistance on genomic backgrounds that are historically nonagricultural. Moreover, resistance on these local, nonagricultural backgrounds appears to have occurred predominantly through the partial sweep of a single haplotype. In contrast, resistant haplotypes arising from the Midwestern United States show multiple amplification haplotypes segregating both between and within populations. Therefore, while the remarkable species-wide diversity of A. tuberculatus has facilitated geographic parallel adaptation of glyphosate resistance, more recently established agricultural populations are limited to adaptation in a more mutation-limited framework.
Distribution modeling of Apis florea Fabricius (Hymenoptera, Apidae) in different climates of Iran

The dwarf honey bee (Apis florea Fabricius) is one of the most important pollinator species of tropical and arid regions of Iran and other countries. Considering the importance of dwarf honey bee as an important pollinator in Iran, the current study was carried out to the model spatial distribution of dwarf honey bee and to assess the effect of environmental factors on this species. A potential distribution map was created using the maximum entropy (Maxent) model based on recorded data, vegetation, and eight different climate variables as well as the topography of the regions. According to the obtained results, southern regions of Iran i.e. arid regions with mild winters and hot summers were found to be the most desirable regions for dwarf honey bee distribution. Afterwards, arid regions with cold winters and warm and hot summers provide the most favorable conditions for dwarf honey bee distribution. The obtained results from Jackknife test indicated that under current climate conditions, vegetation and annual mean temperature are the most important factors affecting dwarf honey bee distribution in Iran. In this study, the effect of future climate change on A. florea distribution pattern was investigated. The results indicated that under the climate change scenario (CCCMA, CSIRO), suitable habitats for A. florea will increase towards the central part of the country during 2030 and 2050.
Estimation of plant health in a sorghum field infected with anthracnose using a fixed-wing unmanned aerial system

ABSTRACT Diseases cause enormous losses of yield and quality for crop producers worldwide. To meet future food demands, crops are bred for resistance to as many of these maladies as possible. One such disease, anthracnose [Colletotrichum sublineola], is a fungal disease of great importance to sorghum [Sorghum bicolor, L. Moench] production because it causes significant annual economic losses in the crop. Breeding for anthracnose resistance requires time-consuming phenotyping, which is subjective and conditional to the evaluator. It is possible that quantitative assessment using high-throughput methodologies to estimate the trait may be more effective. In this study, we present an in-depth statistical analysis of fixed-wing, unmanned aerial system (UAS) evaluation of anthracnose incidence and severity in sorghum using normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). In early phases of infection, correlations between ground-truth and UAS estimates of anthracnose were moderate but they increased substantially by the end of the season (r = −0.55 to −0.95). Additionally, both metrics had moderate-to-high repeatabilities throughout the growth period (R = 0.60–0.90), indicating they were consistently able to differentiate genotypes. Finally, we found that the UAS-derived measurements (R2 = 0.377, 0.473) were better associated with ground-truth measurements (R2 = 0.278, 0.347) for grain yield under anthracnose pressure. The results of this study indicated that fixed-wing UAS could potentially be effective for evaluating anthracnose disease present in sorghum, and the greater range of the UAS allowed the effective evaluation of larger numbers of plants than ground truth or traditional remote sensing methods.
Successful nursing of Caridina cantonensis larvae with Ca-alginate microencapsulated diet in the first feeding

The effect of dietary microencapsulated diet (MED), artificial diet (ATD; approximately 28% protein) and Artemia shell-free (ART) on growth performance, survival rate, diet digestibility, protein synthesis capacity, enzyme activities of the larvae shrimp were investigated. The experiment was conducted in 3 treatments with 5 replicates. The 1 day post hatched (1 dph) shrimp were then fed twice daily with experimental diets for 60 days. The results of this study indicated that the larvae fed with the MED showed a higher (P 0.05). Enzyme activities were also focused on, the results indicated that the protease, amylase and lipase activity of the larvae fed with the microencapsulated diet was much higher than the other experimental diets (P< 0.05).
Audit Committee Chair Attributes and Audit Report Lag in an Emerging Market

This study is motivated by the new listing requirement of Bursa Malaysia (formerly known as Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange, KLSE) concerning the shorter timeframe of annual report release. Similarly, the call for future research on the efficacy of audit committee chair (ACC) attributes with audit report lag (ARL) has further driven this study. Therefore, this paper aimed to analyse the relationship between the ACC expertise and ACC tenure with the ARL of companies in the Main Market of Bursa Malaysia in 2015 using a sample of 139 companies. Furthermore, other audit committee (AC) attributes such as AC overlap and AC independence were also examined. Results of the study revealed an average of 95 days is required by the companies to conclude their respective audit reports. ACC with accounting expertise enhanced the ARL, whereas AC overlap and AC independence did not reduce the ARL. Concurrently, other control variables like AC size, frequency of AC meetings, firm size, leverage, and profitability depicted significant relationship with the ARL. Hence, this research is relevant to the current ARL literature via the provision of evidence and justification regarding the important role of ACC with accounting expertise towards the AC effectiveness, thus enhancing the timelines of financial reporting.
Fitting multi-population mortality models to socio-economic groups

We compare results for twelve multi-population mortality models fitted to ten distinct socio-economic groups in England, subdivided using the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD). Using the Bayes Information Criterion to compare models, we find that a special case of the Common Age Effect (CAE) model fits best in a variety of situations, achieving the best balance between goodness of fit and parsimony. We provide a detailed discussion of key models to highlight which features are important. Group-specific period effects are found to be more important than group-specific age effects, and non-parametric age effects deliver significantly better results than parametric (e.g. linear) age effects. We also find that the addition of cohort effects is beneficial in some cases but not all. The preferred CAE model has the additional benefit of being coherent in the sense of Hyndman et al. (2013); some of the other models considered are not.
Pathogenesis of myxoma virus

Myxoma virus causes the lethal disease myxomatosis following infection of the European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus), and was introduced into Australia in 1950 for the biological control of wild O. cuniculus populations. Shortly after its release, two, well described events occurred: attenuated strains of virus emerged and genetic resistance developed within the host rabbit populations. There have been detailed epidemiolgical and molecular studies on myxoma virus, but no coordinated study examining the mechanism of genetic resistance. This thesis provides the first detailed and coordinated study in which resistant and susceptible rabbits infected with virulent and naturally attenuated strains of myxoma virus are directly compared. In the first part of this thesis, differences in the ability of virulent and attenuated myxoma virus to down regulate the immune response were examined. Populations of outbred laboratory rabbits were infected with the standard laboratory strain (SLS) of myxoma virus, which is 100% lethal, or with a naturally attenuated strain of myxoma virus, Uriarra, which causes myxomatosis but is lethal in less than 5% of infected rabbits. SLS but not Uriarra, suppressed the T-cell-mitogen induced proliferation of lymphocytes from lymph nodes of rabbits by 4dpi. To examine humoral immune responses, a model system of coinfections was studied, using a highly attenuated recombinant myxoma virus that expresses the influenza haemagglutinin (HA). IgG titres to HA were suppressed by coinfection of laboratory rabbits with either SLS or Uriarra. However, IgG titres to myxoma virus were strikingly higher in rabbits coinfected with SLS compared to those coinfected with Uriarra. Modulation of the immune response by SLS was associated with the depletion of lymphocytes from lymph nodes. The next phase of this study was to determine where and when virus replication was controlled in infected rabbits. SLS replicated at the primary inoculation site in the skin,
The Impact of Cultural Festivals on the Development of Rural Tourism - A Case Study of Da Jia Matsu Pilgrimage

This study aimed to the impact of cultural festivals on the development of rural tourism to explore. We took the Da Jia Matsu Pilgrimage as an example, and investigated the residents of the counties and cities along the pilgrimage route. SPSS for Windows 22.0 was used to conduct the t-test, and the descriptive statistical analysis to 2072 samples. The research result is residents in different regions regarded that the pilgrimage could unite the people, improve community environments, preserve traditional culture, maintain public facilities, and increase public infrastructure. Male residents argued that the pilgrimage could only unite the people, while female residents asserted that it could increase public infrastructure and service measures, preserve traditional monuments, and improve community environments; however, it also resulted in traffic accidents and the disturbance of living spaces. The research conclusion is residents of different places and genders have different understandings in terms of the economic, social, and environmental impacts on the Da Jia Matsu Culture Festival. The research suggestion is the schedule and investigation of the places along the pilgrimage can be extended to include other cultural festivals and different impacts on stakeholders.
Temporal Sequence of Sweetness Perception in Fruit-Flavored Tea: A Descriptive Report on the Influence of Sucrose Concentrations on the Sensation

The goals of this study were to examine, using the temporal dominance of sensations (TDS) method, the effects of 1) the sucrose concentration on the temporal sequence of sweetness perception in four fruit-flavored (lemon, peach, strawberry, and vanilla) teas with 0.05, 0.15, and 0.25 M sucrose; and 2) participants’ sex on this temporal sequence. Twenty-four healthy young adults were assigned to female (n = 12) and male (n = 12) groups. Both groups evaluated five sensory attributes in 12 samples (four fruit-flavored teas, each with three sucrose concentrations). As in our preceding study [1], two sensations, sweetness and fruitiness, were dominant after ingesting the 12 teas in both groups, but the temporal sequence of sweetness perception differed between the two groups. On average, the male group reported the first appearance of sweetness earlier in the samples with 0.05 M sucrose compared with the female group, with the samples containing 0.15 and 0.25 M sucrose. The average durations of the sweetness sensation were different between the male and female groups as well as among the sucrose concentrations and the four flavors tested.
Research agendas of female and male academics: a new perspective on gender disparities in academia

ABSTRACT The presence of gender disparities in academia was assessed by analysing the characteristics of the research agendas of academics. Multivariate analysis of variance and structural equation modelling coupled with multi-group analysis were used to identify different gender trajectories. The research agenda preferences of women were less risky and less focused on fields likely to lead to scientific discovery, but were organised in a more collaborative way than those of men. In addition, institutional characteristics were found to influence the research agenda preferences of both women and men. However, the perceived autonomy allowed by a university was more important for female than for male academics to develop more ambitious, collaborative, risky and multidisciplinary efforts. Female academics also needed more time after completing their PhD to develop a preference for riskier research agendas, but past research outputs, the number of co-authors and mobility did not change their agendas.