Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
EFFECT OF DIETARY LACTURE YEAST SUPPLEMENT ON PRODUCTIVE PERFORMANCE OF EGYPTIAN RAHMANI EWES AND THEIR LAMBS.

This study was carried out on Rahmani sheep to investigate the effect of using Lacture yeast supplement diet on feed dry matter intake, some blood constituents and productive performance of ewes, such as, changes in live body weight, still birth, abortion, litter size, lambing rate, daily body gain of lambs, kilograms of lambs produced per ewe in addition to productive performance of their lambs. Thirty three pregnant Rahmani ewes at the third parity, of 56.73 ± 1.54 kg average live body weight, and at 105 days of pregnancy were divided according to age and weight into three equal groups (G1, G2 and G3) and fed according to NRC allowances, where diets contained 0, 1 and 2 g Lacture/head/day, respectively. After ewes weaned their lambs, eighteen out of the 19 born male lambs were allotted according to weight and litter size, and divided into three equal treatments (T1, T2 and T3), and were fed the same treatments as their dams, until 180 days of age. The feed dry matter intake (DM) was better in G2 and G3 supplement groups compared with control (G1). Changes in live body weight of ewes during late pregnancy and suckling period was not significantly affected by treatments, but with numerically positive effect with supplement groups, G2 (9.27 kg) and G3 (9.46) compared with control (G1) (10.0 kg), respectively. Results indicated that yeast supplemented groups had significantly higher serum glucose, cholesterol, total lipids, total protein, albumin, globulin, urea-N and both GOT and GPT than the control. Therefore, the present blood parameters of supplemented treated groups may indicate the beneficial effect of the supplements on metabolism and the present data were within the normal ranges for healthy sheep. T3, respectively. Accordingly, the economic efficiency was higher due to using Lacture at levels of 1 and 2 g/head/day compared with the control one (0g).
Cooking and Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: A qualitative analysis of amateur chefs' perspectives

The aim of the present study was to examine the effect of cooking as a hobby activity on the chefs, in the context of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Twenty semi-structured interviews were conducted with amateur chefs in the qualitative part of the present study. The results of the analyses show that Maslow's theoretical construct is a relevant and valid context for understanding the effect of cooking on the chefs. Thus we found that cooking affords amateur chefs a sense of control, of social and ethnic belongingness, connecting to family's roots, it reinforces self efficacy and social esteem. We also found that cooking allows amateur chefs to express their creativity and feel good about themselves. Finally, the study shows that as perceived by amateur chefs, it has therapeutic elements, such as a dim sense of time, altered conscious level and strong sensual stimulus. The option of serving the cooked product was also perceived as a therapeutic variable in cooking.
Physical and biogeochemical parameters of the Mediterranean Sea during a cruise with RV in 2018

The last few decades have seen dramatic changes in the hydrography and biogeochemistry of the Mediterranean Sea. The complex bathymetry and highly variable spatial and temporal scales of atmospheric forcing, convective and ventilation processes contribute to generate complex and unsteady circulation patterns and signiﬁcant variability in biogeochemical systems. Part of the variability of this system can be inﬂuenced by anthropogenic contributions. Consequently, it is necessary to document details and to understand trends in place to better relate the observed processes and to possibly predict the consequences of these changes. In this context we report data from an oceanographic cruise in the Mediterranean Sea on the German research vessel Maria S. Merian (MSM72) in March 2018. The main objective of the cruise was to contribute to the understanding of long-term changes and trends in physical and biogeochemical parameters, such as the anthropogenic carbon uptake and to further assess the hydrographical situation after the major climatological shifts in the eastern and western part of the basin, known as the Eastern and Western Mediterranean Transients. During the cruise, multidisciplinary measurements were conducted on a predominantly zonal section throughout the Mediterranean Sea, contributing to the Med-SHIP and GO-SHIP long-term repeat cruise section that is conducted at regular intervals in the Mediterranean Sea to observe changes and impacts on physical and biogeochemical variables. The data can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.905902 (Hainbucher et al., 2019), (Hainbucher, 2020a) 2020b) 2020c)
VP7 Mediates the Interaction of Rotaviruses with Integrin (cid:2) v (cid:3) 3 through a Novel Integrin-Binding Site

Rotavirus entry is a complex multistep process that depends on the trypsin cleavage of the virus spike protein VP4 into polypeptides VP5 and VP8 and on the interaction of these polypeptides and of VP7, the second viral surface protein, with several cell surface molecules, including integrin (cid:1) v (cid:2) 3. We characterized the effect of the trypsin cleavage of VP4 on the binding to MA104 cells of the sialic acid-dependent virus strain RRV and its sialic acid-independent variant, nar3. We found that, although the trypsin treatment did not affect the attachment of these viruses to the cell surface, their binding was qualitatively different. In contrast to the trypsin-treated viruses, which initially bound to the cell surface through VP4, the non-trypsin-treated variant nar3 bound to the cell through VP7. Amino acid sequence comparison of the surface proteins of rotavirus and hantavirus, both of which interact with integrin (cid:1) v (cid:2) 3 in an RGD-independent manner, identiﬁed a region shared by rotavirus VP7 and hantavirus G1G2 protein in which six of nine amino acids are identical. This region, which is highly conserved among the VP7 proteins of different rotavirus strains,
Privatization , Distortions , and Productivity ∗

I develop a new framework for analyzing the direct and indirect effects of privatization on productivity and distortion. To do so, I propose a novel method to jointly estimate distortions, productivity and production function parameters. I then apply the method to Chinese National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) industrial annual surveys from 1998 to 2007. I find that when a firm is privatized, it immediately realizes a 5% increase in productivity, which is equivalent to one year of productivity growth for an average manufacturing firm in the sample. Coupled with the estimated persistent productivity process, overall privatization increases privatized firms’ productivity about 14% at 2007. Meanwhile, privatization reduces distortions by 2%. Privatization directly contributes 5% in the aggregate productivity growth in the sample, mainly through its impact on firm productivity. In contrast, the gains from improved factor reallocation due to privatization appear to have limited effects on firm revenues and aggregate TFP. ∗I am grateful to Thomas Chaney, Patrick Fève, Christian Hellwig, Augustin Landier, Thierry Magnac, Mart́ı Mestieri, Franck Portier, Paul Scott, Robert Ulbricht, Jo Van Biesebroeck, Venky Venkateswaran and participants in the Macro Workshop at Toulouse, 2015 ECORES Summer School, and EEA Meeting at Mannheim for helpful comments and suggestions. I thank Jo Van Biesebroeck and Yifan Zhang for sharing the price data and code with me, and answering many questions about the data. All remaining errors are my own. Correspondence: kun.li@tse-fr.eu.
Not all roads lead to Rome: non-equifinality in dynamic capabilities and process configuration

Abstract Although the literature indicates the relevance of dynamic capabilities (DCs) in explaining heterogeneity in firm performance, there is a limited understanding of why some firms deploy DCs better than others do. Using a configurational approach grounded in strategic management, this article argues that the configuration of processes that build DCs matters for performance. Results based on data from 3,632 Brazilian firm-year observations support the assertion that DCs rely on single-process configuration. This finding suggests that the assumption of equifinality does not apply to this aspect of DCs, which extends the literature by offering empirical evidence to a point of division between scholars and contributes to practitioners by shedding light on one locus of competitive advantage in DCs.
A decade of proxy internet use: The changing role of socio-demographics and family support in nonusers’ indirect internet access to online services

Abstract Internet nonuse persists among the most excluded groups of people, particularly among aging and low-educated populations. Proxy internet use (PIU), where nonusers ask internet users to do things online for them, helps nonusers mitigate their exclusion from the digital realm. This study examines the changing factors that shape PIU activation. Specifically, it focuses on the changing role of socio-demographics and family support in internet nonusers’ access to online services by comparing factors engendering active engagement in PIU in 2009 and 2018. The results from multivariate analyses of cross-sectional survey data from two nationwide representative samples collected nine years apart in Slovenia show that both sets of factors have lost their explanatory power over time. At the same time, internet nonusers are increasingly concentrated in the most vulnerable groups of people. Specifically, the decreasing importance of (grand)children as proxy users and the newly emerging importance of spouses or partners represents a shift away from intergenerational support and toward intragenerational support in regards to who nonusers rely on when asking for help with online tasks and services.
Exploring the impacts of transformational supervision on supermarket store managers’ creativity: evidence from Nigeria, South Africa, and the United Kingdom

Abstract The current article is one of the rare studies to specifically focus on the contextual conditions under which the learning-related actions of transformational supervisors’ help retailing supermarkets’ store managers to learn and engage in behaviors that produce creative outcomes. We use a qualitative research approach with the data based on in-depth semi structured interviews with 40 retailing supermarkets’ store managers in Nigeria, South Africa and the UK. Our findings show that transformational supervision significantly boosts store managers’ creativity, facilitated by fostering store managers’ learning orientation, creative role identity (CRI) and creative self-efficacy (CSE), in all three contexts. From our findings, we have developed a model that symbolize the role of transformational supervisors in fostering store managers’ creativity, which provides a baseline for supermarkets in (re)evaluating the significance of their leadership styles on follower creativity.
ANALYSIS OF RURAL WORKERS’ EXPOSURE TO PESTICIDES

Objective: To analyze the use and handling of pesticides by workers from ten rural communities in the city of Vitória de Santo Antão-PE. Methods: Observational cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted from January to July 2010, through the application of a structured questionnaire to a sample of convenience. Sample size was estimated with a level of significance (α) of 5% in order to access variables on personal data, use and handling of pesticides. Results: Of 230 farm workers in the studied region, most were women (n=157; 69.2%) with incomplete elementary school level (n=130; 57%). It was observed that 141 (61.3%) respondent workers reported to use pesticides and only 3 (0.9%) applied the product under technical guidance of experts. Of the interviewees, 97 (28.3%) were unaware of the grace period, 67 (19.5%) unaware of recycling law, 95 (27.7%) did not use personal protective equipment, 80 (23.3%) used the rivers for washing the equipment and 108 (31.5%) reused the remains of liquid preparations. Conclusions: The harmful exposure of rural workers who used pesticides and the permanent environment contamination are evidenced. Such data reflects an agricultural model that seeks productivity and financial profits without proper compliance to health promotion and quality of the environment.
Physiological arousal explains infant gaze following in various social contexts

Gaze following (GF) is fundamental to central aspects of human sociocognitive development, such as acquiring language and cultural learning. Studies have shown that infant GF is not a simple reflexive orientation to an adult's eye movement. By contrast, infants adaptively modulate GF behaviour depending on the social context. However, arguably, the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying contextual modulation of GF remain somewhat unexplored. In this study, we tested the proposition about whether the contextual modulation of infant GF is mediated by the infant's heart rate (HR), which indicates the infant's physiological arousal. Forty-one 6- to 9-month-old infants participated in this study, and infants observed either a reliable face, which looked towards the location of an object, or an unreliable face, which looked away from the location of an object. Thereafter, the infants watched a video of the same model making eye contact or not making any ostensive signals, before shifting their gaze towards one of the two objects. We revealed that reliability and eye contact acted independently to increase HR, which then fully mediates the effects of these social cues on the frequency of GF. Results suggest that each social cue independently enhances physiological arousal, which then accumulatively predicts the likelihood of infant GF behaviour.
Gut microbiota individuality is contingent on temporal scale and age in wild meerkats

Inter-individual differences in gut microbiota composition are hypothesized to generate variation in host fitness—a premise for the evolution of host–gut microbe symbioses. However, recent evidence suggests that gut microbial communities are highly dynamic, challenging the notion that individuals harbour unique gut microbial phenotypes. Leveraging a long-term dataset of wild meerkats, we reconcile these concepts by demonstrating that the relative importance of identity for shaping gut microbiota phenotypes depends on the temporal scale. Across meerkat lifespan, year-to-year variation overshadowed the effects of identity and social group in predicting gut microbiota composition, with identity explaining on average less than 2% of variation. However, identity was the strongest predictor of microbial phenotypes over short sampling intervals (less than two months), predicting on average 20% of variation. The effect of identity was also dependent on meerkat age, with the gut microbiota becoming more individualized and stable as meerkats aged. Nevertheless, while the predictive power of identity was negligible after two months, gut microbiota composition remained weakly individualized compared to that of other meerkats for up to 1 year. These findings illuminate the degree to which individualized gut microbial signatures can be expected, with important implications for the time frames over which gut microbial phenotypes may mediate host physiology, behaviour and fitness in natural populations.
Size-selective harvesting affects the immunocompetence of guppies exposed to the parasite Gyrodactylus

Harvesting is typically size-selective, targeting large individuals. This is expected to lead to reduced average body size and earlier maturation (i.e. faster life histories). Such changes can also affect traits seemingly unrelated to harvesting, including immunocompetence. Here we test four hypotheses on how harvesting affects immunocompetence based on the pace-of-life syndrome, habitat area limitation and energy allocation and acquisition, respectively. We empirically evaluate these hypotheses using an experimental system consisting of the ectoparasite Gyrodactylus turnbulli and lines of guppies Poecilia reticulata that had been subjected to either small, random or large size-selective harvest for over 12 years. We followed the infection progression of individually infected fish for 15 days. We found significant differences between the harvested lines: fish from the small-harvested lines had the highest parasite loads. During the early phase of the infection, parasite loads were the lowest in the large-harvested lines, whereas the terminal loads were the lowest for the random-harvested lines. These results agree with the predictions from the energetic trade-off and surface area hypotheses. To our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of the consequences of size-selective harvesting on immunocompetence.
Citation counts and journal impact factors do not capture some indicators of research quality in the behavioural and brain sciences

Citation data and journal impact factors are important components of faculty dossiers and figure prominently in both promotion decisions and assessments of a researcher’s broader societal impact. Although these metrics play a large role in high-stakes decisions, the evidence is mixed about whether they are strongly correlated with indicators of research quality. We use data from a large-scale dataset comprising 45 144 journal articles with 667 208 statistical tests and data from 190 replication attempts to assess whether citation counts and impact factors predict three indicators of research quality: (i) the accuracy of statistical reporting, (ii) the evidential value of the reported data and (iii) the replicability of a given experimental result. Both citation counts and impact factors were weak and inconsistent predictors of research quality, so defined, and sometimes negatively related to quality. Our findings raise the possibility that citation data and impact factors may be of limited utility in evaluating scientists and their research. We discuss the implications of these findings in light of current incentive structures and discuss alternative approaches to evaluating research.
No evidence of repeated song divergence across multiple urban and non-urban populations of dark-eyed juncos (Junco hyemalis) in Southern California

Urbanization can affect species communication by introducing new selection pressures, such as noise pollution and different environmental transmission properties. These selection pressures can trigger divergence between urban and non-urban populations. Songbirds rely on vocalizations to defend territories and attract mates. Urban songbirds have been shown in some species and some populations to increase the frequencies, reduce the length and change other temporal features of their songs. This study compares songs from four urban and three non-urban populations of dark-eyed juncos (Junco hyemalis) throughout Southern California. We examined song length, trill rate, minimum frequency, maximum frequency, peak frequency and frequency bandwidth. We also compared songs recorded from one urban junco population in San Diego nearly two decades ago with recently collected data in 2018–2020. Over all comparisons, we only found significant differences between UCLA and the 2006/2007 UCSD field seasons in minimum and maximum frequencies. These findings partially support and are partially in contrast to previous urban song studies. As urban areas expand, more opportunities will arise to understand urban song divergence in greater detail.
Flight or protection: the genes Ultrabithorax and apterous in the determination of membranous and sclerotized wings in insects

Present-day pterygote insects have two pairs of wings, one in the mesothorax (T2), the other in the metathorax (T3), and both have diverged in structure and function in different groups. Studies in endopterygote and paraneopteran species have shown that the gene Ultrabithorax (Ubx) specifies the identity and wing structure in T3, whereas the gene apterous (ap) significantly contributes to forming modified T2 wings. We wondered whether these Ubx and ap mechanisms operate in the lineage of polyneopterans. To explore this possibility, we used the cockroach Blattella germanica (Polyneoptera and Blattodea), in which the T2 wings are sclerotized (tegmina), whereas those of the T3 are membranous. We found that Ubx determines the structure of T3 and the membranous wing, while ap significantly contributes to form the sclerotized T2 tegmina. These results along with the studies carried out on the beetle Tribolium castaneum by Tomoyasu and collaborators suggest that ap plays an important role in the sclerotization and melanization of the T2 wings in neopteran groups that have sclerotized forewings. In turn, the sclerotizing properties of ap demonstrated in beetles and cockroaches suggest that the origin of this function goes back to the emergence of Neoptera, in the mid Devonian.
Critical Challenges in the Implementation of Sustainable Construction Practices in Edo State, Nigeria

The contribution of buildings to Nigeria's development has not yielded the desired results. This can be attributed to failed projects and currently their poor performance. The aim of this study is to evaluate the critical challenges in the implementation of sustainable construction in Edo State, Nigeria with a view to enhancing the sustainability of building projects. It identified the challenges involved in implementing sustainable development and mitigating measures to these challenges. The study adopted a quantitative survey design with a questionnaire used to solicit information from construction professionals within Edo State. One hundred and fifty eight (158) questionnaires were distributed using random sampling technique and one hundred and twenty two were returned and considered suitable for analysis. Data analysis was done using percentage and mean item score. Findings revealed that the challenges hampering the effective implementation of sustainable construction was lack of sustainability by consultants which is a major challenge besetting the effective implementation of sustainable construction. It showed that introduction of sustainable construction in the educational institutions was the most significant mitigating measures. It recommended that the construction professionals should fully embrace the implementation of sustainable construction in the course of performing their defined job functions and sustainable construction should be introduced in educational institutions.