Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Interparental Conflict on Italian Adolescent Adjustment: The Role of Insecurity within the Family

Despite its importance, limited research has examined mechanisms underpinning how interparental conflict affects adolescents in Europe. Using a sample of 141 Italian families (mothers, fathers, and adolescents, Mage = 17.25 years, SD = 0.64), this study explores whether three types of adolescents’ emotional insecurity, which describes adolescents’ vulnerability to conflict, play a role in the association between interparental conflict and adolescents’ adjustment. Participants completed questionnaires related to adolescents’ conflict exposure, adjustment, and emotional insecurity in the parent-adolescent, interparental, and family relationships. As hypothesized, indirect associations were observed involving adolescents’ emotional insecurity in the parent-adolescent and interparental relationships. Surprisingly, the indirect association involving emotional insecurity within the interparental relationship rather than within the family emerged the strongest indirect association of the three types of emotional insecurity. These effects, however, were indistinguishable from the indirect effects of insecurity about the parent-adolescent relationship. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.
A Process-Based, Fully Distributed Soil Erosion and Sediment Transport Model for WRF-Hydro

A soil erosion and sediment transport model (WRF-Hydro-Sed) is introduced to WRF-Hydro. As a process-based, fully distributed soil erosion model, WRF-Hydro-Sed accounts for both overland and channel processes. Model performance is evaluated using observed rain gauge, streamflow, and sediment concentration data during rainfall events in the Goodwin Creek Experimental Watershed in Mississippi, USA. Both streamflow and sediment yield can be calibrated and validated successfully at a watershed scale during rainfall events. Further discussion reveals the model’s uncertainty and the applicability of calibrated hydro- and sediment parameters to different events. While an intensive calibration over multiple events can improve the model’s performance to a certain degree compared with single event-based calibration, it might not be an optimal strategy to carry out considering the tremendous computational resources needed.
Integrated management approaches for controlling root rot of bael caused by Fusarium solani

An experiment was carried out to find out the effective management practices to control the recently recorded pathogen (Fusarium solani) inciting root rot disease in Bael. Rampant incidence due to this pathogen is resulting in excess damage and reduction in acreage. Out of six fungicides screened in vitro, Topsin-M and Bavistin stood at first place in inhibiting the mycelial growth of F. solani. Topsin-M showed 100% inhibition at 50 ppm concentration whereas Bavistin showed 100% inhibition at 150 ppm concentration. Bavistin and Topsin-M as seed dressers effectively protected pre and post emergence seedlings mortality to the tune of 68.75 and 70.95%; 65.00 and 67.54%, respectively. Pre-sowing drenching of soil with Bavistin (0.4%) reduced the pre-emergence mortality from 26.50 to 8.25% and post-emergence mortality from 39.00 to 16.25%. The integration of seed treatment and pre-sowing drenching resulted in 72.51% control of pre emergence mortality and 82.92% control of post emergence mortality. In dual culture method, maximum inhibition of mycelial growth was recorded with Trichoderma harzianum (72.18%) followed by T. viride (67.70%). Glomus mosseae in combination with T. harzianum was found very effective against F. solani under screen house conditions as minimum pre emergence mortality (10.00%) and post emergence mortality (13.25%) against control where the values were 27.25% and 40.25%, respectively. The studies and results compiled here in provide an explanation for the potential of selected fungicides and antagonists in the control of bael root rot disease.
Serum levels of zinc, copper, selenium and glutathione peroxidase in the different groups of colorectal cancer patients

Background: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is considered the fourth type of cancer that causes death worldwide. Changes in the levels of zinc (Zn), copper (Cu), and selenium (Se) as well as low glutathione peroxidase (GPx) activity can lead to CRC and this study was aimed to evaluate their possible use as diagnostic markers. Methods: CRC patients (n=90) were divided into three groups; newly diagnosed, before surgery, and after surgery. These groups were compared to healthy subjects (n=30); the mean age ±SD was 50.63±9.26 and 49.97±10.85 for CRC patients and healthy subjects, respectively. Biochemical study for serum levels of Zn and Cu was measured by FAAS, Se was measured by HGAAS, and ELISA for GPx. Results: Zn, Cu, Se and GPx were significantly lower in all CRC patient groups, except for the after surgery group which showed no differences for Zn and GPx as compared to the healthy subjects. Positive correlations were found between Se and Zn and between Se and GPx (r=0.71, r=0.42; P<0.01, respectively) in all CRC patient groups. A receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was applied for the newly diagnostic group showing all the parameters that can be used as diagnostic markers for CRC. Conclusion: The present results conclude that Zn, Cu Se, and GPx can be used as diagnostic markers for CRC, where the decrease of these parameters may be associated with an increased risk of CRC and as indicators of the response to therapy.
Ancestral and offspring nutrition interact to affect life history traits in Drosophila melanogaster

Ancestral environmental conditions can impact descendant phenotypes through a variety of epigenetic mechanisms. Previous studies on transgenerational effects in Drosophila melanogaster suggest that parental nutrition may affect the body size, developmental duration, and egg size of the next generation. However, it is unknown whether these effects on phenotype remain stable across generations, or if specific generations have general responses to ancestral diet. In the current study, we examined the effect on multiple life history phenotypes of changing diet quality across three generations. Our analysis revealed unforeseen patterns in how phenotypes respond to dietary restriction. Our generalized linear model showed that when considering only two generations, offspring phenotypes were primarily affected by their own diet, and to a lesser extent by the diet of their parents or the interaction between the two generations. Surprisingly, however, when considering three generations, offspring phenotypes were primarily impacted by their grandparents’ diet and their own diet. Interactions amongst different generations’ diets affected development time, egg volume, and pupal mass more than ovariole number or wing length. Further, pairwise comparisons of diet groups from the same generation revealed commonalities in strong responses to rich vs. poor diet: ovariole number, pupal mass, and wing length responded more strongly to poor diet than to rich diet, while development time responded strongly to both rich and poor diets. To improve investigations into the mechanisms and consequences of transgenerational, epigenetic inheritance, future studies should closely examine how phenotypes change across a higher number of generations, and consider responses to broader variability in diet treatments.
Salts Waters and Biofertilizers in Jackfruit Seedlings Formation

The salinity is considered one of the main obstacles to agriculture worldwide, constituting one of the limiting factors to the growth and development of the plants. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of salinity of irrigation water in the formation of seedlings two varieties of jackfruits, and with the application of common bovine biofertilizer and chemically enriched bovine biofertilizers. In this sense, an experimente was carried in greenhouse conditions, in the period from October 2015 to February 2016, in Areia County, Paraiba State, Brazil. The substrate used was a material collected of the first 10 cm of depth of a Dystrophic Regolitic Entisol. The experimental design was completely randomized in a factorial scheme 5 × 3 × 2, corresponding to levels of irrigation water saline of 0.5; 1.0; 2.0; 3.0 and 4.0 dS m-1, in soil without and with common bovine biofertilizer and enriched biofertilizer, tested with two varieties of jackfruit (jack-soft and jack-hard), and with six replicates. The biofertilizer after dilution in non-saline water (0.5 dS m-1), in proportion of 1:3, where was applied once to 10% of the substrate volume, two days before sowing. The increment of irrigation water salinity inhibited alls variables studied in the jackfruits plants, but with less intensity in the treatments with bovine common biofertilizer.
Endothelial progenitor cells in cardiovascular diseases

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the leading cause of death in both developed and developing countries. Endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) are derived from hematopoietic stem cells with powerful function of angiogenesis. There are many studies on the relation between coronary heart disease and circulating EPCs. In this review, we discuss biological characteristics of endothelial progenitor cells, some influencing factors of the number and function of EPCs, and the role of EPCs in the treatment of cardiovascular disease. At last, we bring some perspectives on the future of endothelial progenitor cell therapy.
Nonsynonymous A-to-I RNA editing contributes to burden of deleterious missense variants in healthy individuals

Adenosine-to-inosine (A-to-I) RNA editing is a very common post-transcriptional modification that can lead to A-to-G changes at the RNA level and compensate for G-to-A genomic changes to a certain extent. It has been shown that each healthy individual can carry dozens of missense variants predicted to be severely deleterious. Why strongly detrimental variants are preserved in a population and not eliminated by negative natural selection remains mostly unclear. Here we ask if RNA editing correlates with the burden of deleterious A/G polymorphisms in a population. Integrating genome and transcriptome sequencing data from 447 human lymphoblastoid cell lines, we show that nonsynonymous editing activities (prevalence/level) are negatively correlated with the deleteriousness of A-to-G genomic changes and positively correlated with that of G-to-A genomic changes within the population. We find a significantly negative correlation between nonsynonymous editing activities and allele frequency of A within the population. This negative editing-allele frequency correlation is particularly strong when editing sites are located in highly important genes/loci. Examinations of deleterious missense variants from the 1000 genomes project further show a significantly higher mutational burden in G-to-A changes than in other types of changes. The level of the mutational burden in G-to-A changes increases with increasing deleterious effects of the changes. Moreover, the deleteriousness of G-to-A changes is significantly positively correlated with the percentage of binding motif of editing enzymes at the variants. Overall, we show that nonsynonymous editing contributes to the increased burden of G-to-A missense mutations in healthy individuals, expanding RNA editing in pathogenomics studies.
Do High Oil Prices Obstruct the Transition to Renewable Energy Consumption?

The study analyzes the impact of economic growth, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, and oil price on renewable energy consumption in Azerbaijan for the data spanning from 1992 to 2015, utilizing structural time series modeling approach. Estimation results reveal that there is a long-run positive and statistically significant effect of economic growth on renewable energy consumption and a negative impact of oil price in the case of Azerbaijan, for the studied period. The negative impact of oil price on renewable energy consumption can be seen as an indication of comfort brought by the environment of higher oil prices, which delays the transition from conventional energy sources to renewable energy consumption for the studied country case. Also, we find that the effect of CO2 on renewable energy consumption is negative but statistically insignificant. The results of this article might be beneficial for policymakers and support the current literature for further research for oil-rich developing countries.
A Study of Secondary Teachers’ Perceptions of Engineers and Conceptions of Engineering

People’s personal beliefs and perceptions can be explored and interpreted by investigating the mental images that they draw with regards to a specific subject. With this in mind, many researchers utilize the Draw-An-Engineer Test (DAET) instrument to evaluate students’ and teachers’ perceptions of engineers and engineering through drawings. Previous research shows that teachers’ perceptions and attitudes toward engineers and engineering can play a substantial role in affecting perceptions and stereotypes of students related to engineering. Because the teachers’ perceptions are correlated with their students’ perceptions, understanding and improving how teachers perceive the concepts of engineers and engineering can be used to enhance students’ perceptions toward the same concepts and improve the number of students who choose Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) fields as their future careers. In this study, twenty-four STEM teachers participated in a two-week-long engineering-focused professional development (PD) program in 2017 and 2018. The STEM teachers learned about innovative engineering technologies and designing appropriate lesson plans to incorporate the newly learned content into their curricula. The purpose of this study was twofold. First, the authors aimed to understand the characteristics of the mental images teachers had regarding engineers and engineering. Second, the authors focused on understanding how participant teachers’ perceptions changed regarding engineers and engineering after the two-week-long PD ended. The participating teachers in the study were administrated the DAET followed by a survey including 5 open-ended questions. Teachers drew an engineer and then answered the open-ended questions in two occasions; once before the PD activities and once after the PD activities. The pre- and post- drawings were evaluated using the DAET rubric and analyzed using the descriptive and inferential statistics, the pre-post open-ended question responses were analyzed by using the constant comparative method. Findings from the qualitative and quantitative data analyses are reported.
Scant evidence for a volcanically forced winter warming over Eurasia following the Krakatau eruption of August 1883

Abstract. A recent study has presented compelling new evidence suggesting that the observed Eurasian warming in the winter following the 1992 Pinatubo eruption was, in all likelihood, unrelated to the presence of volcanic aerosols in the stratosphere. Building on that study, we turn our attention to the only other low-latitude eruption in the instrumental period with a comparably large magnitude: the Krakatau eruption of August 1883. We study the temperature anomalies in the first winter following that eruption in detail, analyzing (1) observations, (2) reanalyses, and (3) models. Three findings emerge from our analysis. First, the observed post-Krakatau winter warming over Eurasia was unremarkable (only between 1σ and 2σ of the distribution from 1850 to present). Second, reanalyses based on assimilating surface pressure alone indicate the existence of very large uncertainties, so much so that a Eurasian cooling is not incompatible with those reanalyses. Third, models robustly show the complete absence of a volcanically forced Eurasian winter warming: here, we analyze both a 100-member initial-condition ensemble and 140 simulations from Phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project. This wealth of evidence strongly suggests that, as in the case of Pinatubo, the observed warming over Eurasia in the winter of 1883–84 was, in all likelihood, unrelated to the Krakatau eruption. This, taken together with a similar result for Pinatubo, leads us to conclude that if volcanically forced Eurasian winter warming exists at all, an eruption with a magnitude far exceeding these two events would be needed to produce a detectable surface warming.
The Nexus between Public Expenditure and Economic Growth

Research on the nexus between government expenditure and economic growth produces mixed results from different countries. Objective. The objective of this paper is to test if a causal relationship exists between government expenditure and economic growth in South Africa. Prior work: the paper relied on testing the applicability of Wagner’s and Keynesian theories on public expenditure and economic growth with data from South Africa. Approach. Data on South Africa’s government expenditure and economic growth for 1961 – 2018 were used and the Granger causality Wald test was used to analyse the causality. Result. Neither Wager’s nor Keynesian hypothesis was proven within the limit of the fifty-eight years’ data used. This is because the results show no significant causal relationship from either side of economic growth and public expenditure. Implication. Policy makers should pay attention on how to channel government expenditure and the gains from economic growth to improve citizens’ ability to increase their productive capital. Further researchers should expand the time series coverage to go beyond 1961 to check for new results; a regional panel data for Southern Africa is also recommended for further research. Value. This paper produces a new test of Wagner’s and Keynesian hypothesis by merging data from the pre-democratic with the democratic period of South Africa and applied a combination of ADF, co-integration, VAR and Granger Causality analysis.
Motivations, barriers and physical condition in adolescents, according to the stage of change in physical exercise

Through a descriptive and cross-sectional study, a classification is made on the moment of change in physical exercise in adolescents and the relationship with motivations, barriers and physical condition is analyzed in a sample of 379 Spanish young people between 12 and 16 years of age. These evaluations make possible to prepare a basis for an action’s proposal to improve the process of changing habits towards physical exercise. The results show that the majority of the study population (52.2%) is in the Maintenance stage, observing a difference in women (38.3%), and an alarming decrease in physical activity as age increases. The most outstanding motivations are prevention and health, followed by the search for fun and well-being; The most obvious barriers are obligations and lack of time. For this reason, intervention programs should consider these aspects, offering activities compatible with school hours, generating motivational contexts and adapted to the stage in which the subject is.
Status and conservation threats to large mammals of the Laljhadi Mohana Biological Corridor, Nepal

Wildlife corridors connect isolated patches of habitat and support the movement of migratory species from one site to another. Human disturbances cause forest degradation and habitat fragmentation adding to the high risk of species extinction. We laid out 44 grids of 2 km × 2 km in Laljhadi Mohana Biological Corridor (LMBC). In each grid, we generated line transects ranging from 1.5 to 2 km and a systematic line transect survey was carried out with single replication to assess the distribution and relative abundance of large mammals. GPS coordinates were recorded for each direct sighting or indirect sign. Similarly, a local household survey (n=40) and key informant interviews (n=9) were conducted to explore the local perception about existing problems, major conflicting species habitat components, conservation threats and attitude towards the large mammals. A workshop was also held to discuss information about the conflicting species, possible solutions, and the ranking of threats based on a relative ranking system. A total of 51 individuals belonging to six species of large mammals were found in LMBC. Distribution was primarily confined to the south of the corridor, and the relative abundance, in descending order, is the Blue bull (29.4%), Asian elephant (25.5%), Spotted deer (21.5%), Wild boar (15.7%), Common leopard (5.9%) and Bengal tiger (2%). Major conservation threats were forest encroachment and habitat fragmentation (Very High), followed by grazing and forest product consumption (High), natural disaster (Medium) and illegal poaching, infrastructure construction, and invasive species (Low). The LMBC was found to support six large mammals, where mostly Asian elephants and Blue bull are using it for migration.
The miR156: A Master Regulator to Harmonize Complex Biofuel Traits in Lignocellulosic Biomass Crops

Currently, energy security and environmental degradation are the two biggest challenges before humanity that can be surmounted with the use of green and sustainable biofuels produced from lignocellulosic crops. In the future, to ensure adequate and cost-effective supply of biofuels, it requires a sufficient amount of amenable and quality lignocellulosic feedstocks. Therefore, agricultural yields of lignocellulosic biomass crops should be substantially increased by intense genetic maneuvering of key gene regulatory mechanisms and signaling pathways that control plant biomass yield. Recently, numerous miRNAs families are identified, characterized, and validated across the plant kingdom. Plant microRNAs (miRNAs) are 21 to 24 nucleotides long, non-coding small RNAs, act as regulators of their target genes via inducing modifications in transcription, translation, and epigenome. MiRNAs represent many hallmark characteristics like sequencespecific regulation, tissue, and species-specific expression, evolutionary conservation, and functional diversity. They coordinate well physiological and life cycle processes in plants under adverse environmental conditions. Hence, miRNAs offer accurate, precise, and efficient regulatory switches in the miRNA-targeted genetic networks. It is evident from the study of the miR156 family and its target SQUAMOSA PROMOTER BINDING PROTEIN-LIKE (SPL) genes network that controls highly significant agronomic traits in crop plants. The miR156/SPL module acts as a master circuit that synchronizes many intricate complex biological functions such as growth and development, and metabolic processes by sensing internal and external environmental signals in plants. Therefore, miR156 can prove a potential target for miRNAs based plant biotechnology to harmonize complex biofuel traits and improve biomass yield in lignocellulosic biomass crops.