Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Exploring the Role of Media Sources on COVID-19–Related Discrimination Experiences and Concerns Among Asian People in the United States: Cross-Sectional Survey Study

Background Media coverage and scholarly research have reported that Asian people who reside in the United States have been the targets of racially motivated incidents during the COVID-19 pandemic. Objective This study aimed to examine the types of discrimination and worries experienced by Asians and Asian Americans living in the United States during the pandemic, as well as factors that were associated with everyday discrimination experience and concerns about future discrimination that the Asian community may face. Methods A cross-sectional online survey was conducted. A total of 235 people who identified themselves as Asian or Asian American and resided in the United States completed the questionnaire. Results Our study suggested that up to a third of Asians surveyed had experienced some type of discrimination. Pooling the responses “very often,” “often,” and “sometimes,” the percentages for each experienced discrimination type ranged between 14%-34%. In total, 49%-58% of respondents expressed concerns about discrimination in the future. The most frequently experienced discrimination types, as indicated by responses “very often” and “often,” were “people act as if they think you are dangerous” (25/235, 11%) and “being treated with less courtesy or respect” (24/235, 10%). About 14% (32/235) of individuals reported very often, often, or sometimes being threatened or harassed. In addition, social media use was significantly associated with a higher likelihood of experiencing discrimination (β=.18, P=.01) and having concerns about future episodes of discrimination the community may face (β=.20, P=.005). Use of print media was also positively associated with experiencing discrimination (β=.31, P<.001). Conclusions Our study provided important empirical evidence regarding the various types of discrimination Asians residing in the United States experienced or worried about during the COVID-19 pandemic. The relationship between media sources and the perception of racial biases in this group was also identified. We noted the role of social media in reinforcing the perception of discrimination experience and concerns about future discrimination among Asians during this outbreak. Our results indicate several practical implications for public health agencies. To reduce discrimination against Asians during the pandemic, official sources and public health professionals should be cognizant of the possible impacts of stigmatizing cues in media reports on activating racial biases. Furthermore, Asians or Asian Americans could also be informed that using social media to obtain COVID-19 information is associated with an increase in concerns about future discrimination, and thus they may consider approaching this media source with caution.
Robinia pseudoacacia L. in Short Rotation Coppice: Seed and Stump Shoot Reproduction as well as UAS-based Spreading Analysis

Varying reproduction strategies are an important trait that tree species need in order both to survive and to spread. Black locust is able to reproduce via seeds, stump shoots, and root suckers. However, little research has been conducted on the reproduction and spreading of black locust in short rotation coppices. This research study focused on seed germination, stump shoot resprout, and spreading by root suckering of black locust in ten short rotation coppices in Germany. Seed experiments and sample plots were analyzed for the study. Spreading was detected and measured with unmanned aerial system (UAS)-based images and classification technology—object-based image analysis (OBIA). Additionally, the classification of single UAS images was tested by applying a convolutional neural network (CNN), a deep learning model. The analyses showed that seed germination increases with increasing warm-cold variety and scarification. Moreover, it was found that the number of shoots per stump decreases as shoot age increases. Furthermore, spreading increases with greater light availability and decreasing tillage. The OBIA and CNN image analysis technologies achieved 97% and 99.5% accuracy for black locust classification in UAS images. All in all, the three reproduction strategies of black locust in short rotation coppices differ with regards to initialization, intensity, and growth performance, but all play a role in the survival and spreading of black locust.
Hunting and evolution: theory, evidence, and unknowns

Intense selective harvest of large mammals who carry the largest weapons may lead to an evolutionary shrinkage of those weapons. Currently, evidence suggesting evolutionary effects of harvest is limited to a few species of Bovidae and only 1 study has obtained data indicating a genetic effect. To have an evolutionary impact, harvest must be intense, persistent over time, similar over a large area without an effective source of unselected immigrants, and remove large individuals before they have a chance to breed. Many current harvest schemes do not fulfill all of these requirements, and they are unlikely to cause evolution. Before changes in weapon size over time are attributed to evolution, potential environmental sources of change, mainly density and climate, must be considered. We suggest that the role of weapon size in determining reproductive success, especially in interaction with male age, will determine whether or not intensive selective harvests may have evolutionary consequences. Age at harvest is a very important variable to consider. Changes in age structure over time may reveal underlying changes in harvest pressure or selectivity. A lack of data hampers our ability to assess the potential evolutionary effects of selective hunting. We provide a list of research hypotheses required to advance our ability to assess the evolutionary sustainability of current management practices.
Task Errors Drive Memories That Improve Sensorimotor Adaptation

Traditional views of sensorimotor adaptation (i.e., adaptation of movements to perturbed sensory feedback) emphasize the role of automatic, implicit correction of sensory prediction errors. However, latent memories formed during sensorimotor adaptation, manifest as improved relearning (e.g., savings), have recently been attributed to strategic corrections of task errors (failures to achieve task goals). Traditional views of sensorimotor adaptation (i.e., adaptation of movements to perturbed sensory feedback) emphasize the role of automatic, implicit correction of sensory prediction errors. However, latent memories formed during sensorimotor adaptation, manifest as improved relearning (e.g., savings), have recently been attributed to strategic corrections of task errors (failures to achieve task goals). To dissociate contributions of task errors and sensory prediction errors to latent sensorimotor memories, we perturbed target locations to remove or enforce task errors during learning and/or test, with male/female human participants. Adaptation improved after learning in all conditions where participants were permitted to correct task errors, and did not improve whenever we prevented correction of task errors. Thus, previous correction of task errors was both necessary and sufficient to improve adaptation. In contrast, a history of sensory prediction errors was neither sufficient nor obligatory for improved adaptation. Limiting movement preparation time showed that the latent memories driven by learning to correct task errors take at least two forms: a time-consuming but flexible component, and a rapidly expressible, inflexible component. The results provide strong support for the idea that movement corrections driven by a failure to successfully achieve movement goals underpin motor memories that manifest as savings. Such persistent memories are not exclusively mediated by time-consuming strategic processes but also comprise a rapidly expressible but inflexible component. The distinct characteristics of these putative processes suggest dissociable underlying mechanisms, and imply that identification of the neural basis for adaptation and savings will require methods that allow such dissociations. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Latent motor memories formed during sensorimotor adaptation manifest as improved adaptation when sensorimotor perturbations are reencountered. Conflicting theories suggest that this “savings” is underpinned by different mechanisms, including a memory of successful actions, a memory of errors, or an aiming strategy to correct task errors. Here we show that learning to correct task errors is sufficient to show improved subsequent adaptation with respect to naive performance, even when tested in the absence of task errors. In contrast, a history of sensory prediction errors is neither sufficient nor obligatory for improved adaptation. Finally, we show that latent sensorimotor memories driven by task errors comprise at least two distinct components: a time-consuming, flexible component, and a rapidly expressible, inflexible component.
Reduction of proteolysis of high protein silage from Moringa and Indigofera leaves by addition of tannin extract

Aim: The objective of this experiment was to evaluate the effect of the addition of tannin extract to Moringa and Indigofera leaf silages on their chemical composition, silage quality characteristics, and in vitro rumen fermentation parameters and digestibility. Materials and Methods: Moringa and Indigofera leaves were cut (3 cm length) and added with either 0, 2, or 4% chestnut tannin in three replicates. The leaves were then inserted into lab-scale silos (1 L capacity) and kept for 30 days. Silage samples were subjected to silage quality determination, chemical composition analysis, and in vitro rumen fermentation and digestibility evaluation using a gas production technique. Data obtained were subjected to the analysis of variance with a factorial statistical model in which the first factor was different silage species and the second factor was tannin addition levels. Results: Tannin addition at 4% dry matter (DM) increased neutral detergent insoluble crude protein (NDICP) and acid detergent insoluble CP (ADICP) of Indigofera silage. A similar response was observed in Moringa silage, but it required less tannin, i.e., 2% DM to increase its NDICP and ADICP. Moringa silage had lower pH than that of Indigofera silage (p<0.05), and tannin addition did not change pH of both Indigofera and Moringa silages. Higher addition level of tannin decreased total volatile fatty acid (VFA) and ammonia concentrations of both Indigofera and Moringa silages (p<0.05). A higher level of tannin addition reduced ruminal total VFA concentration, ammonia, in vitro DM digestibility, and in vitro organic matter digestibility of Indigofera and Moringa silages (p<0.05). Tannin addition also decreased ruminal methane emission of both Indigofera and Moringa silages (p<0.05). Conclusion: Tannin extract can reduce proteolysis of high protein silage from Moringa and Indigofera leaves.
Assessment of Genotoxicity of Potassium Nitrate and Sodium Benzoate in Drosophila melanogaster Using Smart and Comet Assays

Modern food industry increasingly relies on food additives. The dramatic increase in the demand on preserved ready to eat food products making up to 75 percent of the diet of western society lead to neglectance of the harmful effects of the food additives on human health; among these are hypersensitivity, allergic reactions, genotoxicity, mutagenicity and more. This proposal investigates genotoxic effects of two commonly used food preservatives; sodium benzoate and potassium nitrate using the somatic mutation and recombination test (SMART) and comet assay. Two important end points of genotoxicity can be covered by in vivo assay systems; comet assay detects DNA damage, while the Drosophila transgenic animal model recognizes gene mutation and/or chromosomal aberrations. Both of the tested compounds showed significantly high levels of tumor induction and frequency compared to a negative control in SMART assay accompanied with a significant amount of DNA damage detected by the comet assay indicating their high potential of being genotoxic materials
The Asymmetry in Responsible Investing Preferences

We design an experiment to understand how social preferences affect investment decisions through stock allocations and probability assessments. The major preference channel is asymmetric in social outcomes – although negative and positive responsible investment (RI) externalities have the same magnitudes, negative externalities have greater impact on investment choices. The effect is persistent, but heterogenous. We also find asymmetries in belief formation and learning constitute a secondary channel. Overall, our results are consistent with important stylized empirical facts and the predictions of recent RI theories that social preferences lead to different investment choices, but our analyses also suggest important future modeling directions.
Improving Individual Tree Crown Delineation and Attributes Estimation of Tropical Forests Using Airborne LiDAR Data

Individual tree crown (ITC) segmentation is an approach to isolate individual tree from the background vegetation and delineate precisely the crown boundaries for forest management and inventory purposes. ITC detection and delineation have been commonly generated from canopy height model (CHM) derived from light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data. Existing ITC segmentation methods, however, are limited in their efficiency for characterizing closed canopies, especially in tropical forests, due to the overlapping structure and irregular shape of tree crowns. Furthermore, the potential of 3-dimensional (3D) LiDAR data is not fully realized by existing CHM-based methods. Thus, the aim of this study was to develop an efficient framework for ITC segmentation in tropical forests using LiDAR-derived CHM and 3D point cloud data in order to accurately estimate tree attributes such as the tree height, mean crown width and aboveground biomass (AGB). The proposed framework entails five major steps: (1) automatically identifying dominant tree crowns by implementing semi-variogram statistics and morphological analysis; (2) generating initial tree segments using a watershed algorithm based on mathematical morphology; (3) identifying “problematic” segments based on predetermined set of rules; (4) tuning the problematic segments using a modified distance-based algorithm (DBA); and (5) segmenting and counting the number of individual trees based on the 3D LiDAR point clouds within each of the identified segment. This approach was developed in a way such that the 3D LiDAR points were only examined on problematic segments identified for further evaluations. 209 reference trees with diameter at breast height (DBH) ≥ 10 cm were selected in the field in two study areas in order to validate ITC detection and delineation results of the proposed framework. We computed tree crown metrics (e.g., maximum crown height and mean crown width) to estimate aboveground biomass (AGB) at tree level using previously published allometric equations. Accuracy assessment was performed to calculate percentage of correctly detected trees, omission and commission errors. Our method correctly identified individual tree crowns with detection accuracy exceeding 80 percent at both forest sites. Also, our results showed high agreement (R2 > 0.64) in terms of AGB estimates using 3D LiDAR metrics and variables measured in the field, for both sites. The findings from our study demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed framework in delineating tree crowns, even in high canopy density areas such as tropical rainforests, where, usually the traditional algorithms are limited in their performances. Moreover, the high tree delineation accuracy in the two study areas emphasizes the potential robustness and transferability of our approach to other densely forested areas across the globe.
Image preference biases on manual and oculomotor tasks in preliterate children

Pseudoneglect is a leftward spatial bias that is observed in neurotypical people, or people with no known brain damage (Bowers & Heilman, 1980). Line bisection tasks are commonly used to investigate this phenomenon that involve participants marking where they perceive the midpoint to be on a horizontal line. Consistently, neurotypical participants will err to the left of centre on these tasks. Several factors contribute to the extent to which pseudoneglect is experienced including handedness, gender, age, and native reading direction (for a review, see Jewell & McCourt, 2000). Native reading direction been observed to be extremely influential in the direction and severity of spatial biases, with left-to-right reader erring to the left and right-to-left readers erring to right (Faghihi et al., 2019). The majority of studies examining pseudoneglect have included only adult participants or a mix of both child and adult participants. The present study examined this lateral spatial bias in children who have not yet learned to read. Twenty-nine four and five-year-old children completed a task in which they placed felt cut-out images onto felt boards, as well as a forced-choice mirrored image task. Each task was coded and scored for lateral preferences. Children displayed a strong leftward bias for figure placement (p = .007) on the felt board task and a non-significant rightward weighted image preference on the forced choice paradigm. The predicted leftward bias on the felt board task and the unpredicted pattern of directionality between the two tasks is discussed in terms of oculomotor and manual/motor mechanisms and right hemisphere activation.
Microbiomes in ruminant protein production and food security.

Abstract The global population is rapidly increasing and will surpass 10 billion people within the next 20 years. As diminishing resources continue to impact agriculture, and with the necessity to feed the world by 2050, the agricultural sector must be able to sustainably and efficiently produce high-quality sources of food that are both attainable to the global population and contribute to healthy, balanced nutrition. Ruminants are a unique contributor towards a sustainable and food secure world, as they are available and utilized across all economic and social demographics, and can produce high-quality protein from otherwise inedible plants from land that is typically unsuitable for crop production or cultivation. Thus, developing tools, methodologies, and systems for optimizing the production of protein from ruminants stands to make great impacts on food security. Breeding and genetics have played a role in this development, but cannot be a singular solution. Microbes are present at abundances that equal or exceed host cell counts, are ubiquitous throughout all mammalian systems and are required for regular host-physiological functions. Optimizing these host-microbe-symbioses in ruminants permits the opportunity to augment the utility and efficiency of microbiomes and their functions to produce production-specific phenotypes and outputs. This review, therefore, examines the role of microbiomes in ruminants to efficiently and sustainably produce high-quality protein for human consumption to aid in efforts to achieve global food security.
Pressure-parboiled rice: a new base for making expanded rice.

Intan cv. paddy with 11, 17, 20 and 22% moisture content was steamed under pressure ranging from 0.5 to 3.0 kg/cm-2 for 5-30 min. To overcome the brown colour of parboiled rice, paddy was treated with sodium bisulphite at 0.1-10% concn. for 1-2 min and drained and steamed immediately or after 30 h. Expanded rice prepared from (i) pressure parboiled rice was compared with those prepared by (ii) normal parboiled rice (paddy fully soaked, then steamed) or (iii) dry-heat parboiled rice (paddy fully soaked, then roasted with sand). Best expansion was given by pressure parboiled rice produced by lowest grain moisture (11%) and high pressure steaming (11% moisture with 3 kg/cm-2 pressure for 10-20 min or 17% moisture with 2.5-3 kg/cm-2 pressure for 10-15 min). This expansion ratio is superior to those obtained by (ii) or (iii). High discoloration of the pressure parboiled rice could be eliminated by using 2% sodium bisulphite solution instead of water for washing paddy before steaming. The expansion ratio was more (10-10.5) in pressure parboiled rice when it was sprinkled with common salt compared to 8-8.5 in the normal commercial methods of manufacture.
Performance of broiler chickens fed locally grown full-fat soybean based diets in Iraq.

An experiment was conducted for the first time in Iraq to examine the growth performance, carcass characteristics and economic return of diets containing locally grown full-fat soybean (FFSB) in broiler chickens. Five diets were prepared containing 10, 20 and 30% of roasted (RFFSB), 20% unroasted FFSB or control diet containing conventional soybean meal (SBM). Each diet was fed to five replicates of 30 chicks each. For the period from 0 to 21 and 0 to 42 days of age, the birds that were fed 10% RFFSB were significantly superior in weight gain to other experimental birds. However, no significant differences were found between dietary treatments for live body weight at 49 days and weight gain at the period from 0 to 49 days of age. Feeding chickens 10% roasted FFSB resulted in better feed conversion ratio and production index compared to those fed 20, 30% roasted or 20% unroasted FFSB. Results revealed no significant differences in carcass characteristics between the birds fed the five experimental diets. It was concluded that the inclusion of 25% RFFSB in the starter and up to 35% in the finisher of broiler diets instead of SBM would improve performance. Economically each replacement has 100% better economic return to the producer than the conventional soybean meal based diet.
Fundamentals of sol-gel thin film formation

It is shown that the structure of sol-gel-derived thin films depends on the precursor structure and deposition conditions. Weakly branched precursors (reduced D) applied under reaction-limited conditions result in the densest films, whereas branching or aggregation (increased D) combined with transport-limited deposition conditions result in the most porous films. A complete spectrum of microstructures is achievable by independent control of both precursor size and structure and the condensation rate or sticking probability. Application of shear during deposition is shown to restructure tenous, fractal structures and align weakly branched precursors.
Comparison Between Thermophilic and Mesophilic Anaerobic Digestion of Sewage Sludge Coming from Urban Wastewater Treatment Plants

Yields of anaerobic digestion (AD) of sewage sludge carried out at mesophilic and thermophilic conditions at the optimum hydraulic retention times (HRT) found for the semi-dry AD of the mechanically selected organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW) (15 and 12 days, respectively) are compared. Due to the characteristics of the sludge used in thermophilic conditions (partially stabilized) the specific biogas production was lower. However, stability parameters show a secure process. Based on experience gained digesting OFMSW and hypothesizing a similar ratio between yields at mesophilic and thermophilic conditions, an economic analysis has been carried out. It shows that the increased biogas production is large enough to compensate the additional consumption to heat the feed flow rate to 55°C instead to 35°C.