Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Adaptation Strategies of Post-Communist Political Parties: An Introduction

Starting with the third decade of post-communism, the political landscape of the world that once belonged to the Soviet bloc or its satellites has been marked by important transformations at institutional and individual levels. So far, relatively little is known about how political parties respond to recent challenges and developments in politics and societies. This Focus seeks to address this gap in the literature and pursues theoretical, empirical and methodological objectives. The collection of articles seeks to outline a few theoretical models of adaptation to the political realities, to identify and explain various ways in which political parties respond to challenges and continue to perform their function of representation, and to measure variables and concepts that were previously approached only from a normative or descriptive perspective.
Genetic Diversity Patterns and Discrimination of 172 Korean Soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merrill) Varieties Based on SSR Analysis

The soybean development goal in Korea has changed over time, but the pattern of genetic diversity in modern varieties has not yet been well characterized. In this study, 20 simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers are shown to generate a total of 344 alleles, where the number of alleles ranges from 7 to 29, with an average of 17.2 per locus, and the polymorphism informative content (PIC) values range from 0.6799 to 0.9318, with an average of 0.8675. Five different clusters are classified using the unweighted pair group mean arithmetic (UPGMA) method. The genetic distance between clusters I and V (0.3382) is the farthest, and that between clusters III and IV (0.0819) is the closest. The genetic distance between all pairings of groups, according to the time period of their release, is lowest (0.1909) between varieties developed in the 1990s and those from 2000 onward, and highest (0.5731) between varieties developed in the 1980s and those from 2000 onward. Model-based structure analysis revealed the presence of three sub-populations and 17 admixtures in the Korean soybean varieties. All 172 Korean soybean varieties were tested for discrimination using six SSR markers. The numbers of varieties that were clustered in each step are as follows: 7 (4.1%) in step 1 (Sat_076), 73 (42.4%) in step 2 (Sat_417), 69 (40.1%) in step 3 (Sat_043), 13 (7.6%) in step 4 (Satt197), 8 (4.6%) in step 5 (Satt434), and 2 (1.2%) in step 6 (Satt179). These results, based on the analysis of genetic resources, can contribute to the creation of a core collection for soybean conservation and breeding, as well as to the development of future varieties with useful traits.
Analytical approach to optical absorption in carbon nanotubes

We derive an analytic expression for the optical matrix elements of carbon nanotubes and calculate their optical absorption spectra within the tight-binding approximation. For zigzag nanotubes we present an analytical result for the absorption coefficient. Metallic nanotubes have an optical band gap regardless of their chiral angle. The optical absorption intensity increases by up to 10% from zigzag to armchair nanotubes. This trend is in agreement with experiment, although its magnitude is underestimated. We predict a strong absorption peak in the high-energy spectra of certain zigzag nanotubes that can be used to identify the tubes experimentally.
A 3-D-Printed Multibeam Dual Circularly Polarized Luneburg Lens Antenna Based on Quasi-Icosahedron Models for Ka-Band Wireless Applications

This article presents a multibeam dual circularly polarized (CP) Luneburg lens (LL) antenna based on quasi-icosahedron (QICO) models. The lens is sliced into multiple shells and each shell comprises of several triangular unit cells, and then the permittivity variation is achieved by manipulating the wall thickness of each triangular unit cells after the QICO discretization. Such a QICO model is firstly proposed to be used in LL design, which not only makes the lens mechanically robust and manufacturing-friendly (no support is needed in the processing) but also enables the antenna to be polarization insensitive and thus can sustain CP beams very well. A wideband ridged waveguide feed is selected to initiate left-handed CP (LHCP) and right-handed CP (RHCP) beams simultaneously. To prove the concept, a prototype was fabricated using 3-D-printing (3DP) technologies. The measurement results reveal an overlapped bandwidth of 33.1% (26.5–37 GHz) in terms of reflection coefficients lower than −10 dB and axial ratios smaller than 3 dB. Five LHCP and five RHCP beams with gains of 19–21.2 dBic and couplings lower than −20 dB are also demonstrated.
Effects of shading on the growth, development and yield of winged bean (Psophocarpus tetragonolobus)

ABSTRACT: An experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of different shading regimes [i.e., 60% (heavy), 30% (moderate), and 0% (control)] on 25 traits associated with the morphological features, photosynthetic gas exchange and agronomic characteristics of winged bean (Psophocarpus tetragonolobus), an underutilized protein-rich legume from the tropics. Collectively, 80% of the studied variables displayed significant differences (P<0.05) between at least two shade treatments. Shading generally showed most pronounced effect on the physiological traits of the legume, whereby the stomatal conductance, photosynthetic and transpiration rate differed significantly among plants for all treatments. The non-shaded plants were observed to have superior growth and physiological responses than the shaded plants. Interestingly, the moderately shaded plants exhibited the highest yield per plant, which significantly differed from the non-shaded and heavily shaded plants. This indicated that winged bean can adapt to partial canopy cover, making it a potential nitrogen-fixing cash crop which can be planted together with fruit or oil trees in commercial plantations.
Culture Literacy in Non-Formal School: Community Learning Center of Pontian Fico, Sabah Malaysia

—In general, literacy is always associated with the world of education, and it is very closely related to the practice of social relations that include knowledge, language, and culture. Gerakan Literasi Sekolah (School Literacy Movement) is a solution offered by the government to answer the problems of this age. Therefore, this study aims to describe the literacy culture of the children of Indonesian migrant workers in Sabah Malaysia, who attend the non-formal Community Learning Center School of Pontian Fico. The method used in this research is a qualitative method with a descriptive approach. This research reveals that literacy activities are very important in supporting learning for children. The findings in this study also reveal that literacy activities for Indonesian Migrant Workers' children who attend the Community Learning Center of Pontian Fico Sabah Malaysia are only reading activities, which are reading 15 minutes before the learning begins. The limited availability of books also becomes one of the obstacles in the literacy program, especially in the border area. To create a culture of good literacy, special attention needs to be paid by the government to create programs that are relevant for the children of Indonesian Migrant Workers in Malaysia.
Inducción de quitinasas y glucanasas en cepas de Trichoderma spp. promisorias como agentes para el control biológico

Use of fungi of the Trichoderma genus for the biological control of pests and diseases is based, to a large extent, on their secretion of hydrolytic enzymes. The latter include chitinases and glucanases, which degrade the cell wall of phytopathogenic fungi as well as the cuticle of insects and nematodes. The aim of this study was to assess the induction dynamics of chitinases and glucanases in ten strains of Trichoderma spp. grown in liquid media with different inducers: basal medium, basal medium supplemented with 0.5% chitin and basal medium supplemented with 0.2% gelatin. Chitinase and glucanase activity were evaluated at the first, third, fifth and seventh day of culture. The highest values of chitinase activity were obtained in basal and basal media supplemented with chitin; β-1.3-glucanase, on the other hand, exhibited higher levels of activity in basal and basal media supplemented with gelatin.
Does Agricultural Performance Contribute to Rural Poverty Reduction in Indonesia?

Agriculture is the primary sector in many provinces in Indonesia. In fact, most of the rural communities work in the agricultural sector. Nevertheless, the poverty level in rural areas remains high. Therefore, this study was aimed at investigating the performance of the agricultural sector in reducing the rural poverty level in Indonesia, and to investigate factors that contribute as a determinant in reducing rural poverty level in Indonesia. This study was significant, considering that the result was to contribute to government policy evaluation in the agricultural sector, especially in reducing poverty in rural areas. This study used quantitative analysis through multiple regressions with data panel from 2014 to 2017 from 33 provinces in Indonesia. This study revealed that the increase of agricultural sector share and the widening of the income distribution had caused an increase in poor people in a rural area. This finding also revealed that the income distribution gap was a determinant to the severity of rural poverty. The growth in the agricultural sector to contribute toward the economy could reduce rural poverty level in Indonesia. Meanwhile, agricultural financing, economic growth, inflation, and the farmer exchange rate had not significantly contributed to reducing the poverty level.
Developmental and innervation changes in the circumvallate papilla of turmeric treated diabetic rats' offspring versus untreated (A randomized animal controlled trial)

Background:Diabetes mellitus has a deleterious effect on the offspring including a high tendency for abnormalities and defected immune system. The current study was performed to investigate the effect of maternal diabetes on the development and the innervation of circumvallate tongue papillae in their offspring and the possible beneficial effect of turmeric administration to the diabetic mother in preventing the defective development. Materials and Methods: The study was carried out on 60 pups from diabetic mother rats that were classified into 2 main groups: group I which included untreated diabetic mother rats and group II which included diabetic mother rats treated with 30 mg/kg turmeric by oral gavage. The pups were sacrificed after 3, 10 and 60 days. The circumvallate papillae were dissected and examined histologically, immunohistochemically for S100, histomorphometrically and by quantitative reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction for cytokeratin 8. Results: The histopathological results revealed a deformed outline of the papillae in the untreated rats’ offspring with a decreased number of well-formed taste buds, degenerative effects in Remak’s ganglion and decreased innervation while treated rats’ offspring revealed nearly normal histological structure for the circumvallate papilla and the underlying structures. Immunohistochemical results showed significant differences between untreated and turmeric treated groups in terms of S100 expression. CK8 gene expression results revealed a significant increase in the turmeric treated diabetic subgroups as compared to diabetic untreated subgroups at the same age. Conclusion: Maternal diabetes has a degenerative effect on the taste system of the rat offspring including fewer taste buds with a deformed outline and defective innervation. Treating diabetic mothers with turmeric markedly improved the degenerative effect of diabetes on the offsprings’ circumvallate papillae.
A new species of mekosuchine crocodilian from the middle Palaeogene Rundle Formation, central Queensland

A new species of mekosuchine crocodilian is described from the middle Palaeogene Rundle Formation, near Gladstone. Kambara molnari sp. nov. is the third species of Kambara to be recognised in the Australian Palaeogene. The holotype comprises the caudal two thirds of a left mandibular ramus. Referred material includes several fragmentary osteoderms, a proximal phalanx and a procoelous vertebral corpus. Similar to K. murgonensis, when complete, the mandibular ramus of Kambara molnari had 17 dentary alveoli and 2 shallow, rostrocaudally elongate pits lateral to the articular fossa on the dorsolateral surface of the surangular. Unlike K. implexidens, the retroarticular process is 3 times longer than wide in dorsal view, and the retroarticular fossa is divided into 2 smaller fossae by a low, sagittally aligned ridge. The 10th-12th alveoli are confluent. Occlusal grooves for the reception of maxillary pseudocanines are lateral to a point midway between the 7th and 8th, and the 8th and 9th alveoli. Reception pits for maxillary teeth occur between the 12th-17th alveoli. These pits and grooves indicate a partial interlocking occlusal pattern. The partially interlocking occlusal pattern in 2 species of Kambara and an indeterminate early Palaeogene crocodilian from Runcorn, SE Queensland, as well as a sagittally aligned ridge on the retroarticular fossa in K. molnari, indicate a close taxonomic affinity between Mekosuchinae and Crocodylidae.
Metagenomic data analysis : computational methods and applications

Metagenomics is the study of the genomic content of microbial communities, acquired through DNA sequencing technology. The main advantage of metagenomics is that it can overcome the limitations of individual genome sequencing, that can work only on the few culturable microbes. Unfortunately, the analysis of metagenomic data is challenging. Firstly, we do not know from which genome a DNA sequence of the data, called read, was sampled. In most of the cases, the full sequences of the source genomes are not available, and even their number is unknown. Secondly, the information contained in a metagenome is scattered among reads much shorter then their source genomes. The topic of this thesis is the computational analysis of metagenomic data in order to understand their content. We focus mainly on binning, that consists in clustering the reads according to the biological information they contain. Chapters 2 and 3 present two binning methods. The former clusters reads according to their similarity with proteins, using combinatorial optimization. The second performs taxonomic assignment of reads by clustering reads at multiple taxonomic ranks. Chapter 4 deals with genomic signatures, which are functions frequently adopted by binning methods to have a vector space representation of the reads. We compare experimentally the performances of different genomic signatures on metagenomic data; new signatures are also studied. A case study in metagenomics data annotation is described in Chapters 5 and 6. The related metagenomic project investigates the anammox bacteria Candidatus `Brocadia fulgida', sequencing the same microbial community with three different technologies. Anammox bacteria have been successfully employed to treat highly loaded wastewater in industrial and municipal wastewater treatment systems. In Chapter 5, in particular, we try to retrieve the core genes of anammox metabolism. Chapter 6 focuses on a comparative quantitative analysis of the metagenomes acquired by the three technologies.
Patterns of genetic diversity in Mediterranean supralittoral amphipods [Crustacea, Amphipoda]

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Digestibility studies on Venezuela grass (Paspalum fasciculatum) and plantain pseudostalks (Musa paradisiaca.).

The data reported in this paper are the results of digestion trials per formed on Venezuela grass (Paspalum fasciulatum) and plantain pseudostalks (Musa 'paradisiaca). Digestion trials and palatability tests were conducted concurrently with these two forages. Palatability results were reported separately (4). 2
Enhanced Security Identity-Based Privacy-Preserving Authentication Scheme Supporting Revocation for VANETs

Existing conditional privacy-preserving communication protocols based on a tamper-proof device (TPD) in vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) face the challenges of master key compromise and vehicle revocation. To address these challenges, we propose a new identity-based anonymous authentication scheme. In this scheme, the master key of the system will not be directly installed in the TPD; hence, it is impossible for an adversary to obtain the system master key from the TPD. To generate the private key of the vehicle, an additional secret is required, and this secret is provided by the roadside unit (RSU). Therefore, revoking a malicious vehicle from the VANETs is efficient, since the RSU only needs to stop generating the up-to-date secret for the vehicle. In addition, the signature verification algorithm of the scheme involves no bilinear pairing operations, making the verification process more efficient. The security of the scheme is proved to be equivalent to the elliptic curve discrete logarithm assumption in the random oracle. The experimental results show that the authentication of the scheme is more efficient, and the communication cost has been diminished.
Automatic Surface Water Mapping Using Polarimetric SAR Data for Long-Term Change Detection

Mapping the distribution and persistence of surface water in a timely fashion has broad value for tracking dynamic events like flooding, and for monitoring the effects of climate and human activities on natural resource values and biodiversity. Traditionally, surface water is mapped from optical imagery using semi-automatic approaches. However, this process is time-consuming and the accuracy of results can vary among image interpreters. In recent years, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images have been increasingly used. Microwave signals sensitive to water content make SAR systems useful for mapping surface water, saturated soils, and flooded vegetation. In this study, a fully automatic method based on robust stepwise thresholding was developed to map and track the change in the extent of surface water using Polarimetric SAR data. The application of this method in both Radarsat-2 and Sentinel-1 data in central Ontario, Canada demonstrates that the developed robust stepwise thresholding approach could facilitate rapid mapping of open water areas with a promising accuracy of over 95%. In addition, the time-series extent of surface water extracted from May 2008 to August 2016 reveals the dynamic nature of surface inundation, and the trend was consistent with the local precipitation data.
Endoscopic versus microscopic type 1 tympanoplasty in chronic suppurative otitis media- tubotympanic type

Chronic suppurative otitis media (CSOM) attributes to 71.6% of hearing impairment in which most of them only have central perforations without any ossicular erosion or middle ear pathology. These Patients present usually either as recurrent ear discharge or as reduced hearing or as both. With advent of better antibiotics, the control over disease pathology has been successful with absolute reduction in ear discharge. Thus, only thing is to bring back hearing to near normal which remains main objective through repair of perforation i.e., myringoplasty or tympanoplasty. Tympanoplasty has evolved over a period of time from use of pig’s bladder in the past to present era of using temporalis fascia graft. Thus providing better hearing mechanism, avoiding complications as well as recurrence. Traditionally over the decades, tympanoplasty has been done using an operating microscope. Despite the continuous technical advancements, the basic optical principles of the microscope and their limitations like limited visualization, frequent adjustment of head and ABSTRACT
Modelling of non-metallic inclusions in steel

In the current paper, extensive studies of the current authors on the modelling of non-metallic inclusions were summarised. Kinetic studies included the nucleation, collision and agglomeration of inclusions, the interaction between inclusion and bubble in the molten steel, the motion, collision, and removal of inclusions in the molten steel during refining and continuous casting and the entrapment of inclusions in a continuous casting slab strand. Thermodynamic studies included the deoxidation of steel and precise calcium treatment of Al-killed steels. The variation in the composition of inclusions during heating treatment of stainless steels was summarised. The studies ranged from nanoscale of molecules to sub-mili meter scale of inclusions within a meter scale metallurgical vessels, over 10 order in size, and clarified mechanisms for the generation, growth, motion and removal of inclusions in steel.
Perceptions and practices related to menstruation amongst tribal adolescent girls in rural field practice area of tertiary health care institute in Mumbai

Adolescence age among girls is one of the crucial periods which signify the transition from girlhood to womanhood. This transition is earmarked with the ability to marry and reproduce in most low and middle-income countries. This stage is not only regarded as a physiological process but has strong social, psychological and cultural impact. According to the WHO reports, 20% of the global ill health burden for women is ABSTRACT
Antidiabetic and Antilipidemic Activity of Root Extracts of Salacia oblonga against Streptozotocin-Induced Diabetes in Wistar Rats

Salacia oblonga is used to treat diabetes, hypocholesteremia, gonorrhea, rheumatism, asthma, inflammation, oxidative stress, etc. In the present study, the antidiabetic activity of S. oblonga methanolic root extracts collected from three geographical locations, viz., Eleshwaram (Andhra Pradesh), Thoothukudi (Tamil Nadu), and Karwar (Karnataka), was studied in vitro. Among the three extracts, S. oblonga root extracts from Eleshwaram showed maximum α-glucosidase and α-amylase inhibitory activities, indicating better antidiabetic activity. Acute toxicity studies of S. oblonga carried out in Albino Wistar rats showed no toxicity. Further, in vivo studies showed antidiabetic and antilipidemic activities in Albino Wistar rats with induced type II diabetes mellitus. Type II diabetes mellitus was induced in the experimental rats by intraperitoneal injection of nicotinamide and streptozotocin. The rats were orally fed different doses (ranging from 0 to 400 mg/kg body weight) of S. oblonga root extracts from Eleshwaram for 14 days. Blood glucose, lipid, bilirubin, and creatinine levels were analyzed on day 0, 7, and 14. The S. oblonga root extract from Eleshwaram decreased the glucose levels in a dose-dependent manner as well as the lipid, creatinine, and bilirubin levels in diabetic rats. Thus, the present study demonstrates antidiabetic and antilipidemic properties of S. oblonga root extracts.