Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Parturition time for the Blacktip shark, Carcharhinus limbatus (Carcharhiniformes: Carcharhinidae), in Southwestern Atlantic

The determination of the period of parturition and identification of nursery areas are fundamental for the management and conservation of a fishing resource. Through combination of monthly abundance, length measurements, and development time of embryos we inferred about parturition time of the Blacktip sharks, Carcharhinus limbatus, from Southwestern Atlantic. Specimens of C. limbatus were caught from 2002 and 2008 by artisanal fleets from three different locations along the Brazilian coast using gillnets (mesh width ranging between 30 and 120 mm between opposite knots and operating from 9 to 120 m in depth), handlines (19 to 140 m depth) and longlines (6 to 90 m depth). Through a comparative analysis of fisheries landing data collected, we have verified neonatal (< 90 cm) catch peaks at specific times of the year in different locations and, matching with birth prediction of embryos, propose that C. limbatus presents a well-defined parturition time in late spring-early summer in Southwestern Atlantic. Moreover, we indicate supposed nursery grounds for the species along the Brazilian coast. This information will be crucial for stock assessments of the species and may serve as a basis for determining fisheries management measures.
Development of a Phytocosmetic Enriched with Pequi (Caryocar brasiliense Cambess) Oil

: The pulp oil of Caryocar brasiliense Camb. , better known as pequi, is used in the typical cuisine of the Brazilian Cerrado region. It is also used in folk medicine to combat several types of disease of the respiratory system and skin. However, since its exploration is purely extractive, the exhaustion of this plant is already foreseen. Thus, in order to establish further research and improvement of the formulation. The pequi oil can be converted into a phytocosmetic of great commercial value.
Tracing the Local Impacts of Exports on Poverty and Inequality in Mexico

Evidence about the effect of exports on welfare at the local level is scarce. Using a unique dataset of international trade and poverty maps for almost 2,000 Mexican municipalities between 2004 and 2014, the study presented in this paper provides new evidence on the impact of a significant rise in exports on poverty and inequality at the local level. The analysis implements an instrumental variable approach that combines the initial structure of exports across municipalities with global trends in exports from developing to developed countries by sector. The results show that a 10 percent increase in the ratio of exports to workers reduces income inequality measured by the Gini coefficient by 0.17 points (using a 0 to 100 scale), but no significant effects on poverty reduction or average household incomes are identified. The lack of impacts on average incomes is driven by a rise in the supply of labor at the local level because municipalities with higher export growth experienced an increase in labor force participation and attracted more net migration, particularly of unskilled workers. Therefore, while total labor incomes grew in response to an increase in exports, average labor incomes per worker did not change. Declining remittances also blunted the effect of growing exports on household incomes.
Residual effect of integrated nutrient management, dates of sowing and fertilizer doses on growth and yield parameters of Rabi Bengal gram and French bean under pearl millet based cropping sequence

A field experiment was conducted during kharif and rabi seasons of 2014-15 and 2015-16 at College Farm, College of Agriculture, Professor Jaya Shankar Telangana State Agricultural University, Rajendra Nagar, Hyderabad, Telangana to study the residual effect of integrated nutrient management, different dates of sowing and different fertilizer doses on production potential of succeeding beangal gram and French bean crop under pearl millet based cropping system. The three integrated nutrient management treatments viz., M1-100% RDF, M2-100% RDF + FYM @ 5 tons ha-1 and M3-100% RDF + Press mud @ 2.5 tons ha-1 were given to pearl millet in kharif season as main plot treatments replicated thrice, during succeeding rabi season on the same field bengal gram and French bean were grown for which each main plot treatment was split into four sub plot treatments with different dates of sowing D1 – After harvest of June 15th sown pearl millet (September 24th), D2- After harvest of June 30th sown Pearl millet (October 14th), D3- After harvest of July 15th sown pearl millet (November 1st) and D4- After harvest of July 30th sown pearl millet (November 15th) and again each plot divided with four levels of recommended dose of fertilizers viz., S1: 100% RDF to Bengal gram, S2: 50% RDF to Bengal gram, S3: 100% RDF to French bean and S4: 50% RDF to French bean as a sub- sub treatments in strip- split plot design. The RDF (M3-100% RDF + Press mud @ 2.5 tons ha-1) applied to pearl millet reported the significant residual effect on growth, yield attributes, seed and haulm yields of succeeding begal gram and french bean crop followed by M2-100% RDF + FYM @ 5 tons ha-1. Among various dates of sowing, D3 (after harvest of July 15th sown pearl millet) recorded significantly higher seed yield followed by D2, D1 and D4. Thus, application of 100% RDF significantly resulted in comparison to 50% RDF on growth, yield attributes, seed and haulm yields of both succeeding crops like bengal gram and french bean in pearlmillet based cropping sequence.
Education for Sustainability and the Sustainable Development Goals: Pre-Service Teachers’ Perceptions and Knowledge

The purpose of this study is to explore the change in the perceptions of pre-service teachers after participating in a training process on Education for Sustainability. The research was conducted during academic year 2019–2020 in the context of the Master’s Degree in Educational Research for Teachers’ Professional Development. The changes related to Education for Sustainability, the knowledge of the Sustainable Development Goals, and methodological strategies to integrate both were analysed. An initial and a final questionnaire as well as the activities developed by the students during the course were used to gather information. An analysis was performed of three dimensions (Education for Sustainability, the Sustainable Development Goals, and methodological strategies) with the help of the NVivo 12 Plus software programme. The results show progress was made in all three dimensions. The most significant changes were detected with regard to the knowledge of the Sustainable Development Goals, and the majority of the student teachers indicated they knew them on completing the training process. Their perception of Education for Sustainability evolved towards more complex views, while the methodological strategies proposed at the end of the training process did not differ significantly from the initial ones. This shows it is imperative to insist on training processes that include methodological strategies. By doing so, future educational professionals will be able to incorporate Education for Sustainability into their teaching practice.
Advances in Zero-Field Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy

In the course of the last century, Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) has become a powerful and ubiquitous analytical tool for the determination of molecular identity, structure, and function. Traditionally, the great analytical power of NMR comes at the cost of mobility and large expenses for cryogenic cooling. This thesis presents how zero-field NMR detected with an atomic magnetometer is emerging as a new, potentially portable and cost-effective modality of NMR with the ability of providing information-rich and high-resolution spectra. A detailed description of the zero-field NMR spectrometer and its operation is provided. The thesis details how the acquired zero-field NMR spectra result from the electron mediated scalar interaction (J-coupling) of nuclear spins in an analyte. Simple rules of addition of angular momenta are introduced for the prediction of the observed spectral lines overcoming the need for numerical simulations and enabling unambiguous assignment of peaks to different molecules. Additional information can be obtained in the near zero field regime, where the Zeeman interaction can be treated as a perturbation to the J-coupling. The presence of small magnetic fields results in splitting of the zero-field NMR lines, imparting additional information to the pure zero-field spectra. In addition to the utilization of the atomic magnetometers for enhanced sensitivity, hyperpolarization schemes can be implemented. This thesis shows that chemically specific zero-field NMR spectra can be recorded using hydrogenative and non-hydrogenative parahydrogen induced polarization (PHIP, NH-PHIP), enabling high-resolution NMR. The increased sensitivity enables detection of compounds with 13C or 15N in natural abundance. Since PHIP and NH-PHIP operate in situ, and eliminate the need for a prepolarizing magnet, they broaden the analytical capabilities of zero-field NMR. Lastly, this thesis gives insight into the PHIP and NH-PHIP mechanism by developing an appropriate theoretical framework.
Performance of pearlmillet as influenced by plant geometry and sowing windows

The present study was undertaken to investigate the effect of plant geometry and sowing windows on growth and yield of pearlmillet (Pennisetum americanum L.). The experiment was carried out at Agricultural College Farm, Bapatla during kharif, 2018, with 4 plant geometry (45x15 cm, 45x30 cm, 60x15 cm and 60x30 cm) and also with 3 dates of sowing (2nd fortnight of July, 1st fortnight of August and 2nd fortnight of August). The results revealed that among the different plant geometry, the maximum plant height, days to 50% flowering and days to maturity were recorded under treatment 60× 30 cm but higher number of tillers m-2, dry matter accumulation, grain yield, stover yield and harvest index were recorded with 45× 15 cm treatment. Among different dates of sowing, the highest plant height, number of tillers m-2, dry matter accumulation, days to 50% flowering, days to maturity, grain yield, stover yield and harvest index were recorded with 2nd Fortnight of Jul.
Prosperity in a Low Interest Environment

Persistently low interest rates in several advanced economies during the past decade have puzzled economists. Explanations on what caused them and what could or even should be done in light of such rates abound. One of the most prominent narratives is the so-called “secular stagnation hypothesis”. According to this theory, low interest rates indicate a lack of profitable investment opportunities. If left unchecked, this leads to high unemployment and stunted growth for the economies in question. This has caused several economists to call for government interventions in order to close the presumed gap between investment and saving. However, these gloomy predictions are in stark contrast to the actual economic development observed over the past decade, which featured record-lows in unemployment, continuing growth, and more or less steady capital investment levels. The ongoing debate focuses mainly on interest rates on debt instruments. The cost of equity is often overlooked, even though it is a significant source of financing for firms. This thesis addresses this shortcoming by taking into account both cost components. Instead of approximating the marginal productivity of capital using interest on government bonds, a new measure based on the Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC) is employed. The WACC – a widely used instrument from the field of finance – takes both equity and debt into account and constitutes a hurdle rate for firms’ investment decisions. Using proprietary data from Bloomberg, an analysis covering all OECD countries ranging from 2000-2017 is undertaken, including over 25,000 firms. The results are striking: while the cost of debt has declined over the course of the timeline, the cost of equity has remained stable or even increased, keeping the overall WACC constant. This stresses the importance of distinguishing between different sources of financing to get a comprehensive picture. The approach introduced here is thus able to shed new light on different aspects of the current low interest environment.
The Effects of Restoration Practices on a Small Watershed in China’s Loess Plateau: A Case Study of the Qiaozigou Watershed

Soil erosion and restoration affect the structure and function of ecosystems and society, and have attracted worldwide attention. Changes in runoff and sediment transport after restoration practices in China’s Loess Plateau have been widely studied and many valuable results have been reported. However, this research was mainly conducted in large watersheds, and quantified the effects of restoration practices through the restoration period. In this study, we compared two adjacent watersheds (one restored and the other natural) in a hill and gully region of China’s Loess Plateau to reveal the impacts of restoration practices. We collected annual rainfall, runoff, and sediment transport data from 1988 to 2018, then investigated temporal variation of runoff and sediment transport to examine their relationships with rainfall. We also calculated the retention rate of soil and water under the restoration practices. The restored watershed showed a significantly decreased sediment modulus (the amount per unit area); the natural watershed showed no significant change. In addition, the restored watershed had lower runoff and sediment modulus values than the natural watershed, with greater effectiveness as rainfall increased. Revegetation and terrace construction contributed more to the retention of soil and water (65.6 and 69.7%, respectively) than check dams (<10%). These results improve our understanding of the effects of restoration practices, and provide guidance on ways to preserve soil and water through restoration in a small watershed in the Loess Plateau.
Culture, Institutions and Policy

We review theoretical and empirical research on the dynamic interactions between cultures and institutions. We think about culture as a system of values and about institutions as formalized rules of the game. Our presentation is organized around a simple theoretical framework of political agency, which is gradually expanded so as to introduce new links and feedbacks between culture and institutions.
On the Performance of Bidirectional NOMA-SWIPT Enabled IoT Relay Networks

In this article, a bidirectional relaying (BR) non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) with simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) termed as BR NOMA-SWIPT is proposed and investigated for the Internet of Things (IoT) relay networks. Here, multiple NOMA users in one group can communicate or exchange information with multiple NOMA users in another group through a common energy harvesting (EH) based relay. The EH based relay exploits the radio frequency (RF) energy supplied by the two NOMA user groups to recharge itself, and then it exchanges the information between them. Specifically, the two groups of NOMA users transmit the information intended for the exchange to the relay node using the uplink NOMA protocol. The relay node first harvests the RF energy through the signals of the two group of NOMA users, and then it carries out the exchange of information between two NOMA user groups by using the downlink NOMA protocol. To the best of our knowledge, there is no existing study or research on BR NOMA with SWIPT. Therefore, in this article, we examine in detail, the performance of BR NOMA-SWIPT enabled IoT relay networks. Specifically, we study a popular EH time switching (TS) relaying architecture with BR and NOMA. We also study the effect of both perfect successive interference cancellation (pSIC) and imperfect SIC (ipSIC) on the proposed BR NOMA-SWIPT system. Analytical expressions for the outage probability and ergodic capacity are mathematically derived. The analytical results of our proposed system model are validated by the simulation results, and representative performance comparisons are presented thoroughly, which not only provides practical insights into the effect of different system parameters on the overall network performance, but it also demonstrates that our proposed BR NOMA-SWIPT can attain significant throughput and capacity gains as compared to conventional BR multiple access schemes.
Quality of Eggs from Layers Reared under Alternative and Conventional System

The study aimed to compare and assess some of the quality characteristics (morphology, colour of the yolk, total carotenoid content and fatty acid profile) of eggs obtained from hens reared conventionally or in alternative system having access to pasture. Twenty eggs of each rearing system were analysed for the above characteristics. The eggs obtained from the layer reared under the alternative system were significantly heavier than the conventional ones, displayed higher diameters of the albumen and albumen index, as well as increased diameter and weight of the yolk. On the other hand, their shell thickness and Haugh units were lower when compared to the eggs from conventionally reared hens. The colour of the eggs from the alternative system was darker and they had lower values of L* and higher of a* in the yolk, corresponding to the significantly higher content of the total carotenoids in comparison to the eggs obtained from the hens reared conventionally. Furthermore, the eggs from the hens having access to pasture showed clear advantage in the fatty acid profile and the related lipid nutritional indices. In general, the rearing in alternative system reduced considerably the content of C14:0, C16:0, C18:0, C16:1n-7 and C18:1n-9, as well as the saturated (SFA) and monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFA). On the other hand, with the exception of C20:3n-6, the contents of both individual and total polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) were dramatically increased in the eggs from the hens reared in the alternative system. This led to favourably decreased values of n-6/n-3 ratio as well as values of both atherogenic (AI) and thrombogenic (TI) indices but augmented ratio between hypoand hypercholesterolemic fatty acids.
Ultra-Compact Organic Vertical-Cavity Laser With High-Contrast Grating Feedback for Gas Detection

The miniaturization of optical sensors is a key step towards the development of highly integrated optical sensing techniques and devices. The present work proposes an ultra-compact organic vertical-cavity microlaser based on an active micro-pillar design, and explores its potential applications as a highly integrated gas sensor. The vertical-cavity is realized by embedding an organic Rhodamine 6G doped SiO2 gain layer inside one small cavity which is formed by distributed bragg reflectors and a high contrast grating thin layer. The hybrid structure of top reflector of cavity enables part of the field to interact with the medium surrounding the cavity, while maintaining a high confinement factor, low lasing threshold, and single-mode operation around 570 nm. In particular, the vertical microlaser can be used as a convenient and versatile wavelength-interrogation sensing architecture, whereby variations of the laser spectral line can be correlated to small changes in the gas concentration. Through using full-wave electromagnetic simulations, we obtain a significantly improved figure of merit (441 RIU−1) for the bulk sensitivity. The vertical architecture and small design of the proposed micro-laser-based sensor render it attractive for highly integrated remote sensing of gases.
Global Predefined Time and Accuracy Adaptive Neural Network Control for Uncertain Strict-Feedback Systems With Output Constraint and Dead Zone

This article proposes a global adaptive neural network tracking control method for uncertain strict-feedback nonlinear system with output constraint and dead zone to achieve predefined-time convergence of the tracking error to predefined accuracy. First, an integral-type Barrier Lyapunov function (BLF) is constructed to handle output constraint. Next, radial basis function neural network (RBFNN) control and robust control are used to tackle unknown nonlinear function. The continuous switching function is designed to switch RBFNN control to robust control when the arguments of the unknown function exceed the active region of neural network. Utilizing the property of radial basis function, we derive the upper bound of the term containing the unknown nonlinear function and design adaptive laws to determine the derived upper bound and robust control gain. Then, the predefined time virtual control inputs are obtained and their derivatives are estimated by finite time differentiator. Finally, we use the dead zone inverse technique to obtain the actual control input. Stability analysis shows the presented control scheme achieves global convergence of the errors to predefined accuracy within predefined time. The simulation results verify the effectiveness of the presented control scheme.
Morphological evaluation of Tunisian garlic (Allium sativum L.) landraces for growth and yield traits

Purpose: Despite the significance of garlic as a food product and high annual income, until now there are no local commercialized Tunisian cultivars with registered names, which lead to the lack of recommended varieties of high yielding. This work is aimed to create the first garlic gene bank collection in Tunisia, evaluate the variation, identify yield related traits and structure genetic diversity among them. Research method: Thirty six local garlic landraces from the main production regions of Tunisia were collected and recorded in the National Gene Bank of Tunisia database, then grown in a gene bank field for multiplication. The phenotypic diversity was conducted on the basis of fourteen quantitative characteristics add to flowering ability. Findings: High diversity among Tunisian garlic landraces was detected. The bulb weight and bulb diameter explain the most significant variation of the yield. The cluster analysis sorted the 36 genotypes into three main groups as cluster 1 (11 accessions), cluster 2 (20 accessions), and cluster 3 (5 accessions). However, the grouping of genotypes did not correspond with their geographic origin. The highest genetic distance was reported between NGBTUN442 and NGBTUN452, however NGBTUN429 and NGBTUN434 found to be most similar with the lowest dissimilarity. Research limitation: Morphological traits need to be investigated overtime. Originality/Value: This study is interesting since it presents the first creation of the garlic gene bank in Tunisia. The results will provide basis information for the efficient use of the local garlic germplasm and help breeders to easily select out the desirable materials.