Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Pollinator Insects and their Impact on Crop Yield of Mustard in Kusma, Parbat, Nepal

The diversity of insect pollinators and their impact on crop yield of mustard were studied in Kusma, Parbat, Nepal from December 2018 to April 2019 in four blocks with each having 12 m 2 areas. Two plots; treatment and control, were established in each block. Insect diversity was observed from 8 to 16 hrs, with the interval of an hour for three consecutive months (Jan-Feb). Eighty mustard plants were randomly selected, 40 from each plot just before flowering to find the impact of insect pollination on crop yield and these selected plants were examined for various qualitative and quantitative parameters. Altogether 16 species of pollinator insects belonging to five orders and nine families were recorded. Hymenoptera (36 %) was the most abundant order visiting mustard flowers followed by Diptera (34 %), Coleoptera (17 %), Lepidoptera (12 %) and Heteroptera (1 %). The most abundant family was Apidae (35.64 %), followed by Syrphidae (31.84 %). Apis cerana and Eristalis sp. were the most important pollinator insects of mustard. Seven species were found foraging both on pollen and nectar, four species foraging only on nectar and remaining five as casual visitors. The peak foraging activities of majority of the insects were observed between 12 hr to 14 hr. A significant difference was observed in the number of pods (59.80 ± 1.967 and 70.47 ± 2.431), fruit set (70.55 ± 1.362 and 80.94 ± 0.638), number of seeds per pods (16.70 ± 0.248 and 19.30 ± 0.330), diameter of seed (0.133 ± 0.2547 and 0.275 ± 0.0051) and weight of 100 dry seeds (0.33 ± 0.058 and 0.48 ± 0.023) in control and treatment plots whereas, the difference was non-significant in case of pod length between control and treatment plots (P=0.163).
Effectiveness of supportive periodontal therapy on tooth survival among patients with chronic periodontitis

INTRODUCTION: Prevention of tooth loss and maintaining favorable periodontal status are the ultimate goals of periodontal therapy. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of non-surgical periodontal therapy and supportive periodontal care in arresting the progression of chronic periodontitis and in preventing tooth loss. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Periodontal charts, self-reported medical history, and interleukin-1 (IL-1) polymorphism genotypes of 100 patients were obtained from the University of Pittsburgh School of Dental Medicine Dental Registry and DNA Repository (DRDR) after screening of 4,825 subjects. In our study we have included third molars, teeth lost during active periodontal treatment (APT), and those lost during supportive periodontal care (SPC). We used tooth loss (TL) and clinical attachment loss (CAL) as outcomes of disease affection in our analysis. Fisher’s exact test was used to investigate the association between tooth loss and different risk factors. Paired t-test was conducted to detect the difference in means of CAL between baseline and final periodontal assessments. RESULTS: There were 59 patients (36 males and 23 females with an average age of 52 years) that lost at least one tooth. Tooth mortality rate declined in patients who attended supportive periodontal program for six years compared to those who received supportive periodontal therapy for one year only (0.52 and 3.4 teeth/patient/year, respectively). Increased risk of tooth loss was found to be associated with diabetes (P=0.01), as well as high blood pressure (P<0.0001). We did not find an association between tooth loss and polymorphisms in interleukin IL-1α/IL-1β (rs1800587, P=0.36 and rs1143634, P=0.51, respectively). During the first year of supportive periodontal treatment, the clinical attachment loss showed a significant reduction (CAL gain of 0.36 mm, P=0.0697). Moreover, a significant increase in CAL was noted in the group of patients who attended regular periodontal maintenance for six years (CAL progression of 0.38mm, P=0.037). CONCLUSION: Our findings suggested that supportive periodontal therapy is effective for the long-term stability of periodontal disease in high-risk patients in our sample.
Validity and reliability of the Polish version of the Short Hopelessness Scale

The aim of this study was to examine the psychometric properties of the Polish version of the Short Hopelessness Scale in an undergraduate student sample. The scale was originally developed as a brief measure of hopelessness for large scale epidemiological surveys and is based on two commonly used measures of hopelessness. A total of 4098 students from different Polish universities took part in the study. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to test the model fit. Pearson correlation coefficients were used to investigate the relationship between hopelessness scale and criterion variables. Due to the lack of fit of the initial congeneric, unidi-mensional model, the lowest loading item was removed, and a tau-equivalent model with three items was tested. The tau-equivalent model showed a good fit to the data. The scale had adequate reliability. Hopelessness was positively related to anxiety, depression, and stress and negatively related to the quality of life, health, and self-esteem. The study provides evidence of good psychometric properties in terms of factorial structure, reliability and criterion validity of the shortened 3-item Polish version of a hopelessness scale. Future studies should investigate its predictive value, especially in terms of suicidal ideation and behaviour, as well as other health outcomes.
Could the speech resonance of individuals with cleft lip and palate be affected by complete section of pharyngeal flap?

Purpose: To investigate the effect of complete section of pharyngeal flap on speech hypernasality. Methods: The study analyzed twenty-six individuals with repaired cleft palate±lip underwent pharyngeal flap surgery to treat velopharyngeal insufficiency and posteriorly underwent complete section of the flap due to the occurrence of respiratory symptoms. Hypernasality was determined by auditory-perceptual speech assessments and nasometry at 18 months after surgery, on average. Hypernasality was perceptually classified as: 1 = absent or 2 = present and determined by nasalance measurement during reading of sentences containing exclusively oral sounds, considering a cutoff of 27% (p ≤ 0.05). Results: Perceptual assessment before section of the flap revealed that eight (31%) individuals showed normal resonance, while 18 (69%) presented hypernasality. After surgery, one (4%) subject remained with normal resonance and 25 (96%) presented hypernasality. According to nasometry, before surgery, 13 (57%) individuals presented nasalance scores lower than 27%, indicative of absence of hypernasality (mean = 15±8%) and ten (43%) presented nasalance scores indicative of hypernasality (mean = 41±7%). After surgery, four (17%) patients remained with scores indicative of absence of hypernasality (mean = 19±10%) and for 19 (83%) the nasalance scores were indicative of hypernasality (mean = 45±7%). There was no difference between perceptual and nasometric speech evaluations. Conclusion: Surgery for complete section of pharyngeal flap caused deterioration of speech resonance, leading to the reappearance of hypernasality in most patients in this study.
HIGH-DIMENSIONAL FOLDED CONCAVE PENALIZED GENERALIZED LINEAR MODELS

Global solutions to high-dimensional sparse estimation problems with a folded concave penalty (FCP) have been shown to be statistically desirable but are strongly NP-hard to compute, which implies the non-existence of a pseudopolynomial time global optimization schemes in the worst case. This paper shows that, with high probability, a global solution to the formulation for a FCP-based high-dimensional generalized linear model coincides with a stationary point characterized by the significant subspace second order necessary conditions (SONC). Since the desired SONC solution admits a fully polynomial-time approximation schemes (FPTAS), we thus have shown the existence of fully polynomial-time randomized approximation scheme (FPRAS) for a strongly NP-hard problem. We further demonstrate two versions of the FPRAS for generating the desired SONC solutions. One follows the paradigm of an interior point trust region algorithm and the other is the well-studied local linear approximation (LLA). Our analysis thus provides new techniques for global optimization of certain NP-Hard problems and new insights on the effectiveness of LLA.
Biometry of the Characteristics of Cajazeira (Spondias mombin L.) Stone in Northeast Brazil

The cajazeira (Spondias mombin L.) is a stone tree belonging to the Anacardiaceae family is very common in the caatinga ecoregion of northeastern of Brazil. This study assessed the biometry of cajazeira stones stones. The stones were collected in 2019 within an area of native vegetation in the campus of the Federal Rural University of the Semi-arid Region (UFERSA), Mossoro-RN. They were then taken to the Plant Science Laboratory to measure the following characteristics: length, width, length/width ratio, stones thickness, and weight. The variables length, width, length/width ratio, thickness, and weight of the stones had a low range of variation and low values for relative variation, and therefore high coefficients of Pearson of correlation. The data of length, width, and thickness showed a moderate degree of symmetry and a symmetrical and mesocurtic distribution, while length/width ratio and stones weight had almost symmetrical and mesocurtic distributions. The variables length and width and width and thickness showed significant positive linear correlations. The biometric data of caja stones fitted in to the approximate normal distribution of probability.
The impact of the conservation tillage “maize into grass cover” on reducing the soil loss due to erosion

Maize (Zea mays L.) belongs among the most important agriculture crops all over the world. The conventional way of cultivating maize with wide row spacing does not have a soil conservation effect and significantly contributes to water erosion and surface run-off. In our research, we tested the soil conservation technology (strip-till into grass cover) which took place in 2016 and 2017 in the location of Central Bohemia. The impact of a strip-till system of maize into grass cover on reducing the soil loss due to erosion was verified on the area of 21 m2 using a rainfall simulator. During the research, 70 measurements were realised. The strip-till was compared to fallow land, conventional cultivation and no-till methods. Profound differences were found in the soil loss between the treatments. There was a decrease in the soil loss of about 98% in the strip-till compared to the conventional cultivation. Moreover, the surface run-off was reduced by 79%. The ANCOVA (analysis of covariance) models of the log-transformed soil loss on the surface run-off and treatment were highly significant (P < 10–15). The measurement results clearly demonstrate the positive effect of the strip-till into the grass on the surface run-off and soil loss. This positive soil conservation effect was observed even in springtime, as well as the rest of the season. Using a grass cover for establishing the maize significantly contributes to the soil conservation on the land threatened by erosion and offers farmers a suitable way of farming when growing maize. Strip-tilling is a technology that has great potential in sustainable farming.
EFFECT OF CLIMATIC CHANGE AND VARIABILITY ON GROUNDNUT (ARACHIS HYPOGEA, L.) PRODUCTION IN NIGERIA

Ezihe, J.A. C. , I.K. Agbugba and C. Idang, 2017. Effect of climatic change and variability on groundnut (Arachis hypogea, L.) Production in Nigeria. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 23 (6): 906–914 The study examined the effect of climate change and variability on groundnut production in Nigeria. The study specifi cally analyzed the trend in climatic parameters (temperature, rainfall) in the study area; analyzed the trend in groundnut farmers’ output; and determined the long-run as well as the short-run infl uences of climatic parameters on the farmers’ output. The population of the study is the entire Nigeria which is over 160 million persons. No sampling procedure was carried out as the work was entirely based on time series data. The study further used the aggregate domestic groundnut production index from FAO which spanned from 1980–2014. Results showed that within this range of the years (1991 and 2000), there was a slight decrease in the mean temperature and rainfall and yet they did not negatively affect the output of groundnut, instead there was an increase. However, from 2001–2010 and 2011–2014, the mean temperature (27.58°C), mean rainfall (1123.58 mm) and groundnut output (58067.36 metric tonnes), and from 2011–2014 which recorded the mean temperature (27.60°C), mean rainfall (1383.15 mm) and the groundnut output (71484.70 metric tonnes) indicated that there is an increase in mean temperature with a corresponding increase in groundnut output, respectively. Results from the Augmented Dickey Fuller (ADF) test indicated that the temperature, rainfall and groundnut are non-stationary as they do not show a signifi cant negative coeffi cient; thus, they are further differentiated to attain stationarity. Pertaining to the result, the variables underwent a fi rst order differentiation after which there was non-stationarity. It was recommended that the Nigerian government should organize programmes under the supervision of the Ministry of Agriculture to train groundnut farmers to keep climate and production activity records in other to provide fi rsthand information when the need arises. More so, climate research centres should initiate, conduct and coordinate research on the on the status of Nigerian environment with emphasis on climate (Rainfall and Temperature). Hence, adequate communication channels that make research result available to the groundnut farmers should be provided.
Representation of the Denmark Strait overflow in a z-coordinate eddying configuration of the NEMO (v3.6) ocean model: resolution and parameter impacts

Abstract. We investigate in this paper the sensitivity of the representation of the Denmark Strait overflow produced by a regional z-coordinate configuration of NEMO (version 3.6) to the horizontal and vertical grid resolutions and to various numerical and physical parameters. Three different horizontal resolutions, 1∕12, 1∕36, and 1/60∘, are respectively used with 46, 75, 150, and 300 vertical levels. In the given numerical set-up, the increase in the vertical resolution did not bring improvement at eddy-permitting resolution (1/12∘). We find a greater dilution of the overflow as the number of vertical level increases, and the worst solution is the one with 300 vertical levels. It is found that when the local slope of the grid is weaker than the slope of the topography the result is a more diluted vein. Such a grid enhances the dilution of the plume in the ambient fluid and produces its thickening. Although the greater number of levels allows for a better resolution of the ageostrophic Ekman flow in the bottom layer, the final result also depends on how the local grid slope matches the topographic slope. We also find that for a fixed number of levels, the representation of the overflow is improved when horizontal resolution is increased to 1∕36 and 1/60∘, with the most drastic improvements being obtained with 150 levels. With such a number of vertical levels, the enhanced vertical mixing associated with the step-like representation of the topography remains limited to a thin bottom layer representing a minor portion of the overflow. Two major additional players contribute to the sinking of the overflow: the breaking of the overflow into boluses of dense water which contribute to spreading the overflow waters along the Greenland shelf and within the Irminger Basin, and the resolved vertical shear that results from the resolution of the bottom Ekman boundary layer dynamics. This improves the accuracy of the calculation of the entrainment by the turbulent kinetic energy mixing scheme (as it depends on the local shear) and improves the properties of the overflow waters such that they more favourably compare with observations. At 300 vertical levels the dilution is again increased for all horizontal resolutions. The impact on the overflow representation of many other numerical parameters was tested (momentum advection scheme, lateral friction, bottom boundary layer parameterization, closure parameterization, etc.), but none had a significant impact on the overflow representation.
On scattering for the cubic defocusing nonlinear Schrödinger equation on the waveguide R × T

In this article, we will show the scattering of the cubic defocusing nonlinear Schrödinger equation on the waveguide R2×T in H. We first establish the linear profile decomposition in H1(R2×T) motivated by the linear profile decomposition of the mass-critical Schrödinger equation in L(R). Then by using the solution of the cubic resonant nonlinear Schrödinger system to approximate the nonlinear profile, we can prove scattering in H by using the concentration-compactness/rigidity method.
Impact of impurities in bromocresol green indicator dye on
spectrophotometric total alkalinity measurements

Due to its accurate and precise character, spectrophotometric pH detection is a common technique applied in measurement methods for carbonate system parameters. However, impurities in the used pH indicator dyes can influence the measurements quality. During our work described here, we focused on impacts of impurities in the pH indicator dye bromocresol green (BCG) on spectrophotometric seawater total alkalinity (AT) measurements. In order to evaluate the extent of such influences, purified BCG served as a reference. First, a high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) purification method for BCG was developed as such a method did not exist at the time of this study. An analysis of BCG dye from four different vendors with this method revealed different types and quantities of impurities. After successful purification, AT measurements with purified and unpurified BCG were carried out using the novel autonomous analyzer CONTROS HydroFIA® TA. Long-term measurements in the laboratory revealed a direct influence of impurity types and quantities on the drift behavior of the analyzer. The purer the BCG, the smaller was theAT increase per measurement. The observed drift is generally caused by deposits in the optical pathway mainly generated by the impurities. However, the analyzers drift behavior could not be fully overcome. Furthermore, we could show that a certain impurity type in some indicator dyes changed the drift pattern from linear to nonlinear, which can impair long-term deployments of the system. Consequently, such indicators are impractical for these applications. Laboratory performance characterization experiments revealed no improvement of the measurement quality (precision and bias) by using purified BCG as long as the impurities of the unpurified dye do not exceed a quantity of 2 % (relationship of peak areas in the chromatogram). However, BCG with impurity quantities higher than 6 % provided AT values which failed fundamental quality requirements. In conclusion, to gain optimal AT measurements especially during long-term deployments, an indicator purification is not necessarily required as long as the purchased dye has a purity level of at least 98 % and is free of the named impurity type. Consequently, high-quality AT measurements do not require pure but the purest BCG that is purchasable.
CEP Discussion Paper No 1668 January 2020 Trade , Productivity and ( Mis ) allocation Antoine Berthou

We examine the gains from globalization in the presence of firm heterogeneity and potential resource misallocation. We show theoretically that without distortions, bilateral and export liberalizations increase aggregate welfare and productivity, while import liberalization has ambiguous effects. Resource misallocation can either amplify, dampen or reverse the gains from trade. Using model-consistent measures and unique new data on 14 European countries and 20 industries in 1998-2011, we empirically establish that exogenous shocks to export demand and import competition both generate large aggregate productivity gains. Guided by theory, we provide evidence consistent with these effects operating through reallocations across firms in the presence of distortions: (i) Both export and import expansion increase average firm productivity, but the former also shifts activity towards more productive firms, while the latter acts in reverse. (ii) Both export and import exposure raise the productivity threshold for survival, but this cut-off is not a sufficient statistic for aggregate productivity. (iii) Efficient institutions, factor and product markets amplify the gains from import competition but dampen those from export access.
Enterotoxins production, biofilm formation and antimicrobial resistance of Staphylococcus aureus strains isolated from refrigerated raw cow milk

This study aimed to isolate Staphylococcus aureus in refrigerated raw cow milk, and identify the presence of enterotoxin-expression genes, enterotoxin production and adherence ability, and antimicrobial resistance potential of the isolated strains. Fifty raw milk samples obtained in different dairy farms were analyzed for S. aureus and evaluated in the isolates the presence of genes associated with the production of major staphylococcal enterotoxins and biofilm formation. In vitro assays were also performed to evaluate the production of enterotoxins and adherence ability, and the antimicrobial resistance. One half (25/50) of raw milk samples presented coagulase-positive staphylococci and 95.2% of the isolates were confirmed to be S. aureus. Among them, 42.4% were carrying genes for enterotoxins production; however, only one isolate was able to produce enterotoxins. All S. aureus isolates were carrying at least two genes associated with biofilm formation and 95.2% isolates was able to adhere upon the in vitro assay. All isolates demonstrated antimicrobial resistance potential to one or more of the tested antibiotics.