Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
S- and P-type cobra venom cardiotoxins differ in their action on isolated rat heart

Abstract Background: The cardiovascular system is one of the first systems to be affected by snake toxins; but not many toxins exert a direct effect on the heart. Cobra venom cardiotoxins are among those few toxins that attack the heart. Although the two cardiotoxin types (S and P) differ in their central-loop structure, it is not known whether they differ in their effect on the mammalian heart. We compared the effects of S- and P-type cardiotoxins, CTХ-1 and CTХ-2, respectively, from the cobra Naja oxiana, on the isolated rat heart. Methods: An isolated rat heart perfused according to the Langendorff technique was used in this study to investigate the activity of cardiotoxins CTX-1 and CTX-2. The following parameters were registered: the left ventricular developed pressure, calculated as the difference between systolic and diastolic pressure in the left ventricle, the end-diastolic pressure, the heart rate, time to maximal end-diastolic pressure (heart contracture), and time to depression of the heart contraction. Results: Both cardiotoxins at the concentration of 5 μg/mL initially produce a slight increase in systolic intraventricular pressure, followed by its rapid decrease with a simultaneous increase in diastolic intraventricular pressure until reaching contracture. CTX-2 blocks cardiac contractions faster than CTX-1; in its presence the maximum diastolic pressure is reached faster and the magnitude of the developed contracture is higher. Conclusion: The P-type cardiotoxin CTX-2 more strongly impairs rat heart functional activity than the S-type cardiotoxin CTX-1, as expressed in its faster blockage of cardiac contractions as well as in more rapid development and greater magnitude of contracture in its presence.
The role of organisational memory for learning in project management using lessons learned : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Business Studies in Human Resource Management at Massey University

The notion of learning from experience framed as lessons learned (an output of project management practice) stored in organisational memory has been little discussed in the literature. Prolifically discussed is organisational learning to build capability through generative learning to achieve what an organisation desires. Organisational memory is the fundamental result of organisational learning to store the knowledge from the past that is 'brought to bear' on the activity to hand by means of acquisition, retention, search and retrieval processes. It is argued the storage of lessons learned in human memory and the sharing of lessons learned between projects significantly contributes to project success at the personal level, but not at the organisational level despite lessons learned shared generically. This argument is supported by the strong suggestions of systematic problem solving to get at the 'roof cause, continuous improvement embedded in practice through benchmarking, quality management, flexibility in using standardised tools, the moderate suggestion of an Organisational Memory Management System (OMIS), and project strategic support. These were the findings from a survey of 47 project practitioners at two Project Management Institute (PMI) meetings, and seven semi-structured interviews where participants perceived the organisation they worked in characterised organisational learning practices. These findings raise questions about the competitive advantages for the organisation by using lessons learned, a moderate to weak finding in this study, and the recent initiative by most participants to implement an OMIS system. It is recommended project practitioners make lessons learned an everyday project management practice to build capability to advance organisational learning, or else the lessons learned will be pushed aside by time constraints and the pressure to move onto new projects. Key Concepts: Lessons learned, organisational learning, and organisational memory
Pituitary apoplexy associated with COVID-19 infection: review and a case report

Abstract Pituitary apoplexy (PA) is a clinical syndrome caused by a hemorrhage and/or infarction in a pituitary adenoma due to a diverse group of pathophysiological mechanisms. The clinical spectrum consists of severe headaches, visual disturbances, cranial nerve involvement and hormonal deficiencies. There have been a growing number of case reports of pituitary apoplexy with a possible association with Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) recently. The aim of this paper is to review and analyze the possible connection between pituitary apoplexy and the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. The literature review was conducted by searching the term ‘COVID-19 pituitary apoplexy’ in the PubMed database. Seventeen results were screened. We identified 12 cases of patients with pituitary apoplexy with a possible connection to COVID-19. The pathophysiological mechanisms include infarction and acute hemorrhage. COVID-19 could contribute to pituitary apoplexy due to a series of predisposing factors, like hemodynamic instability, increase in intracranial pressure, coagulopathy, endothelial dysfunction and hypercoagulative state. The possible association between COVID-19 and pituitary apoplexy is still debatable. Finally, we report a case of a 63-year-old female presenting with pituitary apoplexy with an onset of symptoms 15 days after initial positive polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing for SARS-CoV-2. The patient was hospitalized for COVID-19 due to associated pneumonia for 12 days. Three days after discharge from the hospital, the patient developed a severe onset headache. Magnetic resonance imaging revealed a pituitary macroadenoma with pituitary apoplexy. In the presented case, the most probable reason for the pituitary apoplexy is infarction and not acute hemorrhage.
Global Education in STEM and Healthcare: Implications of COVID-19

The Coronavirus Infectious Disease 2019 (COVID-19) was declared a pandemic in March of 2020. Since then, most schools, colleges, and universities across the globe stopped delivering classes face-to-face and transitioned into virtual modalities of instruction. This reformation of academics has had an impact on every field of study, especially those students in the areas of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), and in the realm of healthcare education. Ranging from middle/high school to undergraduate and graduate programs, STEM degrees require intensive curricula integrating extensive lectures on theoretical topics and laboratory exercises to apply those concepts in a practical setting. Likewise, healthcare education involves hands-on, clinical lab components working on patients, guided by supervisors. The guidelines developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States recommended refraining from these physical learning environments since social distancing has been an important preventative measure against the contagion. As in-person classes, labs, and residencies across the world were disrupted, students, faculty, staff, and administrators of STEM and healthcare fields had to face and navigate multifarious challenges to continue the education effectively, while maintaining safety. This review encapsulates such effects of the pandemic on STEM and healthcare education in various countries. The analysis aims to provide an insight into the strategies of distance education and alternative pedagogies for these disciplines adopted by institutions globally in the light of COVID-19, which could potentially serve as a reference model during any future pandemics.
Community Participation in Primary Healthcare in the South Sudan Boma Health Initiative: A Document Analysis

Background: Community participation is central to primary healthcare, yet there is little evidence of how this works in conflict settings. In 2016, South Sudan’s Ministry of Health launched the Boma Health Initiative (BHI) to improve primary care services through community participation. Methods: We conducted a document analysis to examine how well the BHI policy addressed community participation in its policy formulation. We reviewed other policy documents and published literature to provide background context and supplementary data. We used a deductive thematic analysis that followed Rifkin and colleagues’ community participation framework to assess the BHI policy. Results: The BHI planners included inputs from communities without details on how the needs assessment was conducted at the community level, what needs were considered, and from which community. The intended role of communities was to implement the policy under local leadership. There was no information on how the Initiative might strengthen or expand local women’s leadership. Official documents did not contemplate local power relations or address gender imbalance. The policy approached households as consumers of health services. Conclusion: Although the BHI advocated community participation to generate awareness, increase acceptability, access to services and ownership, the policy document did not include community participation during policy cycle.
Search for Image Steganographic Policy with Adversary and Auxiliary Constrained Distance Measure

Steganography is to conceal the presence of secret communication. Steganalyser based on rich models and deep learning achieves state-of-the-art performance. However, due to the difficulty of capturing the unknown distribution of the high-dimensional cover, it is challenging to design a steganographic scheme from the view of traditional and deep learning-based steganography to defeat the steganalyser. In this paper, we propose a scheme to search the steganographic policy from scratch with the help of auxiliary constrained distance measure and the adversary. The auxiliary distance measure is provided via similarity evaluation and cover estimator. The response space of distance measures is constrained to provide better performance. Similarity evaluation establishes the distance measure in cover space. The cover estimator is to predict the potential distribution of the cover. Thus it could provide the distance measure in distribution space. The adversary model is to simulate the role of the steganalyser. The steganographic policy is searched from playing the adversarial game against an adversary with the relaxation of constrained response space of auxiliary distance measure. Ultimately, within the searched steganographic policy, the stego objects could be generated by the STC coder. Cover estimator, adversary, and steganographic policy are parameterized via neural networks. Experiments demonstrate that our scheme could achieve an effective modification policy and has competitive security performance compared with traditional and state-of-the-art deep learning-based steganographic methods.
Effects of pre-sowing seed treatments on rice yield, grain quality and soil chemical properties in salt-affected soils

This study aimed to evaluate the effects of sowing density and iron (Fe) coated seeds on rice grain yield, grain quality, and soil properties in saline soils in Phuoc Long district, Bac Lieu province, Vietnam. Experimental treatments include: (T1) Intact dry seed (50 kg seed/ha); (T2) Hydro-primed seed (120 kg seed/ha); (T3) Hydro-primed seed (50 kg seed/ha); (T4) Hydro-primed then sprouted seed (50 kg seed/ha); (T5) Fe-coated dry seed (50 kg seed/ha); (T6) Fe-coated hydro-primed seed (120 kg seed/ha); (T7) Fe-coated hydro-primed seed (50 kg seed/ha); (T8) Fe-coated hydro-primed seed which was sprouted before sowing (50 kg seed/ha); (T9) Hydro-primed then sprouted seed (120 kg seed/ha); (T10) Transplanting (50 kg seed/ha). The results indicated that applying Fe-coated seeds significantly increased tiller number at 45 and 60 DAS compared to free-Fe-coated seeds and transplanting treatments. There was no significant difference in tiller number among treatments at harvest stage. The plant height, yield, amylose, protein contents, gel consistency, soil pH, Eh, and Fe content in soil solution among the treatments did not differ significantly. This study demonstrated that reducing seed rate, broadcasting dry seeds, and coating seeds with Fe could reduce production cost while plant growth, yield and grain quality are maintained.
Networks and innovation in the subsea industry in Rogaland: Will position in the network affect a company's ability to innovate?

Subsea is an advanced, high technology industry making oil extraction possible, simpler and safer in deep seas and rough weather conditions. Subsea is an industry where Norwegian companies have gained acknowledgment for their skills, products and services. Rogaland is the region in Norway with highest activity within the oil and gas industry. This thesis examines the structure of the network and collaboration among subsea companies in Rogaland. We examine if actors with central positions are more innovative than the less central, our research question being: Will position in the network affect a company’s ability to innovate? We present theory on clusters, regional innovation systems and knowledge bases. Four hypotheses are developed from the existing empirics. H1: A cluster needs joint action for the companies to collaborate with each other. H2: A cluster does not need joint action for the companies to collaborate with each other. H3: A central position in the network makes the company innovative. H4: A central position in the network does not affect a company’s innovative ability. Innovation in the subsea industry is usually based on a customer need. Since oil companies are the subsea companies’ final customers, they are included in the second part of the analysis. We have interviewed all, but one, subsea companies in the region and 7 oil companies. We asked them questions regarding innovation and their collaborative relations to other companies. A social network analysis was applied on the interview data about collaboration. We analysed the extent of collaboration and each actor’s centrality in the network. We then applied pairwise correlations and logistic regressions to see if centrality measures could explain differences in companies’ ability to innovate. We found a high degree of collaboration between the subsea companies in Rogaland, even though there are no joint actions in the form of cluster organisation. We found that position in the network, measured by in-degree centrality, can increase the likelihood that a company in the subsea industry has made use of new or significantly improved production processes, technology, components or materials, this result is supported in both populations. However, for none of the other innovation measures we found significant results using centrality as an explanatory variable.
Seasonal dynamics of anaerobic oxidation of ammonium and denitrification in a dimictic lake during the stratified spring–summer period

In aquatic ecosystems, nitrogen (N) loading is mitigated in redox transition zones principally through the processes of denitrification and anaerobic oxidation of ammonium (anammox). Here, we investigate the N cycling processes in the water column of a seasonal stratified lake influenced by benthic processes in Southern Germany (Fohnsee) during the development of the vertical redox stratification between April and September. Concentration profiles and stable isotope compositions of NO3− and NH4+ together with numerical modeling and quantification of the hydrazine synthase gene (hzsB) and nitrite reductase (nirK and nirS) genes were used to identify the predominant nitrogen‐transformation processes at lake Fohnsee throughout the spring and summer periods. Water chemistry data, quantitative polymerase chain reaction analysis and increases of δ15N and δ18O values of nitrate from 7.0‰ to 41.0‰ and 2.0‰ to 28.0‰, respectively, showed that nitrate reduction to nitrite and NO occurs in an upward moving zone of the water column from June to September following the displacement of the oxycline caused by thermal stratification. We also observed an increase in δ15N of ammonium from 15‰ to 28‰ in the anoxic water column. Modeling results suggest that this shift in δ15N‐NH4+ is predominantly controlled by mixing between ammonium stemming from the oxic water column with δ15N values of 25‰ and ammonium that is likely formed in the lake sediments by oxidation of organic matter with δ15N values of 11‰. Observed gene abundances (hzsB, nirK, and nirS) in lake water samples collected in June and July indicated the co‐occurrence of nitrate reduction and low rates of anammox, while the presence of sulfide in August and September may have inhibited the activity of anammox bacteria near the sulfate‐reduction zone at the lake bottom. This study revealed temporal and spatial (e.g., depth dependent) variations in the dominant N‐transformation processes in the investigated lake.
Locating and Understanding Voices in Narrative Inquiry: A Journey of Discovery

and one of my mentors (Helen) in the application of narrative inquiry methodology to a research study, a study that examined the parental stories of the death by suicide of a young adult child. We have structured the chapter in a manner that allows you as the reader to experience a narrative mode of writing and to think about how to analyze data using this method. As the dialogue is developing, we will take turns in providing you with a view of the research, the analytic process, and the ways in which narrative inquiry can be used with relation to a particular study. We start with an overview of the choice of methodology and then recount my interview experience with one participant that occurred around the halfway point of the research project. We chose to do this to illustrate the absence of a linear path in narrative inquiry, and highlight an interactive, engaging, one-step-forward, two-steps-back kind of journey. This approach to writing not only represents a way to analyze the data, but also demonstrates how narratives can inform the work in a way that honors the whole. This chapter differs from others in this text as it also follows the developing narrative between the two of us, doctoral student and mentor. Some shared life experiences and disciplinary expertise in the allied health professions helped to develop our
Tetraconodont dental remains (Suidae, Tetraconodontinae) from the Middle Miocene site of Ca l’Almirall (Vallès-Penedès Basin, NE Iberian Peninsula)

ABSTRACT The suid dentognathic remains from the Middle Miocene (late Aragonian, MN6) site of Ca l’Almirall (formerly ‘Can Almirall’; Vallès-Penedès Basin, NE Iberian Peninsula) were originally assigned to Hyotherium soemmeringi and subsequently to Conohyus steinheimensis (currently Versoporcus steinheimensis). However, such a taxonomic attribution is not backed by published descriptions or adequate iconography. Here we figure and describe the material to substantiate its taxonomic assignment and revisit the age of the site. We conclude that most of the material belongs to a tetraconodont that can be readily distinguished from Conohyus simorrensis and Parachleuastochoerus valentini in premolar size and proportions and shows greatest similarities with Versoporcus spp. Some authors have synonymised Versoporcus grivensis with Versoporcus steinheimensis, which overlaps in chronostratigraphic range and geographic distribution. However, based on size we tentatively support the distinction of the two species and assign the studied material to the former – while noting that the attribution of other Versoporcus remains from the Vallès-Penedès Basin is in need of revision. With an estimated age of ~14.0–13.5 Ma, the Ca l’Almirall material is roughly coeval with the oldest record of both Versoporcus spp. , supporting the view that they are not successive chronospecies of a single evolving lineage.
Informal Social Control Impact on Young People Political Participation Integrity: Structural Equation Modelling Approach

Innovation of communication technology, especially social media offer an interactive platform for young people to participate in political activities. Lack of informal social control reported by social scientists has a significant influence on low integrity political activities such as flashing provocation, joining the street demonstration, spreading fake news, defamation, and slanders with intentionally to create damage on certain political parties. This study aims to examine the factors that determine the integrity of political participation among young people using a theoretical model based on the Informal Social Control Theory. Data relating to the constructs were collected from 388 respondents in Malaysia and subjected to Structural Equation Modelling analysis. The proposed model fits the data well. Results indicate that the important determinant of the young people’s political participation integrity is involvement. The rest three dimensions namely attachment, belief, and commitment are insignificant influences on the young people ’s political participation integrity. Perhaps with literacy skills able to shape young people with integrity in political participation on social media. Finally, implications and recommendations of these findings are discussed.
Storage time effect on the germination of Haematoxylum campechianum in Campeche, Mexico

Haematoxylum campechianum L. (Fabaceae), es una un árbol tropical de importancia económica y cultural distribuida en Centroamérica y la Península de Yucatán, México. Para contribuir a la conservación de esta especie, es importante entender el proceso de germinación de semillas, sin embargo, las investigaciones sobre este tema en H. campechianum siguen siendo escasas. Se evaluó la relación entre el tiempo de almacenamiento de las semillas de H. campechianum y su peso fresco y germinación. Se recolectaron semillas maduras en el municipio de Palizada, Campeche, México, de 2016 a 2019, y se almacenaron a 25 °C y 60%-80% de humedad relativa hasta la experimentación después de la recolecta de 2019. Se pesaron lotes de semillas (10, conteniendo 25 semillas) para estimar el peso fresco por año de recolecta. La viabilidad de semillas se determinó mediante la prueba de tetrazolio, mientras que la germinación se realizó en cajas de Petri utilizando algodón como sustrato bajo un fotoperíodo de 12 h a 25 °C. Las semillas recolectadas en 2019 presentaron una alta viabilidad y germinación (100% y 98.5% respectivamente), en contraste con las recolectadas en 2018, que presentaron una reducción drástica en los valores para estos parámetros (55% y 54% respectivamente). Se observó nula viabilidad y germinación en semillas recolectadas en 2016 y 2017. Las semillas recolectadas en 2016 mostraron los valores de peso fresco más altos que los otros años muestreados. Los resultados indican que la viabilidad y la germinación de las semillas de H. campechianum se vieron afectadas por el tiempo de almacenamiento, las semillas recién cosechadas presentaron mayor viabilidad y germinación que las semillas más viejas. Por lo tanto, las semillas de H. campechianum pudieran ser recalcitrantes debido a que presentaron un proceso de envejecimiento acelerado durante los períodos de recolección.