Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparative Analysis of technical efficiency of wheat production in row planting and broadcasting methods: Empirical evidence from southern Ethiopia

A Cobb–Douglas stochastic production frontier was used to analyze the technical efficiency of wheat producers under row planting and broadcasting methods in Hadiya zone, southern Ethiopia. The estimated results of the Cobb–Douglas frontier model show that the mean technical efficiency was 83.4% and 57.8% under row planting and broadcasting, respectively. Approximately 646.882 kg/ha under row planting and 1393.038 kg/ha under broadcasting of wheat output were lost due to inefficiency. This reveals that under the existing practices there is a room to increase wheat yield more under broadcasting (42.2%) than row planting (16.6%) following the best-practice farms in the study area. The SPF model indicates that NPS, urea, labour and seed are significant determinants of wheat production level in both methods. The estimated SPF model together with the inefficiency parameters show that education, age, fertility status of the plot, family size, land fragmentation and extension contact were the main factors that had a significant influence on technical inefficiency of wheat farmers. Hence, emphasis should be given to improving the efficiency level of those less efficient farmers by adopting the practices of relatively efficient farmers in the area.
Moisture Damage in Ancient Masonry: A Multidisciplinary Approach for In Situ Diagnostics

San Nicola in Carcere, one of the minor basilicas in the historical center of Rome, was the location of a wide investigation campaign of the water-related deterioration causes, present in the lower sector of the apse and adjacent pillars, affected by water infiltrations, mould and salt efflorescence. The results obtained identify the presence of water content and related effects mainly on the sides of the apsidal wall. This work focuses on the use of five Non-Destructive Techniques (NDT) and intends to show the gains obtained by integrating widely interdisciplinary methods, namely the Infrared Thermography (IRT), the Unilateral Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (Unilateral NMR), the Acoustic Tomography (AT), the Acoustic Imaging (AI) and the Laser-Induced Fluorescence (LIF). All the techniques contribute to the rapid, non-invasive and early identification of the moisture distribution, while some of them (LIF and AI) also address the determination of some moisture effects. The integrated use of different techniques helps to take the multidisciplinary point of view necessary to formulate an effective restoration intervention based on a sound scientific rationale; nonetheless, it allows to experiment a holistic approach, verifying the potential of a wide range of NDTs available within the context of a restoration yard.
Biostimulants Managed Fungal Phytopathogens and Enhanced Activity of Beneficial Microorganisms in Rhizosphere of Scorzonera (Scorzonera hispanica L.)

The principles of good agricultural and horticultural practice, considering both environmental protection and high yielding of plants, require modern cultivation methods. In modern agriculture, it is possible to use biostimulants that protect the soil against degradation and plants against phytopathogens and stress. The purpose of 3-year field and laboratory studies was to determine the effect of Trichoderma harzianum T-22 and other biostimulants on the health status of scorzonera (Scorzonera hispanica L.) plants and microorganism populations in the rhizosphere of this plant. For this purpose, Biosept Active (a.s.—grapefruit extract), Timorex Gold 24 EC (based on tea tree oil), Trianum P (spores of Trichoderma harzianum Rifai T-22) and Zaprawa Nasienna T 75 DS/WS fungicide (a.s.—tiuram) were applied for the pre-sowing seed dressing of scorzonera cv. “Duplex”. The number of seedlings and the health status of scorzonera plants were determined during three growing seasons. In each year of the study, mycological analysis of seedling roots and roots after scorzonera harvest was conducted to establish the quantitative and qualitative composition of fungi colonizing these parts. Moreover, microbiological analyses of scorzonera rhzisphere soil were conducted and served as the basis to determine the total population of fungi and bacteria (including Pseudomonas sp. and Bacillus sp.). Antagonistic activity of rhizosphere bacteria Pseudomonas sp. , Bacillus sp. and fungi was determined based on laboratory tests on selected scorzonera soil-borne fungal pathogens (Alternaria scorzonerae, Fusarium culmorum, Fusarium oxysporum, and Rhizoctonia solani). The experiments showed that Trianum P most effectively protected the roots of scorzonera against infection by Alternaria alternata, A. scorzonerae, Neocosmospora solani, Fusarium spp. , Sclerotinia sclerotiorum, Rhizoctonia solani, and Botrytis cinerea. The rhizosphere population of Bacillus sp. and Pseudomonas sp. in the treatments with Trianum P or Zaprawa Nasienna T 75 DS/WS was larger than in the other experimental treatments. A reverse relationship was observed in the population of rhizosphere fungi. The application of grapefruit extract, tea tree oil and Trichoderma harzianum T-22 increased antagonistic activity of Pseudomonas sp. , Bacillus sp. and selected saprotrophic fungi against soil-borne fungal pathogens, especially Alternaria sp. , Rhizoctonia sp. , and Fusarium sp. In summary, Biosept Active, Timorex Gold 24 EC and Trianum P can be recommended as plant biostimulants in Scorzonera hispanica cultivation.
Diffusing Political Concerns: How Unemployment Information Passed between Social Ties Influences Danish Voters

While social pressure is widely believed to influence voters, evidence that information passed between social ties affects beliefs, policy preferences, and voting behavior is limited. We investigate whether information about unemployment shocks diffuses through networks of strong and mostly weak social ties and influences voters in Denmark. We link surveys with population-level administrative data that log unemployment shocks afflicting respondents’ familial, vocational, and educational networks. Our results show that the share of second-degree social ties—individuals that voters learn about indirectly—that became unemployed within the last year increases a voter’s perception of national unemployment, self-assessed risk of becoming unemployed, support for unemployment insurance, and voting for left-wing political parties. Voters’ beliefs about national aggregates respond to all shocks similarly, whereas subjective perceptions and preferences respond primarily to unemployment shocks afflicting second-degree ties in similar vocations. This suggests that information diffusion through social ties principally affects political preferences via egotropic—rather than sociotropic—motives.
Soil Respiration in Alder Swamp (Alnus glutinosa) in Southern Taiga of European Russia Depending on Microrelief

Swamp forests have been insufficiently studied yet in comparison with thoroughly examined carbon pools and greenhouse gas fluxes of peat bogs. This is primarily since the GHGs in swamp forests have huge spatial (due to the developed microrelief) and temporal variations (due to strong fluctuations in the groundwater level (GWL)). This significantly complicates their study, producing ambiguous results, especially in short-term field research. From June to October 2013–2016, we measured soil respiration (Rsoil) in an alder swamp using the static chamber method at five microsites: depression (DEP), flat surface (FL), elevations (EL), tussocks (TUS), and near-stem tussocks (STUS). We carried out a computer simulation of the total Rsoil for the season based on Rsoil measurements, monitoring of GWL, and soil temperature. In 2013–2016, the average Rsoil values (mgC m−2 h−1 ± σ) on DEP, FL, EL, TUS and STUS comprised 54 ± 50, 94 ± 72, 146 ± 89, 193 ± 96, and 326 ± 183, respectively, whereas the total Rsoil values for the season (tC ha−1 season−1 ± σ) comprised 2.0 ± 0.5, 3.5 ± 0.5, 5.3 ± 1.6, 5.4 ± 2.7, and 12.6 ± 3.2. According to the results of observations, GWL was at the level of several cm below the soil surface for most of the season. In 2014 and 2015, there were extra dry periods that led to a drop in GWL to a mark of 30–40 cm below the soil surface. Despite their short duration (2–3 weeks), these dry periods can lead to an increase in the total Rsoil for the season from 9 to 45% in the TUS–EL–STUS–FL–DEP sequence.
PODCASTING ON PURPOSE: EXPLORING MOTIVATIONS FOR PODCAST USE AMONG YOUNG ADULTS

ABSTRACT Despite the pervasive nature of podcasts, little research has examined college student’s affinity for and motivations to listen to podcasts. This study investigated college students’ motivations, attitudes and behaviors in association with podcasts utilizing the appreciative listening framework in conjunction with uses and gratification theory. Using a survey from two southwestern universities, this study found three motivations for podcast usage: 1. entertainment, 2. escapism, and 3. information. Further analysis revealed a lack of gender differences in motivations, but motivations varied by podcast genre. Additionally, entertainment was a strong predictor of podcast listening and both entertainment and escapism were predictors of favorable attitudes toward podcasts.
Production and characterization of emulsified fish mortadella from Nile tilapia (Oreochromus niloticus)

This study produced fish mortadella from Mechanically Separated Meat (MSM) of Nile tilapia added with animal fat. Three formulations were developed: M1 (MSM - 89 % and 5 % pork fat), M2 (MSM - 84 % and 10 % pork fat) and M3 (MSM - 79 % and 15 % pork fat). The elaborated products were tested for technological, physical, physico-chemical, microbiological and sensory parameters. The results showed that the fish mortadella were microbiologically stable with a particular texture for an emulsified meat product, attractive colour and characteristic flavour. All formulations met the expected identity and quality requirements. They also achieved good acceptance by the judges, in which formulation M1 may be highlighted for presenting an emulsion stability of 97 %, higher protein content (18.09 %) and lower lipids (16.31 %). In addition, it also reached higher mean scores for texture attributes and purchase intent. Therefore, it is possible to prepare fish mortadellas from tilapia MSM using less animal fat.
A Repairing Artificial Neural Network Model-Based Stock Price Prediction

Predicting the stock price movements based on quantitative market data modeling is an open problem ever. In stock price prediction, simultaneous achievement of higher accuracy and the fastest prediction becomes a challenging problem due to the hidden information found in raw data. Various prediction models based on machine learning algorithms have been proposed in the literature. In general, these models start with the training phase followed by the testing phase. In the training phase, the past stock market data are used to learn the patterns toward building a model that would then use to predict future stock prices. The performance of such learning algorithms heavily depends on the quality of the data as well as optimal learning parameters. Among the conventional prediction methods, the use of neural network has greatest research interest because of their advantages of self-organizing, distributed processing, and self-learning behaviors. In this work, dynamic nature of the data is mainly focused. Inconventional modelstheretraininghastobe carried outfortwocases: the data used fortraininghashighernoise and outliers or model trained without preprocessing; the learned data has to update dynamically for recent changes. In this sense, propose a self-repairing dynamic model called repairing artificial neural network (RANN) that correct such errors effectively. The repairing includes adjusting the prediction model from noise, outliers, removing a data sample, and adjusting an attribute value. Hence, the total reconstruction of the prediction model could be avoided while saving training time. The proposed model is validated with five different real-time stock market data and the results are quantified to analyze its performance.
Residues from Water Precipitation via Ferric Hydroxide Threaten Soil Fertility

From the moment it was first indicated that use of aluminum chloride during purification of drinking water might be one of the triggers of Alzheimer’s disease, it took only a few years to almost abandon this practice worldwide. Now, two years after the initial evidence was presented that the cheapest possible replacement for aluminum chloride (ferric hydroxide, better known as ferrous sludge) significantly threatens soil fertility, there is almost no action. A robust case study was conducted among European drinking water treatment plants. First, it is reported that some samples of ferrous sludge can reduce phosphorus availability by more than 70%. This creates a precondition for a significant reduction in fertility over a decade. Because the legislation usually responds to similar findings with great delay, the extent to which managers of drinking water treatment plants are willing to change process settings by themselves has also been assessed. The findings obtained allow us to expect that a long continuation of this hazardous practice can be expected, since managers of drinking water treatment plants show little willingness to switch from the ongoing questionable technology (harmful to nutrient cycles in soil) to environmentally favorable (though slightly more costly) solutions.
A Spectral-Spatial Features Integrated Network for Hyperspectral Detection of Marine Oil Spill

Marine oil spills are one of the most serious problems of marine environmental pollution. Hyperspectral remote sensing has been proven to be an effective tool for monitoring marine oil spills. To make full use of spectral and spatial features, this study proposes a spectral-spatial features integrated network (SSFIN) and applies it for hyperspectral detection of a marine oil spill. Specifically, 1-D and 2-D convolutional neural network (CNN) models have been employed for the extraction of the spectral and spatial features, respectively. During the stage of spatial feature extraction, three consecutive convolution layers are concatenated to achieve the fusion of multilevel spatial features. Next, the extracted spectral and spatial features are concatenated and fed to the fully connected layer so as to obtain the joint spectral-spatial features. In addition, L2 regularization is applied to the convolution layer to prevent overfitting, and dropout operation is employed to the full connection layer to improve the network performance. The effectiveness of the method proposed here has firstly been verified on the Pavia University dataset with competitive classification experimental results. Eventually, the experimental results upon oil spill datasets demonstrate the strong capacity of oil spill detection by this method, which can effectively distinguish thick oil film, thin oil film, and seawater.
Influenza Vaccination Rates Among Patients With a History of Cancer: Analysis of the National Health Interview Survey

Abstract Background Annual influenza vaccination is recommended for all patients with cancer, but vaccine uptake data by cancer type and time since diagnosis are limited. We sought to estimate vaccination rates across different cancer types in the United States and determine whether rates vary over time since diagnosis. Methods Vaccination rates in individuals with solid tumor and hematological malignancies were estimated using data from 59 917 individuals obtained by the 2016 and 2017 National Health Interview Survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Results An average of 64% of the 5053 individuals with self-reported cancer received the influenza vaccine. Vaccination rates in men and women with solid tumors (66.6% and 60.3%, respectively) and hematological malignancies (58.1% and 59.2%, respectively) were significantly higher compared to those without cancer (38.9% and 46.8%, respectively). Lower rates were seen in uninsured patients, those younger than 45 years of age, and in African Americans with hematological malignancies but not with solid tumors. Vaccine uptake was similar regardless of time since cancer diagnosis. Conclusions Influenza vaccination rates are higher in men and women with cancer but remain suboptimal, highlighting the need for additional measures to improve vaccine compliance and prevent complications from influenza across all cancer types.
Numerical Modelling of Flow-Debris Interaction during Extreme Hydrodynamic Events with DualSPHysics-CHRONO

Floods can transport debris of a very wide range of dimensions, from cohesive sediments to large floating debris, such as trees and cars. The latter increases the risk associated with floods by, for example, obstructing the flow or damaging structures due to impact. The transport of this type of debris and their interaction with structures are often studied experimentally in the context of tsunamis and flash floods. Numerical studies on this problem are rare, therefore the present study focuses on the numerical modelling of the flow-debris interaction. This is achieved by simulating multiple laboratory experiments, available in the literature, of a single buoyant container transported by a dam-break flow in order to validate the chosen numerical approach. The numerical simulations are carried using the open source DualSPHysics model based on the smoothed particle hydrodynamics method coupled with the multi-physics engine CHRONO, which handles the container–bottom interactions. The trajectory, as well as the velocity of the centroid of the container, were tracked throughout the simulation and compared with the same quantities measured in the laboratory. The agreement between the model and the experiment results is quantitatively assessed using the normalised root mean squared error and it is shown that the model is accurate in reproducing the floating container trajectory and velocity.
Formative Assessment of Pre-Service Teachers’ Knowledge on Mathematical Modeling

This document reports how formative assessment strategies promote the knowledge of modeling of pre-service mathematics teachers. This knowledge is understood from content and vehicle points of view. Formative assessment strategies were designed and experimented with 14 participants in a mathematical modeling course offered to pre-service teachers in a Colombian university. Thematic analysis was conducted on lesson plans built by pre-service teachers. In those plans, they evinced knowledge of class management, mathematics teaching, problem solving, and modeling teaching. Finally, the collective construction of assessment rubrics is highlighted. Its contributions and limitations as a formative assessment tool are reported. The role played by the advisors’ feedback and support to pre-service teachers is also presented.
Drug Regimen for Patients after a Pneumonectomy

Pneumonectomy is an entire lung removal and is indicated for both malignant and benign diseases. Due to its invasiveness and postoperative complications, pneumonectomy is still associated with high mortality and morbidity. Appropriate postoperative management is crucial in pneumonectomy patients to improve quality of life and overall survival rates. Diverse drug regimens are under development to be used in adjuvant chemotherapy or to improve respiratory health after a pneumonectomy. The most common causes for a pneumonectomy are non-small cell lung cancer, malignant pleural mesothelioma, and tuberculosis; thus, an appropriate drug regimen is necessary. The uncommon incidence of pneumonectomy cases remains the major obstacle in studies of postoperative drug regimens. As the majority of current studies include post-lobectomy and post-segmentectomy patients, it is highly recommended that further research of postoperative drug regimens be focused on post-pneumonectomy patients.
New Expressions to Apply the Variation Operation Strategy in Engineering Tools Using Pumps Working as Turbines

The improvement in energy saving aspects in water systems is currently a topic of major interest. The utilization of pumps working as turbines is a relevant strategy in water distribution networks consisting of pressurized pipes, using these machines to recover energy, generate green energy and reduce leakages in water systems. The need to develop energy studies, prior to the installation of these facilities, requires the use of simulation tools. These tools should be able to define the operation curves of the machine as a function of the flow rate. This research proposes a new strategy to develop a mathematics model for pumps working as turbines (PATs), considering the modified affinity laws. This proposed model, which can be input into hydraulic simulation tools (e.g., Epanet, WaterGems), allows estimation of the head, efficiency, and power curves of the PATs when operating at different rotational speeds. The research used 87 different curves for 15 different machines to develop the new model. This model improves the results of the previously published models, reducing the error in the estimation of the height, efficiency, and power values. The proposed model reduced the errors by between 30 and 50% compared to the rest of the models.
Active tapered fibers for high peak power fiber lasers

In the paper we discuss current state of the art in the field of tapered fiber development. The best results in term of high peak and high average power achieved with this type of fibers are presented together with requirements to the tapered fiber amplifier design. The report is mainly focused on tapered fiber amplifiers operated near 1 μm (Yb-doped tapered fibers), but also extension of this technique to 1.55 μm spectral range is discussed.
An ecohydrological typology for thermal refuges in streams and rivers

Thermal refuges are thermally distinct riverscape features used by aquatic organisms during unfavourable thermal events, facilitating resilience in marginal environments. However, the thermal refuge concept is nebulous, and the often interchangeable use of the term ‘thermal refugia’ creates additional ambiguity. We argue that lexical differences resulting from divergent scholarly trainings hinder holistic understanding of thermal refuges; thus, existing studies would benefit from a structured framework for thermal refuge conceptualization. Herein, we articulate an ecohydrological typology for defining and characterizing thermal refuges in streams and rivers by identifying key hydrological and thermal characteristics and variations in ecological function described in the literature. We use concepts that are easily definable, measurable and transferable across disciplines, riverscapes and species to discriminate among thermal refuge types. Future work can use our typology as a basis for more informed interdisciplinary discussion and interpretation of thermal refuges' role in riverscapes through more hypothesis‐driven research and conservation‐focused management.
A Comprehensive Phase Noise Analysis of Bang-Bang Digital PLLs

This work introduces an accurate linearized model and phase noise spectral analysis of digital bang-bang PLLs, that includes both the reference and the digitally-controlled oscillator (DCO) noise contributions. A time-domain analysis of bang-bang PLLs is leveraged to derive closed-form expressions for the integrated jitter, leading to a precise estimation of the binary phase detector (BPD) equivalent gain. The theoretical predictions differ by less than 1% from the simulation results obtained using a behavioral model, in all typical cases: dominant reference noise, dominant DCO noise, and comparable contributions. An accurate discrete-time model that takes into account the time-variant effect arising from the multirate nature of a digital phase-locked loop (DPLL) is used, along with the provided estimation of the jitter, to predict the output and input-referred phase noise spectra. An excellent match with the simulated spectra is achieved for all the different operating conditions.