Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Incorporation of Mycelium (Pleurotus eryngii) in Pea Protein Based Low Moisture Meat Analogue: Effect on Its Physicochemical, Rehydration and Structural Properties

The protein content of a plant-based ingredient is generally lower than its animal food counterpart, and research into novel alternative protein is required that can provide similar protein content, texture and appearance as meat. This work investigates a mycelium-based low moisture meat analogue (LMMA) approach, by incorporating 0 to 40% w/w mycelium (MY) into pea protein isolate (PPI) via extrusion using a twin-screw extruder at 140 °C die temperature, 40 rpm screw speed, and 10 rpm feeder speed (0.53–0.54 kg/h). Physicochemical, rehydration, and structural properties of LMMA were assessed. The MY incorporation led to a significant change in color attributes due to Maillard reaction during extrusion. Water solubility index and water absorption capacity increased significantly with MY addition, owing to its porous structure. Oil absorption capacity increased due to increased hydrophobic interactions post-extrusion. Protein solubility decreased initially (upto 20% w/w MY), and increased afterwards, while the water holding capacity (WHC) and volumetric expansion ratio (VER) of LMMA enhanced with MY addition upto 30% w/w. Conversely, WHC and VER decreased for 40% w/w which was verified with the microstructure and FTIR analysis. Overall, MY (30% w/w) in PPI produced a fibrous and porous LMMA, showing future potential with an increasingly plant-based product market and decreasing carbon footprint of food production activities.
Phytase Supplementation of Four Non-Conventional Ingredients Instead of Corn Enhances Phosphorus Utilization in Yellow-Feathered Broilers

Simple Summary The serious shortage of feedstuff resources is a prominent problem in the world today, and under the influence of the global food crisis, the price of ingredients has also increased. Due to the usable nutritional value and reasonable price of non-conventional ingredients, making full use of non-conventional ingredients is an important way to alleviate the shortage of feed resources, reduce the cost of livestock and poultry feeding, and improve economic efficiency. However, due to the presence of anti-nutritional factors in unconventional feed ingredients, existing studies suggest that supplementation with feed enzymes, including phytase and xylanase, can enhance feed utilization by eliminating anti-nutritional factors. By evaluating the nutritional composition and use-value of certain non-conventional feed ingredients, an application database can be established that can provide a reference for the extensive use of these resources. Abstract The present study was conducted to evaluate the effects of unconventional feedstuff such as wheat, broken rice, distillers dried grains with soluble (DDGS), and wheat bran, replacing 15% of the corn in the basal diet and the supplementation of bacterial phytase on nutrition digestibility. A total of 500 yellow-feathered broilers with similar body weights of 1.65 ± 0.15 kg were divided into 10 dietary treatments with 5 replicates per treatment (5 male and 5 females per cage). The AME and AIDE were significantly higher when supplied with phytase (p < 0.01) in the DDGS group. The ileal and total tract digestibility of calcium and phosphorus were significantly increased in the phytase-supplied group (p < 0.001). Additionally, the ileal digestibility of CP was increased when phytase was supplemented (p < 0.001). The results infer that the wheat, broken rice, DDGS, and wheat bran had no negative effect when replacing 15% corn. Supplementing 0.02% phytase in their diets can effectively optimize nutrient digestibility in yellow broilers.
A Weighted CUSUM Chart for Detecting Patterned Mean Shifts

Most conventional control charts focus on detecting a constant mean shift. In reality, however, it is often important to deal with situations where the mean of the monitoring sequence has a dynamic shift pattern, e.g., residuals from a time series. In these cases, the conventional control charts may perform poorly, as they do not consider the information due to what is known as “forecast recovery” contained in the patterned mean shift. This paper proposes a new weighted cumulative sum (WCUSUM) procedure for monitoring a sequence with a patterned mean shift. This method first estimates the dynamic mean of the sequence, then uses the estimates for weighting the incremental in the conventional CUSUM chart. Guidelines for designing the WCUSUM chart are proposed, and the performance is compared with that of the conventional CUSUM chart and other alternatives for detecting patterned mean shifts. It is found that the WCUSUM chart performs far superior to other charts for detecting small to moderate shifts when forecast recovery is present and performs competitively otherwise.
Dynamics of fermentation profile, bacterial communities and their functional characteristics in red clover

Abstract The bacterial community is important for shaping the fermentation characteristics of silage. This study aimed to investigate the fermentation characteristics, bacterial community and predicted functional characteristics of red clover (Trifolium pratense L.) silage. First-cutting red clover was collected at the early bloom stage, wilted for 5 h and then ensiled in 10 litre-capacity silos. Triplicate silos were sampled after 1, 3, 7, 15, 30 and 60 days of ensiling, respectively. The bacterial communities on days 3 and 60 were assessed through high-throughput sequencing technology, and 16S rRNA-gene predicted functional characteristics were analysed based on the KEGG using Tax4Fun. After 60 days of ensiling, red clover silage was fermented well, as indicated by high lactic acid (~77.3 g/kg DM), and low concentrations of butyric acid (~3.73 g/kg DM) and ammonia nitrogen (~55.0 g/kg TN). During the initial stage of ensiling, fructose and glucose were more preferred than sucrose for microbes. The predominant genus Lactococcus (0.542) on day 3 was replaced by Lactobacillus (0.553) on day 60. The metabolism of amino acids, energy, cofactors and vitamins was inhibited, while the metabolism of nucleotides and carbohydrates was enhanced after ensiling. High-throughput sequencing technology combined with 16S rRNA gene-predicted functional analyses revealed the differences during the early and late stages of red clover silage not only for distinct bacterial compositions but also for specific functional traits. Our results could provide a comprehensive insight into bacterial community and their functional profiles to further improve the silage quality.
An Experimental Demonstration of Short Circuit Protection of SiC Devices

An experimental demonstration of an effective short circuit protection scheme for SiC MOSFETs is presented in this paper. Measurements of the static characteristics of the SiC device before and after the short circuit events were obtained to evince that the device remained in good health. An ultra-fast short circuit protection scheme is implemented given the observed lower short-circuit withstand of present SiC devices. It is shown that the integrity of the SiC device was protected after one-hundred short circuit events.
Clumped‐Isotope Constraint on Upper‐Tropospheric Cooling During the Last Glacial Maximum

Ice cores and other paleotemperature proxies, together with general circulation models, have provided information on past surface temperatures and the atmosphere's composition in different climates. Little is known, however, about past temperatures at high altitudes, which play a crucial role in Earth's radiative energy budget. Paleoclimate records at high‐altitude sites are sparse, and the few that are available show poor agreement with climate model predictions. These disagreements could be due to insufficient spatial coverage, spatiotemporal biases, or model physics; new records that can mitigate or avoid these uncertainties are needed. Here, we constrain the change in upper‐tropospheric temperature at the global scale during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) using the clumped‐isotope composition of molecular oxygen trapped in polar ice cores. Aided by global three‐dimensional chemical transport modeling, we exploit the intrinsic temperature sensitivity of the clumped‐isotope composition of atmospheric oxygen to infer that the upper troposphere (effective mean altitude 10–11 km) was 6–9°C cooler during the LGM than during the late preindustrial Holocene. A complementary energy balance approach supports a minor or negligible steepening of atmospheric lapse rates during the LGM, which is consistent with a range of climate model simulations. Proxy‐model disagreements with other high‐altitude records may stem from inaccuracies in regional hydroclimate simulation, possibly related to land‐atmosphere feedbacks.
Holistic physics-of-failure approach to wind turbine power converter reliability

As the cost of wind energy becomes of increasing importance to the global surge of clean and green energy sources, the reliability-critical power converter is a target for vast improvements in availability through dedicated research. To this end, this thesis concentrates on providing a new holistic approach to converter reliability research to facilitate reliability increasing, cost reducing innovations unique to the wind industry. This holistic approach combines both computational and physical experimentation to provide a test bench for detailed reliability analysis of the converter power modules under the unique operating conditions of the wind turbine. The computational models include a detailed permanent magnet synchronous generator wind turbine with a power loss and thermal model representing the machine side converter power module response to varying wind turbine conditions. The supporting experimental test rig consists of an inexpensive, precise and extremely fast temperature measurement approach using a PbSe photoconductive infra-red sensor unique in the wind turbine reliability literature. This is used to measure spot temperatures on a modified power module to determine the junction temperature swings experienced during current cycling. A number of key conclusions have been made from this holistic approach. -Physics-of-failure analysis (and indeed any wind turbine power converter based reliability analysis) requires realistic wind speed data as the temporal changes in wind speed have a significant impact on the thermal loading on the devices. -The use of drive train modelling showed that the current throughput of the power converter is decoupled from the incoming wind speed due to drive train dynamics and control. Therefore, the power converter loading cannot be directly derived from the wind speed input without this modelling. -The minimum wind speed data frequency required for sufficiently accurate temperature profiles was determined, and the use of SCADA data for physics-of failure reliability studies was subsequently shown to be entirely inadequate. -The experimental emulation of the power converter validated a number of the aspects of the simulation work including the increase in temperature with wind speed and the detectability of temperature variations due to the current's fundamental frequency. Most importantly, this holistic approach provides an ideal test bench for optimising power converter designs for wind turbine, or for other industries with stochastic loading, conditions whilst maintaining or exceeding present reliability levels to reduce wind turbine's cost of energy, and therefore, society.
Understanding Smart City Policy: Insights from the Strategy Documents of 52 Local Governments

Today, many cities around the globe are interested in developing or adopting smart city policy frameworks; however, the complexity of the smart city concept combined with complicated urban issues makes it a highly challenging task. Moreover, there are limited studies to consolidate our understanding of smart city policymaking. The aim of this study was to bridge this knowledge gap by placing a set of official smart city policy frameworks under the policy analysis microscope. The study approached the analysis by, firstly, internationally collating the smart city policy frameworks of 52 local governments from 17 countries. The methodology then progressed to a deductive content analysis of the identified policies with a thematic data analysis software. The investigation employed the main themes to identify common urban issues in smart city policies—i.e., smart economy, smart environment, smart governance, smart living, smart mobility, and smart people. The results revealed the targeted key planning issues, goals, and priorities, and the ways that smart city policies address these key planning issues, goals, and priorities. The study findings inform policymakers, planners and practitioners on the smart city policy priorities and provide insights for smart city policymaking.
Light-SDNet: A Lightweight CNN Architecture for Ship Detection

Ship detection plays a vital role in monitoring and managing maritime safety. Most recently proposed learning-based object detection methods have achieved marked progress in detection accuracy, but the size of these models is too large to be applied to mobile devices with limited resources. Although some compact models have been presented in the previous study, they achieve unsatisfactory results in ship detection, especially under extreme weather conditions. To address these challenges, this article presents a lightweight convolutional neural network (CNN) called Light-SDNet to perform an end-to-end ship detection under different weather conditions. In the proposed model, we introduce the improved CA-Ghost, C3Ghost, and DepthWise Convolution (DWConv) into the You Only Look Once version 5 (YOLOv5) to reduce the number of model parameters, while remaining its powerful feature expression ability. We use parallel attention to highlight the features that contribute to the ship detection in the marine surveillance. To enhance the adaptability of the proposed model, a hybrid training strategy with generating synthetically-degraded images is proposed to augment the volume and diversity of the original datasets. The proposed strategy enables Light-SDNet to improve the ship detection results under severe weather conditions such as haze, rain, and low illumination. We compare Light-SDNet with other competitive approaches on a large-scaled ship dataset called SeaShips. We show that Light-SDNet achieves a better balance between the detection accuracy and the model complexity. The ship detection results on degraded marine images have proven the superior performance of the proposed model in terms of detection accuracy, robustness and efficiency.
Identification of PKS-NRPS Hybrid Metabolites in Marine-Derived Penicillium oxalicum

Filamentous fungi are abundant resources of bioactive natural products. Here, 151 marine-derived fungi were collected from the north Yellow Sea and identified by an internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequence. The crude extracts of all strains were evaluated for their antimicrobial activities and analyzed by HPLC fingerprint. Based on these, strain Penicillium oxalicum MEFC104 was selected for further investigation. Two new polyketide–amino acid hybrid compounds with feature structures of tetramic acid, oxopyrrolidine A and B, were isolated. Their planner structures were assigned by HRESIMS and 1D/2D NMR experiments. The absolute configurations were determined by modified Mosher’s method, J-based configuration analysis, and ECD calculations. Furthermore, the biosynthetic pathway was identified by bioinformatic analysis and gene-deletion experiments. This study established a link between oxopyrrolidines and the corresponding biosynthesis genes in P. oxalicum.
Teacher participatory decision-making in schools: A pre-requisite for democratic governance in Ghanaian second cycle educational institutions

Participatory decision-making in schools has been identified as a key tool for improving teachers* professional development. However, not much has been done in terms of scientific research to find out the nature, level and areas of teacher participation in making school decisions. Therefore, this study sought to establish the areas and ways of involving Senior High School teachers in decision-making in schools in the Mampong Municipality. The descriptive survey design was adopted for the study. The purposive and stratified sampling techniques were adopted to select the participants for the study. Questionnaires were used to collect data from 252 randomly selected professional teachers. It was observed from the study that teachers were always involved in curriculum and instructional activities and occasionally engaged in school operational activities and decisions that promoted school-community relationship. However, teachers were never involved in decision making on student admission and placement, staffing and financial matters. Teachers were involved in school decision-making through delegation, school meeting, school Board of Governors, and school committee systems. It is, therefore, recommended that the heads of schools should decentralise decision-making in their schools to allow greater teachers’ involvement in decision-making.
Cloud-Free Land Surface Temperature Reconstructions Based on MODIS Measurements and Numerical Simulations for Characterizing Surface Urban Heat Islands

Land surface temperature (LST) data in the thermal infrared (TIR) band measured by the moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument are critical for studying surface urban heat islands (SUHIs); however, these acquired TIR LST data are contaminated by clouds, so it is crucial to develop a method to generate cloud-free LST products. In this article, employing Tianjin as the research area, we combined the weather research and forecasting model with a random forest and a spatial optimization algorithm to propose a cloud-free MODIS-like model (WRFFM). The model can reconstruct cloud-free MODIS-like LSTs and SUHIs are studied. The spatial patterns of the WRFFM LSTs and the MODIS LSTs are consistent; the correlation coefficients in July and December range from 0.8 to 0.91 and 0.8 to 0.93, respectively, and the root mean square errors range from 0.5 to 3.8 K and 0.4 to 1.8 K, respectively, indicating that the modeled results are accurate. We use these WRFFM LSTs to study SUHIs and evaluate the deviations between the MODIS SUHIs and WRFFM SUHIs. When the proportion of clear-sky pixels is below 30%, the deviation is above 3 K, and when the proportion of clear-sky pixels is above 80%, the deviation is below 0.6 K. The results indicate that the developed model can be applied to improve the study of SUHIs and that the number of clear-sky pixels for a city is an important factor that affects the bias relative to the actual SUHI .
Effect of sex and neck positions on hand grip strength in healthy normal adults: a cross-sectional, observational study

Purpose The purpose of this study was to assess the effect of sex and neck positions on hand grip strength in healthy normal adults. Materials and methods One hundred healthy adults of both sexes participated in this study. They were recruited from the students of the faculty of physical Therapy. Their ages ranged between 17 and 25 years. They were assigned to two equal groups according to their sex. Hand grip strength was measured in several neck positions. Grip strength was measured by using the Jamar handheld dynamometer, and the neck range of motion was measured by using the cervical range of motion. Results Among females, there was a significant difference between the hand grip strength in neutral position and in other neck positions (P=0.036). Among males, there was a significant difference between the hand grip strength in the neutral position and in other neck positions. Within neck positions, there was a significant difference (P<0.001). In addition, there was a significant difference in the hand grip strength in various neck positions between the female and male groups (P<0.001). Conclusion Hand grip strength was affected by changing the neck positions in both sexes and the maximum grip strength measurement was in the neutral position of the neck.
Exploring the role and lived experiences of people with disabilities working in the agricultural sector in northern Nigeria

Background It is estimated that over 75.0% of households in sub-Saharan Africa are involved in agriculture, and the majority of the poor in rural areas rely on agriculture for their livelihoods. One billion people living with disabilities in low- and middle-income countries are argued to make up the poorest of the poor, yet to our knowledge, no literature has captured the livelihood of people living with disabilities in the context of farming in Nigeria, specifically northern Nigeria where most of the households are involved in agriculture and related activities. Objectives This article reports on findings from a study that sought to understand disability in the context of northern Nigerian farming, with a particular focus on the role and lived experiences of people living with disabilities working in the agricultural sector. Method A survey questionnaire was developed and captured the experiences of 1067 people living with disabilities working in the agricultural sector across five states (Adamawa, Bauchi, Jigawa, Kaduna and Yobe) in northern Nigeria. Results Findings indicate that people with disabilities are actively participating in agricultural activities for several reasons, which specifically included ‘forced to and for survival’. When participants reported needing care, this was predominantly provided by family members. Findings also showed that participants with disabilities experienced several economic and sociocultural challenges because of their impairments. Conclusion This study adds to the very limited literature on farmers living with disabilities in sub-Saharan Africa and so highlights the need for more research to be conducted with farmers living with disabilities in Nigeria, particularly female farmers living with disabilities. These will provide more evidence pertaining to the experiences of farmers living with disabilities in order to provide effective disability- and gender-inclusive agricultural and entrepreneurship programmes in Nigeria. Contribution The results of this research reveal important insights relating to the experiences of farmers living with disabilities in northern Nigeria, which can contribute to informing future developmental projects to achieve effective inclusion and actively benefit people living with disabilities.