Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
FMAs and phosphate in the growth of Euterpe edulis seedlings

The present study evaluated the effect of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) inoculation on growth and nutrition of Euterpe edulis seedlings, supplemented or not with phosphate fertilization. The experiment was conducted in a greenhouse. The randomized block design, consisted of a 3x2 factorial arrangement and 4 replicates, with two phosphorus doses (0 and 50 mg dm-3 of soil), two microbiological treatments (Rhizophagus clarus; Claroideoglomus etunicatum; R. clarus + C. etunicatum) and control (without fungus). Sowing and inoculation occurred concurrently in 2 kg plastic bags. Height, collar diameter, leaf area, dry shoot mass, macronutrient content and mycorrhizal colonization percentage were determined after 226 days. Regarding mycorrhizal colonization percentage, R. clarus resulted significantly beneficial for the production of E. edulis seedlings. In the absence of phosphate fertilization, R. clarus and mixed inoculum increased all biometric variables and macronutrient contents in seedlings. Therefore, it is concluded that AMF inoculations provide beneficial effects for growth and nutrition of E. edulis seedlings, resulting in more vigorous plants at a low-cost strategy.
Tax Planning, Financial Constraints and Investment Management: Empirical Evidence from Pakistan

The aim of this study is to provide insight into tax avoidance through planning and management, and its investment consequences in financially constrained and unconstrained firms, as well as to empirically examine the interrelationships between the variables studied. Data was extracted from the financial statement analysis of non-financial companies listed on the Pakistan stock exchange (PSX) published by the State Bank of Pakistan, covering ten major manufacturing sectors. KZ index and WW index are used to identify financially constrained and unconstrained firms. Tax avoidance is measured by using GETR and LETR. All the equations are estimated through panel data regression models using common, fixed, and random effects. The empirical investigation of the role of tax avoidance in all firms collectively and constrained and unconstrained firms separately showed that the tax avoidance behavior of these firms is translated into investments by these firms. The study will help policymakers in strategy formulation and implementation related to tax planning and investment decisions in constrained and unconstrained firms to overcome their financial constraints and to optimize their investment decisions for value maximization. This will substantially increase the investment in the country by providing growth opportunities and lowering the tax rates.
DETERMINATION AND HEAVY METALS POLLUTION INDEX OF SOME NIGERIAN

Department of Pure and Industrial Chemistry, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Enugu State, Nigeria *Corresponding author; E ABSTRACT This current study aimed to determine the content o (Cu), chromium (Cr), manganese (Mn), nickel (Ni) and lead (Pb) and assessed the pollution index of these heavy metals in 10 medicinal plants samples. The samples were digested using HNO3: HClO4in the ratio of (2:1) and out using Atomic Absorption spectrophotometer (AAS). contentranged forAs (0.00 1.995ppm),Cu(0.875-2.98ppm), 8.295ppm). The mean concentrations of the metals were compared with World Health Organization (WHO) and FAO/WHO permissible limits in all 10 medicinalplants analyzed except Mn in two samples. The heavy metal pollution index (HMPI) analysis in the10samplesindicated atrend in the order of: AC >ES >KT >FT >AL >CT >CK >CS >GS >SL. AChasthe highest pollution index and is more likely to cause an adverse health effect than the other studied samples.
Hardness and Texture of Electrolytic Copper Processed by ECAP at Cold and Warm Temperatures☆

Among several severe plastic deformation (SPD) methods, the Equal Channel Angular Pressing (ECAP) process is one of the most popular. This process's main characteristic is producing materials with ultra-fine or nanometric grains. Due to these microstructural changes, it is possible to improve mechanical properties such as strength and ductility. In this perspective, the aim of the present work was to evaluate the variations of the mechanical hardness property associated with microstructural and textural changes of pure copper as a function of its processing by SPD via ECAP. For this, the material was submitted to four passes through routes A (the sample is repetitively pressed without any rotation between each pass) and Bc (the sample is rotated in the same sense by 90° between each pass) at cold and warm temperatures. Through the obtained result, it was verified that the ambient temperature of the Bc route was the one that promoted greater homogeneity in the microstructure and weakening of the texture after the fourth pass. On the other hand, warm processing of copper by ECAP promoted a softening of the samples and a homogeneous distribution of hardness in both routes.
MICROBIAL CHANGES DURING THE FERMENTATION OF BAOBAB

*Zumunta, J. D. , 1 Integrated Science Department 2 Department of Microbiology, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University (ATBU) Bauchi. Bauchi State, Nigeria Correspondence Author: ABSTRACT This study was conducted to assess the microbial changes during the fermentation of Baobab (Adansoniadigitata)fruit pulp yoghurt. The Baobab fruit pulp yoghurt was prepared in the Laboratory using the conventional method. Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Strep thermophilus were used as starter cultures while a control was produced without the starter cultures. de Man Rogosa Sharpe (MRS) agar was used to culture lactic acid bacteria. The microbialload, succession and percentageoccurrences were determined methods. The total aerobic bacterial count wasfound to be within the range of 1.4x10cfu/ml. TheLactic acid bacteria and fungal count ranges were cfu/ml and 8.0 x 10 – 2.8 x 10 was significant difference between the test and control Baobab yoghurt at P acid bacteria recorded the highest count of 6.2 x 10 control respectively.Bacillus species,Staphyloc Streptococcus thermophilus and Micrococcus species were the bacteria isolated while the fungal isolates were Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Hansenula species.Lacbacillusbulgaricus, Streptococcus thermophilus,Bacillus microorganisms found at the end of fermentation time. The study obtained low microbial count and isolated less number and type of microorganisms from Baobab fruit pulp yoghurtbecause of the antimicrobial ef treatment.Based on the results of this study, Baobab fruit pulp yoghurt can be said to be of good microbiologicalquality for human consumption. The industrial use of Baobab fruit pulp in the production of yoghurt is r
Citrus root distribution under water stress grown in sandy soil of central Florida

O experimento foi conduzido na Universidade da Florida (Centro de Ensino e Pesquisa em Citrus), em Lake Alfred, Polk County, Florida-EUA. O objetivo deste estudo foi avaliar os efeitos do estresse hidrico na distribuicao de raizes de laranjeira Valencia enxertada em citrumelo Swingle, em um pomar de 11 anos de implantacao. Tres tratamentos foram aplicados: 1) plantas irrigadas por microaspersao no periodo seco (Nov-Mar); 2) plantas nao irrigadas no periodo seco, e 3) plantas nao irrigadas no periodo seco e tambem sem chuva no periodo umido. As plantas do tratamento 3 nao receberam chuva durante o periodo umido, e os tratamentos 1 e 2 receberam chuva normalmente durantes 3 anos consecutivos (2003-2006). A irrigacao normal foi recomecada em todos os tratamentos, em meados de marco. Amostras de raizes foram coletadas utilizando um trado de boca (0,09 m de diâmetro e 0,25 m de altura) nos dois lados da linha de plantio, em 3 distâncias horizontais do tronco da planta (1, 2 e 3 m) e 4 profundidades (0,0-0,15; 0,15-0,30; 0,3-0,60 e 0,6-0,9 m). Os resultados mostraram que uma significante diferenca na distribuicao de raizes entre as plantas irrigadas e nao irrigadas.
A Safe-haven Property of Cryptocurrencies: Evidence in Vietnam Stock Market During Pandemic Crisis

The study investigates the dynamic correlation of cryptocurrencies and equity in Vietnam and tests the safe-haven property of them from the perspective of the stock market in Vietnam during the pandemic crisis by applying the dynamic conditional correlation (DCC) GARCH model and regression with a dummy variable, respectively. This study employs time series data on the daily dataset from September 2014 to September 2021 with the focus on the two most popular cryptocurrencies - Bitcoin and Litecoin. The results show that the dynamic conditional correlations between cryptocurrencies and equity in Vietnam increased during the pandemic, however, in most periods, positive dynamic correlations often dominate. Besides, the regression results also indicate that Bitcoin and Litecoin act as weak safe-haven investments for stocks in Vietnam during the COVID-19 turmoil. They are more suitable for diversification purposes although the dynamic correlations between them and the stock index in Vietnam vary stronger during the pandemic crisis than before. The findings of this study suggest that in the period of pandemic crisis, cryptocurrencies are not concerned as effective safe-haven assets for stock in Vietnam. Instead, cryptocurrencies are only playing a potential role in diversification benefit in this economy.
20._167-176_Khaya Zakari and Audu

* Department of Pure and Industrial Chemistry, Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria. *Corresponding Author: ABSTRACT Khayasenegalensis was planted on soil irrigated with tannery effluent and borehole water for duration of three months. Plant samples were collected after harvest and soil samples were collected before planting and after harvesting. Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy (AAS) was used to determine the concentration of heavy metals in the planting media and plant tissues. The aim was to establish the phytoremediation potential of Khayasenegalensis decrease in the concentrations o from the initial values. The highest levels of Cd (5.53±0.56mg/kg), Cr ( 0.82mg/kg), Pb(10.61±0.57mg/kg), Ni ( accumulation were found in the roots, whereas concentrations was observed in the shoot. The roots of be suitable for the phytostabilization heavy metals in both the tannery effluent and borehole water irrigated media. the Khayasenegalensisroots. The results of translocation factors (TF) and bioconcentration factors (BCF) of Khayasenegalensis is an excluder plant for accumulator plant for Cu serving as an ideal remediation plant for this metal. Furthermore, the increasing heavy metal contents in soil that have been irrigated with tannery effluent resulted in the accumulation of these metals in
CompuCache: Remote Computable Caching using Spot VMs

Data management systems are hungry for main memory, and cloud data centers are awash in it. But that memory is not always easily accessible and often too expensive. To bridge this gap, we propose a new cloud service, CompuCache, that allows data-intensive systems to opportunistically offload their in-memory data, and computation over that data, to inexpensive cloud resources. For reduced cost, each cache is hosted by spot virtual machine (VM) instances when possible or provisioned VMs when not. CompuCache provides a byte-array abstraction and stored procedures so users can easily allocate inexpensive caches and specify their behavior. It distributes each stored procedure execution across the instances. In this paper, we discuss challenges in designing the interface, execution strategy, and fault tolerance mechanisms for CompuCache. We propose initial solutions for them, describe types of applications that can benefit from CompuCache, and report on the performance of an initial prototype. It executes 126 million stored procedure invocations per second on one VM with 16 threads.
Wildlife Society Bulletin: Vol. 44, Issue 3, September 2020

Across North America, incentive programs have assisted landholders with the construction of fences, often considered “wildlife friendly,” to assist in grazing management, which has resulted in a proliferation of fencing on the landscape. Many suggested “wildlife‐friendly” fence modifications have not been evaluated for their effectiveness on the targeted species or evaluated to assess consequences for nontarget species. We evaluated the effects of 2 modifications aimed to increase fence visibility (sage‐grouse [SAGR] reflectors and white polyvinyl chloride [PVC]) on the fence‐crossing behavior of 3 sympatric ungulates in the Northern Great Plains. We used trail cameras from 2016 to 2018 to capture images of pronghorn (Antilocapra americana), mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus), and white‐tailed deer (O. virginianus) at sites before and after fence sections were modified and compared crossing success by the 3 ungulates with that achieved at unchanged control sites. We used generalized linear modeling and a time‐to‐event approach to test the effect of fence modifications on ungulate crossing behavior. Our results showed that both SAGR reflectors and white PVC pipe did not impede fence‐crossing behaviors for either pronghorn or deer, nor was there a time lag in use of sites observed after modifications were deployed. Though we did not alter the height of the bottom wire, there was enough variability in bottom wire height between sites that our results indicate a greater probability of successful crossing by all 3 ungulates as bottom wire height increased. We recommend implementation of both SAGR reflectors and white PVC pipe because our results demonstrate no substantial unintended consequences on the crossing behavior of pronghorn and deer. © 2020 The Authors. Wildlife Society Bulletin published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of The Wildlife Society.
Novel approaches in the designing of the polygon scanners

The paper presents the polygon scanners used for industrial, dimensional measurements. The characteristic parameters and functions of the measuring system are ascertained: the scanning function and velocity, the two pairs of characteristic angles, the duty cycle and the two-parameters functioning characteristic. The possibilities of obtaining a one-parameter functioning characteristic are explored. A rigouros mathematical analysis of these subjects is performed, including the discussion of their diagrams, obtained not numerically, but analythic. An experimental validation of these results has been presented in a previous study. The results obtained for the optical scanner are quit general, and they are also valid for other applications of the laser scanners, besides the particular one considered in the paper. In order to complete the designing calculus of the system, the migration functions that characterize this type of scanning head, the polygon, are defined, ascertained and used, the designing steps being thus fulfilled.
SoC-FPGA Binary Convolutional Neural Networks

—The objective of this work is to develop a hardware/software embedded system to process fully binarized convolutional networks on a low cost SoC-FPGA system. Conventional convolutional neural networks require high computational power and memory capacity, and are a challenge to execute on low-power devices. Binarized neural networks are trained using 1-bit weights and inputs, and so, reduce the memory requirements and the computational complexity by replacing most arithmetic operations with bit-wise operations. The system developed runs a binarized neural network, consisting of 6 convolutional layers and 3 fully connected layers, to perform image recognition. Of the 6 convolutional layers, 5 are fully binarized and consume over 90% of the total network execution time. A hardware IP was speciﬁcally designed to accelerate these 5 fully binarized layers, but which can also be adapted to execute the remaining layers. The proposed hardware/software solution was demonstrated on a Zynq-7010 device, to classify images in two benchmark datasets: CIFAR-10 (91% accuracy) and the German trafﬁc sign recognition benchmark (95% accuracy). The dedicated hardware component is able to execute the 5 fully binarized convolutional layers 150x faster than the software baseline. The ﬁnal hardware/software application is able to achieve a 116x speedup (over the software baseline) by also executing the non-binarized convolutional layer and 2 of the fully connected layers using the hardware IP.
THE ANTECENDENTS OF PURCHASING DECISION OF COSMETIC PRODUCTS OF LIZZIE PARRA BEAUTY IN SOCIAL MEDIA

This study aims to examine the effect of social media use, brand image, and sales promotion on purchasing decisions for cosmetic products by Lizzie Parra Beauty. This study uses a quantitative method with an analytic survey approach. The data collection technique was carried out by distributing questionnaires online to 100 followers of the Instagram By Lizzie Parra Beauty account. The sampling technique was purposive sampling, in which Instagram followers who actively gave responses in the form of likes and comments. Data analysis used multiple linear regression on all research variables. The results showed that the use of social media and sales promotion had a significant influence on purchasing decisions. Meanwhile, brand image partially does not have a significant effect on purchasing decisions for cosmetic products by Lizzie Parra Beauty. But overall, both social media, brand image, and sales promotion simultaneously influence the purchasing decision of By Lizzie Parra Beauty cosmetic products. Thus, to increase cosmetic purchasing decisions, a company can use social media, build a brand image, and increase sales promotions.
Exploring the Protective Function of Positivity and Regulatory Emotional Self-Efficacy in Time of Pandemic COVID-19

Despite several empirical studies on the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic that have highlighted its detrimental effect on individuals’ mental health, the identification of psychological factors that may moderate its impact on individuals’ behavior and well-being remains partly unexplored. The present study was conceived to examine the mediation role of regulatory emotional self-efficacy in the relationship between positivity and anxiety, depression, and perceived self-efficacy in complying with the containment measures to contrast the COVID-19 spread. Furthermore, the moderation role of age was tested. A sample of 1258 participants (64.2% women; Mage = 42.09, SD = 13.62) enrolled from the Italian general population answered an online survey aimed at investigating the role of individual differences in facing the COVID-19 pandemic. We opted for a snowball recruiting procedure to find participants. The online survey was disseminated through email invitation and using social media platforms (i.e., Facebook, Instagram). A multi-group path analysis model was performed using Mplus 8.4 to explore the hypothesized relations among variables. The following criteria were employed to evaluate the goodness of fit: χ2 likelihood ratio statistic, CFI and TLI > 0.95, RMSEA < 0.06 and SRMR < 0.08. The findings corroborated the protective role of both positivity and regulatory emotional self-efficacy in reducing individuals’ anxiety and depressive symptoms, as well as in fostering individuals’ capabilities in complying with the containment measures imposed by the government to reduce the risk of illness and to contain the spread of the virus COVID-19. Specifically, regulatory emotional self-efficacy beliefs partially mediated the relations between positivity and anxiety and depressive symptoms and fully mediated the effect of positivity on perceived self-efficacy beliefs in complying with the containment measures. These paths were equal across ages. The results of the present study appear relevant to implementing psychological interventions aimed to reduce the deleterious effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health through the promotion of individuals’ optimistic orientation and emotion regulation.
Probing the Influence of Single-Site Mutations in the Central Cross-β Region of Amyloid β (1–40) Peptides

Amyloid β (Aβ) is a peptide known to form amyloid fibrils in the brain of patients suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. A complete mechanistic understanding how Aβ peptides form neurotoxic assemblies and how they kill neurons has not yet been achieved. Previous analysis of various Aβ40 mutants could reveal the significant importance of the hydrophobic contact between the residues Phe19 and Leu34 for cell toxicity. For some mutations at Phe19, toxicity was completely abolished. In the current study, we assessed if perturbations introduced by mutations in the direct proximity of the Phe19/Leu34 contact would have similar relevance for the fibrillation kinetics, structure, dynamics and toxicity of the Aβ assemblies. To this end, we rationally modified positions Phe20 or Gly33. A small library of Aβ40 peptides with Phe20 mutated to Lys, Tyr or the non-proteinogenic cyclohexylalanine (Cha) or Gly33 mutated to Ala was synthesized. We used electron microscopy, circular dichroism, X-ray diffraction, solid-state NMR spectroscopy, ThT fluorescence and MTT cell toxicity assays to comprehensively investigate the physicochemical properties of the Aβ fibrils formed by the modified peptides as well as toxicity to a neuronal cell line. Single mutations of either Phe20 or Gly33 led to relatively drastic alterations in the Aβ fibrillation kinetics but left the global, as well as the local structure, of the fibrils largely unchanged. Furthermore, the introduced perturbations caused a severe decrease or loss of cell toxicity compared to wildtype Aβ40. We suggest that perturbations at position Phe20 and Gly33 affect the fibrillation pathway of Aβ40 and, thereby, influence the especially toxic oligomeric species manifesting so that the region around the Phe19/Leu34 hydrophobic contact provides a promising site for the design of small molecules interfering with the Aβ fibrillation pathway.