Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effect of Grazing and Mowing on Soil
Physiochemical Properties in a Semi-Arid
Grassland of Northeast China

The proper maintenance of soil physiochemical properties in grassland ecosystems through independent management practices like grazing and mowing have strongly influenced the soil quality and grassland yield. Less known is, to declare the best-fit management strategy for the grassland ecosystem. The present study was performed to search for the best-fit management system for the grassland ecosystem in northern China by evaluating the consequences of grazing and mowing on soil physiochemical properties like soil moisture, bulk density, electrical conductivity, pH, and total concentrations of C, N, and P. We found that compared to mowing, grazing significantly increased soil moisture, bulk density, and N concentration by 12%, 7%, and 14%, respectively. However, no significant effect of grazing was observed on soil C and P concentrations and C: N, C: P, and N: P ratios. However, grazing was found to strongly affect soil physiochemical properties; in contrast, mowing did not
Propylene Production via Oxidative Dehydrogenation of Propane with Carbon Dioxide over Composite MxOy-TiO2 Catalysts

The CO2-assisted oxidative dehydrogenation of propane (ODP) was investigated over titania based composite metal oxides, 10% MxOy-TiO2 (M: Zr, Ce, Ca, Cr, Ga). It was found that the surface basicity of composite metal oxides was significantly higher than that of bare TiO2 and varied in a manner which depended strongly on the nature of the MxOy modifier. The addition of metal oxides on the TiO2 surface resulted in a significant improvement of catalytic performance induced by a synergetic interaction between MxOy and TiO2 support. Propane conversion and propylene yield were strongly influenced by the nature of the metal oxide additive and were found to be superior for the Cr2O3-TiO2 and Ga2O3-TiO2 catalysts characterized by moderate basicity. The reducibility of the latter catalysts was significantly increased, contributing to the improved catalytic performance. This was also the case for the surface acidity of Ga2O3-TiO2 which was found to be higher compared with Cr2O3-TiO2 and TiO2. A general trend was observed whereby catalytic performance increased significantly with decreasing the primary crystallite size of TiO2. DRIFTS studies conducted under reaction conditions showed that the adsorption/activation of CO2 was favored on the surface of composite metal oxides. This may be induced by the improved surface basicity observed with the MxOy addition on the TiO2 surface. The Ga2O3 containing sample exhibited sufficient stability for about 30 h on stream, indicating that it is suitable for the production of propylene through ODP with CO2 reaction.
Urate-lowering therapy is associated with a reduced risk of arrhythmias: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Objective While urate-lowering therapy (ULT) is linked to increased cardioprotective benefits on primary prevention of cardiovascular events such myocardial infarction or heart failure, little is known regarding their effects on arrhythmia risk. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between incident arrhythmias and ULT. Methods We searched MEDLINE and Embase from inception to May 2023. Included studies were randomized controlled trials and cohort studies that compared the risk of cardiac arrhythmias among ULT users with non-ULT users. Results A total of 12,420 patients from five studies were analyzed, comprising 7,359 subjects in the ULT group and 5,061 subjects in the non-ULT group. Our results showed that ULT users had significant reductions in the risk of arrhythmias (pooled relative risk [RR] 0.82, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.74~0.92, p<0.001, I2=0.0%) compared to non-ULT users. Subgroup analysis did not show that ULT users had a significant reduced risk of atrial fibrillation (pooled RR 0.76, 95% CI 0.54~1.05, p=0.096 with I2=15.4%) compared to non-ULT users. Conclusion ULT is associated with lower risk of overall arrhythmias. Further studies are warranted to confirm our findings.
Low-Temperature Plasmas Improving Chemical and Cellular Properties of Poly (Ether Ether Ketone) Biomaterial for Biomineralization

Osteoblastic and chemical responses to Poly (ether ether ketone) (PEEK) material have been improved using a variety of low-temperature plasmas (LTPs). Surface chemical properties are modified, and can be used, using low-temperature plasma (LTP) treatments which change surface functional groups. These functional groups increase biomineralization, in simulated body fluid conditions, and cellular viability. PEEK scaffolds were treated, with a variety of LTPs, incubated in simulated body fluids, and then analyzed using multiple techniques. First, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) showed morphological changes in the biomineralization for all samples. Calcein staining, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) confirmed that all low-temperature plasma-treated groups showed higher levels of biomineralization than the control group. MTT cell viability assays showed LTP-treated groups had increased cell viability in comparison to non-LTP-treated controls. PEEK treated with triethyl phosphate plasma (TEP) showed higher levels of cellular viability at 82.91% ± 5.00 (n = 6) and mineralization. These were significantly different to both the methyl methacrylate (MMA) 77.38% ± 1.27, ethylene diamine (EDA) 64.75% ± 6.43 plasma-treated PEEK groups, and the control, non-plasma-treated group 58.80 ± 2.84. FTIR showed higher levels of carbonate and phosphate formation on the TEP-treated PEEK than the other samples; however, calcein staining fluorescence of MMA and TEP-treated PEEK had the highest levels of biomineralization measured by pixel intensity quantification of 101.17 ± 4.63 and 96.35 ± 3.58, respectively, while EDA and control PEEK samples were 89.53 ± 1.74 and 90.49 ± 2.33, respectively. Comparing different LTPs, we showed that modified surface chemistry has quantitatively measurable effects that are favorable to the cellular, biomineralization, and chemical properties of PEEK.
Application of MK-PRISM for interpolation of wind speed and comparison with co-kriging in South Korea

The spatial distribution of wind speed is important information required to understand climate-related regional phenomena. This paper presents the Modified Korean Parameter-elevation Regression on Independent Slopes Model (MK-PRISM) as a method for spatial interpolation of monthly wind speeds. A database of gridded monthly mean wind speeds with a spatial resolution of 1 km for the period of March 2011–February 2014 is constructed by MK-PRISM. Wind speed observation data collected from the 529 to 641 meteorological stations in South Korea were utilized as the input data for interpolation. The wind speed distribution estimated by co-kriging is used for comparison with the MK-PRISM results. Research demonstrates that the efficiency difference between the two models, MK-PRISM and co-kriging, is insignificant. The Kling and Gupta efficiencies of both models were 0.68-0.78 and the root mean square errors (RMSEs) were 0.44-0.68 m/s. The spatial distribution of wind speeds, however, differs between MK-PRISM and co-kriging, which can be considered a reflection of the influence of topographic features such as terrain convexity, aspect, and coastal proximity. MK-PRISM can perform more appropriately to represent the phenomena where similar wind speeds appear continuously along ridges and coastlines. This suggests that a knowledge-based approach that considers topographic features can be successfully applied to the interpolation of monthly or seasonal wind speeds, similar to temperature and precipitation. The wind speed distribution generated by MK-PRISM can be utilized as important data for different geographical studies.
Ryegrass as a feedstock for bioethanol production

In current paper a comparative study of bioethanol yields from ryegrass biomass by different type of pretreatment and enzyme hydrolysis is done. Acidic and alkali hydrolysis was used as a pretreatment of this feedstock. Cellulase blend 10 FPU g -1 dry matter was used for enzyme hydrolysis. The pre-treatment was conducted by autoclaving for 20 minutes at 121°C. Best results were obtained by pretreatment with 1 % HCl and 1 % NaOH. Hydrolysate obtained by pretreatment with hydrochloric acid contained 33.6 mg mL -1 reducing sugars, and that obtained by pretreatment with base - 29.0 mg mL -1 . Both hydrolysates were found to be suitable substrates for bioethanol generation, where 5.55 g ethanol/100 g dry matter was produced from grass hydrolysate obtained by acidic hydrolysis followed by enzyme hydrolysis and from alkali pretreated hydrolysate-4.73 g ethanol/100 g dry matter. The results demonstrated that ryegrass biomass is suitable feedstock for bioethanol production.
QBO/solar modulation of the boreal winter Madden‐Julian oscillation: A prediction for the coming solar minimum

The Madden‐Julian oscillation (MJO), also known as the 30–60 day oscillation, is the strongest of the intraseasonal climate oscillations in the tropics and has significant derivative effects on extratropical circulation and intraseasonal climate. It has recently been shown that the stratospheric quasi‐biennial oscillation (QBO) modulates the amplitude of the boreal winter MJO such that MJO amplitudes are larger on average during the easterly phase (QBOE) than during the westerly phase (QBOW). A major possible mechanism is the decrease in static stability in the lowermost stratosphere under QBOE conditions resulting from relative upwelling associated with the QBO‐induced meridional circulation. Here evidence is presented that tropical upwelling changes related to the 11 year solar cycle also modulate the boreal winter MJO. Based on 37.3 years of MJO amplitude data, the largest amplitudes and occurrence rates, and the weakest static stabilities in the tropical lower stratosphere, occur during the QBOE phase under solar minimum (SMIN) conditions while the smallest amplitudes and strongest static stabilities occur during the QBOW phase under solar maximum (SMAX) conditions. Conversely, when the QBO and solar forcings are opposed (QBOW/SMIN and QBOE/SMAX), the difference in occurrence rates becomes statistically insignificant. During the coming solar minimum, at least one additional winter in the QBOE/SMIN category should occur (possibly as early as 2017/2018) during which especially large MJO amplitudes are expected and an initial test of these results will be possible.
Implementation of Infection Control Practices to Manage Hospital Acquired Infections

Hospital-acquired infections affect millions of patients worldwide each year and result in massive preventable healthcare costs. Many of the organisms that cause these infections survive on routine healthcare equipment and are easily transmitted from patient to patient when healthcare professionals and facilities do not comply with infection prevention and control practices. They are particularly dangerous for high-risk patients and patients in intensive care units. Hence the present study involved the implementation of an infection control protocol to reduce these nosocomial infections. Guidelines for infection control in our hospital setting were formulated by the infection control team in the year 2010. These guidelines were periodically revised to improve the compliance of infection control measures. Additionally, regular auditing of the prescribed antibiotic further minimized the high end and reserved antibiotic use thereby further reducing the nosocomial infection rate. Data regarding the infection rates were collected from the intensive care units and were calculated for the site-specific nosocomial infection. It is observed that 17.6% reduction in the nosocomial infection rate was over a period of 7 years. Additional analysis of the site-specific nosocomial infection rate revealed a 5.2, 12.2, 10.5, and 5.7% reduction in ventilator-associated pneumonia, catheter-related urinary tract, bloodstream, and surgical site infection rate. The results of the present study showed an improved compliance rate with the infection control guidelines which facilitated the control of nosocomial infection rates thereby reducing the hospital costs, total patient days and the mortality rate.
Comparative, Controlled, Retrospective Study of Patient-Reported Outcomes After Meniscectomy With Adjunctive Use of Platelet-Rich Plasma or Amniotic Umbilical Cord Tissue

Background: Meniscal tears are one of the most frequent injuries to the knee, with an estimated incidence of 222 per 100,000 individuals aged 18 to 55 years based on magnetic resonance imaging. Poor outcomes following meniscal surgical interventions are common and have led many surgeons to use biologic augmentation strategies to enhance the healing. Methods: We conducted a single-center, retrospective, observational study of patients who underwent arthroscopic meniscectomy with and without adjunctive platelet-rich plasma (PRP) or the particulate form of amniotic umbilical cord (AMUC) tissue. We evaluated patient-reported outcomes on the visual analog scale for pain, International Knee Documentation Committee (IKDC) Subjective Knee Evaluation Form, Lysholm Knee Scoring Scale, 12-Item Short Form Survey, and Knee Injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS) during a 1-year postoperative period. Complications and follow-up procedures were also evaluated. Results: We evaluated 113 patients who underwent meniscectomies from November 2010 to March 2017. Pain severity was significantly decreased only in the AMUC group at 6 months (P=0.0143). Patients in the AMUC group demonstrated significant improvement in functional recovery based on the IKDC and the KOOS subscales of pain, symptoms, activities of daily living, and sport and recreation function at 6 months. Patients in the PRP group had a significant benefit in the KOOS subscales of pain, symptoms, sport and recreation function, and knee-related quality of life at 3 months. Improvement in the control group was less substantial. Patients in the PRP group had more complications and follow-up procedures (30.0%) than patients in the AMUC group (8.3%). Conclusion: In our study population, arthroscopic meniscectomy with adjunctive use of AMUC tissue improved patient-reported outcomes and reduced the reoperation rate compared to conventional technique or adjunctive use of PRP.
Linear permeability evolution of expanding conduits due to feedback between flow and fast phase change

Conduits are ubiquitous and critical pathways for many fluids relevant for geophysical processes such as magma, water, and gases. Predicting flow through conduits is challenging when the conduit geometry coevolves with the flow. We theoretically show that the permeability (k) of a conduit whose walls are eroding due to fast phase change increases linearly with time because of a self‐reinforcing mechanism. This simple result is surprising given complex feedbacks between flow, transport, and phase change. The theory is congruent with previous experimental observations of fracture dissolution in calcite. Supporting computational fracture dissolution experiments showed that k only slightly increases until the dissolution front reaches the narrowest conduit constriction, after which the linear evolution of k manifests. The theory holds across multiple scales and a broad range of Peclet and Damkohler numbers and thus advances the prediction of dynamic mass fluxes through expanding conduits in various geologic and environmental settings.
Simulation of a motor vehicle braking with the unlocked steering wheel

In this paper the results of a simulation of a sports vehicle’s braking maneuver in the adopted road conditions has been presented. The aim of this paper was to analyze the results and compare them with the ones obtained in the previous paper by the author, also prepared for the acceleration maneuver. At the same time considerations on the damaging effect of the road irregularities have been presented as this time no straightforward steering was included, so the vehicle could move freely. The simulated braking of the vehicle’s model started at the speed of 100 km/h and its duration was 10 s.As in the previous paper the random road irregularities had three different amplitudes which enabled analysis of vehicle’s deceleration on a different road conditions each time. Almost different profiles were also assumed for the left and the right wheels of the vehicle’s model which moved on the dry and the icy road surface.
Does the Guided Inquiry Model Improve Student's Problem Solving Thinking Ability? Meta-Analysis

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of guided inquiry models to improve students' problem-solving abilities. This type of research is a meta-analysis. The inclusion criteria in research are publications from reputable international journals and proceedings; Research must be experimented with guided inquiry learning models and conventional control class models; Research obtained from google scholar database; Hindawi, ScienceDirect, ERIC and IEEE; research related to guided inquiry and problem solving models; The study was published in 2013-2023 and the study had a sample size (N), mean value and standard deviation (SD). The results of the analysis of 18 studies suggest that there is a significant influence of guided inquiry models on problem-solving ability (Z = 9.29; p < 0.001; 95 % Confidence Interval [0.581; 1.245]. Effect size criteria are high with (rRE= 0.849]. This finding explains that the guided inquiry model has a significant effect on students' problem-solving abilities
Practical Assessment, Research, and Evaluation Practical Assessment, Research, and Evaluation

The Delphi technique is a widely used and accepted method for gathering data from respondents within their domain of expertise. The technique is designed as a group communication process which aims to achieve a convergence of opinion on a specific real-world issue. The Delphi process has been used in various fields of study such as program planning, needs assessment, policy determination, and resource utilization to develop a full range of alternatives, explore or expose underlying assumptions, as well as correlate judgments on a topic spanning a wide range of disciplines. The Delphi technique is well suited as a method for consensus-building by using a series of questionnaires delivered using multiple iterations to collect data from a panel of selected subjects. Subject selection, time frames for conducting and completing a study, the possibility of low response rates, and unintentionally guiding feedback from the respondent group are areas which should be considered when designing and implementing a Delphi study. The Delphi technique, mainly developed by Dalkey and Helmer (1963) at the Rand Corporation in the 1950s, is a widely used and accepted method for achieving convergence of opinion concerning real-world knowledge solicited from experts within certain topic areas. Predicated on the rationale that, “two heads are better than one, or.n heads are better than one” (Dalkey, 1972, p. 15), the Delphi technique is designed as a group communication process that aims at conducting detailed examinations and discussions of a specific issue for the purpose of goal setting, policy investigation, or predicting the occurrence of future events (
Personality adjectives in Serbian Tweets: An opening

There has been a great interest in investigating relations between personality and language use on the web or social media. Most of the recent studies are based on mining the users’ information available online and then using machine learning algorithms to predict their personality characteristics. On the other hand, a few studies have relied on the traditional lexical hypothesis when exploring personality under the assumption that personality-related attributes could be obtained from dictionaries. However, little is known about personality structure from Twitter - do data strictly reflect personality structure as represented by personality models, or as unique personality semantic patterns. The aim of the study was to assess and interpret the personality adjective-based structure contained in tweets. The data were collected from an open-access „Tweet-sr“ Serbian Twitter linguistic corpus (Ljubešić & Klubička, 2014). Latent Dirichlet Allocation, a topic modeling technique, was conducted to extract topics and cosine similarity was used as a measure to determine topic similarities, as well as topic-personality dimensions’s similarities. The results showed that the optimal solution comprised four non-overlapping topics reflecting specific semantic structures. Topics did not replicate trait constructs but were modestly related to them. The largest similarities were found with Extraversion and Agreeableness, pointing out the conceptual importance of these traits when describing interpersonal behavior. Also, no inter-topic differences in category distributions were found, with the evaluation terms being the second most frequent in three topics. Although tweets are short-form text messages, they have the potential to communicate socially relevant information through personality descriptors.
Statut, évolution et facteurs limitants des populations françaises de grand tetras (Tetrao urogallus): synthèse bibliographique

Cette synthese fait le point sur la situation des cinq populations francaises de grand tetras (Tetrao urogallus), qui sont celles des Vosges, du Jura, des Alpes du Nord, des Pyrenees, ainsi que la population en cours de reintroduction dans les Cevennes. La population des Vosges, actuellement subdivisee en trois noyaux nord, ouest, et sud, a fortement regresse tant du point de vue de son aire de repartition que des ses effectifs. La population du Jura francais semble a peu pres stable depuis 1975, avec 500-600 adultes, apres une forte regression anterieure; la situation y est satisfaisante sur la haute chaine mais fragile sur les massifs peripheriques. Dans les Alpes du Nord il n'existe plus qu'un noyau relictuel stable, de l'ordre de 20 oiseaux. Dans les Pyrenees francaises, apres un declin entre 1960 et 1975, la situation semble globalement stabilisee depuis, mais avec de fortes differences locales; le statut des populations d'altitude est generalement plus favorable que dans les piemonts et les marges de l'aire de repartition. Les effectifs se situent entre 3 100 et 5500 adultes. Le noyau Cevenol reintroduit progresse et atteint un minimum de 50 oiseaux. Des problemes de maintien des habitats y subsistent toutefois. Le rapport liste ensuite les facteurs limitant ces 5 populations. Le morcellement des populations est un facteur limitant fondamental; les facteurs modifiant les habitats sont egalement importants. En particulier, la fermeture des milieux, resultant de la modification de diverses pratiques sylvicoles ou pastorales, joue un role tres important sur l'evolution des populations. La penetration touristique des forets de montagne, favorisee par la creation de la voierie forestiere et d'infrastructures touristiques, joue egalement un role tres negatif vis-a-vis de ces populations. Le role joue par d'autres facteurs, chasse, braconnage, predation, deperissement forestier, climat, maladies-accidents. est egalement evoque