Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Microbial’s Effects on Invasive Grass’ Response to Water and Nutrient Stress

Background Soil microbiomes play important roles in invasion biology, yet it is often treated as a ‘black box’ in modeling or large-scale field studies. Hence, investigating the change of association between invasive vegetation and soil microbes under changing environmental conditions, and exploring the genetic functions of associated microbiomes will provide a deeper understanding of invasion mechanisms. We performed a microcosm experiment with cogongrass (Imperata cylindrica (L.) P. Beauv. ), which is one of the 100 worst invasive plants in the world. We combined rigorous sequencing analysis, including 16S rRNA, ITS, and shotgun metagenome sequencing, for the first time, to investigate the interactive effect of change in soil water and nutrient concentrations on microbiomes diversity, composition and genetic functions under invasion. Results We found that experimental drought has a stronger effect on the bacterial community than the fungal community. We discovered an enrichment of microbial groups, including Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes and Chloroflexi under drought treatment, could likely contribute to invasion success. Further, we showed a striking trend of induction of cell wall, membrane and desiccation-related genes in drought treatment and a marked downregulation in regular treatment, which could create a more hydrated microenvironment, facilitating biofilm formation and better protection from desiccation.Conclusions Our work contributes to highlighting the associated microbial communities may have a potential long-term impact on increasing cogongrass drought resistance, ultimately, future invasion might be severe due to the plant-microbe interaction. These findings are important because current modeling practice, lacking comprehensive consideration of the plant-microbe interaction, could lead to a significant underestimate of predictions of future invasion patterns.
Influence of hygrothermal conditioning on the properties of compressed kenaf fiber / epoxy reinforced aluminium laminates

This study has been carried out to evaluate hygrothermal effect onto kenaf fiber reinforced aluminium laminates (KeRALL) and kenaf fibre reinforce composite (KFRC) as compared to reference sample, pristine (without hygrothermal). Samples were fabricated by warm compression method and successfully immersed at 30, 60 and 80°C in water bath for 5 days. As a result, KeRALL at 30°C shows the lowest water absorption rate compared to those immersed at 60 and 80°C. Both KeRALL and KFRC, at temperature 80°C showed the fastest water absorption and the earliest to reach saturation state, followed by temperature of 60°C and 30°C. Mechanical properties which is flexural and impact shows the decremented trends at temperature of 30°C, 60°C and 80°C. At 30 °C, 7 % show a decrement of interlaminar shear stress (ILSS), followed by 66 % at 60°C and 54 % at 80°C. The decrease is associated with fibre pull out, matrix fracture and delamination as the result of the hygrothermal influence as manifested by the fractographic images. From the DMA results, storage modulus as well as loss modulus of KeRALL was decreased with the increased in temperature. It can be concluded that hygrothermal gives the significant effect on the physical, mechanical and thermal properties of the KeRALL. Therefore, the newly developed KeRALL composite opens a greater commercial potential for kenaf fibre in structural engineering applications. The finding also suggests that KeRALL definitely has high potential as a new sustainable FML composite and can be considered as a promising candidate for future industrial applications.
Psychological Problems and Fear of COVID-19 Pandemic among Nurses and General Population: A Comparative Study

COVID-19 is a source of stress with incredible impact, both for people and social public gatherings. Various people may experience various levels of psychological emergency, particularly those at the center of the incident. This study aimed to compare the level of psychological problems (depression, anxiety, and stress) and fear among nurses and general population as a result of COVID -19 pandemic. A cross-sectional study design was utilized in this study. A probability sample of 132 nurses working in Sharkia Governorate hospitals and 268 individuals from general population participated in this study by using an anonymous online questionnaire. Three tools were completed by the participants in this study were a socio-demographic data sheet, the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale-21, and fear of CoronaVirus-19 Scale. Results revealed that nearly one quarter of the studied nurses' group had moderate level of depression, anxiety and stress. However, more than one quarter of the studied general population had extremely severe level of depression and anxiety as well as severe level of stress. Severe level of fear of COVID-19 was experienced among one quarter of participants from nurses and general population. The study concluded that was statistically significant positive correlations were found between fear of COVID-19, depression, stress, and anxiety in both groups. Therefore, it is recommended to develop and implement psychological interventions for improving mental health and psychological resilience during the pandemic COVID-19 of both nurses and general population.
Effect of Polymercoat, Fungicides and Bioagent Treatment on Plant Growth, Seed Yield and Quality of Green Gram [Vigna radiata (L.) Wilczek]

Green gram [Vigna radiata (L.) Wilczek] is an important pulse crop belongs to the Leguminosae family and sub-family Papilionaceae. It is commonly referred to as mung bean, mung, moong or golden gram (John, 1991). It is one of the third most essential food legume grown in India next to pigeon pea and chickpea. Green gram output accounts for about 10-12 % of total pulse production in the country (Dolas et al., 2018a).
Particulate Matter Concentrations in the Vicinity of an Incinerator

Incineration is an effective way of health care waste management, but it is also a source of air pollution. Thermal decomposition of organic and inorganic waste during incineration releases a large concentration of air pollutants such as CO, SO2, NOx, CO2 and particulate matter (PM). A cross sectional-descriptive study was conducted to determine the short-term variations in PM concentrations across various areas in the vicinity of a local incinerator in Windhoek, Namibia. XRF Qualitative analysis method was used to determine the elemental composition of fallout dust concentration from six study areas/stations in the vicinity of a local incinerator. Single bucket fallout monitors were deployed following the American Society for Testing and Materials standard method for collection and analysis of dust fallout to determine the elemental composition of fallout dust. Real-time PM concentration trends were also recorded using a portable Micro dust Pro Real-time Dust Monitor for PM10 at a height of 2.2 m above the ground. High PM concentration peaks were observed in the morning and afternoon hours at varying points. The fallout dust rate ranged between highest 1839.3 mg/m2/day at sampling Point 4 and lowest 711 mg/m2/day at sampling Point 2. The XRF analysis revealed the presence of toxic elements and crustal elements in order of decreasing abundance: Mn > Zn > Cr > V > Zr > Sr > Pb > Ni and SI > K > Fe > Ti > Ca > Al > P respectively. Highest elemental composition concentrations were found at sampling location in the vicinity of the incinerator and in industrial area.
Effects of sex, polydactylism and rearing systems on serum biochemical indices of Fulani ecotype chickens in Southwestern Nigeria

An experiment was conducted to determine the effects of sex, polydactylism and rearing systems on blood serum biochemical indices of 30 Fulani ecotype chickens selected at random from 90 Fulani ecotype chickens raised under intensive management systems (deep th th litter and caged) for 16 weeks. Blood samples were collected from the birds at 11 and 16 week was used for biochemical analyses. The parameters measured were Cholesterol, Total protein (TP), albumin (ALB), globulin (GB), aspartate amino transferase (AST), alanine amino transferase (ALT) and alkaline phosphate (ALP). The biochemical parameters were not significantly (p>0.05) different among the sex, polydactyly and rearing systems at 11 weeks but cholesterol in the male birds were significantly (P<0.05) different. Polydactyly was significantly different (P<0.05) for aspartate amino transferase and rearing system were significantly different (P<0.05) for total protein, globulin, albumin and alkaline phosphatase at week 16. The present result is the serum blood parameter of Fulani ecotype chickens which could serve as baseline information for future improvement of Fulani ecotype chickens.
The Effect of Non-Tariff Measures on Global Value Chain Participation

ABSTRACT This study takes a novel approach by using an additional compliance requirement indicator as a relative proxy for non-tariff measures (NTMs) to measure the impact of NTMs on global value chain (GVC) participation. We conduct a cross-sectional analysis at the industry level, spanning 30 countries with 19 industrial sectors in the year 2015. Our analysis finds that both NTMs and tariffs have negative impacts on backward GVC participation, and the impact of NTMs is greater than that of tariff measures. Therefore, policies that reduce trade costs from policy barriers, especially NTMs, can help promote participation in GVCs.
An investigation on factors influencing the intention to use e-money: A case study in Pontianak, Indonesia

This study is to examine the factors influencing Pontianak citizens to use e-money in response to the state regulation. The investigated factors include perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, perceived risk, and quality of service. Attitude toward the use of e-money was determined as the intervening variable to the intention to use e-money. Pontianak as a developing city in Borneo Island has been piloted to fully utilize electronic money to purchase fuel in gas stations. Meanwhile, so far Indonesians living in developing regions are not yet familiar with the advanced payment technology such as e-money. The samples were taken randomly from the gas station consumers in Pontianak. The number of samples collected was 100 and the data were processed using SmartPLS 3.0. The results of the study showed that all of the hypotheses were supported except perceived risk variable. In addition, the effect size of the intervening variable “attitude” in the relationships between perceived usefulness and the intention to use e-money as well as perceived ease of use and the intention to use e-money were categorized as full mediation. Meanwhile, the effect size of attitude in the relationship between quality of service and the intention to use e-money was categorized as quasi mediation. However, attitude did not have mediating effect on the perceived risk. The effect size of the mediating variable was proved large at the value of 1.981. Since the people of Pontianak represent those who were much familiar with cash transactions, the results of this study can be considered as an example for the implementation of e-money payment in other developing regions or for the execution of certain technology-based non-cash programs.
Temperature and maturity dependent quality changes in peach fruit during storage determined using destructive and non-destructive (acoustic, VIS) techniques.

To help growers, wholesalers and retailers make decisions regarding storage conditions for peach fruit it is important to have a good idea of how the fruit behave during storage. The objective of our research was to quantitatively follow the quality of fruit from different harvest maturities during storage at different temperatures using different measurement techniques. Peach fruit was harvested in 2008 at 4 different dates and followed during storage at 10°C. Additionally, fruit from the optimal harvest date was stored at 4 different temperatures (20, 10, 4 and -1°C). The measurement interval depended on the temperature and measurements continued until no firmness changes were noted. The common methods to measure firmness, soluble solids content (SSC) and titratable acidity (TA) were combined with several non-destructive techniques, specifically acoustic (AFS) and spectrophotometric (VIS) techniques. Changes in firmness followed a sigmoidal curve with a clear temperature dependence and different lag time for fruit with different harvest maturity. Stiffness changes did not follow the same pattern and there was no temperature dependence. SSC content did not change noticeably whereas acidity gradually decreased. The changes in the spectrophotometric I AD index added an additional level of information. These results indicate that a combination of non-destructive techniques is capable of following quality changes in peach fruit and will provide useful additional information to the destructive measurements.
Null and overt subject pronouns in topic continuity and topic shift: An investigation of the narrative productions of Italian Natives, Greek Natives and near-native second language speakers of Italian with Greek as a first language

In this work we analyze the anaphoric devices employed in topic continuity and topic shift in the semi-spontaneous narrations of three groups of speakers: Italian Natives, Greek Natives and near-native second language speakers (L2ers) of Italian with Greek as a first language (L1). According to some recent literature, near-native speakers of a null subject language over-use overt pronouns even when their L1 is also a null subject language. It is still unclear whether this over-use is tied to differences in the languages involved (e.g. Italian and Spanish, Filiaci et al. 2014) and hence might be the result of cross-linguistic influence. Our data reveal that in Italian pro has a more specific function than in Greek in signaling topic continuity. The characteristic of pro in Italian is preserved in the L2ers productions. We also found that L2ers over-use overt pronouns, particularly in topic continuity, despite the similarity of their two languages in this respect. Finally, we single out an additional factor that influences speakers’ choice of anaphoric devices, i.e. the number and kind of active referents, proving evidence that all speakers’ groups employ overt pronouns particularly when there are two active animate referents that differ for gender and/or number, and L2ers significantly more than the other two groups. Our findings thus show that micro-variation in the use of anaphoric devices is attested among null subject languages, while the over-use of overt pronouns by L2ers stems from their difficulty in establishing topicality under higher degrees of cognitive load.
Voluntary social performance disclosure and firm profitability of South African listed firms: Examining the complementary role of board independence and managerial ownership

Background: There is growing literature promoting corporate governance mechanisms as important elements that could mitigate the inconclusive findings within the corporate social performance and firm profitability research. A key theoretical assumption within the extant literature that provides support for this proposition is that corporate social performance and firm profitability are organisational outcomes in the presence of good corporate governance.Aim: Firstly, the aim is to re-investigate voluntary social performance disclosure (SPD) and long-term profitability association from the perspective of international standards, using the Global Reporting Initiative G3.1 guidelines. Secondly, to examine the joint moderating effect of board independence and managerial ownership (MO) on the voluntary SPD and profitability nexus.Setting: The South Africa institutional setting, where recent corporate governance regimes require firms to voluntarily make corporate governance related disclosures on both shareholder-and stakeholder-related information is used as the study context.Method: Utilising manually extracted data of listed firms, over the period 2010 to 2015, the generalised least square regression and seemingly unrelated regression (with a 1-year lag as the main independent variable) are used to examine the stated hypotheses.Results: We found a positive association between voluntary SPD and long-term profitability. We also found that the presence of non-executive directors positively moderates the association between voluntary SPD and long-term profitability. Thirdly, the proportion of MO significantly positively moderates the association between voluntary SPD and long-term profitability. Lastly, the complementary role of the presence of non-executive directors and the proportion of MO significantly positively moderates the association between voluntary SPD and long-term profitability.Conclusion: This study finds support for scholarly theoretical arguments that organisational outcomes are largely possible in the presence of good corporate governance, which has a long-term implication for firms’ shareholder wealth maximisation. This study contributes to the ongoing research examining the notion of substitutive versus complementary effects of governance mechanisms, and a growing research literature on corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure from the perspective of international standardisation. This study therefore makes far-reaching contributions to the corporate governance and social responsibility literature in an African context.
Business Design and Feasibility of Puru Kambera Muslim Fashion Offline Store Establishment

Puru Kambera is a creative business that sells women’s Muslim fashion products. It has been established since 2017 in Bandung through an online sales. The survey states that fashion is on the second-highest rank out of 16 creative industry subsectors in Indonesia. Along with Bandung that has known as a creative city and center of fashion. Based on this condition, the company decided to establish Puru Kambera offline store. In this paper, business design and feasibility analysis are performed to find out whether the establishment of the offline store is feasible to run. The business design will be projected for 5 years with MARR value of 9.40%. While the feasibility analysis is performed based on market, technical, and financial aspects. The feasibility calculation result show NPV of IDR 356,595,609, IRR in 35%, and PBP for 3.428 years, it can be concluded that Puru Kambera offline store establishment is feasible. Furthermore, sensitivity analysis is also performed to find out the business conditions if there are some undesirable changes occur. The sensitivity analysis result shows that Puru Kambera offline store establishment is sensitive in increase of product cost at 8.20%, decrease of selling price at 5.61%, and decrease of demand at 17.72%
The Efficiency of the Online Academic Teaching Process During the Pandemic Covid-19

"This article aims to identify the efficiency of the online academic teaching process during the Sars COV- 2 pandemic, but also identify the main factors which negatively influence the online academic teaching process. The study is based on quantitative research, the data of which were collected by applying an online questionnaire to students at the Faculty of Political, Administrative and Communication Sciences in Cluj-Napoca between 01.06. 2020-01.07. 2020. The results of the study indicate that, during the pandemic, the efficiency of the online teaching process is below the level of the classic teaching process and is negatively influenced by a number of factors (lack of knowledge and technical information held by students / teachers on online teaching platforms, resistance to change of students / teachers (fear of something new (scary) - feeling rejected by the new because you think you can’t cope or may have negative effects or repercussions for you, etc.). However, in order for the online teaching process to be successful, a greater importance should be given to the transfer of responsibility process: focusing on the individual learning process or on the continuous improvement of the online academic teaching process. This transfer can lead inherently and implicitly to an increase in the degree dissatisfaction. "
Simple and easy recycling of poly(amic acid) gels through microwave irradiation

Poly(amic acid)s (PAAs), which are precursors of polyimides, often undergo gel formation during their synthesis or storage, and these insoluble gels have been discarded. In this work, we discovered that the gels could be converted to homogeneous PAA solutions by fast and simple microwave (MW) irradiation. The PAA gels were placed inside a domestic MW oven, and MW irradiation was carried out with 240 W for 2 min. The recycled PAA solutions afforded polyimide films, coatings, and powders. The polyimides prepared from the recycled PAA solutions exhibited higher glass transition temperatures (Tgs), decomposition temperatures, and char yields than comparison polyimides obtained from ordinary PAA solutions. Flexible free-standing polyimide films were obtained by drop-casting of the MW-treated solutions and subsequent thermal imidization. Mechanical properties and dielectric constants were measured for the polyimide films and coatings, respectively. This new method has significant advantages for the environment, economy, and industry. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part A: Polym. Chem. 2017
Influence of Substituent Distribution Along a Cellulose Chain on Enzymatic Degradation of Methylcellulose.

A commercially available methylcellulose (DS 1.9) was treated with cellulase, and the reaction mixture was subjected to gel-filtration. The eluate was divided into four fractions, and each fraction was subjected to a sugar analysis to see compositions of partially methylated sugars and its degree of substitution. Methylcellulose synthesized with methyl iodide in a nonaqueous cellulose solvent (DS 1.6) was also subjected to the same analysis. As a result of the sugar analysis, a higher molecular weight fraction gave a higher DS value, indicating that higher DS regions in methylcellulose are less degraded by cellulase than lower DS regions. Comparison of these two methylcellulose samples revealed that the substituent distribution along a cellulose chain of synthesized methylcellulose is more heterogeneous than that of commercial methylcellulose.
Sero-prevalence and associated risk factors of Maedi-visna virus in sheep population of selected area of eastern Amhara, Ethiopia

Maedi-visna virus (MVV) causes a significant economic loss through morbidity, mortality and carcass weight loss in sheep worldwide. This cross-sectional study was conducted to determine the prevalence and identify associations with potential risk factors of MVV virus infection in the selected area of the eastern Amhara region, Ethiopia. A total of 494 sheep blood sera were collected during the period from November, 2017 to October, 2018 and examined using Indirect enzyme linked immuno-sorbent assay (I-ELISA) to screen specific antibodies against MVV. From the total tested sample 3.24% (16/494) were positive for the presence of antibodies against MVV in the area. The sero-prevalence of MVV was not significantly different between associated risk factors of breed, sex, age, production system, flock size and body condition score (P> 0.05). Awassi cross sheep distributor farm and ranch were incriminated as a source for Maedi-visna virus infection and effective control measures should be implemented through appropriate way of testing and culling mechanisms of all sero-reactor ewes and their progeny. High sensitive screening test should be practiced and implemented during introduction of new flocks from abroad and before distribution of Awassi cross breed rams from ranches and multiplication center to smallholder farms and individual farmers. In addition further epidemiological study (research) should be done in sheep producing areas of the country to know the level of infection at national and country level.