Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Socio‐ecological drivers of multiple zoonotic hazards in highly urbanized cities

The ongoing COVID‐19 pandemic is a stark reminder of the devastating consequences of pathogen spillover from wildlife to human hosts, particularly in densely populated urban centers. Prevention of future zoonotic disease is contingent on informed surveillance for known and novel threats across diverse human–wildlife interfaces. Cities are a key venue for potential spillover events because of the presence of zoonotic pathogens transmitted by hosts and vectors living in close proximity to dense human settlements. Effectively identifying and managing zoonotic hazards requires understanding the socio‐ecological processes driving hazard distribution and pathogen prevalence in dynamic and heterogeneous urban landscapes. Despite increasing awareness of the human health impacts of zoonotic hazards, the integration of an eco‐epidemiological perspective into public health management plans remains limited. Here we discuss how landscape patterns, abiotic conditions, and biotic interactions influence zoonotic hazards across highly urbanized cities (HUCs) in temperate climates to promote their efficient and effective management by a multi‐sectoral coalition of public health stakeholders. We describe how to interpret both direct and indirect ecological processes, incorporate spatial scale, and evaluate networks of connectivity specific to different zoonotic hazards to promote biologically‐informed and targeted decision‐making. Using New York City, USA as a case study, we identify major zoonotic threats, apply knowledge of relevant ecological factors, and highlight opportunities and challenges for research and intervention. We aim to broaden the toolbox of urban public health stakeholders by providing ecologically‐informed, practical guidance for the evaluation and management of zoonotic hazards.
Breaking barriers in laboratory education for non-traditional students

One of the Lisbon objectives in higher education is to make education more flexible. Twenty to sixty percent of the contact moments in scientific and engineering higher education are dedicated to mandatory laboratory sessions. Non-traditional students however cannot attend all the scheduled sessions. Currently, this problem is addressed in an ad hoc manner. We are in need of a structural and qualitative solution. The aim of this project is to develop a possible solution for non-traditional students, we call it laboratory immersion, and to test it in four separate cases. However, before we can start working on a solution, we need to know precisely the barriers these non-traditional students encounter in the context of laboratories. We interviewed faceto-face seven non-traditional students. Their answers are the basis of an e-questionnaire which will be addressed to all non-traditional students of the participating institutions. The major problem our non-traditional students encounter is that the time slots they can spend on learning, do not match the scheduled contact moments. Flexibility of these students as well as the instructors is primordial. The outlined learning trajectory is not always very clear when they hop from one course-group to another. And moreover they miss the group dynamics.
Gas Diffusion Measurement and Modeling in Coarse‐Textured Porous Media

Conventional gas diffusion measurements in coarse‐textured and aggregated porous media are severely limited due to hydrostatically induced variations in water content and air‐filled porosity. Motivated by the need to measure gas diffusion in coarse‐textured plant growth media designed for use in microgravity (e.g., aboard the International Space Station), our objectives were (i) to develop and test an automated diffusion measurement system on earth with water content adjustment capability and that minimizes hydrostatic effects, and (ii) to model characteristics of gas diffusion in partially saturated aggregated porous media. The horizontally oriented O2 diffusion cell design for reducing the gravitational effect was based on a thin profile rectangular cell. Continuous measurement of O2 in sealed dual‐chamber diffusion cells provided concentration data for fitting diffusion coefficients where water content was controlled volumetrically using a porous membrane with an imposed pressure for incremental addition or removal of water. Gas diffusion was modeled as a function of air‐filled porosity in millimeter‐sized aggregated particles exhibiting a substantial difference between internal and external aggregate pore sizes. For this case, the internal aggregate porosity contribution to diffusion compared with external aggregate pore space was minor as described by a dual‐porosity diffusion model. The measurement approach described can be used in other coarse‐textured and structured porous media.
The Calculation of Thermal Movements and Eigenstresses in the Leaning Tower of Pisa

Starting from predicted yearly and daily distributions of the temperature fields induced by climatic actions over the cross‐sections of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the correlated time histories of thermal movements and eigenstresses have been calculated by simply assimilating the monument to a prismatic, inhomogeneous elastic body. Comparisons performed between calculated and measured daily and seasonal thermal displacements evidenced a good prediction capability of the model and its attitude to be used as an interpretation tool to understand also thermal periodical movements in other tower‐shaped buildings.
Lean Design in Building Projects: Guiding Principles and Exploratory Collection of Good Practices

In Construction, the application of lean thinking in design development comes as an innovation in the sector by bringing focus on what is waste and what is value. In this context, the aim of this paper is to, first, identify which are the guiding principles for lean product development, by literature review in different industries; and, second, based on these structured principles, perform an exploratory collection of good practices in building design projects. In order to identify the guiding principles a literature review was conducted and, after that, case studies were carried out in three Brazilian Construction and Architecture companies, plus one international Architecture company. The guiding principles showed to be a good structured way of colleting lean design good practices; additionally, in the case studies it was detected if and how lean design principles are applied in the companies. As a contribution, this work established structured lean product development guiding principles and gathered an exploratory collection of building design good practices. For future work, the evolution of the guiding principles in a framework for application, the adaptation of some lean principles for building design and more studies to test the application of related practices in the sector are suggested.
Determinants in the adoption of total quality management (tqm) in the construction sector: a management perspective.

Aunque la evidencia empirica muestra la existencia de una relacion positiva entre adopcion de la Gestion de calidad total (GCT) y una mejora en el desempeno organizativo, el nivel de difusion es desigual entre las empresas del sector de la construccion. El principal objetivo del presente trabajo es identificar los factores relevantes que impulsan a los directivos de las empresas de la construccion a adoptar la GCT. Especificamente, analiza el grado al cual las expectativas de los gerentes de las empresas sobre los efectos del GCT en el desempeno de su negocio determinan si es que ellos adaptaran GCT o no. Los resultados muestran que las expectativas relativas a la mejora financiera, las cuestiones ambientales, y la satisfaccion de los clientes y los empleados conducen a los directivos de las empresas del sector de la construccion a adoptar GCT.
A geomechanical study for a shaft wall rehabilitation program.

In October 1995, a relatively intense period of microseismic activity occurred close to the Golden Giant Mine 4600 m level shaft station. This activity resulted in visible deterioration of the shaft station area, parts of the 4600 m level footwall access drift, and the shaft walls above the 4600 m level. A site investigation, that included a geomechanical shaft wall mapping program and numerical modelling study, was used to develop a rehabilitation and monitoring strategy for this area. The methodology used to develop the rehabilitation strategy incorporated several useful geomechanical approaches that can be applied to any investigation of rock deterioration. These approaches include underground observations, shaft wall geotechnical mapping, borehole camera surveys, core logging, numerical modelling, microseismic monitoring and deformation monitoring.
Effect of Bed Roughness on Submerged Hydraulic Jumps

Free and submerged hydraulic jumps are important phenomena in open channel flow. The basic characteristics of these jumps formed on smooth, horizontal channel beds were covered well in literature both experimentally and theoretically. However, not many studies are reported on submerged hydraulic jumps generated on rough beds. This study mainly aims to investigate the characteristics of submerged hydraulic jumps over rough, horizontal beds. But, as the submerged hydraulic jumps are created from free jumps, analyses of free jumps are also required to proceed with the present study. So, altogether 110 experimental runs were carried out under both smooth and rough bed conditions. All the experiments were carried out in a rectangular flume and for the rough bed condition. Bed of the flume was roughened by placing rectangular wooden strips at four different spacing. The hydraulic parameters such as initial water depths, subcritical sequent depth, tail water depth, back-up depth and flow rates were measured for different roughness. Using these available data, required data analyses were carried out and several relationships were developed in order to express the submerged hydraulic jump characteristics. Here, free and submerged hydraulic jumps were considered separately. ENGINEER, Vol. 47, No. 04, pp. 33-39, 2014
Controlled switching technologies, state-of-the-art

Controlled switching has become an economical solution and is commonly applied to reduce switching surges. The number of installations has increased rapidly due to satisfactory service performance since the late 1990s. However, some problems seem to exist before it becomes an alternative solution of a conventional closing resistor for transformer and line switching. CIGRE WG13.07 published an application guide based on their international surveys of the field experience. The guide emphasizes the importance of compensation for the variations of the operating times because controlled switching system requires accurate operation consistency. The research reveals some hydraulic operating mechanisms generate a considerable delay of the closing time at operation after a few hour idle times. Accordingly, the idle time compensation is essential to even daily-operated system. Controlled transformer energization taking into account the residual flux as well as important requirements for different switching applications is described.
Effects of chronic metal exposure and sediment organic matter on digestive absorption efficiency of cadmium by the deposit‐feeding polychaete Capitella species I

Organic matter such as humic acid and bacterial slime exopolymer are common in estuarine and coastal sediments, where they are ingested by animals that process particulate detritus. Both humic acid (HA; refractory) and exopolymer (EPS; easily digestible) bind metals and therefore might represent a source of particulate‐bound metals to deposit‐feeding organisms. This study examined how cadmium preexposure (3 and 30 μg Cd/g dry wt. sed.), gut passage time (GPT), and quality and quantity of the organic coating on sediment particles interact to determine cadmium absorption efficiency (Cd‐AE) in Capitella sp. I. Pulse‐chase experiments using 109Cd and 51Cr were used to determine Cd‐AE in individual worms. Worms were given a pulse of carbon‐cleaned, HA‐coated or EPS‐coated sediment particles. The third treatment was divided into three EPS concentrations (high, medium, and low). A 5‐d preexposure to cadmium did not affect the egestion rates during either the preexposure period or the chase phase. Worms given a pulse of carbon‐cleaned particles exhibited higher egestion rates during the chase phase than worms given a pulse of organic‐coated particles, and no differences were seen in egestion rate between worms exposed to HA‐ and high‐EPS‐coated particles. Egestion rates decreased with increasing EPS concentration. The presence of refractory organic material decreased the absorption efficiency of cadmium from sediment relative to Cd‐AE from carbon‐cleaned sediment but not relative to Cd‐AE from sediment coated with a high concentration of EPS. The Cd‐AE increased linearly with increasing exopolymer coating on sediment particles. Overall, Cd‐AE increased with increasing gut passage time in worms that were not preexposed, although Cd‐AE from HA‐coated particles was independent of gut passage time. Preexposure to cadmium reversed the relationship between gut passage time and cadmium absorption efficiency. Thus, the implications are that sedimentary organic matter and worm physiology might be especially important in controlling metal bioavailability in deposit‐feeding organisms and should be considered in sediment quality approaches.
Nonpoint Sources

Nonpoint Sources (NPS) pollution is caused by rainfall or snowmelt moving over and through the ground. As the runoff moves, it picks up and carries away natural and human-made pollutants, finally depositing them into lakes, rivers, wetlands, coastal waters, and even our underground sources of drinking water. These pollutants include excess fertilizers, herbicides, and insecticides from agricultural lands and residential areas; oil, grease, and toxic chemicals from urban runoff; heavy metals and acid drainage from abandoned mines; and bacteria, antibiotics and nutrients from livestock feeding lots. Atmospheric deposition and hydromodification are also sources of nonpoint source pollution. Today, NPS pollution is the major cause of water quality problems in the nation and is responsible for the failure to meet water quality standards for many lakes, rivers, streams, and estuaries. This paper reviews the 2005 peer-reviewed literature on several aspects of NPS pollution, including general policy and attitudes; water quality of water resources; Best Management Practices (BMPs) for NPS control; NPS modeling and monitoring; and use of GIS for NPS applications. the for on water trading.
Securing The Harvest: Biotechnology, Breeding And Seed Systems For African Crops By J De Vries;Gary Toenniessen

Improved food security, led by increased productivity among Africa's many small-scale farmers, has been the aim of significant national and international effort in recent decades. This book grew out of a two-year exploration conducted by the food security among rural populations in Africa. It provides a critical assessment of the ways in which breakthroughs in biotechnology, participatory plant breeding, and seed systems can be broadly employed in developing and delivering more productive crop varieties in Africa's diverse agricultural environments.
Protandry, sexual selection and climate change

Protandry refers to the earlier appearance of males before females at sites of reproduction. Sexual selection has been hypothesized to give rise to sex differences in benefits and costs of early arrival, thereby selecting for earlier appearance by the sex subject to more intense sexual selection. If sexual selection is more intense, there is a greater premium on early arrival among individuals of the chosen sex because of direct selection for earlier arrival. This hypothesis leads to the prediction that changes in the costs and benefits of early arrival related to changes in environmental conditions should particularly affect the sex that arrives first and hence the degree of protandry. I tested this hypothesis using the Barn Swallow Hirundo rustica. During 1971–2003, the degree of protandry increased significantly in a Danish population because males advanced arrival date while females did not. This earlier arrival by males compared with females was correlated with a significant increase by over 1.2 standard deviations in the length of the outermost tail feathers of males, a secondary sexual character, suggesting direct selection on both protandry and the secondary sexual character. Environmental conditions during spring migration in Northern Africa, as reflected by the normalized difference vegetation index, have deteriorated since 1984, resulting in increased mortality among males during spring migration, but not among females, and this deterioration of climatic conditions was positively correlated with an increasing degree of protandry. Likewise, an increase in April temperatures at the breeding grounds during recent decades is positively correlated with increased protandry, apparently because males can arrive earlier without increasing the fitness cost of early arrival. Local population size did not predict changes in arrival date. These findings suggest that rapid changes in climate can cause a change in degree of protandry and secondary sexual characters.
Effect of dietary beta-agonist supplementation on live performance, carcass characteristics, carcass fabrication yields, and strip loin tenderness and sensory traits

ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.iv TABLE OF CONTENTS.vi LIST OF TABLES.viii LIST OF FIGURES.ix CHAPTERS I) INTRODUCTION . 1 II) REVIEW OF LITERATURE . 4 Introduction . 4 Growth Improvement in Livestock . 5 Hormone Implants . 6 Beta-adrenergic agonists . 9 Beta-Adrenergic Agonist Effects . 11 Live Animal Performance . 12 Carcass Characteristics . 14 Tenderness and Palatability . 17 Combined Growth Technology Strategies . 19 Physiological Effects of Beef Tenderness . 22 Conclusion . 25 III) EFFECT OF DIETARY BETA-AGONIST SUPPLEMENTATION ON LIVE PERFORMANCE, CARCASS CHARACTERISTICS, CARCASS FABRICATION YIELDS, AND STRIP LOIN TENDERNESS AND SENSORY TRAITS . 27 Materials and Methods . 27 Live Animal Phase . 27 Harvest and Carcass Phase.30 Carcass Fabrication and Subprimal Yield . 31 Warner-Bratzler and Slice Shear Force . 31 Trained Sensory Panel Evaluation . 33 vii Statistical Analysis . 33 Results and Discussion . 34 Study Diet and Supplement Inclusion.34 Live Animal Performance . 34 Carcass Characteristics . 35 Carcass Subprimal Yield.38 Warner-Bratzler and Slice Shear Force . 40 Trained Sensory Panels . 42 Conclusions . 43 REFERENCES . 55 APPENDIX A . 65 APPENDIX B . 68 APPENDIX C . 71 APPENDIX D . 75 APPENDIX E . 77
PERSEPSI DAN PARTISIPASI MASYARAKAT DALAM PENGELOLAAN HUTAN MANGROVE BERBASIS MASYARAKAT DI KECAMATAN SUPPA KABUPATEN PINRANG

Tujuan yang ingin dicapai pada penelitian ini (1) mengetahui persepsi terhadap pengelolaan hutan mangrove (2) mengetahui partisipasi masyarakat terhadap pengelolaan hutan mangrove. Hasil yang diperoleh bahwa pengelolaan sumberdaya hutan mangrove selama ini belum banyak melibatkan masyarakat pesisir khususnya pada tahap perencanaan maupun sampai tahap pemeliharaan dan masyarakat menginginkan agar dibentuk kelompok-kelompok tani/nelayan. Pendampingan dalam pengelolaan sumberdaya hutan mangrove dan penentuan zona-zona pengelolaan apakah sebagai kawasan konservasi, rehabilitasi, budidaya sehingga kawasan hutan mangrove dan sumberdayanya dapat terjaga dan lestari. Kerusakan hutan mangrove dipesisir pantai Kabupaten Pinrang adalah umumnya disebebkan oleh konversi hutan mangrove menjadi lahan pertambakan dan diterjang oleh ombak yang besar. Masyarakat di sepanjang pesisir pantai Kacematan Suppa secara aktif akan berpartisipasi dalam pengelolaan kawasan hutan mangrove mulai dari tahap perencanaan pengawasan, sampai pada tahap pemeliharaan/pelestarian sumberdaya hutan mangrove.
Hot carrier degradation in 70 nm gate length MOSFETs with new double punchthrough stopper structure

Extremely short channel MOSFET with 70 nm physical gate length has been fabricated. This MOSFET employs a new double punchthrough stopper structure to mitigate the short channel effect and to improve the hot carrier immunity. It is demonstrated that 70 nm MOSFET successfully operates at 3 V supply voltage showing a small cut-off current of 1 pA, although the device characteristics are still degraded by the hot carrier stressing. The characteristics degradation of this device by hot carrier stressing is evaluated in detail using the charge pumping technique. <<ETX>>
Pinpointing Early Signs of Impending Slope Failures From Space

A promised potential of spaceborne interferometric synthetic aperture radars (InSAR) is a capability for regularly monitoring ground deformation with millimeter accuracy, for timely forecasting of impending natural hazards such as landslides. The main limitation in InSAR being actually capable of unleashing this potential for hazard prediction is that key precursory ground displacements are, in the majority of cases, a very small subset of the entire big data set provided by the method over large regions. Consequently, pinpointing a single impending failure may become very difficult or impossible. We develop a data‐driven framework that can handle such imbalanced spatiotemporal data based on the concept of outlying aspects mining, to find a subset of features out of a collection of potential features, which best distinguishes the landslide source area from the others. We show that the identified feature subspace can be used to find anomalous areas across multiple spatial scales, such that Sentinel‐1 satellite monitoring points which persistently lie in these areas can accurately detect the location of the Xinmo landslide (China) almost 1 year in advance—without false alarms. In a second case study, we identify the area affected by rockfalls on Stromboli volcano, a task that is generally infeasible with traditional methods applied to InSAR data. With continuing improvements in the spatial and temporal resolution from the new generation of satellites, such as Sentinel‐1, this approach opens the door to reliable and early prediction of failure over a broad range of slope instabilities.