Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Search for the doubly charmed baryon Ξ[+ over cc]

A search for the doubly charmed baryon Ξcc in the decay mode Ξ + cc→ Λc K−π+ is performed with a data sample, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 0.65 fb−1, of pp collisions recorded at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV. No significant signal is found in the mass range 3300–3800 MeV/c2. Upper limits at the 95% confidence level on the ratio of the Ξcc production cross-section times branching fraction to that of the Λ + c , R, are given as a function of the Ξcc mass and lifetime. The largest upper limits range from R < 1.5×10−2 for a lifetime of 100 fs to R < 3.9× 10−4 for a lifetime of 400 fs.
Nanoencapsulation of Acetamiprid by Sodium Alginate and Polyethylene Glycol Enhanced Its Insecticidal Efficiency

Nanoformulation has been considered one of the newly applied methods in integrated pest management strategies. In this research, a conventional neonicotinoid insecticide acetamiprid was nanoencapsulated via AL (Sodium Alginate) and PEG (Polyethylene Glycol) and tested against the elm leaf beetle Xanthogaleruca luteola. The synthesized particles had spherical-like morphology and nanoscale based on TEM (Transmission Electron Microscopy) and DLS (Dynamic Light Scattering). The encapsulation efficiency and loading percentages of acetamiprid in AL and PEG were 92.58% and 90.15%, and 88.46% and 86.79%, respectively. Leaf discs treated with different formulations by the leaf-dipping method were used for oral toxicity assays. The LC50 values (Lethal Concentration to kill 50% of insect population) of acetamiprid and Al- and PEG-nanoencapsulated formulations on third-instar larvae were 0.68, 0.04, and 0.08 ppm, respectively. Based on the highest relative potency, AL-encapsulated acetamiprid had the most toxicity. The content of energy reserve protein, glucose, and triglyceride and the activity of detoxifying enzymes esterase and glutathione S-transferase of the larvae treated by LC50 values of nanoformulations were also decreased. According to the current findings, the nanoencapsulation of acetamiprid by Al and PEG can increase its insecticidal performance in terms of lethal and sublethal toxicity.
α-Glucosidase and α-Amylase Inhibition Activities of Sarcococca coriacea Hook. And Sarcococca wallichii Staph. of Nepalese Origin

Diabetes mellitus is being severe health problem globally with an increasing number of patients every day. Due to the lack of effective and non-toxic medicine to cure diabetes, plants that are used in ethnomedicine may be a good source for antidiabetic drug discovery. Plants of the Sarcococca genus are medicinally important and are used by local people for managing many diseases including diabetes. In the course of our continuous search of antidiabetic plants and pure compounds, in vitro α-glucosidase, and α-amylase inhibition activity along with the antioxidant activity of methanolic extract of S. coriacea leaf ( Sc-A), S. coriacea stem (Sc-B), and dichloromethane fraction of methanolic extract of Sarcococca wallichi (Sw-D) were carried out. The research revealed dicholoromethane fraction of S. wallichii (Sw-D) with good inhibition of α- amylase enzyme (IC50= 53.79 ± 2.50), whereas Sc-B inhibits α-glucosidase (20.97±2.37) effectively. Similarly, Sc-A showed significant antioxidant activity with IC50=24.56±3.3. The total phenolic content on Sc-A and Sc-B was calculated as 151.35±4.42 mg GAE/g and 86.22±1.59 mg GAE/g whereas the total flavonoid content on Sc-A and Sc-B was found to be 21.61±4.88 mg QE/g and 24.09±4.02 mg QE/g respectively. Similarly, total phenolic and total flavonoid content on Sw-D were found to be 85.26±3.16 mg GAE/g and 21.57±1.26 mg QE/g. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of α-glucosidase and α-amylase inhibition activity in these plants. This research work has scientifically supported the use of these plants to manage diabetes by local people and has explored new plants for antidiabetic drug discovery research.
Pain assessment and analgesic management in patients admitted to intensive care: an Australian and New Zealand point prevalence study

Objective: To describe pain assessment and analgesic management practices in patients in intensive care units (ICUs) in Australia and New Zealand. Design, setting and participants: Prospective, observational, multicentre, single-day point prevalence study conducted in Australian and New Zealand ICUs. Observational data were recorded for all adult patients admitted to an ICU without a neurological, neurosurgical or postoperative cardiac diagnosis. Demographic characteristics and data on pain assessment and analgesic management for a 24-hour period were collected. Main outcome measures: Types of pain assessment tools used and frequency of their use, use of opioid analgesia, use of adjuvant analgesia, and differences in pain assessment and analgesic management between postoperative and non-operative patients. Results: From the 499 patients enrolled from 45 ICUs, pain assessment was performed at least every 4 hours in 56% of patients (277/499), most commonly with a numerical rating scale. Overall, 286 patients (57%) received an opioid on the study day. Of the 181 mechanically ventilated patients, 135 (75%) received an intravenous opioid, with the predominant opioid infusion being fentanyl. The median dose of opioid infusion for ventilated patients was 140 mg oral morphine equivalents. Of the 318 non-ventilated patients, 41 (13%) received patient-controlled analgesia and 76 (24%) received an oral opioid, with the predominant opioid being oxycodone. Paracetamol was administered to 63 ventilated patients (35%) and 164 non-ventilated patients (52%), while 2% of all patients (11/499) received a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug. Ketamine infusion and regional analgesia were used in 15 patients (3%) and 17 patients (3%), respectively. Antineuropathic agents (predominantly gabapentinoids) were used in 53 patients (11%). Conclusions: Although a majority of ICU patients were frequently assessed for pain with a validated pain assessment tool, cumulative daily doses of opioids were high, and the use of multimodal adjuvant analgesia was low. Our data on current pain assessment and analgesic management practices may inform further research in this area.
Satellite remote sensing of coastal water quality in New Zealand

ABSTRACT Water quality in estuarine and coastal waters of Aotearoa New Zealand is of concern yet currently under-monitored, reflecting challenges of sampling at regular intervals across large areas. Satellite products are currently underutilised (globally) by management agencies but could be part of a holistic approach. NIWA-SCENZ (Seas, Coasts and Estuaries New Zealand) is a website providing access to MODIS-Aqua products at moderate spatial resolution (500 m) across relatively clear coastal waters (Case 1) to turbid coastal waters (Case 2). It also provides advanced analytical tools on an extracted area of interest for trend assessment (Shiny-SCENZ). For Case 1 areas product accuracy will be comparable to data from other websites using the same algorithms. For Case 2 and transition (blended) areas, although tuned to New Zealand conditions, accuracy of products requires validation. Data availability is mainly impacted by cloud cover, but also adjacency to land and bottom reflection. On average <5% within ∼1 km from coastlines, compared to ∼10%–30% outside 2 km. Extrapolation and blending from offshore into shorelines on month averaged maps extend estimates into many bays and estuaries. Active research efforts will deliver iterative improvements in data quality, new products, and analysis methods (e.g. variability and long-term trend maps).
Design of two-stage experiments with an application to spillovers in tax compliance

We set up a framework to conduct experiments for estimating spillover effects when units are grouped into mutually exclusive clusters. We improve upon existing methods by allowing for heteroskedasticity, intra-cluster correlation and cluster size heterogeneity, which are typically ignored when designing experiments. We show that ignoring these factors can severely overestimate power and underestimate minimum detectable effects. We derive formulas for optimal group-level assignment probabilities and the power function used to calculate power, sample size, and minimum detectable effects. We apply our methods to the design of a largescale randomized tax communication campaign in a municipality of Argentina to estimate total and neighborhood spillover effects of communications on property tax compliance. Besides the effects on the tax compliance of individuals directly targeted with our mailing, we also find evidence that the communications have spillover effects in untreated individuals in street blocks where a high proportion of taxpayers were targeted with our mailing. JEL Codes: H71 , H26 , H21 , O23.
Response‐strengthening effects of same‐ and different‐context DRA training: The effects of two disruptors

Differential reinforcement of alternative behavior (DRA) involves placing problem behavior under extinction and simultaneously reinforcing a desirable behavior. Recent research revealed that, as predicted by Behavioral Momentum Theory, DRA may also increase the persistence of the problem behavior. This research has also shown that a different approach to DRA, in which an alternative behavior is trained in a separate context from the target behavior, produces less persistence than the standard procedure. The research on this phenomenon, so far, assessed persistence using extinction as the disruptor. DRA, however, is often implemented under conditions in which extinction of the problem behavior is not feasible. This study evaluated persistence of problem behavior following same‐ and separate‐ context DRA training using an alternative disruptor, an additional source of reinforcement. Following a successful reproduction of a previous study of extinction as a disruptor but with domestic hens, this study produced similar findings using an additional source of reinforcement as the disruptor. These findings add to the evidence that alternative DRA arrangements may avoid the response‐strengthening effects found with traditional DRA procedures. The findings also demonstrate that disruptors other than extinction can be used to investigate response persistence following DRA and other procedures.
Obtaining and Characterizing Composite Biomaterials of Animal Resources with Potential Applications in Regenerative Medicine

Raw materials, such as collagen and chitosan, obtained from by-products from the food industry (beef hides and crustacean exoskeletons), can be used to obtain collagen–chitosan composite biomaterials, with potential applications in regenerative medicine. Functionalization of these composite biomaterials is a possibility, thus, resulting in a molecule with potential applications in regenerative medicine, namely clotrimazole (a molecule with antibacterial, antifungal, and antitumor activity), at a mass ratio (collagen–chitosan–clotrimazole) of 1:1:0.1. This functionalized composite biomaterial has great potential for application in regenerative medicine, due to the following properties: (1) it is porous, and the pores formed are interconnected, due to the use of a mass ratio between collagen and chitosan of 1:1; (2) the size of the formed pores is between 500–50 μm; (3) between collagen and chitosan, hydrogen bonds are formed, which ensure the unity of composite biomaterial; (4) the functionalized bio-composite exhibits in vitro antimicrobial activity for Candida albicans, Staphylococcus aureus, and Staphylococcus aureus MRSA; for the latter microorganism, the antimicrobial activity is equivalent to that of the antibiotic Minocycline; (5) the proliferation tests performed on a standardized line of normal human cells with simple or composite materials obtained by lyophilization do not show cytotoxicity in the concentration range studied (10–500) μg/mL.
Paeonol Attenuates Hepatic Ischemia/Reperfusion Injury by Modulating the Nrf2/HO-1 and TLR4/MYD88/NF-κB Signaling Pathways

Hepatic ischemia/reperfusion (HIR) is the most common type of liver injury following several clinical situations. Modulating oxidative stress and inflammation by Nrf2/HO-1 and TLR4/MYD88/NF-κB pathways, respectively, is involved in alleviating HIR injury. Paeonol is a natural phenolic compound that demonstrates significant antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects. The present study explored the possible protective effect of paeonol against HIR injury and investigated its possible molecular mechanisms in rats. Rats were randomly divided into four groups: sham-operated control, paeonol-treated sham-operated control, HIR untreated, and HIR paeonol-treated groups. The results confirmed that hepatic injury was significantly aggravated biochemically by elevated serum levels of alanine transaminase and aspartate transaminase, as well as by histopathological alterations, while paeonol reduced the increase in transaminases and alleviated pathological changes induced by HIR. Additionally, paeonol inhibited the HIR-induced oxidative stress in hepatic tissues by decreasing the upraised levels of malondialdehyde and nitric oxide and enhancing the suppressed levels of reduced glutathione and superoxide dismutase activity. Furthermore, paeonol activated the protective antioxidative Nrf2/HO-1 pathway. The protective effect of paeonol was associated with inhibiting the expression of the inflammatory key mediators TLR4, MYD88, NF-κB, and TNF-α. Finally, paeonol inhibited the increased mRNA levels of the pro-apoptotic marker Bax and enhanced the reduced mRNA levels of the anti-apoptotic marker Bcl-2. Taken together, our results proved for the first time that paeonol could protect against HIR injury by inhibiting oxidative stress, inflammation, and apoptosis.
The Role of food aid and livelihood interventions in mediating the relationship between household’s resilience and economic empowerment

The concept of resilience has been utilized to examine more complex ecological and socioeconomic systems such as agri-food systems in developing countries. Gaza has one of the high unemployment rates globally, therefore keeping people imprisoned in poverty and dependent on external support to existing. The strategy for poverty reduction in Gaza primarily consists of giving food aid or multi-purpose cash-based assistance and livelihood projects; nevertheless, this does not reduce unemployment or poverty in the long term. Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) have increased their efforts to provide more effective and comprehensive interventions to the affected populations, especially in the Gaza Strip. The research implemented a quantitative methodology distributed to over 300 household benefited from food aid and livelihood interventions through the NGOs in Gaza Strip. The questionnaire had been constructed based on the Likert Scale ranging from 1 (Strongly Agree) to 5 (Strongly Disagree). The data had been treated using SPSS statistical tool and AMOS for structural equation modeling and analysis to study the mediating effect of food aid and livelihood interventions on the relationship between household resilience and economic empowerment in the Gaza Strip. The research found that the resilience ability of many families in the Gaza Strip has increased because of the humanitarian assistance provided by NGOs, which lead to reducing poverty and household resilience plays a vital role in minimizing poverty and alleviating suffering through empowering and engaging them in the economy. The research also found that food aid tends to critically impact the relationship between household resilience and economic empowerment. NGOs play an essential role in engaging the poor in the economy through providing food security and encouraging new investments and efforts to improve help effectiveness via greater coordination among players involved in the implementation and better planning, targeting, and providing aid to people in Gaza Strip. The research findings also showed that livelihood interventions mediate the relationship between household resilience and economic empowerment in Gaza Strip. The structural model supports that the livelihood interventions modulated the association between household resilience and economic empowerment.
Age group DNA methylation differences in lemon sharks (Negaprion brevirostris): Implications for future age estimation tools

Abstract Age information is often non‐existent for most shark populations due to a lack of measurable physiological and morphological traits that can be used to estimate age. Recently, epigenetic clocks have been found to accurately estimate age for mammals, birds, and fish. However, since these clocks rely, among other things, on the availability of reference genomes, their application is hampered in non‐traditional model organisms lacking such molecular resources. The technique known as Methyl‐Sensitive Amplified Polymorphism (MSAP) has emerged as a valid alternative for studying DNA methylation biomarkers when reference genome information is missing, and large numbers of samples need to be processed. Accordingly, the MSAP technique was used in the present study to characterize global DNA methylation patterns in lemon sharks from three different age groups (juveniles, subadults, and adults). The obtained results reveal that, while MSAP analyses lack enough resolution as a standalone approach to infer age in these organisms, the global DNA methylation patterns observed using this technique displayed significant differences between age groups. Overall, these results confer that DNA methylation does change with age in sharks like what has been seen for other vertebrates and that MSAP could be useful as part of an epigenetics pipeline to infer the broad range of ages found in large samples sizes.
Blockchain adoption: value creation or insider selling?

ABSTRACT Using a sample of listed firms in China, we aim to examine the motivation of blockchain adoption and propose two opposite hypotheses, namely value creation hypothesis and insider selling hypothesis. The empirical results demonstrate that initial blockchain adoption announcement leads to approximately 2% CAAR over the three-day interval around the release, whereas the abnormal return quickly reverses after the announcement, implying that the blockchain adoption can only provide short-term value and against the value creation hypothesis. The finding remains robust for largest industries (manufacturing and information technology) and release channels. On the contrary, we observe a significant positive effect of insider selling on the blockchain adoption announcement, which supports the insider selling hypothesis. Our findings can provide a better understanding on firms’ motivation of blockchain adoption, warn the investors to keep a rational attitude to ‘blockchain hysteria’ when making investment decisions, and motivate the regulators to propose strict information disclosure mechanism and prevent insider selling behaviours.
Geometric and electronic structures of SiO2/Si(001) interfaces

Interface structures of ${\mathrm{SiO}}_{2}/\mathrm{Si}(001)$ are studied by using the first-principles molecular-dynamics method. Three crystalline phases of the ${\mathrm{SiO}}_{2},$ cristobalite, quartz, and tridymite, are stacked on the Si(001) substrate and are fully relaxed. When the ${\mathrm{SiO}}_{2}$ layer is very thin (\ensuremath{\sim}7 \AA{}), the lowest-energy structure is the tridymite, followed by the quartz phase. As the ${\mathrm{SiO}}_{2}$ layer becomes thicker (\ensuremath{\sim}15 \AA{}), the quartz phase has lower energy than the tridymite phase. The cristobalite phase on Si(001) is unstable due to large lattice mismatch, and transforms into a different crystal structure. No defects appear at the interface after the successive bond breaking and rebonding, but the energy of the resulting structure is the highest irrespective of the thickness. Calculations of the local density of states show that the band-gap change occurs on the ${\mathrm{SiO}}_{2}$ side, resulting in an effective decrease of the oxide thickness by 2--5 \AA{}.
The Effect Of Managerial Ownership, Institutional Ownership, Growth Opportunity And Profitability On Accounting Conservatism

This studi aims to analyze the effect of Manajerial Ownership, Institutonal Ownership, Growth Opportunity and Profitability on Accounting Conservatism. With a sample of 165 manufacturing companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange in 2017-2019 selected using the purposive sampling method. The data obtained in this study used the documentation method. With multiple regression analysis method. Data collection method by understanding secondary data obtained from external sources and financial reports of producers listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange. The results of this study are that managerial ownership has a negative and insignificant effect on accounting conservatism. From these results it can be said that although management is the shareholder and owner, there is no significant effect. Not all executives in the company own shares in the company. As a result, management tends to apply accounting principles while minimizing profits. Institutional ownership and growth opportunity have no effect on accounting conservatism. These results indicate that all manufacturers apply the precautionary accounting principle. Profitability has a positive effect on accounting conservatism.
A new aetiocetid (Cetacea, Mysticeti, Aetiocetidae) from the late Oligocene of Mexico

The aetiocetids are a well-known extinct taxon of Oligocene toothed mysticetes in the North Pacific. They display a high degree of diversity contrasting with that of other tooth-bearing mysticetes such as mammalodontids, llanocetids and Coronodon spp. The disparate developmental patterns (heterochrony) and origin of the first kelp forests in the North Pacific during the Eocene–Oligocene transition might explain such diversity. Aetiocetidae have been the focus of debate regarding the origin of baleen and filter-feeding in Mysticeti. The current interpretation of aetiocetid feeding strategies is based on the presence of teeth, unfused mandibular symphysis and lateral palatal foramina. However, our understating of their feeding apparatus function is limited, leaving associated structures like the zygomatic arch unnoticed. The present study describes a new fossil of a small-sized mysticete (∼3 m long), Kaaucetus thesaurus gen. et sp. nov., which belongs to Aetiocetidae. The protruded squamosal prominence and distinctive zygomatic process present in this new fossil highlight disparity in feeding morphology amongst aetiocetids. Moreover, the zygomatic arch complex and masticatory muscle system reconstruction are crucial to interpreting the likely capability of mastication (shearing motion) in aetiocetids and other toothed mysticetes. Lastly, the record of several aetiocetid genera in Mexico extends the geographical range of the group into the subtropical region. https://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:26167623-8F9C-4C03-8CA2-911D93519031