Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Attentional Control in Infancy: The Role of Sociodemographic Risk, Cortisol, and the Home Environment

OF DISSERTATION ATTENTIONAL CONTROL IN INFANCY: THE ROLE OF SOCIODEMOGRAPHIC RISK, CORTISOL, AND THE HOME ENVIRONMENT Infants’ ability to channel their cognitive resources by controlling their visual attention allows them to be active agents in their learning and development. Individual differences in attentional control have been linked to a wide variety of developmental outcomes including disparities between social classes in cognitive functioning. However, it is yet unknown when in development differences in attentional control related to sociodemographic factors emerge, or how factors of the home environment and the infant’s stress response relate to this effect. Accordingly, Experiment 1 examined whether certain sociodemographic factors, such as socioeconomic and minority status, predict 3.5-month-old infants’ (N = 102) ability to control their attention, as indexed by their average fixation durations. The results of this study not only suggest that average fixation duration is a viable metric for studying individual differences in cognitive development early in life, but are also, to my knowledge, the first demonstration of associations between sociodemographic risk and attentional control as early as 3.5 months of age. Next, in Experiment 2, an additional sample of 3.5-month-olds (N = 96) was recruited to determine the roles of home stability (i.e., home chaos and adherence to routines) and infant’s physiological response to stress (i.e., cortisol) in the relationship between attentional control and sociodemographic factors. A sub-sample of these infants were tested again at 5 months of age (N = 60) to examine changes over time in the relationship between sociodemographic risk, cortisol, and home stability. Two theoretical models were tested, the first being that instability in the home and maladaptive child rearing practices cause dysregulation of infants’ stress responses (indexed by heightened basal cortisol levels), which, in turn, disrupts their attentional control abilities. No empirical support for this model was found. The second model tested assumed that attentional control serves as a protective factor such that infants with more robust attentional control abilities show a less pronounced association between instability in the home and cortisol levels. Support for this model was found whereby only infants with poorer attentional control, indexed via average fixation durations, showed elevated cortisol levels in the context of poorer adherence to routines. The results of this project indicate that associations between attentional control and sociodemographic factors emerge very early in life. Therefore, intervention efforts aiming to reduce the gap in developmental outcomes between minority and low-SES infants and children and their peers may be beneficial beginning in early infancy. Furthermore, attentional control may be useful as a screening tool to determine which infants may be more susceptible to adverse home environments, and training attentional control may be one pathway to promote resilience early in life.
Effect of free fatty acids and lipolysis on Sauvignon Blanc fermentation

Background and Aims The volatile thiols, such as 3‐mercaptohexanol, 3‐mercaptohexyl acetate and 4‐mercapto‐4‐methylpentan‐2‐one, are major aroma compounds responsible for the distinctive tropical notes (passionfruit and grapefruit) in New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc wines. Previously, it was observed that traces of linoleic acid in grape juice can significantly affect the development of these volatile thiols and other aroma compounds in wine. Here, we examined the effect of the fatty acids commonly found in Sauvignon Blanc grape juice as well as juice lipid lipolysis on the development of aroma compounds in the resulting wines. Methods and Results Experiments were performed to increase the total free fatty acid concentration in grape juice through juice treatment with acidic lipase from Aspergillus niger and through co‐cultured fermentations with non‐Saccharomyces lipase‐secreting yeasts. We observed a significant reduction in the production of 3‐mercaptohexyl acetate in fermented wines upon supplementation with linoleic acid and lipase. Supplementation with lipase increased the concentration of 3‐mercaptohexanol and all ethyl esters detected, while reducing the development of acetate esters. Co‐cultured fermentations also affected the development of many classes of aroma compounds. Conclusions This study demonstrated that the aroma profile of wines could be effectively manipulated by altering the amount of free unsaturated fatty acids in grape juice through lipolytic enzyme supplementation or co‐fermentation with non‐Saccharomyces lipolytic yeast species. Significance of the Study The key findings of this study may lead to new winemaking strategies through the manipulation of the lipid component of grape juice.
The genotoxic effects of some food colorants on Zea mays L. var. saccharata Sturt

ABSTRACT Carmoisine and sunset yellow are organic azo dyes and widely used in food products, drugs and cosmetics. The present study was conducted to evaluate the toxic effects of these colorants on Zea mays with the root and shoot inhibition test, chlorophyll content, α-amylase activity and RAPD PCR technique. In the root inhibition test, EC50 values for carmoisine and sunset yellow were determined as 20 g l–1 and 22.5 g l–1, respectively. Chlorophyll a and chlorophyll b levels were decreased when compared to the control group for all of the carmoisine and sunset yellow concentrations. A slight increase was observed in enzyme activity in groups treated with 10 g l–1 and 20 g l–1 of carmoisine, while a decrease in enzyme activity was observed in the group treated with 40 g l–1 of carmoisine. For sunset yellow, a decrease in enzyme activity was observed in all concentrations. In the RAPD test, 71% polymorphism was obtained for carmoisine treated groups. Polymorphism ratio was determined as 53% for the group that was treated with sunset yellow. We concluded that both carmoisine and sunset yellow change the biochemical parameters and have genotoxic effects on Z. mays.
Effects of the addition of essential oils cumimaldehyde, eugenol, and thymol on the in vitro gas production and digestibility of alfalfa ( Medicago sativa L. ) silage

: The aim of this study was to investigate the in vitro effects of the addition of three essential oils, mainly cuminaldehyde, eugenol, and thymol to alfalfa ( Medicago sativa L.) silage on gas production, digestibility, and metabolic energy. The essential oils were added at 0 ppm (controls) and 100 ppm (group 1), 200 ppm (group 2), and 300 ppm (group 3) with three replications. The cumulative amount of gas resulting from the addition of the three essential oils at the 96th h of incubation was significantly lower than that of the control group (P < 0.05). The cumulative amount of gas production at the 96th h of incubation with thymol ranged from 184.63 mL/g to 217.38 mL/g. In conclusion, this study showed that the addition of different amounts of cuminaldehyde, eugenol, and thymol to alfalfa silage reduced the amount of in vitro gas production. Therefore, these treatments can potentially reduce environmental pollution from ruminal digestion. However, the use of increasing levels of essential oils reduced the amounts of digestible organic matter and metabolic energy. Additional studies are necessary to reveal the effects of these essential oils on in vivo ruminal fermentation by measuring changes in feed consumption and productivity.
ABC-Net: Area-Boundary Constraint Network With Dynamical Feature Selection for Colorectal Polyp Segmentation

Untreated colorectal polyps can develop into colorectal cancer, which is a leading cause of cancer-related deaths. Colonoscopy is a commonly-used method for colorectal polyp scanning, but limited to the experience and subjectivity of clinicians, one out of four polyps cannot be correctly recognized. In this article, we propose an automatic colorectal polyp segmentation system based on the deep convolutional neural network, aiming to improve the accuracy of colorectal polyp scanning. The proposed ABC-Net is comprised of a shared encoder and two novel mutually-constrained decoders for simultaneous polyp area and boundary segmentation. To sufficiently exploit multi-scale image information, the selective feature modules are embedded into the network and used for dynamically learning and fusing multi-scale feature representations. Furthermore, a new boundary-sensitive loss is proposed to model the interdependencies between the area and boundary branches, the information of the two branches are reciprocally propagated and constrained, yielding a significant improvement in segmentation accuracy. Extensive experiments are conducted on three public colorectal polyp datasets, and the results, e.g., F1 scores are 0.866, 0.915, 0.874 in EndoScene, Kvasir-SEG, and ETIS-Larib datasets, demonstrate the advantages of the proposed method.
Estimating returns to fertilizer adoption with unobserved heterogeneity: Evidence from Ethiopia

The low adoption rate of modern agricultural inputs, such as fertilizer, is often suggested as the major reason for much of the stagnation in agricultural productivity across subSaharan African (SSA) countries (Bold, Kaizzi, Svensson, & YanagizawaDrott, 2017; LiverpoolTasie, Omonona, Sanou, & Ogunleye, 2017). Various alternative explanations ranging from credit market constraints (Karlan, Osei, OseiAkoto, & Udry, 2014), lack of agronomic knowledge (LiverpoolTasie et al., 2017), information market constraints (Conley and Udry, 2010; Wossen, Berger, & Di Falco, 2015) to low returns (Duflo, Kremer, & Robinson, 2008; Suri, 2011) have been cited as the main reasons for the low adoption rates of profitable technologies. In this paper, we revisited the relationship between adoption of chemical fertilizer and agricultural productivity using crosssectional and panel data from Ethiopia. Estimation and identification of treatment effects of fertilizer adoption in the context of crosssectional data is challenging as adoption decision is not necessarily random. In the absence of random assignment of adoption status, constructing a counterfactual is impossible as the same individual cannot be observed with and without fertilizer use simultaneously. In the impact evaluation literature, this is commonly regarded as the missing data problem and a range of approaches have been suggested to construct a reliable counterfactual distribution. These methods include matching approaches that consider observed sources of heterogeneities and instrumental variable (IV) approach that considers observed and unobserved sources of heterogeneities. Even though causal effects can be identified through IV approaches, identifying a relevant and exogenous instrument is often challenging. An important extension in this regard has been the use of panel data to estimate fixed effects by controlling for timeinvariant sources of unobserved heterogeneities. However, building panel data sets is costly. As a result, many researchers in developing countries often resort to crosssectional data to evaluate the effect of an intervention such as fertilizer use. In this paper, we utilized an approach that exploits the typical decisionmaking behavior of farm households in developing countries in a crosssectional data setting. Due to Received: 15 June 2018 | Revised: 11 August 2018 | Accepted: 9 September 2018 DOI: 10.1002/fes3.156
The Effect of Feeding Native Faba Bean Seeds (Vicia faba L.) to Sows and Supplemented With Enzymes to Piglets and Growing Pigs

Abstract The aim of this experiment was to examine the possibility of replacing part of soybean meal in the diets of sows, their piglets and fatteners with two varieties of high- or low-tannin faba bean seed. Twenty-four sows were allocated to 3 groups, 8 animals in each. Control group (C) received standard feed mixture containing soybean meal as the main protein source. Next groups received standard feed mixture in which part of soybean meal was replaced by high-tannin variety Bobas (group HT) or low-tannin variety Kasztelan (group LT). Faba bean was added to diets at the level of 12 and 14% for pregnant and lactating sows, 6% for piglets, and 12 and 16% for fatteners (grower and finisher, respectively). Diets for half piglets and fatteners were supplemented with the enzyme Ronozyme VP. Apparent digestibility of nutrients was evaluated in a parallel experiment, using the same feeds on 18 barrows weighing about 40 kg (grower) and 80 kg (finisher). There was almost no difference in sow reproductive rates, litter weight and body weight of piglets on the first day of life were similar. Until 35 days of age piglets receiving faba bean grew faster than control ones. Control piglets grew fastest from 35 to 84 days of age, but differences were not significant. Enzyme supplement had a positive effect on body weight only from 56 to 84 days of piglet life. Digestibility of nutrients was lower in pigs fed with faba beans, especially in the grower period. Faba bean HT had lower nutrient digestibility in both periods of fattening. Almost all carcass traits were better in control pigs than in those fed with bean variety Bobas. Meat of these pigs had also the lowest content of unsaturated fatty acids and highest atherogenic indices. In sensory evaluation this meat had also the worst smell and taste. It can be stated that faba bean seeds, in moderate amounts, can partially replace soybean meal in feed for pigs, but some lowering of body weight gain and meat quality is possible especially when high-tannin varieties are used.
Spatial and Spatio-temporal Engle-Granger representations, Networks and Common Correlated Effects

We provide a way of representing spatial and temporal equilibria in terms of a Engle-Granger representation theorem in a panel setting. We use the mean group, common correlated effects estimator plus multiple testing to provide a set of weakly cross correlated correlations that we treat as spatial weights. We apply this model to the 324 local authorities of England, and show that our approach successfully mops up weak cross section correlations as well as strong cross sectional correlations.
The Effect of Gender-Targeted Transfers: Experimental Evidence from India

Women are the primary recipients of many welfare programs around the world. Despite frequent claims that targeting women induces beneficial consumption shifting and gender equality, the empirical evidence on the effect of targeting is relatively scarce. We report on a highly powered intervention that randomly allocates weekly transfers to a man or woman within the household. We use detailed financial diaries to look at the impact of the recipient's gender on expenditure, income, saving, nutrition and measures of decision-making. Our results show little evidence for consumption shifting at the household level but indicate that targeted transfers empower female recipients.
Microbial Regulation of Enteric Eosinophils and Its Impact on Tissue Remodeling and Th2 Immunity

Eosinophils have emerged as multifaceted cells that contribute to tissue homeostasis. However, the impact of the microbiota on their frequency and function at mucosal sites remains unclear. Here, we investigated the role of the microbiota in the regulation of enteric eosinophils. We found that small intestinal (SI) eosinophilia was significantly greater in germ-free (GF) mice compared to specific pathogen free (SPF) controls. This was associated with changes in the production of enteric signals that regulate eosinophil attraction and survival, and was fully reversed by complex colonization. Additionally, SI eosinophils of GF mice exhibited more cytoplasmic protrusions and less granule content than SPF controls. Lastly, we generated a novel strain of eosinophil-deficient GF mice. These mice displayed intestinal fibrosis and were less prone to allergic sensitization as compared to GF controls. Overall, our study demonstrates that commensal microbes regulate intestinal eosinophil frequency and function, which impacts tissue repair and allergic sensitization to food antigens. These data support a critical interplay between the commensal microbiota and intestinal eosinophils in shaping homeostatic, innate and adaptive immune processes in health and disease.
Effect of IBA, types of Cutting and Rooting Media on Sprouting, Survival Percentage and Growth of Cuttings of Kartoli* (Momordica dioica Roxb.)

ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 7 Number 10 (2018) Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas. com Spine gourd is a perennial, dioceous climbing creeper belongs to family Cucurbitaceae and commonly known as Kartoli. The present study aimed to investigate the effect of different concentrations of IBA, types of cutting and rooting media on days required for sprouting, survival percentage growth of cuttings of kartoli. The cuttings taken from the tip, middle and basal portion of the vine were dipped into 250, 500, 750 and 1000 ppm of IBA (Indole-3-butyric acid) solution and planted in different rooting media such as Soil + Sand + FYM, Soil + Sand + Vermicompost and Soil + Sand + Cocopeat in 1:1:1 proportion. The experiment was laid out in Factorial Completely Randomized Block Design with two replications. The observations on days required for sprouting, survival percentage, length and number shoots and roots per cutting were recorded at 30 and 90 DAP. The data revealed that, the days required for sprouting, survival percentage and growth of cuttings of kartoli were found to be significantly influenced by the different concentrations of IBA, types of cutting and rooting media. Interactions between IBA concentrations (G), types of cutting (C) and rooting media (M), the treatment combination of G4C1M1 recorded significantly minimum number of days (10.15) required for sprouting, the highest survival percentage (80.00) as compared with the remaining treatment combinations. The maximum length of main shoot and root were recorded in the treatment combination of G4C1M1 (153.15 cm and 27.80cm), respectively and the highest numbers of shoots (6.10) and roots (132.80) per cutting were noticed in the same treatment combination as compared with the other treatments under study at 90 DAP. K e y w o r d s IBA concentrations, Types of cutting, Rooting media, Sprouting and survival, Growth of cuttings Accepted: 10 September 2018
Combinatorial properties of maps on finite posets

In this thesis, we make progress on the problem of enumerating tableaux on non-classical shapes by introducing a general family of P-partitions that we call periodic P-partitions. Such a family of P-partitions generalizes the parallelogramic shapes, which were analysed by López, Martı́nez, Pérez, Pérez, Basova, Sun, Tewari, and van Willigenburg, and certain truncated shifted shapes, where truncated shifted shapes were investigated by Adin, King, Roichman, and Panova. By introducing a separation property for posets and by proving a relationship between this property and P-partitions, we prove that periodic P-partitions can be enumerated with a homogeneous first-order matrix difference equation. Afterwards, we consider families of finite sets that we call shellable and that have been characterized by Chang and by Hirst and Hughes as being the families of sets that admit unique solutions to Hall’s marriage problem. By introducing constructions on families of sets that satisfy Hall’s Marriage Condition, and by using a combinatorial analogue of a shelling order, we prove that shellable families can be characterized by using a generalized notion of hook-lengths. Then, we introduce a natural generalization of standard skew tableaux and Edelman and Greene’s balanced tableaux, then prove an existence result about such a generalization using our characterization of shellable families.
Gastrointestinal parasites of different avian species in Ilorin, North Central Nigeria

Objective: The current study aimed to determine the prevalence, infection burden, and risk factors associated with the occurrence of gastrointestinal (GI) parasites in different avian species in Ilorin, Nigeria. Materials and Methods: This study was conducted in Ilorin, involving 597 fecal samples and GI tracts from a variety of sold and slaughtered avian species. The study was conducted between September 2017 and February 2018. Fecal samples were examined using floatation technique, while the GI tracts were examined for gross helminths and its content were subjected to the direct wet mount examination. Data were analyzed using percentages (descriptive) and the Chi-square (१) test (inferential). p < 0.05 was considered significant for all analysis. Results: Ten GI parasites were detected with Eimeria species (32.83%), Ascaridia galli (30.15%) and Heterakis gallinarum (24.79%) as the most prevalent ones. Multiple parasites co-infection was recorded in all the avian species: broilers (77.78%), layers (33.33%), cockerels (45.16%), indigenous chickens (17.91%), ducks (69.70%), pigeons (94.12%), turkeys (47.83%), and guinea fowls (77.36%). Pigeons (100.00%) and turkeys (95.65%) were the most infected avian species. Age, sex, and avian types were significantly (p < 0.05) associated with the occurrence of GI parasites infection. Conclusion: This study gives a reflection of the GI parasites fauna of avian species in Nigeria. The GI parasites are endemic among different avian species in Ilorin, North Central Nigeria. Knowledge on the epidemiology of these parasites is important in instituting a good preventive and control measures against GI parasites, so as to have maximum production and reproduction effects in the poultry industry.
Phylogenetic Relationships of Turbot Species (Scophthalmidae) Inferred from the Mitochondrial COIII Gene and Morphological Characters

In this study, the validity, distribution and structure of three turbot species, Scophthalmus maeoticus, S. maximus, S. rhombus, belong to Scophthalmidae family in Turkish, Bulgarian and Russian coastal waters were determined with mtDNA sequencing of Cytochrome c oxidase subunit III (COIII). The sequencing of the COIII region revealed 8 bp variable and 6 bp parsimony informative sites between all turbot species. The overall genetic and haplotype diversities among all turbot species were found to be 0.004109 and 0.7655, respectively. Genetic distance analysis showed that the highest nucleotide differences was observed between S. maximus and S. rhombus species with a value of 0.09620 and, the lowest value (0.02482) was observed between S. maximus and S. maeoticus species. Neighbor Joining and Maximum Parsimony phylogenetic approaches resulted in the similar tree topologies that S. maximus and S. maeoticus were found as sister group, whereas S. rhombus was more divergent from this group. The mtDNA COIII gene is a useful genetic marker for species specific identification of the genus Scophthalmus due to its inter-specific heterogeneity producing a species-specific pattern. In morphological analyses, S. rhombus was most differentiated from S. maximus and S. maeoticus. The genetic data was supported by the detected morphometric variations among the turbot species.