Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
MAIZE GROWTH AND YIELD RESPONSE TO INCREMENTAL RATES OF PHOSPHORUS IN P-DEPLETED LIXISOLS OF NOTHERN GHANA

It has long been postulated that the efficient use of phosphatic fertilizers must be based on information on inherent soil P-levels for the development of site-specific fertilization that must, in turn, be based on crop response to known nutrient levels. However knowledge remains relatively sparse on crop response to incremental rates of P2O5 fertilization on soils of known P levels to serve as proxy for development of site-specific P2O5 predicting tool that is required for optimum maize production. In the P-deficient Lixisols of northern Ghana, the effect of eleven rates of P2O5 fertilization were evaluated for growth and yield of maize. The P2O5 rates used were 00, 05, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, and 50 kg/ha; laid out in a Randomized Complete Block Design with four replicates. Data were collected on maize growth and yield and subjected to analyses of variance, where means were separated at a probability of 5% using the least significant difference. Results of the evaluation indicated significant effect of P2O5 rate on maize plant height, leaf area index, days to 50% flowering, cob weight, cob length, 100 seed weight, straw weight and grain yield. Increasing P2O5 rates had pronounced effect on growth, on grain yield and on yield components of maize. Application of 50 kg/ha resulted in maximum leaf area index (3.84), 100 seed weight (23.49 g), straw weight (9.3 t/ha) and grain yield (3.09 t/ha) as compared to the minimum values in the control treatments (1.57, 14.8 g, 3.3 t/ha and 0.71 t/ha respectively). The findings show that phosphorus fertilization is essential for maize growth and yield and serves as an entry point for relating soil test data with corresponding yield and the subsequent development of a fertilization tool that can help to predict site-specific P2O5 fertilization, based on soil test results.
THE INTERACTION BETWEEN NIGELLA SATIVA FIXED OIL AND RANITIDINE ON

Background: The use of herbal preparations has increased dramatically, making drug interactions with these preparations a major health concern, especially as herbal medications are usually not subjected to the same regulations as prescription drugs Aim: as a potential drug-herb interaction is possible, this study was designed to investigate the interaction between Nigella sativa (NS) and ranitidine (R) on absolute ethanol induced gastric mucosal damage in rabbit Materials and Methods: Five groups of rabbits (6 each) were used. Acute gastric ulcerations were induced by ethanol through a stomach tube. The oil of NS was given orally, ranitidine by (IM), combination of NS+R or normal saline were given 1 hour before ethanol. Ulcer index, serum and stomach tissue MDA, gastric volume and pH, and histopathology were evaluated. Results: Monotherapy of NSoil or R reduced the mean ulcer index from 91.7±19.4mm in the control group to 43.3±8.7 and 22.5±9.4mm for NS and R treatment respectively. There were significant reductions in serum and stomach tissue MDA and in gastric secretion. When NS and R were given in combination the anti-ulcer effect of both disappeared. This was associated with increased MDA levels in stomach tissue, but not serum. The pH of stomach content was also changed toward ethanol treated values. Conclusion: These findings document the gastro-protective potential of NS against ethanol-induced gastric ulcer. There was a significant NS-R interaction manifested as failure of the combination to inhibit ulcers formation. Until further wider studies are available to confirm such interaction, the simultaneous use of Nigella sativa and ranitidine should be discouraged.
Comparison of Serum Electrolytes between Sickle Cell and Control Group: A Meta-Analysis

Background: Sickle-cell anaemia is an inherited disease in which genes for sickle-cell haemoglobin comes from both parents. Electrolytes such as sodium (Na+), potassium (K+), chloride (Cl-) are essential for the normal functioning of the cells and organs. The present study was carried out to evaluate and determine the relationship between electrolytes values in Sickle cell anaemia patients. Aim: To compare serum electrolytes levels between Sickle cell and control group. Materials and Methods: Meta-analysis was carried out on the findings of ten published studies that were related to serum electrolytes levels of sickle cell anaemia patients. The pooled mean for serum electrolytes was estimated by using a random-effects model. Results: Pooled mean for serum sodium was lower in sickle cell anaemia with p value 0.04. However, potassium levels were higher in patients than controls with p value 0.01. Conclusion: Pooled mean reported in this study can be useful in working out the management of sickle cell anaemia.
DQ0-MODELLING AND PARAMETRIZATION APPROACHES FOR SMALL DELTA CONNECTED PERMANENT MAGNET SYNCHRONOUS MACHINES

This paper presents an extended dq0-model for small delta connected permanent magnet synchronous machines and a suiteable parametrization approach for testbench measurements. The familiar dq-fundamental equations are thereby extended to consider harmonic effects. This allows the inclusion of the zero-sequence flux-linkage. The extended dq0-model is based on the position dependent dq0-flux-linkages and the ohmic resistance and enables the calculation of the zero-sequence current as well as a more precise inner torque representation. The parametrization of this model can be either achieved by software calculations or testbench measurements. The rotor position dependent dq-flux-linkage calculation is based on the dq-voltages and the solution of the resulting simplified differential equations at constant currents. Detection of the zero-sequence current yields the zero-flux-linkage. In this paper, Finite Element Analysis data for a device under test is used to derive and show the parametrization approaches.
High‐Performance Planar Perovskite Solar Cells Using Low Temperature, Solution–Combustion‐Based Nickel Oxide Hole Transporting Layer with Efficiency Exceeding 20%

NiOx hole transporting layer has been extensively studied in optoelectronic devices. In this paper, the low temperature, solution–combustion‐based method is employed to prepare the NiOx hole transporting layer. The resulting NiOx thin films show better quality and preferable energy alignment with perovskite thin film compared to high temperature sol–gel‐processed NiOx. With this, high‐performance perovskite solar cells are fabricated successfully with power conversion efficiency exceeding 20% using a modified two‐step prepared MA1−yFAyPbI3−xClx perovskite. This efficiency value is among the highest values for NiOx‐based devices. Various characterizations and analyses provide evidence of better film quality, enhanced charge transport and extraction, and suppressed charge recombination. Meanwhile, the device exhibits much better device stability compared to sol–gel‐processed NiOx and poly(3,4‐ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate)‐based devices.
Review of Selected Physiotherapeutic Methods Used in the Rehabilitation of Low Back Pain in Light of Evidence-Based Medicine Principles

Background: Low back pain (LBP) is a major social and economic problem. Its prevalence in 2015 was 540 million cases, which is 7% of the general population. A number of physiotherapeutic methods are used to treat these spinal complaints. Aims: This review aimed to compare the effectiveness of the McKenzie Method of Mechanical Diagnosis and Therapy (MDT), Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (TENS), and the Pilates Method Exercise Program (PMEP) in patients with LPB. Material and methods: This review analyzed studies considered high quality according to the Physiotherapy Evidence Database scale (PEDro score above 7/10) in terms of the effectiveness of the methods analyzed: MDT, TENS, and PMEP. Results: In the studies reviewed, the MDT method was found to be inconclusively effective, while TENS, considered simple and popular, improved the condition of patients suffering from LBP. The PMEP method was the most effective, although it was compared only with the control group. Conclusions: It seems necessary to continue randomized clinical trials (RCTs) on these methods with standardized methodology (double and triple blinding, a follow-up evaluation of the participants, selecting therapists with similar professional experience, and a comparison of more methods in high-quality systematic reviews and meta-analyses).
The natural history of moderate-severe ventriculomegaly: A review of cases managed expectantly in an Irish tertiary Centre

Introduction: Prenatal counselling for cerebral ventriculomegaly is challenging due to varied factors and prognoses. There is limited data about the natural history of affected pregnancies managed expectantly. We sought to review the prenatal course, obstetric and paediatric outcomes in cases of moderate to severe cerebral ventriculomegaly in an Irish tertiary maternity unit. Materials and methods: Retrospective review of patients attending the Fetal Assessment Unit from 2006-2014 with lateral cerebral ventricular measurements >12 mm on ultrasound. Results: During the nine-year period, 93 cases were identified with pregnancy outcome data available for 80 cases and 54 continuing in our institution. Vaginal delivery was achieved in 28.9% of women with 71.1% undergoing caesarean. There were 9 cases of intrauterine demise and an additional six neonatal deaths and three paediatric deaths. An isolated neural tube defect was present in 12 babies. Of the remaining 33 babies a diagnosis was confirmed in 60.6% of which, 45% were achieved antenatally. Conclusions: A diagnosis was obtained in 70% of live births. The presence of ventriculomegaly had a significant impact on the mode of delivery and maternal morbidity. The survival rate was 66.6% with high rate of neurodevelopmental delay recognized in survivors particularly in cases without a clear diagnosis.
Effect of storage periods and packaging materials on the proximate and chemical properties of frozen blue whiting (Micromesistius poutassou) at different exposure time

This research seeks to determine the effect of storage periods and packaging materials on the proximate and chemical properties of frozen blue whiting (Micromesistius poutassou) at different exposure time â€“ 0 hour, 2 hours and 4 hours, on arrival at the laboratory. Frozen M. poutassou were bought and stored in a commercial cold room for 12 weeks at -10oC and packed in different packaging materials (Ziploc bag, foil paper and carton) with un-wrapped samples for analysis which lasted 90 days and was conducted every 14 days to measure the moisture, protein, fat, ash, fibre and nitrogen free extract (NFA) content of the fish sample as well as iodine value, peroxide value, saponification value, acid value, free fatty acid and hydroxyl value of fish oil. The result clearly reveals that during storage, the different packaging materials showed significantly (p<0.05) decreasing trend in protein, lipid, ash, fibre and NFA content with increasing storage period and time of analysis except for the moisture content that showed opposite trend. For the chemical properties, the saponification value, peroxide value, free fatty acid, acid value and hydroxyl value showed significantly (p<0.05) increasing trend in the different packaging materials with increasing storage period and time of analysis. While the iodine value decreased with increasing period of storage and time of analysis; the iodine, saponification, peroxide and hydroxyl values were not within the acceptable limits.
Bioactive Compounds of Acai (Euterpe oleracea) and the Effect of their Consumption on Oxidative Stress Markers

: Açaí fruit ( Euterpe oleracea Martius) is highly perishable, so it sought to apply conservation techniques that make its commercialization more bearable such as dehydration by the tray. This thermal technique that significantly inactivates harmful enzymes and microorganisms prolongs their shelf life but has the disadvantage that it decreases the proportion of bioactive components and its antioxidant power. The present work aims to estimate the content and antioxidant activity of the bioactive compounds of açaí powder supplied in hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (HPMC) vegetable capsules. For this purpose, total polyphenols were determined by the Folin-Ciocalteau test, total anthocyanin’s by the differential pH test, and the antioxidant capacity in vitro DPPH method (using Trolox and Vitamin C equivalent). Also, the effect of consumption of four daily capsules on a healthy population (10 people) between the ages of 33-65 years old evaluated through a 10-day intervention study in which the following biomarkers in blood assessed: glycemia, triglycerides, total cholesterol, HDL, LDL, and 8-isoprostane. The açaí powder showed a total polyphenol content of 962.7±22.2 mg EAG/100g, total anthocyanin’s up to 938.5±19.1 mg C3GE/100g, the antioxidant capacity of 643±24.32 µ mol TE/100g and 14.07±0.45 g VCE/100g. In the intervention study, no significant differences were observed between before and after the different biochemical markers except for 8-isoprostane, suggesting that the consumption of dehydrated açaí caused effects benefices in the population tested.
Impact of electric vehicles on a future renewable energy‐based power system in Europe with a focus on Germany

Electric mobility is expected to play a key role in the decarbonisation of the energy system. Continued development of battery electric vehicles is fundamental to achieving major reductions in the consumption of fossil fuels and of CO2 emissions in the transport sector. Hydrogen can become an important complementary synthetic fuel providing electric vehicles with longer ranges. However, the environmental benefit of electric vehicles is significant only if their additional electricity consumption is covered by power production from renewable energy sources. Analysing the implications of different scenarios of electric vehicles and renewable power generation considering their spatial and temporal characteristics, we investigate possible effects of electric mobility on the future power system in Germany and Europe. The time horizon of the scenario study is 2050. The approach is based on power system modelling that includes interchange of electricity between European regions, which allows assessing long‐term structural effects in energy systems with over 80% of renewable power generation. The study exhibits strong potential of controlled charging and flexible hydrogen production infrastructure to avoid peak demand increases and to reduce the curtailment of renewable power resulting in reduced system operation, generation, and network expansion costs. A charging strategy that is optimised from a systems perspective avoids in our scenarios 3.5 to 4.5 GW of the residual peak load in Germany and leads to efficiency gains of 10% of the electricity demand of plug‐in electric vehicles compared with uncontrolled loading.
The causal relationship between cultural intelligence and academic vitality with self-directed learning through academic procrastination

The purpose of this study was to test the causal relationship between cultural intelligence and academic vitality with self-directed learning through mediating academic procrastination in female students of Islamic Azad University of Dezful. The research method was descriptive and correlational. The statistical population consisted of all female students of Islamic Azad University of Dezful, among whom 354 were selected by stratified random sampling. Fisher et al. (2001), Dehgani Zadeh and Hossein Chari (2012), Solomon & Rathblum academic procrastination (1984), and Ang et al.'s cultural intelligence (2004) were used to measure research variables. The proposed model was evaluated using path analysis. The results showed that in the whole sample, all path coefficients between variables were statistically significant. In addition, the direct paths of cultural intelligence, academic vitality, and academic procrastination to self-directed learning were statistically significant. Also, the direct paths of cultural intelligence and academic vitality to academic procrastination were also significant. On the other hand, the results showed that the indirect relationship between cultural intelligence and academic vitality with self-directed learning through academic procrastination was significant. Overall, the results showed that self-directed learning seems to be a phenomenon that is influenced by many factors such as cultural intelligence, academic vitality and academic procrastination.
Microstructural evolution of whipped cream in whipping process observed by confocal laser scanning microscopy

ABSTRACT It is useful to carefully observe the evolution of foam structures to elucidate the factors affecting cream during whipping. In this study, confocal laser scanning microscopy and a double dyeing technology were used to investigate the microstructural evolution of a rigid foam structure in whipped cream. The location of fat and proteins were determined according to the signals they produce at different characteristic wavelengths. Protein membranes on the surface of air bubbles were clearly observed. A simple yet comprehensive characterization of the whipping process was established according to the micrographs and supported by relevant theories. The formation of a rigid foam structure depends on foaming of the protein in the plasma phase and partial coalescence of fat globules. The formation of protein foam in the cream, creation of net structure, and system breakage and collapse phenomena occurring throughout the whole whipping evolution process was depicted and distinguished visually by different colors.
Anti-inflammatory and analgesic activities of oleanolic acid 3-/3- Glucoside (RDG-1) from Randia dumetorum (Rubiaceae)

Oleanolic acid 3-/3-Glucoside (RDG-1) was isolated from the seeds of the plant Randia dumetornm (Rubiaceae). The compound showed significant anti-inflammatory activity in the exudative and proliferative phases of inflammation in the doses of 25 and 100 mg/kg orally. Significant analgesia was observed only on thermal stimulus. It did not show any antipyretic activity against Brewer's yeast induced pyrexia in rats.The approximate oral LD50 were found to be 3600 mg/kg and 1500 mg/kg in mice and rats respectively.
Rethinking Satellite Data Merging: From Averaging to SNR Optimization

Merging of multiple satellite datasets is a simple yet effective way to reduce prediction error. However, most merging methods for satellite data today are based on weighted averaging first proposed in 1969 for economic forecasting, which does not provide optimal outcomes when applied to satellite data. If our aim is to produce a merged data product that minimizes the prediction errors against a prediction target, there is no reason to insist that the merged product be an average of the parent datasets. A more disciplined approach based on mathematical optimization would be to minimize prediction errors. However, formulating merging as an optimization problem is insufficient by itself as the statistics needed for optimization, e.g., signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of parent products, are often unavailable in practice and must be estimated jointly. In this article, we address both of these problems for data merging. We first formulate optimal merging of satellite data as a SNR optimization (SNR-opt), and propose an estimation method to jointly estimate the required SNRs. This SNR-based approach has a natural interpretation as a multi-input single-output Wiener filter. Through extensive experimental validation on three global-scale satellite-derived soil moisture and land surface temperature products, we demonstrate that our SNR-opt significantly improves merging over the existing weighted averaging scheme.
Electrosynthesis and analysis of the electrochemical properties of a composite material: polyterthiophene + titanium oxide

Abstract A polyterthiophene-titanium oxide (P3T+TiO2) composite material was electrochemically synthesized in dichloromethane-tetrabutylammonium perchlorate CH2Cl2/TBAP containing a monomer (terthiophene) and semiconductor (TiO2) nanoparticles. The obtained material was characterized using electrochemical methods (cyclic voltammetry and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy) and spectrometry analysis [scanning electron microscopy (SEM), spectrophotometer ultraviolet (UV)-visible, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) and force atomic microscopy (AFM)]. The effect of TiO2 nanoparticles on the photoelectrochemical and optical characteristics of P3T composite films was also studied. The results confirmed the presence of TiO2 nanoparticles in the polyterthiophene matrix. The surface morphology of the (P3T+TiO2) composite films revealed that adding TiO2 nanoparticles increase the film’s roughness values. The addition of TiO2 nanoparticles improve the absorbance of P3T composite films. Moreover, the photocurrent of the composite increased with the TiO2 nanoparticles concentration and showed that this composite material could be used in photoelectrochemical applications such as photovoltaic cells.
Quantification of Protein-Derived Thiols during Atmosphere-Controlled Brewing in Laboratory Scale

An atmosphere-controlled brewing system was built to study thiol oxidation during brewing in laboratory scale under conditions with limited oxygen exposure. Quantification of free and total thiols and protein showed that thiols were lost during wort boiling possibly owing to protein precipitation. Fermentation caused an increase in free thiols, and the balance between free and total thiols was shifted toward a higher degree of free thiols. This was explained by either a reducing effect of fermentation or secretion of thiol-containing compounds from yeast. The efficiency of sulfite to reduce reversibly oxidized thiols was determined by incubating boiled wort obtained from a pilot scale trial with various concentrations of sulfite (0–2,000 μM) in an anaerobic chamber for up to 7 days. Addition of sulfite increased the concentration of free thiols in a concentration-dependent manner, and the effect was more pronounced at longer incubation times. However, the reduction of the pool of oxidized thiols by sulfite was inefficient for sulfite concentrations typically found in beer, and the reaction was found to be relatively slow compared with reduction by tris(carboxyethyl)phosphine.
Effective viscosity of a random mixture of fluids

We propose an estimation of the effective viscosity of a random mixture of Newtonian ﬂuids that ignores capillary effects. The local viscosity of the mixture is assumed to be a random function of the position. Using perturbation expansions up to the second order, the resulting formula can be recast under the form of a simple power averaging mixing low. Numerical tests are used to assess the validity of the formula and the range of its applicability.