Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evaluation of renoprotective effect of calcium channel blockers in coronary angiography patients

Aim: To evaluate the effectiveness of contrast-induced acute kidney injury (CI-AKI) prophylaxis retrospectively, using calcium channel blockers (CCB) before and after contrast exposure and comparing them with patients using angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEI), which has not been explored by many studies. Methods: The study was performed in Afyon Kocatepe University, Faculty of Medicine Research Hospital, Cardiology Department between January 2014 and June 2016. Eighty patients using dihydropyridine (amlodipine 10 mg), non-dihydropyridine (diltiazem 60 mg) CCB or ACEI in the form of monotherapy before coronary angiography were included. Results: In the CCB and ACEI group, CI-AKI development rates were 15.7% (n=8) and 24.1% (n=7), respectively (p = 0.383; Fisher's exact test). When the CCB group was evaluated as dihydropyridine and non-dihydropyridine subsets, CI-AKI development rates were found to be similar as well (p = 0.445; Fisher’s exact test) in each subset. Conclusion: In our study, we evaluated one of today's important dilemma; the methods related to the prophylaxis of CI-AKI. Our study shows that there is no difference in the development of CI-AKI between patients using the calcium channel blocker group drugs and ACEI as monotherapy. However, in our study, the mean age of patients using CCB was significantly higher than the group using ACEI.
Productivity of high‐latitude lakes: climate effect inferred from altitude gradient

Climate change is predicted to be dramatic at high latitudes. Still, climate impact on high latitude lake ecosystems is poorly understood. We studied 15 subarctic lakes located in a climate gradient comprising an air temperature difference of about 6°C. We show that lake water productivity varied by one order of magnitude along the temperature gradient. This variation was mainly caused by variations in the length of the ice‐free period and, more importantly, in the supply of organic carbon and inorganic nutrients, which followed differences in terrestrial vegetation cover along the gradient. The results imply that warming will have rapid effects on the productivity of high latitude lakes, by prolongation of ice‐free periods. However, a more pronounced consequence will be a delayed stimulation of the productivity following upon changes of the lakes terrestrial surroundings and subsequent increasing input of elements that stimulate the production of lake biota.
Development of symbiotic interactions in the faba bean (Vicia faba L.) roots

Double-inoculation of faba bean (Vicia faba L.) seeds before sowing with rhizobium bacteria and mycorrhizal fungi is a known agronomic practice. It improves symbiotic nitrogen fixation and enhances legume supply with mineral elements and water. Effective symbiosis makes it possible to replace some of the required mineral fertilizer needed for plant growth with symbiotically fixed. This will ensure more environmentally friendly agricultural production. The formation of an effective symbiosis depends on a number of biotic and abiotic factors affecting the biochemical signals released by the partners. The biochemical mediator for symbiosis formation is flavonoids. The aim of this experiment was to test the effects of rhizobial and mycorrhizal inocula on symbiosis formation under different temperatures. Beans are an important source of protein for animal feed and human consumption. Four cultivars of faba beans were used two V. faba var. minor Beck. -‘Fuego’ and ‘Lielplatone’, and two V. faba var. major Harz. ‘Bartek’ and ‘Karmazyn’. The combination of microorganisms for seed inoculation influenced the frequency of root mycorrhization and abundance of arbuscules. The content of flavonoids in seed exudates correlated (r = 0.93) with germination temperatures. The use of mycorrhizal fungi alone or in combination with rhizobia reduced the amount of flavonoids in the bean seed exudate. In the pot experiment the amount and size of nodules significantly differed between cultivars. Use of mycorrhizal preparation mitigated the effect of inadequate germination temperature. Higher degree of mycorrhization and more intense formation of arbusculs formation was observed in the bean roots grown in vegetation pots in comparison with field ones. Local bred ‘Lielplatone’ had significantly better compatibility with microsymbionts in local agroclimatic conditions.
Bacterial Hazards Associated with Consumption of Some Meat Products

Summary One hundred random samples of various meat products represented by sausage, kofta, beef burger and luncheon (25 of each) were collected from different markets at Kalyobia Governorate for detection of food poisoning bacteria. The obtained results declared that Enteropathogenic E.coli could be detected in 20% , 8%, 12% and 4% of examined samples of sausage, kofta, beef burger and luncheon with mean values of 5.11X103 ± 0.87 X 103, 9.26 X 102 ± 1.43 X 103, 1.39X103, 0.23 X 103 and 7.94 X 102 ± 1.05 X 102 / g respectively. Moreover , O55 : K59 (B5 ) O111 : K58 (B14), O124 : K72 (B17) and O124 : K67 (B12) strains of E. coli were identified. Regarding to salmonellae, 12%, 8% and 4% of sausage, kofta and beef burger samples were contaminated with these pathogens, meanwhile, such organisms could not be detected in luncheon samples. The isolated Salmonella were serotyped as Salmonella typhimurium and Salmonella enteritidis. On the other hand, Bacillus cereus , Staphylococcus aureus and Clostridium perfringens were isolated from 16%, 52%) and 24% of sausage, 40%, 24% and 16% of kofta, 28%, 36% and 28% of beef burger and 24%, 16% and 20 % of luncheon samples , respectively . Also , 40% , 16%, 28% and 20 % of sausage , kofta, beef burger and luncheon samples had lecithinase positive Clostridium perfringens. The public health importance of isolated pathogens, possible sources of contamination of meat products as well as some recommendations to control such serious pathogens were discussed .
Quantifying the effect of semi‐natural riparian cover on stream temperatures: implications for salmonid habitat management

Previous studies examining the effects of riparian cover on stream temperatures have led to highly variable findings. In an attempt to reduce these uncertainties, this study examines the relationship between stream temperature variability and local climatic conditions over discrete 300-m sections of a watercourse. Seventeen stream sections were chosen within the Slaney catchment on the basis of riparian cover and size. Continuous monitoring over a 2-year period from May 2010 found that riparian cover had a measurable cooling effect on water temperatures at small spatial scales. The magnitude of this effect was dependent on stream size and local climactic conditions.
Genetic variability of Rhizoctonia solani Kühn and its resistance to fungicides

The aims of this study are to determine the population genetic structure of Rhizoctonia solani, associated with potato, and to assess its resistance degree to pencycuron and thiabendazole fungicides. A total of 57 strains of R. Solani were isolated from different potato crop fields in Mexico, and were classified according to their anastomosis group (AG) using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP)-based analysis. Then, the amplified fragments were digested with four different endonucleases (Mse I, Ava II, Mun I and Hinc II). The Repetitive Element Sequence-Based PCR (rep-PCR) technique was used to determine the genetic diversity in R. solani populations. Results obtained by PCR-RFLP showed that 81% of the isolates were identified as belonging to AG-3 group, 14% to AG1-1B and 5% to AG-11 group. In response to fungicides inhibition, IC50 between 0.014-0.039 mg a.i./L for pencycuron, and 0.82 to 2.91 for thiabendazole were determined, This IC50 value showed that the resistance factor (RF) values ranged from 1.4 to 3.945 and 0.27 to 0.97, respectively; this tendency suggests that isolates are susceptible to thiabendazole. The AG groups showed a heterogeneous resistance to pencycuron and thiabendazole, being more tolerant to these fungicides AG1-1B and AG-11 groups. The genetic analysis shows a low genetic diversity among (P-value 0.3225) and within (P-value 0.3275) populations; this can indicate a clonal reproduction and little parasexual cycle among the analyzed isolations.
Effect of varieties and nitrogen management on nematodes infestation and productivity of aerobic rice (Oryza sativa)

Influence of integrated nitrogen application and varieties under aerobic rice (Oryza sativa L.) was evaluated during wet season of 2010 at New Delhi. Treatment included four rice varieties viz., Jaldi Dhan 13; Pusa Sugandh 5; Anjali and Pusa 834 and four nitrogen (N) application options including N control (N ), recom- 0 mended dose of N (120 kg N/ha) through urea and two combinations (60:60 and 90:30) of urea and vermicompost (VC). Results showed that Pusa Sugandh 5 superseded other varieties in growth and yield parameters. Maxi- mum grain yield (3.98 t/ha) was recorded with 90 kg N through urea + 30 kg N/ha through VC. Anjali showed maximum tolerance to root knot nematodes, while Pusa sugandh 5 was most susceptible. N application through chemical fertilizer significantly reduced the nematode population over control. Highest net returns ( 61,885/ha) obtained from Pusa Sugandh 5 and 90 kg N (urea) + 30 kg N (VC)/ha ( 61,273/ha).
SARS-CoV-2 titers in wastewater foreshadow dynamics and clinical presentation of new COVID-19 cases

Current estimates of COVID-19 prevalence are largely based on symptomatic, clinically diagnosed cases. The existence of a large number of undiagnosed infections hampers population-wide investigation of viral circulation. Here, we use longitudinal wastewater analysis to track SARS-CoV-2 dynamics in wastewater at a major urban wastewater treatment facility in Massachusetts, between early January and May 2020. SARS-CoV-2 was first detected in wastewater on March 3. Viral titers in wastewater increased exponentially from mid-March to mid-April, after which they began to decline. Viral titers in wastewater correlated with clinically diagnosed new COVID-19 cases, with the trends appearing 4-10 days earlier in wastewater than in clinical data. We inferred viral shedding dynamics by modeling wastewater viral titers as a convolution of back-dated new clinical cases with the viral shedding function of an individual. The inferred viral shedding function showed an early peak, likely before symptom onset and clinical diagnosis, consistent with emerging clinical and experimental evidence. Finally, we found that wastewater viral titers at the neighborhood level correlate better with demographic variables than with population size. This work suggests that longitudinal wastewater analysis can be used to identify trends in disease transmission in advance of clinical case reporting, and may shed light on infection characteristics that are difficult to capture in clinical investigations, such as early viral shedding dynamics.
WHAT MAKES EFL STUDENTS ESTABLISH GOOD READING HABITS IN ENGLISH

To have an ability to cope with the demand in reading English and to develop reading habits in English is significant for EFL students because they are engaged much in reading English literature to achieve their academic success. This article aims at exploring what makes EFL students establish good reading habits in English. This is a multicase study towards the EFL students who already established good habits in reading English. The results of the present study provided valuable insights that the EFL students’ reading habits in English is established if they live in a good literacy environment with parents reading them aloud, have regular reading motivation and good reading habits in L1, and have access to digitalized texts and phenomenal literary works. Indeed, the establishment of the EFL students’ good reading habits in English is contributed by the individual, social, cultural and technological construct factors.
Organisational Ergonomics and Academic Staff Performance in Nigerian South-South Federal Universities

This study investigates the link between organisational ergonomics and academic staff performance in federal universities in the South-South zone of Nigeria. It sought to examine the extent of the influences of three organisational ergonomic dimensions (teamwork, job design and effective communication) on the research output-a proxy for academic staff performance. A total of 7,086 academic staff constituted the population of the study. Primary data were collected from a sample of 1,236 respondents that were drawn from the population using the questionnaire. Data obtained were analysed using descriptive statistics, Pearson product moment correlation and multiple linear regression techniques. Results revealed that teamwork had the highest significant level of influence on the research output. This was followed by job design and effective communication. It was therefore concluded that organisational ergonomics has a significant positive influence on the research output of academic staff. Hence, management of Nigerian universities should prioritise the practice of organisational ergonomics and also pay attention to the implementation of policies that would encourage research collaboration among academic staff in their institutions.
Estimating the carbon balance of central Siberia using a landscape‐ecosystem approach, atmospheric inversion and Dynamic Global Vegetation Models

Northern Eurasia is the largest terrestrial reservoir of carbon, and its dynamics and interactions with climate are globally significant. We present five independent estimates of the contemporary carbon balance of central Siberia using three different methodologies: a landscape‐ecosystem approach (LEA) that amalgamates comprehensive vegetation, soil, hydrological and morphological information into a Geographical Information System, linked to regression‐based estimates of carbon flux; two Dynamic Global Vegetation Models (DGVMs); and two atmospheric inversions. Apart from one of the DGVMs, all methods produce estimates of the net biome productivity (NBP) that are consistent both amongst themselves and with a range of other estimates. They indicate the region to be a carbon sink with a NBP of 27.5 ± 7.2 g C m−2 yr−1, which is equivalent to 352 ± 92 Mt C yr−1 if considered representative for boreal Asia. This is comparable with fossil fuel emissions for the Russian Federation, currently estimated as 427 MtC yr−1, and implies that boreal Asia does not play the major role in the northern hemisphere land sink, typically estimated to be of magnitude 1.5–2.9 Gt C yr−1. The LEA and DGVM approaches produce very different partitioning of NBP into its component fluxes. The DGVMs find net primary production (NPP) to be nearly balanced by heterotrophic respiration, disturbance being a relatively small term pushing the system closer to equilibrium. In the LEA, heterotrophic respiration is significantly less than NPP, and disturbance plays a much larger role in the overall carbon balance. The use in the LEA of observationally based estimates of heterotrophic respiration and fire disturbance, along with a more complete description of disturbance fluxes, suggests that the partitioning derived by the LEA is more likely, and that improved process descriptions and constraints by data are needed in the DGVMs.
Target-Aware Bayesian Inference: How to Beat Optimal Conventional Estimators

Standard approaches for Bayesian inference focus solely on approximating the posterior distribution. Typically, this approximation is, in turn, used to calculate expectations for one or more target functions—a computational pipeline that is inefficient when the target function(s) are known upfront. We address this inefficiency by introducing a framework for target-aware Bayesian inference (TABI) that estimates these expectations directly. While conventional Monte Carlo estimators have a fundamental limit on the error they can achieve for a given sample size, our TABI framework is able to breach this limit; it can theoretically produce arbitrarily accurate estimators using only three samples, while we show empirically that it can also breach this limit in practice. We utilize our TABI framework by combining it with adaptive importance sampling approaches and show both theoretically and empirically that the resulting estimators are capable of converging faster than the standard O(1/N) Monte Carlo rate, potentially producing rates as fast as O(1/N). We further combine our TABI framework with amortized inference methods, to produce a method for amortizing the cost of calculating expectations. Finally, we show how TABI can be used to convert any marginal likelihood estimator into a target aware inference scheme and demonstrate the substantial benefits this can yield.
Online Shopping Behavior of Emerging Shopping Websites

This study explored whether there were correlations among internal and external control personality traits, fashion anxiety, online word of mouth, the Bandwagon effect, and consumer involvement. The online questionnaire was adopted in this study, with online consumers who used new shopping websites as sample sources. After deleting invalid questionnaires, there were 265 valid samples. The analysis results show that: (1) Consumers with the fashion anxiety characteristic care more about others and are subject to external influence. Therefore, internal and external control personality traits have a significant positive impact on fashion anxiety; (2) Consumers with external control personality traits are more likely to believe others or the external environment, leading to greater likelihood for the Bandwagon effect to result. Therefore, the internal and external control personality traits produce a positive impact on the Bandwagon effect; (3) Internal and external control personality traits produce a significant positive impact on online word of mouth; (4) Consumer involvement varies with different personality traits. Therefore, internal and external control personality traits produce a significant positive impact on consumer involvement; (5) Consumers with fashion anxiety characteristic are likely to follow others. Therefore, fashion anxiety produces a significant positive impact on the Bandwagon effect; (6) The results on the interaction between consumers’ Bandwagon effect and online word of mouth show that the Bandwagon effect and online word of mouth have a reciprocal effect; (7) Consumer involvement produces a significant positive impact on the Bandwagon effect; (8) compared to consumers with higher involvement, consumers with lower involvement trust online word of mouth more. Therefore, consumer involvement produces a significant positive impact online word of mouth.
FIRM CHARACTERISTICS AND AUDIT REPORT DELAY IN NIGERIA: EVIDENCE FROM THE POST-IFRS ADOPTION ERA

This paper examines the firm-specific characteristics commonly studied as the determinants of audit report delay using evidence from listed firms in Nigeria. The purpose is to examine these factors in light of Nigeria evidence. The method used is pooled regression analysis, using data collected from annual report and accounts of Nigerian listed firms from 2012 to 2016. The independent variables examined are firm size, firm complexity, financial leverage, firm performance, and external auditor type. Earnings management, industry classification, and audit fees were used as control variables. The results of the analyses show that of all the variables, only external auditor type has a positive and significant effect on audit report lag. Firm size, firm complexity, firm performance, industry classification, and audit fees have a negative but insignificant effect on audit report lag. Financial leverage and earnings management have positive but insignificant effects. The study recommends that regulators should consider specifying time limit on accounting reporting to reduce audit report delay.
Partial Characterization of Polyphenoloxidase Extracted from `Anna' Apple

Polyphenoloxidase (PPO) was studied in extracts from 'Anna' apples (Malus domestica Borkh.) produced under the desert conditions of the state of Sonora, Mexico. A crude extract of PPO was prepared in phosphate buffer from an acetone powder of pulp from ripe apples. Optimum conditions for enzyme activity were pH 5.36 at 35C. Specificity toward substrates, in order of decreasing activity, was 4-methylcatechol, chlorogenic acid, catechol, caffeic acid, and 3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine. Activation energy for the reaction with 4-methylcatechoI was 6543 J·mol -l
Maximizing Welfare with Incentive-Aware Evaluation Mechanisms

Motivated by applications such as college admission and insurance rate determination, we study a classification problem where the inputs are controlled by strategic individuals who can modify their features at a cost. A learner can only partially observe the features, and aims to classify individuals with respect to a quality score. The goal is to design a classification mechanism that maximizes the overall quality score in the population, taking any strategic updating into account. When scores are linear and mechanisms can assign their own scores to agents, we show that the optimal classifier is an appropriate projection of the quality score. For the more restrictive task of binary classification via linear thresholds, we construct a (1/4)-approximation to the optimal classifier when the underlying feature distribution is sufficiently smooth and admits an oracle for finding dense regions. We extend our results to settings where the prior distribution is unknown and must be learned from samples.
Effects of replacing barley grain with triticale-based dried distillers’ grains with solubles on nutrient digestibility, lamb growth performance and carcass traits

The objective of this research was to determine the effects of increasing proportions of triticale-based dried distillers’ grains with solubles (TDDGS) in the diet on nutrient digestibility, growth and carcass traits of lambs. The control diet contained 72.5% barley grain, 10.0% beet pulp, 9.0% sunflower hulls, 3.0% alfalfa meal and 5.5% mixed supplement, which contained molasses, calcium carbonate, minerals and vitamins. Treatment diets contained TDDGS in place of barley grain at 20, 40 or 60% of diet dry matter (DM). In a growth study, 60 weaned lambs stratified by live weight (26.6 ± 3.6 kg) were fed one of the four diets to slaughter weight. Additionally, a digestibility study using these diets in a replicated 4 × 4 Latin square design was conducted using 12 ram lambs. Increasing dietary allocation of TDDGS in the diet did not affect (P > 0.12) DM intake, average daily gain or feed efficiency (feed:gain). At slaughter, cold carcass weight and grade rule scores responded quadratically (P = 0.04) to inc.
The Effect of Work Discipline and Training on Employee Performance: A Case in a Power Plant Company in North Sumatera, Indonesia

1 Postgraduate Program, Magister Management, Universitas Sumatera Utara, Jl. Abdul Hakim No.1, Padang Bulan, Medan Baru, Kota Medan, Sumatera Utara 20222, Indonesia 2 Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Sumatera Utara, Jl. Abdul Hakim No.1, Padang Bulan, Medan Baru, Kota Medan, Sumatera Utara 20222, Indonesia 3 Faculty of Economics & Business, Universitas Sumatera Utara, Jl. Abdul Hakim No.1, Padang Bulan, Medan Baru, Kota Medan, Sumatera Utara 20222, Indonesia