Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Nutrients Content and Antioxidant Potential of Selected Traditional Vegetables Grown in Malawi

Vegetables provide nutrients, especially minerals and vitamins, and non-nutrient phytochemicals with health benefits. Iron, zinc and vitamin A deficiencies are common in most developing countries yet traditional vegetables that can provide these nutrients grow wildly in most areas. This study evaluated the nutrient contents, phytochemicals and the 2,2-diphenyl-1-picryl hydrazyl (DPPH) radical scavenging activities of five traditional leafy vegetables grown in Malawi, namely Amaranth hybridus (Amaranth ssp.), Moringa oleifera ( Drum stick), Bidens pilosa (Black jack), Corchorus olitorius (Jute mallow) and Ipomea batatas (Sweet potato) leaves. Results from the present study show that beta-carotene ranged from 829.68 µg/100g to 5,791.64 µg/100g and Moringa oleifera had the highest concentration. Vitamin C content ranged from 7.93 mg/100g to 35.81 mg/100g and Ipomea batatas leaves had the highest concentration. Zinc concentrations ranged from 4.42 mg/100g to 10.59 mg/100g. Iron content ranged from 37.22 mg/100g to 48.21 mg/100g. Total phenolics content (TPC) ranged from 0.98 g/100g to 3.89 g/100g with Bidens pilosa leaves having the highest TPC (3.89±0.23 g/100g). Moringa oleifera and Bidens pilosa leaves had significantly higher (P Corchorus olitorius > Moringa oleifera > Ipomea batatas > Amaranth hybridus . The 50% inhibitory concentration (IC 50 ) values of these vegetables ranged from 12.5 µg/mL to 125 µg/mL. Lower IC 50 values indicate higher radical scavenging activity. The results suggested that the traditional vegetables under the study can significantly contribute to improved human nutrition and have potential to reduce diseases related to oxidative stress.
Homesickness at College: Its Impact on Academic Performance and Retention

Abstract:For this study we identified factors exerting significant influence on homesickness and explored the impact of the homesick experience on students’ academic performance and retention in the first year in college. The findings reveal 2 constructs underlying the homesickness scale: homesick separation and homesick distress. Demographic variables found to impact students’ level of homesickness included gender, residence, and parental education. Homesick distress resulted in a significant, albeit small, explanation of the variance of first-semester GPA and first-year retention.
eScholarship Title Attentional bias for trauma-related words : exaggerated emotional Stroop effect in Afghanistan and Iraq war veterans with PTSD Permalink

Background: Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) involves debilitating symptoms that can disrupt cognitive functioning. The emotional Stroop has been commonly used to examine the impact of PTSD on attentional control, but no published study has yet used it with Afghanistan and Iraq war veterans, and only one previous study has compared groups on habituation to trauma-related words. Methods: We administered the emotional Stroop, the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), and the PTSD Checklist (PCL) to 30 veterans with PTSD, 30 military controls, and 30 civilian controls. Stroop word types included Combat, Matched-neutral, Neutral, Positive and Negative. Results: Compared to controls, veterans with PTSD were disproportionately slower in responding to Combat words. They were also slower and less accurate overall, did not show interference on Negative or Positive words relative to Neutral, and showed a trend for delayed but successful habituation to Combat words. Higher PCL and BDI scores also correlated with larger interference effects. Conclusions: Because of its specificity in detecting attentional biases to trauma-related words, the emotional Stroop task may serve as a useful preand post task with intervention studies of PTSD patients.
New Insight into the Influence of Rhamnolipid Bio-Surfactant on the Carbonate Rock/Water/Oil Interaction at Elevated Temperature

Tertiary recovery is directly dependent on the alteration in wettability and interfacial tension (IFT), hence releasing the trapped oil from rock pore spaces. Bio-surfactant water flooding to mobilise residual oil in reservoirs is a new and developing prospect that can be used more often in future due to its environmentally friendly nature and economic advantages. In this work, the impact of rhamnolipids as water soluble bio-surfactant solutions on the interfacial activities of saline water and the wettability of carbonate rock are studied at elevated temperature. The effectiveness of the bio-surfactant as a rock wettability modifier is analysed in the presence of different salinities, in particular SO42− ions. The reason for the focus on SO42− is its high affinity towards calcite surfaces, and hence its ability to intervene strongly on bio-surfactant performance. To achieve the objectives of this study, the oil-wet calcite samples at elevated temperature were put through a washing process that included bio-surfactant solutions in seawater at various concentrations of sodium sulphate ions, where the measurement of the contact angles of each sample after treatment and the IFT between the oil model and the washing solutions were taken. The obtained results illustrated that bio-surfactants (rhamnolipids) with incremental concentrations of SO42− ions in sea water (up to three times higher than the original ion concentration) can lower the IFT, and assessed changing the rocks towards greater water-wettability. This study reveals that the alteration of SO42− ions had a greater impact on the wettability alteration, whereas rhamnolipids were better at reducing the IFT between the oil phase and the aqueous phase. This study also looked at temperatures of 50 °C and 70 °C, which demonstrated undesired influences on the wettability and IFT. Bio-surfactants at high temperature showed less interfacial activity, thus indicating that rhamnolipids are not active at high temperatures, while the addition of SO42− shows a continuous decrease in the contact angle and IFT measurements at high temperature.
Measuring decadal vertical land-level changes from SRTM-C (2000) and TanDEM-X ( ∼ 2015) in the south-central Andes

Abstract. In the arctic and high mountains it is common to measure vertical changes of ice sheets and glaciers via digital elevation model (DEM) differencing. This requires the signal of change to outweigh the noise associated with the datasets. Excluding large landslides, on the ice-free earth the land-level change is smaller in vertical magnitude and thus requires more accurate DEMs for differencing and identification of change. Previously, this has required meter to submeter data at small spatial scales. Following careful corrections, we are able to measure land-level changes in gravel-bed channels and steep hillslopes in the south-central Andes using the SRTM-C (collected in 2000) and the TanDEM-X (collected from 2010 to 2015) near-global 12–30 m DEMs. Long-standing errors in the SRTM-C are corrected using the TanDEM-X as a control surface and applying cosine-fit co-registration to remove ∼1/10 pixel (∼3 m) shifts, fast Fourier transform (FFT) and filtering to remove SRTM-C short- and long-wavelength stripes, and blocked shifting to remove remaining complex biases. The datasets are then differenced and outlier pixels are identified as a potential signal for the case of gravel-bed channels and hillslopes. We are able to identify signals of incision and aggradation (with magnitudes down to ∼3 m in the best case) in two >100 km river reaches, with increased geomorphic activity downstream of knickpoints. Anthropogenic gravel excavation and piling is prominently measured, with magnitudes exceeding ±5 m (up to >10 m for large piles). These values correspond to conservative average rates of 0.2 to >0.5 m yr−1 for vertical changes in gravel-bed rivers. For hillslopes, since we require stricter cutoffs for noise, we are only able to identify one major landslide in the study area with a deposit volume of 16±0.15×106 m3. Additional signals of change can be garnered from TanDEM-X auxiliary layers; however, these are more difficult to quantify. The methods presented can be extended to any region of the world with SRTM-C and TanDEM-X coverage where vertical land-level changes are of interest, with the caveat that remaining vertical uncertainties in primarily the SRTM-C limit detection in steep and complex topography.
Smartphones: reading habits and overuse. A qualitative study in Denmark, Lithuania and Spain

Recently, the smartphone has become the key device in families and workplaces, changing people’s habits and ways of interaction in our liquid and hyperconnected societies. Little research has been done on the use of smartphones for reading, since the telephone was not associated with reading until very recently. This paper presents an overview of digital mobile reading in the digital literacy context and tries to answer different research questions, such as: how do people read on the smartphone? Do people have an addiction to/misuse of mobiles? Its objective is to offer empirical data about people’s experiences of digital mobile reading and to analyse how we depend on our smartphone through a small-scale qualitative study including different informants from three European capital cities: Copenhagen (Denmark), Madrid (Spain) and Vilnius (Lithuania). The paper does not aim to generalise its findings, but to advance the field of digital literacy research, a field in which the meaning (the interviews) has been interpreted in relation to a wider socio-cultural context. The results report that the “context”, the “time” and the “situation” where reading is carried out are decisive for understanding; furthermore, the type of navigation that readers can perform on the smartphone has important consequences in the reading process, hence, the layout must be well designed for active and attentive users on mobile devices. Our Informants assert that situations like boredom, waiting or loneliness can induce the use of the smartphone. Therefore, more research is needed, in different areas and with new digital literacy programmes in order to help young people (and adults) use their mobiles as advantageously as possible.
As‐built surface quality and fatigue resistance of Inconel 718 obtained by additive manufacturing

It has been recognized that parts produced by additive manufacturing with surfaces in the “ as-built ” state exhibit reduced fatigue properties. On the other hand, post-process surface finishing is expensive and often unfeasible due to the complexity of parts. Therefore, surface quality parameters must be considered when designing as-built parts for structural applications. This work investigates the as-built surface topography of Inconel 718 samples manufactured via laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF) with three different production systems (SLM 280HL, EOS M290, and RENISHAW AM250) and discusses their respective experimental fatigue behavior. The aim of the investigation is to identify a link between the fatigue response of L-PBF IN718 alloy without post fabrication finishing and the surface morphology; a preliminary comparison among the main surface roughness parameters and the fatigue strength is reported and further investigations are planned to find a univocal correlation. Samples with a mean height (S a ) of approximately 20 μ m exhibit lower fatigue strength than those with S a of approximately 5 μ m. Skewness (S sk ) and kurtosis (S ku ) are instead found to be discriminating parameters when comparing surfaces with relatively low surface roughness (S a 5 μ m), with higher values of Ssk and Sku associated with inferior fatigue performance.
Children Tooth Brushing Behavior and Oral Microbiota: A Pilot Study

By age 17, almost 80% of US children have dental caries resulting from cariogenic bacteria that could be reduced with tooth brushing. This cross-sectional, correlational pilot study aims to understand the association between tooth brushing and oral microbiota in children. Oral specimens and survey data were collected from a convenience sample of 16 children, aged 7–12, and attending a community dental clinic. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze sample characteristics and tooth brushing behavior. Biospecimens were analyzed using Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) amplification and 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene sequencing. Beta diversity measures were compared across tooth brushing groups using Permutational Analysis of Variance (PERMANOVA) and Analysis of Similarities (ANOSIM) tests in R. The frequency of tooth brushing in this sample was once a day (brush1; 43.8%), twice a day (brush2; 43.8%), or more than twice a day (12.6%). Major phyla found in the subjects’ upper and lower teeth were the following: Proteobacteria, Fusobacteria, Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, and Actinobacteria. The relative abundance of Actinobacteria was significantly lower in brush2 as compared to brush1 (p = 0.001), whereas the relative abundance of Proteobacteria was significantly higher (p = 0.025). The association between tooth brushing frequency and microbiome beta diversity was significant (p = 0.005 by PERMANOVA and p = 0.002 by ANOSIM). This study demonstrates that tooth brushing frequency could affect the proportional composition of the oral microflora. Additional research on the implication of these changes is warranted.
Knee-Cartilage Segmentation and Thickness Measurement from 2D Ultrasound

Ultrasound (US) could become a standard of care imaging modality for the quantitative assessment of femoral cartilage thickness for the early diagnosis of knee osteoarthritis. However, low contrast, high levels of speckle noise, and various imaging artefacts hinder the analysis of collected data. Accurate, robust, and fully automatic US image-enhancement and cartilage-segmentation methods are needed in order to improve the widespread deployment of this imaging modality for knee-osteoarthritis diagnosis and monitoring. In this work, we propose a method based on local-phase-based image processing for automatic knee-cartilage image enhancement, segmentation, and thickness measurement. A local-phase feature-guided dynamic-programming approach is used for the fully automatic localization of knee-bone surfaces. The localized bone surfaces are used as seed points for automating the seed-guided segmentation of the cartilage. We evaluated the Random Walker (RW), watershed, and graph-cut-based segmentation methods from 200 scans obtained from ten healthy volunteers. Validation against manual expert segmentation achieved a mean dice similarity coefficient of 0.90, 0.86, and 0.84 for the RW, watershed, and graph-cut segmentation methods, respectively. Automatically segmented cartilage regions achieved 0.18 mm localization accuracy compared to manual expert thickness measurement.
Public Acceptance of Water Reuse for Agriculture in the Wake of the New EU Regulation: Early Reflections

Domestic wastewater reuse in agriculture is often discussed as a way to tackle water scarcity in Europe. Europe could learn from the examples of other countries that are already successfully implementing wastewater reuse, especially in the Mediterranean. However, the potential of the practice is currently unfulfilled mainly due to social and legal barriers, including public resistance and the lack of a unified legislative framework at the European Union (EU) level. In the wake of the new EU Water Reuse Regulation released in June 2020, we wonder how this legislative intervention can foster public acceptance of non-conventional water reuse practices in agriculture. The original contribution of this piece is to provide a novel discussion of the transformations potentially triggered by the new EU Regulation and to suggest an innovative way forward, based on engaging interested users in water quality monitoring (i.e. water citizen science). We combine theoretical and empirical analysis, grounding our findings in an overarching theoretical concept, i.e. the neo-institutionalism theory. We conclude that the main catalysts for stimulating public acceptance can be identified in a unifying legislative tool represented by the recent EU Regulation and in the promotion of participatory water monitoring initiatives, also in line with the spirit of the EU Regulation.
Flares in open clusters with K2

Context. The presence and strength of a stellar magnetic field and activity is rooted in a star’s fundamental parameters such as mass and age. Can flares serve as an accurate stellar “clock”? Aims. To explore if we can quantify an activity-age relation in the form of a flaring-age relation, we measured trends in the flaring rates and energies for stars with different masses and ages. Methods. We investigated the time-domain photometry provided by Kepler’s follow-up mission K2 and searched for flares in three solar metallicity open clusters with well-known ages, M 45 (0.125 Gyr), M 44 (0.63 Gyr), and M 67 (4.3 Gyr). We updated and employed the automated flare finding and analysis pipeline Appaloosa, originally designed for Kepler. We introduced a synthetic flare injection and recovery sub-routine to ascribe detection and energy recovery rates for flares in a broad energy range for each light curve. Results. We collect a sample of 1761 stars, mostly late-K to mid-M dwarfs and found 751 flare candidates with energies ranging from 4 × 1032 erg to 6 × 1034 erg, of which 596 belong to M 45, 155 to M 44, and none to M 67. We find that flaring activity depends both on Teff, and age. But all flare frequency distributions have similar slopes with α ≈ 2.0−2.4, supporting a universal flare generation process. We discuss implications for the physical conditions under which flares occur, and how the sample’s metallicity and multiplicity affect our results.
Towards Improved Assessment of L2 Collocation Knowledge

ABSTRACT Multiple test tasks are available for assessing L2 collocation knowledge. However, few studies have investigated the characteristics of a variety of recognition and recall tasks of collocation simultaneously, and most research on L2 collocations has focused on verb-noun and adjective-noun collocations. This study investigates (1) the relative informativeness of different tasks for assessing L2 collocation knowledge and (2) the effect of collocation type on learners’ scores on collocation tasks. Four tasks were developed based on an extensive review of research on L2 collocations: a sentence writing task, fill-in-the-blank task, multiple-choice task, and Yes/No acceptability judgment task. Each task targeted 64 English collocations, including verb-noun, adjective-noun, adverb-adjective, and adverb-verb collocations. Four groups of adult ESL learners representing different levels of academic English literacy (n = 205) completed the tasks. An item response theory analysis showed that the sentence writing and fill-in-the-blank-tasks had similar difficulty and discriminating power, the eight-option multiple-choice task had the highest discriminating power, and the Yes/No judgment task had the lowest difficulty and discriminating power. The type of collocation did not have a significant effect on learners’ scores when collocation frequency was held constant, regardless of task and learners’ level of academic English literacy.
Social and emotional wellbeing among Indigenous Australian correctional officers

The workplace challenges of correctional officers have been well documented. Yet little is known about how such stressors impact the wellbeing of correctional officers from minority cultural-subgroups. This study explored Indigenous Australian correctional officers’ social and emotional wellbeing (SEWB) when managing workplace adversity. Specifically, the study sought to identify culturally-specific stressors, protective factors and associated response tendencies to gain a more robust understanding of the factors that impact Indigenous officers’ wellbeing in the workplace. In total, 15 Indigenous Australian correctional officers from the Northern Territory participated in the study through focus groups or semi-structured interviews. Thematic analysis of participant data revealed that Indigenous correctional officers’ SEWB is influenced by four broad categories: cultural connection, morale, social functioning and somatic health. Results are discussed in terms of common themes, future research and implications for assisting the SEWB of Indigenous officers.
Effect of cytochrome P 450 3 A 5 polymorphism on platelet reactivity after treatment with clopidogrel in patients scheduled for percutaneous coronary intervention

osting by E Abstract Purpose: The aim of the present work is to study the effect of CYP3A5 polymorphism on clopidogrel response and post-stent complications among Egyptian patients scheduled for PCI. In addition, to assess post-clopidogrel platelet reactivity (PPR) as a predictor of post-stent complications. Subjects and methods: This study included 45 patients scheduled for elective PCI at Ain Shams University Hospital. All the studied patients were subjected to detection of CYP3A5 A6986G polymorphism and assessment of clopidogrel response using adenosine diphosphate (ADP)-induced platelet aggregation. Results: Wild, heterozygous and homozygous genotypes were detected in 2.2%, 31.1% and 66.7% of the patients, respectively. A trend for lower PPR in expressor genotype group was found (p= 0.08). No influence of the CYP3A5 genotypes on post-stent complications was found (p= 1.0). Clinical presentation, smoking, previous acute coronary syndrome (p < 0.05) were the main influencing factors of the PPR. Logistic regression analysis demonstrated that the stent length
Double Agendas in International Partnership Programs: A case study from an Ethiopian University

ABSTRACT This paper explores the policy discourses underpinning an international higher education partnership involving a large Ethiopian university. Particular attention is given to a partnership programme established between an Ethiopian (EU) and a Norwegian (NU) university, and the main ideas and practices expressed and negotiated from an Ethiopian perspective. This study employs a theoretical framework based on critical policy analysis and a qualitative case study design using interviews and document analysis. The results illustrate how a loosely defined policy for international partnership in higher education frames the conditions and possibilities for this programme. Partnership in EU is based on policies that emphasise flexibility in various possibilities, but also with ambitions, foremost, to partner with a Northern university. In the EU, this partnership is viewed, mainly, as a means of academic growth and development while also convoluted with concerns about resource dilemmas and dependency. This partnership programme, therefore, appears to be based on contradictions from which a double agenda emerges: striving for mutuality versus avoiding dependency, and local needs versus global achievements.