Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Natural vs. Anthropic Influence on the Multidecadal Shoreline Changes of Mediterranean Urban Beaches: Lessons from the Gulf of Cagliari (Sardinia)

Urban Mediterranean beaches are often characterized by a fragile and unstable equilibrium that can be easily altered by ongoing climate change and by the increase in human pressure. This may pose serious threats to the survival of beach systems that cannot accommodate these modifications. In this paper, the spatio-temporal shift of the shoreline was investigated along two urban beaches in the Gulf of Cagliari (Poetto and Giorgino; southern Sardinia, western Mediterranean Sea) across a time frame of 62 years (1954–2016). The Digital Shoreline Analysis System (DSAS) ArcGIS™ extension was used to extract different statistical parameters which allowed us to quantify the erosion and accretion rates. These data were further examined in relation to a number of anthropic and natural forcings in order to disentangle the factors controlling shoreline evolution. Eight sectors with interchanging net erosive and accretion trends were identified along the Poetto and Giorgino beaches. In six decades, some sectors of the two study sites appeared to have undergone great shoreline modification as a result of the intense anthropogenic activities impacting these coastal areas. The westernmost portions of both beaches were found to be the most vulnerable to erosion processes; such conditions were likely controlled by the interplaying of local hydrodynamics and by the intense coastal development which affected these sectors. The highest retreat rates (mean end point rate (EPR) = −0.51/year) were recorded in the western limit of Giorgino beach. Along the western limit of Poetto beach, EPR erosion rates (mean EPR = −2.92/year) considerably increased in the years after the artificial beach nourishment carried out in 2002, suggesting that the majority of the nourished material was lost offshore or partly redistributed along the beach. Coastal structures, urban development, river catchment modification, industrial and port activities, beach cleaning and touristic and recreational activities have been identified as the ongoing causes of coastal alteration. If these factors remain constant, under projected climate change scenarios, these beaches are at risk of further increased flooding and erosion. In this context, the application of DSAS appeared as an essential tool, supporting a monitoring system able to provide understanding and, potentially, predictions of the short- to long-term evolution of these beach systems.
Does Physical Activity Have an Effect on Physical Capacities, Food Behavior and Body Composition in Hemodialysis Patients?

Purpose: Chronic kidney disease and its treatment, hemodialysis, cause many side effects and disease-related pathologies appear due to inactivity, which characterizes the dialysis population. However, literature demonstrates that physical activity is beneficial for these patients. Nevertheless, few data are available concerning our studied parameters with a resistance training program. Methodologies: We observed the effects of a 3-month intradialytic resistance training program (t0 vs t3) on body composition, food behavior and physical capacities of 23 patients; 17 patients in the physical activity group and 6 patients in the control group. The resistance training program consisted of 3 sessions per week and involved the use of elastic bands and soft balls on the lower extremities. All the measures were realized at t0 and t3. Principal results: The leg muscle mass and the Time Up and Go test were improved after the resistance training program. The other body composition parameters and physical capacity tests (2 min step test and one leg balance test) presented no significant differences. No food behavior modification was observed. No changes were observed in the control group, regardless of the parameters measured. Major conclusion: A three- month resistance training program can improve both the leg muscle mass and the associated physical capacities. Contributions to the fields: Our study provided additional knowledge about resistance physical activity during hemodialysis sessions, few studied with our measured parameters.
Distributions of environmentally hazardous elements in the Tertiary oil shale deposits from NW Anatolia, Turkey: A statistical analysis

ABSTRACT The environmentally hazardous element concentrations (As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Hg, Mn, Pb, S, and Zn) and element–organic matter relations of the oil shale deposits in six different fields in NW Anatolia, Turkey, were investigated and the characteristics of fields were compared. The enrichment factor (EF) for most of the trace elements in the studied oil shales generally show enrichment patterns for all the fields. Only Cr, Hg, and Pb for oil shale samples from the Bahçecik field samples and Hg for oil shale samples from the Gölpazarı field samples are depleted. Arsenic in the Bahçecik field samples and Hg in the Himmetoğlu field samples are neither depleted nor enriched. The lowest and highest element enrichments in these fields are determined to be Hg and S, respectively. In general, all elements have high concentrations in the Beypazarı and Seyitömer fields and low concentrations in the Himmetoğlu, Bahçecik, and Gölpazarı (except for As) fields. A positive correlation at significance level of p ≤ 0.05 was observed for total organic carbon content with Cd in four of the fields, with Cu and S in two fields and with Cr, Mn, and Zn in only one field.
The Cluster Low-Streams Regression Method for Fast Computations of Top-of-the-Atmosphere Radiances in Absorption Bands

Atmospheric composition sensors provide a huge amount of data. A key component of trace gas retrieval algorithms are radiative transfer models (RTMs), which are used to simulate the spectral radiances in the absorption bands. Accurate RTMs based on line-by-line techniques are time-consuming. In this paper we analyze the efficiency of the cluster low-streams regression (CLSR) technique to accelerate computations in the absorption bands. The idea of the CLRS method is to use the fast two-stream RTM model in conjunction with the line-by-line model and then to refine the results by constructing the regression model between two- and multi-stream RTMs. The CLSR method is applied to the Hartley-Huggins, O2 A-, water vapour and CO2 bands for the clear sky and several aerosol types. The median error of the CLSR method is below 0.001 %, the interquartile range (IQR) is below 0.1 %, while the performance enhancement is two orders of magnitude.
Investigation of photocatalytic activity of Ag‐rutile heterojunctions

Xiaodong Zhu1,2, Hui Liu1, Juan Wang1, Hualong Dai1, Yu Bai3, Wei Feng1 , Shihu Han4 College of Mechanical Engineering, Chengdu University, Chengdu 610106, People’s Republic of China College of Materials and Chemistry & Chemical Engineering, Chengdu University of Technology, Chengdu 610059, People’s Republic of China Zhongchao Great Wall Precious Metals Co. Ltd., Chengdu 611130, People’s Republic of China School of Materials Sciences and Engineering, Southwest University of Science and Technology, Mianyang 621010, People’s Republic of China ✉ E-mail: fengwei233@126.com
Influence of microwave vacuum drying on the effective moisture diffusivity of seedless white grapes

Seedless white grapes (Vitis vinifera L.) have been identified to be the most suitable variety of grapes for making raisins because of their characteristics such as full fruit size, special taste, rapid growth, ability to form large clusters, high sweetness, and seedlessness (Wang et al., 2017). Fresh seedless white grapes can be made into raisins via direct sun drying, sheltered drying, or hot air drying (Khiari et al., 2019). However, inappropriate drying methods can lead to nutrition loss and microbial proliferation, ultimately lowering the raisin quality (Olivati et al., 2019) Hence, emerging novel food processing methods have aroused the attention of researchers. The methods involve incorporating techniques such as pressure, ultrasound, vacuum, microwave (Peña-Gonzalez et al., 2019; Shabbir et al., 2019), freeze and microwave (Li et al., 2020), high humidity and hot air (Bai et al., 2013), pulsed electric field (Nowacka et al., 2019), vibrating fluid (Meili et al., 2020), convective and microwave (Izli & Polat, 2019), and radio frequency-vacuum (Zhou et al., 2018) into the drying process. These novel drying techniques are designed to achieve cost-effectiveness, operational simplicity, and energy efficiency.
Exploring the challenges of pepper smallholder farmers in Sarawak: a qualitative study

Mazlan, M.N. , Saili, A.R. , Saili, J., Zulkefli, F. , Syahlan, S. and Ruslan, N.A. Faculty of Plantation and Agrotechnology, Universiti Teknologi Mara, Jalan Meranek, Kota Samarahan 93400 Malaysia Faculty of Cognitive Sciences and Human Development, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, Jalan Datuk Mohammad Musa, Kota Samarahan 93400 Malaysia 3 Faculty of Plantation and Agrotechnology, Universiti Teknologi Mara Jasin, Kg. Sri Mendapat Merlimau 77300 Malaysia
Design and Social Factors Affecting the Formation of Social Capital in Chinese Community Garden

In recent years, community gardens are becoming more and more popular in China. However, the role of these community gardens varies significantly: some community gardens serve as an effective means of promoting social capital, while others cause social contradictions and public doubts due to the lack of professional design and management. Therefore, this paper aims to learn and better understand what factors affect the formation of social capital in Chinese community gardens. It screened eleven design factors and seven social factors and made social capital scale through literature review and expert workshop. On this basis, this study selected 35 community gardens in China as sample spaces, and collected 1257 questionnaires about the perception for social capital of gardeners through survey. In the statistical analysis phase, factor analysis and regression analysis were applied to analyze the role and the relative importance of different factors and social capital. Results show that the integration with green infrastructure, accessibility, size, visual openness, planting form, proportion of unproductive landscape, agricultural infrastructure, and smart infrastructure have significant impacts on social capital level. Meanwhile, the types of stakeholders, management rules, supervision system, self-management team, and operational activities have similar impacts on social capital level. This study recommends that planners and designers should adjust the above related factors in community garden design, and local government is urged to integrate community gardens into urban plans and public policies.
Argumentation within Upper Secondary School Student Groups during Virtual Science Learning: Quality and Quantity of Spoken Argumentation

In many studies, the focus has been on students’ written scientific argumentation rather than on their spoken argumentation. The main aim of this study was to relate the quality of spoken argumentation to groups’ learning achievement during a collaborative inquiry task. The data included video recordings of six groups of three upper secondary students performing a collaborative inquiry task in a virtual learning environment. The target groups were selected from a larger sample of 39 groups based on their group outcome: two low, two average, and two high-outcome groups. The analysis focused on argumentation chains during the students’ discussions in the planning, experimentation, and conclusion phases of the inquiry task. The core of the coding scheme was based on Toulmin’s levels of argumentation. The results revealed differences between the different groups of students, with the high-performing groups having more argumentation than the average and low-performing groups. In high-performing groups, the students asked topic-related questions more frequently, which started the argumentative discussion. Meanwhile, there were few questions in the low-performing groups, and most did not lead to discussion. An evaluation scheme for the quality of the arguments was created and the spoken argumentation was analyzed using a computer-based program. The results may be used to benefit subject teacher education and to raise teachers’ awareness of their students’ scientific, topic-related discussions.
Family constitution to manage family firms’ agency conflicts

This research examines the effectiveness of Family Constitution or Family Protocol agreements in mitigating each type of agency conflict in family firms. We performed a qualitative analysis, through a case study, and found that the succession process is the main driver for implementing this family governance mechanism. Our findings also show that a family constitution is useful in reducing three of the four agency conflicts described in the literature, specifically between family owners and managers, between family shareholders, and with the family at large. Key agreements include training and experience terms for family members to join the firm, transfer clauses of shares inter-vivos and causa mortis, and the development of family governance bodies. However, creditors are generally unaware of the protocol’s existence, hindering its potential positive effects, which has important implications for practitioners. Creditors point out its potential usefulness as a hint of orderly and structured continuity of the business. JEL CLASSIFICATION G32, G34, L21, M10
The effect of issuer leverage on issuer bid and ask quotes for structured retail products

The financial institution that issues a structured retail product (SRP) becomes the dealer for that security. Issuer–dealer funding constraints can directly impact price quotes for SRPs. The 2007–2009 financial crisis diminished issuer funding liquidity, and both bid and ask quotes declined, with the decrease in bids being significantly greater than that for the asks. A reduction in the bid (ask) discourages (encourages) investor selling (buying) and helps preserve dealer capital. The SRP’s intrinsic value places a bound on how far the ask needs to be reduced to induce investor buying. High-leverage (low-leverage) issuers are the most (least) financially constrained and decrease their bids by a significant 167% (nonsignificant 41%) compared to the pre-crisis average. The decrease in asks is nonsignificant for both groups.
Using Social Media to Motivate Anti-migration Sentiments. Political Implications in the United States and Beyond

The proliferation of nationalist and nativist movements all over the world has capitalized on the broad impact of social media, especially on Twitter. In the case of the United States, as candidate and then as President, Donald Trump initiated an active use of Twitter to disseminate his views on migration and migrants. This paper analyzes the themes and the political implications of his tweets from Trump’s electoral win to the end of the first year of his presidency. The authors’ assumptions are that Trump’s rhetoric untapped a collective sentiment against migration as well as one which supported views to protect migrant communities. The findings show that some topics were retweeted massively fueling the perceptions that most Americans were against migrant communities and their protectors. We conducted content analysis of the tweets sent by President Trump during his first year in the White House. We used the personal account of Trump in Twitter @realDonaldTrump. Trump has used his personal account as a policy and political media instrument to convey his messages rather than to use the official account that all Presidents have traditionally used @POTUS. Since Trump ran on a nativist platform with strong negative sentiments against migrants and immigration in general, we examined the tweets that relate to these topics.
Avifauna of The Gbetitapea Village Forest (Central-Western Côte d'Ivoire): A Tool for Reviving Ecotourims

Original Research Article The scarcity of arable land means that the forest is often seen as a "land bank" that can be used for agriculture when the need or necessity arises. This practice has led, in one way or another, to the erosion of biodiversity. In Côte d'Ivoire very few studies have been carried out on village forest birds. The objective of this work is to find out the avifaunal richness of Gbetitapea village forest (GVF) with a view to diversifying its tourist potential. To this end, censuses were conducted in this forest using listening points, mist net capture and recapture and fixed-term censuses along line transects with five-minute stopping points at listening stations. This methodology resulted in a total richness of 130 bird species divided into 43 families of 17 orders. Resident species (86.15%) and open habitats (59.23%) were the most abundant. The GVF is characterised by three species endemic to West Africa, 29 species belonging to the Guinean-Congolese forest and four bird species from the Sudano-Guinean savannah biome. This study has therefore made it possible to highlight the richness and avifaunal diversity of the village forest of Gbétitapéa which needs to be monitored.
Preparation and Quality Evaluation of Mango based Whey Beverage

This study aims to develop a beverage incorporating whey and mango pulp. Beverage was prepared by blending whey and mango pulp in a ratio of 59.9:30, 64.9:2, 69.9:20 and 74.9:15 (with 10% sugar and 0.1% CMC at 0.3% acidity level). Among the treatments, best formulation of the beverage (based on sensory property) was found to be the whey and mango pulp ratio of 69.9:20 with 10% sugar and 0.1% CMC.
Çağrışım Belleği Üzerine Bir Gözden Geçirme

Episodic memory is defined as the ability of consciously remembering the temporal and spatial content of events. In addition to the content information, episodic memory also stores the associations among events. In the literature, associative memory is investigated in detail through a variety of memory tasks in laboratory settings. The purpose of this review is to evaluate memory tasks that allow measuring how associations among items are formed differently when compared to memory tasks that do not require explicit association formation (e.g., item recognition, free recall). To this end, how associative information is encoded in associative memory tasks, how the associations are recalled and the hypotheses about whether associations are symmetric or not are evaluated in the current review.
Essential Oil Composition of Bark of Cinnamomum zeylanicum

Abstract The volatile constituents of the bark of cinnamon (Cinnamomum zeylanicum) were investigated. Analysis of the volatile fraction by GC-MS is described. Twenty one components have been identified, of which the major constituents were found to be cinnamic aldehyde (52.3%) followed by α-copaene (11.42%), δ-cadinene (6.25%), styrene benzebe,ethenyle-(CAS) (5.5%) and cyclohexane, 1-methyl-3-(1-methylet) (5.2%).
Effect of four irrigation doses and four varieties on agronomical characteristics and yield of cotton cultivation in central Greece

In recent years, reduced irrigation has been applied for the cultivation of cotton. While this strategy remains desirable, it needs to be evaluated as it affects the yields and growth of cotton. During 2015 and 2016, two similar cotton experiments (Gossypium hirsutum L.) were performed in Greece, in the area of Karditsa and especially in the location of Palamas. An experiment was established designed according to split-plot design, with main plots four levels of irrigation (IRR. 2, IRR. 4, IRR. 6, IRR. 8) and subplots four varieties of cotton (Dp 419, Campo, Andromeda, Lider) for two growing periods. The results indicated that agronomical characteristics were affected by irrigation dose, while LAI (Leaf Area Index) was affected by irrigation levels and year. LAI higher values were noticed in RR8 level for all varieties. Second year values of LAI were higher than the first year. Irrigation levels affected the number of closed bolls. Closed bolls were ranged from 12 (RR2 with variety Dp 419) to 144.67 (RR8 in same variety). The yield was significantly affected by irrigation levels and variety; the highest value was observed in second year by the Lider variety (3,110 kg ha-1). A strong positive correlation was mentioned between yield and total fresh weight (r=0.72, p=0.001). On a pooled basis, all varieties responded positively to the largest amount of irrigation (RR8).
Study of the impact of amino acids hydrochloride forms on the formation of biomimetic composites in the presence of nanocrystalline hydroxyapatite

The study of molecular composition of the biomimetic composites on the basis of nanocrystalline carbonate-substituted (C-HAP) and polar amino acids of L-lysine hydrochloride and L-arginine hydrochloride was performed in the work. Results of the study show that the change in acidity of the medium (pH≥11.2, ≥7.55 и ≤5) occurs under transformation of the conformational environment of L-lysine hydrochloride molecules with the formation of L-lysine structure as while increase of pH level as in the presence of C-HAP nanocrystals. At the same time composites basing on L-arginine keep their amorphous structure in the presence of synthesized C-HAP in the different media. The detected differences in the molecular environment of hydrochloride forms of amino acids during the interaction with nanocrystalline C-HAP prove to be significant for the development of technology of the integration between biocomposites and hard dental tissues.
Understanding and Eliminating Hysteresis for Highly Efficient Planar Perovskite Solar Cells

Through detailed device characterization using cross‐sectional Kelvin probe force microscopy (KPFM) and trap density of states measurements, we identify that the J–V hysteresis seen in planar organic–inorganic hybrid perovskite solar cells (PVSCs) using SnO2 electron selective layers (ESLs) synthesized by low‐temperature plasma‐enhanced atomic‐layer deposition (PEALD) method is mainly caused by the imbalanced charge transportation between the ESL/perovskite and the hole selective layer/perovskite interfaces. We find that this charge transportation imbalance is originated from the poor electrical conductivity of the low‐temperature PEALD SnO2 ESL. We further discover that a facile low‐temperature thermal annealing of SnO2 ESLs can effectively improve the electrical mobility of low‐temperature PEALD SnO2 ESLs and consequently significantly reduce or even eliminate the J–V hysteresis. With the reduction of J–V hysteresis and optimization of deposition process, planar PVSCs with stabilized output powers up to 20.3% are achieved. The results of this study provide insights for further enhancing the efficiency of planar PVSCs.