Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
International Varanid Interest Group Preying Possum : Assessment of the Diet of Lace Monitors ( Varanus varius ) from Coastal Forests in Southeastern Victoria

Across much of its range, the lace monitor (Varanus varius) overlaps with a diversity of potential prey items. Previous dietary studies suggest that preferred prey tend to reflect common and often easily acquired prey including carrion. We investigated the diet of V. varius from relatively pristine mesic coastal forest in southeastern Victoria, Australia. In our study, the diet of V. varius was dominated by the ringtail possum, representing 63.15% of prey ingested. Carrion comprising swamp wallabies were the next most important food item and comprised 31.57% of the sample. We also noted a single observation (5.2%) of the consumption of a short-beaked echidna. Invertebrate prey comprising larvae and pupae of beetle, butterfly and moth species were also relatively frequently ingested. However, our results indicate a substantial preference for a single semi-arboreal prey item. The ringtail possum is also the staple for other predators in this area including introduced predators. We discuss the potential conservation and wildlife management implications between V. varius and introduced predators in light of their overwhelming preference for the ringtail possum.
Presence and Antibiotic Resistance of Listeria monocytogenes in Raw Milk and Dairy Products

In this study, the presence of Listeria monocytogenes in raw milk and milk products produced from raw milk by traditional method, such as cheese and butter using cultural and molecular techniques and the antibiotic resistances were investigated. Isolation was performed using the FDA technique. Microbact 12L test kit was used for biochemical identification. Genotyping of isolates was done by traditional PCR method. Antibiotic resistance of isolates was determined by standard disk diffusion method. Listeria spp. was detected in 16 (5.3%) of the total 300 food samples according to the biochemical identification results. The highest prevalence of Listeria spp. was in raw milk samples (10%), followed by cheese samples (4%) and butter samples (2%). All 36 Listeria spp. isolates which were obtained from biochemical identification were tested for L. monocytogenes by PCR, and 15 (41.6%) of them were confirmed as L. monocytogenes. According to the antibiotic resistance test results of L. monocytogenes strains, four (26.7%) isolates were resistant to at least one antibiotic while only one (6.7%) had multiple antibiotic resistance. The highest resistance was found against trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole. It has been determined that L. monocytogenes isolates had the same degree resistance against penicillin G, meropenem, amikacin and vancomycin. In conclusion, the presence of L. monocytogenes which has been detected in dairy products made from raw milk and in raw milk itself may constitute a potential risk for public health. Çiğ Süt ve Süt Ürünlerinde Listeria monocytogenes Varlığı ve Antibiyotik Direnci
Effect of some Different Sources of Organic Fertilizers in Presence of Bio-fertilizer on Growth and Yield of Banana cv

This study was undertaken during the two successive seasons of 2013 (first ratoon plants) and 2014 (second ratoon plants) on Grande Naine cultivar to increase growth, productivity and improving fruit quality of Banana cv. Grande Naine grown under sandy soil conditions at El-Khatatba region. The obtained results showed that all vegetative growth of Grande Naine banana plants i.e., pseudostem length, pseudostem circumference, green leaves number, leaf area and assimilation area/plant were greatly increased by the studied fertilization treatments as compared with control plants (T1) in both seasons. However, the tallest pseudostem as well as the thickest pseudostem circumference were recorded by the treatment of recommended dose (RD)+compost (30ton/fed+humic+EM (T8), followed in descending order by RD+compost (30ton/fed+compost tea+ EM application (T9). Moreover, the highest number of green leaves/plant, the highest leaf area and assimilation area/plant were registered by T9, followed by T8. Moreover, T8 showed to be the most effective treatment for producing the greatest values of bunch length, bunch circumference and bunch weight followed by T9 treatment. Also, most tested fertilization treatments succeeded in improving fruit quality in both seasons. Furthermore, all tested fertilization treatments increased fruit total sugar content as well as leaf nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium contents, but they decreased fruit starch content as compared with control plants in the two seasons.
Retrospective study of 145 supernumerary teeth.

Objective: The goal of the present retrospective study is to describe the distribution of the supernumerary teeth in a population of patients that have been attended at the Public Clinic of the Department of Oral Surgery. Background: Supernumerary teeth and multiple hyperdontia are usually associated with different syndromes, such as Gardner syndrome, or with facial fissures; however, they can appear in patients without any pathology. Their prevalence oscillates to 0.5-3.8% in patients with permanent teeth and to 0.35-0.6% in patients with primary teeth. Patients and Methods: A total of 36,057 clinical histories of patients that were admitted at the clinic between September of 1991 and March of 2003 were revised. The following data were extrapolated: age, sex, number of extracted supernumerary teeth, localization, morphology and type of supernumerary teeth. Consequently, 102 patients were included into the present study. Results: Of the 147 supernumerary teeth identified in the oral cavities of patients 145 were extracted. The most frequent supernumerary teeth identified were mesiodens (46.9%), followed by premolars (24.1%) and fourth molars or distal molars (18%). As for location, 74.5% of the supernumerary teeth were found in the superior maxillary bone and 46.9% of the supernumerary teeth were present in the palatine/lingual area. Heteromorphology was found in two thirds of the supernumerary teeth, with conical shape being the most frequent. Finally, 29.7% of the supernumerary teeth had occlusion with permanent teeth, and mesiodens were the predominating type of supernumerary teeth that showed this feature. Conclusions: Mesiodens very frequently cause retention of permanent incisors, which erupt spontaneously after the extraction of supernumerary teeth, if there is sufficient space in the dental arch and if they conserve the eruptive force. Generally, supernumerary premolars are eumorphic and are casually discovered during radiological exam, if not producing any symptomology.
International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning M-Learning Adoption: A Perspective from a Developing Country

medium of learning it is imperative to find out students’ perceptions about m-learning adoption. To achieve this objective a survey was conducted among the students of 10 chartered universities operating in the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad in Pakistan. The results indicate that perceived usefulness, ease of use, and facilitating conditions significantly affect the students’ intention to adopt m-learning, whereas perceived playfulness is found to have less influence. Social influence is found to have a negative impact on adoption of m-learning. The findings of this study are useful in providing guidance to developers and educators for designing m-learning courses specifically in the context of developing countries.
Establishment of transport channels with carriers for water in reverse osmosis membrane by incorporating hydrotalcite into the polyamide layer

Thin film nanocomposite (TFN) reverse osmosis (RO) membranes were prepared by incorporating hydrotalcite (HT) in polyamide layer during interfacial polymerization process using two methods: (1) dispersing HT in aqueous solution directly; (2) preparing layered double oxide (LDO) via calcination of HT and then dispersing the obtained LDO in aqueous solution to reconstruct HT. The results demonstrated that TFN RO membranes exhibited higher water flux compared with the pristine RO membrane, which could be mainly attributed to water channels constructed by HT as well as the enhancement of hydrophilicity and the increase of relative surface area. In addition, TFN RO membranes prepared using LDO showed higher water flux than those prepared using HT, which is contributed to the uniform distribution of water channels in polyamide layer resulting from the process of calcination and reconstruction reaction. Compared with pristine RO membrane, water flux of TFN RO membranes prepared with 0.075 wt% HT and those prepared with 0.050 wt% LDO was enhanced by 19.1% and 22.8% without sacrificing the salt rejection.
Repetition suppression and repetition priming are processing outcomes

Gotts, Chow and Martin provide a very nice review of repetition priming and suppression that reaches a compelling conclusion—we need to look more closely at synchronization in learning and priming. Indeed, current modeling work focuses on this issue—namely, the dynamic causal modeling of electrophysiological responses to address the role of synchrony in Bayesian explaining away. This commentary revisits the nature and relationships among the four theories in Gotts et al. and nuances some of their empirical predictions. In particular, I emphasize precision or uncertainty in predictive coding as a unifying consideration. I think that we are closer to understanding the computational anatomy of repetition and priming than might be thought. This optimism rests upon casting the theories reviewed in Gotts et al. as complementary perspectives on the same problem: Facilitation and sharpening are phenomena that are fully consistent with Bayesian explaining away, which is mediated by synchronization. In other words, explaining away is a theory about what the brain is doing and synchronization is a proposal about how the brain does it. In one sense, the Bayesian brain hypothesis is almost certainly correct—in the sense that our capacity for near-optimal perceptual inference means that we must be performing some form of approximate Bayesian (probabilistic) inference. The real question is how this approximate inference is implemented neuronally. At present, the most popular implementation is predictive coding that involves reciprocal message-passing between hierarchically deployed cortical areas (Mumford, 1992; Rao & Ballard, 1999). There is a vast amount of neurobiological evidence in support of this scheme, which can be derived—in a fairly straightforward way— from (approximate) Bayesian optimality principles (Friston, 2008). So, can predictive coding explain the phenomena of facilitation and sharpening; and does it admit a role for synchrony?
Corporate Sustainability: A Strategy?

We explore the conditions under which firms maintain their competitive advantage through sustainability-based differentiation when faced with imitation pressures by industry peers. Specifically, we document growing intraindustry convergence on sustainability actions over time for almost all industries in our sample, suggesting that they rapidly diffuse via imitation. We also find that interindustry heterogeneity in the rates of intraindustry convergence is associated with (a) the importance of environmental and social issues relative to governance issues, and (b) the tone and volume of feedback received from stakeholders. We subsequently distinguish between common (i.e., imitated) and unique sustainability actions and evidence that the adoption of unique sustainability actions is significantly and positively associated with multiple measures of corporate performance, whereas the adoption of common sustainability actions is not. Our results provide insights into the role of sustainability as a long-term strategy under conditions of strong imitative forces, thus contributing to both the sustainability and the imitation literatures. We discuss implications for future research and practice.
Simple simulations of DNA condensation 3 Fc

Molecular dynamics simulations of a simple, bead-spring model of semiftexible polyelectrolytes such as DNA are performed. All charges are explicitly treated. Starting from extended, noncondensed conformations, condensed structures form in the simulations with tetravalent or trivalent counterions. No condensates form or are stable for divalent counterions. The mechanism by which condensates form is described. Briefly, condensation occurs because electrostatic interactions dominate entropy, and the favored Coulombic structure is a charge ordered state. Condensation is a generic phenomena and occurs for a variety of polyelectrolyte parameters. Toroids and rods are the condensate structures. Toroids form preferent idly when the molecular st ifEness is sufficient ly strong.
Derivation of the Water Vapor Content from the GNSS Radio Occultations Observations

The present work investigates the possibility of retrieving humidity profiles using the bending angle data obtained from GNSS Radio Occultations (Global Navigation Satellite System RO) without data constraint. In particular with the proposed approach, the dry pressure profiles are obtained by fitting the bending angles of the outer troposphere layers (from h=h250K up to the stratopause) using the Hopfield dry atmosphere model. In this model the ground pressure and temperature are the parameters to be estimated. The humidity profiles are extracted by subtracting the contribution due to the dry atmosphere from the measured bending angles. In the first part we discuss the mathematical approach adopted for the derivation of refractivity profiles without using the Abel inversion and water vapor directly from the bending angle. In the second part the results are shown from applying the method on CHAMP data. In particular, we have used refractivity profiles from CHAMP which were derived using a heuristic retrieval algorithm based on the canonical transform.
Repositioning and market power after airline mergers

We estimate a model of route-level competition between airlines who choose whether to offer nonstop or connecting service before setting prices. Airlines have full information about all quality, marginal cost, and fixed cost unobservables throughout the game, so that service choices will be selected on these residuals. We conduct merger simulations that allow for repositioning and account for the selection implied by the model and the data. Accounting for selection materially affects the predicted likelihood of repositioning and the predicted magnitude of post-merger price changes, and it allows us to match what has been observed after consummated mergers.
Can the "Gown" Act as a Bridge Between the "Town" and the School? An Analysis of the Operations of the PEEPS Project in Trinidad

This paper critically assesses the pilot phase of a project mounted at the School of Education, The University of the West Indies, Trinidad campus, (the "gown"), which was designed to enhance the ability of urban parents of primary school children (the "town") to be involved in their children's education. Using three theoretical lenses - ecological systems theory, social capital, and "knotworking," the paper identifies challenges faced, gains accrued, and lessons learnt in the conduct of workshop sessionsÂ with parents/guardians of Standard 3 children (aged 9-10 years) at an urban primary school. While highlighting the potential of the strategy for enhancing the development of urban students, the paper suggests that future work should explore the use of community spaces for such workshop sessions, in the quest for fuller use of parents' social capital.
European Mutual Fund Performance

This paper presents an overview of the European mutual fund industry and investigates mutual fund performance using a survivorship bias controlled sample of 506 funds from the five most important mutual fund countries. The latter is done using the Carhart (1997) 4‐factor asset‐pricing model. In addition we investigate whether European fund managers exhibit ‘hot hands’, persistence in performance. Finally the influence of fund characteristics on risk‐adjusted performance is considered. Our overall results suggest that European mutual funds, and especially small cap funds are able to add value, as indicated by their positive after cost alphas. If we add back management fees, four out of five countries exhibit significant out‐performance at an aggregate level. Finally, we detect strong persistence in mean returns for funds investing in the UK. Our results deviate from most US studies that argue mutual funds under‐perform the market by the amount of expenses they charge.
Saliva and Blood Asprosin Hormone Concentration Associated with Obesity

Background The aim was to investigate the amounts of saliva and serum asprosin in order to determine whether it is related to obesity and whether salivary glands synthesize asprosin or not. Methods A total of 116 underweight, normal weight, overweight, and obese (class I, class II, and class III) volunteers participated in the study. Saliva and blood samples were collected simultaneously from the participants. The amounts of asprosin in saliva, salivary gland tissue supernatants, and bloods were determined by ELISA, whereas asprosin synthesis sites of salivary gland tissues were determined immunohistochemically. Results The amount of asprosin from the lowest to the highest was in the order as follows: underweight, normal weight (control), overweight, and obese classes I and III. The lowest level of asprosin was detected in underweight individuals. It was also found that the interlobular striated ducts and the interlobular ducts of the submandibular and parotid salivary glands produce asprosin. According to these data, the asprosin level is related with obesity as the amount increases in accordance with increasing body mass index (BMI). On the other hand, there is also a relationship between the underweight and asprosin because the amount decreases with BMI decrease. Conclusions Asprosin, a new adipokine, may be a novel indicator of adipose tissue mass. Therefore, we anticipate that antiasprosin preparations may be an alternative in the treatment of obesity in the future.
Do private enterprises outperform state enterprises in an emerging market? The importance of institutional context in entrepreneurship

Do private-owned enterprises (POEs) outperform state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in an emerging market? Due to political and social connections, SOEs have several advantages over POEs in emerging markets and transition economies, but we hypothesize that these advantages wane in pro-market institutional environments that prioritize market competition, rule of law, and the rewards to profitable enterprise. In this study, therefore, we explore how institutional quality moderates the relationship between privatization and entrepreneurs’ sales performance. To do this, we blend agency theory and entrepreneurial cognition theory with insights from institutional economics to develop a model of emerging market venture performance. Using data from the World Bank’s Enterprise Survey of entrepreneurs in China, our results suggest that POEs outperform SOEs but only in environments with high-quality market institutions. In environments with low-quality market institutions, SOEs outperform POEs.
No association between a genetic variant of the p 22 phox component of NAD ( P ) H oxidase and the incidence and progression of IgA nephropathy

Background. The course of glomerulonephritis varies even within the same histological entity, which suggest that genetic factors determine the progression of inflammatory renal diseases. We studied a potential relationship between the C242T gene polymorphism of p22, a subunit of the NAD(P)H oxidase, and frequency as well as progression of immunoglobulin A (IgA) nephropathy. Patients with lupus nephritis were also investigated. The distribution of the C242T gene variation of p22 has not been previously studied in patients with renal disease. Methods. Patients with IgA nephropathy were from a homogenous ethnic group of patients living in Northern Germany (ns127). Patients with active lupus nephritis WHO classes IIIuIV (ns46) were also studied. All diagnoses were confirmed by renal biopsy. Healthy blood donors (ns151) exhibited a genotype distribution similar to previously reported values for Caucasians (CC, 41.2%; CT, 45%; TT, 13.8%). However, C242T genotype distribution was not significantly different (x test) in patients with IgA nephropathy (CC, 44.9%; CT, 48%; TT, 7.1%) or in active lupus nephritis (CC, 54.3%; CT, 34.7%; TT, 11%). Grouping of IgA nephropathy patients as those with mild renal impairment at the time of biopsy (serum creatinine -1.3 mgudl) and those with more severe renal failure (serum creatinine )1.3 mgudl) also failed to show a relationship with p22 polymorphism. Log-rank analysis for up to 15 years in selected cases of IgA nephropathy did not show a significant difference in renal survival rate among the three genotypes. Conclusions. It appears that the C242T polymorphism is not associated with IgA nephropathy or active lupus nephritis and may not affect the progressive deterioration of renal function in patients with IgA nephropathy. However, whether the C242T polymorphism plays a role in other renal diseases remains to be studied.
Direct keyhole laser welding of aluminum alloy AA5754 to titanium alloy Ti6Al4V

The tensile strength of direct AA5754/Ti6Al4V joints performed by high speed Yb:YAG laser welding is found to be determined by morphology and phase content of dissimilar interface formed between contacting Al-rich and Ti-rich melted zones. Three types of contact interfaces were observed: (1) thin (<20 m thick) interface composed mostly by TiAl and formed under 0.2 mm beam shift to Al side and linear energy of welding ≥37.5 kJ/m; (2) cracked interface (190–300 m thick) composed by Al3Ti and other Al–Ti intermetallics and formed under beam shift at 0.2 mm to Ti side and linear energy ≥37.5 kJ/m; (3) malaxated interface composed of layers and isles of Ti3Al and TiAl forming in other tested conditions and favored by welding speed >10 m/min. Maximal linear tensile force (220 N/mm for 2 mm thick weld) can be attained when thin contact interface is formed. In this case, the fracture starts in intermetallics-rich zone but propagates mainly in Al-rich melted zone, when in other cases it occurs in brittle intermetallic layers.
Investigating the influence of the jet from three nozzle and spear design configurations on Pelton runner performance by numerical simulation

This paper reports the initial results of three dimensional CFD simulations of the jet – runner interactions in a twin jet horizontal axis Pelton turbine. More specifically, the analysis examines the impact of the nozzle and spear valve configuration on the performance of the runner. Previous research has identified that injectors with notably steeper nozzle and spear angles attain a higher efficiency than the industry standard. However, experimental testing of the entire Pelton system suggests that there appears to be an upper limit beyond which steeper angled designs are no longer optimal. In order to investigate the apparent difference between the numerical prediction of efficiency for the injector system and the obtained experimental results, four different jet configurations are analysed and compared. In the first configuration, the interaction between the runner and an ideal axisymmetric jet profile is investigated. In the final three configurations the runner has been coupled with the jet profile from the aforementioned injectors, namely the Standard design with nozzle and spear angles of 80° & 55° and two Novel designs with angles 110° & 70° and 150° & 90° respectively. The results are compared by examining the impact the jet shape has on the runner torque profile during the bucket cycle and the influence this has on turbine efficiency. All results provided incorporate the Reynolds-averaged Navier Stokes (RANS) Shear Stress Transport (SST) turbulence model and a two-phase Volume of Fluid (VOF) model, using the ANSYS® FLUENT® code. Therefore, this paper offers new insights into the optimal jet – runner interaction.