Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Shewanella baltica strain JD0705 isolated from the mangrove wetland soils in Thailand and characterization of its ligninolytic performance

Abstract. Chantarasiri A. 2021. Shewanella baltica strain JD0705 isolated from the mangrove wetland soils in Thailand and characterization of its ligninolytic performance. Biodiversitas 22: 354-361. Lignin is a complex biopolymer and the third component by mass of lignocellulosic plant biomass. Its recalcitrant property hampers the hydrolysis and utilization of cellulose and hemicellulose in the lignocellulosic biomass. Thus, the delignification of lignocellulosic biomass is an enormous challenge for emerging bio-based applications. This study presented a potential ligninolytic bacterium for potential use in the biological delignification process under mild conditions. This bacterium was isolated from the mangrove wetland soils in Thailand, characterized and identified as psychrotrophic Shewanella baltica strain JD0705. It was determined for ligninolytic activity and showed laccase activity at 5.23 ± 0.10 U/mL. The optimum temperature and pH for the laccase activity were observed to be 25°C at a pH of 7.0 respectively with a stability range of 20-30°C temperature and pH of 7.0-8.0. S. baltica strain JD0705 was used in the biological delignification of rice husk powder and promoted the hydrolysis of rice husk powder to obtain more liberating sugar content. The findings from this study indicated that feasibility of using this ligninolytic bacterium for the production of laccase and the delignification of lignocellulosic plant biomass.
Mathematical Programming Models of R&D Project Selection: A Case Study of Technology Adoption at BMW

R&D project selection is a critical interface between the product development strategy of an organization and the process of managing projects day-to-day. Researchers in operations management have developed elegant mathematical programming methodologies for project selection since the early 1960s. However, there seems to be little use of these methodologies in practice. This article describes the project selection problem faced by the transmission pre-development group of BMW. The group had to choose a portfolio of projects to set the foundation for the "best powertrain 2000. " This problem of project selection was structured as minimizing the gap between target performance and actual performance along chosen criteria. A mathematical programming model helped this organization to increase the transparency of their selection process, which previously had been based on experience coupled with evaluation of individual projects in isolation. However, in spite of this successful implementation of a new project selection "method," the organization did not use the model for optimization. The authors believe this is due to two factors. The first is consistent with previous observations in the literature that current analytical models are often incomplete and fail to capture adequately considerations such as uncertainty, risk, or strategic fit. The second factor is subtler, but just as important. The diffusion of the analytical model from academia to industry faces the same problems as any technology transfer. Significant tacit knowledge must be transferred along with the codified knowledge of the analytical model. This requires iterated problem solving, which itself requires the limited time and resources of the diffusing agents (academia) as well as the adopting agents (industry). • INSEAD, Boulevard de Constance, 77305 Fontainebleau, France ▪ Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia PA 19104, USA. *** BMW AG, 80788 Munich, Germany
ANÁLISIS DE SENDERO PARA ALGUNAS PROPIEDADES DEL FRUTO DE MARACUYÁ (Passiflora edulis f. flavicarpa Deg.)

In Colombia, no studies of path analysis to maximize the selection progress in passion fruit (Passiflora edulis f. flavicarpa Deg.) breeding have been reported. The objectives of this work were, therefore, to estimate two path analysis, one for weight per fruit and the other one for seed weight with aril under environmental conditions of the city of Monteria (Cordoba, Colombia). Genetic and phenotypic correlations obtained from the analysis of 400 fruits, collected from ten commercial lots, ten plants/lot and four fruits/plant (repetitions) were used under a hierarchical design with plants within lot and fruits within plant. Path analysis for weight per fruit showed that the direct effects were positive and 2.28 to 16.50 times, compared to indirect effects, when phenotypic correlations were used and, 1.93 to 6.90 times, when genetic correlations were employed. Peel weight was the variable that caused the largest direct effect on fruit weight. Path analysis for seed weight with aril, when the phenotypic or genetic correlations were used, showed that in fruit weight the direct effects were 3.2 to 80 times, compared to indirect effects. Fruit weight was the variable that showed the largest direct effect on seed weight with aril. The indirect effects through fruit weight were higher than the direct effects within the other variables. Fruit weight can be used as selection criteria for obtention of passion fruit cultivars of high pulp yield.
Repositive RT-PCR test in discharged COVID-19 patients during medical isolation observation

Objectives: The epidemiological and clinical characteristics of patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have been researched. However, the prevalence of repositivity by real-time PCR for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) remains unclear. Methods: A retrospective study was conducted involving 599 discharged patients with COVID-19 in a single medical centre. The clinical features of patients during their hospitalization and 14-day post-discharge quarantine were collected. Results: A total of 122 patients (20.4%) out of 599 patients retested positive after discharge. Specifically, 94 (15.7%) retested positive within 24 h of discharge, and another 28 patients (4.7%) were repositive on day 7 after discharge, although none showed any clinical symptomatic recurrence. Both repositives and non‑repositives have similar patterns of IgG and IgM. Notably, the length of hospitalization of non-repositive patients was longer than that of 24-h repositive patients and 7-day repositive patients. In addition, the length of hospitalization of 24-h repositive patients was shorter than that of 7-day repositive patients, indicating that the length of hospitalization was also a determinant of viral shedding. Conclusion: Our study provides further information for improving the management of recovered and discharged patients, and further studies should be performed to elucidate the infectiveness of individuals with prolonged or RNA repositivity.
Antibiotic resistance of Escherichia coli and Salmonella spp. strains isolated from healthy poultry farms in the districts of Abidjan and Agnibilékrou (Côte d’Ivoire)

Background and Aim: Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a serious challenge to animal and human health worldwide. Therefore, this study aims to determine levels and patterns of AMR of Escherichia coli and Salmonella spp. strains isolated from poultry farms in Côte d’Ivoire. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in two districts of Côte d’Ivoire with high poultry production: Abidjan and Agnibilékrou. A total of 231 fecal samples were collected in 124 poultry farms in both districts. Enterobacteria were isolated and tested for susceptibility to 14 antimicrobial agents using the disk-diffusion method. Results: A total of 212 E. coli and 36 Salmonella strains were isolated. In Abidjan, 139 collected samples generated 101 E. coli and 23 Salmonella strains, whereas in Agnibilékrou, 92 collected samples generated 111 E. coli and 13 Salmonella strains. Variable resistance levels were recorded for the antibiotics tested. The resistance prevalence of E. coli and Salmonella, respectively, was high: Doxycycline (98%/94%), sulfonamide (84%/86%), trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (80%/41%), and streptomycin (71%/52%). Average resistance rates were recorded for flumequine (38%/66%), ampicillin (49%/33%), amoxicillin (25%/44%), colistin (26%/2%), chloramphenicol (21%/2%), and gentamicin (4%/47%). The antibiotics least affected by resistance were cefuroxime (4%/5%), ceftriaxone (2%/0.00%), and nitrofurantoin (1%/0.00%). Conclusion: In this study, it was observed that resistance to important antibiotics is emerging in poultry production in Côte d’Ivoire. Policies promoting the rational use of antibiotics should be implemented to manage antibiotic resistance in animal production.
Fertility status of agriculture, forest and pasture lands of district Mansehra

Soil management practices vary with soil properties and land uses which in turn guarantee efficient utilization, economic yields and conservation of natural resources. In this context, laboratory investigations were conducted to assess the fertility status of soils distinctive for agriculture, forest and pastures in Mansehra district during 2019. Twenty soils samples from two depths (0-15 and 15-30 cm) were collected from each representative land use across the district and analyzed for pH, texture, organic matter and macro (NPK) and micronutrients (Cu, Fe, Zn and Mn). The results showed that soils were moderately to strongly calcareous in reaction with mean higher lime in pasture followed by forest and agriculture land. All the three sites had acidic pH with overall mean of 6.4 and were non saline. The soils in these three locations (agriculture, forest and pastures in Mansehra) were dominantly coarse textured with relatively more in pastures than others. Soil organic matter content was relatively more in forest but was in adequate range in all sites. The soil AB-DTPA extractable K, Cu, Fe and Mn were also adequate in all these sites while P and Zn were dominantly deficient in all these areas. Forest soils contained relatively higher P and K but lower Fe and Mn than pasture and agricultural soils whereas there was no difference in Cu and Zn values among land uses. These results concluded that agriculture soil needs application of P and Zn for optimum crop production. Since the soils in the areas are prone to losses, thus such practices like land leveling, contour or minimum tillage, cover crops and application of organic manure are advised for soil conservation and improvement in soil properties.
Keeping Creativity under Control: Contributions of Attention Control and Fluid Intelligence to Divergent Thinking

ABSTRACT Increasing research efforts are focused on explaining the cognitive bases of creativity. However, it remains unclear when and how cognitive factors such as intelligence and executive function uniquely contribute to performance on creative thinking tasks. Although a relationship between fluid intelligence (Gf) and creative cognition has been well-documented, the underlying mechanism of this relation is unknown. Here, we test one possible mechanism of the Gf–creativity association – attention control (AC) – given AC’s strong association with Gf and its theoretical relevance to creative cognition. We also examine the role of mind wandering (i.e., task-unrelated thought), a failure of AC that is potentially beneficial to creativity. Using latent variable and bifactor models, we investigated the unique contributions of AC to divergent thinking – above the influence of Gf – evaluating the specific and general contributions of AC, Gf, and mind wandering to divergent thinking. We found that a general executive factor (i.e., of the common variance to AC, mind wandering, and Gf indicators) significantly predicted divergent thinking originality (β =.40, p <.001) above and beyond specific Gf and mind wandering factors. Importantly, in the bifactor model, mind wandering was a nonsignificant, negative predictor of divergent thinking performance, and the residual effects of Gf were no longer significant, indicating that the relationship between Gf and divergent thinking is explained by shared variance with a common executive attention factor. This study provides novel evidence suggesting that the relationship between Gf and divergent thinking may be largely driven by the top-down control of attention.
The Effect of Stress Level on Patient Care Behavior in Nurses

Background: Stress is one of the issues that has existed since a ient times, but which the modern world focuses on most, and is affected by many individual , social and communal situations. One of these sit uations is the profession in which individuals work. The nursi ng profession is known to be one of the most stress ful occupations. The aim of this study is to determine the effect of the stress level on nursing behavior and the factors affecting the stress they experience. Methods: 205 nurses working in Kayseri City Education and Re search Hospital were included in this study. The research data were collected by the Introductory In formation Form, the Perceived Stress Scale, and the Pati nt Care Behaviors-24 Scale. Results: According to the results of the study, the total me an of perceived stress was 44.05±6.36 and the total point average of care behavior perception was 5.29± 0.52. It is observed that there is a relationship between nursing behaviors and perceived stress, and that 5. 6% of variance changes in care behaviors are due to p rceived stress total and 26.6% are due to inadequate self-s ufficiency perception and stress disturbance percep tion. These variables appear to contribute significantly to var iance variation in maintenance behavior (p<0.001). Conclusion: It is seen that the level of stress perceived by nu rses positively affects patient care behaviors. However, this can cause nurses to experience extrem e and sustained stress and increased burnout levels . For this reason, it is recommended to take steps to reduce t he stress of nurses such as activating individual a nd social support systems, providing skills training to cope with stress, evaluating workload and reducing it if necessary, regulating wages and working environment.
Diminishing the Eﬀectiveness of Vote Buying: Experimental Evidence from a Persuasive Radio Campaign in India ∗

During the 2014 Indian general elections, we carried out a large-scale ﬁeld experiment to evaluate the electoral eﬀects of an information campaign to persuade voters to reject politicians who engaged in vote buying. We broadcast ads on randomly selected radio stations, emphasizing the incentives of politicians who distribute “gifts” to voters and the likely economic consequences of electing them. The ads appealed to voters to act in their economic self-interest and urged them to renege on any promises to vote for such politicians. By strategically timing the broadcasts after the prescribed electioneering period but before voters went to the polls, we are able to estimate the electoral eﬀects of educating and persuading voters while holding politician behavior ﬁxed. Prior to the announcement of the election results we interviewed approximately 400 journalists, asking them to identify parties that had engaged in vote buying in diﬀerent areas. Using oﬃcial electoral data, we ﬁnd that exposure to the radio campaign signiﬁcantly decreased the vote share of these putative vote-buying parties, with estimates ranging from 4 to 7 percentage points (depending on speciﬁcation) and had a small negative but statistically insigniﬁcant eﬀect on the voter turnout rate.
Preference monitoring of Bactrocera spp. through installation of methyl eugenol traps at different heights in Jujube orchard

Preference monitoring of Bactrocera spp. through installation of methyl eugenol traps at different heights in Jujube orchard. Pure and Abstract An experiment was conducted during the years (2016 to 2017) on preference monitoring of Bactrocera spp. through installation of methyl eugenol traps at different heights in jujube orchard. The pheromone traps baited with lure toxicant mixture (95% methyl eugenol + Thiodan insecticide) were installed at (T1) = ground surface, (T2) = 1 m height. (T3) = 2 m height and (T4) = 3 m height. The effect of different heights of methyl eugenol pheromone traps on the male-adult B. zonata and B. dorsalis catches was statistically significant (P<0.05); and the fruit fly catches in traps varied significantly during 26-12-16 to 10-04-17 (P<0.05). The highest B. zonata catches (61.38) were monitored in traps installed at 2m height; while the weekly B. zonata trap catches simultaneously decreased to (51.35), (43.03) and (38.09) at trap heights of 3 m, 1m and 0 m (surface), respectively. The average weekly trap catches of B. zonata were 83.7. The maximum weekly B. dorsalis catches (0.49) were found in traps installed at 2 m height; while the weekly B. dorsalis trap catches decreased to 0.43, 0.36 and 0.29 when the traps were installed at 3 m, 1 m and 0 m (surface) heights, respectively. The average weekly trap catches of B. dorsalis were 7.65. It was concluded that the methyl eugenol pheromone traps were most effective when installed at 2 m height; while traps installed at 3 m and 1 m height could not catch B. zonata and B. dorsalis more than the surface installed traps. The B. zonata starts its rapid development from the April with certain fluctuation.
Small data, big time—A retrospect of the first weeks of COVID‐19

This article reviews some early investigations and research studies in the first weeks of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) pandemic from a statistician's perspective. These investigations were based on very small datasets but were momentous in the initial global reactions to the pandemic. The article discusses the initial evidence of high infectiousness of COVID‐19 and why that conclusion was not reached faster than in reality. Further reanalyses of some published COVID‐19 studies show that the epidemic growth was dramatically underestimated by compartmental models, and the lack of fit could have been clearly identified by simple data visualization. Finally, some lessons for statisticians are discussed.
Research on chaotic features of a flow field over a plunging airfoil based on dynamic mode decomposition

Periodic motion of a plunging airfoil causes continuous changes in the surrounding flow field. The time-dependent thrust coefficient depends entirely on unsteady characteristics of the flow field. On the contrary, the time-dependent thrust coefficient may also reflect the unsteady characteristics of the corresponding flow field. With the fast Fourier transform (FFT) and dynamic mode decomposition (DMD), unsteady aerodynamic forces can be correlated with the flow field characteristics in the frequency domain. In the present paper, DMD is performed to analyze the unsteady characteristics of the flow field around a plunging NACA0012 airfoil at the Reynolds number of 20 000.
Burnout and Engagement in University Students A Cross-National Study — Source link

This study examines burnout and engagement—the hypothesized opposite of burnout—in university stu- dentsfromSpain( n =623),Portugal( n =727),andtheNetherlands( n =311). Confirmatoryfactoranalyses showed that the expected three-factor structures of the adapted versions of the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI)forstudents(includingExhaustion,Cynicism,andReducedEfficacy)andtheUtrechtWorkEngage-mentScale(UWES)forstudents(includingVigor,Dedication,andAbsorption)fittedtothedataofeachsample.However,arigoroustestrevealedthatmostfactorloadingsoftheMBIwerenotinvariantacrossallsamples.ResultswiththeUWESwereslightlybetter,indicatinginvarianceoffactorloadingsofAbsorptioninallsamplesandofVigorintwoofthethreesamples.Furthermore,ashypothesized,theburnoutandengagementsubscaleswerenegativelycorrelated.Finally,irrespectiveofcountry,EfficacyandVigorwerepositivelyrelatedtoacademicperformance,thatis,thenumberofpassedexamsrelativetothetotalnumberofexamsinthepreviousterm.
Social Media Marketing Towards Consumer Buying Behavior: A Case in Panabo City

Consumers are the kings of markets. No business enterprise can operate without the presence of the consumer, and with the advancement of technology, consumers tend to make countless decisions in purchasing with the use of social media. This study aims to evaluate the influence of social media marketing on consumer buying behavior, particularly among Panabo City citizens who mostly use social media websites to purchase products and services. The study utilizes a nonexperimental quantitative research approach, combining correlational and regression techniques. Convenience sampling and Slovin's formula was used to identify the 399 respondents. With the application of mean, frequency, Pearson r, and Regression Analysis, the result shows that there is a positive, moderate, and significant correlation between social media marketing and consumer buying behavior. Thus, it has been found out that among the indicators of social media marketing, all are predictors of consumer buying behavior. Furthermore, regression analysis results revealed that social media marketing significantly influences consumer buying behavior. Hence, consumers are influenced by process factors and external stimuli brought by social media marketing.
Strategic alignment maturity criteria as a catalyst for enhancing operational excellence in Jordanian industrial companies

Article history: Received: August 10, 2020 Received in revised format: November 15 2020 Accepted: November 27, 2020 Available online: December 1, 2020 High convergence level of strategic alignment between business and information technology helps companies enhance operational excellence. This research aims to identify strategic alignment maturity criteria level and their impacts on operational excellence in Jordanian industrial companies. The population of the study consists of all managers at top and middle management and a purposive sample is used to answer questionnaire items. In this survey, 288 valid responses are collected for analysis using SPSS (20) and smart PLS "V. 3". The study reveals that there is a significantly positive impact of strategic alignment maturity criteria (communication, competency-value Measurement, governance, partnership, scope & architecture and skills) on operational excellence. The most maturity criteria have a mid-level of maturity except scope & architecture and competency-value measurement criteria which maintain a low level. Thus, the study concluded that the researched companies have to recognize the business value of information technology (IT) investment and harmonizing IT architecture with business structure. © 2021 by the authors; licensee Growing Science, Canada