Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Application of Fluorescent Carbon Dots as Catalysts for the Ring-Opening Reaction of Epoxides

Considering the increased anthropogenic emissions of CO2 into the atmosphere, it is important to develop economic incentives for the use of CO2 capture methodologies. The conversion of CO2 into heterocyclic carbonates shows significant potential. However, there is a need for suitable organocatalysts to reach the required efficiency for these reactions. Given this, there has been an increasing focus on the development of organocatalytic systems consisting of a nucleophile and a hydrogen bond donor (HBD) so that CO2 conversion can occur in ambient conditions. In this work, we evaluated the potential of fluorescent carbon dots (CDs) as catalytic HBDs in the ring-opening reaction of epoxides, which is typically the rate-limiting step of CO2 conversion reactions into heterocyclic carbonates. The obtained results demonstrated that the CDs had a relevant catalytic effect on the studied model reaction, with a rate constant of 0.2361 ± 0.008 h−1, a percentage of reactant conversion of 70.8%, and a rate constant enhancement of 32.2%. These results were better than the studied alternative molecular HBDs. Thus, this study demonstrated that CDs have the potential to be used as HBDs and employed in organocatalyzed CO2 conversion into value-added products.
Differences in augmented reality games performance between individuals with Down syndrome and individuals with typical development

Introduction: Down syndrome is the most common genetic cause of intellectual disability, and the use of augmented reality can be improving the cognitive, motor, and literacy skills of this population. Objective: to compare statistical differences in learning between individuals with Down syndrome and individuals with typical development using augmented reality games. Methods: we compared the reaction time before and after the virtual reality tasks, in addition to the performance in these tasks, which consisted of correctly identifying numbers and letters in 46 people with Down syndrome and 46 controls with typical development. Results: our results indicate that the total points for the typical development group were higher (M = 13.0 and 11.9) when compared to the Down syndrome group (M = 6.6 and 4.6) for letters of the alphabet and numbers, respectively. Furthermore, the results indicated that participants in both groups were more accurate in identifying alphabetic symbols when compared to numerical symbols, and both groups were sensitive to the number of symbols presented in each phase. The down syndrome group had a lower performance when compared to the typical development group. Conclusion: despite the need for further studies, our results support the outcome that there is clinical utility of an intervention based on virtual reality tasks for people with Down syndrome. In conclusion, the use of this technology to improve the reaction time of this population is considered useful.
Improving fescue native range.

Range production has decreased on many ranges in southern Alberta due to drought and overgrazing. Normally, range management practices such as lighter stocking rates and delayed grazing are prescribed to improve range condition. This approach usually takes time for recovery to occur. A herbicide application is another option that may be a solution to the problem. There have been some herbicide applications on poor condition ranges, but the effects of spraying fescue rangeland in Alberta have not been well documented or demonstrated. A Farming For the Future on-farm demonstration project was initiated in 1986, near High River, Alberta. The herbicide demonstration was applied on 160 acres of native prairie rangeland 20 miles southwest of High River. The project was made possible by the cooperation of Mr. Cecil Longson, who provided the native rangeland and deferred the grazing until August each season.
Safety and Efficacy of Dexamethasone Intravitreal Implant Given Either First-Line or Second-Line in Diabetic Macular Edema

Abstract Diabetic macular edema (DME) is a common sight-threatening complication of diabetic retinopathy (DR) and the leading cause of severe visual impairment among the working-age population. Several therapeutic options are available for the management of DME, including intravitreal corticosteroids. They have been traditionally used as second-line treatment, due to the risk of intraocular pressure increase and cataract-related adverse events. However, attention has recently been focused on the primary or early use of intravitreal corticosteroids, due to growing evidence of the crucial role of inflammation in the pathogenesis of DME. Furthermore, intravitreal steroid implants offer the additional advantage of a longer duration of action compared to anti-vascular endothelial growth factor agents (anti-VEGF). This review aims to summarize the available evidence on the efficacy and safety profile of dexamethasone (DEX) intravitreal implant, with a specific focus on clinical scenarios in which it might be considered or even preferred as first-line treatment option by adequate selection of patients, considering both advantages and possible adverse events. Patients with contraindications to anti-VEGF, DME with high inflammatory OCT biomarkers, pseudophakic patients and phakic patients’ candidates to cataract surgery as well as vitrectomized eyes may all benefit from first-line DEX implant. Additionally, DME not responders to anti-VEGF should be considered for a switch to DEX implant and a combination therapy of DEX implant and anti-VEGF could be a valid option in severe and persistent DME.
Does strategic agility and innovation capability have an impact on firm performance? A study on the Indonesian motorcycle industry

Agility and innovation are two of the most important capabilities that organizations have to deal with in disruptive environments. This research aims to examine the effect of strategic agility and innovation capability on firm performance in the Indonesian motorcycle industry. The research was conducted on 208 companies comprising both OEM (original equipment manufacturer) and tier 1 component suppliers in the supply chain of the Indonesian motorcycle industry. The validity was tested using the content, construct and convergent validity tests, the construct reliability was tested using the one-shot measure reliability test, and the hypothesis testing was carried out using structural equation modeling. The results show that innovation capability has a significant direct effect on strategic agility and firm performance, but in contrast to previous research findings, strategic agility does not have a significant direct effect on firm performance. In addition, strategic agility does not mediate the relationship between innovation capability and firm performance. These findings provide practical guidelines for the motorcycle industry in Indonesia to focus on developing innovation capabilities, particularly process innovation, which is related to the industry's ability to manufacture products at a lower cost and become a pioneer of the latest technology in its field. In the current conditions, companies are advised to focus more on other types of agility, such as operational or supply chain agility rather than strategic agility.
The Impact of Social Media Strategies of Non-Profit Organizations on Covid-19 Donation Intention in Indonesia

Introduction: When a disaster strikes, non-profit organizations working in the field of donations will be beneficial, as their role is to raise funds and direct them toward disaster recovery. A large number of internet and social media users in Indonesia provides opportunities for non-profit organizations to use social media strategies in fundraising promotions. Therefore, this study examined the relationship between non-profit organization strategies on social media such as interactivity and disclosure, as well as transaction safety in influencing the intention to donate in the Covid-19 case in Indonesia. The non-profit organization in this study was a non-profit organization that raised funds through social media for Covid-19 assistance. Social media in this study was not specific to one platform, but to Instagram and Facebook users who know the non-profit organization.Methods: The study was conducted on Indonesians who have social media accounts and know about the social media of non-profit organizations that were raising funds for Covid-19.Findings: The study found that interactivity, disclosure, and transaction safety influenced the intention to donate through trust mediation. However, these factors have no direct impact on donation intention. Therefore, trust is an important factor in implementing social media strategies for non-profit organizations because it is the full mediator in this case.Originality: This study was novel in that it examined the effect of social media strategy on intention to donate, taking into account the perception of payment safety, specifically for the promotion of Covid-19 fundraising through social media by non-profit organizations in Indonesia.
Réponses des semences de Rosmarinus officinalis à différents traitements simulant une action de feu

Des lots de semences ont ete soumis a des temperatures comparables a celles qu'elles peuvent recevoir lorsqu'elles sont enterrees dans le sol, pendant ou apres un incendie; l'effet de l'action des cendres a ete aussi etudie. Les taux de germination les plus eleves correspondent aux lots de semences qui n'ont pas subi de traitement ou a ceux qui ont subi de faibles temperatures. Bien qu'elle recolonise les zones incendiees qu'elle occupait auparavant, R. officinalis n'est donc pas une espece liee au feu
The Initiative to Further Enhance Technology Adoption in the Malaysian Oil Palm Industry

The oil palm industry is facing highly severe labour shortages where most labourers involved in the plantation consist of foreign workers. The usage of manual labourers revealed several negative drawbacks which has caused lower productivity in the oil palm industry. Hence, the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) has made continuous efforts to enhance the efficiency of oil palm plantations by providing assistance in mechanisation and engineering technologies. This covers from the early stage of oil palm cultivation such as land preparation, fertiliser deployment, fresh fruit bunch (FFB) harvesting, FFB evacuation and up to the clearing of old palm trees. This article aims to highlight the strategies of the Mechanisation and Automation Research Consortium of Oil Palm (MARCOP) through collaborative efforts and engagements with all relevant parties and agencies for the development of technical and economically viable mechanisation technologies to be adopted by the industry. The consortium's goal is to investigate mechanisation and automation technologies for oil palm plantations in order to increase productivity, with a particular emphasis on the operation of harvesting FFBs, and to reduce reliance on manual harvesters. Furthermore, the consortium provides a technology development fund to eligible applicants for the development of cost-effective and versatile FFB harvesting technologies.
Biodiversity Conservation and Local Livelihoods: A Study on Similipal Biosphere Reserve in India

Over-exploitation of natural resources and changing climatic conditions due to global warming are responsible for rapid loss of biological diversity. Creation of protected areas (PAs) across the globe which forms a critical component in global biodiversity conservation efforts are primarily designed for preventing further loss of species by restricting human use of natural resources. The Similipal Biosphere Reserve (SBR) in the Indian State of Odisha is the sixth largest biosphere reserve in the country and forms a major part of the World Network of Biosphere Reserves. However, currently the reserve is under increasing pressure from growing human population that directly depends on the reserve for their livelihoods. The objectives of the present study are to develop a comprehensive understanding of the problems facing the SBR; and identify and analyse different factors that determine the extent of dependency of villages located in and around the reserve for extraction of non-timber forest products (NTFPs). The paper reviews the existing studies on the SBR by using the DPSIR framework for an in-depth understanding of interaction between local population and the biosphere reserve. Econometric techniques and descriptive statistics are applied to analyse the secondary data collected from 136 villages located in and around the reserve. The results show that economically poor villages and villages having more male members are likely to extract more NTFPs from the reserve. Villages located in transitional and buffer zones are likely to extract more NTFPs compared to villages that are in core zone. Designing appropriate and effective local institutions that would foster biodiversity conservation as well as livelihoods and structure the community behaviour are widely considered as the panacea for this problem.
Are ‘tiny homes’ good for the environment? Focus on materials, land-use, energy and carbon footprint

Material consumption and greenhouse gas emissions are rising in building stocks. At the same time, the floor area of residential buildings per capita has been increasing. New houses can be very energy efficient but are often built from energy and emission-intensive materials. We investigated the potential of tiny homes for reducing material use, energy consumption, and associated emissions, as well as land use. For this study, comparative life cycle assessments and energy simulations were conducted on tiny homes, detached houses, and apartments in the context of Finland, Northern Europe. The results allow comparison between different building types. The studied tiny homes had lower energy consumption and carbon footprints than the reference buildings when comparing these indicators per capita or per building. However, when using floor area as a unit of comparison, the tiny homes perform worse. When looking at land use efficiency, tiny homes and apartment blocks performed better than detached houses. We conclude that, as tiny homes are strongly related to individual lifestyles, their overall relevance for lowering environmental impacts should be compared in relation to consumption habits and use of public services. Furthermore, the environmental benefits of tiny homes need to be interpreted in a broader sustainability context, especially in relation to indicators of social and economic sustainability.
A self-paced reading study of context effects in the processing of aspectual verbs in Mandarin

Research in the past few years has investigated the semantic complexity of expressions with aspectual verbs followed by entity-denoting complements such as finish the book that led to processing costs cross-linguistically. The Structured Individual Hypothesis (SIH) proposes that aspectual verbs lexically encode a function whose value (dimension) must be resolved. This ambiguity resolution is hypothesized to occur at the verb’s complement, where a specific dimension is selected based on context (Piñango & Deo, 2016). In light of the critical role of the context in SIH, recent research (Lai et al., 2023; Lai & Piñango, 2019) has investigated how the interpretations of sentences with aspectual verbs were affected by biased contexts in an offline sentence acceptability judgment study and an online eye-tracking study. However, results of the two studies showed that biased contexts disambiguated the interpretations of aspectual verb expressions offline while processing costs in biased contexts were not found to attenuate costs in real time. The reason why conflicting results were found offline versus online and the timecourse of context effects remain unclear, but in our view it may be due to pragmatic contexts, i.e., descriptions of the utterance context used to infer the salient reading of the utterance. We used grammatical contexts – two classes of adverbs – in a self-paced reading study to examine context effects for sentences with aspectual verbs in Mandarin. We found that biased grammatical contexts not only affected the interpretations in the offline task, but crucially facilitated processing in the online experiment as well. We conclude that biased grammatical contexts predetermine the interpretations of aspectual verb expressions immediately in real time.
Virus–Host Protein Interaction Network of the Hepatitis E Virus ORF2-4 by Mammalian Two-Hybrid Assays

Throughout their life cycle, viruses interact with cellular host factors, thereby influencing propagation, host range, cell tropism and pathogenesis. The hepatitis E virus (HEV) is an underestimated RNA virus in which knowledge of the virus–host interaction network to date is limited. Here, two related high-throughput mammalian two-hybrid approaches (MAPPIT and KISS) were used to screen for HEV-interacting host proteins. Promising hits were examined on protein function, involved pathway(s), and their relation to other viruses. We identified 37 ORF2 hits, 187 for ORF3 and 91 for ORF4. Several hits had functions in the life cycle of distinct viruses. We focused on SHARPIN and RNF5 as candidate hits for ORF3, as they are involved in the RLR-MAVS pathway and interferon (IFN) induction during viral infections. Knocking out (KO) SHARPIN and RNF5 resulted in a different IFN response upon ORF3 transfection, compared to wild-type cells. Moreover, infection was increased in SHARPIN KO cells and decreased in RNF5 KO cells. In conclusion, MAPPIT and KISS are valuable tools to study virus–host interactions, providing insights into the poorly understood HEV life cycle. We further provide evidence for two identified hits as new host factors in the HEV life cycle.
THE EFFECT OF COMPENSATION, WORK DISCIPLINE, AND MOTIVATION ON EMPLOYEES’ WORK PRODUCTIVITY

This research aims to examine the influence of compensation on employee work productivity, to investigate the impact of work discipline on employee work productivity, and to assess the effect of motivation on employee work productivity. The participants in this study consisted of 43 employees from PT. Titipan Ilahi located in Denpasar, Bali. Data were collected using a questionnaire and analyzed using multiple linear regression. The research findings reveal that: (1) compensation significantly influences employee work productivity; (2) work discipline does not significantly affect employee work productivity; and (3) motivation significantly affects employee work productivity
Pottery in Telangana: Empirical Evidence of Current and Future Challenges

This article presents and discusses empirical evidence of the socio-economic status of the Kummari potter community in Telangana to highlight the continued primacy of the traditional caste-based occupation as a livelihood option for many Kummari households. Taking a holistic perspective, the research documents the current challenges faced by the community, covering the entire cycle of pottery-making, including input sourcing, production, adoption of new technology and marketing. The article also identifies core policy interventions that need urgent attention in the form of state support, complemented with collectivisation, technology diffusion and capacity-building of the artisans.
Benthic megafauna on steep slopes at the Northern Mid‐Atlantic Ridge

The role of small-scale (<10 km) habitat availability in structuring deep-sea hard substratum assemblages is poorly understood. Epibenthic megafauna and substratum availability were studied on steep slopes at the Mid-Atlantic Ridge from May to July 2010 northwest, northeast, southwest and southeast of the Charlie-Gibbs Fracture Zone (CGFZ; 48–54°N) at between 2095 and 2601 m depth. Megafauna were six times denser north of the CGFZ compared with the south and differences in density were almost entirely driven by sessile fauna. There was no significant difference in habitat availability amongst sites. Rocky substratum made up 48% of the total area surveyed, with individual transects having between 0% and 82% rock. Assemblage structures were different amongst all superstations. The north was dominated by demospongids and hexactinellids, whereas the southern superstations were dominated by anthozoans and hexactinellids. Differences in megafaunal assemblages north and south of the CGFZ primarily reflected variations in demospongid and anthozoan species composition. With 213–1825 individuals·ha−1, and 7–24 species per superstation, hexactinellids were the most species-rich (36 species) and cosmopolitan taxa at the study site, supporting observations elsewhere along the ridge and in the CGFZ. The absence of significant differences in substrata availability suggested alternative drivers for density or percentage cover. The amount of hard substratum available only limited sessile megafauna density at one transect that was entirely covered with sediments. Species richness was highest for areas with intermediate values of substratum coverage (35–43% rock).
How global companies communicate in host country: a glocalization strategy in web space

Corporate web sites have significant roles in building a positive image with stakeholders, particularly in a host market environment with different cultural backgrounds and values. A content analysis was conducted to study the glocalization strategies of corporate web sites and depiction of cultural values of 47 international brands which were identified as having Indonesian web sites. The four types of glocalization strategies of corporate web site content differed in the depiction of cultural values on their web sites. The differences could be found in overall analysis and four of five cultural dimensions such as collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, power distance and high context communication. It integrates the theory of glocalization strategy and cultural values in the context of cyberspace, which represents a pioneering attempt in investigating the aforementioned issue.
Chemical and Bacteriological Assessment of Raw Milk Collected from Some Dairy Farms in El-Behera Governorate, Egypt.

Milk is an essential food for humans and is considered as a good medium for microbial growth. Therefore, 120 raw milk samples from some dairy farms were obtained for bacteriological and chemical evaluation. Chemical evaluation of the examined raw cow’s milk samples showed mean values of fat, protein, casein, solid not fat, lactose, galactose, glucose, urea contents were (4.25±0.11), (3.06±0.06), (2.27±0.03), (8.38±0.10), (4.51±0.04), (0.29±0.06), (0.72±0.08), and ( 27.90±1.45), respectively. The determination of acidity of examined samples showed that the mean values of acidity degree, lactic acid and citric acid were (19.85±1.22), (0.19±0.01), and (0.12±0.01), respectively. The freezing point was (-0.46±0.01). Moreover, Mean values of aerobic plate count, coliform count and Staphylococcus aureus count were (2.9x105±0.16x105), ( 3. 8x103±0.13x103), and (3.1x103 ± 0.12x103), respectively . Escherichia coli prevalence was20%(24/120), while the prevalence of Mycobacterium bovis was 3.33% (4/120). E. coli isolates were serogrouped into O111, O26, O91, O44, O128, and untyped serogroups. The molecular characterization of five E.coli isolates revealed that; all tested strains showed ompA gene and only two showed stx1 gene. While resistance genes (bla TEM and aac(3)-IV) were detected in all tested strains. All tested S. aureus isolates showed virulence genes (Spa gene and PVL gene) and resistance genes (mecA and aac gene). Antibiotic sensitivity testing revealed the presence of multidrug resistant (MDR) isolates. The public health importance of isolated microorganisms was discussed