Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Screening and molecular characterization of cholesterol-lowering lactic acid bacteria isolated from African oil palm wine (Elaeis guineensis) and corn beer.

Background: High serum cholesterol is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD), leading to many fatalities. Probiotic supplementation improves health benefits by lowering serum cholesterol. African oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) wine and corn beer have been described as potential sources of probiotic bacteria, but their cholesterol lowering activity has not been extensively investigated. Therefore in this study, we isolated and characterized lactic acid bacteria with probiotic and cholesterol lowering properties from these sources.Methods: A total of fifty lactic acid bacteria (LAB) were isolated from palm wine and corn beer using de Man Rogosa and Sharpe (MRS) agar by pour plate method. Catalase negative and Gram positive colonies were considered as presumptive LAB. For probiotic properties and selection, acid and bile salt tolerance were evaluated based on viable colony count on MRS agar and cholesterol assimilation from culture media was performed by spectrophotometry. The data analysis was performed by One Way Analysis of Variance and p value< 0.05 was considered significant. The isolates with excellent cholesterol assimilation properties were selected and identified with species of morphology and biochemical analysis using API 50 CHL kit and genotypic identification by sequencing of 16 S rRNA gene.Results: Fifty isolates had morphological features similar to LAB. They were catalase negative and Gram positive colonies. Among the fifty isolates, five were considered as acid and bile tolerant (viable count exceeded 6logCFU/ml), with two isolates having excellent cholesterol assimilation property (>80%). The result obtained using API 50 CHL kit did not agree with the genotypic identification which was used to confirm the identity of the isolates as most closely related to Lactobacillus brevis ATCC (Accession No.NR116238) and Enterococcus faeccium NBRC (Accession No. NR113904). Conclusions: The two strains isolated from traditionally fermented drinks in Buea can be considered as potential probiotics. They can therefore be used to formulate food supplement needed to lower cholesterol in hypercholesterolemia patients.
Nanofibrillation of TEMPO-oxidized bleached hardwood kraft cellulose at high solids content

Abstract Cellulose nanofibrils (NF) are usually produced by disintegration processes at low solids content (<5%). However, the high water content reduces the capacity of production, increases the transportation costs of NF suspensions and narrows the possible applications of NF. The goal of the present study was to test a grinding technique based on oscillatory ball milling. Bleached kraft pulp cellulose was nanofibrillated at high solids contents (≥50%), which was obtained from 2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidine-1-oxyl radical-oxidized pulp. The grinding method was only successful when the charge density was at least 0.5 mmol g-1. NFs and cellulose nanocrystals were identified at a charge density of 1.1 mmol g-1 and a solids content of 50%. The size reduction of the formed particles was observed by means of flow fractionation and imaging and viscosity measurements after increasing the charge density from 0.3 to 1.1 mmol g-1. A solids content increment and a charge density decrement resulted in particles with low aspect ratio rather than in nanofibrils. Wide angle X-ray diffraction measurements showed the transformation of crystalline cellulose into amorphous material in the case of grounding at 93% solids content.
Numerical Simulation of Thermoelectric Transport in Bulk and Nanostructured SiSn Alloys

The current high demand for sustainable and renewable energy sources to solve world energy crisis has enormously increased interest in looking at alternative sources of energy. All the machines used in manufacturing process, electricity generation, residential applications, transportation etc., rejects energy in the form of heat into en-vironment. Thermoelectric materials can convert thermal-to-electrical and electrical-to-thermal energy and can be utilized in waste-heat harvesting, more eﬃcient cooling to reduce energy usage and CO 2 emissions. Signiﬁcant research eﬀorts have been devoted over the past decade to thermoelectric materials, with particular emphasis being placed on combining materials selection with nanostructuring. The overarching goal was to reduce thermal conductivity through selective phonon scattering and thus boost the thermoelectric ﬁgure-of-merit (ZT). SiGe alloys, as well as superlattices and nanocomposites made from them, showed signiﬁcant improvements upon nanostructuring and ZT exceeding one at high temperatures. Other group IV alloys were not
Handing Down the Faith: How Parents Pass Their Religion on to the Next Generation

A socialização religiosa tem sido amplamente estudada nas últimas décadas, sendo os EUA a referência para o mundo ocidental pela quantidade e qualidade das suas análises. Embora existam vários estudos, a cultura subjacente à socialização religiosa tem sido pouco estudada. Este é o motivo do presente livro. Os autores, ambos americanos, Christian Smith, professor da Universidade de Notre Dame, consagrado especialista em religiosidade, socialização e cultura juvenil, e Amy Adamczyk, professora do John Jay College of Criminal Justice, reconhecida especialista em religião e cultura, embora mais jovem, uniram os seus conhecimentos sociológicos neste livro. Eles explicam na introdução que “os cientistas sociais têm realizado surpreendentemente pouca pesquisa empírica fiável sobre a cultura parental na transmissão intergeracional da fé e da prática religiosas” (p. 3), significando que “poucos têm estudado as perspetivas e abordagens dos próprios pais quando se trata da socialização religiosa dos seus filhos” (p. 4).
Treatment of Organic Compounds by Activated Persulfate Using Nanoscale Zerovalent Iron

Recently, persulfate has caught the attention of groundwater remediation practitioners as a promising oxidant for in situ chemical oxidation. In this study, a method was applied to treat a selection of hazardous organic compounds using nanoscale zerovalent iron (nZVI) particles as activators for persulfate. The results show that degradation of these organic compounds using nZVI-activated persulfate is more effective than nZVI alone. For example, the degradation of naphthalene by nZVI-activated persulfate was >99% compared to <10% by nZVI alone. Despite the higher effectiveness, the nZVI particles were passivated quickly following exposure to persulfate, causing the reaction rate to reduce to a magnitude representative of an unactivated persulfate system. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analyses indicated that an iron sulfate layer was formed on the nZVI particle surfaces following exposure to persulfate compared to the FeOOH layer that was present on the fresh nZVI surfaces. Although the nZVI particle su.
Uncertainty-Guided Cross-Modal Learning for Robust Multispectral Pedestrian Detection

Multispectral pedestrian detection has received great attention in recent years as multispectral modalities (i.e. color and thermal) can provide complementary visual information. However, there are major inherent issues in multispectral pedestrian detection. First, the cameras of the two modalities have different field-of-views (FoVs), so that image pairs are often miscalibrated. Second, modality discrepancy is observed, because image pairs are captured at different wavelengths. In this paper, to alleviate these issues, we propose a new uncertainty-aware multispectral pedestrian detection framework. In our framework, we consider two types of uncertainties: 1) Region of Interest (RoI) uncertainty and 2) predictive uncertainty. For the miscalibration issue, we propose RoI uncertainty which represents the reliability of the RoI candidates. With the RoI uncertainty, when combining two modal features, we devise uncertainty-aware feature fusion (UFF) module to reduce the effect of RoI features with high RoI uncertainty. We also propose uncertainty-aware cross-modal guiding (UCG) module for the modality discrepancy. In the UCG module, we use the predictive uncertainty, which indicates how reliable the prediction of the RoI feature is. Based on the predictive uncertainty, the UCG module guides the feature distribution of high predictive uncertain (less reliable) modality to resemble that of low predictive uncertain (more reliable) modality. The UCG module can encode more discriminative features by guiding feature distributions of two modalities to be similar. With comprehensive experiments on the public multispectral datasets, we verified that our method reduces the effect of the miscalibration and alleviates the modality discrepancy, outperforming existing state-of-the-art methods.
In vitro antioxidant activity evaluation and HPTLC profile of Cow dung

Aim: The present study was undertaken to evolve suitable High Performance Thin Layer Chromatography (HPTLC) profile and to evaluate in vitro antioxidant activity of cow dung. Materials and Methods: Dung samples, collected from cows of Geer variety of Bos indicus on different days at predefined times, were subjected to development of HPTLC profile, estimation of total phenolic content and in vitro antioxidant activity by HPTLC‑2, 2 Diphenyl‑1‑picrylhydrazil (DPPH) bioautography, Ferric Reducing Antioxidant Power (FRAP) and DPPH free radical scavenging methods. Results: Developed HPTLC profile revealed notable variations among the samples. HPTLC‑DPPH Bioautography showed presence of number of antioxidant compounds, which was further confirmed by quantitative evaluation of in vitro antioxidant activity. The results of the study indicate presence of phenolic as well as non‑phenolic natured bio‑active compounds in cow dung. Conclusion: The HPTLC profile as well as antioxidant potential of cow dung is reported for the first time with notable intra‑day and inter‑day variations. The evolved chromatographic profile will be very useful for evaluating the quality of cow dung. It has potential as a natural antioxidant. Key words: Antioxidant, cow dung, high performance thin layer chromatography, HPTLC‑2, 2 Diphenyl‑1‑picrylhydrazil bioautography
Thermochemical Treatment (Thermolysis) of Petrochemical Wastewater: COD Removal Mechanism and Floc Formation

Thermo-chemical precipitation (thermolysis) has been used as a pretreatment method for COD and color reduction from various industrial effluents. This paper reports on the COD reduction from purified terephthalic acid (PTA) wastewater from a petrochemical plant using thermolysis. CuSO4, FeCl3, and FeSO4 were used as chemicals/coagulants for COD reduction. The effect of treatment time, temperature, pH, and chemical dosage on the removal of COD has been studied. FeCl3 was found to be the most effective chemical agent which removed 77.2% COD (from initial COD of 3320 to 765.9 mg/L) at optimum treatment conditions (pH 7, dosage 3 kg/m3 (0.018M), temperature 50 °C, and treatment time 20 min). Temperature played an important role in COD removal. Zeta potential studies depict the change in net surface charge of the particles in all the systems. In the case of CuSO4·5H2O, floc size distribution (number density) shows that bigger flocs were formed at higher temperatures. With iron salts, a decrease in floc size wa.
Comparative Study between Wild and Commercial Egyptian Lactobacillus reuteri-Antagonizing Effects in Cryptosporidiosis Models

| To investigate the prophylactic and therapeutic potentiality of Egyptian probiotic Lactobacillus reuteri in the cryptosporidiosis model (hereafter home-isolated probiotic). As per the health conditions of the experimental mice, they were deployed into two main batches: immunocompetent and immunocompromised. Each batch comprised three protocols as per the types of the treatment (home-isolated-, commercial probiotics, and Nitazoxanide). A dose of 108 colony-forming unit (cfu) Lactobacillus reuteri isolated from the domestic camels and the commercial strain were administered orally on daily basis for 10 days. Then, mice were infected with approximately 1 x 104 inoculums of Cryptosporidium cysts with continuous administration of probiotics till the end of the experiment (day 20). The regression decay models were utilized to predict the recovery rate of the experimental mice at days different from the tested ones using the data collected from the Nitazoxanide-different time-scheduled protocol. The response to the treatment by probiotics in the immunocompromised mice is less than that of the immunocompetent mice. Positive outcome results are in favor of the home-isolated probiotic treatment. On the contrary, Nitazoxanide is the treatment with the highest number of cysts recovered from the experimental mice. In a nutshell, the results demonstrate that the home-isolated probiotic is efficient in decolonizing the Cryptosporidium spp. cysts and ameliorating the pathogenicity of the disease. Besides, this research study is shedding the light on the importance of isolating and utilizing a country/region-based Lactobacillus reuteri probiotic for high-efficiency treatment of cryptosporidiosis in immunodeficient cases.
Socioeconomic Disparities, Pregnancy Factors and Inadequate Antenatal Care Utilization in Rural Cambodia

Background: Antenatal care (ANC) is widely known as the most efficient measures for reducing maternal mortality. This research aimed to describe ANC utilization pattern and identify the relationships of socioeconomic disparities, pregnancy factors and inadequate ANC among pregnant women in rural Cambodia. Method: This cross-sectional study used the data from the Cambodia Demographic Health Survey (CDHS). The CDHS collected the data from 3,764 women who gave birth in the preceding five-year period using a structured questionnaire. The generalized linear mixed model (GLMM) was used to identify the association of socioeconomic, pregnancy factors and inadequate ANC utilization when controlling the effects of other co-variates presenting adjusted OR and 95% confidence interval. Results: Among the total of 3,764 respondents. Almost one-third had inadequate ANC (31.59%;95%CI: 30.10-33.07%). Factors that were statistically associated with inadequate ANC were taking ANC in private sectors (adj OR. = 2.10, 95%CI: 1.47– 2.99), unwanted pregnancy (adj OR. =1.70, 95%CI: 1.44– 2.01), multiparity of three babies or higher (adj OR. = 1.66, 95%CI: 1.42– 1.94), illiteracy (adj OR. = 2.08, 95%CI: 1.41– 1.92), had spouse finished only primary education (adj OR. = 2.13, 95%CI: 1.45– 1.92) when controlling other factors including age, education, occupation, husband’s age, occupation, financial status, accessing health facility. Conclusion: Almost one-third of pregnant women in rural Cambodia had inadequate ANC. Both socioeconomic and pregnancy factors had influence on having inadequate ANC.
Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science Global Engagement Task Force Report

The Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science (SIPS) is an organization whose mission focuses on bringing together scholars who want to improve methods and practices in psychological science. The organization reaffirmed in June 2020 that “[we] cannot do good science without diverse voices,” and acknowledged that “right now the demographics of SIPS are unrepresentative of the field of psychology, which is in turn unrepresentative of the global population. We have work to do when it comes to better supporting Black scholars and other underrepresented minorities. ”The purpose of the Global Engagement Task Force, started in January 2020, was to explore suggestions made after the 2019 Annual Conference, held in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, around inclusion and access for scholars from regions outside of the United States, Canada, and Western Europe (described in the report as “geographically diverse” regions), a task complicated by the COVID-19 pandemic and civil unrest in several task force members’ countries of residence. This report outlines several suggestions, specifically around building partnerships with geographically diverse open science organizations; increasing SIPS presence at other, more local events; diversifying remote events; considering geographically diverse annual conference locations; improving membership and financial resources; and surveying open science practitioners from geographically diverse regions.
Regional studies and conceptual fuzziness: A critical review

Regional and spatial studies, such as urban planning, energy planning, and sustainable development, address the complexity of the inter-disciplinary relationship between subsystems and their components. Such studies require multidisciplinary concepts, varied lenses, and differentiating approaches and models to address the conflict between contextual sensitivity and universal applicability. This paper reviews the debate on the research approaches adopted in regional studies and initiated by researcher Ann Markusen, followed by a review of contemporary literature on the concept of fuzziness in the qualitative research. Markusen evaluated the conceptual fuzziness, empirical evidence, and policy dimensions of regional studies. The argument was based on three fundamental aspects of regional and urban development studies; strong contestation of phenomena, empirical evidence to support the concept, and collective action to deal with the problems under investigation. A conceptual fuzziness and the methodological weaknesses in the qualitative research, highlighted by Markusen almost two decades ago, persist in interdisciplinary qualitative research. In this study, we have dissected the concept of fuzziness to distinguish between Inherited fuzziness derived from the configurational complexity of a case and bequeathed fuzziness that could be transferred ahead due to a researcher’s methodological and perceptual weaknesses. Despite efforts made to address the relevance, reliability, validity, and replicability of the qualitative research, the field is still facing challenges from conceptual bias, methodological and operational constraints, empirical weakness, and prejudiced interpretation.
Market-Retention in Fitness Centers: Identifying and Ranking the Factors Affecting Customer Retention

This study was conducted to identify and to rank the factors affecting market retention in fitness centers.14 participants including the customers and managers of fitness centers participated in a semi-structured interview to collect the required data. Sixteen factors were extracted from the interviews and sixteen experts evaluate the relationships among these factors with pairwise comparisons.Based on Interpretive-Structural Modeling, the factors categorized in five levels, i.e. 1) customer relationship quality,customer experience quality, reputation, price, perceived value and satisfaction, 2) Overall servicequality, secondary services and ethical climate, 3) Training type and schedule, location and accessibility and social responsibility, 4) Interior design and equipment, 5) Manager communication and trainer’s competencies. For the sake of customer retention, fitness centers are required to align their decisions with their customer requirements. Ranking the effective factors in this study can provide the fitness centers’ managers with a better understanding of the factors affecting customers’ decisions.
Effectiveness of coagulants and coagulant aids for the removal of filter-clogging Synedra

The occurrence of Synedra spp. in the source water of the CheongJu water treatment plant (South Korea) decreased filter run times of rapid sand filters to below 5 hours. During the filter-clogging episode, full-scale Synedra removal by coagulation with polyaluminium hydrogen chloride silicate (PAHCS), flocculation and sedimentation ranged from 20 to 70%. To reduce filter clogging, strategies needed to be developed to improve the coagulation of Synedra . Jar test results showed that alum was more effective for Synedra removal than polyaluminium chloride (PACl), PAHCS and ferric chloride. At the optimum alum dose, Synedra removal in jar tests reached 88%. The addition of flocculant aids (Na- and Mg-alginate; nonionic and anionic polymers) in conjunction with alum did not improve Synedra removal. In contrast, the addition of cationic polymer in conjunction with alum improved Synedra removal to 99%. Analysis of floc with scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and light microscopy showed that the cationic polymer addition led to the formation of larger, stronger, and denser floc. More effective charge neutralization and the formation of interparticle bridges as a result of the cationic polymer addition can explain the improved incorporation of Synedra cells into settleable floc.
Fractional Separation and Estimation of Mark-Houwink-Sakurada Equation Parameters for Gluten

Fractional separation of gluten using the fast protein liquid chromatography (FPLC) and a numerical method for determination of Mark-Houwink-Sakurada (MHS) equation were studied. With 1% SDS buffer as solvent, the gluten was disassembled into two components: SDS soluble (SDS-S-G) and SDS insoluble gluten proteins (SDS-IS-G). The average molecular weight (Mn, Mw and Mz) and intrinsic viscosity [η] were measured by the multi-angle laser light scattering (MALLS) in conjunction with a size-exclusion chromatography (SEC) and viscosimetry. MHS equations for SDS soluble gluten and SDS insoluble gluten proteins were established as: (SDS-S-G) [η]=1.7459×10-2Mv0.6933=1.7459×10-2qMHSMw0.6933=1.6677×10-2Mw0.6933 (SDS-IS-G) [η]=7.5682×10-3Mv0.7323=7.5682×10-3qMHSMw0.7323=7.2079×10-3Mw0.7323 where qMHS was the polydispersity correction factor.
Gendered Strategies among Northern Migrants in Ghana: The Role of Social Networks

The migration trends from Northern to Southern Ghana is not a new phenomenon and it is rooted in historical antecedents. Migration scholars in Ghana have attributed these migration trends from an economic lens, arguing that migration has become a household strategy to diversify incomes. However, little research has focused on social networks serving as migration channels for migrants in the informal sector. In view of this, this paper explores the gendered strategies and social networks that the northern migrants use to gain access to the labour market. This study used a qualitative approach. Primary data was collected using the in-depth interview tool. A sampled population of 58 (37 women and 21 men) migrants from Northern Ghana to the Greater Accra Region (Madina), constituted the respondents. Findings indicate that integration and assimilation of migrants into their new community is a function of ethnicity. Strong and weak social ties facilitate migration differently. Whereas the former facilitates migration, the latter offers an enduring support for new migrants in searching for jobs and accommodation on arrival. The study concludes that knowledge of how social networks organize gender strategies within the migration continuum is important for policy intervention to close the poverty gap between North and South.