Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An exploratory study of teamwork processes and perceived team effectiveness in engineering capstone design teams

In their final year, engineering students in Canada work in teams on a design project. These projects require significantcollaboration and, as such, the project’s success is largely dependent on the students’ teamwork. This work presents an exploratorystudy of capstone design teams in a large engineering school in Canada. The goal of the study was to draw valuable insights aboutthe teamwork experiences, skills and gaps of students in capstone design teams. These insights will support evidence-baseddevelopment and improvement of teamwork training for engineering students. The study was conducted in two phases. First, semi-structured interviews with 12 instructors of capstone design courses solicited their perspectives on students’ capstone design teams.Findings from the instructor interviews and related literature were used to design a student survey. The survey was administered tomore than six hundred fourth-year engineering students to further explore capstone design teams’ dynamics. We collectedinformation on students’ team formation, distribution of tasks and roles in teams, project management methods used, and thedifferent types of conflicts experienced. In addition, we investigated the potential links between those variables and teameffectiveness and enjoyment. In general, our results provide strong evidence that having clear roles, a high degree of a matchbetween students’ interests and skills with their assigned tasks, similar expectations about the outcomes, a clear project management plan, and lower levels of conflicts in student teams are significantly correlated with perceived team effectiveness andenjoyment. We discuss the implications of our findings for targeted instructional interventions on required teamwork skills forstudents.
Removal of perennial ryegrass from overseeded bermudagrass using cultural methods

Turfgrass managers in the southeastern United States often overseed 'Tifway' bermudagrass [Cynodon transvaalensis Burtt-Davey x C. dactylon (L.) Pers. ] with perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.) to provide a dense green turf during winter months. Although overseeding provides benefits, the spring transition from perennial ryegrass to bermudagrass can be troublesome and inconsistent. Perennial ryegrass may survive longer into the spring than is desired due to cool, wet conditions. The following experiment evaluated cultural methods for removal of perennial ryegrass from overseeded bermudagrass in the spring and early summer. The experiment was conducted at the North Carolina State University Turfgrass Field Center in Raleigh in the 1995 to 1996 and 1996 to 1997 growing seasons. Monocultures of Gator' and Derby Supreme' perennial ryegrass were overseeded into an established Tifway bermudagrass turf managed at golf course fairway conditions. It was hypothesized that various cultural treatments in the spring and summer could promote bermudagrass and/ or discourage perennial ryegrass, and that the perennial ryegrass transition would differ depending on heat tolerance of the selected overseeding monocultures. The cultural treatments were biweekly vertical mowing, scalping, core cultivation, and vertical mowing/scalping, or two application timings of NH 4 NO 3 . Chemical removal of perennial ryegrass using pronamide [3,5-dichloro-N-(1,1'-dimethyl-2-propynyl)-benzamide] was included as a check treatment because it is commonly used to promote transition. Bermudagrass shoot density was consistently higher in nonoverseeded plots, illustrating perennial ryegrass competition. Cultural treatments affected perennial ryegrass cover during the spring and early summer but did not hasten its ultimate disappearance. Early or late applied NH 4 NO 3 enhanced bermudagrass shoot density in both years. In contrast, plots receiving core cultivation had lower bermudagrass shoot density at the end of the transition period than the nontreated plots. Pronamide did hasten transition through 7 and 13 wk after initial treatment for 1996 and 1997, respectively. Regression analysis between natural perennial ryegrass disappearance over both years and air temperature or relative humidity indicates a significant association. This implies that cultural treatments alone may not consistently enhance natural transition of perennial ryegrass to bermudagrass.
Influence of Flood Waves, Production Wells, and Precipitation on Shallow Groundwater Using a Linear Regression Model Approach Based on a Case Study of Mohács Island, Hungary

Studying the relationship between river water and shallow groundwater (SGW) during flood events is a research topic receiving increasing attention for many reasons. This phenomenon was studied with respect to Mohács Island of the Danube (Hungary) in an area protected by a levee. Floods only infiltrate into the island through the aquifer, where production wells for drinking water supply are located. Our objective was to reveal how the Danube and water abstraction from production wells control groundwater levels in the observation wells, and we also studied the effect of the precipitation events and the lag times of the influencing variables compared to the peak of groundwater waves in observation wells. The effects of these factors were summarized by a linear regression model (LM) with lag times. We developed an application because we had time-series for thirty groundwater wells and five major flood events of the Danube. Kriging was used to generate impact maps of the Danube and production wells. A propagation map of the Danube flood wave into the groundwater aquifer was also generated. We used geological information to explain the findings that the river flood waves propagate with the same wavelength and decreasing amplitude in the covered aquifer and with an elongated wavelength in uncovered conditions.
Synthesis of Unequally Spaced Arrays With Uniform Excitation via Iterative Second-Order Cone Programming

Synthesis of unequally spaced arrays with uniform excitation is considered in this article. An iterative method based on second-order cone programming is developed to search the geometry with local optimum peak sidelobe level (PSLL), which is valid for arrays of different scale regardless of geometry constraints like centrosymmetry and minimum separation. By statistical analysis and comparison with other methods, it is verified that the computational complexity of the proposed method is only related to the dimension of optimization variables, and it can further exploit the potential of unequally spaced arrays with uniform excitation under acceptable complexity.
Safety in numbers for secondary prey populations: an experimental test using egg predation by small mammals in New Zealand

New Zealand's native avifauna is threatened by introduced mammalian predators. Native species are often not the primary prey of these predators, which depend on introduced mice and rabbits as their primary food source. Theoretical models predict that predation risk for a subsidiary, or “secondary” prey species is inversely proportional to its population size. This prediction was tested by a quasi-natural experiment in which four different sized prey “colonies” were constructed at four existing sooty shearwater breeding sites. Domestic hens' eggs were placed in shearwater burrows immediately following the shearwater breeding season and egg predation rates monitored at five, ten and fifteen days. Treatments were switched between sites and the experiment run for a second time after a two-week stand-down period. The net effect of increasing colony size was to lower individual risk of predation. The larger number of individuals present served to effectively “buffer,” or dilute, per-capita predation risk from predators whose numbers are fixed by extraneous factors: chiefly the abundance of their primary prey. Although eggs were removed more slowly from smaller colonies than from larger ones, each loss had a greater per-capita effect on individual mortality risk. The inverse density dependent relationship found between colony size and predation risk implies that predator population dynamics are largely independent of secondary prey numbers. Abundant introduced predators can therefore easily drive a small secondary prey population to extinction. Control of primary prey populations may be an important management tool in these circumstances.
Polyphenol oxidase: The chloroplast oxidase with no established function

Vaughn, K. C, Lax, A. R. and Duke, S. O. 1988. Polyphenol oxidase: The chloroplast oxidase with no established function. - Physiol. Plant. 72: 659–665. Polyphenol oxidase (PPO) is an enzyme localized on the thylakoids of chloroplasts and in vesicles or other bodies in non-green plastid types. Although virtually all plastids contain PPO, little or no detectable activity is associated with guard cell and bundle sheath cell chloroplasts. Despite this nearly ubiquitous occurrence, no function for this enzyme has been established. The enzyme is nuclear-encoded and, unlike most chloroplast proteins is not encoded as a larger M, precursor molecule. This lack of a transit peptide sequence may be related to a unique mechanism of uptake, apparently involving inner envelope-derived vesicles. The M, range of most of the PPO forms is 36–45 kDa. PPO is apparently not involved in phenolic biosynthesis but is probably involved with the production of o-quinones during pathogen invasion. A role for PPO as an “oxygen buffer” is postulated, but little concrete data have been collected on any other functional role for this enzyme.
Predictors of Unmet Need for Family Planning among HIV Positive Women in Care in Federal Teaching Hospital Gombe, Nigeria

Background: Elimination of mother-to-child transmission (EMTCT) of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) requires adequate and continuous use of family planning commodities among women of reproductive age. This can be made possible by reducing the proportion of HIV positive women with unmet need for family planning. The study aims to determine the factors associated with having unmet need among women in HIV care. Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted using an interviewer administered questionnaire to study 325 women on HIV care. Cluster sampling technique was used to select the study respondents from the clinic. Original Research Article Mohammed et al.; AJMAH, 18(3): 26-33, 2020; Article no.AJMAH. 56717 27 Results: Less than half of the respondents (40%) were currently using family planning, 35% had unmet need for family planning with 53.6% having unmet need for spacing while 46.4% having unmet need for limiting. Women with no history of previous use of family planning were fifteen times more likely to have unmet need for family planning than those with history of previous use of family planning (p value <0.001, CI 2.511-15.770). Also women with more than five deliveries were eight times more likely to have unmet need for family planning (p value 0.004, CI 0.001-0.279) while women with 2-5 deliveries are four times likely to have unmet need for family planning (p value 0.035, CI 0.005-0.832). Conclusion: A high proportion of women receiving ART care still have unmet need for family planning despite incorporating this service in HIV care. It is therefore important to target high risk groups to reduce the proportion of women with unmet need for family planning which will invariable reduce mother to child transmission of HIV.
Ovarian actions of tumor necrosis factor-α (TNFα): Pleiotropic effects of TNFα on differentiated functions of untransformed swine granulosa cells

We have examined interactions between tumor necrosis factor-α (TNFα), a product of the immune system, and ovarian cells using serum-free monolayer cultures of untransformed swine granulosa cells. Recombinant human TNFα, a potent cytoactive product of activated macrophages, bound specifically and with high affinity to intact granulosa cells. Binding sites had an apparent Kd of 0.17 nM (95% confidence interval, 0.065–0.31), and a binding capacity of 80 nmol/μg DNA (95% confidence interval, 52–110). The binding capacity of granulosa cells for TNFα (but not the binding affinity) was increased approximately 2-fold by treatment with FSH and insulin. The biological effects of TNFα on pig granulosa cells were expressed after 48 and 96 h in culture. At the latter time, TNFα significantly suppressed insulin- and insulin- plus FSH-stimulated progesterone accumulation, with respective ID50 values of 0.08 ± 0.008 and 0.06 ± 0.014 nM, but did not affect basal progesterone accumulation or DNA content. TNFα also signific.
Antioxidant properties of different strains of Kappaphycus alvarezii (Rhodophyta) farmed on the Brazilian coast

ABSTRACT Kappaphycus alvarezii is one of the most farmed algae globally. It is used almost exclusively for the carrageenan industry, although there is increasing interest in its biotechnological application as a natural product with biological properties. This cultivated species produces different strains with distinct chemical and physiological properties. Despite this, K. alvarezii has been marketed as a single biomass. The aim of this study was to evaluate differences in antioxidant capacities among green, red, brown and G11 strains of K. alvarezii cultivated in southeastern Brazil, assessed by Folin–Ciocalteu reducing potential, DPPH, ABTS and FRAP assay methods. Methanolic and aqueous extracts yielded from 2.67% to 3.43% and 26.25% to 32.90%, respectively. Nevertheless, methanolic extracts showed higher total phenolic content (40.80 mg GAE 100 g−1 DW to 58.49 mg GAE 100 g−1 DW) than aqueous ones (7.77 mg GAE 100 g−1 DW to 12.51 mg GAE 100 g−1 DW), and a similar trend was found for DPPH (7.15% to 31.21%), for ABTS (60.29% to 100.39%), and for FRAP (27.24% to 95.95%). Antioxidant activity of aqueous extracts was lower than 17% for all spectrophotometric assays. The green strain had the highest index of antioxidant capacity, suggesting that this strain may be suitable as a natural source of antioxidants. This is the first report evaluating antioxidant potential of four strains of K. alvarezii, supporting the need for further research to identify and select for its value as a viable natural antioxidant source.
Geographic variation in density, demography, and life history traits of a harvested, sex-changing, temperate reef fish

Geographic variation in ecological and environmental factors may lead to intraspecific differences among populations. For the California sheephead (Semicossyphus pulcher), an important predator in kelp forests and a target of commercial and recreational fisheries, we evaluated the degree to which different populations exhibited variation in density, demography, and life history traits. We assessed biogeographic patterns of abundance through underwater visual census at 39 sites spanning a major portion of the species range (southern California, USA, to Baja California, Mexico) and made collections from seven focal sites to investigate geographic differences in demography and life histories. California sheephead densities were significantly greater in the southern part of their range and at offshore islands than along the mainland coast. At the focal sites, we found significant spatial variation in density, fecundity, size structure, growth rates, annual survivorship, and the timing of maturation and sex ch.
Cavity and optics design of the accelerator for the JAEA-ADS project

The Accelerator Driven Subcritical System (ADS) becomes a prominent candidate for the transmutation of nuclear waste. To this end, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) is proposing the JAEA-ADS project which consists in a CW superconducting proton linac coupling with a subcritical core reactor, the accelerator will operate with a beam current of 20 mA and a final energy of 1.5 GeV. The first part of the work is focus in the design of five superconducting cavity models to accelerate the beam from 2.5 MeV to 1.5 GeV and the last one is dedicating to beam optic studies, with emphasis on the control of the emittance growth to reduce the beam halos and mitigate the beam loss, which is one of the main challenges for the successful operation of the ADS projects.
When did the house mouse colonize Europe

This paper is a reply to a recent proposal by Sage and co-workers giving an early date for the colonization of Europe by the house mouse, based on mitochondria! DNA nucleotide divergence estimates. The large discrepancy in time between the date given by these authors and our own is discussed in the light of available palaeontological and genetic data. This leads us to reject the hypothesis supported by Sage and co-workers, and suggest a much more recent date of colonization.
Integrating CAD and 3D-Printing Techniques to Construct an In Vitro Laser Standard Treatment Platform for Evaluating the Effectiveness of Sterilization by Er:YAG Laser in Peri-Implant Intra-Bony Defects

This study established an in vitro model mimicking clinical peri-implant intra-bony defects. We investigated the effect of access limitation and the bactericidal effectiveness of erbium-doped yttrium, aluminum and garnet (Er:YAG) laser irradiation in shallow and deep peri-implant defects at different tooth positions. Reverse engineering, computer-aided design (CAD), and 3D-printing techniques were integrated to establish physical peri-implant intra-bony defect models at mandibular central incisor, first premolar, and first molar positions with shallow (2 mm depth) or deep (6 mm depth) defects and with 1.5 mm and 1.8 mm widths at the bottom and crestal portions of the alveolar process, respectively. Three-dimensional printed suites at the corresponding implant sites replaced experimental implant specimens for the investigation of bacterial adhesion in individuals. Dental implants with diameters of 3, 4 and 5 mm were utilized at the mandibular incisor, premolar, and molar positions, respectively. Bacterial adhesion of Gram (–) Escherichia coli on the exposed implant surfaces prior to sterilization was assessed. Sterilization with shallow and deep intra-bony defects was investigated by measuring the reduction of residual viable bacteria on implants after 60 s of irradiation with an Er:YAG laser. The adhesion rate of Gram (–) Escherichia coli on the investigated implant surfaces ranged from 1% to 3% (1.76 ± 1.25%, 2.19 ± 0.75% and 2.66 ± 1.26% for 3, 4, and 5 mm implants, respectively). With shallow peri-implant bony defects, the Er:YAG laser sterilization rates were 99.6 ± 0.5%, 99.3 ± 0.41% and 93.8 ± 7.65% at mandibular incisor, premolar, and molar positions, respectively. Similarly, sterilization rates in deep peri-implant defects were 99 ± 1.35%, 99.1 ± 0.98% and 97.14 ± 2.57%, respectively. A 3D-printed model with replaceable implant specimens mimicking human peri-implant intra-bony defects was established and tested in vitro. This investigation demonstrated effective sterilization using Er:YAG laser irradiation in both shallow and deep peri-implant intra-bony defects at different positions and diameters of dental implants.
Photocatalytic Activities of PET Filaments Deposited with N-Doped TiO2 Nanoparticles Sensitized with Disperse Blue Dyes

In this study, the enhanced photocatalytic activities of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) filaments deposited with N-doped Titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles sensitized with water insoluble disperse blue SE–2R dye were investigated. The PET filaments were loaded with two types of N-doped TiO2 nanoparticles, one with and the other without being sensitized with disperse blue SE–2R dye, in one-pot hydrothermal process respectively. The differences in photocatalytic activities between the N-doped TiO2 and the dye-sensitized N-doped TiO2 nanoparticles when exposed to both UV rays and visible lights were analyzed and compared by using their photodegradations of methylene blue (MB) dye. It was demonstrated that the disperse blue dye facilitated the electron–hole separation in N-doped TiO2 nanoparticles faster under UV irradiation than that under visible light irradiation. The enhanced photocatalytic activity of the PET filaments loaded with dye-sensitized N-doped TiO2 nanoparticles exposure to UV irradiation, in comparison with that under visible light irradiation, was attributed to both improved light absorption capacity and high separation efficiency of photo-generated electron–hole pairs. Furthermore, the conduction band and band gap of the PET filaments deposited with N-doped TiO2 nanoparticles sensitized with disperse blue SE–2R dye were influenced by the wavelength of light sources, while its valence band was not affected. The PET filaments deposited with dye-sensitized N-doped TiO2 nanoparticles have a potential application to degrade organic pollutants.
Common Patterns and Diverging Trajectories in Primary Succession of Plants in Eastern Alpine Glacier Forelands

This paper deals with the vegetation development in four glacier forelands, aligned along a distance of 250 km from West to East in the siliceous Eastern Central Alps. The study employs a chronosequence approach, which assumes a temporal sequence in vegetation development by spatially different sites regarding time since deglaciation. The chronosequences cover the area between Little Ice Age (LIA) maximum glacier extent around 1850, and the current glacier terminus. Despite some shortcomings, chronosequences allow the identification of general patterns of primary succession of plants as a function of site age and local environmental conditions, e.g., changes in species richness, ground cover, plant functional traits, and community structure. While there is no shortage of chronosequence studies in glacier forelands of the Alps, a straightforward comparison aimed at the deduction of general successional trajectories is tricky, due to different procedures of vegetation sampling and data analyses. The comparative examination by a standardized sampling and analyzing protocol of four glacier forelands in the Eastern Central Alps presented here proves the existence of several common patterns in primary succession, but also diverging successional trajectories from West to East. While the pioneer stage in all glacier forelands is similar both floristically and structurally, from the early successional stage onwards, differences increase, leading to different phases in the late successional stage, which is shrub dominated throughout in the westernmost study site, herb–grass–dwarfshrub dominated throughout in the easternmost study site, and divided into an earlier herb–grass–dwarfshrub phase and a later shrub phase in the two study sites in between.
Competitive intelligence and strategy formulation: connecting the dots

Purpose – This paper aims to examine how competitive intelligence (CI) relates to the strategy formulation process of firms. Design/methodology/approach – Due to the novelty of the phenomenon and to the depth of the investigation required to grasp the mechanisms and logics of CI, a multiple case study has been performed related to four companies located in Brazil that adopted CI practices within dedicated business units to inform and support strategic decision-making. Findings – The authors provide detailed empirical evidence on the connection and use of CI practices throughout each stage of the strategy formulation process. Moreover, the study suggests that CI practices, despite their strategic relevance and diffusion, are still extensively adopted for tactical use. Originality/value – This study sheds light on how CI practices may inform, support, and be integrated in the strategy formulation process, as few studies have done before.