Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Potential of bryophytes in prevention and medication of COVID-19

Severe acute respiratory syndrome Corona Virus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the latest adherent in the family Coronaviridae. It is an extremely transmissible and transmits through interaction/droplets. Early response in an infected person includes deregulations of cytokine followed by failure of the immune system. World Health Organization (WHO) stated it as worldwide wellbeing emergency regarding this pandemic. The death tally is ever increasing since the first report in Wuhan (China) in December 2019. Consequently, the scientific community of the world started the work on his remedy and suggested the obligatory precautionary actions. Though, few vaccines have been developed, yet the best option is still to take preventive measures at present in future also. Among all preventive measures, the use of herbs in our diet is the easiest and best. Many herbs with great antioxidant profiles and antiviral potential are known to us. But, usually angiosperms are the first choice to be utilized and other plants such as bryophytes have been neglected for their use as remedy to treat many diseases caused by viruses. The purpose of this review to explore and compile those bryophytes which would be the possible candidates as remedy against coronavirus as immunity boosters.
Oxidative Monobromination of Electron‐Rich Arenes by conc. H2SO4/Alkali Metal Bromides

A novel, mild “sono-halogenation” of various aromatic compounds with potassium halide was investigated under ultrasound in a biphasic carbon tetrachloride/water medium. The feasibility study was first undertaken with the potassium bromide and then extended to chloride and iodide analogues. This methodology could be considered as a new expansion of the ultrasonic advanced oxidation processes (UAOPs) into a synthetic aspect as the developed methodology is linked to the sonolytic disappearance of carbon tetrachloride. Advantages of the present method are not only that the manipulation of the bromination is simple and green, but also that the halogenating agents used are readily available, inexpensive, and easy-handling.
Property Market Liquidity and REIT Liquidity

This paper examines a channel for the cross-market transmission of liquidity: investable asset liquidity can affect investment uncertainty and, thereby, influence stock liquidity. Our empirical results support the model’s prediction that the liquidity of the underlying market of a REIT’s properties can affect stock liquidity. This impact is especially evident during the global financial crisis period. Furthermore, the influence is stronger with increased information asymmetry, investment growth, and financial constraints of the firm. Overall, our results reveal that corporate investment decisions, including the selection of asset location, can affect stock liquidity and firm value. The liquidity of a REIT’s fixed assets, which are traditionally viewed as illiquid, can affect stock liquidity.
Electrospun Fe3O4-PVDF Nanofiber Composite Mats for Cryogenic Magnetic Sensor Applications

Magnetically responsive, mechanically stable and highly flexible iron (III) oxide-polyvinylidene fluoride (Fe3O4-PVDF) piezoelectric composite fiber mats were fabricated via one step electrospinning method for magnetic sensing at cryogenic temperature. The properties of Fe3O4-PVDF composite fiber mats were characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, d33 and magnetization test. The fiber diameter decreased as the concentration of Fe3O4 increased. The DSC results suggested a decrease in the crystallinity of the composite fiber mats after adding Fe3O4, and the XRD curves identified that the decrease in crystallinity took place in the β crystalline phases of the fibers. FT-IR results further confirmed the reduction of β phases of the composite fiber mats which dropped the piezoelectric response of the fiber mats by 38% for 5% Fe3O4-PVDF than PVDF fiber but still 400% higher than PVDF pellets. The magnetization test advocated a superparamagnetic state of the fiber at room temperature but a ferromagnetic behavior at a lower temperature. The coercivity values of the mats suggested a homogeneous dispersion of the Fe3O4 nanoparticles into the PVDF matrix. Young’s modulus (E) of the fibers remained the same before and after the magnetization test, indicating the mechanical stability of the fiber in the range of 5 K to 300 K. Its mechanical stability, superparamagnetic behavior at room temperature and ferromagnetic at low temperature could open up its application in spintronic devices at cryogenic temperature and cryogenic power electronic devices.
Global biosphere-–climate interaction: a multi-temporal scale appraisal of observations and models

appraisal of observations and models Jeroen Claessen1, Annalisa Molini2, Brecht Martens1, Matteo Detto3, Matthias Demuzere1,4, and Diego G. Miralles1 1Laboratory of Hydrology and Water Management, Department of Environment, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium 2Masdar Institute, Khalifa University of Science and Technology, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates 3Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, United States of America 4Department of Geography, Ruhr-University Bochum, Bochum, Germany Correspondence: Jeroen Claessen (Jeroen.Claessen@UGent.be)
Predictors of binge eating: relevance of BMI, emotional eating and sensivity to environmental food cues

Purpose Understanding humans’ food intake practices is helpful in reducing health problems. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships between eating behaviours and binge eating and to examine the influence of sex and weight status on these relationships. Design/methodology/approach A total of seventy-eight participants (39 with overweight; mean age: 38.1 ± 6.3 years; body mass index [BMI]: 25 ± 5.7 kg/m2) underwent measurements of binge eating, eating styles and body compositions. A hierarchical multiple regression analysis was performed to predict binge eating as a function of eating styles and demographic variables. Findings Women presented higher levels of binge eating symptomatology and emotional eating than men. The analysis showed that age and gender did not emerge as important predictors of binge eating. In contrast, emotional and external eating and BMI were found to be important predictors of binge eating. The results indicate that higher emotional and external eating behaviour with higher BMI are important risk factors for binge eating in a non-clinical sample. Originality/value In this study, BMI was used as a causal factor rather than a consequence of deregulation of eating behaviour. An individual’s tendency to binge eat may be determined by BMI, emotional eating and sensitivity to environmental food stimuli. Understanding sex differences and causal relationships between eating behaviours is critical for the prevention and treatment of obesity and related health problems and for proper dietary management.
Simulation of Water and Salt Dynamics under Different Water-Saving Degrees Using the SAHYSMOD Model

Water shortage and soil salinization are the main issues threatening the sustainable development of agriculture and ecology in the Hetao Irrigation District (HID). The application of water-saving practices is required for sustainable agricultural development. However, further study is required to assess the effects of these practices on water and salt dynamics in the long term. In this study, the impacts of different water-saving practices on water and salt dynamics were investigated in the HID, Northwest China. The SAHYSMOD (integrated spatial agro-hydro-salinity model) was used to analyze the water and salt dynamics for different water-saving irrigation scenarios. The results indicate that the SAHYSMOD model shows a good performance after successful calibration (2007–2012) and validation (2013–2016). The soil salinity of cultivated land in the middle and upper reaches of the irrigation district decreased slightly, while that in the lower reaches increased significantly over the next 10 years under current irrigation and drainage conditions. It is predicted that if the amount of water diverted is reduced by up to 15%, the maximum water-saving volume could reach 650 million m3 yr–1. For the fixed reduction rate of total water diversion, the prioritized measure should be given to reduce the amount of field irrigation quota, and then to improve the water efficiency of the canal system. Although a certain amount of water can be saved through various measures, the effect of water saving in the irrigation district should be analyzed comprehensively, and the optimal water management scheme should be determined by considering the ecological water requirement in the HID.
Have institutional investors stocks portfolio strategies affected oil prices in a financialization context?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether management strategies implemented by noncommercial traders may be identified as a key factor in affecting oil price paths in the conventional preand post-financialization periods. Design/methodology/approach – By using a vector autoregressive approach the dynamic analysis of the daily stock indexes for some of the most important world economies and the oil prices is conducted starting from 1992 to the end of 2020. Findings – The findings do not support the idea that the financial markets act as a privileged conduit in transmitting the shocks to the oil spot quotations. Originality/value – Such a direct assessment has not been previously proposed in literature wherein – under a financial perspective – the returns are generally taken into consideration.
Tournament Incentives and Financial Regulation∗

I study how tournament incentives affect financial market regulation, by using original employee-level data on enforcement attorneys at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Tournament incentives, reflected by better promotion opportunities and larger expected salary within the SEC, seem to increase enforcement activity. I show that the positive relation holds at the aggregate level and at the individual attorney’s level. I evaluate and provide evidence to reasonably rule out alternative explanations such as outside job opportunities, cash bonus, hierarchy, and case assignment. The results indicate that the SEC’s internal organization could affect financial markets, and highlight a novel link between incentives and regulation. ∗Email: ykalmeno@stern.nyu. edu. I am indebted to my PhD advisers Andres Liberman, Holger Mueller, Philipp Schnabl, and David Yermack for valuable discussions and support. I am grateful to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for access to data. I thank Commissioner Robert Jackson, the Commission’s Division of Economic and Risk Analysis, Urska Velikonja (discussant), Thomas Shohfi (discussant), Elif Sisli Ciamarra (dicussant), seminar participants at NYU Stern, and participants at Miami Behavioral Finance, NYU-Penn Law & Finance, American Law & Economics Association Annual Meeting, FMA Annual Meeting, and FMA Applied Finance conferences for helpful comments. All errors and omissions are mine.
Covid-19 and Construction Companies in Kabul, Afghanistan

This study aims to investigate the current issue and challenges faced by the construction companies of Kabul, Afghanistan due to Covid-19 pandemic. At the same time, study also explore the possible initiatives that should be taken by the government to overcome the challenges faced by the construction companies. For this purpose, qualitative methodology was employed based on interpretivist philosophy and inductive approach. Phenomenological methodology is capitalized to achieve the study objectives. Semi structured in-depth interviews were conducted with twelve respondents from the construction companies of Kabul, Afghanistan. This study concluded that construction business operations, supply chain, revenue and funding (financing) were badly affected by the pandemic which led to unemployment and instability of construction sector. Furthermore, the study found that government can play a vital role in helping the construction business by reducing the interest rates, providing tax subsidies, reduction in the utility charges and creation of crisis fund for the construction sector. Finally, this study recommends that government should take the initiatives mention above as soon as possible before the construction sector witness a collapse.
swARm: Augmented Reality Swarm Control with Multiple Head Mounted Display Operators

Methods of human swarm interaction are becoming increasingly prevalent in academic literature. Recent approaches have studied how augmented reality applications can facilitate control of robotic swarms. However, studies suggest that robotic swarm systems can overload the operator due to the large number of robots involved. We developed a novel multi-user, head-mounted, augmented reality application, deployed on the Magic Leap One. Our application allows operators to distribute responsibilities among each other when controlling robotic swarms in an immersive and intuitive way. Furthermore, using our modular architecture, new methods of multi-user swarm control can be introduced and evaluated quickly. Table of
The New Volcanic Ash Satellite Retrieval VACOS Using MSG/SEVIRI and Artificial Neural Networks: 1. Development

Volcanic ash clouds are a threat to air traffic security and, thus, can have significant societal and financial impact. Therefore, the detection and monitoring of volcanic ash clouds to enhance the safety of air traffic is of central importance. This work presents the development of the new retrieval algorithm VACOS (Volcanic Ash Cloud properties Obtained from SEVIRI) which is based on artificial neural networks, the thermal channels of the geostationary sensor MSG/SEVIRI and auxiliary data from a numerical weather prediction model. It derives a pixel classification as well as cloud top height, effective particle radius and, indirectly, the mass column concentration of volcanic ash clouds during day and night. A large set of realistic one-dimensional radiative transfer calculations for typical atmospheric conditions with and without generic volcanic ash clouds is performed to create the training dataset. The atmospheric states are derived from ECMWF data to cover the typical diurnal, annual and interannual variability. The dependence of the surface emissivity on surface type and viewing zenith angle is considered. An extensive dataset of volcanic ash optical properties is used, derived for a wide range of microphysical properties and refractive indices of various petrological compositions, including different silica contents and glass-to-crystal ratios; this constitutes a major innovation of this retrieval. The resulting ash-free radiative transfer calculations at a specific time compare well with corresponding SEVIRI measurements, considering the individual pixel deviations as well as the overall brightness temperature distributions. Atmospheric gas profiles and sea surface emissivities are reproduced with a high agreement, whereas cloudy cases can show large deviations on a single pixel basis (with 95th percentiles of the absolute deviations > 30 K), mostly due to different cloud properties in model and reality. Land surfaces lead to large deviations for both the single pixel comparison (with median absolute deviations > 3 K) and more importantly the brightness temperature distributions, most likely due to imprecise skin temperatures. The new method enables volcanic ash-related scientific investigations as well as aviation security-related applications.
Dependence-Robust Inference Using Randomized Subsampling

We study hypothesis tests and confidence intervals constructed using a randomized subsampling procedure first proposed by Song (2016). We show that these procedures are robust to general forms of weak dependence in the sense that they are asymptotically valid under the weak requirement that the target parameter can be consistently estimated at the ? n rate by an asymptotically linear estimator. The implementation of randomized subsampling does not depend on the correlation structure of the data and is computationally simple. We consider applications to constructing clustered standard errors when the level of clustering is unknown and the number of clusters is potentially small, inference on network data when the network is partially observed or the networkformation model is unknown, and testing for power laws with dependent data. We also develop randomized subsampling tests of moment inequalities. JEL Codes: C12, C31
Colonial Origins and Fertility: Can the Market Overcome History?

Can market incentives overcome the long-term impact of historical institutions? We address this question by focusing on the role of colonial reproductive policies in shaping fertility behavior in Africa. Exploiting the arbitrary division of ancestral ethnic homelands and the resulting discontinuity in institutions across the British-French colonial borders, we find that women in former British areas are more likely to delay sexual debut and marriage, and have fewer children. However, these effects disappear in areas with high market access, where the opportunity cost of childbearing appears to be high irrespective of colonizer identity. This heterogeneous impact of colonial origins is robust across different measures of access to international and domestic markets. Examining causal mechanisms, we collect archival data on colonial reproductive laws and policies to conduct an event-study analysis. We find that the effect of colonial origins on fertility is entirely driven by differences in the timing of colonial population policies and their lasting impact on the use of modern methods of birth control. We find little evidence that the fertility effect of British colonization operates through education or income. While British colonization is linked to higher female education, this occurs mainly in areas with higher market access while the fertility effects do not. Again, while income levels differ, the fertility gap between British and French colonies opened prior to 1980, whereas the income gap only opened after 1990. Our analysis highlights the heterogeneous nature of the colonial origins of comparative fertility behavior, and implies that economic incentives may overcome historical determinism.
Original Research Article_A study on the evaluation of Stressful Impact of the COVID-19, Depression and Anxiety among Healthcare Workers and Non-Health Care people who have recovered from COVID-19

Background: Due to the COVID-19, there is an increase in psychological complaints. Healthcare and nonhealthcare persons have had differential complaints like anxiety, depression, stress. Such complaints have also seen in the general public but more so in recovered patients from COVID-19. With this background, we conducted this study find out the stressful impact of COVID-19, prevalence of stress, anxiety and depression between healthcare workers and non-healthcare people. Methodology: A cross-sectional study was done in the tertiary-care COVID hospital in Ahmedabad. 50 healthcare workers (HCWs) and 50 non-healthcare people (NHCPs) who had recovered from COVID-19 were included (age 18-65 years) in the study after they consented for the same. They are assessed with a clinical socio-demographic proforma, clinical variables, Impact Of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R), Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) and Anxiety-Self Rating Scale (ASRS). The results were then statistically analysed. Results: Distress by stressful life events and anxiety were not significant (14% and 32%), (14% and 30%) in HCWs and NHCPs respectively. Depression was more prevalent (44% and 38%) in HCWs and NHCPs respectively. Medical illness was more in NHCPs (50%) compared to HCWs (4%) and associated with depression (52.63%) in NHCPs as compared to HCW (4.5%). Clinical variables, O2 requirement was also more in NHCPs (20%) as compared to HCWs (4%) and also significantly associated with anxiety (40% and 12.5%) and depression (36.84% and 4.5%) in NHCPs and HCWs respectively. Conclusions: The prevalence of depression was much higher amongst HCWs and suggests more attention would be required for improving the mental health among HCWs and NHCPs and overall mental health needs attention in patients that are recovering from COVID-19.
Importance of aerosols and shape of the cloud droplet size distribution for convective clouds and precipitation

Abstract. The predictability of deep moist convection is subject to large uncertainties resulting from inaccurate initial and boundary data, the incomplete description of physical processes, or microphysical uncertainties. In this study, we investigate the response of convective clouds and precipitation over central Europe to varying cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) concentrations and different shape parameters of the cloud droplet size distribution (CDSD), both of which are not well constrained by observations. We systematically evaluate the relative impact of these uncertainties in realistic convection-resolving simulations for multiple cases with different synoptic controls using the new icosahedral nonhydrostatic ICON model. The results show a large systematic increase in total cloud water content with increasing CCN concentrations and narrower CDSDs together with a reduction in the total rain water content. This is related to a suppressed warm-rain formation due to a less efficient collision-coalescence process. It is shown that the evaporation at lower levels is responsible for diminishing these impacts on surface precipitation, which lies between +13 % to −16 % compared to a reference run with continental aerosol assumption. In general, the precipitation response was larger for weakly-forced cases. We also find that the overall timing of convection is not sensitive to the microphysical uncertainties applied, indicating that different rain intensities are responsible for changing precipitation totals at the ground. Furthermore, weaker rain intensities in the developing phase of convective clouds can allow for a higher convective instability at later times, which can lead to a turning point with larger rain intensities later on. The existence of such a turning point and its location in time can have a major impact on precipitation totals. In general, we find that an increase in the shape parameter can produce almost as large a variation in precipitation as a CCN increase from maritime to polluted conditions. Narrowing of the CDSD not only decreases the absolute values of autoconversion and accretion, but also decreases the relative role of the warm-rain formation in general, independent of the prevailing weather regime. We further find that increasing CCN concentrations reduces the effective radius of cloud droplets stronger than larger shape parameters. The cloud optical depth, however, reveals a similar large increase with larger shape parameters as changing the aerosol load from maritime to polluted. By the frequency of updrafts as a function of height, we show a negative aerosol effect on updraft strength, indicating that the larger water load above the freezing level in polluted conditions does not lead to an invigoration of deep convection. These findings demonstrate that both, CCN assumptions and the CDSD shape parameter, are important for quantitative precipitation forecasting and should be carefully chosen if double-moment schemes are used for modeling aerosol-cloud interactions.