Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effect of thermal stabilization on physico-chemical parameters and functional properties of wheat bran

The food industry also focuses on the use of by-products from food processing. Wheat bran is a valuable by-product of the wheat milling process, which is rich in dietary fiber. In addition to nutritional value, dietary fiber has a functional potential in the production of novel foods. Pre-treatment of the dietary fiber using different methods can change its functional properties. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of stabilization process on physico-chemical parameters and functional properties of wheat bran. Wheat bran from two wheat variety was treated using microwave and hot air heating. It was observed that wheat bran included more than 45% of total dietary fiber. Results suggested that treatment of bran using both method increased total dietary fiber content. Thermal treatment process decreased the anti-nutritional agent in bran samples. Phytic acid content diminishing of 44% and 49% was observed in microwave treated bran samples. Moreover, treatment of bran using a hot air heating improved the hydration properties (water holding, water retention and swelling capacity), while oil holding capacity was not significantly altered. Treatment decreased the antioxidant activity of treated bran samples. It was observed that thermal treatment modified the color parameters of bran (lightness, yellowness and hue angle decreased and redness and Chroma increased).
Finding the contextually appropriate: student reflection as a dialogic reflective practice tool

ABSTRACT This paper focuses on Reflective practice (RP hereafter), the learning and teaching features of Generation Z, and the issue of large classrooms in ELT. Facing the challenge of teaching speaking to the Generation Z students at a large higher education classroom, the researcher designed her course through student reflections, an under-utilized RP tool. In the reflections, students evaluated their large speaking class by focusing on four areas: their perceptions of the class, suggestions for diminishing the impact of class size, and suggestions for their peers for individual study to improve their speaking with and without online resources despite the disadvantage of being in a crowded class. Once the data was gathered through student reflections and the supplementary notes, the researcher analysed the data using grounded theory coding procedures. Based on the findings, the researcher designed the course of the next semester. At the end, the researcher conducted reflection on the reflection both individually and with students. The findings and the complete reflection procedure indicated that the student reflection was a powerful tool for course design in a large classroom as well as addressing the learning requirements of the learners, Generation Z in this example.
Effect of biofertilizers on Jatropha curcas L. under tropical conditions.

Jatropha curcas L. is a biofuel plant which substitutes the fossil fuels. A study was conducted to investigate the effects of Jatropha seeds inoculated with Vesicular arbuscular mycorrhizal (VAM) fungi, Azospirillum, Azotobacter and Phosphate solubilizing bacteria (PSB) at various combinations. The biofertilizer treated seeds were tested under field conditions and seedlings were uprooted at 30, 60 and 90 days. Combined microbial inoculations resulted in the significant increase of root and shoot length, shoot and root tolerance index, fresh and dry weight of shoot, root and leaves and leaf area of all treated plants compared to control. After 120 days, chlorophyll contents, total soluble sugars, free amino acids and total protein were analyzed and the results indicated that the plants inoculated with Azospirillum + Azotobacter + PSB +VAM fungi showed the significant increase. Morphological and biochemical contents of Jatropha plants were significantly increased by the effect of combined biofertilizers compared to either individual biofertilizer or control. Biofertilizers accelerated the assimilation of nutrients to the plants.
‘So maybe I’m a global citizen’: developing intercultural citizenship in English medium education

ABSTRACT A frequently stated aim of the increasing internationalisation of higher education (HE) is the incorporation of intercultural elements. This has recently been conceptualised through the notion of intercultural citizenship with universities promising to equip graduates with the necessary knowledge and skills to engage in global workplaces and communities. However, the extent to which intercultural citizenship goes beyond promotion and marketing and is meaningfully incorporated into university curricula and teaching practices is still unclear. Most significantly, there is little evidence that students themselves are aware of, motivated by, or develop a sense of intercultural citizenship at international universities. In parallel to the expansion of internationalisation in HE has been an increase in English medium instruction (EMI) programmes. This link between the use of English and internationalisation is therefore likely to also influence perceptions of intercultural citizenship but has so far received little attention in research. To address these gaps this study investigated the perceptions and experiences of international students towards intercultural citizenship and its links to language before, during and after their study via interviews and a focus group. Findings showed intercultural citizenship was generally positively perceived and strongly linked to English, but reported development was uneven during study abroad.
Political Trust and Support for Immigration in the American Mass Public

Abstract Immigration is one of the most salient and important issues in contemporary American politics. While a great deal is known about how cultural attitudes and economics influence public opinion toward immigration, little is known about how attitudes toward government influence support for immigration. Using cross-sectional data from the American National Election Studies (ANES), panel data from the ANES and General Social Survey, as well a Mechanical Turk (MTurk) survey experiment, I show that political trust exerts a positive and substantively meaningful influence on Americans' support for immigration. Politically trustful individuals, both Democrats and Republicans, are more supportive of pro-immigration policies. These findings underscore the political relevance of trust in government and show that public attitudes toward immigration are not driven solely by feelings about immigrant groups, partisanship, core political values, nor personality traits, but are also affected by trust in government, the actor most responsible for managing immigration policy.
Clinical Usefulness of Uric Acid as a Biomarker for Knee Osteoarthritis: A Comparative Analysis With Plain Radiography and Musculoskeletal Ultrasound

Objective. The aim of this study was to determine the relationships of serum and urine uric acid with severity or activity in knee osteoarthritis (OA). Methods. A total of 42 patients with knee OA was enrolled, together with 58 healthy controls. Serum uric acid and spot urine uric acid levels were assessed for all patients. The severity and activity of knee OA were assessed by musculoskeletal ultrasound (MSUS) and plain radiography of the knee joint. Ultrasonographic abnormalities in knee OA includedsynovial hypertrophy, suprapatellar effusion, cartilage degradation, and osteophyte formation. Kellgren-Lawrence (K-L) grade was used to evaluate radiological progression of knee OA. Results. Patients with K-L grade III had a higher urine uric acid/creatinine ratio compared to those with K-L grade I (p=0.043). Patients with synovial hypertrophy had higher serum uric acid level compared to those without synovial hypertrophy (p=0.016). The urine uric acid/creatinine ratio was higher in patients with cartilage degradation compared to those without cartilage degradation (p=0.022). Serum uric acid was significantly associated with synovial hypertrophy thickness (r=0.375, p=0.018) but not with cartilage thickness after adjusting for age and body mass index. Lower urine uric acid was related with knee OA compared to healthy controls (odds ratio=0.974, 95% confidence interval 0.954∼0.994, p=0.013). Conclusion. The results of our study suggest that serum and urine uric acid reflects synovial inflammation based on MSUS and radiographic progression and then is associated with the pathogenesis of knee OA. (J Rheum Dis 2020;27:51-60)
Similar but Not Identical Resuscitation Trajectories of the Soil Microbial Community Based on Either DNA or RNA after Flooding

Both drought and flooding are unfavorable for soil microorganisms, but nevertheless, are highly relevant to the extreme weather events that have been predicted to increase in the future. The switch of soil water status from drought to flooding can happen rapidly and microbial activity might be either stimulated or further inhibited, but we have insufficient understanding of the underlying microbial processes. Here, we tracked the changes in soil bacterial and fungal abundance and their community structures, assaying the total (DNA-based) and potentially active (RNA-based) communities in response to abrupt flooding of dry soil. Also, rates of soil respiration and enzyme activity were measured after flooding. Results showed that the bacterial community was found to be more responsive than the fungal community to flooding. The bacterial community responses were clearly classified into three distinct patterns in which the intermediate pattern displayed highly phylogenetic clustering. A transient flourish of Bacilli which belongs to Firmicutes was detected at 8–48 h of flooding, suggesting its potential importance in the microbial assemblage and subsequent ecosystem functioning. Finally, the accumulative amount of CO2 released was more closely related than enzyme activity to the change in structure of the bacterial community after flooding. In conclusion, these findings extended our understanding of the underlying soil microbial processes following abrupt water condition changes.
Gentianaceae : systematics and natural history

1. Gentianaceae in context V. A. Albert and L. Struwe 2. Systematics, character evolution and biogeography of Gentianaceae, including a new tribal and subtribal classification L. Struwe, J. Kadereit, J. Klackenberg, S. Nilsson, M. Thiv, B. von Hagen and V. A. Albert 3. Cladistics of Gentianaceae: a morphological approach S. Meszaros, J. De Laet, V. Goethals, E. Smets and S. Nilsson 4. Gentianaceae - a review of palynology S. Nilsson 5. The seeds of Gentianaceae F. Bouman, L. Cobb, N. Devente, V. Goethals, P. J. M. Maas and E. Smets 6. Chemotaxonomy and pharmacology of Gentianaceae S. R. Jensen and J. Schripsema Index.
Phenology of deciduous tree species in traditional Meitei homegardens of Barak valley, Assam, northeast India

Phenological characteristics of dominant deciduous tree species were investigated in the traditional Meitei homegardens at Bantarapur village, Barak valley, Assam, northeast India. A considerable variation was recorded in leaf flush, leaf fall, flowering and fruiting pattern of the tree species that could be attributed to climatic factors. The peak periods of leaffall occur in the months of November–January, leaf flush and flowering peaks in the months of February March, and the peak fruiting occurs in the months of May-June. The leaf flushing and leaf fall periods were delayed during second year of observation for all the deciduous tree species. The leaf flush period of all the tree species showed a positive correlation with rainfall and temperature, while a negative correlation was observed between leaf fall and rainfall. Synchrony indices for leaf flush phenophase of the entire deciduous tree species ranged from 0.68–0.95. The leaf strategy index increased as a function of deciduousness duration and ranged from 0.61–1.00 for all the deciduous tree species. Present findings significantly enhanced in understanding the phenology of selected deciduous tree species growing homegarden in relation to varying climatic parameters. The outcomes of the present study could well be utilized significantly for further study in broader levels to understand the adaptive response of trees growing in the homegarden to changing climatic factors and their better management for sustainable use.
Information asymmetry and dividend policy of Sarbanes-Oxley Act

PurposeThe literature of financial economics documents a causal relationship between the level of information asymmetry in the firm and its dividend policy. Nevertheless, this relationship suffers endogeneity problems arising from reverse causality and omitted variable bias. The purpose of this study is to examine how the dividend policy reacts to changes in asymmetric information in an exogenous research setting.Design/methodology/approachTo overcome endogeneity concerns, the authors employ the enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) in the US in 2002 as a source of an exogenous variation in the level of information asymmetry to study the potential effect that this variation might have on the dividend policy. In doing so, we utilize a difference-in-differences research design, in which the treatment group is US publicly traded firms that were exposed to the policy and the control group is publicly traded companies in the UK where SOX was not enacted. Both countries have similar institutional settings and enforcement of laws, which makes them comparable in this research context.FindingsThe authors’ findings show that, compared to UK companies, US firms increase their dividend payments following a reduction in asymmetric information as a result of the SOX enactment.Originality/valueThe study contributes to the literature of financial economics by showing that policy makers can mitigate agency conflicts and protect shareholders by improving the corporate information environment and reducing asymmetric information.
E-AGRO: Intelligent Chat-Bot. IoT and Artificial Intelligence to Enhance Farming Industry

This study develops a chat room and a Chat–Bot to discuss the prevailing issues related to farming with peers and expertise and support farmers to make timely decision on farming. A standard set of questions was identified through discussions and surveys with farmers, expertise and other stakeholders. Intents, which the users might want to know, and examples, which the users use to explain a specific intent and entities that are different objects referring to an intent were identified from the questions. Artificial Intelligence Markup Language (AIML) was used to train a model, which predicts an intent based on the given example. The Chat-Bot was implemented in a cloud platform and therefore, the client end does not require more computational resources.
Reflections on leadership in the time of COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic, even as we are in its early phase, invites reflection on best leadership practices. As hospitals and providers pivot to respond, the pandemic spotlights leadership in healthcare. What is working as we all collectively combat this global viral scourge? The impetus to analyse leadership practices especially now comes from the adage that ‘a crisis is a terrible thing to waste’. 1 The danger of COVID-19 is self-evident and is already all too apparent around the world. At this writing today (1 April 2020), 873 008 individuals have been infected worldwide and 43 275 have died.2 In addition to the scientific opportunities to better understand the virus, its epidemiology, and strategies to prevent and cure COVID-19 disease, there is a clear opportunity to reflect on how to lead in healthcare through a crisis, to catalogue best practices, and to cascade these leadership practices broadly. Even as we are in approaching the surge of the pandemic—in my community, on day 10 of a modelled course that predicts a surge approximately 40 days from now, there are already many lessons on leadership—extraordinary actions from ‘big L’ leaders—those with titled organisational responsibility as well as from ‘little l’ leaders—individuals without formal leadership titles whose leadership emerges organically. Indeed, a crisis such as this tests available models and hypotheses about leadership. In cataloguing some best practices that I have witnessed at my institution—the Cleveland Clinic, I will try to articulate these practices and frame them through the lens of extant leadership models. The model by Kouzes and Posner3 of five leadership commitments—challenging the process, inspiring a shared vision, enabling others to act, modelling the way and encouraging the heart—provides an especially opportune taxonomy. What follows, then, is a catalogue of leadership practices, an annotation of each with specific examples, and a reflection …
A United Sign Coherence Factor Beamformer for Coherent Plane-Wave Compounding with Improved Contrast

In this study, we present a united sign coherence factor beamformer for coherent plane-wave compounding (CPWC). CPWC is capable of reaching an image quality comparable to the conventional B-mode with a much higher frame rate. Conventional coherence factor (CF) based beamformers for CPWC are based on one-dimensional (1D) frameworks, either in the spatial coherence dimension or angular coherence dimension. Both 1D frameworks do not take into account the coherence information of the dimensions of each other. In order to take full advantage of the radio-frequency (RF) data, this paper proposes a united framework containing both spatial and angular information for CPWC. A united sign coherence factor beamformer (uSCF), which combines the conventional sign coherence factor (SCF) and the united framework, is introduced in the paper as well. The proposed beamformer is compared with the conventional 1D SCF beamformers (spatial and angular dimension beamformers) using simulation, phantom and in vivo studies. In the in vivo images, the proposed method improves the contrast ratio (CR) and generalized contrast-to-noise ratio (gCNR) by 197% and 20% over CPWC. Compared with other 1D methods, uSCF also shows an improved contrast and lateral resolution on all datasets.
Associated Risk Between Use of Oral Contraceptive Pills and Three Types of Breast Cancer: ER+, ER-, and TN

Around 9.5 million women between the ages of 15 and 44 use some form of oral contraceptives. Oral contraceptive pills typically consist of progestin and estrogens, synthetic versions of the hormones that a female-bodied person naturally produces and are used by many people for a various number of reasons; such reasons include regulating acne, controlling hormone production, and preventing pregnancy. One in eight women in the US is diagnosed with breast cancer over the course of her lifetime, and many of these cancers have hormone-related causes. However, there are three types of breast cancer specifically linked to the hormones that are found in oral contraceptive pills: estrogen receptor-positive, estrogen receptor-negative, and triple-negative. While the potential of oral contraceptive-related causes for these breast cancers have been studied at great length, researchers are often unable to confirm their finding of an associated risk between synthetic hormones in oral contraceptives and certain types of breast cancer. Many studies agree that this associated risk exists, but stress the need for more involved research with more detailed and specific objectives. This literature review will provide insight into limitations of current research on the associated risk between oral contraceptives and breast cancer in order to fill research gaps and evaluate the certainty of current findings.
Building graph models of oncogenesis by using microRNA expression data

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of small non-coding RNAs that control gene expression by targeting mRNAs and triggering either translation repression or RNA degradation. Several groups pointed out that miRNAs play a major role in several diseases, including cancer. This is assumed since the expression level of several miRNAs differs between normal and cancerous cells. Further, it has been shown that miRNAs are involved in cell proliferation and cell death.Because of this role it is suspected that miRNAs could serve as biomarkers to improve tumor classification, therapy selection, or prediction of survival. In this context, it is questioned, among other things, whether miRNA deregulations in cancer cells occur according to some pattern or in a rather random order. With this work we contribute to answering this question by adapting two approaches (Beerenwinkel et al. (J Comput Biol, 2005) and Hoglund et al. (Gene Chromosome Canc, 2001)), developed to derive graph models of oncogenesis for chromosomal imbalances, to miRNA expression data and applying them to a breast cancer data set. Further, we evaluated the results by comparing them to results derived from randomly altered versions of the used data set.We could show that miRNA deregulations most likely follow a rough temporal order, i.e. some deregulations occur early and some occur late in cancer progression. Thus, it seems to be possible that the expression level of some miRNAs can be used as indicator for the stage of a tumor. Further, our results suggest that the over expression of mir-21 as well as mir-102 are initial events in breast cancer oncogenesis.Additionally, we identified a set of miRNAs showing a cluster-like behavior, i.e. their deregulations often occur together in a tumor, but other deregulations are less frequently present. These miRNAs are let-7d, mir-10b, mir-125a, mir-125b, mir-145, mir-206, and mir-210.Further, we could confirm the strong relationship between the expression of mir-125a and mir-125b.
Planting time and N nutrition on cell membrane thermostability, bolls' retention and fibre traits in cotton.

Bolls retention in cotton was assessed under varying temperature regimes and nitrogen rates in field conditions for two consecutive years, 2009 and 2010. Treatments comprised March and May planting (main plots) of a Bt and a non-Bt variety (sub plots) at three nitrogen levels (115, 145 and 175 kg ha) kept in sub-sub plots. Means showed more opened bolls and less insects’ damaged, un-opened and total bolls on a plant in mid March planting than in mid May planting during both years. Varietal comparison showed more opened bolls; un-opened bolls and less number of insects’ damaged bolls per plant in FH-113. Among nitrogen levels more insects’ damaged bolls, opened as well as un-opened bolls and total bolls per plant were recorded with 175 kg N ha and minimum with 115 kg N ha. Maximum number of insects’ damaged bolls per plant was recorded in CIM-496 at mid may planting while minimum in FH-113 at mid March planting. FH-113 showed more cell membrane thermo stability (heat tolerance) both in early and late planting than CIM496. Quality characters were most affected by varieties, least by nitrogen and not by sowing date.