Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Phosphate Removal from Aqueous Solutions using Neutralised Bauxite Refinery Residues (Bauxsol

Environmental Context.Eutrophication of freshwater and marine ecosystems is a global problem, which is frequently linked to high phosphorus concentrations. The present study investigated the use of Bauxsol™, a modified bauxite refinery residue, to remove dissolved phosphate from water, and has shown that it can be used as a cost-effective adsorbent for treating phosphate-contaminated waters. The results provide water and environmental managers with a new technique for decreasing the phosphate loads in water and wastewater. Environmental benefits include improved water quality, minimisation of excessive plant growth, including potentially toxic blue green algae, and the utilisation of an industrial residue for environmental remediation. Abstract.Phosphate (PO43–) removal by Bauxsol™, a neutralised bauxite refinery residue, was investigated as a function of time, pH, ionic strength, adsorbent dosage, competing ions, and initial phosphate concentration. The results of adsorption and desorption studies indicate that adsorption of PO43– by Bauxsol™ is based on a ligand-exchange mechanism, although the low reversibility pH-independent desorption observed in acid-treated Bauxsol™ indicates a dominance of chemisorption. It was shown that PO43– adsorption onto both Bauxsol™ and acid-treated Bauxsol™ followed a Langmuir isotherm model, with adsorption capacities of 0.21 and 0.48 mmol g−1 at pH 9.0 and 5.2 respectively. Adsorption of PO43– by Bauxsol™ increased with decreasing pH, with maximum adsorption efficiencies obtained at pH 5.2 ± 0.1 (the lowest pH investigated), higher Bauxsol™ to initial phosphate concentration ratios, and increased time. Studies of the effects of competing ions on the adsorption of PO43– by Bauxsol™ indicated that adsorption decreased in the presence of HCO3− ions, whereas SO42–and Cl− ions had little effect, and Ca2+ and Mg2+ ions increased adsorption. These findings suggest that Bauxsol™ could be used as an efficient low-cost adsorbent for treating phosphate-contaminated waters.
ArticleDevelopment of a clinical MALDI-ToF Mass spectrometry assay for SARS-CoV-

The COVID-19 pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus has stretched national testing capacities to breaking points in almost all countries of the world. The need to rapidly screen vast numbers of a country’s population in order to control the spread of the infection is paramount. However, the logistical requirement for reagent supply (and associated cost) of RT-PCR based testing (the current front-line test) have been hugely problematic. Mass spectrometry-based methods using swab and gargle samples have been reported with promise, but have not approached the task from a systematic analysis of the entire diagnostic process. Here, the pipeline from sample processing, the biological characteristics of the pathogen in human biofluid, the downstream bioand physical-chemistry and the all-important data processing with clinical interpretation and reporting, are carefully compiled into a single high-throughput and reproducible rapid process. Utilizing MALDI-ToF mass spectrometric detection to viral envelope glycoproteins in a systems biology-multidisciplinary team approach, we have achieved a multifaceted clinical MALDI ToF MS screening test, primarily (but not limited to) SARS-CoV-2, with direct application to other future epidemics/pandemics that may arise. The clinical information generated not only includes SARSCoV-2 coronavirus detection–(Spike protein fragments S1, S2b, S2a peaks), but other respiratory viral infections detected as well as an assessment of generalised oral upper respiratory immune response (elevated total Ig light chain peak) and a measure of the viral immune response (elevated intensity of IgA heavy chain peak). The advantages of the method include; (1) ease of sampling, (2) speed of analysis, and much reduced cost of testing. These features reveal the diagnostic utility of MALDI-ToF mass spectrometry as a powerful and economically attractive global solution
A Write-Friendly and Fast-Recovery Scheme for Security Metadata in Non-Volatile Memories

Non-Volatile Memories (NVMs) require security mechanisms, e.g., counter mode encryption and integrity tree verification, which are important to protect systems in terms of encryption and data integrity. These security mechanisms heavily rely on extra security metadata that need to be efficiently and accurately recovered after system crashes or power off. Established SGX integrity tree (SIT) becomes efficient to protect system integrity and however fails to be restored from leaves, since the computations of SIT nodes need their parent nodes as inputs. To recover the security metadata with low write overhead and short recovery time, we propose an efficient and instantaneous persistence scheme, called STAR, which instantly persists the modifications of security metadata without extra memory writes. STAR is motivated by our observation that the parent nodes in cache are modified due to persisting their child nodes. STAR stores the modifications of parent nodes in their child nodes and persists them just using one atomic memory write. To eliminate the overhead of persisting the modifications, STAR coalesces the modifications and MACs in the evicted metadata. For fast recovery and verification of the metadata, STAR uses bitmap lines in asynchronous DRAM refresh (ADR) to indicate the locations of stale metadata, and constructs a cached merkle tree to verify the correctness of the recovery process. Our evaluation results show that compared with state-of-the-art work, our proposed STAR delivers high performance, low write traffic, low energy consumption and short recovery time.
A GLANCE AT MOLECULAR IDENTIFICATION OF BAMBOO (Poaceae: Bambusoideae)

Conservation of plant species plays a vital role in preventing the loss of valuable plant resources. The success of conservation depends on the correct identification and characterization of plant species. Bamboo is one of the most important plants with multiple uses that have contributed to the economy and socio-economy of many people in rural areas. It is under the subfamily of Bambusoideae that includes both woody and herbaceous bamboo. Conventionally, like other plants, bamboo has been classified dependently based on morphological characteristics. However, morphological identification leads to difficulties and misclassification of bamboo species due to their infrequent flowering behaviour and peculiar reproductive biology. Since then, molecular markers have been introduced to overcome the problems associated with bamboo taxonomy and phylogeny. This paper provides an overview of the diverse, predominantly molecular techniques used to assess and determine the genetic diversity of bamboo species.
Impact of Foreign Portfolio Investments (FPIs) on Indian Stock Market

Foreign Portfolio Investments (FPIs) has been playing a significant role in developing the financial market of the country. Indian stock markets were opened to foreign investors in September 1992 and were allowed to invest in the primary and secondary market. The major portion of FPIs has been into equities. India is now the most favourite destination for FPI investors due to the increasing growth of economy. Foreign Portfolio Investment inflows were in large volume during the year 2015. In this paper, we identify the determinants, trends and pattern of Foreign Portfolio Investments in India and examine the relationship between the determinants and FPI flows in India. Further we explore the causal relationship between Foreign Portfolio Investment inflows and Stock market returns. For this purpose, the data is collected from 1 st January 2001 to 31 st December 2016. The study also examines the effect of Foreign Portfolio Investment on Stock market Volatility using GARCH Model of conditional volatility.
PROMOTING SUBJECTIVE WELLBEING THROUGH A KINDNESS INTERVENTION

The present study aimed to examine the effects of the character strength of kindness on subjective wellbeing. It was conducted through an online free forum, which was constructed for the present study. The participants (N = 54) were 34 women and 20 men, aged 18-55 years old. They were divided into two groups, an experimental and a control group, matched in age and gender. Participants in the ‘counting kindness’ intervention were asked to keep track of their kind actions every day for a week and write them on the forum along with their feelings and thoughts on those actions. Participants in the control group were asked to write their daily routine also every day for a week. Participants were also asked to complete questionnaires measuring subjective wellbeing before the intervention, a month after, and two months after the intervention (follow-up measurement). The results showed that subjective wellbeing as an overall sense of wellbeing and its specific components was enhanced for participants in the kindness intervention. Possible mechanisms for the effectiveness of the intervention are
THE EVALUATION OF HUMANITARIAN SUPPLY CHAIN PERFORMANCE BASED ON BALANCED SCORECARD-DEMATEL APPROACH

Measuring the performance of the humanitarian supply chain (HSC) becomes a necessary nowadays regarding to the increasing wars around the world. This study aims to propose an integrated performance evaluation approach for the HSC in the context of war. The proposed framework includes two main stages. The first stage implicates determining the performance indicators by the literature review and classifies the indicators based on the Balanced Scorecard dimensions. The second stage involves prioritizing the Balanced Scorecard dimensions and performance indicators by DEMATEL. According to results of the study, the most important dimension in the performance measurement for the HSC in the context of war is the customer. Moreover, service quality has the highest impact in the HSC performance measurement. This study extends the current state of knowledge, which provides a novel combined method to measure the performance HSC in context of war disaster.
Synthesis and Microwave Dielectric Properties of MgO-xmol%B2O3 (x = 33 and 25) Ceramics in MgO-B2O3 System

The relationships between the sintering conditions and the microwave dielectric properties of the MgO-xmol%B2O3 (x = 33 and 25) ceramics were investigated in this study. The XRPD profiles of MgO-33mol%B2O3 ceramic sintered at the temperatures higher than 1320°C exhibited the formation of two phases, i.e., MgO and Mg3B2O6, which arisen from the loss of boron through volatilization; therefore, the nominal compositions of the MgO-xmol%B2O3 (x = 33 and 25) ceramics were changed in the sintering conditions, respectively. The dielectric constants of the the MgO-xmol%B2O3 (x = 33 and 25) ceramics sintered at the temperatures ranging from 1280 to 1350°C were approximately 7, whereas the Q • f values ranged from 79100 to 260100 GHz for x = 33 and from 39600 to 310000 GHz for x = 25, respectively. As a result, the highest Q • f value of the ceramic was obtained when the the MgO-33mol%B2O3 ceramics was sintered at 1330°C for 2 h in air. The improvement in the Q · f values of the ceramics is considered to relate with the increase in the amount of MgO phase induced by the loss of boron through volatilization. Moreover, the τ f values of the ceramics showed the large negative values as well as the other reported microwave dielectric ceramics with high-Q.
The Research on Influencing Factors of Knowledge Transfer in Project Network ——Based on the Social Networks

In the process of project construction, multi-stakeholders are involved in the construction project network. Knowledge transfer process in the network is affected by various factors, and the effect of knowledge transfer plays an important role in enhancing the competitive advantage for enterprises. This research concentrates on the construction enterprises from the perspective of social networks, analyzing the impact of network size, network stability, network centrality, and network tie strength and network trust to the knowledge transfer of project network. A model contains multiple factors and some assumptions are proposed in this paper. According to the data from the questionnaire to construction enterprise, this research examines the proposed hypothesis by structural equation model. The results show that network size is negatively correlated with knowledge transfer performance. Network stability, network centrality, network tie strength and network trust have a positive impact on the performance of the project knowledge transfer in the network.
Impact of women’s share of income on selected value chains expenditure in rural south-east Nigeria

There exists a complex web of value chain expenditures in production and consumption of food by rural farm households. Men and women contribute differently to these expenditures. Addressing zero hunger in the regions with deeply entrenched gender norms requires gender responsiveness, uncovering how best to sustain women’s contribution in the selected value chains, as women contribute a greater proportion of gender involved in these web of chains. We used data from a sample of 400 households constituting 2520 members from November 2016 to April 2017 and disaggregated by gender to determine the impact of women’s and men’s share of income on the performance of selected value chain activities in southeast Nigeria using a bargaining model of household behaviour. We found that increasing women’s share of incomes raises the budget share of food preparation, planting, weeding, processing, and storage while increasing men’s share of income raised the budget share of clearing and cultivation. Our results suggest that policies aimed at increasing expenditure on any of the value chains should focus on instruments targeting the gender that will more likely spend their money on the value chains activity concerned. This will address gender inequality, food insecurity and poverty among rural farm households.
AES and XPS depth profiling certified reference material

On presente deux materiaux de reference permettant de calibrer le systeme de mesure en XPS ou AES. Il s'agit de couches minces de pentoxyde de tantale d'epaisseurs 30 et 100 nm avec des largeurs d'interface de 1,53 et 1,86 nm
Characterization of volatile organic emissions and wastes from a swine production facility

Analytical methods for monitoring the volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions, for defining atmospheric transport coefficients, and for monitoring solution phase chemistry have been developed to define processes regulating emission of malodorous and other VOCs from a high odor swine production facility. Of the 40 organic compounds identified in liquid and outdoor air samples from the swine production facility, 27 VOCs were confirmed to contribute to decreased air quality in the vicinity of the facility. Specifically, C2 through C9 organic acids demonstrated the greatest potential for decreased air quality, since these compounds exhibited the highest transport coefficients and highest airborne concentrations. Flux measurements suggested that the total rate of nonmethane VOC emissions from the deep basin swine waste storage system was 500- to 5700-fold greater than established nonmethane VOC fluxes from nonanthropogenic sources. The volatilization rate of malodorous and other VOCs from the stored swine waste was positively correlated with wind velocity between 0.2 and 9.4 m s -1 , and a maximum concentration of VOCs present in the air was observed to occur at a wind velocity of 3.6 m s -1 . Experimental Henry's law coefficients adequately predicted the transport efficiency observed for some of the VOC emissions measured from air samples taken at 0, 25, and 100 m from the swine waste storage basin; however, results indicated that laboratory-based extraction procedures, currently used to estimate malodor potential for swine slurry samples, provide an inaccurate representation of malodorous and other airborne VOCs actually present in the air near swine production facilities.
Critical and Ictal Phases in Simulated EEG Signals on a Small-World Network

Healthy brain function is marked by neuronal network dynamics at or near the critical phase, which separates regimes of instability and stasis. A failure to remain at this critical point can lead to neurological disorders such as epilepsy, which is associated with pathological synchronization of neuronal oscillations. Using full Hodgkin-Huxley (HH) simulations on a Small-World Network, we are able to generate synthetic electroencephalogram (EEG) signals with intervals corresponding to seizure (ictal) or non-seizure (interictal) states that can occur based on the hyperexcitability of the artificial neurons and the strength and topology of the synaptic connections between them. These interictal simulations can be further classified into scale-free critical phases and disjoint subcritical exponential phases. By changing the HH parameters, we can model seizures due to a variety of causes, including traumatic brain injury (TBI), congenital channelopathies, and idiopathic etiologies, as well as the effects of anticonvulsant drugs. The results of this work may be used to help identify parameters from actual patient EEG or electrocorticographic (ECoG) data associated with ictogenesis, as well as generating simulated data for training machine-learning seizure prediction algorithms.
Corrigendum to "The role of ammonia in sulfuric acid ion induced nucleation" published in Atmos. Chem. Phys., 8, 2859–2867, 2008

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Corrigendum to " The role of ammonia in sulfuric acid ion induced nucleation " published in Atmos. We have found some numerical errors in our paper " The role of ammonia in sulfuric acid ion induced nucleation " by I. K. Ortega et al. We discovered that in some cases the convergence criteria chosen for the geometry optimization and frequency calculations (the SIESTA default values) were not tight enough to obtain reliable free energies of formation. We have recalculated all the data using tighter convergence criteria (0.01 eV/Ang for force tolerance in the geometry optimization and 0.01 Bohr displacement for force constant calculation), therefore the former tables and figures given in the article have to be substituted with the ones given below. In the most of the cases the differences ranged between 0.5 and 5.5 kcal/mol, but there are two clusters (four sulfuric acid-one ammonia neutral cluster and three sulfuric acid-one ammonia charged cluster) where the differences are larger; 14 and 12 kcal/mol, respectively. Although these differences are very large, the main conclusions of the paper are almost the same: – Ammonia enhances the growth of sulfuric acid neutral clusters, and the ratio of ammonia to sulfuric acid is likely to be between 1:1 and 1:3, as predicted before. From the corrected version of Table 5 we can see how the addition of a fourth molecule of sulfuric acid to the ammonia-containing clusters is not favorable, suggesting that more than one ammonia molecule is probably needed to enhance the addition of a fourth acid (which is reasonable given that ammonia only forms three hydrogen bonds). – Ammonia does not enhance ion induced nucleation at ground level conditions. On the other hand, the corrected results indicate that ammonia could play some role in high altitude conditions. If we look the formation free energy (G) plot at 242 K we can see how in this case the barrier for ion induced sulfuric acid nu-cleation in the presence of ammonia has disappeared. In the case of charged cluster without ammonia this barrier is predicted to disappear at 220 K (Fig. 3) so ammonia could help to some extent in these conditions. The corrected figures and tables with the new data can be found on the following pages.
Screening and brief intervention for substance use disorders in times of COVID-19: potential opportunities, adaptations, and challenges

ABSTRACT The ongoing pandemic has led to a sudden disruption of routine treatment services. Consequently, the already existing treatment gap for substance use disorders is likely to widen. There is an opportunity to expand the scope of Screening and Brief Intervention (SBI) to meet this unprecedented challenge. Its brevity, flexibility, and generalizability have positioned SBI to deal with additional systemic, structural, and attitudinal barriers that pertain to the pandemic. The standard content of SBI could be modified to adapt to the current context. SBI could also be used as a vehicle to render strategies for infection risk minimization. In this Perspective, we anticipate the challenges of expanding and implementing SBI in the present circumstances and present potential solutions. SBI, with adaptations, could bridge the augmented treatment gap for substance use disorders during COVID-19.
Statistical Analysis of the Phase Holdup Characteristics of a Gas-Liquid-Solid Fluidized Bed

Experiments have been carried out to study the individual phase holdup characteristics in a cocurrent three-phase fluidized bed. An antenna type modified air sparger has been used in the gas–liquid distributor section, for uniform mixing of the fluids with the gas moving as fine bubbles to the fluidizing section. This arrangement also reduces the pressure drop encountered through a conventional distributor used for the purpose. To overcome the non-uniformity of flow through the column (i.e., the central region), a distributor plate with 20% open area has been fabricated with concentric circular punched holes of increased diameter from centre to the wall. Model equations have been developed by factorial design analysis for predicting various individual phase holdups.
Increased performance in juvenile baboons is consistent with ontogenetic changes in morphology.

OBJECTIVES In many primates, the greater proportion of climbing and suspensory behaviors in the juvenile repertoire likely necessitates good grasping capacities. Here, we tested whether very young individuals show near-maximal levels of grasping strength, and whether such an early onset of grasping performance could be explained by ontogenetic variability in the morphology of the limbs in baboons. MATERIAL AND METHODS We quantified a performance trait, hand pull strength, at the juvenile and adult stages in a cross-sectional sample of 15 olive baboons (Papio anubis). We also quantified bone dimensions (i.e., lengths, widths, and heights) of the fore- (n = 25) and hind limb (n = 21) elements based on osteological collections covering the whole development of olive baboons. RESULTS One-year old individuals demonstrated very high pull strengths (i.e., 200% of the adult performance, relative to body mass), that are consistent with relatively wider phalanges and digit joints in juveniles. The mature proportions and shape of the forelimb elements appeared only at full adulthood (i.e., ≥4.5 years), whereas the mature hind limb proportions and shape were observed much earlier during development. DISCUSSION These changes in limb performance and morphology across ontogeny may be explained with regard to behavioral transitions that olive baboons experience during their development. Our findings highlight the effect of infant clinging to mother, an often-neglected feature when discussing the origins of grasping in primates. The differences in growth patterns, we found between the forelimb and the hind limb further illustrate their different functional roles, having likely evolved under different ecological pressures (manipulation and locomotion, respectively).