Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
CHARLES UNIVERSITY IN PRAGUE, FACULTY OF SCIENCE Department of Biochemistry REGULATION OF CYTOKININ METABOLISM IN TOBACCO PLANTS AND CHLOROPLASTS

Cytokinins (CKs) are one of the most important group of phytohormones influencing many processes throughout the whole plant. As many processes are regulated both by the light and phytohormones, the first part of this work has been focused on evaluation of diurnal rhytmicity in levels of cytokinins and other cooperating hormones like auxin (indol-3-acetic acid, IAA), abscisic acid (ABA) and polyamines (PA). The changes in activity of selected enzymes participating in metabolism of the above mentioned phytohormones were followed as well. Diurnal variation of phytohormones was tested in tobacco leaves (Nicotiana tabacum L. cv. Wisconsin 38) grown under a 16/8 h (light/dark) period. The main peak of the physiologically active forms of CKs, found after the middle of the light period, coincided well with the maximum of IAA and PA levels and with activity of the corresponding enzymes. The achieved data indicate that metabolism of CKs, IAA and PAs is tightly regulated by the circadian clock. The other part of the study has been focused on changes in the contents of CKs, IAA and ABA in transgenic tobacco plants with altered cytokinin metabolism, achieved via the over-expression of particular enzymes participating in CK metabolism (biosynthesis, degradation and reversible conjugation). As CKs are known to be involved in plastid differentiation and function as well as part of CK biosynthetic pathway is localized in plastids, the impact of modulation of CK metabolism in cytoplasm on CK levels in the whole leaves and isolated chloroplasts was compared. The achieved results suggest that plant hormone compartmentation plays an important role in hormone homeostasis and that the chloroplasts are relatively autonomous organelles with respect to regulation of CK metabolism. Finally, we studied the impact of water deficit progression on CK, IAA and ABA levels in upper, middle and lower leaves and roots of wild type tobacco plants and two transformants overexpressing trans-zeatin O-glucosyltransferase gene (ZOG1) either under constitutive 35S or senescence-inducible SAG12 promoters. During drought stress, ABA content strongly increased, especially in upper leaves. A delay in ABA elevation was observed in plants with constitutive overexpression of ZOG1, which indicates that high CK levels might postpone stress sensing. As drought progressed, content of bioactive CKs in leaves gradually decreased, being maintained longer in the upper leaves of all tested genotypes. Establishment of active CK gradient in the favour of upper leaves suggests preferential protection of these leaves. During drought, significant accumulation both of CKs and IAA occured in roots, indicating the role of these hormones in root response to severe drought, which involves the stimulation of primary root growth and inhibition of lateral root initiation and formation.
A Portfolio-Balance Model of Inflation and Yield Curve Determination

We propose a portfolio-balance model of the yield curve in which inflation is determined through an interest rate rule that satisfies the Taylor principle. Because arbitrageurs care about their real wealth, they only absorb an increase in the supply of nominal bonds if they are compensated with an increase in their real rates of return. At the same time, because the Taylor principle implies that short-term nominal rates are adjusted more than one for one in response to changes in inflation, the real return on nominal bonds depends positively on inflation. In equilibrium, inflation increases when there is an increase in the supply of nominal bonds to compensate arbitrageurs for the additional supply they have to hold. Bank topics: Asset pricing; Debt management; Inflation and prices; Interest rates; Monetary policy. JEL codes: E43, E52, G12, H63
Improved Mechanical and Thermal Properties of Modified Thermoplastic Starch (TPS) from Sago by using Chitosan

The use of starch as bioplastic has been widely studied; however, the quality needs to be improved before it can substitute the commercial plastic. Sago is one of starch sources that can be used for this purpose and is available in considerable amounts in Indonesia. Previous research to synthesize a modified sago starch thermoplastics (TPS) in-situ by reacting plasticized starch with diphenylmethane diisocyanate (MDI) and castor oil; simultaneously to produce polyurethane prepolymer (PUP) in more homogeneous phase and smaller size has been successfully done. At this phase, chitosan of 0.5, 1, 1.5, 2 and 2.5 gram was added into the compound and acted as filler to improve the mechanical and thermal properties of TPS. The chitosan was first diluted into acetate acid and mixed rigorously with the starch and PUP. Sorbitol was added as plasticizer. The modified TPSchitosan was then characterized mechanically, thermally, and biodegradability. The results of this study showed that the optimum mechanical properties of modified TPS were obtained with an addition of 1 gram chitosan; tensile strength and elongation were 200.04 MPa and 24.96 % respectively. Thermal Gravimetric Analysis showed that modified TPS-chitosan had a good thermal stability and could only be degraded at high temperature of 534oC. DSC result showed that modified TPS-chitosan had a high melting point of 385.41oC and ΔH152. 61 J/g. This value is higher than melting point of TPS alone which is 104.69oC. Modified Rozanna Dewi, Nasrun, Zulnazi, Medyan Riza and Harry Agusnar 1442 Pertanika J. Sci. & Technol. 27 (3): 1441 1450 (2019) TPS-chitosan was degraded earlier than TPS which was 19 days in nature compared to 2-4 months. Overall, mechanical and thermal properties of modified TPS are improved with the addition of chitosan.
CAPTURING USER EXPECTATION FOR ACCURATE INFORMATION RETRIEVAL IN PERSONALIZED WEBSITES

CPSS (Cyber Physical Social Systems) provide high quality, proactive and personalized services for humans. Billions of bytes of data are generated every second in CPSS. General search engines are built to serve all users, but they face difficulties in addressing the needs of user. Capturing user expectation has become difficult especially in personalized websites. Here we are using keyword extraction algorithm for effective search, real-time location and relevant feedback algorithm are used to acquire specific information. Implicit feedback based on click-through data analysis is used. To improve the ranking quality we are designing a personalized page rank algorithm.
Detection of Natural Barriers to Lake Sturgeon Movement within the Namakan River, Ontario

Many lake sturgeon (Acipenser fulvescens Rafinesque, 1817) populations are below historic population sizes and migration barriers have likely contributed to some of these population declines. Dams and natural barriers can potentially isolate populations along a single river and can have a strong effect on the ability of lake sturgeon to move upstream. Along the Namakan River in Ontario, a series of natural rapids could impede lake sturgeon movement and fragment the sturgeon into several small populations. Lake sturgeon movement patterns were assessed using genetics and acoustic telemetry. Samples were collected from five locations along the river, each one separated by a rapid or falls, and were analyzed at 12 microsatellite loci. No significant genetic differences were observed between the five segments, indicating that the lake sturgeon groups are not isolated. There were no significant differences in genetic diversity between the five segments. Therefore, migration is likely occurring both upstream and downstream. The acoustic telemetry study also confirmed bidirectional movement of adult fish. The natural rapids and falls along the Namakan River do not appear to be a significant barrier to lake sturgeon movement and the lake sturgeon within this river represent a single population.
Operational procedures and tactical approaches of monetary policy in Belgium

The present characteristics of monetary policy in Belgium result from two major decisions. First, in June 1990, the Government committed itself to pegging the Belgian franc firmly to the EMS currencies which are regarded as stability anchors. This linking means that the parity of the Belgian franc against the German mark whose last modification dates from January 1987 will not be changed in the event of a realignment within the ERM and that the National Bank of Belgium (NBB) aims at limiting the fluctuations of the franc around this central rate. The widening of the ERM fluctuation margins on 2nd August 1993 did not change Belgium's monetary policy strategy, although the exchange rate objective was pursued with more flexibility in a first stage. Secondly, in January 1991, a monetary reform radically changed the operational framework of monetary policy.
Health Problems Related To Living And Working Conditions In Europe

A central aspect that has guided the completion of this study is the influential role of combinations of family and workloadson stress and their direct consequences for family and working life. Important variables caused by stress within the family are advanced in this study such as child-care, care of the elderly and housework. Conversely and in direct relation with working life, the study seeks to confirm that the speed of work in itself affects stress, all the more so in combination with family loads such as child-care, care of the elderly and housework. Othervariables within working life such as working to tight deadlines and even the number of hours at work each week will have considerable influence, in combination with family loads, on the likelihood of suffering high levels of stress. The results demonstrate that the combination of all these variables can generate high levels of stress with repercussions both in family life and in the world of work. The completion of sensitivity studies on combinations between unfavorable variables will, in this sense, mean that the stress levels of people in both the family and at work may be controlled. Thus, action may be taken on both family variables (care of the elderly, child-care, and cooking and housework) and variables at work (speed of work, tight deadlines and number of hours worked each week) to achieve a reduction in so far as may be possible in the probability of suffering high stress levels to improve quality of life.
Meta-Analysis of Studies on Effects of Instructional Approaches on Students’ Academic Achievement in Chemistry

The focused on the meta-analysis of studies on effects of instructional approaches on students’ academic achievement in chemistry. The study performed a meta-analysis of results from the experimental studies that examined the effect of teaching method/ strategies on academic achievement in chemistry, so as to arrive at the approach that had largest effect. size. Three research questions and five hypotheses guided this study. Ex post facto design was adopted for the study. Government owned universities in South East of Nigeria that offer chemistry in the Department of Science Education were used for the studies . The population of the study consisted of all unpublished previous studies on effect of teaching methods/ strategies on students’ achievement in chemistry. A sample of 44 studies with 45 approaches carried out in Nigeria between 2000 to 2018 purposively drawn from four universities was used for this study. The random effects model was adopted. Descriptive statistics, statistical transformations and effect sizes were used to analyze the data for the research questions while the Winer combined test was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 levels of significance. The findings of the study showed that the overall mean effect of instructional approaches on students’ achievement in chemistry are respectively significant at 0.05 levels. The findings also revealed that meta-cognitive instructional strategies (MIS-0.730), computer Aided instruction (CAI-0.715), inquiry based teaching methods(IBTM-0.650), and cooperative learning (CL0.620) had large effect sizes but meta-cognitive instructional strategies (MIS) has the largest effect size on achievement. Based on the findings of the study, it was recommended among others that students in teacher training institutions and the already serving teachers should be trained in the approach of using metacognitive instructional strategies in teaching chemistry through seminars, workshops, conferences and in-service programmes.
Effect of sample-preparation history on domain and crystal structure in a relaxor-ferroelectric single crystal

The effect of sample-preparation procedures on single crystals of the relaxor-based ferroelectric Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3–31%PbTiO3 (PMN–31%PT) has been investigated. PMN–31%PT single crystals were treated using the general sample-preparation methods of mechanical polishing and Ar-ion milling. Similar domain structures were artificially induced in both the mechanically polished and the Ar-ion milled PMN–31%PT; this domain structure was not observed in the original PMN–31%PT single crystal. Macroscopic structural investigation using X-ray diffraction showed that these general sample-preparation methods induce a structural change from a monoclinic-like to a tetragonal-like structure. A study of local symmetry also indicated that Ar-ion milling induces a structural change from the original monoclinic-like crystal symmetry to a tetragonal-like crystal symmetry. It is also demonstrated that the conventional sample-preparation methods induce a poling-like effect on PMN–31%PT.
KEY DETERMINANTS OF INVESTMENT IN GHANA: COINTEGRATION AND CAUSALITY ANALYSIS

This paper examines the relationship between Investment, Income, Interest Rate and Inflation in Ghana from 1990 to 2014 (data period of 25 years) using Unit roots test, co-integration analysis and causality tests. The findings of the study suggest that there has been a significant and positive bidirectional Granger-causal relationship between level of investment and level of income in Ghana over the period. The study also finds a unidirectional causal relationship running from level of income to inflation and from level of income to interest rate at significant levels. The study however finds no significant causal relationship in any direction among the other variables. The findings of the study make relevant contribution to especially policy makers and stakeholders involved in the management of Ghana’s macro economy, in particular, where the primary objective is to increase investment level.
Object detection for single tree species identification with high resolution aerial images

Object recognition is one of the computer vision tasks developing rapidly with the invention of Region-based Convolutional Neural Network (RCNN). This thesis contains a study conducted using RCNN base object detection technique to identify palm trees in three datasets having RGB images taken by Unnamed Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). The method was entirely implemented using TensorFlow object detection API to compare the performance of pre-trained faster RCNN object detection models. According to the results, best performance was recorded with the highest overall accuracy of 93.1 ± 4.5 % and the highest speed of 9m 57s from faster RCNN model which was having inceptionv2 as feature extractor. The poorest performance was recorded with the lowest overall accuracy of 65.2 ± 10.9% and the lowest speed of 5h 39m 15s from faster RCNN model which was having inception_resnetv2 as feature extractor.
Dietary patterns of takeaway (fast) food consumers in the North West of England: A Pilot study

Takeaway (fast) foods have become increasingly popular and are thought to be associated with a number of non-communicable diseases owing to their high fat, salt and sugar content. In recent years, research into dietary intake has shifted from analyses of single foods or nutrients to a more complex assessment of the whole diet to produce dietary patterns. Dietary patterns may be more predictive of disease risk than individual foods or nutrients due to the synergistic effects of food combinations. The aim of the present study was elucidate the dietary patterns of takeaway (fast) food consumers in the North West of England and the factors influencing their consumption. The objectives were to measure habitual diet and takeaway (fast) food intake, identify novel dietary patterns, and assess whether frequent takeaway (fast) food consumers had a higher intake of unhealthy foods in their habitual diet. The Research Ethics Committee at Liverpool John Moores University granted ethical approval. A modified version of the EPIC-Norfolk food frequency questionnaire, to include takeaway (fast) food consumption and socio-demographics, was created, tested and optimised in a pilot study (n = 26). Data from the food frequency questionnaire was converted into portions per week and principal component analysis was performed to identify dietary patterns in the study sample. Results revealed three distinct dietary patterns (characterised as ‘Traditional, ‘Cosmopolitan’ and ‘Convenience’) (Fig. 1). The three-component solution explained 42·9 % of the variance in dietary intake. A particularly interesting finding was the elements of the diet that tracked together in the ‘convenience’ dietary pattern including unhealthy habitual foods (refined grains, cakes, pastries etc.) and takeaway (fast) food (Chinese, Indian, kebabs etc.). In conclusion, the findings support the concept that takeaway (fast) food consumption is a marker of an unhealthy diet overall.
UML ACTIVITY DIAGRAM-BASED TEST CASE GENERATION

: Thorough and effective testing is necessary to produce high quality and reliable software. The primary goal of testing is to cover as many as faults in the software. Test case design is an essential task in the testing activities of software development. Further, manual testing is time-consuming and labor-intensive for large software. Automated design of test cases is very important activity in software testing process. In this paper, the UML activity diagram is used for automatic test case design. Using the UML activity diagram, we present a test case generation methodology. First, a specific activity diagram is to be converted to a graph, called ACtivity Transition Graph (ACTG) is constructed from. Then by traversing the ACTG and using different coverage criteria, the test paths are generated. Finally, test cases are generated using our proposed Generation of Test Cases from the Activity Diagram (GTCAD) algorithm from the test paths. The approach presented in this paper shows all activity flows during testing of object-oriented software and finds all activity related faults as well as hybrid coverage based synchronous faults.
Enhancing the learning performance of passive learners in a Financial Management class using Problem-Based Learning

This study aims to implement a problem-based learning method and investigate how this method enhances students’ learning performance, specifically in self-regulated learning and higher-order thinking skills for a Financial Management class, involving highly passive learners. The study adopted mixed methods, quasi-experimentally, by comparing a problem-based learning method with a conventional method, i.e. lecture-based learning. The results indicate that, alongside obtaining positive acceptance from the class, problem-based learning outperforms the conventional method by enhancing both students’ self-regulated learning and their higher-order thinking skills, although it lagged behind in maintaining students’ lower-order thinking skills. Future research into problem-based learning implementation in a similar learning context to this study should incorporate some adjustments, such as a more efficient curriculum design and a lower level of problem-based learning to ensure as many participants as possible, including slow learners, benefit optimally from learning through problem-based learning methods.
Malnutrition, frailty, sarcopenia, obesity—optimizing nutrition care in liver transplantation

Protein calorie malnutrition is widely present in individuals with end-stage liver disease undergoing liver transplant. Nutritional depletion of lean body mass (sarcopenia) and fat reserve may increase surgical risk, morbidity, mortality, and health care costs. Patients may present with sarcopenic obesity or obesity prior to transplant which carries into the post-transplant setting. Obesity is associated with many co-morbid conditions including metabolic syndrome affecting long-term mortality. Identifying malnourished patients and optimizing protein and energy intake throughout the transplant process is discussed. Strategies to preserve and improve lean body tissue and mitigate excessive weight gain are presented.
Evaluating the Costs and Benefits of Corporate Tax Incentives: Methodological Approaches and Policy Considerations

Developing countries are increasingly offering tax breaks to attract investors and pursue various policy objectives such as encouraging investments in research and development (R and D) and increasing exports. Such incentives, however, can be very costly to governments. Too often, developing countries - already struggling with revenue mobilization - adopt investment incentives in an ad hoc manner, without analyzing the value for money of these instruments. Cost-benefit analysis can help policy makers demonstrate the direct cost (tax revenue foregone) incurred by governments against the economic benefits being pursued. Global evidence on investment location decisions suggests that while tax incentives can help attract investment, other factors, such as the wider investment climate and market opportunities, matter most. Tax incentives should therefore be conceived as part of a country’s broader investment policy framework and governments should be realistic about the potential impact any measure may have. In this light, cost-benefit analysis can serve as a powerful tool to inform incentives policy reform and offer important inputs into a country’s investment policy strategy.
INFANT FEEDING IN HIV IN CANADA: PROVIDER PERSPECTIVES

iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . vi LIST OF FIGURES . x LIST OF TABLES . x LIST OF ALL ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS . xi DECLARATION OF ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT . xiv CHAPTER 1: Introduction . 1 CHAPTER 2: Background on Issues surrounding infant feeding in HIV . 6 2.1 HIV in breastmilk causes vertical transmission . 6 2.2 Studies on breastmilk transmission . 7 2.2.1 Observational studies of duration of breastfeeding and maternal viral load . 7 2.2.2 Randomized controlled trials: risk vs. benefit of formula feeding . 9 2.2.3 Testing the risk in pragmatic studies . 10 2.2.4 Morbidity in formula versus breast-fed infants . 13 2.2. 5 Does brief breastfeeding and rapid wean reduce the risk? 14 2.2. 6 Maternal, Infant and Feeding related risk factors . 16 2.2. 7 Antiretroviral interventions . 21 2.2. 8 Pharmacologic implications of women on cART during breastfeeding . 24 2.2. 9 How evidence results in changes to guidelines . 24 2.3 Current recommendations for infant feeding . 26 2.3. 1 The WHO 2016 Infant Feeding Update . 26 2.3. 2 The evidence for the 2016 update . 27 2.3. 3 Risk of breastfeeding transmission with concomitant antiretroviral therapy . 35 2.3. 4 Guidelines in high resource countries. 37 2.4 Canadian Context and Infant Feeding . 38 2.4. 1 Does breastfeeding occur in high resource countries despite guidelines? 38 2.4. 2 HIV Transmission and legal and child protection implications in the Canadian context . 41