Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Pre-rigor carcass stretching counteracts the negative effects of high rigor temperature on tenderness and water-holding capacity – using lamb muscles as a model

High pre-rigor muscle temperature has negative consequences on quality and has been predominantly studied in the excised longissimus muscle of beef and lamb carcasses. There is little data on other muscles, the application in whole carcasses or potential amelioration techniques such as stretching. This study evaluated the effects of electrical stimulation, high pre-rigor temperature and stretching of lamb sides on quality traits and protein denaturation in four leg muscles [gluteus medius (GM), rectus femoris (RF), semimembranosus (SM) and semitendinosus (ST)]. Twenty lamb carcasses were used with two electrical stimulation treatments (stimulated or non-stimulated, +/−) and two pre-rigor temperature treatments (chilled at 2°C directly after slaughter, or held in 37°C water for 4.5 h before transfer to a 2°C chiller) applied. One side of each carcass was suspended from the Achilles tendon, whereas the other side was stretched by allowing the leg to drop and tying it to the ribs. Electrical stimulation did not influence the different traits except for pH fall post slaughter and myosin denaturation. Stretching resulted in greater muscle and sarcomere lengths for the GM, SM and ST, but a decrease in sarcomere length for the RF. For the non-stretched GM and SM, the 37°C treatment resulted in tougher meat at 1 and 8 days post mortem compared with the 2°C treatment. In contrast, the stretched 37°C treatment resulted in more tender meat for the GM, SM and ST at 1 day post mortem compared with the 2°C treatment. For all muscles, the 37°C treatment resulted in a decrease in the water-holding capacity (increased purge, surface exudate and cooking losses). The magnitude of this effect was generally diminished by stretching for the GM, SM and ST, but for the RF, (which was not stretched by the treatment) this effect was reversed. The 37°C treatment resulted in paler meat (increased L*-values) for the GM, SM and ST relative to the 2°C treatment. The observed effects of the 37°C treatment on water-holding capacity and colour could be explained by the effects of this treatment on indicators of protein denaturation (sarcoplasmic protein solubility and myofibrillar ATPase activity), which were decreased for the GM, SM and ST. The response to both temperature and stretching varied between the muscles, due to different anatomical location and also due to postulated differences in the fibre types. In conclusion, pre-rigor stretching of lamb sides can counteract the negative effects of high early post-mortem temperature on tenderness and water-holding capacity for those muscles that are stretched as a result of this hanging method.
Morphogenetic traits and biomass accumulation of Brachiaria brizantha cv. Xaraés subjected to nitrogen doses

The objective of this experiment was to evaluate the morphogenetic traits and biomass accumulation of Brachiaria brizantha cv. Xaraes subjected to doses of N (0, 125, 250, 375 and 500 kg.ha-1 N). The treatments were arranged in a completely randomized design with four replications. Morphogenetic traits and biomass accumulation of dry matter (DM). ha-1 were evaluated. The results were subjected to statistical analysis by grouping the data in two periods, rainy season and throughout the year. Nitrogen doses influenced leaf appearance in the rainy season and throughout the year, with significant increase in leaf elongation during the rainy season, an increase of 56% compared with control. During this period, maximum dose of N (248.1 kg.ha-1) produced 214.49 kg.ha-1.day-1 DM of leaf blade, which was 133% higher than the control. However, the higher N dose in the rainy season resulted in an increase of 137% in the stalk accumulation compared with non-fertilized grass; estimating maximum accumulation of salk of 84.97 kg.ha-1.day-1 of DM for the application of 326.2 kg.ha-1 N. Doses of N also intensified leaf senescence during the rainy season and throughout the year. The control treatment presented 32% less senescence compared with maximum N dose (270.1 kg.ha-1 N) in the rainy season. Forage loss was estimated at 26.08 kg ha-1.day-1 DM at the maximum dose of 295.0 kg.ha-1 N for this period. All variables studied responded positively to N supply in the rainy season. The accumulation of biomass of the plant reached the maximum point with fertilization close to 250 kg.ha-1 N in the rainy season and 375 kg.ha-1 N throughout the year.
Using Kefir to Teach Microbial Kinetics in an Undergraduate Wastewater Treatment Course

As a method of providing hands-on experience in learning reaction kinetics, undergraduate engineering students enrolled in a wastewater treatment course were assigned to characterize the kinetics of kefir production in order to design hypothetical biological reactors. Students designed and implemented experiments investigating parameters including the effects of change in temperature, DO, F:M ratio, pH, the presence of inhibitory substances, and other factors. Kefir is a fermented milk drink that is safe to handle and easy for students to produce, and provides instructional analogies to aspects of biological growth that can be applied when teaching students about wastewater treatment. Student teams were supplied with kefir grains, and were responsible for the ongoing growth and survival of kefir colonies. Changes were made to growth conditions during experimentation (e.g., temperature, oxygen availability, mixing, addition of simple sugars to solution, etc.) in order to observe the effect on kefir production rate, and students measured a variety of indicators of process performance (e.g., pH, degree of carbonation, separation of milk solids, etc.). Students fit data to kinetic models, and derived growth constants that were then used in the design of a scaled kefir production process. Feedback gathered from students indicated enthusiasm with the project and enhanced understanding of reaction kinetics. Gaining independent, self-directed experience in the lab provided students with important opportunities to practice critical thinking and experience the independent reasoning that is required for success beyond graduation.
The Impact of Schema Activation on Reading Comprehension of Cultural Texts among Iranian EFL Learners

It is believed that the readers’ background knowledge (schema) interacts with the content of the passage they are reading. So decoding a message more accurately needs the activation of vocabulary and structure knowledge as well as background knowledge. The aim of the present study was to determine whether schema activation has any effect on reading comprehension of culturally-loaded texts. The subjects were 76 sophomore students divided into control and experimental groups. The students’ schema in experimental group was activated through prereading activities while the participants in control group received no treatment. The results of the t-test showed a significant difference between the mean scores of pre-test and post-test of the experimental group before and after schema activation. Correlation analysis also revealed that as participants received more background knowledge, their comprehension of cultural texts was improved. The study finally explored some pedagogical implications. Key words: Schema activation; Reading comprehension; Cultural texts; Pre-reading activities
Data Augmentation with Seq 2 Seq Models

Paraphrase sparsity is an issue that complicates the training process of question answering systems: syntactically diverse but semantically equivalent sentences can have significant disparities in predicted output probabilities. We propose a method for generating an augmented paraphrase corpus for the visual question answering system to make it more robust to paraphrases. This corpus is generated by concatenating two sequence to sequence translation models. We produce candidate paraphrases using diverse beam search and evaluate the results on the standard VQA validation set. Our approach results in a significantly expanded training dataset and vocabulary size, but has slightly worse performance when tested on the validation split. Although not as fruitful as we had hoped, our work highlights additional avenues for investigation into selecting more optimal model parameters and the development of a more sophisticated paraphrase filtering algorithm. The primary contribution of this work is the demonstration that decent paraphrases can be generated from sequence to sequence models and the development of a pipeline for developing an augmented dataset. Data Augmentation with Seq2Seq Models
Genetic diversity in South African maize (Zea mays L.) genotypes as determined with microsatellite markers

One thousand and forty three (1043) maize genotypes including white and yellow maize inbred lines as well as hybrids from the public germplasm collection were characterized with 80 microsatellite markers distributed throughout the genome. A total of 1874 alleles were amplified and used in the genetic diversity analysis. Principal coordinate analysis confirmed the geographical distribution of the breeding lines. Cluster analysis using Rogers distance measures placed the breeding lines in several clusters and corresponded well with known pedigrees. Lines with mixed origin were classified in separate clusters and duplicate entries in the collection were identified. These mixed lines could not be placed in known heterotic groups, but could rather be used to identify new groups to be used in the breeding program. The genetic distances determined in the study can be applied to plan a more focused breeding program. Keywords: Genetic distances, maize, microsatellites.
Unit Value Bias Reconsidered

The paper describes the conceptual and empirical differences between customs-based unit value indices (UVIs) of exports and imports as opposed to survey-based price indices (PIs). It is not uncommon for the former to be confounded with what should preferably be called "Drobisch's index", an index quite different from unit value indices as regards its axiomatic performance and the way in which it is derived from aggregation over unit value ratios. The focus of the paper is on relating the discrepancy between UVIs and PIs (the "unit value bias") to a (well known) Laspeyres (or substitution) effect or "L-effect" and a structural effect or "Seffect". Both effects can be expressed in terms of covariances, and it is shown that the less understood S-effect will occur when the amount by which quantities within a group of related (more or less homogeneous) commodities change is correlated with the prices of these commodities in the base period.
Evolution of binary black holes in self gravitating discs. Dissecting the torques

Context. Massive black hole binaries, formed in galaxy mergers, are expected to evolve in dense circumbinary discs. Understanding of the disc-binary coupled dynamics is vital to assess both t he final fate of the system and the potential observable featu res that may be tested against observations. Aims. Aimed at understanding the physical roots of the secular evolution of the binary, we study the interplay between gas accretion and gravity torques in changing the binary elements (semi-major axis and eccentricity) and its total angular momentum budget. We pay special attention to the gravity torques, by analysing t heir physical origin and location within the disc. Methods. We analyse three-dimensional smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations of the evolution of initially quasi-circu lar massive black hole binaries (BHBs) residing in the central hollow (cavity) of massive self-gravitating circumbinary discs. We perfo rm a set of simulations adopting different thermodynamics for the gas within the cavity and for the ’numerical size’ of the black holes. Results. We show that (i) the BHB eccentricity growth found in our previous work is a general result, independent of the accretion a nd the adopted thermodynamics; (ii) the semi-major axis decay depends not only on the gravity torques but also on their subt le interplay with the disc-binary angular momentum transfer due to accretion; (iii) the spectral structure of the gravity torques is predominately caused by disc edge overdensities and spiral arms developing in the body of the disc and, in general, does not reflect direc tly the period of the binary; (iv) the net gravity torque changes sig n across the BHB corotation radius (positive inside vs negative outside) We quantify the relative importance of the two, which appear to depend on the thermodynamical properties of the instreaming gas, and which is crucial in assessing the disc‐binary angular momentum transfer; (v) the net torque manifests as a purely kin ematic (non-resonant) effect as it stems from the low density cavity, where the material flows in and out in highly eccentric orbits. Conclusions. Both accretion onto the black holes and the interaction with gas streams inside the cavity must be taken into account to assess the fate of the binary. Moreover, the total torque exe rted by the disc affects the binary angular momentum by changing all the elements (mass, mass ratio, eccentricity, semimajor axis) of the black hole pair. Commonly used prescriptions equating tidal torque to semi-major axis shrinking might therefore be poor approximations for real astrophysical systems.
A Motorist’s Perception on How Fast Should the Police Respond to and Serve for a Traffic Accident

Using the police command center hotline "110" as a channel, this study performed a call back interview to ask the accident reporting motorists about their perceptions on the quality of police service. A concept of fuzzy logic was introduced to measure the qualitative questions characterized with fuzziness. A total of 254 accident reporting motorists in Taipei City were interviewed. The results revealed that no less than 80% of the respondents would be satisfied and no more than 20% of them would be dissatisfied if the police response time could stay within 5 to 10 minutes and service time within 20 to 35 minutes. Both satisfaction and dissatisfaction to the police service time for A2-type accident (injury) were significantly longer than that for A3-type accident (property damage). According to the findings, the current practices of police deployment and accident investigation in Taipei City should be reexamined.
SYNTHESIS AND ANTIPROLIFERATIVE ACTIVITY OF SOME A- AND B- MODIFIED D-HOMO LACTONE ANDROSTANE DERIVATIVES

An efficient synthesis of several A- and B-modified D-homo lactone androstane derivatives from 3β-hydroxy-17-oxa-D-homoandrost-5-en-16-one (1) is reported. 17-Oxa-Dhomoandrost- 4-ene-3,16-dione (2), obtained by the Oppenauer oxidation of compound 1, was converted via the unstable intermediate 3,16-dioxo-4,17-dioxa-D-homoandrostane- 5α-carboxaldehyde (3) to 17-oxa-D-homo-3,5-seco-4-norandrostan-5-one-3-carboxylic acid (4), which was also obtained directly from compound 2. Compound 1 was acetylated to give 17-oxa-D-homoandrost-5-en-16-on-3β-yl acetate (5) which was then oxidized with chromium(VI)-oxide in 50% acetic acid or with meta-chlorperbenzoic acid and chromium(VI)-oxide to yield compounds 6-8 and 5α-hydroxy-17-oxa-D-homoandrostane- 6,16-dion-3β-yl acetate (9), respectively. The oximination of compound 9 gave a mixture of 6(E)-hydroximino-5α-hydroxy-17-oxa-D-homoandrostan-16-on-3β-yl acetate (10) and 6(Z)-hydroximino-5α-hydroxy-17-oxa-D-homoandrostan-16-on-3β-yl acetate (11), the hydrolysis of which gave 6(E)-hydroximino-3β,5α-dihydroxy-17-oxa-D-homoandrostan- 16-one (12) and 6(Z)-hydroximino-3β,5α-dihydroxy-17-oxa-D-homoandrostan-16-one (13). 6-Nitrile-17-oxa-5,6-seco-D-homoandrostane-5,16-dion-3β-yl acetate (14) was obtained under the Beckmann fragmentation of compounds 10 and 11. Only pure and stable compounds (1, 2, 4, 5, 9 and 14) were tested in vitro on six malignant cell lines (MCF-7, MDA-MB-231, PC-3, HeLa, HT-29, K562) and one non-tumor MRC-5 cell line. Significant antiproliferative activity against MDA-MB-231 cells showed compounds 1, 5 and 9, while compound 2 exhibited a strong antiproliferative activity. Only compound 14 showed weak antiproliferative activity against MCF-7 cells. All tested compounds were not toxic on MRC-5 cells, whereas Doxorubicin was highly toxic on these cells. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 172021]
Measuring the Effect of Education and Influence on Female Employment and Empowerment: Evidence from India

This paper shows that participation in a community-level female empowerment program in India significantly increases access to employment, physical mobility, and political participation. The program provides support groups, literacy camps, adult education classes, and vocational training. We use truncation-corrected matching and instrumental variables on primary data to disentangle the program's mechanisms, separately considering its effect on women who work, and those who do not work but whose reservation wage is increased by participation. We also find significant spillover effects on non-participants relative to women in untreated districts. Using instrumental variables and matching, we find consistent estimates for average treatment and intent to treat effects.
ERP, Capital Management and Profitability: An Empirical Study of Chinese Automobile Manufacturers

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) can be considered as an effective tool for planning and controlling of all the resources in an organization. In order to gain competitive advantage, more and more corporations begin to implement ERP projects and deploy information systems to manage their logistics, capital, accounting and other business information. This research is an investigation on the relationship between ERP system and corporations' performance, based on the empirical study of 13 automobile manufacturers who had implemented ERP projects successfully from 2000 to 2015 in mainland China. The results show that the application of ERP systems can improve the manufacturers' capital management and their operational efficiency.
A Shape Compactness Measurement Indexing with Fuzzy Multicriteria Decision Making Approach

Compactness of a district or zone is determined by considering its appearance and the area of dispersal of the district (Altman, 1998) and it is used as a characteristic to describe shape (Shiode, 1998; Knight, 1997). However, existing compactness measurement used to assess district plans in redistricting applications are vague and imprecision although there are more than thirty over Euclidean or non-Euclidean measurement methods. Therefore, this paper presents an integrated shape compactness measurement indexing with a fuzzy multicriteria decision making approach (FMCDM) to enhance the measurement of shape compactness. An experiment is conducted in order to verify the practically of the proposed model to improve existing compactness measurement method.
Raritas and RaritasVox: Programs for counting high diversity categorical data with highly unequal abundances

Acquiring data on the occurrences of many types of difficult to identify objects are often still made by human observation, e.g. in biodiversity and paleontologic research. Existing computer counting programs used to record such data have various limitations, including inflexibility and cost. We describe a pair of new open-source programs for this purpose - Raritas and RaritasVox, which share a similar graphical user interface for mouse based counting, and file output format. Raritas is written in Python and can be run as a standalone app for recent versions of either MacOS or Windows, or from the command line as easily customized source code. RaritasVox in addition supports voice based counting but is written in Java and is more complex to install or modify. Both programs explicitly support a rare category count mode which makes it easier to collect quantitative data on rare categories, e.g. rare species which are important in biodiversity surveys. Lastly, as to our knowledge no standards exist yet, we describe a new stratigraphic occurrence data (SOD) unitary file format which combines extensive metadata and a flexible structure for recording occurrence data of species or other categories in a series of samples.
Effect of exogenous emulsifier on growth performance, fat digestibility, apparent metabolisable energy in broiler chickens

This research was done to evaluate the effect of a commercial exogenous emulsifier (polyethylene glycol ricinoleate (PEGR)) with high hydrophilic-to-lipophilic balance (HLB) supplementation to broiler chicken diets on growth performance, digestibility of fat and apparent metabolisable energy (AME) content in week 1, 3 and 5. A total of 360 one-day-old male Cobb broiler chicks were assigned in groups of 30 to 12 battery cages. The chicks were randomly assigned to two dietary treatments, with 6 replicate cages per treatment. The diets were either standard broiler starter and finisher, with rice bran oil (RBO) as supplemented fat source or similar diets + 0.05% emulsifier (RBOV). Feed intakes of RBOV groups significantly increased compared to those of RBO groups from week 2 till 4 while body weights of RBOV diets significantly increased in week 4 and 5. Both RBOV and RBO groups had similar FCR except for week 5. Addition of this strongly hydrophilic emulsifier showed no significant difference in fat digestibility of both RC and RV groups but higher AME was noted for the treatment than for the control groups at week 5. Therefore, supplementing the exogenous emulsifier into a broiler diet enriched with rice bran oil improved body weight and AME content at week 5 with minimal effect on fat digestibility