Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Physico-chemical Characteristics and Oxidative Stability of Date-Pits Oil during Storage at Different Temperatures

Abstract In this study, oxidative stability of date-pits (i. e. Khalas variety) was investigated during storage as a function of temperature. The stability of date-pits oil was determined by measuring acid value (AV), peroxide value (PV), p-anisidine value (PAV), tocopherol and oxidative stability index. Initial characteristics of oil were assessed by measuring its physico-chemical and melting characteristics, fatty acids composition and aflatoxin. Storage of date-pits caused highest reduction in linoleic acid (C18:2, ω6) followed by oleic acid (C18:1, ω9). AV, PV and PAV of the fresh oil were 1.41 mg KOH/g oil, 3.30 meq/kg oil and 0.60, respectively. These values increased linearly at slower rate in the case of 30 °C storage, while sharp rise was observed after 40 days in cases of 100 and 150 °C storage (p < 0.05). The results of this study indicate that date pits oil had a good oxidative and thermal stability and could thus be used to develop value-added food ingredients.
Gender differences in attitudes towards mathematics and STEM major choice: The importance of mathematics identity

The building of a diverse and highly capable population of young people for careers in the science, engineering, technology, and mathematics (STEM) fields remains a critical issue in the United States. The researchers employed data from a nationally representative sample of high schoolers to better understand the relationships between students’ learning experiences, attitudes towards mathematics, and STEM major choice. The focus of this paper is on how these relationships differ for males and females. The findings suggest that the underrepresentation of female students in STEM majors can be partially explained by a tendency for females to have less positive attitudes towards mathematics as compared to their male counterparts. Mathematics identity may be the most important attitude explaining this difference.
FALA framework: A learning progression for novice teachers’ use of formative assessment

Formative assessment has been identified as one way that teachers can gather critical information about a student’s level of understanding in order to make informed instructional adaptations that meet the needs of all students (NCTM, 2000; Shepard et al., 2005). Over several decades, research has shown the potential of formative assessment to effectively improve student achievement (Black & Wiliam, 1998; Kingston & Nash, 2011). Despite its potential, issues in preparing teachers to implement formative assessment practices has kept its potential from being realized (Schoenfeld, 2015) and many teachers have limited understanding of its use (Shepard et al., 2005). In order to better understand how to prepare teachers to use formative assessment, a trajectory describing how teachers develop formative assessment knowledge and practice is needed. The Formative Assessment Levels of Appropriation (FALA) framework evolved from a larger qualitative research study on the evolution of formative assessment knowledge and practice of novice teachers from teacher preparation through their third year of teaching. Grounded in activity theory, the FALA framework describes the levels of appropriation (Grossman et al., 1998) for the five aspects of formative assessment defined by Black & Wiliam (2009). Table 1 provides an example of the framework for one aspect of formative assessment—clarifying intentions and criteria for success.
Sheep Grazing and Wildfire: Disturbance Effects on Dry Grassland Vegetation in the Western Italian Alps

Land abandonment represents a major threat to the conservation of European semi-natural dry grasslands. To ensure biodiversity and habitat conservation, in this study, sheep grazing was reintroduced in abandoned Festuco-Brometea dry grasslands of a western Italian alpine valley. The experimental design included three treatments, along a gradient of increasing disturbance: (i) not-grazed, (ii) grazed, and (iii) penning areas. Unexpectedly, two years after grazing reintroduction, a wildfire hit the study area. To investigate the short-term effects of grazing and wildfire disturbances on vegetation, 62 permanent transects were monitored from 2014 to 2018. Vegetation cover, plant diversity, and richness and abundance of three functional groups of species were analyzed through generalized linear mixed models. Grazing caused little changes in vegetation, with the greatest effects observed in penning areas: the pioneer xerothermic species group, including many rare plant species, benefited from the reduction in the litter layer and the opening of gaps in the sward induced by trampling. The wildfire led to an increase in plant diversity and to changes in plant composition: dry grassland species decreased, while pioneer xerothermic and ruderal species increased their abundance. Short-term results suggest that both disturbances may foster the conservation of alpine dry grasslands.
MoO₃ Nano-Bricks as Novel Antimicrobial Agents

Multiple drug resistance in microorganisms has impersonated critical vulnerability to existing antibiotics; hence substitutes/or options to encounter resistant pathogenic microbes are desirable. Our focus in this study was the synthesis and characterization of Molybdenum oxide (MoO3) nano-bricks and to explore them in terms of their antimicrobial potential. MoO3 nano-bricks were successfully synthesized by hydrothermal method using (NH4)6Mo7O24⋅4H2O precursor and calcination at 500 °C for 2 h. The synthesized MoO3 nano-bricks determined antibacterial activity against four bacterial isolates and one fungal isolate. The MoO3 bricks were characterized using standard physicochemical characterization viz. XRD, SEM, FTIR, and EDX. In the present investigation, characteristic antibacterial properties of MoO3 nano-bricks against Gram +ve (S. aureus ATCC 29213 and S. epidermidis ATCC 12228) and Gram -ve (E. coli ATCC 35218 and K. pneumoniae ATCC 700603) bacteria is noted. The antifungal activity was tested using C. albicans ATCC 10231 as model organism. Molybdenum oxides generate acidic medium and demonstrated potent antimicrobial action for various pathogenic bacterial strains causing infections. The MoO3 nano-bricks depicted broad spectrum antimicrobial potential which strongly recommends their use as material of choice as potential antimicrobial material to be used in food industry, water purification, textile industry etc.
Electroless Ni–P plating on magnesium alloy by innovative, simple and non-toxic oxalate pretreatment and its corrosion protection

In this work, simple and non-toxic oxalate pretreatment was used for electroless Ni–P plating on AM60B magnesium alloy. The morphology and chemical composition of the alloy sample after oxalate pretreatment were studied by X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), respectively. Also, the morphology, chemical composition, microstructure, and corrosion resistance of the electroless Ni–P coatings were investigated by the SEM, Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDX), X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) and electrochemical methods, respectively. Moreover, porosity and adherence of the applied electroless coatings were examined by porosity and thermal sock tests, respectively. The SEM images revealed that the alloy surface was covered by a cracked conversion film and the cracks were extended by increasing the immersion time from 5 to 30 min. The XPS analysis showed that the conversion layer was mainly composed of the magnesium oxalate with nodular molybdenum oxide particles on the β phase area due to the presence of the sodium molybdate in the pretreatment solution as an accelerator. The formation of the nickel nucleation centers has been started through the cracks of the oxalate film. Also, cauliflower-like nodular electroless Ni–P coatings were formed on the surface of the 5, 15, and 30 min oxalate treated samples after 3 h plating and the surface smoothness of the coatings decreased by increasing the pretreatment time. The EDX analysis showed that the coatings have moderate phosphorus (P) content which slightly increases with pretreatment time. Moreover, the XRD patterns revealed that all of the electroless coatings have mixed crystalline amorphous structure. Application of the electroless Ni–P coating was significantly increased the corrosion resistance of the bare alloy and the best corrosion protection performance was observed for the 15 min pretreated sample. All of the applied coatings were pore-free and adherent to the alloy substrate. The micro-hardness value of the AM60B alloy sample was significantly increased after application of the electroless coatings.
Optimization of Non-uniform Planar Antenna Array Topology in Two-dimensional DOA Estimation

The paper deals with the optimization of the sparse planar antenna array for direction of arrival (DOA) estimation in two dimensions (azimuth and elevation). The optimization algorithm was proposed on the basis of the peak sidelobe level (SLL) and half-power beamwidth (HPBW) parameters. In empirical validation, we have set up a measurement system to test the efficiency of an optimized array configuration. The array was configured using the patch antennas with frequency band 2.4 GHz. In comparison with several popular array configurations, the experimental results show that the proposed antenna array was optimized, and it provided higher accuracy and resolution in two-dimensional (2D) DOA estimation.
TAŞIMA ALTYAPI YATIRIMLARININ LİMAN ÇIKTISINA ETKİSİ: BİR ETKİNLİK YAKLAŞIMI

With the globalization process, the obstacles to trade and capital movements have been greatly reduced. Thus, the concept of international trade has become indispensable for countries in economic, social, cultural, and political aspects. In the literature, the impact of transportation infrastructures on international trade is an important issue examined. However, considering the only investments and not considering whether the transport infrastructures are used efficiently can cause misleading evaluations. This study aims to test the impact of road and rail transportation efficiencies on international trade through cargo traffic in Turkish ports. Accordingly, first of all, the efficiency values of the two modes of transport were determined by Data Envelopment Analysis. Then, the obtained values were used as independent variables in the regression estimations modeling the port throughput. The data set consists of 15 observations on an annual basis covering the period between 2004 and 2018. The results obtained showed that the efficiencies of both modes of transport have increased in recent years and the efficiency of rail transport in port traffic is more influential.
Gba1 deletion causes immune hyperactivation and microbial dysbiosis through autophagic defects

Mutations in the GBA1 gene cause the lysosomal storage disorder Gaucher disease (GD) and are the greatest genetic risk factor for Parkinson’s disease (PD). Communication between gut and brain and immune dysregulation are increasingly being implicated in neurodegenerative disorders such as PD. Here, we show that flies lacking the Gba1b gene, the main fly orthologue of GBA1, display widespread innate immune up-regulation, including gut inflammation and brain glial activation. We also demonstrate gut dysfunction in flies lacking Gba1b, with increased intestinal transit time, gut barrier permeability and microbiome dysbiosis. Remarkably, modulating the microbiome of Gba1b knockout flies, by raising them under germ-free conditions, can partially ameliorate lifespan, locomotor and some neuropathological phenotypes. Lastly, direct stimulation of autophagy by rapamycin treatment achieves similar beneficial effects. Overall, our data reveal that the gut microbiome drives systemic immune activation in Gba1b knockout flies and that reducing innate immune response activation either by eliminating the microbiota or clearance of immunogens by autophagy may represent potential therapeutic avenues for GBA1-associated neurodegenerative disease.
Genetic variability of Nigerian sheep breeds at the insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) gene locus

The genetic variability of some Nigerian breeds of sheep at the IGF 1 locus was investigate blood samples from 150 sheep (50 each of Yankasa, Balami and Uda sheep) were collected from the Maiduguri abbatoir and analysed at the Biotechnology centre of the University of Maiduguri. A relatively high level of genetic variability was detected in Nigerian sheep; the mean observed heterozygosity (Ho) and expected heterozygosity (He) values were 0.433 and 0.476, respectively. Comparison of expected heterozygosity of alleles between the populations showed that yankasa was the most heterozygous of the sheep populations though the unbiased expected heterozygosity (0.503) for the Yankasa was the same as that of the Balami. All populations were 100% polymorphic at the IGF 1 locus with fixation index ranging from -0.169 to 0.378 and a mean of 0.093, which suggests a general pattern of random mating. Similarly, low mean values for Fis (0.093), F (0.089), Fis (0.089), Fit (0.130) and Fst (0.045) supports the assertion that inbreeding was limited due to outcrossing with relatively high level of gene-flow (Nm = 5.292). The analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) revealed that only 1% of the total variations observed in the sampled populations is accounted for by the population differences while individual differences accounted for 85%. The UPGMA phylogenetic tree revealed that the Uda and Yankasa populations are closer to each than each is to Balami. Thus, it can be concluded that sufficient genetic variation exist in the studied Nigerian sheep breeds and these populations are unlikely to decline due to inbreeding.
Using Recurrent Neural Network to Optimize Electronic Nose System with Dimensionality Reduction

Electronic nose is an electronic olfactory system that simulates the biological olfactory mechanism, which mainly includes gas sensor, data pre-processing, and pattern recognition. In recent years, the proposals of electronic nose have been widely developed, which proves that electronic nose is a considerably important tool. However, the most recent studies concentrate on the applications of electronic nose, which gradually neglects the inherent technique improvement of electronic nose. Although there are some proposals on the technique improvement, they usually pay attention to the modification of gas sensor module and barely consider the improvement of the last two modules. Therefore, this paper optimizes the electronic nose system from the perspective of data pre-processing and pattern recognition. Recurrent neural network (RNN) is used to do pattern recognition and guarantee accuracy rate and stability. Regarding the high-dimensional data pre-processing, the method of locally linear embedding (LLE) is used to do dimensionality reduction. The experiments are made based on the real sensor drift dataset, and the results show that the proposed optimization mechanism not only has higher accuracy rate and stability, but also has lower response time than the three baselines. In addition, regarding the usage of RNN model, the experimental results also show its efficiency in terms of recall ratio, precision ratio, and F1 value.
Research on Wind Deviation Detection Based on DENCLUE Abnormal Working Condition Filtering

Aiming at the problem that the wind vane of wind turbines has a deviation to the wind, which damages the power generation efficiency of the unit, a filtering method of abnormal working conditions based on DENCLUE density clustering is proposed, which mainly included two stages of working condition screening and calculation of the angle of the wind deviation. Firstly, the density clustering algorithm based on DENCLUE is used to filter the working conditions of the data and to filter out the working condition data of abnormal power generation. Then, the data is further processed, including data smoothing and wind speed binning. Furthermore, according to the relationship between the output power of the unit and the yaw angle of the wind deviation, a regression model is established to obtain the wind deviation angle of the unit. Finally, the method is verified through the actual operation of SCADA data. The results show that after filtering the working conditions, more stable output can be obtained and the performance of the unit can be obviously improved.
Migrant athletes and the transformation of physical capital. Spatial and temporal dynamics in West African footballers’ approaches to post-careers

Abstract For many young people from the Global South football labour migration to Europe fuels hopes of social mobility. However, the long-term value of an international career is uncertain. Despite the success of a few migrant role models, professional careers in Europe often go along with a number of social and economic challenges for migrants that hinder sufficient preparations for post-career life courses. In this article, we focus on retiring male West African footballers in Scandinavia and their challenges to transform accumulated physical capital into other forms of social, economic and cultural capital, such as financial resources, social relations, educational assets, language skills and rights in form of long-term residence permits or citizenship in Europe. By foregrounding the temporal and spatial dimensions of the accumulation and transformation of capital, we depict the relational character of its various forms (social, cultural and economic capital) and their changing value in the different localities of players’ origins and destinations and at different points in time. Hereby, we show how processes of capital transformation are ambivalent experiences which, nevertheless, point to problematic structures in the global football business that disadvantage migrant players and their attempts to reproduce social mobility after career ending.
Mucosal and Systemic Immune Responses Modulated by in Ovo-Delivered Bioactive Compounds in Distinct Chicken Genotypes

BackgroundMucosal and systemic immune responses are different strategies to cope with environmental stimuli. In ovo delivery of prebiotic, probiotic, or synbiotic into the avian embryo allows for indigenous microbiota stimulation. Intestinal microbiota in animals is responsible for immune system maturation. The genetic component is critical in host-microbiota crosstalk and immune system development. The goal of this study was to compare mucosal and systemic immune responses in two distinct chicken genotypes stimulated in ovo. ResultsThe experiment was constructed in full-factorial design and was aimed to study the effects of two chicken genotypes (chicken broilers or native chickens), four in ovo-delivered compounds (GOS/galactooligosaccharides/prebiotic, Lactococcus lactis subsp. cremoris/probiotic, or GOS+L.lactis/synbiotic, vs. physiological saline) and three different stimuli (LPS or LTA vs. physiological saline) on a panel of cytokine genes (IL-1B, IL-2, IL-4, IL-6, IL-10, IL-12p40, and IL-17) expressed in caecal tonsils and spleen. We tested significance of the main effects and their interactions. Genotype had the most significant influence on all gene expression signatures in both tissues (P < 0.001 for all genes, except P < 0.05 for IL-10 in spleen). Immune challenge was the second most significant main effect, and influenced IL-1β, IL-6 IL-10 (P < 0.001), and IL-17 genes (P < 0.05) in caecal tonsils, and all genes in spleen (P < 0.001), except IL-4 (P > 0.05). In ovo stimulation influenced IL-2, IL-4, and IL-10 in caecal tonsils (P < 0.05), as well as IL-2 and IL-12p40 in spleen (P < 0.05). ConclusionsThe mucosal and systemic immune responses of chicken broilers and native chickens showed distinct patterns. Genotype influenced gene expression signatures of all immune-related genes, but chicken broilers developed stronger immune responses than native chickens. LPS triggered both mucosal (caecal tonsils) and systemic (spleen) immune responses in chicken broilers, but only systemic (spleen) in native chickens. In ovo stimulation with bioactive compounds (especially prebiotic) modulated innate immune responses to LPS. GOS delivered in ovo induced the most pronounced responses to LPS, which validated its further application as a potent immunomodulator for in ovo applications.
Multidimensional Inventory of Students Quality of Life—MIS-QOL

An analysis of the literature on the quality of life and tools for its measurement revealed a gap in the field of research tools to study the quality of life of the so-called young adults. According to the theory of emerging adulthood, people aged 18–25 significantly differ from people of other age groups, including their self-perception. The aim of this article is to present the process of creating an inventory for multidimensional research on students’ quality of life, its structural and theoretical validity as well as reliability of the tool. Structural validity of Multidimensional Inventory of Students Quality of Life (MIS-QOL) is measured by three different indicators. Comparative fit index (CFI), PCLOSE and the root mean square error (RMSEA) show good or very good structural validity of every dimension and general score. Additionally, theoretical validity of general score measured as a correlation with commonly used questionnaires show correlation on level of 0.52 with somatic subscale of WHO, 0.631 with environmental subscale of WHO, 0.657 with Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS), 0.703 with psychological subscale of WHO, and 0.786 with Quality of Life Scale (QOLS). Reliability of each dimension and general score measured by Cronbach alfa and split-half coefficients are above 0.7. The multidimensional construction of MIS-QOL allows researchers to compare acquired data with international research conducted by Eurostat or the OECD.
Prediction of tourist flow based on multi‐source traffic data in scenic spot

At present, China's tourism industry has entered an era of rapid development. It is of great significance to predict the precise and real‐time tourist flow of the popular tourist areas with dense crowds, providing decision support for rational evacuation of tourist flow, activation of emergency plans, and prevention of security accidents. This article presents a long short‐term memory (LSTM) neural network model based on the global attention mechanism. The model first uses two LSTM layers to calculate attention weights using multi‐source data at different time steps to improve the model’s learning ability. Then the model predicts the tourist flow of the scenic spots in the next time period based on the weights and outputs previously obtained. At the final stage, the pre‐trained parameters of the network are used to initialize the model. To verify the validity of the model, we compared it with the LSTM model, back propagation neural network model, and autoregressive integrated moving average model based on the data of Beijing’s South Luogu Lane scenic spot. It turned out that the results of our solution were more in line with the true value, which proves that it is feasible for real‐time prediction of tourist flow in popular scenic spots.
BLOCKCHAIN AS AN E-VOTING TOOL

1. University of Debrecen, Doctoral School of Management and Business, Department of Business Informatics, Debrecen, Hungary. 2. University of Debrecen, Doctoral School of Informatics, Department of Information Technology Systems and Networks. Manuscript Info Abstract . Manuscript History Received: 25 October 2020 Final Accepted: 28 November 2020 Published: December 2020