Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Microplastics Contamination in a High Population Density Area of the Chao Phraya River, Bangkok

Microplastics (MPs) are distributed globally, including in aquatic environments. While a large number of studies on MPs in marine environments have been performed, few studies are available in freshwater environments. Therefore, the distribution of MPs in surface water and sediment from the Chao Phraya River at Tha Prachan, a high population density area of Bangkok, was investigated. Water samples were collected by a manta trawl with a net mesh size of 300 mm. Sediment samples were collected by a Van Veen grab sampler. The total number and concentration of MPs in the water samples were found to be 104 particles/m 3 and 805.20 mg/m 3 , respectively. The dominant MPs were fragments, 0.5 to 1.0 mm in size, for the water samples. In the sediment, MPs were detected only in a size range of 0.053 to 0.5 mm with a total number and concentration of 2,290 particles/kg and 650 mg/kg, respectively. The presence of different types of MPs was confirmed by Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy with a dominant abundance of polypropylene, polyethylene, and polystyrene. In brief, this study suggests that high levels of MPs occur not only in the water but also in the sediment of the Chao Phraya River at Tha Prachan area.
Monitoring strategies on patient safety practices among healthcare providers at Nakuru county referral hospital, Kenya

Patient safety is considered to be one of the leading concerns in health service delivery in various levels of public and private hospitals. Globally, the cost of adverse events and other medical errors still remains high, posing a burden in healthcare system. According to Parachute report on the cost of injury in Canada, it was found that most injuries were due to falls, which further resulted to permanent disabilities and patients suffering injuries which were debilitating, with increasing costs on managing such injuries. Patient safety concept has emerged from increased awareness about the errors made due to human factors in the process of delivering healthcare services that has led to harm and other extreme occurrences and strategies to enhance patient care quality.
Phosphorylation-mediated interactions with TOPBP1 couple 53BP1 and 9-1-1 to control the G1 DNA damage checkpoint

Coordination of the cellular response to DNA damage is organised by multi-domain ‘scaffold’ proteins, including 53BP1 and TOPBP1, which recognise post-translational modifications such as phosphorylation, methylation and ubiquitylation on other proteins, and are themselves carriers of such regulatory signals. Here we show that the DNA damage checkpoint regulating S-phase entry is controlled by a phosphorylation-dependent interaction of 53BP1 and TOPBP1. BRCT domains of TOPBP1 selectively bind conserved phosphorylation sites in the N-terminus of 53BP1. Mutation of these sites does not affect formation of 53BP1 or ATM foci following DNA damage, but abolishes recruitment of TOPBP1, ATR and CHK1 to 53BP1 damage foci, abrogating cell cycle arrest and permitting progression into S-phase. TOPBP1 interaction with 53BP1 is structurally complimentary to its interaction with RAD9-RAD1-HUS1, allowing these damage recognition factors to bind simultaneously to the same TOPBP1 molecule and cooperate in ATR activation in the G1 DNA damage checkpoint.
Evaluating surface energy components of asphalt binders using Wilhelmy Plate and Sessile Drop Techniques

In this Study, the surface energy was investigated for six penetration grade70/100 bitumen binders. Wilhelmy Plate and the Sessile Drop were used todetermine the contact angles.The purpose of this study was to compare the Wilhelmy Plate method with theSessile Drop method, and to compare the significance of Owens-Wendt modelwith the significance of Acid Base model by correlating surface energycomponents. Better R2 –values were found for surface energy components byusing the Owens-Wendt model than by using the Acid Base model. It wasconcluded here that Owens-Wendt model is a better model for determiningsurface energy components of bituminous binders than the Acid Base modelsince bituminous binders have low energy surfaces.For both instruments: When using Diiodomethane as a probe liquid the biggestvariations among the binders were observed. When using water as a probeliquid the least variations among the binders were observed.The advancing contact angles for water determined for these six bitumenbinders using the Wilhelmy plate method do not exceed the 90 degree bymuch, suggesting that bitumen is not extremely hydrophobic.The Sessile Drop method offers a faster and more convenient way to measurethe surface energy components of bitumen binders than the Wilhelmy Platemethod.
Cerebral dysautonomy as a clinical repercussion in children with traumatic brain injury

Introduction: Dysautonomia or Paroxysmal Sympathetic Hyperactivity (PSH) affects more than 50% of patients suffering from severe traumatic brain injury (TBI), which is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in children under 12 years. The goal is to demonstrate that PSH is established as a consequence in children with severe brain trauma. Methodology: Forty articles were found in databases such as LILACS, Elsevier and Scielo that address the theme, excluding those that addressed the TBI in adults and including those that addressed the theme in the pediatric context and published about the PSH, published until the year of 2019. Results: Severe TBI is established as a common cause of hospitalization of children and PSH as a common consequence. Diagnosis and management of this complication require the help of tools such as "PSH-Assessment Measure (PSH-AM)", which has criteria that facilitate the exclusion of other possible causes and guide the treatment. Non-pharmacological therapeutic measures include control of room temperature and low sensory and pharmacological stimuli to deal with symptoms, such as drugs such as opioids, gabaergic agonists, benzodiazepines and adrenergic antagonists. Conclusion: Severe TBI, a common pediatric emergency, can be considered a predictor of PSH. Even though there is no consensus on the diagnosis, PSH-AM proves to be a reliable alternative to professionals dealing with conditions that may or may not correspond with post trauma dysautonomia. This makes it possible to determine not only the child's clinical condition but also the best therapy to apply.
Exploring the Effectiveness and Moderators of Block-Based Visual Programming on Student Learning: A Meta-Analysis

Block-based visual programming tools, such as Scratch, Alice, and MIT App Inventor, provide an intuitive and easy-to-use editing interface through which to promote programming learning for novice students of various ages. However, very little attention has been paid to investigating these tools’ overall effects on students’ academic achievement and the study features that may moderate the effects of block-based visual programming from a comprehensive perspective. Thus, the present study carried out a meta-analysis to systemically examine 29 empirical studies (extracting 34 effect sizes) using experimental or quasi-experiments involving the programming learning effects of employing block-based visual programming tools to date (until the end of 2019). The results showed a small to medium significant positive overall mean effect size (fixed-effect model g = 0.37; random-effects model g = 0.47) of the use of these block-based visual programming tools with respect to students’ academic achievement. Furthermore, the overall mean effect size was significantly affected by the educational stage, programming tool used, experimental treatment, and school location. Discussions and implications based on the findings are provided.
Network Effects and Research Collaborations

We study the determinants of new and repeated research collaborations, drawing on the co-authorship network of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s Working Papers series. Being an outlet where authors express their views on topics of interest, and given that IMF staff is not subject to the “publish-or-perish” conditions of the academia, the IMF Working Papers series constitutes an appropriate testing ground to examine the endogenous nature of co-authorship formation. We show that the co-authorship network is characterized by many authors with few direct co-authors, yet indirectly connected to each other through short co-authorship chains. We find that a shorter distance in the co-authorship network is key for starting research collaborations. Also, higher research productivity, being employed in the same department, and having citizenship of the same region help to start and repeat collaborations. Furthermore, authors with different co-authorship network sizes are more likely to collaborate, possibly reflecting synergies between senior and junior staff members.
A process of decision-making support: Exploring supported decision-making practice in Canada

ABSTRACT Background: Canada was the first country to develop legal mechanisms that allow for supported decision making, and little research has explored how decision making is supported in this context. This research aimed to understand how seven people with intellectual disabilities, living in two Canadian provinces, were supported with their decision making. Method: The research used constructivist grounded theory methodology, interviewing and observing the decision making of seven people with mild to severe intellectual disabilities and 25 decision supporters. Results: A common process of decision-making support was discovered, involving dynamic interaction between the person’s will and preferences and supporters’ responses. This interaction was influenced by five factors: the experiences and attributes the person and their supporter brought to the process; the quality of their relationship; the decision-making environment and the nature and consequences of the decision. Conclusion: The highly individualised and contextually dependent nature of decision-making support has implications for supported decision-making practice.
A Review of Emerging Technologies for an Assessment of Safety and Seismic Vulnerability and Damage Detection of Existing Masonry Structures

The construction sector has proven to be one of the slowest sectors to embrace technology—a problem that must be addressed. This problem can be quickly and efficiently addressed in certain aspects of seismic engineering: from seismic risk assessment to damage detection, as well as condition assessments existing structures before or after an earthquake. In this paper, the literature review of assessment methods and damage detection technologies for existing (mainly) masonry structures is presented. Traditional methods are briefly explained, and modern are critically discussed. Special focus is given to unmanned aerial vehicles, as well as, photogrammetry and close-range remote sensing as a technology that can complement traditional ways of assessment and give us data about a structure that is often different to obtain. Graphical interpretation of one post-earthquake case study is provided. Open challenges and opportunities of emerging technologies for faster and easier assessment of seismic safety and vulnerability are presented.
Kinetics of Starch Degradation during Extrusion Cooking of Steady State Flow Konjac (Amorphophallus oncophyllus) Tuber Flour in a Single Screw Extruder

The presence of glucomannan in Konjac (Amorphophallus oncophyllus) tuber flour has promoted its various applications, especially in the food, drink, drug delivery and cosmetics. Starch is the main impurity of Konjac tuber flour. Although the common wet refining method may result in a high purity Konjac tuber flour, it is very tedious, time consuming and costly. This research aimed to study the kinetics of starch degradation in the extrusion cooking process of dry refining method to produce high quality Konjac tuber flour. In this research, Konjac tuber flour with 20% (w/w) moisture was extruded in a single screw extruder by varying screw speeds (50, 75, 100, 125, 150 and 175 rpm) and barrel temperatures (353, 373, 393, 413 and 433 K). The results showed that the starch extrusion cooking obeys the first reaction order. The reaction rate constant could be satisfactorily fitted by Arrhenius correlation with total activation energy of 6191 J.mol−1 and pre-exponential factor of 2.8728×10−1 s−1. Accordingly, thermal degradation was found to be the primary cause of starch degradation, which shared more than 99% of the energy used for starch degradation. Based on mass Biot number and Thiele modulus evaluations, chemical reaction was the controlling mechanism of the process. The results of this research offer potential application in Konjac tuber flour refining process to obtain high quality flour product. Copyright © 2020 BCREC Group. All rights reserved
Implementing User defined Attribute and Policy based Access Control

Each component in OpenStack provides fine-grained control over the access of data and service through OpenStack component defined policies and Role-based access provided at the system level. OpenStack does not offer support for user-specific access control. Confidentiality of the data, as such, is left to the responsibility of the user. User has no way to define its policies to allow access to the data. In this paper, a method is defined that can be implemented within OpenStack that allows users to set attributesand policy-based access control to data resources. The method presents the components to be included inOpenStack and the way the additional components interact with native OpenStack components to affect the confidentiality and policy-based access control. The components developed in Python language and the Native python programs interact with the user-defined python programs through the use of Restful API. The policies defined by the user are high-level security policies that are converted to low-level fine-grained security policies as defined by OpenStack. The users protect the data through attribute-based encryption and decryption
Online student perceptions of their communication preparedness

Though scholars have identified a myriad of student characteristics and skills necessary to prepare individuals for online education, one notable gap in the literature is a focus on preparedness for online communication and interaction. To address this gap, the purpose of the present study was to explore what elements of interaction students identified being most and least prepared for when communicating with their instructor and peers in an online class. Participants responded to four open-ended questions on their perceptions of communication preparedness in the online classroom. Responses were open-coded and findings reveal that there is a lot of potential uncertainty surrounding communication and interaction within this context, as well as challenges for creating authentic connections within this space. Based on participant responses, practical implications for both online instructors and online students are offered.
Chatbot4QR: Interactive Query Refinement for Technical Question Retrieval

Technical Q&A sites (e.g., Stack Overflow (SO)) are important resources for developers to search for knowledge about technical problems. Search engines provided in Q&A sites and information retrieval approaches (e.g., word embedding-based) have limited capabilities to retrieve relevant questions when queries are imprecisely specified, such as missing important technical details (e.g., the user’s preferred programming languages). Although many automatic query expansion approaches have been proposed to improve the quality of queries by expanding queries with relevant terms, the information missed in a query is not identified. Moreover, without user involvement, the existing query expansion approaches may introduce unexpected terms and lead to undesired results. In this paper, we propose an interactive query refinement approach for question retrieval, named <italic>Chatbot4QR</italic>, which can assist users in recognizing and clarifying technical details missed in queries and thus retrieve more relevant questions for users. Chatbot4QR automatically detects missing technical details in a query and generates several clarification questions (CQs) to interact with the user to capture their overlooked technical details. To ensure the accuracy of CQs, we design a heuristic-based approach for CQ generation after building two kinds of technical knowledge bases: a manually categorized result of 1,841 technical tags in SO and the multiple version-frequency information of the tags. We develop a Chatbot4QR prototype that uses 1.88 million SO questions as the repository for question retrieval. To evaluate Chatbot4QR, we conduct six user studies with 25 participants on 50 experimental queries. The results are as follows. (1) On average 60.8 percent of the CQs generated for a query are useful for helping the participants recognize missing technical details. (2) Chatbot4QR can rapidly respond to the participants after receiving a query within approximately 1.3 seconds. (3) The refined queries contribute to retrieving more relevant SO questions than nine baseline approaches. For more than 70 percent of the participants who have preferred techniques on the query tasks, Chatbot4QR significantly outperforms the state-of-the-art word embedding-based retrieval approach with an improvement of at least 54.6 percent in terms of two measurements: Pre<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$@$</tex-math><alternatives><mml:math><mml:mo>@</mml:mo></mml:math><inline-graphic xlink:href="xia-ieq1-3016006.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula>k and NDCG<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$@$</tex-math><alternatives><mml:math><mml:mo>@</mml:mo></mml:math><inline-graphic xlink:href="xia-ieq2-3016006.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula>k. (4) For 48-88 percent of the assigned query tasks, the participants obtain more desired results after interacting with Chatbot4QR than directly searching from Web search engines (e.g., the SO search engine and Google) using the original queries.
Interruption de la communication bactérienne dans la rhizosphère par la dégradation enzymatique des signaux quorum sensing

L’identification, chez divers organismes, d’enzymes de degradation des N-acyl homoserineslactones (NAHLs) impliquees dans la signalisation QS pose la question de leurs roles dans lesinteractions bacteries-eucaryotes. Dans une premiere partie, une synthese bibliographique analyse lesconnaissances acquises sur ces enzymes degradant les NAHLs. Dans une seconde partie, la croissancedes bacteries degradant les signaux NAHLs a ete stimulee par l’application de g-caprolactone (GCL)dans la rhizosphere de plants de pommes de terre a des fins de phytoprotection. L’effet de cetraitement sur la diversite des communautes bacteriennes rhizospheriques a ete evalue en combinantdifferentes approches d’ecologie microbienne moleculaire comme la DGGE, le pyrosequencaged’amplicons rrs, et la metagenomique fonctionnelle. Cette derniere approche appliquee a une banquede 30 000 clones environ a conduit a l’identification d’un gene qsdB codant la degradation des signauxNAHL. Ce travail revele ainsi l’existence d’une nouvelle classe d’enzymes de degradation des NAHLsappartenant a la famille des enzymes possedant une signature amidase (AS) dont des membres sontpar ailleurs impliques dans la degradation de composes xenobiotiques. Dans une troisieme partie, unsysteme experimental a ete developpe afin de mesurer le transfert conjugatif du plasmide de virulenceTi (tumor inducing) chez des derives du pathogene Agrobacterium tumefaciens, appeles «tricheurs»,incapables de produire des signaux NAHLs mais utilisateurs de ceux produits par les autres bacteries.Ce modele a permis de montrer l’effet moderateur de lactonases degradant les NAHLs exprimees chezdes agrobacteries produisant les NAHLs, chez des bacteries receptrices du plasmide Ti, ou des planteshotes des agrobacteries sur le transfert conjugatif initie par les tricheurs. L’ensemble de ce travailrevele a la fois une nouvelle famille d’enzymes impliquees dans la degradation des NAHLs, ainsiqu’un nouveau role de ces enzymes dans la modulation des flux de genes entre bacteriesphytopathogenes en interaction avec une plante hote.
Improved anaerobic digestion performances of whey in a batch reactor

Abstract: Biogas and methane yields, under different operating conditions, and chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal efficiencies were investigated in a mesophilic batch reactor (38°C) for the mixtures of dairy manure (DM and cheese whey (CW at 7% or 9% of total solids (TS . Biogas production of 401 L/kg of volatile solids (VS and methane yield of 215.3 L/kg of VS was obtained after an operating time of 100 days for the mixture containing 7% of TS. A maximum increase in biogas production of 92% compared to the start-up phase was achieved with a volume of 3.6 L of biogas on day 55. The corresponding methane yield reached a maximum value of 80%. The removal efficiency of the COD was 73%. Results show that anaerobic co-digestion of cheese whey and dairy manure with 7% of TS gives better results compared to 9% of TS.
Comparing Moral Reasoning Across Graduate Occupational and Physical Therapy Students and Practitioners

Practicing clinicians must use moral reasoning to solve ethical problems and combat moral distress. Development of moral reasoning in occupational therapy (OT) and physical therapy (PT) students has been significantly under researched. The purpose of this study was to analyze the differences in moral reasoning between first year and second year OT and PT students and between students and OT and PT practitioners. Investigators utilized a cross-sectional study design with a convenience sample of University of Indianapolis OT and PT students and a combination of convenience and snowball sampling to recruit licensed OT and PT practitioners. One hundred and fifty-four participants completed the Defining Issues Test 2 (DIT-2; Rest et al., 1999) survey. Comparisons of N2 scores using t-tests found no differences between groups in moral reasoning schema (one’s preferred way of approaching moral issues, divided into stratified developmental levels). However, Pearson’s Chi-Square analysis for a comparison of all students to all practitioners for moral reasoning patterns (one’s ability to discriminate between types of moral reasoning schemas when presented with a complex moral dilemma) was significant between students (transitional) and practitioners (consolidated), with the greatest difference between second-year students and practitioners. Continual expansion of ethics content, including interjecting clinical experiences into the classroom, within OT and PT graduate programs may promote moral reasoning pattern development with carryover into practice. Clinical experiences provide real-world opportunities necessary to progress students from transitional to consolidated thinking patterns. To improve ethics education, authors recommend active learning strategies and ethics mentorship throughout clinical experiences.
Role of Kisspeptin in Puberty in Humans

Kisspeptin or GPR-54 is a product of KISS 1 gene regulating the production of gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH), luteinizing (LH) as well follicle stimulating hormone (FSH). Both LH and FSH are important hormones for reproduction in animals as well in humans. The recognition of Kisspeptin has a landmark bearing in reproductive biology. Few recent pilot studies have convincingly proven it to be a promising molecule in treating infertile couples especially those having hypogonadotropic hypogonadism not responding to conventional treatment.