Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Denitrification in a Soil under Wheat Crop in the Humid Pampas of Argentina

The need to accurately estimate gaseous nitrogen losses from soils is required to have a better understanding of the processes involved as well as soil and environmental conditions, and management practices contributing to these emissions. The objective was to quantify the denitrification rate using undisturbed cores with acetylene, as related to nitrogen (N) fertilization rate in a spring wheat crop (Triticum aestivum L.) under conventional tillage. Soil denitrification losses remained low throughout most of the growing season, when water-filled pore space (WFPS) was below 60%, ranging from 0.79 to 447.3 g N2O-N ha-1•day-1 in the fertilized plot and was less than 47.3 g N2O-N ha-1•day-1 in the control. Denitrification rates were the highest when N fertilizer was applied after frequent and intensive rain. A good correlation was found between the logarithm of the daily denitrification rate and WFPS (r = 0.67, n = 90); however the NO3-N concentration was not a good indicator (r = 0.21, n = 90). Cumulative N2O-N losses by denitrification averaged 3.5 and 0.9 kg N2O-N ha-1 in the fertilized and unfertilized treatment, respectively, during a period of 4 months this difference was not significant. Most N2O-N losses occurred early in the spring; therefore sampling schedules need to focus on this period.
Work-Related Ability as Source of Information Advantages of Training Employers

This paper addresses the puzzle how employers that invest in general human capital can gain an information advantage with respect to the ability of their employees when training is certified by credible external institutions. We apply an established model from the employer-learning literature and distinguish between two ability dimensions: cognitive and work-related ability. We apply this model to the German apprenticeship system and show that cognitive ability certified by external institutions at that the end of apprenticeship training can be signalled to outside employers. Apprenticeship graduates however cannot signal their work-related ability - measured by a small voluntary bonus paid by the training employer - to the outside market. We therefore show that the information advantage on work-related ability explains that training employers can positively select the apprentices they retain. As a consequence, this information advantage induces employers to invest in certified and transferable human capital.
Failure to Recover from Proactive Semantic Interference Differentiates Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment and PreMCI from Normal Aging after Adjusting for Initial Learning Ability

Background: There is increasing evidence that the failure to recover from proactive semantic interference (frPSI) may be an early cognitive marker of preclinical Alzheimer’s disease (AD). However, it is unclear whether frPSI effects reflect deficiencies in an individual’s initial learning capacity versus the actual inability to learn new semantically related targets. Objective: The current study was designed to adjust for learning capacity and then to examine the extent to which frPSI, proactive semantic interference (PSI) and retroactive semantic interference (RSI) effects could differentiate between older adults who were cognitively normal (CN), and those diagnosed with either Pre-Mild Cognitive Impairment (PreMCI) or amnestic MCI (aMCI). Methods: We employed the LASSI-L cognitive stress test to examine frPSI, PSI and RSI effects while simultaneously controlling for the participant’s initial learning capacity among 50 CN, 35 aMCI, and 16 PreMCI participants who received an extensive diagnostic work-up. Results: aMCI and PreMCI participants showed greater frPSI deficits (50% and 43.8% respectively) compared to only 14% of CNparticipants. PSI effects were observed for aMCI but not PreMCI participants relative to their CN counterparts. RSI failed to differentiate between any of the study groups. Conclusion: By using participants as their own controls and adjusting for overall learning and memory, it is clear that frPSI deficits occur with much greater frequency in individuals at higher risk for Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and likely reflect a failure of brain compensatory mechanisms.
Modélisation et simulation de l'enlèvement de revêtements polymériques par impact particulaire

Le decapage des revetements polymeriques par impacts de particules abrasives est un nouveau procede qui vient remplacer les procedes chimiques polluants. Notre travail porte sur la comprehension des phenomenes physiques intervenant dans l'enlevement des revetements par impacts. Dans un premier temps, nous avons elabore un dispositif experimental pour etudier des mono-impacts avec des particules spheriques sur des cibles en alliages d'aluminium (A2024) revetues par une peinture en polyurethane de nuance (PAC 33). A travers ces essais, nous avons montre que le delaminage de la peinture est le mecanisme essentiel de l'enlevement de matiere. Dans un second temps, nous avons identife un modele rheologique du comportement de la peinture dans les conditions reelles de sollicitation a savoir des grandes vitesses de deformation et des grandes deformations. Nous avons utilise les techniques inverses pour trouver les coefficients de la loi d'ecoulement de Johnson-Cook a partir des dimensions des empreintes d'imapct. Pour comprendre les origines de ce delaminage nous avons simule dans une troisieme etape les essais d'impact a l'aide d'un programme elements finis de dynamique explicite (LS-DYNA). Nous avons remarque que l'enlevement de la peinture est le resultat des trois phenomenes suivants : - initiation du delaminage des les premiers instatns d'impact suite aux contraintes de cisaillement tres elevees a l'interface ; - flambement de la peinture suite aux fortes contraintes radiales de compression dans le film provoquees par la penetration de la particule dans le revetement ; - propagation de la zone delaminee suivant le mode I de rupture.
Antioxidant and antimicrobial properties of ethanolic extract of Libidibia ferrea pods

Libidibia ferrea is a typical plant of northern and north-east Brazil and has well-known medicinal properties that can be found in ethanolic extracts such as antipyretic, anti-inflammatory and anti-rheumatic compounds. This study seeks to evaluate the potential antioxidant and antimicrobial activity of ethanol extracts from Libidibia ferrea pods. The pods were used for the preparation of ethanolic extracts of L. ferrea which is used to determine biological activity, and measure their total phenolic content. For quantification of antioxidant methods of DPPH, ABTS and β-carotene were employed and the method of minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) to measure the antimicrobial activity. The ethanolic extract of L. ferrea showed excellent antioxidant activity, as well as other similar substances commonly used for this purpose such as citric acid and trolox. In addition, it had antimicrobial activity against Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria.
An Improved Ant Colony Optimization Algorithm for Software Project Planning and Scheduling

Research into developing effective computer aided techniques for planning software projects is important and challenging for software engineering. Different from projects in other fields, software projects are people-intensive activities and their related resources are mainly human resources. Thus, an adequate model for software project planning has to deal with not only the problem of project task scheduling but also the problem of human resource allocation. But as both of these two problems are difficult, existing models either suffer from a very large search space or have to restrict the flexibility of human resource allocation to simplify the model. To develop a flexible and effective model for software project planning, this paper proposes a novel approach with an ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithm. The proposed approach represents a plan by a task list and a planned employee allocation matrix. In this way, both the issues of task scheduling and employee allocation can be taken into account.
Totally asymmetric exclusion process with site-wise dynamic disorder

We propose an extension of the totally asymmetric simple exclusion process (TASEP) in which particles hopping along a lattice can be blocked by obstacles that dynamically attach/detach from lattice sites. The model can be thought as TASEP with site-wise dynamic disorder. We consider two versions of defect dynamics: (i) defects can bind to any site, irrespective of particle occupation, (ii) defects only bind to sites which are not occupied by particles (particle-obstacle exclusion). In case (i) there is a symmetric, parabolic-like relationship between the current and particle density, as in the standard TASEP. Case (ii) leads to a skewed relationship for slow defect dynamics. We also show that the presence of defects induces particle clustering, despite the translation invariance of the system. For open boundaries the same three phases as for the standard TASEP are observed, albeit the position of phase boundaries is affected by the presence of obstacles. We develop a simple mean-field theory that captures the model’s quantitative behaviour for periodic and open boundary conditions and yields good estimates for the current-density relationship, mean cluster sizes and phase boundaries. Lastly, we discuss an application of the model to the biological process of gene transcription.
ONEOptimal: A Maple Package for Generating One-Dimensional Optimal System of Finite Dimensional Lie Algebra

We present a Maple computer algebra package, ONEOptimal, which can calculate one-dimensional optimal system of finite dimensional Lie algebra for nonlinear equations automatically based on Olver's theory. The core of this theory is viewing the Killing form of the Lie algebra as an invariant for the adjoint representation. Some examples are given to demonstrate the validity and efficiency of the program.
EXPRESSION AND PURIFICATION OF RECOMBINANT OUTER SURFACE PROTEIN D OF BORRELIA BURGDORFERI

Summary To carry out the immunological experiments on the serum of Multiple Sclerosis (MS) patients, based on a correlation between Borrelia burgdorferi infection and contracting MS autoimmune disease the outer surface protein D (OspD) of the bacterium was expressed and purified. A clone containing the OspD gene in pET11a expression vector under the control of T7 promoter was transformed to the bacterial host BL21 (DE3). Some of the colonies were selected for IPTG-induced expression. The colony with the highest amount of OspD was selected for large-scale expression. Large-scale protein purification was performed by the reversed phase HPLC with a C4 preparative column; ultimately, the expressed purified protein was confirmed by the Western blot technique.
Two-Step Cluster Based Feature Discretization of Naive Bayes for Outlier Detection in Intrinsic Plagiarism Detection

Intrinsic plagiarism detection is the task of analyzing a document with respect to undeclared changes in writing style which treated as outliers. Naive Bayes is often used to outlier detection. However, Naive Bayes has assumption that the values of continuous feature are normally distributed where this condition is strongly violated that caused low classification performance. Discretization of continuous feature can improve the performance of Naive Bayes. In this study, feature discretization based on Two-Step Cluster for Naive Bayes has been proposed. The proposed method using tf-idf and query language model as feature creator and False Positive/False Negative (FP/FN) threshold which aims to improve the accuracy and evaluated using PAN PC 2009 dataset. The result indicated that the proposed method with discrete feature outperform the result from continuous feature for all evaluation, such as recall, precision, f-measure and accuracy. The using of FP/FN threshold affects the result as well since it can decrease FP and FN; thus, increase all evaluation.
Foraging in Guanay cormorant and Peruvian booby, the major guano-producing seabirds in the Humboldt Current System

The Humboldt Current System is the most productive upwelling system globally in terms of fish and sustains huge populations of guano-producing birds as well as the world's largest single-species fishery targeting the Peruvian anchovy Engraulis ringens. Peruvian boobies Sula variegata and Guanay cormorants Phalacrocorax bougainvillii are the most abundant seabird spe- cies in the system and feed mainly on anchovies. By using high precision GPS and timedepth recorders, we compared the horizontal and vertical movements of the 2 species to examine whether segregation occurs between their foraging areas and whether there is any evidence for prey depletion close to large colonies. A simultaneous acoustic cruise in the foraging area of the 2 bird species estimated the vertical and horizontal distributions of anchovy schools. During the study period in austral spring 2008, the 2 bird species foraged in the same area, at relatively short distance from the colony (average, 19 to 20 km). Both species foraged at similar times of the day, although Peruvian boobies tended to leave earlier in the morning and return later in the evening than did the cormorants. Foraging trips were similar in duration, distance covered and range. Peruvian anchovies were abundant and schools occurred at shallow depths (median, 7 m; range, 3 to 34 m), mainly to the north and west of the colony where foraging bouts of the 2 species over- lapped extensively. Cormorants are mainly pelagic surface divers, diving at shallow depths (median, 4 m) but reaching up to 32 m depth, and are thus able to track all the depths at which anchovies occurred during the study period. Peruvian boobies are plunge divers able to reach occasionally 10 m (median, 2 m), and are thus able to reach only shallow anchovy schools. No sex- specific differences in horizontal or vertical movements occurred between males and females in the 2 species. We suggest that the absence of significant differences between horizontal move- ments of boobies and cormorants, the relative short duration of their trips and the high number of chicks fledged were probably explained by the high abundance and accessibility of anchovies. Differences may be exacerbated during years of low anchovy abundance or accessibility, especially El Nino years.
Point process methodology for on‐line spatio‐temporal disease surveillance

We formulate the problem of on‐line spatio‐temporal disease surveillance in terms of predicting spatially and temporally localised excursions over a pre‐specified threshold value for the spatially and temporally varying intensity of a point process in which each point represents an individual case of the disease in question. Our point process model is a non‐stationary log‐Gaussian Cox process in which the spatio‐temporal intensity, λ(x,t), has a multiplicative decomposition into two deterministic components, one describing purely spatial and the other purely temporal variation in the normal disease incidence pattern, and an unobserved stochastic component representing spatially and temporally localised departures from the normal pattern. We give methods for estimating the parameters of the model, and for making probabilistic predictions of the current intensity. We describe an application to on‐line spatio‐temporal surveillance of non‐specific gastroenteric disease in the county of Hampshire, UK. The results are presented as maps of exceedance probabilities, P{R(x,t)c|data}, where R(x,t) is the current realisation of the unobserved stochastic component of λ(x,t) and c is a pre‐specified threshold. These maps are updated automatically in response to each day's incident data using a web‐based reporting system. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
South African Journal of Industrial Engineering November 2011 Vol 22(2):40-53 PHASING TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER PROJECTS FOR SUSTAINABLE SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

This paper describes appropriate phases and review points (or ‘gates’) for South African projects aimed at transferring technology for socio-economic development. Data gathering was done through a Delphi survey supplemented by a focus group session. A total of 42 knowledgeable respondents participated. The most significant phases of projects under consideration were confirmed, and relevant activities per phase and criteria for reviewing at the ‘gates’ between phases were identified. A total of 59% of resources should be made available for preand post-implementation activities, compared with the 41% of project resources to be made available during implementation. The causes of the failure of technology transfer projects under consideration were also identified. It is concluded that the use of a phased approach would improve the probability of project success.
Perceived Impact of Pre-Service Integrated Management of ChildhoodIllness (IMCI) on Case Assessment and Management Skills among NursingStudents

Objectives: This study aims to investigate likely impact of pre-service IMCI- training on nursing students’ case assessment and management skills. Methods: The study was carried out at Blinded Nursing Institute, Oman in May 2016. We developed a validated four constructs for developing a hypothetical model. The four constructs namely General Skills (GS), Knowledge, Attitudes and Skills (KAS), Confidence Level (CL) and Holistic Treatment Skills (HTS) that were used as latent variables to highlight their likely impact on the formative variable Assessment and Management Skills (AMS). Data were collected through qualitative structured questionnaires designed to measure participants’ opinions about the studied constructs. For data collection purpose, we developed a qualitative questionnaire and invited nursing students to voluntarily take part in the study. The purpose of the study and research details was explained to the potential participants in written. Participants were invited through printed posters in the institute. In response, 114 participants completed the questionnaires. Four respondents did not complete the entire questionnaire consequently they were excluded from the sample. The final sample size of the completed responses was 110 (n=110). Results: We first examined the factor loadings and calculated variances to ensure convergent validity. By exceeding 0.50, all the items in the model loaded well. We then measured the internal consistency reliability among the items through Cronbach’s Alpha that was observed to be 0.694. For all the constructs, the values exceeded the desired value of 0.50. The composite reliability of all the constructs in the model evidently surpassed the recommended value of 0.700. In the cross-loadings, the value of R2 was noted as 0.675 (R2=67.5%). Conclusion: The findings from the structural model support the hypothetical structural model. All the four studied constructs appear to significantly influence case assessment and management skills of pre-service IMCI-trained nursing students.
Robust Nonlinear Control Design with Proportional-Integral-Observer Technique

In this thesis, the motivation is explained in the introduction part based on a review of the development of observer technique especially the Proportional-Integral-Observer (PI-Observer) technique and an analysis of robust control for nonlinear systems. After that, the goals of the work are set as: improvement of the high gain PI-Observer design in the way that the high observer gains of PI-Observer can be automatically chosen and fit the current situation; and the application of PI-Observer in robust nonlinear control for nonlinear systems with unknown effects. To the first point, the high-gain PI-Observer design is systematically discussed and the online adjustment of the PI-Observer gains proposed as an advanced PI-Observer (API-Observer) is detailed. At the same time, the implementation of the addressed adjustment algorithm is included showing the adaption of the PI-Observer gains to the current situation of system dynamics and disturbances on a practical system with simulation results and real measurements respectively. To the other aspect, a high gain PI-Observer-based nonlinear control method is proposed as a combination of the PI-Observer and the classical exact feedback linearization method (EFL-PIO) and directly after it the applicability on mechanical systems is surveyed. Numerical examples of mechanical systems are given to illustrate the application of the EFL-PIO approach. At last, the implementation of the proposed PI-Observer-based nonlinear control method is illustrated in detail on a hydraulic cylinder system for its position control. Besides that, the position control for the cylinder system without direct position measurement is realized with the PI-Observer applied as virtual sensor. Here a discrete-time control algorithm is also designed and programmed to satisfy the normal industrial requirement. At last, a broader application of the robust EFL-PIO approach, a more efficient and compact numerical realization of the adaption algorithm for the API-Observer, and an API-Observer-based robust control or fault detection are suggested as future work.
A Comparisson of Synchronous And Nonsynchronous Boost Converter

Modern electronic systems require resources with high efficiency. The efficiency of direct current to dicrect current converters as a power source can be increased by replacing a diode with MOSFET. The use of MOSFET is expected to reduce power loss as the internal resistance of MOSFET is lower than a diode. To implement the propossed idea, a boost type direct current chopper and TL494 as PWM generator circuit were applied in this work. MOSFET is used in synchronization mode to replace diode at conventional topology of chopper. The proposed circuit and conventional topology were made and their performance were observed. The efficiency of both circuit were compared and analyzed. The result of the experiments showed that the efficiency of converter within MOSFET at synchronization mode is proportional with the increment of duty cycle, while at conventional topology the efficiency remain stable at any duty cycle. Synchronous boost converter is more efficient than nonsynchronous boost converter at duty cycle over than 40%.
On the great plume debate

1 Introductory note Geological processes are ultimately consequences of Earth's thermal evolution. Plate tectonic theory, which explains geological phenomena along plate boundaries, elegantly illustrates this concept. For example, the origin of oceanic plates at ocean ridges, the movement and growth of these plates, and their ultimate consumption back into the Earth's deep interior through subduction zones provide an efficient mechanism to cool the earth's mantle, leading to large-scale mantle convection. Mantle plumes, which explain another set of global geological phenomena such as within-plate volcanism, cool the earth's deep interior (probably the Earth's core) and represent another mode of Earth's thermal convection. Plate tectonic theory and mantle plume hypothesis thus complement each other to explain much of the whole picture of Earth processes and phenomena.