Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Role of Peer Support, Superior Support, Training Self-Efficacy, Training Needs and Opportunity to Use on Readiness to Participate in Training Among Civil Servants in Nigeria

The purpose of the study is to examine the relationships between peer support, superior support, training self-efficacy, training needs and opportunity to use on readiness to participate in training. The descriptive-survey study, which was based on a sample of 255 civil servants from three organizations in Nigeria was analyzed with structural equation modeling. The findings show that peer support had direct and indirect significant relationships with readiness to participate. Opportunity to use partially mediated the effect of peer support on readiness to participate while superior support, training self-efficacy and training needs were fully mediated by opportunity to use. Finally, opportunity to use accounted for 40.5% of the variance while readiness to participate explained 58.6% of variance. The findings of the study would be primarily valuable to human resource development practitioners and policy makers in ensuring that employees have strong readiness to participate in training before such intervention is embarked on, especially in an environment, such as the civil service where motivation for personal development is low. Worthy of note was that superior support, training self-efficacy and training needs without opportunity to use the acquired knowledge, skills and abilities would not generate the expected readiness to participate especially in an environment where motivation for personal development is low.
Regional classification of New Zealand red wines using inductively‐coupled plasma‐mass spectrometry (ICP‐MS)

Red wines in a dataset of 120 single-region wines could be classified into seven of the major New Zealand winegrowing regions with an overall accuracy of 80.8% using leave-one-out linear discrimination with the elements Sr, Rb, Ni, Co, Pb, Mn, Cd, Ga and Cs. A higher classification accuracy of 94.4% was achieved when regions were combined into North Island, Nelson, and other South Island regions. The rare earth elements did not prove useful for regional classification, both because of their low and variable concentrations and because their concentrations can be increased upon bentonite fining. Wines originating in the Gimblett Gravels Winegrowing District could be discriminated from wines grown in the remainder of the Hawke's Bay region with a high degree of accuracy using Ba, Cs, Rb, and Pb. A small difference in elemental composition between Pinot Noir, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Merlot wines originating from the Hawke's Bay region was observed. However, despite this difference greater classification accuracy was obtained with a database containing all the red wines than a subset containing only Pinot Noir wines.
Interactive Effects of Biochar and Sewage Sludge on Bioavailability and Plant Uptake of Cu, Fe, and Zn, and Spinach (Spinacia oleracea L.) Yields under Wastewater Irrigation

Biochar can influence bioavailability of micronutrients and crop yields in sewage sludge-treated soils, but the mechanisms of its effects remain poorly understood. Therefore, this field experiment was conducted on a Luvisol and Cambisol to investigate the bioavailability and uptake of some micronutrients and spinach (Spinacia oleracea L.) yields grown in soil amended with biochar and sewage sludge. Ten treatments arranged in randomized complete block design with three levels of biochar (0, 2.5, 5 t/ha) and sewage sludge (0, 6, 12 t/ha) and combinations thereof were applied. High rate of sole sewage sludge, and its combination with biochar significantly (p < 0.05) increased yield on the Luvisol. On the Cambisol, only marginal yield increase resulted from high rates of sole organic amendments and chemical fertilizer, while co-applications decreased yields. Co-amendments generally increased bioavailability of micronutrients relative to sole amendments in the order Fe > Cu = Zn, with greater increase on the Cambisol, but uptake of micronutrients decreased with co-application rates of amendments. Contents of micronutrients in plant leaves were within the normal range, except for a combination of highest dosage of co-amendments on the Cambisol (Fe; 560 mg/kg), which resulted in leaf necrosis and 7% yield depression. The results showed greater yield response of spinach to co-application of amendments on the Luvisol.
Influence of hydrocolloid addition on physical properties and rheology of olive oil in bitter orange juice (O/W) nano-emulsions prepared with blends of different surfactants

Abstract Olive oil-in-bitter orange juice (O/W) nano-emulsions were prepared by Phase Inversion Composition method. Binary combinations of Tween80, Span20, sucrose monopalmitate and sunflower lecithin were used as surfactants. Influence of type (locust bean gum, xanthan gum, iota-carrageenan) and concentration (0–0.40%) of added hydrocolloid upon physical (visual appearance, transparency (T), microstructure, particle size (D43)) and rheological properties (consistency index (K), flow index (n), apparent viscosity (Ƞa ) of nano-emulsions were investigated. The lowest D43 (0.143 µm–0.569 µm) and Ƞa (2.46–2.51 cp) accompanied with the highest T (47.50–70.65%) were observed in nano-emulsions prepared without hydrocolloid. Significant negative correlation was found between D43, Ƞa and T, i.e., hydrocolloid addition increased the Ƞa and D43, as well as T loss. The Power Law model was well-suited to the experimental data (R2 >0.9534). The n values of Tween80/Span20, Tween80/SL and Tween80/SMP nano-emulsions in the absence of hydrocolloid were 1.00, 0.98 and 0.99, respectively, which presents a Newtonian behavior. The n values of Tween80/Span20, Tween80/SL and Tween80/SMP nano-emulsions in the presence of LBG, XA and i-CARR at varying concentrations were in the range of 0.16–0.99, 0.13–0.98 and 0.15–0.97, respectively, which presents Non-Newtonian shear-thinning behavior. Same type of hydrocolloid showed similar trend in all nano-emulsions regardless of emulsion composition. There has been significant positive correlation between D43, K and Ƞa , while there has been significant negative correlation between T, n and Ƞa . Graphical Abstract
Robbing Peter to Pay Paul: Earnings management practices in Brazilian SOEs

Objective: The accounting information can be manipulated in order to change the perception of the minority shareholders about the real situation of the firm. In case of state-owned enterprises (SOEs), they can have their wealth expropriated by the politicians and bureaucrats’ opportunistic behavior, which is an incentive to the earnings management (EM) practice. This study aims to analyze the state ownership effects on EM in Brazil, and investigate the link between EM, and ownership and control structures. Method: Data from 2006–2015 , for 250 non-financial Brazilian public firms, which covers 26 SOEs. The analyses are based on multiple regression methods with panel data. Originality/Relevance: This study innovates by including in this analysis the interaction of state control with the excess of control rights over the ownership rights of the largest shareholders, and analyze the entrenchment effect. Additionally, addresses the EM both in terms of direction and breadth. Results: SOEs tend to take on income-increasing practices, which persisted even after the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). However, the IFRS adoption led to a reduction in the level of EM, in special the positive trend. Yet, the firms' market value and size are significant for explaining EM. Theoretical/Methodological contributions: this study helps to understand the behavior of Brazilian SOEs, while reveals the SOE's political influence can induce greater information asymmetry and the control is more concentrated in there, which supposedly raises the risks of minority shareholders' expropriation. These results suggest the need for improvements in the transparency of these companies.
Telomere length in relation to colour polymorphism across life stages in the tawny owl

Telomere erosion has been proposed to be tightly associated with senescence, environmental stressors and life history trade-offs. How telomere dynamics vary across life stages and especially in relation to (heritable) phenotypic traits is still unclear. The tawny owl Strix aluco display a highly heritable melanin-based colour polymorphism, a grey and a brown morph, linked to several fitness traits including morph-specific telomere dynamics. As adults, brown tawny owls have shorter relative telomere length (RTL) and exhibit faster telomere shortening rate than grey owls. Here we test if these morph-specific telomere dynamics emerge already during growth, or if they are induced only in adult life through differential physiological costs associated with the life history of the morphs. We analysed RTL from 287 tawny owl offspring and 81 first breeding adults to evaluate at what life stage morph-specific patterns emerge. We found no differences in RTL between the two morphs during the nestling period nor at the first breeding attempt. Sex, brood size or size rank in the nest did not affect offspring RTL. Among first-breeders, females had shorter telomeres than males suggesting a sampling-time dependent difference in reproductive costs between sexes, due to the prominent sex roles in tawny owls in the early nestling period. The probability to return to breed after the first breeding attempt was not affected by RTL, sex or colour morph. The lack of morph-specific difference in RTL among nestlings and first breeders suggests that previously observed morph-specific differences in RTL dynamics in adults emerge at the onset of the breeding career and is likely due to different physiological profiles and life-history strategies adopted by adults. We conclude that different telomere dynamics and senescence patterns among highly heritable phenotypes (colour morphs) are likely to be a result of differential costs of reproduction and self-maintenance. (Less)
Double-weighted patch-based label fusion for MR brain image segmentation

In recent decades, a large number of label fusion methods have been introduced and applied to magnetic resonance brain image segmentation. This paper proposes a double-weighted label fusion method to improve the segmentation accuracy of magnetic resonance brain tissues. In weighted label fusion methods, different weights are utilised for different neighbouring pixels around the central test pixel. The weight of one speciﬁc neighbouring pixel is determined by the structural similarity between the patch of the atlas that centred in the neighbouring pixel and the patch of the image to be segmented that centred in the central test pixel, which is referred to as a patch-based label fusion scheme. This paper presents a double-weighted label fusion method to improve the segmentation accuracy of magnetic resonance brain tissues. The proposed label fusion method adds another new type of weights to the neighbouring pixels around the central test pixel and this new type of weights are calculated based on the atlas information itself. Segmentation experiments of different brain tissues show that our method can improve the segmentation performance.
XB-SIM∗: A simulation framework for modeling and exploration of ReRAM-based CNN acceleration design

: Resistive Random Access Memory (ReRAM)-based neural network accelerators have potential to surpass their digital counterparts in computational efﬁciency and performance. However, design of these accelerators faces a number of challenges including imperfections of the ReRAM device and a large amount of calculations required to accurately simulate the former. We present XB-SIM (cid:3) , a simulation framework for ReRAM-crossbar-based Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) accelerators. XB-SIM (cid:3) can be ﬂexibly conﬁgured to simulate the accelerator’s structure and clock-driven behaviors at the architecture level. This framework also includes an ReRAM-aware Neural Network (NN) training algorithm and a CNN-oriented mapper to train an NN and map it onto the simulated design efﬁciently. Behavior of the simulator has been veriﬁed by the corresponding circuit simulation of a real chip. Furthermore, a batch processing mode of the massive calculations that are required to mimic the behavior of ReRAM-crossbar circuits is proposed to fully apply the computational concurrency of the mapping strategy. On CPU/GPGPU, this batch processing mode can improve the simulation speed by up to 5.02 (cid:2) or 34.29 (cid:2) . Within this framework, comprehensive architectural exploration and end-to-end evaluation have been achieved, which provide some insights for systemic optimization.
COVID-19: Clinical Presentation and Prognostic Factors of Severe Disease and Mortality in the Oldest-Old Population: A Cohort Study

Introduction: The oldest-old population (80 years or older) has the highest lethality from COVID-19. There is little information on the clinical presentation and specific prognostic factors for this group. This trial evaluated the clinical presentation and prognostic factors of severe disease and mortality in the oldest-old population. Methods: This is an ambispective cohort study of oldest-old patients hospitalized for respiratory infection associated with COVID-19 and with a positive test by RT-PCR. The clinical presentation and the factors associated with severe disease and mortality were evaluated (logistic regression). All patients were followed up until discharge or death. Results: A total of 103 patients (59.2% female) were included. The most frequent symptoms were fever (68.9%), dyspnoea (60.2%), and cough (39.8%), and 11.7% presented confusion. Fifty-nine patients (57.3%) presented severe disease, and 59 died, with 43 patients (41.7%) presenting both of these. In the multivariate analysis, female sex (odds ratio [OR] 0.31, 95% confidence interval [95% CI] 0.13–0.73, p 0.0074) and serum lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) (OR 2.55, 95% CI 1.21–5.37, p 0.0139) were associated with severe disease, and serum sodium was associated with mortality (OR 3.12, 95% CI 1.18–8.26, p 0.0222). No chronic disease or pharmacological treatment was associated with worse outcomes. Conclusions: The typical presenting symptoms of respiratory infection in COVID-19 are less frequent in the oldest-old population. Male sex and LDH level are associated with severe disease, and the serum sodium level is associated with mortality in this population.
A Sensor Data Stream Collection Scheme Considering Phase Differences for Load Balancing

In the internet of things (IoT), various devices (things) including sensors generate data and publish them via the internet. The authors define continuous sensor data with difference cycles as a sensor data stream and have proposed methods to collect distributed sensor data streams. In this paper, the authors describe a skip graph-based collection scheme for sensor data streams considering phase differences. In the proposed scheme considering phase differences, the collection time is balanced within each collection cycle by the phase differences, and the probability of load concentration to the specific time or node is decreased. The simulation results show that the proposed scheme can equalize the loads of nodes even if the distribution of collection cycles is not uniform.
Parallel optimization of the Crystal-KMC on Tianhe-2

: The Kinetic Monte Carlo (KMC) is one of the commonly used methods for simulating radiation damage of materials. Our team develops a parallel KMC software named Crystal-KMC, which supports the Embedded Atom Method (EAM) potential energy and utilizes the Message Passing Interface (MPI) technology to simulate the vacancy transition of the Copper (Cu) element under neutron radiation. To make better use of the computing power of modern supercomputers, we develop the parallel efﬁciency optimization model for the Crystal-KMC on Tianhe-2, to achieve a larger simulation of the damage process of materials under irradiation environment. Firstly, we analyze the performance bottleneck of the Crystal-KMC software and use the MIC ofﬂoad statement to implement the operation of key modules of the software on the MIC coprocessor. We use OpenMP to develop parallel optimization for the Crystal-KMC, combined with existing MPI inter-process communication optimization, ﬁnally achieving hybrid parallel optimization. The experimental results show that in the single-node CPU and MIC collaborative parallel mode, the speedup of the calculation hotspot reaches 30.1, and the speedup of the overall software reaches 7.43.
The role of goal and meaning in life for older adults facing interpersonal stress

Abstract Interpersonal stressful events (ISE) have been shown to be potent predictors of major depressive symptoms among older adults. This study examines the relationships between recent ISE and depressive symptoms in late life and explores whether having coping cognitive resource (e.g. finding meaning and goal in life) can buffer the effects of ISE on depressive symptoms for older adults. We utilized a sample of residents in Florida retirement communities (N = 588) who participated in a long-term-panel study using yearly assessments for six years. Additionally, we modeled within-person differences in ISE and depressive symptoms simultaneously with multilevel modeling. Then, we tested the moderating effect of coping resource (i.e. meaning in life and goal in life) in the association between ISE and depressive symptoms. We found that the mean level of ISE is associated with higher depressive symptoms and lower life satisfaction. In addition, higher levels of within-person meaning and goal buffered the negative effect of ISE on depressive symptoms for older adults. Similarly, within-person meaning and goal also attenuated the negative effect of ISE on life satisfaction.
The [V−C═C−V] Divacancy and the Interstitial Defect in Diamond: Vibrational Properties

We describe a particularly stable isolated divacancy [V—C═C—V] in diamond, in which the two vacant sites are separated by two bonded carbons. Its structure, vibrational properties, and stability are described by using Density Functional Theory (DFT). We validated the calculated C═C stretching frequencies for eleven molecules. The isolated divacancy [V—C═C—V] is found to be very stable and is separated by a high barrier of 5 eV from the divacancy of two missing adjacent carbons, V2. The predicted characteristic C═C stretching frequency of the isolated divacancy [V—C═C—V] is 1607 cm−1, close to Raman bands at 1620−1630 cm−1 observed in various nanodiamonds, offering an alternative interpretation for the assignment of this vibrational band. We conclude that the alternative interpretation based on the CC stretching mode of an interstitial defect can be ruled out. Our accurate and validated vibrational calculations offer further evidence that the vibrational structure of the 3H optical center in diamonds shoul.
Statistical analysis/theoretical investigations of novel vascular endothelial growth factor of Davanoide from Scolymus grandifloras Desf as potent anti-angiogenic drug properties

Abstract Many pro-angiogenic factors acting directly or indirectly on the proliferation and differentiation of endothelial cells have been highlighted, in particular: VEGF (‘Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor’), FGF (‘Fibroblast Growth Factor’), PDGF (‘Platelet-Derived Growth Factor’), VEGF exerts its pro-angiogenic activity by binding to the surface of receptors with tyrosine kinase activity (VEGFR). The first objective of this study was to elucidate the composition of the essential oil of the roots of Scolymus grandifloras Desf. The second aim was to describe the intra-species variation in essential oil composition in natural populations of 21 oil samples from different Algerian locations using statistical analysis and bioinformatical study of VEGFR inhibition. The essential oil isolated from the root parts, was a really source of Davanoide compounds. The results of the docking simulation revealed that davanone (Ligand 13) has an affinity to interact with cDNA, VEGF and its receptors. The ADMET properties and BOILED-Egg plot validate the compound 13 pass the brain barrier and have high absorption in the intestines with good bioavailability. The findings of this study contribute to the pharmacological knowledge and the therapeutic efficacy of davanone and can initiate the development of new anti-angiogenic drugs. Results showed that essential oil of Scolymus grandiflorus presented a large level of percentage of davanone, davanol D1 and 2-hydroxy davanone. These components may be a new source of nontoxic anticancer agents. However, an additional in vitro and/or in vivo experimental study should make it possible to verify the theoretical results obtained in silico. Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma
Impact of irrigated agriculture on welfare of farm households in northern Ethiopia: panel data evidence *

The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of participating in irrigated agriculture on the welfare of smallholders in the semi‐arid economy of northern Ethiopia. Two rounds of balanced panel data for the production seasons 2009/2010 and 2014/2015 collected from 407 smallholder farmers were analysed. Correlated random effect double hurdle models are used to estimate participation and extent of involvement in irrigated agriculture. The household fixed effect with a control function approach was used to assess the impact of participating in irrigated agriculture on welfare outcomes. The double hurdle model results indicate that households with at least one plot owned and located within the irrigation command area positively and significantly affect participation in irrigated agriculture. The fixed‐effect model results also revealed that the area planted with use of irrigation enables smallholders to grow crops more than once a year; to ensure increased and stable production, income, consumption and asset accumulation positively. The finding of this study confirms that the potential role of irrigated agriculture is not limited to improving crop income and consumption of rural households, but also higher production from irrigated agriculture generates surplus products and better chance to integrate with the output market.
Stochastic Simulation of Vertical Components of Near-field Pulse-less Ground Motions

ABSTRACT This paper illustrates a novel method for stochastic simulation of the vertical components of the near-field pulse-less earthquakes. The model parameters are estimated for 120 near-field records and regressed against the scenario parameters including moment magnitude, epicentral distance, hypocentral depth, and the shear-wave velocity. The model is verified by simulating records for nine different scenarios and the 50th and 84th percentile values of the resulted spectrum are compared with the NGA-West2 vertical attenuation results. The results show that the proposed model can generate vertical records according to scenario cases in which their response spectrum is compatible with those of NGA-West2 GMPEs.
Formation of Nanostructured PVDF/PA11 Blends Using High-Shear Processing

National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science andTechnology, Nanotechnology Research Institute, TsukubaCentral 5, 1-1-1 Higashi, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8565,Japan, and Mitsubishi Chemical, Science and TechnologyResearch Center, 1000 Kamoshida-cho, Aoba-ku,Yokohama 227-0033, JapanReceived June 29, 2005Revised Manuscript Received August 5, 2005