Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A mechanistic approach to deriving QuantitativeStructure-Biodegradability Relationships. A case study:dehalogenation of haloaliphatic compounds.

The application of a mechanistic approach for the study of mechanisms of microbial degradation processes and the development of Quantitative Structure-Biodegradability models are outlined in this contribution. The dehalogenation of haloaliphatic com­ pounds was used as a case study and an attempt was made: (i) to determine the rate­ limiting sub-process, (ii) to quantitatively estimate interspecies variability in substrate specificity and (iii) to investigate structure-activity relationships leading towards development of QSBR models. A comparison of dehalogenation rates obtained in testing systems at different organization levels, intact cells and isolated enzyme, revealed that penetration of the halogenated aliphatic compounds into the cells of dehalogenase competent microbes is not the rate limiting step in the hydrolytic dehalogenation. Consequently, the enzymatic reaction is to be considered slower than the penetration process. Multivariate analysis of the substrate profiles of the haloalkane dehalogenases of different microbial strains was performed to tackle the problem of the utility of single species testing for the prediction of environmental rate constants. At least two groups of haloalkane dehalogenases were formulated based on their ability to dehalogenate various haloaliphatic compounds. A preliminary QSBR model for terminally substituted mono- and dihalogenated alkanes was developed. All three types of descriptors: hydrophobicity, steric, and electronic were necessary to obtain a good description of the process studied. Three outliers from the model, all short-chain chlorinated compounds, were detected and the reasons for discrepancy between predictions and observation are discussed. Although more research is needed to better understand structure-biodegradability relationships for hydrolytic dehalogenation, the mechanistic approach is shown to provide beneficial information for model interpretation.
All aboard?! Co-viewing with and within connected platforms in the Eurovision Song Contest

Based on co-viewing and connected viewing literature (Authors, year), this article analyses connected co-viewing practices within and with the use of media platforms around a live television event, using the Eurovision Song Contest as a case study. This popular event has a long-running tradition which has fostered extensive use of different kinds of connected platforms, including an official app. Using a case study approach and focusing on the Spanish context, we have analysed connected co-viewing in three main platforms: Facebook (through unofficial groups), Twitter (through live conversation and hashtagging practices around the event) and by exploring the Eurovision official second screen app. The study indicates that: (1) co-viewing is mutually shaped by the affordances and interface features of the platforms, the viewers’ practices and uses given to these platforms; (2) co-viewing can be expanded by platforms when designed for collective use; (3) user-generated content and data production are central elements to enhance co-viewing when using connected platforms; (4) platform affordances can create digital spaces, which might channel the way co-viewers perform and enjoy this activity.
Allometric Equations for Estimating Biomass and Carbon Stocks in Afforested Open Woodlands with Black Spruce and Jack Pine, in the Eastern Canadian Boreal Forest

Allometric equations use easily measurable biometric variables to determine the aboveground and belowground biomasses of trees. Equations produced for estimating the biomass within Canadian forests at a large scale have not yet been validated for eastern Canadian boreal open woodlands (OWs), where trees experience particular environmental conditions. In this study, we harvested 167 trees from seven boreal OWs in Quebec, Canada for biomass and allometric measurements. These data show that Canadian national equations accurately predict the whole aboveground biomass for both black spruce and jack pine trees, but underestimated branches biomass, possibly owing to a particular tree morphology in OWs relative to closed-canopy stands. We therefore developed ad hoc allometric equations based on three power models including diameter at breast height (DBH) alone or in combination with tree height (H) as allometric variables. Our results show that although the inclusion of H in the model yields better fits for most tree compartments in both species, the difference is minor and does not markedly affect biomass C stocks at the stand level. Using these newly developed equations, we found that carbon stocks in afforested OWs varied markedly among sites owing to differences in tree growth and species. Nine years after afforestation, jack pine plantations had accumulated about five times more carbon than black spruce plantations (0.14 vs. 0.80 t C·ha−1), highlighting the much larger potential of jack pine for OW afforestation projects in this environment.
The Impact of Teacher’s Demo Lessons on Improving Teacher’s Performance and Lesson Effectiveness: an in-service training initiative introduced in a private American school in Al Ain

The aim of this research is to study the impact of ‘teacher’s demo lesson program’ on improving pedagogy and lesson quality. The initiative is a part of the school in-service training programs for teachers’ professional development. Combining retooling, remodeling, and revitalizing approaches to teacher continuous professional development, adopting a more socio cultural view of teacher training programs, and using assumptions from various theories of adult learning, the current study presents a training initiative that involves teachers in both teaching and learning, and thus, helps them reconsider their classroom practices. The study took place in one of the private schools in Al Ain City in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. The study sample included 139 middle school students and 8 middle school teachers. A mixed type approach was used for the data collection of the study. The results of the quantitative and qualitative research methods employed for the study suggest that the program has improved teachers’ overall performance and has a direct positive impact on lesson effectiveness. In spite of the high benefit of the initiative for teachers’ professional development, it cannot replace other in-service development programs that involve real classroom learning environment.
A SMOTe based Oversampling Data-Point Approach to Solving the Credit Card Data Imbalance Problem in Financial Fraud Detection

Credit card fraud has negatively affected the market economic order, broken the confidence and interest of stakeholders, financial institutions, and consumers. Losses from card fraud is increasing every year with billions of dollars being lost. Machine Learning methods use large volumes of data as examples for learning to improve the performance of classification models. Financial institutions use Machine Learning to identify fraudulent patterns from the large amounts of historical financial records. However, the detection of credit card fraud remains as a significant challenge for business intelligence technologies as most datasets containing credit card transactions are highly imbalanced. To overcome this challenge, this paper proposed the use of the data-point approach in machine learning. An experimental study was conducted applying Oversampling with SMOTe, a data-point approach technique, on an imbalanced credit card dataset. State-of-the-art classical machine learning algorithms namely, Support Vector Machines, Logistic Regression, Decision Tree and Random Forest classifiers were used to perform the classifications and the accuracy was evaluated using precision, recall, F1-score, and the average precision metrics. The results show that if the data is highly imbalanced, the model struggles to detect fraudulent transactions. After using the SMOTe based Oversampling technique, there was a significant improvement to the ability to predict positive classes.
Application of Bacterial Nano Cellulose as a Reinforcing Material in The Liner Test Paper

This research is about the application of Bacterial nano cellulose (BNC) as a reinforcing material in the making of liner test paper. BNC was obtained from the fermentation of banana peel extract using Gluconacetobacter xylinum bacteria obtained from the making starter of nata de coco. The reason for using banana peel waste is because itâ€™s available in large number all across Indonesia. BNC is mixed with secondary fiber as a raw material for making liner test paper. From the experimental handsheets results, strength properties and absorption properties were then tested. Variations in the composition of the use of BNC are 0% (blank), 5%, 10%, 15%, 20%, 25%, 30% of the handsheet dry weight. The BNC is also applicated on surface sizing as a substitute for the surface sizing agent. The results of this study indicate that BNC can be used as an alternative raw material on wet end and on surface sizing, because both applications can increase the strength properties of liner test paper, and can reduce the use of chemical additive. The highest increase in strength properties of liner test paper was obtained at the composition of nano cellulose 30% and using surface sizing. Ring crush index is 14.02 Nm / g, concora index is 12.73 Nm / g, bursting index is 3.78 KPa. mÂ² / g, ply bonding is 388.57 J / mÂ². The absorption properties of paper increases but it has a low prosity. The highest cobb size results are obtained at 30% BNC composition, which is 45.30 g / m2 without using surface sizing and 41.83 g / mÂ² using surface sizing. The highest porosity value is obtained at 30% BNC composition, which is 158 s / 100cc using surface sizing. This research is expected to be a reference for further research in the field of BNC, as the alternative raw materials besides wood in paper making.
Effect of Work Overload on Job Satisfaction Through Burnout

The current study proposes to search the relationship between work overload, burnout, and job satisfaction for lecturers. The questionnaires were distributed among 69 lecturers at the faculty of economics and business using convenience sampling. Data were processed using Partial Least Square-Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM). The finding indicates that work overload has a positive effect on burnout, but work overload and burnout do not have a negative effect on job satisfaction.
THE USE OF EMBRYO CULTURES FOR STUDYING SALT STRESS TOLERANCE OF FOUR DIFFERENT BREAD WHEAT VARIETIES AND THEIR PROMISING MUTANTS

The present study was carried out to determine the genetic response of four different bread wheat varieties and their mutants for callus induction using mature embryo culture and salt stress tolerance and to assess the genetic diversity between them using ISSR markers. The results of the ability of callus induction revealed that differences among genotypes, callus induction media (CI) and their interactions were highly significant for callus induction frequencies (CIF). Also in relation to the callus fresh weight (CFW), the differences between genotypes and their interactions with media were highly significant, whereas insignificant differences were found between media after 14 at 28 days of culture. The best medium for CIF was CIM2 containing 2 mg/l of 2,4-D for all genotypes except Gemiza 9-1 and Sakha 93-3 had the best CIF of CIM3 containing 3 mg/l of 2,4-D. Seds 12-7 had the highest CIF, whereas Sakha 93-3 had the lowest CIF of CIM2. Gemiza 9-1 had the highest CFW, whereas Sakha 93-3 had the lowest CFW after 28 days of culture. The fresh callus produced after month was transferred to salt stress media at 10000ppm NaCl level. Giza 168, Gemiza 9 and Sakha 93 showed increase in CFW, whereas other genotypes strongly decreased. Sakha 93 and Gemiza 9 gave the lowest value of callus necrosis (CN) and the highest value of callus in vitro tolerance (CINTOL) at the 10000ppm NaCl level after 28 days on salt stress media. The salt stressed callus was tested for shoot induction ability; callus of Gemiza 9 and Sakha 93 showed the best shoot induction frequencies at 10000 ppm level. Days to shoot induction were decreased with the increase of salt levels compared to normal conditions. Transfer of shooty callus on plant regeneration media to be grown and development failed. The callus turned brown and some of the resulting growths were weak and white. The use of ISSR technique illustrated the genetic similarities between the wheat genotypes, which ranged from 0.638 to 0.979 with an average of 0.809, suggesting a high genetic diversity between the wheat genotypes. Cluster analysis performed to generate dendrogram showed that wheat genotypes had been clustered into two main clusters. From the previous results, we recommended that Gemiza9 and Sakha93 are good materials for salt stress tolerance of bread wheat breeding programs.
Reforestation & Marine Permaculture: Does the Method Affect the Willingness To Pay for Carbon Offsetting? A Randomised Contingent Valuation Study

Failing to limit global mean surface temperature rise to 1.5°C risks leading to irreversible environmental degradation. One measure to mitigate global warming is carbon offsetting through increasing biotic carbon sequestration. This thesis utilises a randomised contingent valuation study to evaluate the willingness to pay for carbon offsetting as a measurement of the reduction in utility that respondents experience from environmental degradation, based on the microeconomic framework of equivalent variation. Specifically, we look at if the method used for offsetting impacts the willingness to pay for the service by investigating reforestation and marine permaculture. We analyse our data through various regression models, postestimation commands and paired t-tests using Stata. Our regressions gave inconclusive results regarding the effect of the offsetting method used in our main test. Furthermore, our paired t-test results showed significant, albeit small differences in means between willingness to pay for offsetting through the respective method, as well as for the familiarity of the two methods. Both mean values were higher when reforestation was the method considered. The literature review supports the idea that the choice of method is important in terms of cobenefits. Lastly, we found evidence that education affects the willingness to pay for carbon offsetting positively.
Patterns of reef fish assemblage distribution on a Brazilian subtropical rocky shore: an approach to benthic association

Os ambientes recifais sao caracterizados como formacoes de fundo consolidado de origem orgânica e/ou inorgânica. Em costoes rochosos, fatores bioticos e abioticos determinam a sua biodiversidade. Na praia do Forno, onde o fenomeno da ressurgencia ocorre, a assembleia de peixes recifais foi analisada por meio de censo visual. A cobertura bentonica do substrato foi classificada em quatro categorias. O uso do substrato foi determinado pela abundância relativa das especies em cada um de seus tipos. Um total de 5414 individuos pertencentes a 31 especies de peixes recifais foi observado. Os resultados demonstraram que a preferencia por habitats, caracterizados pela cobertura por organismos bentonicos, foi um fator importante na determinacao da composicao da assembleia de peixes recifais, em uma microescala. A escolha de um habitat dentre os diversos tipos de substrato, poder ser em sua maior parte explicada pela disponibilidade de recursos alimentares. Palavras chave : Cobertura bentonica, padroes biogeograficos, interacoes bioticas, habitat, ictiofauna, costoes rochosos.
Adsorptive Removal of As(V) from Aqueous Solution onto Steel Slag Recovered Iron – Chitosan Composite: Response Surface Modeling and Kinetics

In the present work iron particles was recovered by dry magnetic separation, from waste steel slag, doped with chitosan for adsorbent prepared, characterized and evaluated for the removal of As(V) from an aqueous solution. The adsorption of As(V) was optimized by using response surface methodology through Box-Behnken design model, which gave high correlation coefficient (R2 = 0.9175), and a predictive model of quadratic polynomial equation. Analysis of variance and Fischer's F-test were used to govern the parameters which interrupt the adsorption of As(V). The adsorbent was characterized by FTIR, XRD and SEM. Optimal conditions, including adsorbent dosage, pH, temperature, initial ion concentration and contact time for the removal of As(V), were found to be 0.8 g, pH 4, 308 K, 10 mg L−1 and 3 h, respectively. Langmuir isotherm model fitted better compared to the Freundlich model having a maximum adsorption capacity of 11.76 mg g−1, a high regression coefficient value of 0.993 and least chi-square value of 0.1959. The process was found to follow monolayer adsorption and pseudo-second-order kinetics. Thermodynamic parameters such as ∆S, ∆H and ∆G indicated the feasibility, spontaneous and endothermic nature of adsorption. Successful regeneration of the adsorbent implies its applicability to the removal of arsenic from real life wastewater.
Measurements of the Critical Parameters for cis-1,1,1,4,4,4-Hexafluoro-2-butene

In this work, measurements of the critical parameters for cis-1,1,1,4,4,4-hexafluoro-2-butene (HFO-1336mzz(Z)) were carried out by the meniscus disappearance method. Menisci were observed along five isochoric lines in the density range from 465 kg·m–3 to 536 kg·m–3, that is, near the critical density reported in our previous work. Critical opalescence was observed along all isochoric lines. The critical density was determined as the density at which the meniscus remained fixed with decreasing temperature. The critical temperature and critical pressure were determined from the observation of the meniscus disappearance with temperature increasing in 0.01 K intervals. The critical density, critical temperature, and critical pressure of HFO-1336mzz(Z) were determined to be 507 ± 5 kg·m–3, 444.50 ± 0.03 K, and 2895 ± 6 kPa, respectively.
A Multi-Domain Group-Based Intervention to Promote Physical Activity, Healthy Nutrition, and Psychological Wellbeing in Frail Older People: AMICOPE Development Study

The World Health Organization has developed the Integrated Care of Older People (ICOPE) strategy, a program based on the measurement of intrinsic capacity (IC) as “the composite of all physical and mental attributes on which an individual can draw”. Multicomponent interventions appear to be the more effective approach to enhance IC and to prevent frailty and dependence, being adapted physical activity is the preventive intervention that has shown more evidence in the treatment of frailty and risk of falls. The present study aims to describe the development of a multi-domain group-based intervention addressed to frail older people living in the community aimed to improve and/or maintain intrinsic capacity by means of promoting physical activity, healthy nutrition, and psychological wellbeing in frail older people. We used the GUIDED checklist to describe the development process of AMICOPE (Aptitude Multi-domain group-based intervention to improve and/or maintain IC in frail Older PEople). The intervention was built upon the ICOPE framework and it is described with Template for Intervention Description and Replication (TIDieR) guidelines and it includes dietary advice, cognitive stimulation strategies, medication review, goal setting, and activities to strengthen social support and manage depressive symptoms, as well as strength, balance and flexibility exercise using the Vivifrail program. The study represents the first stage of the UK Medical Research Council framework for developing and evaluating a complex intervention. The next step should be carrying out a feasibility study for the AMICOPE intervention, and in a later stage, assessing the effectiveness in a randomized controlled
On UMAP's True Loss Function

UMAP has supplanted t-SNE as state-of-the-art for visualizing high-dimensional datasets in many disciplines, but the reason for its success is not well understood. In this work, we investigate UMAP's sampling based optimization scheme in detail. We derive UMAP's effective loss function in closed form and find that it differs from the published one. As a consequence, we show that UMAP does not aim to reproduce its theoretically motivated high-dimensional UMAP similarities. Instead, it tries to reproduce similarities that only encode the shared $k$ nearest neighbor graph, thereby challenging the previous understanding of UMAP's effectiveness. Instead, we claim that the key to UMAP's success is its implicit balancing of attraction and repulsion resulting from negative sampling. This balancing in turn facilitates optimization via gradient descent. We corroborate our theoretical findings on toy and single cell RNA sequencing data.
ER bodies are induced by Pseudomonas syringae and negatively regulate 1 immunity 2 3 Running title : Role of ER bodies in the defense response 4 5

23 ER bodies are endoplasmic reticulum-derived organelles present in plants 24 belonging to the Brassicales order. In Arabidopsis thaliana, ER bodies are 25 ubiquitous in cotyledons and roots, and present only in certain cell types in 26 rosette leaves. However, both wounding and jasmonic acid treatment induce 27 the formation of ER bodies in leaves. Formation of this structure is dependent 28 on the transcription factor NAI1. The main components of the ER bodies are β29 glucosidases (BGLUs), enzymes that hydrolyze specialized compounds. In 30 Arabidopsis, PYK10 (BGLU23) and BGLU18 are the most abundant ER body 31 proteins. In this work, we found that ER bodies are downregulated as a 32 consequence of the immune responses induced by bacterial flagellin 33 perception. Arabidopsis mutants defective in ER body formation show 34 enhanced responses upon flagellin perception and enhanced resistance to 35 bacterial infections. Furthermore, the bacterial toxin coronatine induces the 36 formation of de novo ER bodies in leaves and its virulence function is partially 37 dependent on this structure. Finally, we show that performance of the 38 polyphagous beet armyworm herbivore, Spodoptera exigua, increases in plants 39 lacking ER bodies. Altogether, we provide new evidence for the role of the ER 40 bodies in plant immune responses. 41 42
Synthesis of (Adamantylimido)vanadium(V) Dimethyl Complex Containing (2-Anilidomethyl)pyridine Ligand and Selected Reactions: Exploring the Oxidation State of the Catalytically Active Species in Ethylene Dimerization

V(NAd)Me2(L) [2a, L = 2-ArNCH2(C5H4N), Ar = 2,6-Me2C6H3], prepared from V(NAd)Cl2(L) (1) by reaction with LiMe (2.0 equiv), exhibited remarkable catalytic activities for ethylene dimerization in the presence of MAO affording 1-butene with high selectivity [TOF = 1 120 000–1 530 000 h–1 (311–425 s–1), C4′ = 97.1–98.4%], and the catalyst performances (activity, selectivity) were similar to those by the dichloride analogue (1) under the same conditions. The dimethyl complex (2a) reacted with 1.0 equiv of R′OH to yield the mono alkoxide complexes, V(NAd)Me(OR′)(L) [R′ = OC(CF3)3 (3a), OC(CH3)(CF3)2 (3b), OC(CH3)3 (3c)], and structures of these complexes (3a–c) and 2a were determined by X-ray crystallography. Reactions of 2a with [Ph3C][B(C6F5)4] in Et2O and 3c with B(C6F5)3 in THF afforded the corresponding cationic complexes confirmed by NMR spectra. Both NMR and V K-edge XANES analysis of the toluene or toluene-d8 solution of 1 and 2a did not show any significant changes in the oxidation state upon addition.