Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Statistic Study of Gaseous Air Contamination in the City of Svishtov, Bulgaria

Polluted air has a negative impact on human health and plant and animal life. There are two types of sources of air pollution: human activity (transport, heating, industry and others) and natural phenomena such as natural fires, volcanic activity, deforestation and others. Substances that are the most common air pollutants are dust particles, carbon and nitrogen dioxides, carbon and nitrogen oxides, hydrocarbons; aldehydes; radioactive substances, heavy metals, sulfur dioxide, ozone, etc. Gaseous air pollutants of primary concern in urban environments include sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, and carbon monoxide. Sulfur dioxide is a colorless gas that is a product of volcanic eruptions and various industrial processes. It’s usually released when coal and oil are burned. Nitrogen oxides, especially nitrogen dioxide, are poisonous gases with a pungent, suffocating odor. There are many regulations aimed at air pollution and pollution monitoring for all European countries. Bulgaria, as part of the EU, must comply with all these regulations. There are still many places and periods of time in Bulgaria over the years with air pollution greater than daily norms. The present study is dedicated to the study of air pollution with gaseous substances in the area of Svishtov, Bulgaria. The town of Svishtov is located in Northern Bulgaria, on the banks of the Danube River, where the southernmost point of the river along its entire length is located. A statistical analysis of the level of air pollution in Svishtov based on official data from the monitoring station in the city is presented. The measurements cover the period 2021 - 2023. All research results are presented graphically and commented.
A method for maintaining a stable ISM band point-to-point wireless communication link in the presence of interference

This paper presents a new method that enables automatic channel change in case of intense interference on the active channel of a wireless communication point-to-point link. Channel change algorithms on the master and slave side of the communication link are presented, which enable the automatic selection of a new communication channel from a predefined set of available communication channels. By applying this method, it is possible to maintain a stable communication link in case of intense unpredictable interference on the transmitter or receiver side. The method applies to two-way master-slave communication links, regardless of the frequency spectrum and the number of used communication channels.
Modeling Hydrologic Responses to Forest Management and Climate Change in Contrasting Watersheds in the Southeastern United States

Lu, Jianbiao. Modeling Hydrologic Responses to Forest Management and Climate Change in Contrasting Watersheds in the Southeastern United States. (Under the direction of Dr. Ge Sun and Dr. James D. Gregory.) Hydrologic pathways and processes vary greatly from the coastal plain to the mountainous upland across the southeastern United States due to large physiographic and climatic gradients. The coastal plain is generally a groundwater dominated system with a shallow water table, while the mountainous upland is hillslope controlled system. It was hypothesized that these two different regions have different hydrologic responses to forest management and climate change due to different conditions: topography, climate, soil, and vegetation. The hydrologic impacts of climate change and forest management practices are complex and nonlinear, and a model is an advanced tool for addressing such tasks. The objectives of this study were: 1) to evaluate the applicability of a physically-based, distributed hydrologic modeling system MIKE SHE/MIKE 11 in the southeastern United States; and 2) to use the MIKE SHE/MIKE 11 modeling system to examine the hydrologic processes and responses to forest management practices and climate change on the coastal plain and the mountainous upland in the southeastern United States. Four experimental watersheds, three wetlands on the coastal plain and one Appalachian mountainous upland, were selected. The model was first evaluated to determine if it could sufficiently describe the hydrological processes in these diverse watersheds in two contrasting regions. Next, the model was applied to simulate the hydrologic impacts of forest management and climate change at the four study sites, four simulation scenarios per site. These included the base line, clearcut, 2 °C temperature increase, and 10% precipitation decrease scenarios. Water table level and streamflow amount were two responses used to evaluate the forest management and climate change impacts. This study indicated that forest management and climate change would have potential impacts on the wetland water table, especially during dry periods. The absolute magnitudes of streamflow reduction were larger in a wet year than in a dry year for the two watersheds under both climate change scenarios (2 °C temperature increase and 10% precipitation decrease). In terms of streamflow reduction percentages, the results seemed to suggest that climate change would have larger impacts on the coastal plain than the mountainous upland. However, more field data and research are needed to further test this hypothesis. This study showed that MIKE SHE over-predicted soil evaporation from harvested lands. Thus, the model may have underestimated the streamflow impacts under the clearcut scenario. A process-based evapotranspiration model is needed to fully describe soil evaporation processes under forest harvest conditions.
Restored forested wetland surprisingly resistant to experimental salinization

Salinization of coastal freshwater wetlands is an increasingly common and widespread phenomenon resulting from climate change. The ecosystem consequences of added salinity are poorly constrained and highly variable across prior observational and experimental studies. We added 1.8 metric tons of marine salts to replicated 200 m2 plots within a restored forested wetland in Eastern North Carolina over the course of four years. Based on prior small-scale experiments at this site, we predicted that salinization would lead to slower tree growth and suppressed soil carbon cycling. Results from this large-scale field experiment were subtle and inconsistent over space and time. By the fourth year of the experiment, we observed the predicted suppression of soil respiration and a reduction of water extractable carbon from soils receiving salt treatments. However, we found no cumulative effects of four years of salinization on total soil carbon stocks, tree growth, or root biomass. We observed substantial variation in soil solution chemistry (notably, pH and base saturation) across replicated treatment blocks; the effective salt levels, ionic composition, and pH varied following treatment depending upon pre-existing differences in edaphic factors. Our multi-year monitoring also revealed an underlying trend of wetland acidification across the entire site, a suspected effect of ecosystem recovery following wetland restoration on former agricultural land. The overwhelming resistance to our salt treatments could be attributed to the vigor of a relatively young, healthy wetland ecosystem. The heterogeneous responses to salt that we observed over space and time merits further investigation into the environmental factors that control carbon cycling in wetlands. This work highlights the importance of multi-year, large-scale field experiments for investigating ecosystem responses to global environmental change.
La imputación múltiple y su aplicación a series temporales financieras

Cuando una base de datos presenta valores no disponibles (NA o missings), su analisis es imposible hasta que no se decida lo que hacer con ellos. A tal efecto, la literatura ha desarrollado distintos enfoques para enfrentarse a este problema. Los primero metodos fueron los basados en regresion (Yates [1933]), y posteriormente se utilizaron algoritmos basados en la funcion de verosimilitud (algoritmo EM). Rubin [1987] estudia el problema de los NA y pone de manifiesto que los algoritmos mencionados son de imputacion unica y, entre sus inconvenientes mas importantes, destaca la omision de la incertidumbre que causa la presencia de los missings en el ulterior analisis. Para tal fin, Rubin [1987] propone la imputacion multiple, cuyo objetivo es la medicion de la incertidumbre omitida por los metodos de imputacion unica, lo que se consigue mediante dos herramientas: algoritmos MCMC y la inferencia de Rubin. La imputacion multiple se ha utilizado unicamente en el campo de los datos de seccion cruzada, y esta Tesis pretende extender su aplicacion al campo de la series temporales financieras. Para tal fin, se estudian las tecnicas que sobre las que se fundamentan los metodos MCMC, la inferencia de Rubin y los modelos heteroscedasticos condicionados. El resultado es la imputacion mediante separacion, que consigue adaptar la tecnica de imputacion multiple a las series temporales financieras mediante la combinacion de un filtro asimetrico, un metodo Bootstrap y el conocido algoritmo GibbsSampling. La Tesis se extiende con un libreria programada en lenguaje R, de proxima incorporacion en el cuerpo de librerias contribuidas en el portal oficial del citado lenguaje, que implementa el metodo propuesto.
Darkness promotes dishonesty in a coin toss task: A pre-registered conceptual replication of Experiment 1 of Zhong, Bohns, and Gino (2010)

An earlier study suggested that individuals tend to be more dishonest in darker environments, this phenomenon was attributed to an increase in participants’ perceived anonymity. However, instead of using quantifiable measurements, the original experiment depended on the experimenter’s subjective observation to construct different brightness conditions, which led to a less precise understanding of the phenomenon. Additionally, the task used in the original experiment has recently been criticized as being unsuitable for dishonesty-detection studies. This study addressed these concerns to retest the effect of brightness on dishonest behavior. This study employed lux as a unit to accurately control the brightness within the experiment room. Moreover, the coin toss task which is frequently employed in dishonesty-detection experiments, was utilized instead of the task in the original experiment. The findings revealed that despite altering the content of the task, dishonesty increased in the dark condition. Contrary to the findings in the original experiment, however, the results did not substantiate that perceived anonymity was the driving factor of the effect of brightness on dishonesty. This discrepancy suggests that further empirical considerations are warranted to unravel the underlying mechanisms.
Bedingungen für den Fortpflanzungserfolg: Zur Öko-Ethologie des Graukranichs Grus grus während der Jungenaufzucht

During the chick-rearing period, Common Crane parents invest relatively more time in vigilance and relatively less time in feeding. In contrast, the young have a lower feeding success rate and need high quantities of food. In view of their foraging efficiency and predation risks, cranes should adapt their behavioural strategies and activity patterns to optimal time periods in the day. Working with data on young cranes marked with colour rings and radio transmitters, we analysed diurnal activity and movements of Common Crane families in their breeding territories in the years 1995-2001 in northeast Germany and in northern Sweden. On average Common Cranes were active for 15 h 42 min (12 min before sunrise up to 51 min before sunset) in Germany and 14 h 4 min in Sweden. We assumed that the frequency of human disturbances was much higher in Germany than in Sweden, and that therefore crane families had to compensate for feeding time deficits due to these impacts. We found a low correlation between the beginning of activity and sunrise, but no correlation between the end of activity and sunset. When young cranes were still flightless, families moved on average 14.2 km (max = 27.6 km) daily. This distance did not differ significantly between families with one or two young. Common Cranes spent the whole night at the breeding or resting site and performed no measurable locomotion. Common Crane families in breeding territories in northeastern Germany fed mostly on beetles, grasshoppers, and caterpillars, as well as seeds of barley and wheat. The availability of these food items probably did not differ greatly between day and night. Grasshoppers and caterpillars are active both during the day and night in central Europe. The species of beetles found most frequently in the food of cranes in northeastern Germany were more active at night. Nevertheless the cranes did not feed during the night. Common Cranes thus appear to adapt their behaviour during the chick-rearing period, remaining active throughout the day in order to maximize foraging success and avoid Kapitel 2: Activity and movements of Common Crane families in their breeding territories 26 predators. This tendency to avoid nocturnal activities (with the exception of migrating during the night) should have a positive effect on the lifetime reproductive success of cranes. During the chick-rearing period, the time budget of crane families allows little room for adaptation to ensure successful reproduction. If the frequency of human disturbance in Germany should increase, families will lose time for feeding. Because they avoid nocturnal activity at this time, they probably would not be able to compensate for the loss of feeding time and reproductive success could decline.
Faster rehabilitation weight gain during childhood is associated with risk of non-communicable disease in adult survivors of severe acute malnutrition

Nutritional rehabilitation during severe acute malnutrition (SAM) aims to quickly restore body size and minimize poor short-term outcomes. We hypothesized that faster weight gain during treatment is associated with greater cardiometabolic risk in adult life. Anthropometry, body composition (DEXA), blood pressure, blood glucose, insulin and lipids were measured in a cohort of adults who were hospitalized as children for SAM between 1963 and 1993. Weight and height measured during hospitalization and at one year post-recovery were abstracted from hospital records. Childhood weight gain during nutritional rehabilitation and weight and height gain one year post-recovery were analysed as continuous variables, quintiles and latent classes in age, sex and minimum weight-for-age z-scores-adjusted regression models against adult measurements. Data for 278 adult SAM survivors who had childhood admission records were analysed. Of these adults, 85 also had data collected 1 year post-hospitalisation. Sixty percent of participants were male, mean (SD) age was 28.2 (7.7) years, mean (SD) BMI was 23.6 (5.2) kg/m2. Mean admission age for SAM was 10.9 months (range 0.3–36.3 months), 77% were wasted (weight-for-height z-scores<-2). Mean rehabilitation weight gain (SD) was 10.1 (3.8) g/kg/day and 61.6 (25.3) g/day. Rehabilitation weight gain > 12.9 g/kg/day was associated with higher adult BMI (difference = 0.5 kg/m2, 95% CI: 0.1–0.9, p = 0.02), waist circumference (difference = 1.4 cm, 95% CI: 0.4–2.4, p = 0.005), fat mass (difference = 1.1 kg, 95% CI: 0.2–2, p = 0.02), fat mass index (difference = 0.32kg/m2, 95% CI: -0.0001–0.6, p = 0.05), and android fat mass (difference = 0.09 kg, 95% CI: 0.01–0.2, p = 0.03). Post-recovery weight gain (g/kg/month) was associated with lean mass (difference = 1.3 kg, 95% CI: 0.3–2.4, p = 0.015) and inversely associated with android-gynoid fat ratio (difference = -0.03, 95% CI: -0.07to-0.001 p = 0.045). Rehabilitation weight gain exceeding 13g/kg/day was associated with adult adiposity in young, normal-weight adult SAM survivors. This challenges existing guidelines for treating malnutrition and warrants further studies aiming at optimising these targets.
Attitudes toward COVID‐19 restrictions and COVID‐19‐related stress and fear among college students across three waves

The COVID‐19 pandemic has significantly impacted the mental health of college students, leading to increased psychological distress. This study explored potenital predictors to better understand the factors that influence and mitigate student COVID‐19 stress in the evolving landscape of residential colleges. Specifically, we investigated the roles of COVID‐19 fear, loneliness, and attitudes toward COVID‐19 restrictions.
Brain-derived neurotrophic factor in fibromyalgia: A systematic review and meta-analysis of its role as a potential biomarker

Background Fibromyalgia (FM) is a form of chronic pain disorder accompanied by several tender points, fatigue, sleeping and mood disturbances, cognitive dysfunction, and memory problems. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is also a mediator of neurotrophin for many activity-dependent processes in the brain. Despite numerous research studies investigating BDNF in FM, contradictory results have been reported. Thus, we investigated the overall effect shown by studies to find the association between peripheral BDNF concentrations and its gene polymorphisms with FM. Methods A systematic search in online international databases, including PubMed, Cochrane Library, Embase, the Web of Science, and Scopus was performed. Relevant studies assessing BDNF levels or gene polymorphism in patients with FM and comparing them with controls were included. Case reports, reviews, and non-English studies were excluded. We conducted the random-effect meta-analysis to estimate the pooled standardized mean difference (SMD) or odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI). Results Twenty studies were found to be included composed of 1,206 FM patients and 1,027 controls. The meta-analysis of 15 studies indicated that the circulating BDNF levels were significantly higher in FM (SMD 0.72, 95% CI 0.12 to 1.31; p-value = 0.02). However, no difference between the rate of Val/Met carrier status at the rs6265 site was found (p-value = 0.43). Using meta-regression, the sample size and age variables accounted for 4.69% and 6.90% of the observed heterogeneity of BDNF level analysis, respectively. Conclusion Our meta-analysis demonstrated that FM is correlated with increased peripheral BDNF levels. This biomarker’s diagnostic and prognostic value should be further investigated in future studies.
New approaches build upon historical studies in dermal toxicology

Abstract These are my personal reflections on the history of approaches to understanding dermal toxicology brought together for the Paton Prize Award. This is not a comprehensive account of all publications from in vivo studies in humans to development of in vitro and in silico approaches but highlghts important progress. I will consider what is needed now to influence approaches to understanding dermal exposure with the current development and use of NAMs (new approach methodologies).
Evaluation of a longitudinal digital citizen science initiative to understand the impact of culture on Indigenous youth mental health: Findings from a quasi-experimental qualitative study

Background Indigenous youth in settler nations are susceptible to poor mental health due to complex intergenerational systemic inequities. Research has shown benefits of cultural connectedness for improving mental health; however, there are few studies which have evaluated the impact of culturally relevant mental health interventions, particularly among Indigenous youth. The purpose of this study is to assess the impact of a culturally-responsive, land-based, active living initiative on the mental health of Indigenous youth. Methods This quasi-experimental qualitative study is part of Smart Indigenous Youth (SIY), a mixed-methods 5-year longitudinal digital citizen science initiative. SIY embeds culturally responsive, land-based active living programs into the curricula of high schools in rural Indigenous communities in the western Canadian province of Saskatchewan. In year-1 (Winter 2019), 76 Indigenous youth citizen scientists (13–18 years) from 2 schools participated in the study. At the beginning of the term, each school initiated separate 4-month land-based active living programs specific to their culture, community, geography, and language (Cree and Saulteaux). Before and after the term, focus groups were conducted with the 2 Youth Citizen Scientist Councils, which included students from both participating schools. This study includes data from focus groups of one participating school, with 11 youth citizen scientists (5 boys, 6 girls). Focus group data were transcribed and analyzed by two independent reviewers using Nvivo to identify themes and subthemes. Both reviewers discussed their thematic analysis to reach consensus about final findings. Results Baseline focus group analyses (before land-based programming) revealed themes demonstrating the importance of Indigenous culture, identity, history, and language. Youth emphasized the impact of loss of language and culture, the importance of being a helper, and the necessity of intergenerational knowledge transfer. Follow-up focus group analyses (post land-based programming) indicated that cultural school programming led to students expressing positive mental health benefits, increased interest in ceremonies, increased participation in physical activity, and greater knowledge of culture, identity, and ceremonial protocol. Conclusions This novel qualitative quasi-experimental study offers a window into the future of upstream interventions in partnership with Indigenous communities, where Indigenous youth can be engaged in real-time via their digital devices, while participating in culturally-sensitive, land-based school programming that promotes culture, identity, and mental health.
Extensive Residence in a Second Language Environment Modifies Perceptual Strategies for Suprasegmental Categorization

Languages differ in the importance of acoustic dimensions for speech categorization. This poses a potential challenge for second language (L2) learners, and the extent to which adult L2 learners can acquire new perceptual strategies for speech categorization remains unclear. This study investigated the effects of extensive English L2 immersion on speech perception strategies and dimension-selective-attention ability in native Mandarin speakers. Experienced first language (L1) Mandarin speakers (length of U.K. residence > 3 years) demonstrated more native-like weighting of cues to L2 suprasegmental categorization relative to inexperienced Mandarin speakers (length of residence < 1 year), weighting duration more highly. However, both the experienced and the inexperienced Mandarin speakers continued to weight duration less highly and pitch more highly during musical beat categorization and struggled to ignore pitch and selectively attend to amplitude in speech, relative to native English speakers. These results suggest that adult L2 experience can lead to retuning of perceptual strategies in specific contexts, but global acoustic salience is more resistant to change.
Mechanisms of pathogenicity for the emerging fungus Candida auris

Candida auris recently emerged as an urgent public health threat, causing outbreaks of invasive infections in healthcare settings throughout the world. This fungal pathogen persists on the skin of patients and on abiotic surfaces despite antiseptic and decolonization attempts. The heightened capacity for skin colonization and environmental persistence promotes rapid nosocomial spread. Following skin colonization, C. auris can gain entrance to the bloodstream and deeper tissues, often through a wound or an inserted medical device, such as a catheter. C. auris possesses a variety of virulence traits, including the capacity for biofilm formation, production of adhesins and proteases, and evasion of innate immune responses. In this review, we highlight the interactions of C. auris with the host, emphasizing the intersection of laboratory studies and clinical observations.