Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Conservation Agriculture as a Potential Strategy to Increase Soil Quality in Colombian Agroecosystems

Conservation Agriculture (CA) has been promoted in many Latin American countries as an alternative to sustainable production management because of its ability to prevent soil degradation, enhance crop productivity, minimize climate change impact, and protect soil biodiversity. The main objective of this paper was to evaluate the effects of CA on Soil Quality (SQ) in five agroecosystems from Cachipay (Cundinamarca): Coffee Crop (CC) chronosequences of (1) 5 (CC5) and (2) 10 (CC10) years of establishment; Polyculture Cropping System (PCS) chronosequences of (3) 1 (PCS1) and (4) 6 (PCS6) years, and (5) Fallow (F) systems. A Minimum Data Set (MDS) was determined from principal component analysis. Aggregate stability index, aggregate stability, water holding capacity, geometric mean diameter, electric conductivity, heterotrophic bacterial density, and catalase were finally selected into the MDS and used in the calculation of the Soil Quality Index (SQI). CC5 (0.71), CC10 (0.67), PCS6 (0.66), and PCS1 (0.65) had a higher SQI in the study area than F (0.60). The study demonstrated the positive effect of CA practices based on minimum soil disturbance, lower inputs of agrochemicals, permanent soil organic cover with crop residues, and a diversified cropping system on SQ. The MDS-SQI approach represents a practical, promising, and adequate tool for monitoring SQ in agroecosystems.
Phononic-Crystal-Based Particle Sieving in Continuous Flow: Numerical Simulations

Sieving specific particles from mixed samples is of great value in fields such as biochemistry and additive manufacturing. In this study, a particle sieving method for microfluidics was proposed based on a phononic crystal plate (PCP), the mechanism of which originates from the competition between the trapping effect of the resonant PCP-induced acoustic radiation force (ARF), disturbance effect of acoustic streaming (AS), and flushing effect of the continuous inlet flow on particles suspended in microfluidic channels. Specifically, particles with different sizes could be separated under inlet flow conditions owing to ARF and AS drag forces as functions of the particle diameter, incident acoustic pressure, and driving frequency. Furthermore, a comprehensive numerical analysis was performed to investigate the impacts of ARF, AS, and inlet flow conditions on the particle motion and sieving efficiency, and to explore proper operating parameters, including the acoustic pressure and inlet flow velocity. It was found that, for each inlet flow velocity, there was an optimal acoustic pressure allowing us to achieve the maximum sieving efficiency, but the sieving efficiency at a low flow velocity was not as good as that at a high flow velocity. Although a PCP with a high resonant frequency could weaken the AS, thereby suiting the sieving of small particles (<5 μm), a low channel height corresponding to a high frequency limits the throughput. Therefore, it is necessary to design a PCP with a suitable resonant frequency based on the size of the particles to be sieved. This investigation can provide guidance for the design of massive acoustic sorting mi-crofluidic devices based on phononic crystals or acoustic metamaterials under continuous flow.
A VLA search for cosmological H I at Z = 3.3. II - New observations of three fields

The NRAO VLA has been used to look for the redshifting of the 21-cm line to 90 cm (z of about 3.3) from collapsing protoclusters and protosuperclusters of galaxies. In the present study, three fields centered at moderately high galactic latitudes were surveyed in April 1987. The null result obtained suggests that at z of about 3.5 most of the mass in superclusters must have already coalesced into stars. 26 references.
InBiodiv-O: An Ontology for Biodiversity Knowledge Management

To present the biodiversity information, a semantic model is required that connects all kinds of data about living creatures and their habitats. The model must be able to encode human knowledge for machines to be understood. Ontology offers the richest machine-interpretable semantics that are being extensively used in the biodiversity domain. Various ontologies are developed for the biodiversity domain; however, these ontologies are not capable to define the Indian biodiversity information though India is one of the megadiverse countries. To semantically analyze the Indian biodiversity information, it is crucial to build an ontology that describes all the terms of this domain. Since the curation of the ontology depends on the domain where these are used, there is no ideal methodology defined yet. The aim of this article is to develop an ontology that semantically encodes all the terms of Indian biodiversity information in all its dimensions based on the proposed methodology. The evaluation of the proposed ontology depicts that ontology is well built in the specified domain.
Impacts of extreme climatic events on trophic network complexity and multidimensional stability

Abstract Untangling the relationship between network complexity and ecological stability under climate change is an arduous challenge for theoretical and empirical ecology. Even more so, when considering extreme climatic events. Here, we studied the effects of extreme climatic events (heatwaves) on the complexity of realistic freshwater ecosystems using topological and quantitative trophic network metrics. Next, we linked changes in network complexity with the investigation of four stability components (temporal stability, resistance, resilience, and recovery) of community's functional, compositional, and energy flux stability. We found reduction in topological network complexity to be correlated with reduction of functional and compositional resistance. However, temperature‐driven increase in link‐weighted network complexity increased functional and energy flux recovery and resilience, but at the cost of increased compositional instability. Overall, we propose an overarching approach to elucidate the effects of climate change on multidimensional stability through the lens of network complexity, providing helpful insights for preserving ecosystems stability under climate change.
Iron ionization and recombination rates and ionization equilibrium

In the past few years important progress has been made on the knowledge of ionization and recombination rates of iron, an astrophysically abundant heavy element and a major impurity in laboratory fusion devices. We make a critical review of the existing data on ionization and dielectronic recombination and present new computations of radiative recombination rate coefficients of Fe(+14) through Fe(+25) using the photoionization cross sections of Clark et al. (1986). We provide analytical fits to the recommended data (direct ionization and excitation-autoionization cross sections; radiative and dielectronic recombination rate coefficients). Finally we determine the iron ionic fractions at ionization equilibrium and compare them with previous computations as well as with observational data.
The Independent Variable Interpolation Technique for Nonuniformly Sampled Shallow-Angle Lidar Data

AbstractShallow-angle lidar offers an attractive approach to acquiring spatial profiles of sea waves, which are of value in both oceanographic research and practical engineering applications, such as in the control of wave energy capture devices and for a variety of vessel operations. However, the wave elevation values produced by shallow-angle lidar are inevitably nonuniformly distributed in space and, given that most processing algorithms require uniformly sampled data, an equivalent set of uniformly distributed data must be derived from the lidar measurements. A new class of algorithm is introduced to achieve this goal and applied to experimental shallow-angle lidar data. Compared to traditional methods the new approach has advantages in terms of both computational cost and the degree of nonuniformity that can be accommodated.
Myocardial Perfusion and Coronary Physiology Assessment of Microvascular Dysfunction in Patients Undergoing Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation—Rationale and Design

The prevalence of coronary artery disease (CAD) in patients with severe aortic stenosis (AS) is 30–68%. Nevertheless, there is still not enough evidence to use invasive assessment of lesion severity, because the hemodynamic milieu of AS may impact the fractional flow reserve (FFR) and non-hyperemic indices. Therefore, the aim of the study is two-fold. First, to measure acute and long-term changes of FFR, index of microvascular resistance (IMR), and coronary flow reserve (CFR) in patients undergoing TAVI procedure. Second, to compare the diagnostic accuracy of intracoronary indices with myocardial perfusion measured by cadmium-zinc-telluride single-photon emission tomography (CZT-SPECT) and find cut-off values defining significant stenosis. We plan to enroll 40 patients eligible for TAVI with intermediate stenosis (30–70%) in the left anterior descending (LAD) coronary artery. In each patient FFR, CFR, and IMR will be measured in addition to myocardial blood flow calculated by CZT-SPECT before and either immediately after TAVI (acute cohort) or in 6 months (late cohort) after the procedure. FFR, CFR, and IMR will be matched with the results of myocardial perfusion measured by CZT-SPECT in the area of LAD. As a result, cut-off values of FFR, CFR, and IMR defining the decreased blood flow will be found.
Effects of interfacial microstructure on uniformity and thermal stability of AuNiGe ohmic contact to n-type GaAs

As part of the investigation of the use of AuNiGe as the ohmic contact to n‐type GaAs at a high integration level, cross‐sectional transmission electron microscopy was used to explore the uniformity at the metal/GaAs interface and the thermal stability of the AuNiGe contact after the ohmic contact formation. A close relation between spread of the contact resistance and nonuniformity of the interfacial microstructure of the contact was found. Deposition of 5‐nm‐thick Ni as the first layer of the AuNiGe ohmic contact significantly reduced the spread of the contact resistance and led to the formation of a uniform interface without large protrusions. The improvement in uniformity of compound distribution and the reduction of interface roughness are believed to be due to a change in the sequence of alloying reactions, compared to those in the contact without a Ni first layer. This suggests an ideal interface structure for a low resistance AuNiGe ohmic contact after alloying to be a uniform two layer structure: a high density of the NiAs(Ge) grains contacting the GaAs substrate, and a homogeneous β‐AuGa phase close to the top surface. However, due to the existence of β‐AuGa phases with a low melting point of around 375 °C, the thermal stability of the contact at 400 °C is of serious concern. Segregation of the NiAs(Ge) grains was observed after annealing at 400 °C for 10 h, which reduced the contact areas between the NiAs(Ge) grains and GaAs. During subsequent annealing at this temperature for up to 90 h, liquidlike flow of the β‐AuGa phase was observed which deteriorated the interface uniformity, causing an increase in contact resistance. A typical contact edge slide distance after contact alloying at 440 °C for 2 min was measured to be 0.2 μm and the longest distance among specimens examined was 0.47 μm. This edge deterioration could limit the use of the AuNiGe contact in GaAs submicron devices.
Deducing critical coupling condition to achieve perfect absorption for thin-film absorbers and identifying key characteristics of absorbing materials needed for perfect absorption

Equations are deduced to describe the critical coupling condition to achieve perfect absorption for the thin-film absorbers of absorbing layer/spacer layer/substrate. By numerically solving these equations, a linear inequality is obtained to describe key characteristics of the absorbing layer needed for perfect absorption at a given wavelength. Guided by this finding, various materials including metals and semiconductors are identified as the absorbing layer to achieve perfect absorption at a randomly chosen wavelength within the visible wavelength range of 400–800 nm. Finally, it is found that absorption in an ultrathin absorbing layer can approach 100% with the use of highly reflective substrate.
Transcriptomic insights into the role of the spleen in a mouse model of Wiskott‑Aldrich syndrome

Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome (WAS) is a rare X-linked primary immunodeficiency characterized by microthrombocytopenia, eczema, recurrent infection and increased incidence of autoimmune disorders and malignancy. WAS is caused by mutations in the was gene, which is expressed exclusively in hematopoietic cells; the spleen serves an important role in hematopoiesis and red blood cell clearance. However, to the best of our knowledge, detailed comparative analysis of the spleen between WASp-knockout (WAS-KO) and wild-type (WT) mice, particularly at the transcriptomic level, have not been reported. The present study investigated the differences in the transcriptomes of spleen tissue of 10-week-old WAS-KO mice. Comparison of the gene expression profiles of WAS-KO and WT mice revealed 1,964 differentially expressed genes (DEGs). Among these genes, 996 DEGs were upregulated and 968 were downregulated in WAS-KO mice. To determine the functions of DEGs, Gene Ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes enrichment analyses were performed for significantly upregulated and downregulated DEGs. The results showed that the levels of cell senescence and apoptosis-associated genes were increased, antigen processing and presentation mechanisms involved in the immune response were damaged and signal transduction processes were impaired in the spleen of WAS-KO mice. Thus, was gene deletion may lead to anemia and hemolysis-associated disease, primarily due to increased osmotic fragility of red blood cells, low hemoglobin and increased bilirubin levels and serum ferritin. These results indicated that senescence and apoptosis of blood cells also play an important role in the occurrence of WAS. Therefore, the present findings provide a theoretical basis for further study to improve the treatment of WAS.
The Effect of Combined Atmospheric Plasma/UV Treatments on Improving the Durability of Flame Retardants Applied to Cotton

Application of a combined atmospheric plasma/UV laser to cotton fabrics impregnated with selected non-durable flame retardants (FRs) has shown evidence of covalent grafting of the latter species on to cotton fibre surfaces. As a result, an increase in their durability to water-soaking for 30 min at 40 °C has been recorded. Based on previous research plasma gases comprising Ar80%/CO220% or N280%/O220% were used to pre-expose cotton fabric prior to or after FR impregnation to promote the formation of radical species and increased –COOH groups on surface cellulosic chains, which would encourage formation of FR-cellulose bonds. Analysis by scanning electron microscopy (SEM/EDX), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and thermal analysis (TGA) suggested that organophosphorus- and nitrogen- containing flame retarding species in the presence of the silicon-containing molecules such as 3-aminopropyltriethoxy silane (APTS) resulted in formation of FR-S-O-cellulose links, which gave rise to post-water-soaking FR retentions > 10%. Similarly, the organophosphorus FR, diethyl N, N bis (2-hydroxyethyl) aminomethylphosphonate (DBAP), after plasma/UV exposure produced similar percentage retention values possibly via (PO). O.cellulose bond formation, While none of the plasmas/UV-treated, FR-impregnated fabrics showed self-extinction behaviour, although burning rates reduced and significant char formation was evident, it has been shown that FR durability may be increased using plasma/UV treatments.
The enchytraeid fauna (Enchytraeidae: Clitellata) of the Fanjing Mountain National Nature Reserve (China) with description of two new species

ABSTRACT The first ever survey of the enchytraeid fauna in the Fanjing Mountain National Nature Reserve (Guizhou, China) yielded a total of eight species, two of them new to science: Xetadrilus prolixglandus sp. nov. and Hemienchytraeus tenuiculus sp. nov. One unidentified and possibly new species of Fridericia and five additional species, Achaeta brevivasa, Enchytraeus buchholzi, Fridericia loretensis, Henlea perpusilla and Hemienchytraeus stephensoni, are recorded and described, based on the collected material. The species records include morphological descriptions and molecular data (the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 (COI) gene, the nuclear ribosomal ITS region and the nuclear histone 3 (H3) gene). http://www.zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:40F089F9-F332-438F-9A3F-4E25A877BDFE
Sarcosaprophagous flesh flies (Diptera: Sarcophagidae) are less diverse in Amazon Forest than mangroves in Northeast Brazil: preliminary insights about environmental heterogeneity

ABSTRACT Environmental heterogeneity can affect the diversity of arthropods, resulting in a positive relationship in most studies, including of some Diptera groups. We investigated the diversity patterns of Sarcophagidae fauna in two phytophysiognomies with inferences about the environmental heterogeneity. In our hypothesis, the flesh flies have higher diversity in more heterogeneous environments than in the more homogeneous one. The study was performed in São Luís Island, state of Maranhão, Northeast Brazil. In total, we found 1482 specimens, of which 402 were males, representing six genera and 26 species. Peckia (Euboettcheria) collusor (Curran and Walley) was the most abundant species. The mangrove community was more diverse than the forest community. Species replacement contributes more significantly to the difference in species composition between environments than richness difference does, with higher values of dissimilarity of taxonomic diversity. Our data show that sarcosaprophagous flesh flies have a preference for open and sunny environments, implying greater diversity in mangroves rather than in forested areas. The negative relationship between species richness/abundance and vegetation cover in our study corroborates flesh flies’ preference for open environments. Our data show a tendency to refute the environmental heterogeneity hypothesis. The mangrove fauna, especially Diptera communities, has received less attention. Nevertheless, mangrove has the potential to shelter high species richness, highlighting the need for further studies and conservation plans for these areas.
Synthesis and Characterization of Formazan Derivatives from Schiff’s Base and Studying their Biological Activity

A group of substituted formazine derivatives was prepared through several steps where the first step was the preparation of compound (1) by reacting chloroacetyl chloride with 2-aminopyrimidine, and the second step was the reaction of compound (1) with hydrazine hydrate to obtain the derivative (2) and in the third step was prepared Schiff’s base (3) by reaction of derivative (2) with para-dimethyl benzaldehyde and then a number of formazine derivatives were synthesized by reaction of derivative (3) with a number of substituted aromatic amines. The newly prepared derivatives are distinguished by their melting points (1H-nuclear magnetic resonance (1H-NMR), fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR)) spectra. The biological activity of the prepared derivatives was studied on two types of bacteria that cause urinary tract and measuring the diameter of the inhibition zone against the growth of these bacteria.
The role of denial on emotional correlates of childhood trauma in a non-clinical population

Background: A large body of evidence suggests that child abuse and neglect by a caregiver is a recurrent event linked to increased psychopathology symptoms. The Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ) is commonly used to assess abuse/neglect during childhood. However, even though the Minimization-Denial (MD) subscale was originally designed to assess response bias (i.e., underreporting of childhood maltreatment), it is possible that the scale may reflect coping strategies that play an effective role in the relationship between childhood trauma and their negative outcomes. Also, even though MD has been associated with decreased psychopathology symptoms, it is also strongly associated with other scales of the CTQ. Method: This study (n = 133) examined whether (1) the MD-scale is negatively associated with alexithymia, emotion dysregulation and psychopathology, if (2) these associations will hold when adjusting for different subtypes of abuse and neglect and (3) and the role of MD as a possible moderator in these relationships. Results: The analyses showed that, although MD scores have relatively strong and (mostly) significant (negative) associations with the CTQ, emotion dysregulation strategies and psychopathology symptoms, these associations were weak and failed to remain significant when adjusting for the effect of CTQ. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that the MD scores should be viewed as an accurate reflection of the absence (or little) of exposure to childhood abuse/neglect.
Everyday Talk on Twitter: Informal Deliberation About (Ir-)responsible Business Conduct in Social Media Arenas

Recent research has damped initial promises for democratic deliberation in social media arenas. Empirical studies find only low degrees of direct reciprocal interaction among participants, a lack of consensus orientation, and accelerated forms of communication that fail to meet traditional ideals of deliberation. In line with recent literature, we argue that traditional deliberative ideals are too narrow to embrace the potential contribution of social media for deliberation about (ir-)responsible business conduct. Instead, we propose to conceptualize social media as arenas for everyday talk, that is, everyday communication practices through which participants informally discuss and express opinions about current issues, thereby contributing to a broader deliberative system. In adopting this lens, we ask: How can everyday talk in social media contribute to deliberation about (ir-)responsible business conduct? Drawing on the latest insights from online deliberation studies, we develop a framework for evaluating everyday talk and propose that its deliberative quality depends on social media appropriate forms of justification, interactivity, equality, and civility. We apply this framework with an analysis of 260,224 tweets about the role of business in climate change. Based on our findings, we critically discuss how everyday talk in social media can contribute to deliberation at the intersection of business and society.