Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Determination of the propitious age for gonadectomy in Creole chickens

J. Selva Andina Anim. Sci. 2020; 7(2):81-89. In The objective of the research was to improve the productive parameters in Creole chickens through gonadectomy in the Tungurahua Province, Ecuador. A completely randomized design with three treatments and a control was used, the results were subjected to an analysis of variance (ADEVA) for the separation of means and the Tukey test of 5%, the factors under study were: T1 (8), T2 (9) and T3 (10), castrated weeks of age, and uncastrated chickens (20 birds / treatment), with a productive period after castration of 12 weeks. Weight gain 12 weeks after castration was higher in chickens operated on at 8 weeks of age, (343.6 g bird / week, p <0.05). The lowest feed consumption was in week 3 post castration (p <0.05). Roosters castrated at 8 and 9 weeks had better feed conversion (6.33 and 6.53, respectively) (p <0.05). Carcass yield was higher in castrated roosters compared to the uncastrated control group (p <0.01). The mortality. It was better in T1 (8 weeks old) with 0%. For this reason, the application of the surgical technique performed at of age is the most recommended. 2020. Journal of the Selva Andina Animal Science®. Bolivia. All rights reserved. ID of article: 070/JSAAS/2020 Record from the article. Received February 2020. Returned May 2020. Accepted August 2020. Available online, October 2020. Editado por: Selva Andina Research Society
Student Attitudes toward Active Learning vs. Lecture in Cell Biology Instruction

Abstract Active learning increases performance in STEMcourses, but many instructors are hesitant to adopt active-learning practices because they are afraid students will have negative attitudes toward them. It was hypothesized that students whose first college biology experience was in a course that used active learning would have more positive attitudes toward active learning than students who initially experienced a traditional lecture-based course. Students in an introductory Cell Biology course were queried regarding their attitudes toward active-learning practices used in the class. Responses to a Likert-scale survey indicated that students had positive attitudes toward active learning, and an analysis of variance indicated that there were no significant differences between the attitudes of students who had previously taken a lecture-based biology course at the same institution, students who had previously taken a biology course at another institution, and students who were enrolled in Cell Biology as their first college biology experience (n = 52, P = 0.530). Students strongly favored active-learning techniques over passive techniques but were less convinced of their learning benefits. Experienced students indicated that they preferred the teaching methods used in Cell Biology over the techniques used in their prior biology course. The results indicate that in the context of a small classroom setting, most students have positive attitudes toward active learning regardless of their prior biology lecture experiences.
Greater aggressiveness in the 2_A1 lineage of Phytophthora infestans may partially explain its rapid displacement of the US‐1 lineage in east Africa

The displacement in east Africa of the US-1 clonal lineage of Phytophthora infestans by 2_A1 clonal lineage has been very rapid. This study tested the hypothesis that dominance of 2_A1 could be due, at least in part, to the increased aggressiveness of 2_A1 over US-1, using both a detached leaf assay (DLA) and a tuber slice assay. The assays were conducted in Uganda and Kenya but US-1 was only assayed in Uganda, because isolates could not be moved across borders and no potato US-1 isolates were available in Kenya. All isolates were collected from potato and compared on two potato cultivars (Kachpot-1 and Sarpo Mira), with the 2_A1 isolates also tested on tomato cultivar Rio Grande. Additionally, a tuber slice assay was done to test whether the capacity to infect tubers differed between 2_A1 and US1. The aggressiveness of the isolates in the DLA varied significantly both within and among isolates classified according to clonal lineage and for type of host. The 2_A1 isolates were significantly more aggressive than US-1 isolates on both potato varieties evaluated. There were no significant effects of clonal lineage or potato cultivar used in the tuber assay. No significant correlation between foliar and tuber pathogenicity was observed. The 2_A1 isolates were significantly more aggressive on potato than on tomato. An effect of location was also observed in the DLA, on both hosts. It can be concluded from this study that greater pathogenicity of 2_A1 is at least partly attributable to its increased aggressiveness on potato.
Social Media, News Consumption, and Polarization: Evidence from a Field Experiment

Does the consumption of ideologically congruent news on social media exacerbate polarization? I estimate the effects of social media news exposure by conducting a large field experiment randomly offering participants subscriptions to conservative or liberal news outlets on Facebook. I collect data on the causal chain of media effects: subscriptions to outlets, exposure to news on Facebook, visits to online news sites, and sharing of posts, as well as changes in political opinions and attitudes. Four main findings emerge. First, random variation in exposure to news on social media substantially affects the slant of news sites that individuals visit. Second, exposure to counter-attitudinal news decreases negative attitudes toward the opposing political party. Third, in contrast to the effect on attitudes, I find no evidence that the political leanings of news outlets affect political opinions. Fourth, Facebook’s algorithm is less likely to supply individuals with posts from counter-attitudinal outlets, conditional on individuals subscribing to them. Together, the results suggest that social media algorithms may limit exposure to counter-attitudinal news and thus increase polarization. (JEL C93, D72, L82)
Phylogenetic Studies on Red Junglefowl (Gallus gallus) and Native Chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus) in Samar Island, Philippines using the Mitochondrial DNA D-Loop Region

A study was conducted to provide genetic information on the matrilineal phylogeny and genetic diversity of Red junglefowl (RJF) and native chickens in Samar Island, Philippines and to identify the genetic distance between Philippine junglefowls and other RJF species in Southeast Asia using complete mitochondrial DNA D-loop sequences. A total of 5 RJFs and 43 native chickens from Samar Island were included in this study. The results showed that Samar RJFs had a nucleotide diversity of 0.0050±0.0016, which was lower than those of three subspecies of Gallus gallus: G. g. gallus, G. g. spadiceus, and G. g. jabouillei. Meanwhile, Samar native chickens showed lower nucleotide diversity (0.0056±0.0004) than domestic fowls in some neighboring Southeast Asian countries, but higher than those in African and European countries. Phylogenetic analysis showed that 3 haplotypes of Samar RJFs clustered to haplogroup D1, and that 2 haplotypes clustered to haplogroup D2. Chickens native to Samar Island showed 100% resemblance to those in the haplogroup shared by domestic chickens and RJFs. Haplogroups A and B and sub-haplogroups D1 and E1 were the more widely distributed matrilineal lineages in Samar Island. Phylogenetic analysis of Samar RJFs showed that they were closely related to Myanmar RJFs (99.6%), Indonesia RJFs (99.5%), and Thailand RJFs (99.1%). This study is an initial investigation estimating the matrilineal phylogeny and genetic diversity of chicken populations in Samar Island, Philippines for developing strategies aimed at the future conservation and improvement of valuable genetic resources.
Cigarette smoking and its toxicological overview on human male fertility—a prospective review

Abstract One in seven couples worldwide is affected with the reproductive disorder called infertility and 40%–50% of cases are identified as male factor contributed infertility. Our aim of this review is to elucidate the smoking impact on semen parameters, reactive oxidative species (ROS) state, cigarette toxicity marker, and in detail how it is affecting semenogelin/chromatin structure by cadmium as one of the cigarette toxicants. Smoking stimulates the ROS activity which induces sperm DNA fragmentation or damage among smokers. Also it releases cadmium that is identified as reproductive metal toxicant in humans in detail. Cadmium has possible atomic to change sperm chromatin via zinc and semenogelin.
On the Establishment of a Web Portal for the Assessment of CFD in Reactor Safety Analysis

Abstract Within the framework of the responsibilities of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development/Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA), three international writing groups (WGs) were set up in 2003 to produce state-of-the-art reports on specific aspects of the use of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) in addressing nuclear reactor safety (NRS) issues. Three reports followed on (a) the use of best practice guidelines in producing reliable computational results, (b) the status of the validation database for single-phase CFD applications to NRS, and (c) the extensions needed to the codes for application to two-phase NRS problems. The present paper summarizes the contents of the second of these documents and reports on the more recent activity of establishing a Web portal to act as a dynamic database for the material contained in the document. The Web pages can be reached via the NEA Web site and have been constructed using Wiki software, which enables users to readily find information they need in their respective application areas via active links, as well as to interactively support the maintenance of the site by contributing to the regular updating of the material. As a result of this endeavor, an up-to-date access point to the validation databases cataloged by the WG has been established, and a means has been provided for users to contribute with new material, thus keeping the information topical.
Lobbying and Product Recalls: A Study of the U.S. Automobile Industry

Noting the proliferation of product recalls and extensive use of lobbying in some critical product markets (e.g., automobiles, medical equipment), the authors examine the relationship between lobbying and product recalls. Lobbying does not alter product quality, so an efficiency perspective would suggest no relationship. However, a legitimacy-based institutional theory perspective and associated regulation models suggest that lobbying reduces voluntary firm-initiated and mandatory regulator-initiated recalls. To provide insights into these questions, the current study explores nine years of multisource data from the automotive industry, related to recalls and lobbying. The results, obtained with an instrumental variable approach, support dual impacts of lobbying for reducing both voluntary and mandatory recalls. Defect severity and media coverage moderate the effects, and the data support full indirect moderation, such that the interaction between media coverage and lobbying mediates the interaction between defect severity and lobbying. In terms of effect sizes, approximately $404,367 ($1.66 million) more in lobbying expenditures is associated with one fewer voluntary (mandatory) recall, assuming a typical average recall of 235,638 vehicles. This study highlights lobbying as an important (marketing) tool that automotive companies use to manage their regulatory environment, with deep implications for policy making, research, and practice.
The complete mitogenome of Metopograpsus quadridentatus and phylogenetic analysis

Abstract The complete mitochondrial genome of Metopograpsus quadridentatus was determined to be 15,520 bp in length. It consists of 13 protein-coding genes, 22 transfer RNAs, 2 ribosomal RNAs and a control region. There are 13 overlapping regions in the genome with 1 to 25 bp length. The largest overlapping region is located between nad1 and trnL1. The AT-skew and GC-skew for the whole mitogenome are both negative, indicating a higher occurrence of Ts than As and Cs than Gs. The molecular data here we presented could play a useful role to study the evolutionary relationships and population genetics of Grapsidae crabs.
Inter- and Intra-Generation Genomic Predictions for Douglas-fir Growth in Unobserved Environments

Conifers are prime candidates for genomic selection (GS) due to their long breeding cycles. Previous studies have shown much reduced prediction accuracies (PA) of breeding values in unobserved environments, which may impede its adoption. The impact of explicit environmental heterogeneity modeling including genotype-by-environment (G×E) interaction effects using environmental covariates (EC) in a reaction-norm genomic prediction model was tested using single-step GBLUP (ssGBLUP). A three-generation coastal Douglas-fir experimental population with 14 genetic trials (n = 13,615) permitted estimation of intra- and inter-generation PA in unobserved environments using 66,969 SNPs derived from exome capture. Intra- and inter-generation PAs ranged from 0.447-0.640 and 0.317-0.538, respectively. The inclusion of ECs in the prediction models explained up to 23% of the phenotypic variation for the fully specified model and resulted in the best model fit. Modeling G×E effects in the training population increased PA up to 6% and 13% over the base model for inter- and intra-generations, respectively. GS-PA can be substantially improved using ECs to explain environmental heterogeneity and G×E effects. The ssGBLUP methodology allows historical genetic trials containing non-genotyped samples to contribute in genomic prediction, and, thus, effectively boosting training population size which is a critical step. Further pheno- and enviro-typing developments may improve GS-PA.
In vitro Cytotoxicity and Antiplasmodial Activity of Fractions from Anthocleista djalonensis A. Chev. Acetone Root Extract

Aim: Malaria caused by Plasmodium falciparum is one of the killer diseases in Africa today and the uncontrollable spread of drug resistance and limited drugs with therapeutic efficacy makes it necessary to discover agents against this deadly parasite. Traditionally Anthocleista djalonensis root extract is used in the treatment of Malaria in many parts of Africa and has demonstrated to be a source of antiplasmodial agents. This study aims at identifying possible antiplasmodial agents from chromatographic root fractions of Anthocleista djalonensis of the Genatianceae family as well as to evaluate their cytotoxicity against HeLa cells. Place and Duration of Study: The study was undertaken in the Department of Organic Chemistry, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa. The duration period was between March and July 2016. Original Research Article Okoro et al.; IJBCRR, 24(2): 1-13, 2018; Article no.IJBCRR. 36635 2 Methodology: The Anthocleista djalonensis roots were collected from Arochukwu, Abia State, Nigeria. The acetone extract was obtained from successive maceration of the methanol crude extract with hexane, ethyl acetate and acetone. The concentration (1-1000 μg/mL range) of the chromatographic fractions from acetone root extract of Anthocleista djalonensis were tested for antimalarial activity against Plasmodium falciparium (P. falciparum). Cytotoxicity against HeLa cells was also evaluated using Resazurin based assay. Results: The Five fractions obtained from the chromatographic fractionation of acetone extract labeled A1, A2, A3, A4, and A5 with percentage yield (13.02, 26.66, 24.70, 0.05 and 26.66% respectively) showed excellent anti-plasmodial activity. The anti-malarial bioassay test showed fractions A1, A2, A3, A4 and A5 with IC50 value of 0.0360 ± 0.0100, 8.1299 ± 2.0358, 46.2482 ± 1.2720, 0.0151 ± 0.0010, and 9.8013 ± 0.8171 μg/mL respectively. CC50 values of 44.2010 ± 8.6790, 50.0000 ± 5.6412, 71.6221 ± 2.9600, 36.7212 ± 5.8900 and 0.5132 ± 3.770 μg mL –1 were recorded for fractions A1, A2, A3, A4 and A5 respectively. Fractions were classified as marginally active (A3) showing SI of 1.540 ± 0.0091, partially active (A2 and A5) with SI 6.150 ± 0.0200 and 4.133 ± 0.015 and as active (A1, A4,) exhibiting SI of 1227.805 ± 8.210 and 2431.867 ± 1.589 respectively. A1 and A4 showed SI > 10 and IC50 < 10 ug/mL. Chloroquine, used as a reference anti-malarial drug, tested in parallel had an IC50 of 0.0125 ± 0.0001 μM and was comparable with A1 and A4. Conclusion: The chromatographic fractions from acetone root extract of Anthocleista djalonensis are potential sources for anti-malarial agents of lead compounds for the development of antiplasmodial drugs.
Antisense Oligodeoxynucleotides Directed Against Kv1.5 mRNA Specifically Inhibit Ultrarapid Delayed Rectifier K+ Current in Cultured Adult Human Atrial Myocytes

Abstract Several cloned K+ channel subunits are candidates to underlie macroscopic currents in the human heart, but direct evidence bearing on their role is lacking. The Kv1.5 K+ channel subunit has been suggested to play a potential role in human cardiac ultrarapid delayed rectifier (IKur) and transient outward (Ito) currents. To evaluate the role of proteins encoded by the Kv1.5 gene, we incubated cultured human atrial myocytes for 48 hours in medium containing antisense phosphorothioate oligodeoxynucleotides directed against octodecameric segments of the Kv1.5 mRNA coding sequence, the same concentration of homologous oligodeoxynucleotides with four mismatch mutations, or vehicle (control group). Cells exposed to antisense showed a highly significant (≈50%) reduction in IKur, whether measured by step current at the end of a 400-millisecond depolarizing pulse, tail current at −20 mV, or current sensitive to a concentration of 4-aminopyridine (50 μmol/L) that is highly selective for IKur, compared with c.
Geometry of Hiding: Generating Visibility Manifolds

Understanding what a character observes in a game as they move through the space is useful for game analysis and design. In this work we describe a tool that generates visibility manifolds given a game terrain and game agent path. Our tool accommodates multiple kinds of game agent motion and considers the impact of visual occlusion in order to efficiently generate a closed 3D mesh representation of the area seen over time. The resulting shape demonstrates unintuitive properties of game agent observations, and an efficient Unity implementation allows the constructed shape to be used in interactive game design.
THE AFTERMATH 14TH GENERAL ELECTION AND THE CHALLENGES OF POLITICAL ECONOMY IN MALAYSIA-TAIWAN RELATIONSHIP

Transition democratization became very interesting in 14th general Election as it portrays another significant transition as it seen as victory for democracy that is from the bottom approach or opposition. Therefore, this article would like to discusss on the analysis of transition of democratization in Malaysia. Hence, by using the Democracy Implementation Model, this article will identify the weaknesses and the strengths pathways of responsiveness democracy in several countries. Implementation of democracy should reflection not only “from the people” such as participation and representativeness measure but also “for the people” such as responsiveness measure. It is important since to put government responsibility to increase life standard through policies impact. The findings will provide a sound and scientific understanding evidence to enrich democracy and political economy literature aspects among Malaysia and Taiwan relationship as a case study. It will give precious knowledge for not only Malaysian stakeholders and academicians but also important lesson learned from Taiwan’s responsiveness democracy.
Relationship between academic self-efficacy, performance and anxious and depressive symptoms in emerging adult college students

The objective of the present investigation was to explore the levels of academic self-efficacy and their relationship with performance, anxiety and depression in a sample of emerging university adults. 114 students between 17 and 30 years of age (SD = 2.12), answered the in the Academic Behavior Self-efficacy Scale, the Diagnostic Questionnaire for Depressive Disorders and an Anxiety Inventory. For academic performance, the average grade for high school education, the university entrance exam and the first semester of university were considered. The analysis of the measurement of the levels of each of these variables and their correlation, indicated that the respondents who had low academic self-efficacy when entering university, had the lowest academic performance during high school and a high level of anxiety upon entering university without symptoms of depression.
An Experimental Study of State-of-the-Art Entity Alignment Approaches

Entity alignment (EA) finds equivalent entities that are located in different knowledge graphs (KGs), which is an essential step to enhance the quality of KGs, and hence of significance to downstream applications (e.g., question answering and recommendation). Recent years have witnessed a rapid increase of EA approaches, yet the relative performance of them remains unclear, partly due to the incomplete empirical evaluations, as well as the fact that comparisons were carried out under different settings (i.e., datasets, information used as input, etc.). In this paper, we fill in the gap by conducting a comprehensive evaluation and detailed analysis of state-of-the-art EA approaches. We first propose a general EA framework that encompasses all the current methods, and then group existing methods into three major categories. Next, we judiciously evaluate these solutions on a wide range of use cases, based on their effectiveness, efficiency and robustness. Finally, we construct a new EA dataset to mirror the real-life challenges of alignment, which were largely overlooked by existing literature. This study strives to provide a clear picture of the strengths and weaknesses of current EA approaches, so as to inspire quality follow-up research.
Configurational Entropy of Folded Proteins and Its Importance for Intrinsically Disordered Proteins

Many pairwise additive force fields are in active use for intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) and regions (IDRs), some of which modify energetic terms to improve the description of IDPs/IDRs but are largely in disagreement with solution experiments for the disordered states. This work considers a new direction—the connection to configurational entropy—and how it might change the nature of our understanding of protein force field development to equally well encompass globular proteins, IDRs/IDPs, and disorder-to-order transitions. We have evaluated representative pairwise and many-body protein and water force fields against experimental data on representative IDPs and IDRs, a peptide that undergoes a disorder-to-order transition, for seven globular proteins ranging in size from 130 to 266 amino acids. We find that force fields with the largest statistical fluctuations consistent with the radius of gyration and universal Lindemann values for folded states simultaneously better describe IDPs and IDRs and disorder-to-order transitions. Hence, the crux of what a force field should exhibit to well describe IDRs/IDPs is not just the balance between protein and water energetics but the balance between energetic effects and configurational entropy of folded states of globular proteins.