Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
ON THE USE OF AMPULLATE GLAND SILKS BY WOLF SPIDERS (ARANEAE, LYCOSIDAE) FOR ATTACHING THE EGG SAC TO THE SPINNERETS AND A PROPOSAL FOR DEFINING NUBBINS AND TARTIPORES

Abstract The means by which female wolf spiders attach an egg sac to their spinnerets was investigated using scanning electron microscopy. In four Pardosa species, we observed that silk fibers emerging from ampullate gland spigots had been affixed to the surface of the egg sac. More specifically, primary (1°) and secondary (2°) major ampullate (MaA) glands and 1° and 2° minor ampullate (MiA) glands all contributed fibers for this purpose. The diameters of the 2° MaA and 2° MiA fibers were greater than those of the 1° MaA and 1° MiA fibers and, correspondingly, the widths of the 2° ampullate spigots were clearly greater than those of the 1° ampullate spigots. Larger 2° ampullate spigots were also observed in adult females of species from three other lycosid genera. Thus, 2° ampullate glands, which in araneoids function only in juveniles during proecdysis, are not only functional in adult female lycosids (and adult females of several other families), but they appear to play a greater role than the 1° ampullate glands in egg sac attachment. Observations made on the 1° and 2° ampullate spigots of adult females from species belonging to several other families are also presented. Cuticular structures referred to as nubbins and tartipores are present in some spinning fields on spinnerets. A proposal is made for defining these terms by a criterion, namely their different origins, which differs from that applied previously.
Phytochemical and cytotoxic analysis of Pharthenium hysterophosis selected from District Bannu, Pakistan

Parthenium hysterophorus is a well known medicinal plant widely used traditionally in the treatment of various diseases and as a constituent of various drugs, and in phytotherapy. The current study was designed to investigate the phytochemical screening and cytotoxic capacity of methanolic and nhexane extract of P. hysterophorus. Quantitative analysis of P. hysterophorus showed maximum quantity of flavonoids in methanolic extract of P. hysterophorus which turned down gradually in nhexane extract of P. hysterophorus due to the decrease in organic solvents polarity. Similar results were also observed for saponins and tannins during this investigation. The highest quantity of alkaloids was recorded in the methanolic extract of P. hysterophorus when compared to n-hexane extract. The extracts also showed maximum cytotoxic potential in various concentrations of n-hexane and methanolic extract of P. hysterophorus. The results revealed that P. hysterophorus contains a remarkable cytotoxic activity due to the presence of bioactive constituents.
Question Words in Scalar Enrichment: A Computational Approach by

In this thesis, I investigate the feasibility of an interactive computational model for improving the lexical semantic inferencing of the user. The model assumes lexical semantic inferencing to be a function of lexical knowledge and lexical semantic entailment scales enabling implicature. During processes of user-computer question answering, implicature scales are targeted for enrichment, and their component lexical items are added to the question-answer exchange. Particular emphasis is placed on the role of question words in a question-answer exchange and their relation to scalar implicature. Index words: Dialogue processing, question answering, conversational implicature, attentional state, anaphora resolution, lexical processing Question Words in Scalar Enrichment: A Computational Approach
The Performative Portrait Iconic Embodiment in Ubiquitous Computing

paper looks at the digital portrait used in the form of avatars in various online worlds and communication networks. It describes an ongoing modal shift from an ontological understanding of the portrait towards the portrait as performative act. In accordance with the Western semiotic divide between representational fiction and material reality proper, the portrait- avatar is often still described as a representation that depicts the subject on the basis of a segregation between the living subject and the portrait. But the avatar-portrait functions as embodiment, thereby fulfilling a mainly performative and not epistemic purpose. Surpassing even the concept of the extension, the user and her portrait-avatar can be seen, rather, as a performing and communicating unit. The paper looks at Eastern iconology, where the portrait is an energetic transmitter in which the depiction and the depicted converge in the realness of the picture. Key concepts such as prototype, archetype, and inverse perspective are discussed and applied to the art piece Can you see me now? by Blast Theory.
Principals and agents: an explanatory model for public budgeting

Principal agent theory has its roots in the economic theory of the firm, decision theory, sociology, organizational theory, and more recently political science. However, there are only limited applications of the theory in the arena of public budgeting. This paper considers principal agent theory as an alternative method for explaining budgetary outcomes through an examination of interactive relationships not adequately captured by traditional hierarchical-based models of public budgeting. Because implicit and explicit contractual relationships pervade the entire budget making process, principal agent theory can make a major contribution toward developing more inclusive and accurate models of most stages of public budgeting.
Ratios of peroxyacetyl nitrate to active nitrogen observed during aircraft flights over the eastern Pacific Oceans and continental United States

During August and September 1986, 11 aircraft flights were made over the eastern Pacific Ocean and continental United States. The suite of observations included simultaneous measurements of peroxyacetyl nitrate (PAN) and active nitrogen (NO{sub x} = NO + NO{sub 2}). At altitudes of 4.5-6.1 km in the middle free troposphere, PAN was usually 5-6 times NO{sub x} in maritime air masses and 2-4 times NO{sub x} in continental air masses. In air masses of tropical origin, or in the marine boundary layer, both PAN and NO{sub x} were typically less than 20-30 parts per trillion by volume, and the PAN to NO{sub x} ratio was less than one. The observations show that PAN can be a major component of the odd nitrogen budget in the middle free troposphere, and strongly reinforce earlier views that the abundance is mainly governed by long-range transport processes including formation during transport and continental boundary layer to free tropospheric exchange of PAN and its precursors. Unlike reservoir HNO{sub 3}, PAN can be transformed to active nitrogen and peroxy radicals by a variety of physical atmospheric processes that lead to air mass warming. Since NO{sub x} plays a critical role in determining photochemical O{sub 3} production,more » which in turn determines the oxidative power of the atmosphere, the observed large ratios of reservoir PAN to active NO{sub x} imply an important photochemical and dynamical role for PAN in the eastern Pacific remote free troposphere. « less
Impact of Human Capital Practices on the Performance of Small and Medium Enterprise’s in Pakistan: Examining the Mediating Role of Innovation

Small and Medium Industries play an important role in the development of the economy of any country. The current study aimed to examine the impact of human capital and social capital on the SMEs performance with the mediating role of innovation. SMEs were divided into various categories and then the respondents were reached out with convenience random sampling due to large size of the population. A sample of 307 SMEs was chosen and the data were analyzed through SMART PLS version 3.0. The findings of the study indicated that human capital has positive impact on the SMEs performance and when checked the mediating effects of innovation shows a partial between Human Capital and firm performance. It is recommended that SMEs in Pakistan must embark innovation to improve their performance and when planning human resource strategy they must concentrate on human capital carefully because it is positive linked with firm performance. Keywords: SMES, Human Capital, Innovation, Firm Performance.
Biodegradation Assessment of Petroleum-Contaminated Soils by Natural Attenuation, Biostimulation and Bioaugmentation Methods on an Industrial Scale

This research study compares the biodegradation of petroleum hydrocarbons by natural attenuation, biostimulation and bioaugmentation methods by applying the Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Bacillus cereus bacteria in hydrocarbon-polluted land area of 1000 square meters consists of three distinct parts to compare the methods discussed above for 100 days. The petroleum-contaminated percentage of this area (w / w) is 0.5%. The extraction and determination of petroleum hydrocarbons percentage in contaminated soil was done by gravimetric method by liquid-liquid extraction method by hexane, dichloromethane and chloroform solvents. The results showed that the bioaugmentation technique has a higher ability to analyze the petroleum hydrocarbons contaminant that reduced about 82.33% of this pollution in the period of 100 days and biostimulation and natural attenuation methods decreased the hydrocarbon materials percentage to the rate of 40.32 and 12.11% respectively.
Visualizing Ion Currents in Conjugated Polymers

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A Mathematical Model and a Solution Method for Hybrid Flow Shop Scheduling

This paper studies the hybrid flow shop scheduling where the optimization criterion is the minimization of total tardiness. First, the problem is formulated as a mixed integer linear programming model. Then, to solve large problem sizes, an artificial immune algorithm hybridized with a simple local search in form of simulated annealing is proposed. Two experiments are carried out to evaluate the modeland the algorithm. In the first one, the general performance of the model and the proposed algorithm is experimented. In the next one, the presented algorithm is compared against some other algorithms. The results support high performance of the proposed algorithm.
Quench dynamics in superconducting nanojunctions: metastability and dynamical Yang-Lee zeros

We study the charge transfer dynamics following the formation of a phase or voltage biased su- perconducting nano-junction using a full counting statistics analysis. We demonstrate that the evolution of the zeros of the generating function allows one to identify the population of different many body states much in the same way as the accumulation of Yang-Lee zeros of the partition function in equilibrium statistical mechanics is connected to phase transitions. We give an exact expression connecting the dynamical zeros to the charge transfer cumulants and discuss when an approximation based on "dominant" zeros is valid. We show that, for generic values of the parameters, the system gets trapped into a metastable state characterized by a non-equilibrium population of the many body states which is dependent on the initial conditions. We study in particular the effect of the switching rates in the dynamics showing that, in contrast to intuition, the deviation from thermal equilibrium increases for the slower rates. In the voltage biased case the steady state is reached independently of the initial conditions. Our method allows us to obtain accurate results for the steady state current and noise in quantitative agreement with steady state methods developed to describe the multiple Andreev reflections regime. Finally, we discuss the system dynamics after a sudden voltage drop showing the possibility of tuning the many body states population by an appropriate choice of the initial voltage, providing a feasible experimental way to access the quench dynamics and control the state of the system.
Estimation of E-Field inside Muscle Tissue at MICS and ISM Frequencies Using Analytic and Numerical Methods

This paper presents studying for analytic and numerical methods which are used for evaluating the magnitude of electric field inside human tissues for different depths and using the most important frequencies in medical application fields, then showing the difference range between the two methods. The first method considers the human tissue as one-dimensional layered, the layers in this method modeled with non uniform transmission line. The second method is using numerical simulation CST Microwave Studio which considers the human tissues as 3D-dimensional layered. This paper also investigates the penetration for the magnitude of electric field into the phantom model of human tissues, especially into muscle tissue using different frequencies and how the electric field behaves inside the tissue when the penetration depth greater than the thickness of the tissue, as well as when the penetration depth smaller than the thickness of the tissue.
Job Creation, Firm Creation, and De Novo Entry

Firm turnover and growth recorded in administrative data sets differ from underlying firm dynamics. By tracing the employment history of the workforce of new and disappearing administrative firm identifiers, we can accurately identify de novo entrants and true economic exits, even when firms change identifier, merge, or split-up. For a well-defined group of new firms entering the Belgian economy between 2004 and 2011, we find highly regular post-entry employment dynamics in spite of the volatile macroeconomic environment. Exit rates decrease with age and size. Surviving entrants record high employment growth that is monotonically decreasing with age in every size class. Most remarkably, we find that Gibrat’s law is violated for very young firms. Conditional on age, the relationship between employment growth and current size is strongly and robustly positive. This pattern is obscured, or even reversed, when administrative entrants and exits are taken at face value. De novo entrants’ contribution to job creation is relatively small and not very persistent, in particular for (the large majority of) new firms that enter with fewer than five employees.
Mathematical screening of nutritional parameters for enhancement of insecticidal proteins production by Bacillus sp.

The bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) is a spore forming microorganism that produces an insecticidal crystalline protein (ICP) making it a famous biopesticide. The ICPs are also referred to as Cry proteins and include delta-endotoxins, which cause mortality of insects classified to several orders, namely, Coleoptera, Diptera and Lepidoptera. Statistical methods were carried out to ameliorate th fermentation medium composition for the production of bacterial delta-endotoxins in submerg ed cultures. An experimental statistical design was used to measure the effects of different components in he medium. The concentrations of starch and soybean meal, considered as the main carbon and nit rogen sources for bacterial growth, respectively, FeSO4 and MgSO4 were found to increase Bacillus sp. delta-endotoxin production. Different mathematical models were developed and interaction between all ingredients was studied. In concordance with coefficient of determination (R2) value, well known as the most important criterion for predictiv e models success, the best model was validated and th us demonstrated the effect of interaction and then can precisely predict the production of delta-endotoxin s by studied bacterium. With a limited number of experiments, this method allowed to obtain promotin g results.
Employee engagement in the public sector: a case study of Western Africa

Employee engagement and its relationship with organizational performance have recently gained immense attention amongst the scholars of organizational studies and human resource development. However, this relationship has widely been examined in the private sector organizations operating in the Western developed countries and its application in the African public sector still remains a major gap in the engagement literature. In order to address this gap, we investigate the different factors of employee engagement and their impact on organizational performance in the public sector of West Africa while taking the case of Gambia Ports Authority, one of the biggest public sector employers in Gambia. A case study approach was adopted with questionnaires designed and distributed to 327employees of the Gambia Ports Authority, one of the largest public sector employer in the Gambia. The survey included employees at different levels including senior managers, directors, and junior level staff. Findings suggest that various factors have significant impact on employee engagement with the exception of team and co-worker relation. Amongst other factors, leadership had the strongest influence employee engagement in African public sector. Overall, a positive relationship was found between employee engagement and organizational performance. Findings also indicate that employees who feel engaged and connected with the organization attempt to reciprocate and show greater enthusiasm towards work (work engagement) and to the organization (organizational engagement), which could lead to improved performance.
Lateral waves in anisotropic optical waveguides

The paper deals with the properties of lateral waves in uniaxial optical waveguides. The 1ateral waves are closely associated with the phenomenon of the total reflection and arise due to the presence of branch point singularities of the reflection coefficients. In the structure of uniaxial asymmetric waveguides two sets of the 1ateral waves may propagate along two interfaces of the waveguide. A detaiłed wave-optical analysis for the propagation is presented.
LEAF PHENOLOGY OF WOODY SPECIES IN A NORTH AUSTRALIAN TROPICAL SAVANNA

Leaf phenology was monitored for 49 woody species (trees and tall shrubs) each month over a 2.5-year period in a humid, wet-dry tropical eucalypt savanna at Solar Village, near Darwin, Australia. In the 10 most common species, which spanned the range of phenological types, phenology was monitored every two weeks. To investigate the relationships between leaf phenology and plant water status, pre-dawn leaf water potential was monitored in eight common species every 4-6 weeks. Four main phenological types were described: (1) evergreen species, which retained full canopy throughout the year; (2) brevi- or partly deciduous species, in which the amount of canopy fell significantly, but briefly, during at least one dry season during the study period, but to levels not below 50% of full canopy; (3) semideciduous species in which canopy fell to below 50% of full canopy in each of the dry seasons; and (4) fully deciduous species, which lost all leaves during the early-mid dry season, and remained leafless for at least one month. Of these 49 species, 24% were evergreen, 20% were brevideciduous, 29% were semideciduous, and 27% were fully deciduous. Leaf fall occurred 1-2 months earlier in the dry season for the fully deciduous species than for the semideciduous species. Leaf fall in all species was coincident with the attainment of seasonal minima in leaf water potential, which were, on average, about -1.5 to -2.0 MPa in the evergreen and semideciduous species, compared with about -0.5 to -1.0 MPa in the fully deciduous species. Leaf flushing occurred throughout the dry season in the two evergreen species, with a major peak in the late dry season. In five semideciduous species and one of the fully deciduous species, leaf flushing commenced in the late dry season prior to the occurrence of any rain. In two fully deciduous species, leaf flushing occurred only after the first storms of the early wet season. There was variation in the timing of flushing, both between species within years and between years for some species. However, all species commenced leaf flushing after water potentials rose, following the attainment of seasonal minima in pre-dawn leaf water potential. Soil moisture at 1 m did not fall below permanent wilting point during the dry season; hence, reserves of soil water at the end of the dry season were sufficient to support the whole-plant rehydration that preceded leaf flushing in the absence of rain. These results are consistent with hypotheses, developed in the neotropics, that leaf phenology in trees from the wet-dry tropics is largely controlled by endogenous mechanisms.
Structural Analysis of Alkaline Pretreated Rice Straw for Ethanol Production

Rice straw (RS) is an abundant, readily available agricultural waste, which shows promise as a potential feedstock for Asian ethanol production. To enhance release of glucose by enzymatic hydrolysis, RS was pretreated with aqueous ammonia (27% w/w) at two pretreatment temperatures: room temperature and 60°C. Statistical analysis indicated similarity of enzymatic glucose production at both pretreatment temperatures after 3-day incubation. Chemical composition, FTIR, and EDX analyses confirmed the retention of glucan and xylan in the pretreated solid, but significant reduction of lignin (60.7% removal) and silica. SEM analysis showed the disorganized surfaces and porosity of the pretreated RS fibers, thus improving cellulose accessibility for cellulase. The crystallinity index increased from 40.5 to 52.3%, indicating the higher exposure of cellulose. With 10% (w/v) solid loadings of pretreated RS, simultaneous saccharification and fermentation yielded a final ethanol concentration of 24.6 g/L, corresponding to 98% of maximum theoretical yield. Taken together, aqueous ammonia pretreatment is an effective method to generate highly digestible pretreated RS for bioethanol production and demonstrates potential application in biorefinery industry.
Informal Labor Incentives and Firm Performance: A Case Study of RMG Industry in Bangladesh

Many organizations implement labor incentive programs as they are considered to be drivers of employee motivation, leading to higher labor productivity. In this regards, the notion of low cost is a widely accepted business strategy in securing a competitive edge in the international market and, thus, achieving better firm performance. In Bangladesh, the readymade garment (RMG) industry extensively uses labor-intensive technology for its production, owing to the country’s labor abundance. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that some Bangladeshi RMG factories have been continuously registering higher export growth and better firm performance mainly due to their informal labor incentive programs. Given this focus, this study investigates the association between informal labor incentive programs and firm performance in the RMG industry in Bangladesh. Data for the study was obtained from 38 medium and large-scale RMG factories in Bangladesh between 2006 and 2012. Our finding suggests that informal incentives have a positive association with firm performance in Bangladesh’s RMG industry both in terms of production performance and net profit growth.