Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of epidermal growth factor on gastrointestinal development and function for improved growth and efficiency in poultry

EFFECTS OF EPIDERMAL GROWTH FACTOR ON GASTROINTESTINAL DEVELOPMENT AND FUNCTION FOR IMPROVED GROWTH AND EFFICIENCY IN POULTRY Emily Kim Advisor: University of Guelph, 2018 Dr. Elijah Kiarie Two experiments were conducted to evaluate EGF supplementation on gastrointestinal development, health and function in broilers. Experiment 1 incorporated EGF in starter diets fed to broiler chickens challenged with Eimeria and experiment 2 applied EGF in ovo during the late embryonic stage. Feeding EGF increased body weight gain before challenge (days 0-5) but had no effects on growth performance, intestinal histomorphology, or nutrient retention upon challenge. Interestingly, EGF increased gene expression for certain digestive enzymes, nutrient transporters, tight junction proteins, and proliferating cell nuclear antigen in Eimeria-challenged birds, suggesting that EGF could potentially attenuate the negative effects of Eimeria. In ovo application of EGF had no effect on post-hatch growth performance, nutrient retention, and intestinal development, suggesting bioactivity of EGF may have been compromised by ubiquitous protective factors in the amniotic fluid. Further research to optimize biological and economic application of EGF may stimulate uptake in starter feeding programs.
Factors Affecting Conception Rate of Dairy Cows Following Artificial Insemination in Selected Area at Sirajgonj District of Bangladesh

Conception Rate (CR) plays a major role to achieve a successful dairy farm. The present study was aimed to observe the conception rate of dairy cattle following artificial insemination (AI) in Sirajgonj district of Bangladesh. A total of 543 non descriptive indigenous and 317 crossbred cows were collected through face to face questionnaires with the farmers considering the breed, age, parity, retention of placenta, insemination after onset of estrous, calving interval and days open as potential risk factors affecting CR of cows. The collected data were analyzed by using SPSS software. The mean conception rate was 72 percent following AI. Cross breed cows (co-eff.= -0.003, p<0.05), removal of placenta >6 hours (co-eff. = -0.17, p<0.05), days open (co-eff.= -.001, p<0.01) were identified as the risk factors for low CR after AI. Age of cow <2.5 years (co-eff.= 0.005, p>0.005), parity>5, (co-eff. = 0.210, p>0.05), Insemination after onset of estrous <3 hours (co-eff. = 0.008, p>0.05), calving interval >551(co-eff.= 0.00, p>0.05) were associated with the risk for lower CR following AI. Therefore, it could be stated that conception rate depends on various factors.
Elektrische Dipol-Polarisierbarkeitund Spin-M1-Stärke aus90Zr(p,p’)-Daten unter 0°

In der vorliegenden Arbeit wurden Impulshohenspektren aus einem 90Zr(p,p’)-Streuexperiment in einem Energiebereich von (6-23)MeV analysiert, mit dem Ziel, die magnetische Dipolstarke und die elektrische Dipol-Polarisierbarkeit zu bestimmen. Letzteres konnte nur uber den Photoabsorptionswirkungsquerschnitt ermittelt werden, aus dem noch weitere physikalische Grosen wie die elektrische Dipolstarke und die Gamma-Starkefunktion berechnet worden sind. Das Streuexperiment wurde 2010 am Research Center for Nuclear Physics in Osaka, Japan, mit einer Einschussenergie von Ep=295MeV durchgefuhrt. Die Impulshohenspektren wurden in einen doppelt differentiellenWirkungsquerschnitt umgerechnet, um aus diesem die einzelnen Multipolbeitrage mittels einer Multipolentfaltung zu extrahieren. Im Rahmen der Multipolentfaltung konnte gezeigt werden, dass sich der Beitrag der effektiven Ladung in den Modellwinkelverteilungen des E1-Multipolanteils negativ auf deren Ergebnis auswirkt und Modellwinkelverteilungen ohne den Anteil der effektiven Ladung zu bevorzugen sind. Von den extrahierten Multipolanteilen wurden aus den beiden am starksten auftretenden Multipolanteilen E1 und M1 physikalisch relevante Grosen generiert. Fur den M1-Multipolanteil sind die reduzierte Ubergangsstarke B(M1) und ihre Gesamtstarke im Energiebereich von (6-14)MeV bestimmt und mit (gamma,gamma’)-Daten verglichen worden. Weiterhin konnten aus der B(M1)-Starke und dem E1- Multipolanteil Photoabsorptionswirkungsquerschnitte gebildet werden, wobei letzteres mit Hilfe der Virtuelle-Photonen-Methode umgesetzt wurde. Beide Anteile am Photoabsorptionswirkungsquerschnitt konnten so untereinander und in ihrer Summe mit (gamma,x)-Daten verglichen werden. Uber den E1-Anteil des Photoabsorptionswirkungsquerschnitts ergaben sich weitere physikalische Grosen wie die reduzierte Ubergangsstarke B(E1), die elektrische Dipol-Polarisierbarkeit und die Gamma-Starkefunktion. Uber die B(E1)-Starke konnte die B(E1)-Gesamtstarke im Energiespektrum ermittelt werden. Weiterhin war es moglich, die Ergebnisse der B(E1)-Starke mit einem vorangegangenen (p,p’)-Experiment und (gamma,gamma’)-Daten im Energiebereich der PDR zu vergleichen. Die elektrische Dipol-Polarisierbarkeit konnte mit Hilfe einer Quasiparticle-Random-Phase-Aproximation (QRPA)- Rechnung und einer angepassten Extrapolation im Energiebereich von ca. (6-50)MeV angegeben werden. Dieses Ergebnis wurde mit denen von Modellrechnungen verglichen, welche anhand von eingeschrankten Symmetrieenergieparametern die Dipol-Polarisierbarkeit verschiedener Kerne bestimmen soll. Des weiteren wurde ein Modelltest von modifizierten Lorenzkurven, die zur Beschreibung der Gamma- Starkefunktionen beliebiger Kerne genutzt werden konnen, anhand des experimentell bestimmten E1-Anteils der Gamma-Starkefunktion durchgefuhrt. Anhand der ermittelten Ergebnisse und zuganglich gemachten Relationen der dominierenden Multipolanteile wurde der Frage nachgegangen, ob das E1-M1-Verhaltnis in einer fruheren Arbeit abweichend bestimmt wurde.
Soil organic carbon balance and nutrients (NPK) availability under treated wastewater irrigation for bioenergy sorghum production in an arid ecosystem

ABSTRACT This column study evaluated the effects of irrigation with two water qualities (WW and FW) to produce bioenergy sorghum on SOC balance, nutrients availability and salt constituents in two soils (TX and NM) amended with gypsum & elemental sulfur (S) and un-amended. Study results indicated that SOC concentration was higher in freshwater irrigated columns (7.41 g kg−1) than wastewater irrigated soils (7.32 g kg−1) across growth year-soil type-amendments-depth. Soils amended with gypsum and sulfur registered significantly higher value of 7.52 and 7.41 g kg−1 compared to 7.30 and 7.23 g kg−1 in non-amended soils under fresh and wastewater irrigation, respectively. Lower SOC in WW irrigated columns could be due to the combined effects of increased salinity and priming effects. Although SOC content initially increased in gypsum and S amended soils to about 10g kg−1, at the end of the study SOC in all treatments decreased to levels significantly below the pre-study. WW irrigation added 2.00, 1.10 and 4.40 times the N, P and K added by fertilizers and was able to meet 65%, 87%, and 210% of bioenergy sorghum uptake of respective nutrients. Sulfates and chlorides of sodium and calcium were dominant salts, which significantly affected SOC and nutrients. Abbreviations: FW: freshwater; WW: treated wastewater; G + S: gypsum and elemental sulfur; NA: no amendment, TX: Texas soil and NM: New Mexico soil
Nucléation en présence de champs externes : application aux principes actifs pharmaceutiques

Dans le domaine de la chimie pharmaceutique la cristallisation des principes actifs ou intermediaires est une etape importante, c'est elle qui va controler les proprietes physico-chimiques du solide obtenu. La premiere etape de la cristallisation, la nucleation, peut etre lente, difficile ou perturbee par l'apparition d'une autre phase, solide ou liquide, indesirable. L'obtention du premier cristal et la recherche de nouveaux polymorphes necessitent de longues et onereuses etudes. Avec pour objectif de rationaliser ces recherches de conditions de cristallisation nous proposons, dans le cadre de cette these, l'etude et le developpement de nouvelles techniques de cristallisation sur de faibles volumes (du µL au mL) en presence d'un champ externe. Par champ externe, on entend en presence d'un champ electrique, d'un faisceau lumineux ou d'ultrasons. Il s'agira d'etre capable de provoquer la nucleation de maniere localisee dans le temps et l'espace au sein de solutions metastables, afin de pouvoir l'observer et de mieux comprendre le mecanisme d'apparition du premier cristal.
Asociación de Estados del Caribe

The present work makes a revision of the ACS (Association of Caribbean States) as a regional integration system, its background, historical process, stages through which it has traveled, agreements and resulting treaties, its four dimensions of regional integration, the political institutional dimension, the economic dimension, the social and cultural dimension, and the environmental dimension, as well as the role played by member states, external relations and geopolitics considering the relations of the ACS with other States and with other systems of Regional Integration (SIR), all this in order to provide a clear picture that allows to know the current situation of the ACS as a Regional Integration System (SIR), both inside and outside the organization; and give an account of its impact on the regional integration of Latin America and the Caribbean. Keywords: ACS, Regional Integration, Latin America, the Caribbean
Transport à travers un canal quantique élémentaire : action du circuit, quantification de la charge et limite quantique du courant de chaleur

Ce memoire de these presente trois experiences portant sur le transport quantique dans les conducteurs coherents a l’echelle elementaire du canal de conduction. La premiere etudie comment le transport d’electricite dans un canal est affecte lorsque le canal est insere dans un circuit modelise par une impedance lineaire. Nous avons observe empiriquement une loi d’echelle a laquelle obeit la conductance du canal et nous avons demontre experimentalement une analogie entre ce systeme et les liquides de Tomonaga-Luttinger. La deuxieme s’interesse a la nature de la charge d’un ilot metallique couple electriquement au monde exterieur par deux canaux de conduction. Dans le regime de couplage faible, il est bien connu que cette charge est quantifiee en unites de la charge de l’electron. Ici, nous avons caracterise la transition vers le regime de couplage fort, ou la quantification de la charge est detruite par les fluctuations quantiques. La troisieme concerne le transport de chaleur dans les conducteurs coherents. Grâce a un systeme de mesure de bruit implemente au cours de ce travail de these, nous avons pu, pour la premiere fois, mesurer quantitativement la conductance thermique d’un unique canal de conduction electronique, que nous avons trouvee en accord avec le quantum de conductance thermique a une resolution de quelques pourcents.
Composition of Essential Oil from Piper jacquemontianum from Eight Provenances of Guatemala

Piper jacquemontianum Kunth (Piperaceae) is a native species from Central America and the Caribbean lowlands. It is traditionally used as a medicine and condiment in several ethnic groups from the region. Essential oils of dry leaves were obtained from eight ecologically different sites of Guatemala, which were cultivated under similar conditions in the Pacific basin. The essential oil yields obtained by hydrodistillation varied with the site of collection (0.3-1.7%). The essential oil composition was determined by gas chromatography; E-nerolidol was the only compound common to all provenances, although in a wide range (5.7-73.8%), being the main component of four of them. In the oils from other provenances, the main components were linalool, terpinen-4-ol, spathulenol, and α-bisabolol. This is the first report on the variation of the essential oil composition of this species of different provenance cultivated under similar conditions, suggesting high variability in its composition, and demonstrating at least five groups of P. jacquemontianum according to the composition of its essential oil. In further agrotechnological research, selection of the most promising samples could generate unique cultivars which might produce the expected compound.
A Fully Integrated FVF LDO With Enhanced Full-Spectrum Power Supply Rejection

This article presents a fully integrated flipped voltage follower (FVF) based low-dropout (LDO) regulator with enhanced full-spectrum power supply rejection (PSR) and unity-gain bandwidth over 400MHz for noise-sensitive circuits. Following the study of three types of FVF LDO's PSR performances, we propose a novel FVF LDO with a low-gain fast loop-1 and a high-gain slow loop-2. In prior FVF LDOs, their PSRs are either full-spectrum, or not, but with low PSR at low frequency. In this article, we fully utilize both dc gains of loop-1 and loop-2 for the low-frequency PSR, while the high-frequency PSR remains unchanged. In addition, we use dynamic compensation to push the loop-2's UGB to higher frequency for a better PSR bandwidth. This work, fabricated in 65 nm complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS), with 1.2-V input and 1-V output, exhibits a measured quiescent current (IQ) varying from 27 to 82 μA for a load current ILOAD between 5 μA and 20 mA. The circuit achieves a low frequency PSR of –58 dB with the worst full-spectrum PSR of –9 dB in 20 mA ILOAD with a 300 pF on-chip output capacitor. Further, with an UGB over 400 MHz, the proposed FVF LDO reaches 0.9 ns response time when ILOAD changes between 100 μA and 20 mA with edge times less than 0.8 ns.
Towards a Strategic Understanding of Global Teams and their HR Implications: A Practitioner’s View

The age of liberalisation and globalisation along with the artificial intelligence, automation, and other advancements in information technology specifically set the stage for more technological evolution. Robotics are becoming smarter, and even our thermostats and refrigerators can be connected to the internet. The extended use of information systems has a profound impact in the way HRM is currently managed. It boosted a major transformation of human resources (HR) processes and practices within organisations, namely on how they collect, store, use, and share information. This paper focuses on the theoretical framework of international HRM and highlights the trends and challenges of the International and Multi-National Companies.
Effects of Combined Application of Bradyrhizobium Japonicum and Pseudomonas Putida on Nutrients and Water Contents of Soybean in Relation to Soil Moisture Regime

Abstract Plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) are of growing interest for their potential role in improving soil fertility and enhancing crops productivity and nutrients contents. In order to assess the impact of PGPR on nutrients contents of soybean, a greenhouse experiment was carried out with Bradyrhizobium japonicum applied alone or in combination with Pseudomonas putida in conjunction with fertilization of P or manure. Two soil moisture regimes were installed: 70% of whole holding capacity (WHC) as control and 35% WHC as moderate water stress. The water deficit was imposed at the flowering stage for 12 days. Plants cultivated under P insufficiency and drought exhibited lower physiological parameters in treatment with single inoculation of B. japonicum than combined application of two rhizobacteria. The results showed that the combined application of rhizobacteria enhanced the N and P contents of soybean regarding of soil water conditions. The integrated use of rhizobacteria improved the relative water content of soybean. Their influence was more pronounced under P deficiency and manure fertilization of plants especially under no stress water conditions. Hence, combined application of B. japonicum and P. putida has a potential to improve nutrition and growth of soybean under normal soil moisture as well as under moderate drought.
‘Grandpa’ or ‘opera’? Production and perception of unstressed /a/ and /əʁ/ in German

In the description of German phonology, two distinct phonetic symbols are currently recommended for the transcription of the vowels [a] (a central low vowel, phonemically /a/) and [ɐ] (phonemically /əʁ/) in word-final, unstressed positions. The present study examines whether differences between these two vowels exist in production and perception of Standard German speakers from the north of Germany. In Experiment 1, six speakers produced a series of minimal pairs that were embedded in meaningful sentences and varied with respect to their accentuation and position within a prosodic phrase. In Experiment 2, the minimal pairs produced by the six speakers of the first experiment were extracted from their respective contexts and tested with 44 native German listeners in a forced-choice identification task. Perceptual results showed a better-than-chance performance for one male speaker of the corpus only. Phonetic analyses also confirmed that only this male speaker produced subtle, but consistent F2/F3 differences between [a] and [ɐ] while the contrast was completely neutralised in the rest of the corpus. We discuss the role of prosody in vowel neutralisation with a specific focus on unstressed vowels and make suggestions for phonetic and phonological accounts of Standard German.
Age-dependent visualization of neural progenitor cells within the rostral migratory stream via MRI and endogenously labeled micron-sized iron oxide particles

The subventricular zone (SVZ) is one of the primary sources for rodent neural progenitor cells (NPC), however, aging greatly impacts the substructure of the region and rate of new cell birth. To determine if age impacts the rate of in vivo migration within animals, we examined the rostral migratory stream (RMS) of animals across 12 days using an established MRI technique. To visualize NPCs, we injected micron sized particles of iron oxide (MPIO) into the lateral ventricle to endogenously label cells within the SVZ, which then appeared as hypo-intensive spots within MR images. Our in vivo MRI data showed that the rate of migration was significantly different between all ages examined, with decreases in the distance traveled as age progressed. The total number of iron oxide labeled cells within the olfactory bulb on day 12, decrease significantly when compared across ages in ex vivo high-resolution scans. We also, for the first time, demonstrated the endogenous labeling of cells within the dentate gyrus (DG) of hippocampus. Here too, there was a significant decrease in the number of labeled cells within the structure across age. Histology of the NPCs verified the decrease in labeling of cells with doublecortin (DCX) as age progressed for both regions. The dramatic reduction of labeling in NPCs within the SVZ and DG observed with MRI, demonstrates the importance of understanding the impact of age on the relationship of NPC and disease.
Successes and failures of the live-attenuated influenza vaccine, can we do better?

Live-attenuated vaccines are usually highly effective against many acute viral infections. However, the effectiveness of the live attenuated influenza vaccine (LAIV) can vary widely, ranging from 0% effectiveness in some studies done in the United States to 50% in studies done in Europe. The reasons for these discrepancies remain largely unclear. In this paper we use mathematical models to explore how the efficacy of LAIV is affected by the degree of mismatch with the currently circulating influenza strain and interference with pre-existing immunity. The model incorporates two key antigenic distances – the distance between pre-existing immunity and the currently circulating strain as well as the LAIV strain. Our models show that a LAIV that is matched with the currently circulating strain is likely to have only modest efficacy. Our results suggest that the efficacy of the vaccine would be increased (optimized) if, rather than being matched to the circulating strain, it is antigenically slightly further from pre-existing immunity compared with the circulating strain. The models also suggest two regimes in which LAIV that is matched to circulating strains may provide effective protection. The first is in children before they have built immunity from circulating strains. The second is in response to novel strains (such as antigenic shifts) which are at substantial antigenic distance from previously circulating strains. Our models provide an explanation for the variation in vaccine effectiveness, both between children and adults as well as between studies of vaccine effectiveness observed during the 2014-15 influenza season in different countries. Significance Statement The live-attenuated influenza vaccine, in principle provides an important intervention for the control of both seasonal and pandemic influenza. However vaccine effectiveness studies have found seemingly contradictory results with effectiveness ranging from 0 to 50%. Based on mathematical models we suggest that a major factor responsible for the variable efficacy of the vaccine is negative interference – where pre-existing immunity precludes the vaccine from working. Our models suggest that there are broad regimes for which LAIV will fail to be immunogenic, but also allow us to make suggestions for the choice of vaccine strain that will allow optimization of protective immunity in different scenarios.
Vision-based Individual Factors Acquisition for Thermal Comfort Assessment in a Built Environment

To maintain satisfactory chamber thermal environments for occupants, heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems have to work frequently. However, the room conditions especially the temperatures are usually set empirically which fail to consider occupants’ real needs, not to mention personalized thermal comfort, therefore, the HVAC systems are underutilized and unavoidably induce energy waste. To solve this problem, a vision-based method to acquire multiple individual factors that are critical for assessing personalized thermal sensation is proposed. Specifically, with the indoor videos captured by a thermal camera as inputs, a convolutional neural network (CNN) is implemented to recognize an occupant’s clothes and action type simultaneously. With a dataset of 20 persons, the experimental results show an average classification rate of 95.14parcent on 4 dataset partitions for a 15-category scenario, which prove the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Compact Patch Antenna With Vertical Polarization and Omnidirectional Radiation Characteristics

This communication proposes a compact, low-profile patch antenna with omnidirectional radiation pattern and vertical polarization. A pair of shorted patches are excited in-phase to achieve the omnidirectivity and the vertical polarization, simultaneously. The principle is to excite two back-to-back arranged shorted patches to generate symmetrical electric-field ( $E$ -field) distributions normal to the ground plane. Analytical study on how to generate the omnidirectional radiation pattern is carried out. Based on this study, we found that the spacing in between the two patches have little influence on the radiation characteristics, which provides another flexibility in the design. In addition, the shape of the patch and the corresponding field distribution are investigated to further improve the omnidirectivity. To improve the impedance bandwidth, resonant structures are inserted in between the patches, producing the second-order response in frequency. The antenna has been fabricated and characterized, and the measured results are in reasonable agreement with the simulations, showing that the proposed antenna is suitable for potential surface-mount wireless applications.
Le réseau national d'observation de la qualité du milieu marin (RNO)

Le RNO est un outil d'evaluation des concentrations des contaminants dans le milieu marin et de leurs evolutions, ainsi que des parametres generaux de qualite des eaux littorales. Le ministere de l'Environnement l'a cree en 1973 et en a confie la coordination a l'Ifremer.