Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The influence of customer race on perceived discrimination, anger and coping strategies following subtle degradation of restaurant service

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine how customer race (Black vs White) influences the extent to which customers attribute an ambiguous service failure (i.e. subtle degradation of service) to discrimination and how perceived discrimination relates to customer anger and on-site coping behaviors (vindictive complaining, problem-solving complaining and avoidance). This study further investigated how customer race affects the strength of relationships among perceived discrimination, anger and these three coping behaviors. Design/methodology/approach This study used a video-based simulation in which participants watched a subtle service failure from the customer’s viewpoint before completing a survey. A total of 421 participants – 210 Blacks and 211 Whites – were recruited through Qualtrics. Multigroup structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis was used to test hypotheses. Findings Compared with White customers, Black customers were more likely to attribute a service failure to discrimination and exhibited a stronger relationship between perceived discrimination and anger. In addition, increasing anger in White customers tended to lead to more active coping strategies (i.e. vindictive complaining, problem-solving complaining). For Black customers, increasing anger tended to lead to vindictive complaining at a similar level to White customers. However, the impact of anger on problem-solving complaining – known to be a more beneficial coping strategy – was stronger among White customers than among Black customers. Practical implications This study advances hospitality practitioners’ understanding of how customers respond on-site to a service failure that can be interpreted as discrimination. The varying effects of race on customer-coping behavior are also identified. In addition, this study offers practical advice to develop organizational strategies to dissuade customers from attributing service failure to discrimination and to respond effectively to customer-coping behaviors. Originality/value Complementing and extending past research documenting the prevalence and causes of racial discrimination in service settings, the present study advances prior work by developing and testing a comprehensive structural model linking race with coping responses via perceived discrimination and anger, and by exploring how race affects the strength of relationships among perceived discrimination, anger and coping strategies.
The First Insight into the Patterns of Size and Shape Variation of a Microcerberid Isopod

Cryptic species are a biological phenomenon only recently recognized due to progress in molecular studies. They pose a significant challenge to conventional taxonomic work since these species manifest low morphological differences, but considerable genetic disparity. New taxonomic methods are in development but have yet to be tested for many animal groups. Isopods belonging to the suborder Microcerberidea are one such group. The Asian microcerberid isopod, Coxicerberus fukudai (Ito, 1974), is a major component of marine interstitial fauna with suspected cryptic species inhabiting Japan and Korea. We chose six Korean populations with high molecular interpopulations divergence and applied 2D landmark-based geometric morphometrics to cephalic sensilla, pleonal points, and male pleopod II. This quantitative approach allowed us to study interpopulation size and shape variations, morphospace structure, and whether the morphological pattern mirrored the genetic species. We determined that a high degree of interpopulation size variation significantly influences shape changes. Once we removed the allometric effect, the size-corrected male pleopod II shape variations yielded a new species, C. jangsaensis sp. nov. At the same time, we were able to resolve the C. fukadai species complex.
Long‐term restoration altered edaphic properties and soil microbial communities in forests: evidence from four plantations of southern China

Afforestation has been an important approach to mitigate land deterioration and biodiversity reduction. There are increasing interests in understanding the responses of soil microbial communities under long‐term forest restoration, since they play a crucial role in the mediation of ecosystem functions while interacting with plants. Here we examined the effects of four forests (Acacia species [AM], Eucalyptus species [EE], mixed coniferous species [MC], mixed native broadleaf species [NS]) after 35‐year restoration (1986–2015) on soil environmental factors and soil microbial communities. Our results showed that afforestation significantly increased soil organic carbon (SOC) and total N (TN) while decreasing soil pH. Among the four forest types, there were significant differences for TN and TK (total K) but not for pH, sSOC, and TP (total P). Bacterial species richness and phylogenetic diversity in Acacia forest significantly declined more than those of other forests, but those of fungal communities were remarkably higher in the Acacia forest. Both the bacterial and fungal communities' structure of each forest were strongly related to soil TK and TP. Besides, TK and SOC were primary edaphic properties that respectively affected the distribution pattern of bacterial and fungal communities in four forests. Network structures in AM and MC compared with EE and NS were more complex and closely linked, hence more resistant to extrinsic interference. Our results demonstrate that afforestation altered soil properties and microbial communities during long‐term restoration, which may provide insight into ecological restoration practices and biodiversity maintenance.
Use of Waste from Granite Gang Saws to Manufacture Ultra-High Performance Concrete Reinforced with Steel Fibers

The purpose of this study is to analyze the feasibility of using the ultra-fine waste coming from the granite cutting waste gang saws (GCW-GS) to manufacture ultra-high performance, steel-fiber reinforced concrete (UHPFRC). These machines cut granite blocks by abrasion using a steel blade and slurry containing fine steel grit. The waste generated by gang saws (GCW-GS) contains up to 15% Fe2O3 and up to 5% CaO. This is the main difference from the waste produced by diamond saws (GCW-D). Although this waste is available in large quantities, there are very few studies focused on recycling it to manufacture any kind of concrete. In this study, the replaced material was the micronized quartz powder of natural origin used in the manufacture of UHPRFC. The properties tested include workability, density, compressive strength, elasticity modulus, flexural strength, and tensile strength. The final conclusion is that this waste can be used to manufacture UHPFRC with a better performance than that from diamond saws given that there is an improvement of their mechanical properties up to a replacement of 35%. Even for higher percentages, the mechanical properties are within values close to those of control concrete with small decreases.
A Parent-Implemented Gross Motor Intervention for Young Children with Disabilities

Children with disabilities often experience gross motor delays. Adults, including parents, can play a crucial role in supporting children’s motor development. However, a limited number of research studies have focused on building parents’ capacity to support their young children’s motor skill development. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a training and coaching program on parent implementation of prompting procedures and children’s gross motor skills. A multiple-probe single-case design across three parent–child dyads was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention. The findings show that parents learned how to implement prompting procedures with high fidelity. In addition, the parents reported improvements in their children’s gross motor performance.
Incidental Teaching of Conversational Skills for Students With Autism Spectrum Disorder

This article describes a process for the incidental teaching of conversation skills to students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in inclusive settings. The incidental teaching of conversation skills is an effective naturalistic intervention for assisting students with ASD to improve their social communication skills. Special educators and other stakeholders can implement this strategy by following the RACTF process: 1) recruit and prepare team members, 2) assess and identify target conversational skills, 3) identify natural cueing conditions and times to focus on target skills, 4) introduce and teach the target skills, and 5) fade prompts and practice the target skills in new settings. By improving the conversation skills of students with ASD, students have a higher likelihood of establishing peer relationships and becoming engaged, active participants in the classroom and other school environments.
Into the minds of coffee consumers: perception, preference, and impact of information in the sensory analysis of specialty coffee

This study aimed to analyze the knowledge, perspectives, and preferences of consumers about specialty coffees and to investigate how information can influence the perception of taste and the sensory characteristics of consumers. A descriptive-analytic survey was conducted through a questionnaire in a digital format with 1005 respondents. Four trained Q-Grader tasters evaluated a sample of cherry coffee fermented. The Specialty Coffee Association developed the cupping protocol used. According to the perceived descriptors, a sensory analysis was performed with the same coffee with 101 consumers to evaluate the influence of information received before the analysis. The chocolate flavor is the most expected in coffee. However, the participants are willing to try different specialty coffees. The coffee has been considered excellent (85.15 points) by Q-Grader tasters and widely accepted by consumers. Check-all-that-Apply (CATA) test showed that consumers could be influenced by information. When the coffee has been presented without information, the consumers noticed a more caramel flavor. However, when the information has been added to the same coffee, the citric flavor was more noticeable. In conclusion, information on specialty coffees should be more widespread. Consumer’s expectations can be influenced by information, which in turn can modify their sensory perception.
Mitigating greenhouse gases emission from cattle slurry: An apporach for small-medium scale farms

Slurry stores are an important source of both methane (CH4) and ammonia (NH3) emissions. Strategies to reduce these emissions include modifying the slurry environment through use of natural and biological additives. In this thesis, two such strategies were explored. The first three experimental chapters explored the potential to mitigate emissions by using inorganic acid (50% concentrated sulphuric acid H2SO4), fermentable carbohydrates at 10% w/v to reduce slurry pH, and biological additives (effective microorganisms - EM) at 5% v/v, to suppress methanogenesis. The addition of a carbohydrate source resulted in ‘self-acidification’ of cattle slurry from average pH 6.8 to pH’s as low as pH 3.5 in laboratory and pot-scale experiments, under both warm and cool conditions. The reduced slurry pH inhibited both CH4 and NH3 emissions significantly (by between 72% and 84% for CH4, and 57% and 92% for NH3). The use of agriculture food-chain by-products as sources of available carbohydrates, such as brewery spent grains, successfully promoted self-acidification by producing large amounts of lactic acid and reducing the slurry pH to 4.0. As a result, the greenhouse gas (GHG) carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2 eq.; CH4+CO2+N2O) emission was inhibited by 86%. However, NH3 emissions were not significantly inhibited. Meanwhile, methane oxidation by methanotrophs within slurry crusts was also explored, but bio-augmentation with EM showed no clear effect on this potential CH4 sink. The application of self-acidified slurry to ryegrass in a pot experiment demonstrated significant NH3 and CH4 inhibition compared to the untreated slurry during the first 48 hours after application. However, plant health was severely affected by the acidic slurry treatment, resulting in plant death in most cases. The mechanism for the self-acidification of slurry was elucidated by a conducting a metagenomic analysis of the slurries immediately after carbohydrate addition, and at the end of the 30 day storage period. This linked the dominance of Lactobacillales in the self-acidified slurry to the high lactic acid production and reduced pH in the treatments that received the carbohydrate source. The metagenomic analysis also identified groups of hydrogenotrophic methanogens of the Order Methanobacteriales, Methanomicrobiales and Methanosarcinales, as the dominant methanogens in both treated and untreated slurries. The low CH4 emission from the self-acidified slurry was associated with low abundance of methanogens. Whilst this study demonstrated the potential for self-acidification of slurry to reduce CH4 production and emission, as well as reduction in NH3 emissions from slurry stores and following land spreading, further research is necessary to test the strategy at a larger scale, and develop methods that minimize the negative effect of the acidified slurry on soil and plant health, e.g. via slurry injection or incorporation.
Determination of Tetracyclines in Milk by Graphene-Based Solid-Phase Extraction and High-Performance Liquid Chromatography

ABSTRACT A graphene-based solid-phase extraction (SPE) column was prepared for the isolation of tetracyclines from milk followed by determination by high-performance liquid chromatography. Graphene provided better separation for tetracyclines than amine-modified graphene and carboxyl-modified graphene. The optimized graphene-based SPE column showed high absorption capacities (greater than 4,660 ng) and high recoveries (exceeding 92%) for tetracycline, oxytetracycline, chlortetracycline, and doxycycline and was successfully reused at least fifty times. The limits of detection in milk were from 10 to 20 ng/mL, with recoveries between 82.3 and 103.6%. Furthermore, the system showed superior performance than two commercial SPE cartridges with respect to recovery, purification, and reusability. Therefore, this approach is suitable for the determination of tetracyclines in milk.
Sexual Dimorphism of the Pronotum in Dorcadion micans J. Thomson, 1867 (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae) Using Geometric Morphometrics

Eseysel dimorfizm, hayvanlarda fenotipik varyasyonun en onemli kaynaklarindan biridir. Bircok turdeki bocekler icin eseysel ozelliklerin ifadesi buyuk farkliliklar gosterir. Bu calismada, Turkiye'de endemik tur olan Dorcadion micans J. Thomson, 1867 (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae) 'da pronotumun eseysel buyukluk ve sekil dimorfizmini analiz ettik. Sonuclarimiz, pronotumda istatistiksel olarak eseysel buyukluk ve sekil dimorfizmini gostermistir. Erkekler disilerden daha kucuk pronotum boyutuyla birlikte daha uzun ve daha keskin bir pronotum sekline sahiptir. Cok degiskenli regresyon sonuclari, buyuklugun cinsiyetler arasinda pronotum seklindeki farklilasma uzerinde goz ardi edilebilir bir etkiye sahip oldugunu gostermistir.
Engagement increases people willingness to sustain restored areas beyond financial incentives

Monitoring of socioeconomic impacts has often been ignored in restoration projects. Here, we design a multi‐criteria matrix to evaluate the socioeconomic implications of the Ecuadorian National Plan of Forest Restoration at local scale. We also aimed to identify the drivers that led to project sustainability, which was defined as peoples' willingness to continue restoration activities without economic incentives. The multi‐criteria matrix was translated into surveys for the technicians and local people who participated in the project. They were applied to six parishes of southern Ecuador. Between 2% to 43% of parish populations were engaged with the projects. No local business initiatives were created and economic incentives were only related to monetary payments. In half of the parishes, people were consulted about which species should be planted. About 45% of participants claimed to have received training during the restoration project. Higher community participation was perceived in implementation than in planning or monitoring. Most people agreed that the projects benefited the community either through improvements to water or through short‐term cash income obtained during planting activities. High participation and satisfaction levels significantly increased the likelihood of participants continuing with the restoration activities even without monetary incentive. Our results suggest the economic contributions of the project should go beyond short‐term payments and should be rooted in long‐term benefits to land productivity. This study helps to identify additional non‐monetary benefits, such as continuous technical assistance or social conflict resolution, that may be crucial for long‐term sustainability of restoration projects.
On Continuum Approximations of Discrete-State Markov Processes of Large System Size

Discrete-state continuous-time Markov processes are an important class of models employed broadly across the sciences. When the system size becomes large, standard approaches can become intractable to exact solution and numerical simulation. Approximations posed on a continuous state space are often more tractable and are presumed to converge in the limit as the system size tends to infinity. For example, an expansion of the master equation truncated at second order yields the Fokker--Planck equation, a widely used continuum approximation equipped with an underlying process of continuous state. Surprisingly, in [Doering \textit{et. al.} Multiscale Model. Sim. 2005 3:2, p.283--299] it is shown that the Fokker--Planck approximation may exhibit exponentially large errors, even in the infinite system-size limit. Crucially, the source of this inaccuracy has not been addressed. In this paper, we focus on the family of continuous-state approximations obtained by arbitrary-order truncations. We uncover how the exponentially large error stems from the truncation by quantifying the rapid error decay with increasing truncation order. Furthermore, we explain why this discrepancy only comes to light in a subset of problems. The approximations produced by finite truncation beyond second order lack underlying stochastic processes. Nevertheless, they retain valuable information that explains the previously observed discrepancy by bridging the gap between the continuous and discrete processes. The insight conferred by this broader notion of ``continuum approximation'', where we do not require an underlying stochastic process, prompts us to revisit previously expressed doubts regarding continuum approximations. In establishing the utility of higher-order truncations, this approach also contributes to the extensive discussion in the literature regarding the second-order truncation: while recognising the appealing features of an associated stochastic process, in certain cases it may be advantageous to dispense of the process in exchange for the increased approximation accuracy guaranteed by higher-order truncations.
Cancellation on the Day of Surgery in an Ambulatory Setting - A Retrospective Analysis

Background: Cancellations on the day of surgery represent an important setback for patients and pose considerable drawbacks for healthcare management. Part of these cancellations are due to patients’ factors. Some studies have addressed this issue in inpatient care, but scarce information is found regarding ambulatory setting. This work intended to analyse the parameters that are important in patient cancellation on the day of surgery for ambulatory surgery, with a closer analysis on those that are patient dependent, specifying those that are significant in order to anticipate which patients will be cancelled beforehand.Methods: This work analysed a total of 19781 patients enrolled for elective day-case surgery in 2018, from which 1253 (6.33%) made a cancellation on their day of surgery. Results: Patients residing closer to the hospital (< 10 Km) had statistically more cancellations than those residing > 10 km away (p<0.05). Also, patients with 65 years of age or more had a higher cancellation rate (p<0.05). Finally, patients without a prior pre operative medical appointment might have a higher likelihood of same day cancellation (5.8% vs 14.01%, p<0.05). T-test and Chi-square tests were used with a level of significance of 0.05. Conclusions: We expect this work can contribute to anticipate the cancellation of a given patient, enabling quicker treatment with optimised resources.
Drone Measurements of Surface-Based Winter Temperature
Inversions in the High Arctic at Eureka

Abstract. The absence of sunlight during the winter in the High Arctic results in a strong surface-based atmospheric temperature inversion especially during clear skies and light surface wind conditions. The inversion suppresses turbulent heat transfer between the ground and the boundary layer. As a result the difference between the surface air temperature, measured at a height of 2 m, and the ground skin temperature can exceed several degrees Celsius. Such inversions occur very frequently in polar regions and are of interest to understand the mechanisms responsible for surface-atmosphere heat, mass and momentum exchanges and are critical for satellite validation studies. In this paper we present the results of operations of two commercial remotely piloted aircraft systems, or drones, at the Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory (PEARL), Eureka, Nunavut, Canada, at 80° N latitude. The drones are the Matrice 100 and M210-RTK quad-copters manufactured by DJI and were flown over Eureka during the February–March field campaigns in 2017 and 2020. They were equipped with a temperature measurement system built on a Raspberry Pi single-board computer, three platinum wire temperature sensors, GNSS receiver, and a pressure sensor. We demonstrate that the drones can be effectively used in the High Arctic to measure vertical temperature profiles up to 60 m of the ground and sea ice surface. Our results indicate that the inversion lapse rates within 0–10 m altitude range above the ground can reach the values of ~0.1–0.3 °C/m (~100–300 °C/km). The results are in a good agreement with the coincident temperatures measured at 2, 6 and 10 m levels at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration flux tower at PEARL. Above 10 m a weaker inversion with an order of magnitude smaller lapse rates is recorded by the drone. The inversion strength agrees well with one obtained from the radiosonde temperature measurements. Above the sea ice, drone temperature profiles are found to have an isothermal layer above a surface based layer of instability which is attributed to the sensible heat flux through the sea ice. With the drones we were able to evaluate the influence of local topography on the surface-based inversion structure above the ground and to measure extremely cold temperatures of air that can pool in topographic depressions. The unique technical challenges of conducting drone campaigns in the winter High Arctic are highlighted in the paper.