Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Absorption spectral analysis of Zn2+ or Cu2+ coordination with human serum albumin using Zincon

Human serum albumin (HSA) is used for mammalian embryo culture in assisted reproductive technology (ART) to adjust osmotic pressure and growth factor concentration in culture media. In human serum, transition metal ions, particularly Zn2+, bind to the coordination sites of HSA; thus analyzing the binding of these metal ions may help predict the possible harmful effects of these metals on embryo culture. In this study, we found that metal ions and zincon bound to HSA, and that a complex was formed with the HSA molecule. Using this method, the metals that bind to the multi-binding site of HSA, particularly Zn2+ can be evaluated by colorimetry in an ART laboratory. This analytical method is potentially applicable for metal detection in HSA in ART clinics and also for quick analysis of the coordination of 64Cu2+ with HSA as a probe chemical in positron emission tomography.
Using Community Service Learning to Develop the Writing Skills of Engineering Students

In our Engineering Communication Skills classrooms we aim to provide a meaningful setting in which students move from the classroom sphere to the professional sphere of writing. In this paper, we report on how we can use community service learning (CSL) to bridge these two spheres of writing. We show how the necessity of effective communication with community-based clients leads to audience awareness and subsequent acquisition of professional Engineering communication skills.
Pathophysiological analysis of five severe cases with rotavirus infection

Introduction: Rotavirus infection is usually localized to the intestine. Severe cases with extraintestinal symptoms are rare, and its pathogenesis remains unclear. Case presentation: We report severe rotavirus infections in five previously healthy, unvaccinated children that occurred in the 2011 season in Aichi Prefecture, Japan. All cases had short histories of recurrent diarrhoea and vomiting that preceded extraintestinal symptoms. Two cases with prolonged seizures and unconsciousness were diagnosed with encephalitis/encephalopathy; one case died and the other survived with severe neurological sequelae in spite of intensive treatment including anticytokine therapy. Another two cases had rapidly worsening cardiopulmonary dysfunction and seizures, and they died a few hours after admission despite cardiopulmonary support. The last case was transferred to hospital in cardiopulmonary arrest and resuscitation was unsuccessful. All cases had positive stool samples for rotavirus RNA, and the rotavirus antigen was also detected in the serum of four cases, but not in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). Serum IL-6 and IL-10 levels were significantly higher in the severe cases than in children with rotavirus gastroenteritis without extraintestinal symptoms, and serum IL-10 levels were significantly higher than CSF levels in the severe cases. Conclusion: Cytokines appear to mediate the pathogenesis of severe rotavirus infection with extraintestinal involvement. In conclusion, these cases highlight the need for a routine rotavirus immunization programme.
Crystal Structure Refinement and Mössbauer Spectroscopy of an Ordered, Triclinic Clinochlore

The crystal structure of a natural, ordered IIb-4 triclinic clinochlore has been refined in space group C1̄ from 4282 unique X-ray intensity measurements of which 3833 are greater than 3 times the statistical counting error (3σ). Unit cell parameters are a = 5.3262(6) Å; b = 9.226(1) Å; c = 14.334(3) Å; α = 90.56(2)°; β = 97.47(2)°; and γ = 89.979(9)°, which represents the greatest deviation from mono-clinic symmetry yet recorded for a triclinic chlorite. The final weighted R is 0.059 for reflections with I > 3σ and 0.064 for all reflections. The chemical formula is (Mg0.966Fe0.034)MI(Mg0.962Fe0.038)M22(Si2.96Al1.04)O10 (OH)2(Mg0.996Fe0.004)M32(Al0.841FeIII0.102Cr0.004Ti0.004)M4(OH)6, which is consistent with electron microprobe (EMP), wet chemical analyses, Mössbauer spectroscopy and X-ray structure refinement. The high degree of ordering of the divalent versus trivalent octahedral cations in the interlayer is noteworthy, with FeIII and Al in M4 and virtually no Fe in M3. In the 2:1 layer, M1 and M2 each contain similar amounts of Fe. The 2 tetrahedral sites have nearly identical mean oxygen distances and volumes, and thus show no evidence of long-range cation ordering.
Nutritional Rehabilitative Treatment in a Residential Centre for Eating Disorders: A Case Series Report

Purpose: Patients with Eating Disorders (ED) could benefit of temporary leaving from their family and social environment, hosting in specialized residential centers. Methods: Fifty-one female patients (23.5 ± 6.1 years), 22 with Anorexia Nervosa (AN), 14 with Bulimia Nervosa (BN), 9 with Binge Eating Disorders (BED) and 6 with not-otherwise specified eating disorders (EDNOS) were followed in a residential regimen for at least 3 months. Anthropometric, clinical, biochemical and body composition parameters were evaluated at entry, at 1, 3 and 5 months, while residents and 6 months after discharge. A multidisciplinary team, including specialized medical doctors, psychotherapists and dieticians was involved in the treatment. Results: A significant (p<0.001) and progressive weight gain in 22 AN patients, both at the end of the residential period and at 6 month follow-up was observed, with no signs of refeeding syndrome. Resting Energy Expenditure (REE) progressively increased, reaching significance (p<0.02) at 5 month treatment. Menses spontaneously recovered in 12 patients, after 17 (5-48) months amenorrhea. In 14 BN patients, binge eating and purging episodes were eliminated. Nine BED patients gradually lost weight (-14.5 ± 3.2 kg) and in particular Fat Mass (FM), with a significant (p<0.05) improvement in blood lipids and serum transaminases. No significant changes were observed in the 6 EDNOS patients, possibly due to the low number and wide variability of patients gathered in this disease definition. Conclusion: These observations suggest the safety, with the improvement of several clinical and nutritional parameters, of a multi-disciplinary and integrated approach carried out in a residential setting, in particular for AN patients.
An Empirical Study on Organizational Infusion of Green An Empirical Study on Organizational Infusion of Green Practices in Chinese Logistics Companies

As environmental considerations have become a fundamental part of business strategies, there is a challenge for managers and academicians to explore the integration of environmental concepts and business operations. Although a number of studies on green practice adoption can be found in the literature, few of them analyzed the infusion of green practices in organizations. Furthermore, most prior research of green management focused on manufacturing sectors; scarce attention was paid on research in service sectors. This paper focuses on the green practice infusion in logistics companies because many logistics operations often lead to several environmental impacts. The main purpose of this paper is to explore the factors that affect organizational infusion of green practices in Chinese logistics companies. Drawing on the innovation diffusion theory, this paper groups the determinant factors into technological, organizational and environmental dimensions. We explored the influences of determinant factors on green practice infusion by conducting a questionnaire survey on logistics companies in China. The regression analysis is used to test proposed research hypotheses in the study Research findings reveal that complexity, compatibility and relative advantage of green practices, quality of human resources, organizational support, governmental support and regulatory pressure exhibit significantly influences on green practice infusion for the logistics companies in China. The influences of adoption cost, company size, environmental uncertainty and customer pressure on logistics companies’ green behavior are not significant. This paper can extend the scope of research on green management in service industries and green practice infusion.
A Propitious Approach towards Independent Directors in Malaysian Firms’ Board Committee

Independent directors at board committee have never taken a center stage, until when the world economy faced a global financial crisis stretching from the late 1990s to the late 2000s. Corporate governance ultimately calls for more controls and checks to be exercised at the board and committee level. Monitoring by independent directors of the top level management, is now viewed with more propitiation, complementing existing auditing activities, nominating and evaluating compensation to executive directors. The propitious approach is being interpreted as accepting independent directors favorably by increasing their representation at the board room and committee, which may be translated towards profit generation. A panel white standard error from an estimated 30 percent of the total Malaysian firms for period of 10 years suggests that nomination and remuneration committee gear the company towards generating profit.
Education Expenditure and Economic Growth: A Causal Analysis for Malaysia

This paper focuses on the long-run relationship and causality between government expenditure in education and economic growth in Malaysian economy. Time series data is used for the period 1970 to 2010 obtained from authorized sources. In order to achieve the objective, an estimation of Vector Auto Regression (VAR) method is applied. Findings from the study show that economic growth (GDP) positively cointegrated with selected variables namely fixed capital formation (CAP), labor force participation (LAB) and government expenditure on education (EDU). With regard to the Granger causality relationship, it is found that the economic growth is a short term Granger cause for education variable and vice versa. Furthermore, this study has proves that human capital such as education variable plays an important role in influencing economic growth in Malaysia. Keywords: Malaysian, expenditure on education, economic growth, vector error correction model.
Impacts of short-term climate variability in the UK on demand for domestic and international tourism

The sensitivity of UK tourism to climate variability (on intra- and inter-annual scales) was investigated using empirical statistical models. A set of climate indices (mean monthly and annual temperature, rainfall and sunshine) describes present day variability in climate, while tourism demand is described by a dataset comprising domestic (monthly numbers of tourist nights) and inter- national (annual numbers of trips abroad) tourist flows. An understanding of climate sensitivity based on real data then provided a basis for the examination of potential effects of climate change on the economically important tourism sector. Outbound flows of tourists are more responsive to climate variability of the preceding year, whereas domestic tourism is more responsive to variability within the year of travel. For outward tourism, wetter- and duller-than-average conditions in the year previ- ous to travel seem to encourage more trips abroad. Drier- and warmer-than-average conditions increase same-month domestic trips, but a change in the direction of the association in subsequent months is indicative of inelasticity in the system. The anomalously warm year of 1995 in the UK was used to represent the potential impact of climate change. The results suggest that the generally warmer and drier conditions of 1995 benefited the UK domestic tourist industry by an estimated £309 million, relative to mean climate.
Eocene and not Cretaceous Origin of Spider Wasps: Fossil Evidence from Amber

Spider wasps had long been proposed to originate in the Late Cretaceous based on the Burmese amber fossil Bryopompilus interfector. We performed a morphological examination of this fossil and determined that it does not belong to Pompilidae or any other described hymenopteran family. Instead, we place it in the new family Bryopompilidae. The oldest verifiable member of the Pompilidae is from Baltic amber, which suggests that the crown group of the family probably originated in the Eocene, not in the Late Cretaceous as previously proposed. The origin of spider wasps appears to be correlated with an increase in spider familial diversity in the Cenozoic. We also add two genera to the extinct pompilid fauna: Tainopompilus Rodriguez and Pitts gen. nov. and Paleogenia Waichert and Pitts gen. nov., and describe three new species of fossil spider wasps: Anoplius planeta Rodriguez and Pitts sp. nov., from Dominican amber (Burdigalian to Langhian); Paleogenia wahisi Waichert and Pitts sp. nov., from Baltic amber (Lutetian to Priabonian); and Tainopompilus argentum Rodriguez and Pitts sp. nov., from Dominican amber (Chattian to Langhian).
PHYTOTOXICITY ACTIVITY OF PIPTOCARPHA ROTUNDIFOLIA ( LESS . ) – BAKER ( CANDEIA ) LEAF EXTRACTS ORIGINATING FROM ELUOTROPIC EXTRACTION

The Asteraceae phytotoxic activity is widely cited in literature but there are no information about the P. rotundifolia phytotoxicity. So, this study evaluated the phytotoxicity of extracts from P. rotundifolia on wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) coleoptile bioassays and root growth of sesame (Sesamum indicum L.) metaxylem cells. The extraction method employed five organic solvents in eluotropic order: hexane, dichloromethane, ethyl acetate, acetone and methanol. All extracts showed inhibitory activity in wheat coleoptile. Analyzes in metaxylem cells of sesame seedlings showed changes at cellular level in a dose-dependent manner in acetone extract. Based on the results, it is concluded that extracts have phytotoxic activity.
Association of a single nucleotide polymorphism at 6q25.1, rs2046210 with breast cancer risk among Vietnamese population

Introduction: This study aims to confirm the association between SNP rs2046210 and breast cancer in the Vietnamese population. Methods: A case/control study has been performed with the sample size of 300 cases and 325 controls. High Resolution Melting method is optimised for SNP genotyping. Statistic logistic regression analysis was used along with dominant and recessive analysis to analyse the association between alleles and genotypes of the selected SNP and breast cancer risk. Results: With the selection population and the optimal HRM method, genotyping resulted in precise data for association analysis as the HWE test showed the distribution of genotypes in the population is in equilibrium (p > 0.05). The logistic regression association analysis showed SNP rs2046210 strongly associated with breast cancer risk in both allelic (p = 0.0015) and genotypic (p = 0.0064) analysis. The risk allele A, like other previous studies, strongly associated with increasing the risk of breast cancer up to 1.425 folds (OR [95%CI] = 1.425 [1.143- 1.777], p = 0.0015). However, it has shown the recessive effect in the additive analysis. Genotype AA showed stronger effect on the risk of breast cancer while the heterozygous AG genotypes showed weaker effect. Due to the small sample size, statistical power of this study is not high as expected (58.67%). But this case/control study confirms the association between SNP rs2046210 and the risk of breast cancer in the Vietnamese population. Conclusion: SNP rs2046210 is associated with breast cancer risk in the Vietnamese population. The risk allele A plays a role in increasing the risk of breast cancer in Vietnamese women.
Does players' identification affect trust and reciprocity: an experimental investigation

We study whether identification matters for trustfulness and trustworthiness to emerge in a population of players. Our experimental protocol is designed for isolating the effects of trustees’ identification. Trustees’ identification is a necessary condition for introducing a reputation mechanism. We run three treatments. In each treatment groups of 6 players interact repeatedly and randomly in a 30 periods investment game (Berg et al. 1995). In the reference treatment players cannot identify each other, in test treatment 1 one players identify each other as trustee and in test treatment 2 players identify each other both as trustee and trustor. We show that trustees’ identification has a positive effect on reciprocity, but does not affect the average trust in the population. Trust is significantly higher than in the reference treatment only when players identify each other in both roles. We show that the increase in trust is linked to the formation of mutual trust-reciprocity relationships formation.
Free-running, room temperature operation of an InGaAs/InP single-photon avalanche diode

Passive quenching operation of an InGaAs/InP single-photon avalanche diode detector at low excess bias is reported in terms of the key figures of merit including afterpulsing analysis. The reduced charge required to measure individual photon events meant that room temperature single-photon counting at 1550 nm wavelength was achievable without the requirement of electrical gating and with negligible afterpulsing effects evident.
FORMULATION & CHARACTERISATION OF CHITOSAN BASED MICROSPHERES OF SALBUTAMOL SULPHATE DRY POWDER INHALER FORMULATION

The drug delivery to the respiratory tract has become an important and effective method for treatment of pulmonary diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases including asthma, bronchitis, emphysema, lung abscess etc. Pulmonary drug delivery methods have traditionally focused on one of two strategies: (i) drug suspension dissolution in liquid aerosol drops and (ii) mixtures of dry drug particulates with dry carrier particles typically composed of sugars.Dry powder inhalers (DPIs) are the devices through which a dry powder formulation of an active drug is delivered for local or systemic effect via the pulmonary route. DPIs have number of advantages over metered dose inhalerssuch as direct delivery of drug into the deep lungs, propellant free, less bulky and have fewer handling errors.The delivery of micron sized dry powder particulates to the respiratory tract using dry powder inhalers (DPI), has become commonplace in the prophylactic treatment of asthma and other bronchial related diseases.
The Effect of Gel-Electrolyte on Dye Sensitized Solar Cell (DSSC) Prototype based on Nanosized-TiO2 Using Mangosteen Pericarp as Absorber

Dye Sensitized Solar Cell (DSSC) with Fluorine deped Tin Oxide (FTO) substrat and nanosize-TiO2 layer sensitized by “dye” ,mangosteen pericarp extract, was succesfully fabricated. Gel-Electrolyte as electron regenerator was synthesized by adding Polyethylene Glycol (PEG) 1000 to electrolyte solution while nanosize-TiO2 was synthesized by co-precipitation method from TiCl3 solution. The crystal size of TiO2 characterized by X-Ray Diffraction is 10.5 nm in size. The solar absorbance of “dye” mangosteen pericarp was measured using UV-Vis Spectrophotometer and it showed that the dye can absorb photon at Near Ultraviolet (NUV) to yellow visible light. Nanosize-TiO2 based DSSC with gel-electrolyte successfully reached short circuit current up to 30.9 μA, open circuit voltage 398.3 mV and performed the long term stability. ©2017 JNSMR UIN Walisongo. All rights reserved
Effect of Direct Participation on Perceived Organizational Performance: A Case Study of Banking Sector of Pakistan

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to find out the association between the HR practices and perceptions of firm performance and to know, understand and investigate the scope of relationship among different types of employee participation (Delegative & Consultative) and organizational performance in banking sector of Pakistan. Methodology: To investigate the relationship that exists between employee participation and firms, performance cross sectional survey design was used for collecting data based on subjective measures. Data was analyzed through MS Excel 2007 & SPSS (17.0), then descriptive, correlations and regression analysis was applied to find out the result for describing empirical and statistical relationship between dependent and independent variables. Findings : Correlation results shows that the direct participation (Delegative & Consultative) have weak, positive and significant impact on organizational performance. Whereas, regression model results also depicts that employee participation has significant impact on organizational performance. The variation in organizational performance is explained about 23% by the independent variables e.g; delegative & consultative participation which is very minor so, we can conclude that contribution of other HRM variables towards organizational performance is comparatively high. These results are consistent with (Singh, 2004) for the same variable. Research Limitations: The study was limited to only banking sector of Pakistan. This was based on perceived measures that the organizational performance and the forms of direct participation. So the data collected was based on perceptual and subjective measures, generally objective measures are more reliable and consistent to the outcome and results. Practical Implications: Results revealed that direct participation has minor contribution towards organizational performance in Pakistani settings but one could not achieve the desired results by ignoring this key variable. So it is advisable that direct participation must be used in combination of with other HRM variables to boost the performance. Originality/Value: This paper furthers our understanding of the role that employee participation attributes organizational performance. Key Words: Banking Sector, Direct Participation: Delegative & Consultative, HRM Practices, Perceived Organizational Performance, Pakistan
Isolation and characterization of mesenchymal stem cells derived from bovine Wharton's jelly and their potential for use in cloning by nuclear transfer

Wharton's jelly is a source of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) that had not yet been tested for bovine embryo production by nuclear transfer (NT). Thus, the objective of this study was to isolate, characterize and test MSCs derived from Wharton's jelly for embryo and pregnancy production by NT in cattle. The umbilical cord was collected during calving and cells derived from Wharton's jelly (WJCs) were isolated by explant and cultured in Dulbecco's Modified Eagle Medium. Skin Fibroblasts (FB) were isolated after 6 months of life. Morphological analysis was performed by bright field and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) during cell culture. Phenotypic and genotypic characterization by flow cytometry, immunocytochemistry, RT-PCR and differentiation induction in cell lineages were performed for WJC. In the NT procedure, oocytes at the arrested metaphase II stage were enucleated using micromanipulators, fused with WJCs or FB and later activated artificially. SEM micrographs revealed that WJCs have variable shape under culture. Mesenchymal markers of MSCs (CD29+, CD73+, CD90+ and CD105+) were expressed in bovine-derived WJC cultures, as evidenced by flow cytometry, immunocytochemistry and RT-PCR. When induced, these cells differentiated into osteocytes, chondrocytes and adipocytes. After classification, the WJCs were used in NT. Blastocyst formation rate by NT with WJCs at day 7 was 25.80±0.03%, similar to blatocyst rate with NT using skin fibroblasts (19.00±0.07%). Pregnancies were obtained and showed that WJCs constitute a new cell type for use in animal cloning.