Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Aquatic and terrestrial invertebrate community responses to drying in chalk streams

Temporary streams are dynamic ecosystems that shift between wet and dry states and include the ‘winterbourne’ chalk streams of south England. Our understanding of temporary stream biodiversity is biased, with most research to date exploring aquatic invertebrate communities in benthic sediments during flowing phases. We surveyed the invertebrate communities of the Candover Brook chalk stream, comparing aquatic (benthic, hyporheic) and terrestrial communities in reaches with different flow permanence regimes. We used kick and Bou–Rouch sampling methods to collect aquatic invertebrates, and compared the terrestrial communities characterised by pitfall traps and ground searches and in different seasons. Although aquatic taxa richness was lower in temporary compared to perennial reaches, the total biodiversity of temporary stream channels was enhanced by contributions from both aquatic and terrestrial species, including several of conservation interest. We recommend that both aquatic and terrestrial communities should be considered in research and monitoring to characterise the biodiversity and ecological quality of temporary streams.
Highly Stretchable Semiconducting Polymers for Field-Effect Transistors through Branched Soft–Hard–Soft Type Triblock Copolymers

In this study, poly(3-hexylthiophene)-block-poly(δ-decanolactone)s (P3HT-b-PDLs) with the molecular architecture of AB, BAB, B2AB2, and B3AB3 (A: P3HT, B: PDL) were synthesized for stretchable orga.
Academic Certification using Blockchain: Permissioned versus Permissionless Solutions

Understanding the challenges of implementing blockchain solutions is an important step toward scaling and adopting the technology. This paper analyses the adoption of blockchain technology in the management of academic certificates. In this use case, we identify certification providers that have adopted a permissionless approach and consortiums of academic institutions that are in the process of building permissioned networks. We explore the challenges faced by both approaches and obtain information from competing projects to provide a preliminary approach for cost-benefit analysis that could potentially be applied for similar blockchain projects. For the management of academic certificates, we find that beyond the cost of implementing the technology there are additional elements of critical importance for adoption. For example, if blockchain-enabled certificates will replace notarized documents, how do they complement other forms of digital credentials, the ease of integration to existing administrative records within institutions and if they are a viable first step toward a more comprehensive, efficient and reliable systems to share information among institutions.
ANTESEDEN KEPUTUSAN PEMBELIAN ONLINE KONSUMEN ALFACART

Pada pertengahan tahun 2017, Alfacart menyesuaikan model bisnisnya menjadi hanya berfokus pada penjualan produk-produk groceries. Penyesuaian tersebut berimbas pada pengurangan karyawan sekitar 50%. Data iprice.co.id pada Q4 2017 menunjukkan Alfacart hanya menempati peringkat 18 dari keseluruhan e-commerce yang ada di Indonesia. Kondisi tersebut diperparah dengan adanya penurunan daya beli oleh masyarakat. Berdasarkan latar belakang tersebut, penulis ingin mengkonfirmasi korelasi dari kualitas website, kepercayaan konsumen, dan kesadaran merek terhadap keputusan pembelian di Alfacart, baik korelasi parsial maupun korelasi keseluruhannya. Penelitian ini melibatkan 100 responden yang merupakan konsumen yang pernah berbelanja di Alfacart yang peneliti ambil secara acak. Penulis memanfaatkan Google Form untuk membuat kuesioner agar mudah dalam menjangkau responden dan memudahkan responden untuk mengisi kuesioner. Analisa yang penulis gunakan adalah korelasi Spearman dengan bantuan Microsoft Excel 2013. Penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa ada korelasi yang cukup signifikan antara kualitas website, kepercayaan konsumen, dan kesadaran merek terhadap keputusan pembelian oleh konsumen, baik pada korelasi parsial maupun korelasi keseluruhan
Dynamics of Mycobacterium tuberculosis Ag85B revealed by sensitive ELISA

Secretion of specific proteins contributes to pathogenesis and immune responses in tuberculosis and other bacterial infections, yet the kinetics of protein secretion and fate of secreted proteins in vivo are poorly understood. We generated new monoclonal antibodies that recognize the M. tuberculosis secreted protein, Ag85B, and used them to establish and characterize a sensitive ELISA to quantitate Ag85B in samples generated in vitro and in vivo. We found that nutritional or culture conditions had little impact on secretion of Ag85B, and that there is considerable variation in Ag85B secretion by distinct strains in the M. tuberculosis complex: compared with the commonly-used H37Rv strain (Lineage 4), M. africanum (Lineage 6) secretes less, and two strains from Lineage 2 secrete more Ag85B. We also used the ELISA to determine that the rate of secretion of Ag85B is 10-to 100-fold lower than that of proteins secreted by gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria, respectively. ELISA quantitation of Ag85B in lung homogenates of M. tuberculosis H37Rv-infected mice revealed that although Ag85B accumulates in the lungs as the bacterial population expands, the amount of Ag85B per bacterium decreases nearly 10,000-fold at later stages of infection, coincident with development of T cell responses and arrest of bacterial population growth. These results indicate that bacterial protein secretion in vivo is dynamic and regulated, and quantitation of secreted bacterial proteins can contribute to understanding pathogenesis and immunity in tuberculosis and other infections. Importance Bacterial protein secretion contributes to host-pathogen interactions, yet the process and consequences of bacterial protein secretion during infection are poorly understood. We developed a sensitive ELISA to quantitate a protein (termed Ag85B) secreted by M. tuberculosis and used it to find that Ag85B secretion occurs with slower kinetics than for proteins secreted by gram positive and gram negative bacteria, and that accumulation of Ag85B in the lungs is markedly regulated as a function of the bacterial population density. Our results demonstrate that quantitation of bacterial proteins during infection can reveal novel insights into host-pathogen interactions.
Self-Reported Improvement for Chronic Rhinosinusitis Major Symptoms in Patients Treated with Omalizumab

Objective: To evaluate the clinical effect of omalizumab therapy on the symptoms of patients with chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS). Methods: This cross-sectional study evaluated CRS major symptom improvement in patients with CRS on omalizumab therapy and patients who met omalizumab therapy indications, but could not access coverage for omalizumab. Changes in overall chronic rhinosinusitis symptom burden and each of the major symptoms of CRS were rated on a 10 cm visual analogue scale (VAS). The Mann–Whitney test was used to compare the symptom improvement between groups. Results: Omalizumab therapy provided a mean overall symptom improvement of 69.5% (individual symptom improvement: facial pain 78.5%, nasal obstruction 69.8%, rhinorrhea 56.2%, and olfaction 55.8%). For the control group, mean overall symptom improvement since omalizumab screening was 16.8% (individual symptom improvement: rhinorrhea 16.4%, nasal obstruction 15.3%, no improvement in facial pain or olfaction). Overall, and for each major symptom, improvement was significantly greater for omalizumab treated patients (p < 0.05). Conclusion: Omalizumab treatment provided significant improvement in every major clinical symptom of CRS in the treated cohort of patients with recalcitrant CRS, in comparison to the control cohort. A well-designed randomized clinical trial is needed to further assess the efficacy and safety of omalizumab treatment for CRS.
Load Frequency Control in Variable Inertia Systems

Conventional load frequency control primarily relies on large synchronous generation units to ensure regulation of the system frequency. However, its performance deteriorates as the system parameters, including inertia and droop coefficients, deviate from original system design. This letter proposes an augmented load frequency control (ALFC) to ensure robust frequency regulation under diurnal variations in system parameters that are expected in the future, renewables-rich power system. The superior performance of ALFC is demonstrated by several case studies, and its stability is assessed by small-signal analysis.
RESPONSE TO FERTILIZATION OF FIVE OAK SPECIES EIGHT YEARS AFTER PLANTING

on one-half of the planting spots at the rate of 100 pounds of nitrogen and 500 pounds of phosphorus per acre. The study area was arranged in a randomized complete block design. Each of six blocks contained ten 20-tree plots that included one fertilized and one unfertilized plot for each of the five species. Weeds and sprouts were controlled with herbicides during the first 5 years. Analysis of variance was used to test for treatment differences in mean heights of survivors. Chisquare analyses were used to compare treatment differences in proportions (percentages) of survivors and proportions of trees attaining given minimum height classes.
Antimicrobial and hepatoprotective effect of ISM Drug in alcohol induced liver damage on Zebrafish larvae

Liver cirrhosis occurs due to the extracellular matrix proteins accumulation which distorts the hepatic structure. The aim of our study is to investigate the antimicrobial and hepatoprotective effect of India Siddha Medicine(ISM) drug in alcohol-induced liver damage on zebrafish larvae. ISM drug, a hepatoprotective agent comprising of 15 herbs offers numerous formulations with advantages of hepatocellular rejuvenation has proven to be the most effective treatment to suppress liver damage. A series of analyses were carried out using alcohol-induced liver damage through herbal-based therapeutic drug and agar well diffusion method. For the hepatoprotective study, the zebrafish larvae were exposed to different concentrations of ethanol % (0.01, 0.05, 0.1, 0.5) and the treatment with 217.2 µg/ml of ISM drug has been evaluated. The outcome revealed the effect of ISM on alcohol-induced zebrafish larvae with a substantial increase in the percentage of viability. ISM drug showed antibacterial and antifungal activity in the diffusion method with a maximum zone of inhibition observed as 12 mm and 13.5 mm, respectively. Taken together, these results showed that the drug has hepatoprotective and antimicrobial activity which can be used for the treatment of liver cirrhosis.
AÇÃO EXTENSIONISTA DE CUIDADO À SAÚDE: A INFLUÊNCIA NA FORMAÇÃO PROFISSIONAL DE ESTUDANTES DIPLOMADOS

A extensão universitária busca modificar as realidades, melhorando a qualidade de vida da comunidade assistida por ela, além de proporcionar novos conhecimentos para a formação dos estudantes, desde os primeiros semestres da graduação, a partir da troca de experiências entre os sujeitos envolvidos. A esse respeito, o presente estudo busca analisar o impacto na formação profissional de estudantes diplomados após sua participação no projeto de extensão “Ações Interdisciplinares de Cuidado em Saúde (PI)”, vinculado à Universidade do Vale Taquari - Univates. Para isso, realizou-se uma pesquisa qualitativa com os estudantes já diplomados de cursos da área da saúde, com perguntas fechadas e abertas, para avaliação do impacto da experiência vivida no projeto durante a graduação, na vida profissional desses sujeitos. Ao final da pesquisa, foi possível perceber que a participação no projeto de extensão auxiliou os profissionais tanto no campo teórico quanto no campo prático no tocante à realização de atendimentos humanizados, multi e interdisciplinares, considerando sempre que, antes de serem profissionais de suas áreas específicas, são profissionais de saúde como um todo.
Mindfulness for musicians: A mixed methods study investigating the effects of 8-week mindfulness courses on music students at a leading conservatoire

Mindfulness courses are beneficial in clinical domains for anxiety and depression and are becoming more prevalent as interventions in education. However, little is known about what effects mindfulness might have on musicians. In an exploratory study, 25 music students, who completed one of four 8-week MBSR/MBCT mindfulness courses adapted for musicians at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, completed the validated Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire and a bespoke Mindfulness for Musicians questionnaire pre- and post-intervention. Twenty-one music students also took part in a post-intervention one-to-one semi-structured interview. Post-intervention mindfulness scores for both questionnaires increased significantly in comparison to pre-intervention scores. In interviews, participants were reportedly more aware and focused in instrumental lessons, were less self-critical, and developed increased body awareness, which improved their learning of instrumental technique. Participants also described enhanced teacher/pupil communication. In instrumental practice sessions, participants reported more efficient, effective and creative practice, and said that mindfulness exercises helped them deal with problems experienced while practising. Participants also described enhanced listening skills and improved socio-collaboration in ensemble rehearsals. They reported that mindfulness strategies had positive effects on music performance anxiety and described changes in time perception, enhanced expressivity, and positive post-performance effects. Future researchers could adopt a more robust methodology, such as a randomised controlled trial, and incorporate further design elements, such as longitudinal follow-up. Providing more systematic evidence of the beneficial role of mindfulness for conservatoire music students as learners and performers may encourage greater provision of such opportunities in musical settings in the future.
A data-driven lane-changing behavior detection system based on sequence learning

ABSTRACT Lane-changing detection is one of the most challenging tasks in advanced driver assistance system (ADAS). However, modeling driver's lane-changing process is challenging due to the complexity and uncertainty of driving behaviors. To address this issue, a novel sequential model, data-driven lane change detection (DLCD) system is proposed using deep learning techniques. Firstly, DLCD system explores to modeling driving context in spatial domain instead of traditional temporal domain. Secondly, DLCD has an ability of extracting innovative features, i.e. vehicle dynamics feature, lane boundary based distance feature and visual scene-centric feature from multi-modal input data efficiently. Finally, an improved focal loss-based deep long short-term memory (FL-LSTM) network is introduced to learn co-occurrence features and capture the dependencies within lane change events simultaneously. The experimental results on a real-world driving data set show that the DLCD system can learn the latent features of lane change behaviors and significantly outperform other advanced models.
Detection and Mitigation of RPL Rank and Version Number Attacks in Smart Internet of Things

The rapid growth of the smart Internet of Things (IoT) and massive propagation of wireless technologies revealed the recent opportunities for development in various domains of real life such as smart cities and E-Health applications. A slight defense against different forms of attacks is offered for the current secure and lightweight Routing Protocol for Low Power and Lossy Networks (RPL) of IoT resource-constrained devices. Data packets are highly likely to be exposed while transmitting them during data packets routing. The RPL rank & version number attacks, which are two forms of RPL attacks, can have critical consequences for RPL networks. The studies conducted on these attacks have several security defects and performance shortcomings. The research proposes a Secure RPL Routing Protocol (SRPLRP) for rank and version number attacks. It mainly detects, mitigates and isolates attacks in the RPL networks. The detection is based on a comparison of ranks strategy. The mitigation uses threshold and attacks status tables, and the isolation adds them to a blacklist table and alerts relevant nodes to skip them. SRPL-RP supports diverse types of network topologies and is comprehensively analyzed with multiple studies such as Standard RPL with Attacks, SBIDS and RPL+ Shield. The analysis results showed that the SRPL-RP achieves great improvements with Packet Delivery Ratio (PDR) of 98.48%, control message value of 991 packets/second, and average energy consumption of 1231.75 joules. It provides a better accuracy rate with 98.17% under the attacks.
Work schedule flexibility and employee commitment: A study of Nigerian Breweries, Ama, Enugu, Nigeria

The study investigated the extent of relationship between work schedule flexibility and employee commitment of Nigerian Breweries, Ama, Enugu in Nigeria. The specific objectives were to: determine the extent of relationship between flexi-time and affective commitment among employees, ascertain the extent of relationship between compressed work week and normative commitment among employees and examine the extent of relationship between job sharing and continuance commitment among employees in Nigerian Breweries PLC. Enugu. The study employed a correlational research design and structured questionnaire designed in 5-point Likert scale and was administered on the sample of two hundred and eighty six (286), out of which, two hundred and eighty three (283) were returned and were used for the analysis. Pearson correlation coefficient formed the basis for analysis while cronbach’s alpha test was used for testing internal reliability of the instrument. The study found a significant and positive relationship between flexi-time and affective commitment (r= 0.62), a significant and relationship between compressed work week and normative commitment among employees (r= 0.56) and a significant relationship between job sharing and continuance commitment among workers of Nigerian Breweries, PLC, (r=0.72). The implication of the results is that any unit increase on flexi-time, compressed work week and job sharing as work schedule flexibility will result to a significant increase on employees’ commitment which enhance organizational performance and recommended that organizations should continue to explore the opportunities of institutionalizing flexi-time, compressed work week and job sharing as working strategies in reinforcing the desired job commitment among their workers. Keywords: Work schedule flexibility, Flexi-time, Job sharing and Employee commitment.
Effect of Different Waxing Materials on the Quality and Shelf Life of Mysore Banana Variety

Banana is a climacteric fruit with a short shelf life. As a result, huge losses are incurred during handling in the value chain. The need to develop means of extending the shelf life and concomitantly maintaining the quality of the fruit after harvest has become very important. This study was conducted to determine the effects of two different edible waxing materials (beeswax and cassava starch) used as coatings on the quality and shelf life of Mysore banana. The study was conducted in the laboratory at the Department of Horticulture, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology–Kumasi. The experiment was laid out in a simple completely randomized design (CRD) and replicated three (3) times with three treatments (beeswax, cassava starch and a control). Parameters studied were: fruit weight loss, firmness, peel colour, pulp-to-peel ratio, moisture content (MC), dry matter content (DMC), total titratable acidity (TTA), total soluble solids (TSS), pH, green life and shelf life. The results showed beeswax and cassava starch had no significant effect (P>0.01) on peel colour, fruit firmness, TTA, TSS, DMC, MC and green life. Beeswax, however, kept weight loss minimal, and reduced TSS and the pulp-to-peel ratio of the fruits during storage. We conclude that beeswax was the best treatment in terms of waxing Mysore banana fruits to maintained its quality and ultimately prolonged its shelf life by about four (4) days more than the control. Original Research Article Kumah et al.; AJARR, 12(1): 1-11, 2020; Article no.AJARR. 58456 2
REVIEW ON THE MIRACLE ROLE OF CHIA SEEDS (SALVIA HISPANICA L.) NUTRITIONAL AND BIOACTIVE COMPOUNDS IN THE TREATMENT OF CARDIOVASCULAR DISORDER

Chia (Salvia hispanica L.) have growing research interest globally which determined it as functional food which acts as biochemical targets for the treatment of various cardiovascular disorder with reduced toxicological value. It is worldwide popular because of its nutritional, bioactive, and phytochemical compounds value, used as an ingredient in many food industries due to its high dietary fibre content value. Their consumption rate is higher in past years due to the presence of omega-3 fatty acids, proteins, amino acids (essential), and a good source of bioactive peptides. Many researchers focussed on α-linolenic acid which is the effective pioneer of maintenance of functioning of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs). Chia seed oil is investigated on different screening models either clinically or pre-clinically and demonstrate the levels of the serum lipid profile, diabetic severity changes. The review of the literature highlights the miracle values of the different nutritional composition, antioxidant values, phytochemical constituents, and the role of these in treatment of various cardiovascular disorder such as hypertension, inflammation, atherosclerosis, diabetes. The review highlights antioxidants values, which change the enzyme activities of the liver, blood. There is need to more focussed on the mechanistic approaches on the pharmacological aspects of the chia seeds with respective biological compounds in either clinical trial and animal screening trial before applied to it as a functional food for the therapeutic action in the treatment of diseases.
Moisture Sources Associated with Precipitation during Dry and Wet Seasons over Central Asia

Identifying the origin of moisture is a key process in revealing the formation mechanisms of precipitation, but the moisture sources for central Asia have not been well documented in previous studies. In this work, we employ the Lagrangian model FLEXPART over 2011–19 to address this question. Multiple observational products indicate that the times of dry and wet seasons are opposite for western and eastern central Asia bounded by 75°E. The wet season is November–April (NDJFMA) for western central Asia but May–October (MJJASO) for eastern central Asia, while the opposite is true for the dry season. The main moisture source regions for western central Asia are local regions (with a contribution of 49.11%), western Eurasia (21.47%), and western Asia (11.37%) during MJJASO and local regions (33.92%), western Asia (27.50%), and western Eurasia (17.60%) during NDJFMA. For eastern central Asia, moisture mainly originates from local regions (52.38%), western central Asia (25.22%), and northern Eurasia (9.26%) during MJJASO and western central Asia (30.86%), local regions (30.82%), western Asia (10.31%), and western Eurasia (10.26%) during NDJFMA. The differences in moisture sources between dry and wet seasons mainly occur in local regions and western Asia for western central Asia but in local regions for eastern central Asia. The moisture from northern Eurasia, western Eurasia, and western central Asia is transported into target regions by the westerly and southwesterly winds that are associated with a deep low trough over central Asia. Moisture is transported from western Asia by the anticyclone occurs over North Africa and western Asia in the lower and middle troposphere.