Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
High natural erosion rates are the backdrop for present-day soil erosion in the agricultural Middle Hills of Nepal

Abstract. Although agriculturally accelerated soil erosion is implicated in the unsustainable environmental degradation of mountain environments, such as in the Himalaya, the effects of land use can be challenging to quantify in many mountain settings because of the high and variable natural background rates of erosion. In this study, we present new long-term denudation rates, derived from cosmogenic 10Be analysis of quartz in river sediment from the Likhu Khola, a small agricultural river basin in the Middle Hills of central Nepal. Calculated long-term denudation rates, which reflect background natural erosion processes over 1000+ years prior to agricultural intensification, are similar to present-day sediment yields and to soil loss rates from terraces that are well maintained. Similarity in short- and long-term catchment-wide erosion rates for the Likhu is consistent with data from elsewhere in the Nepal Middle Hills but contrasts with the very large increases in short-term erosion rates seen in agricultural catchments in other steep mountain settings. Our results suggest that the large sediment fluxes exported from the Likhu and other Middle Hills rivers in the Himalaya are derived in large part from natural processes, rather than from soil erosion as a result of agricultural activity. Catchment-scale erosional fluxes may be similar over short and long timescales if both are dominated by mass wasting sources such as gullies, landslides, and debris flows (e.g., as is evident in the landslide-dominated Khudi Khola of the Nepal High Himalaya, based on compiled data). As a consequence, simple comparison of catchment-scale fluxes will not necessarily pinpoint land use effects on soils where these are only a small part of the total erosion budget, unless rates of mass wasting are also considered. Estimates of the mass wasting contribution to erosion in the Likhu imply catchment-averaged soil production rates on the order of ~ 0.25–0.35 mm yr−1, though rates of mass wasting are poorly constrained. The deficit between our best estimates for soil production rates and measurements of soil loss rates supports conclusions from previous studies that terraced agriculture in the Likhu may not be associated with a large systematic soil deficit, at least when terraces are well maintained, but that poorly managed terraces, forest, and scrubland may lead to rapid depletion of soil resources.
Family of Power Transformations

A modified family of power transformation, called the dual power transformation, is proposed. The new transformation is shown to possess properties similar to those of the well-known Box-Cox power transformation, but overcomes the long-standing truncation problem of the latter. It generates a rich family of distributions that is seen to be very useful in modeling and analysis of durations and event-times.
Investigating the Allosteric Behavior of Malate Dehydrogenase from Escherichia coli

Regulatory mechanisms of malate dehydrogenase from E.coli (eMDH) involving NADH as an allosteric effector were investigated. The reaction was studied in both directions: malate oxidation and oxaloacetate reduction. When malate was the variable substrate, a plot of rate against substrate concentration was sigmoidal in the presence of 0. "065 mM NADH, which indicates the presence of an allosteric site for NADH on the enzyme. Binding of NADH at the allosteric site causes conformational changes in the active site and, thereby, changes the catalytic activity of the enzyme. An increase in Km value, from 1.3 to 3.9 mM malate was observed, which indicates a decrease in the enzyme affinity for the substrate. When eMDH was chemically modified with 5'-p-flurosulfonylbenzoyladenosine (FSBA) in the presence of 0.15 mM NADH as a protecting agent, the allosteric behavior was abolished, which suggests that FSBA is modifying specific amino acid residues in the allosteric site and, therefore, preventing NADH from binding. eMDH was inactivated by FSBA in the absence of NADH. The inactivation appears to result from covalent modification of His 177 in the active site, which is believed to be crucial for the catalytic mechanism ofeMDH.
Priority Based New Approach for Correlation Clustering

Emerging source of Information like social network, bibliographic data and interaction network of proteins have complex relation among data objects and need to be processed in different manner than traditional data analysis. Correlation clustering is one such new style of viewing data and analyzing it to detect patterns and clusters. Being a new field, it has lot of scope for research. This paper discusses a method to solve problem of chromatic correlation clustering where data objects as nodes of a graph are connected through color-labeled edges representing relations among objects. Purposed heuristic performs better than the previous works.
Poland on the Road to the Euro: How Serious is the Risk of Boom-Bust Cycles after the Euro Adoption? An Empirical Analysis

The goal of this paper is, firstly, to determine which structural characteristics of an economy make it more (or less) prone to macroeconomic booms and busts and, secondly, to empirically assess the risk of a boom-bust cycle in Poland after the euro adoption. We start from identifying booms and busts in private consumption and investment in fourteen “old” EU member states and then we seek to explain the identified boom and bust series using panel probit and pooled probit models. We then use the estimated equations to assess the probability of booms and busts in Poland over the period 2004 to 2009. Our results suggest that credit developments have been the most important driving force of booms and busts in EU-14. The relevance of international capital flows as a boom-bust transmission channel and of the cyclical heterogeneity of countries which undergo a process of monetary integration is also confirmed. We also find evidence that the fiscal channel boils down to a crowding-out effect: a reduction in the general government expenditure “makes room” for a boom in the private expenditure, and the reverse holds for busts. In turn, our results for Poland are inconclusive, which probably means that the models estimated for EU-14 are not adequate to predict the probabilities of booms and busts in this country.
Performance Index in MHD Duct Nanofluid Flow Past a Bluff Body at High Re

The quasi-two-dimensional Al2O3-water nanofluid magneto hydro-dynamics (MHD) flowing over a circular cylinder at higher Reynolds number has been modelled using Ansys FLUENT 15.0 in a rectangular duct to determine the viability of heat transfer enhancement. The effect of the numerical simulations on performance indices were analysed for the range of 1000 ≤ Re ≤ 3000 Reynolds numbers, 10 ≤ Ha ≤ 100 modified Hartmann numbers, 0.5 ≤ φ ≤ 2 nanoparticle volume concentrations, 0.1 ≤ β ≤ 0.4 blockage ratios, 1 ≤ γ ≤ 0.25 position ratios, 0.75 ≤ G/d ≤ 1.5 gap ratios and 0 ≤ d ≤ 10 distance downstream of cylinder along heated duct wall. The results are presented graphically and discussed quantitatively. Grid independence is achieved with the domain having 3 upstream and 20 downstream cylinder diameter distance lengths with element polynomial degree 7 with respect to mean drag coefficient and Strouhal number. Cylinder placement with gaps to the heated wall of diameters between 0.75 and 1.25 and 10 diameters downstream of cylinder performed best, achieving 117 % enhancement of the performance indices at Re = 3000, Ha = 20, φ = 2 %, β = 0.4, γ = 1 and G/d = 1. The performance indices were greater than one for all the cases tested, which indicates that the heat transfer enhancement for this flow is viable. The Nusselt number values of the present study were compared with the analytical and experimental data published earlier and found to be in perfect agreement validating the reliability of the present model.
Synthesis of oxo- and thio-analogues of 2-oxo-2H-chromen-7-yl dimethylcarbamates

A range of novel 2-oxo-2H-chromen-7-yl dimethylcarbamates was synthesized containing either an oxygen or sulphur atom in the -position to the carbonyl or thiocarbonyl group of the amide moiety. The synthesis and spectroscopic data of these compounds are reported. Microwave synthesis was essential for the successful synthesis of some of the sulphur-containing carbamates. The synthesized compounds will be used in a subsequent study on the influence of the -substituent on the amide rotational barrier.
Organisational Change and Effectiveness

This book focuses on critical exchanges between leaders and followers which promote strategic change and enhance effectiveness of organisations.It covers an expanse of leadership theories which serve as foundation for our understanding of the field.However, emphasis is on the leader-member exchange(LMX) theory, an emerging leadership theory.Models on organisational effectiveness are mentioned,particularly the competing values model.Priority is given to the internal and external environmental factors that drive change in organisations, as organisations are viewed as open systems.The multidimensional concept of LMX provide an empirical basis of making organisations effective,especially LMX factors such affect, loyalty, and professional respect.Also captured is the combined factors of contribution and professional respect (two factors) of LMX accounting for change in organisations.Overall LMX predict effective work organisations and change.
Evaluation of Platelet Indices in Young Male Patients with Hepatitis C

1 Murat Afyon1, Cumhur Artuk2, Ercan Yenilmez3, Berksan Şimşek4, Ayper Kaya4 1Primary Care Inspection, Clinic of Family Health Center and the Naval Academy, Gülhane Military Medical Academy Haydarpaşa Teaching Hospital, Istanbul, 2Department of Infectious Diseases, Gülhane Military Medical Academy Training and Research Hospital, Ankara, 3Department of Infectious Diseases, Gülhane Military Medical Academy Haydarpaşa Teaching Hospital, Istanbul, 4Kasımpasa Military Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey HCV Infection and Platelet Indices Evaluation of Platelet Indices in Young Male Patients with Hepatitis C
Social responsibility and accountability in work integration social enterprises . The case of the Balearic Islands

Work integration social enterprises constitute a subsector of the social economy. They are organizations that operate on the market, incorporating the concept of solidarity into their corporate purpose. Essentially, this implies helping to improve the financial and social conditions of disadvantaged groups. The fact that solidarity economy companies apply management principles which are in line with the concept of corporate social responsibility led us to analyze their effective application level in work integration social enterprises in the Balearic Islands, in their strategies, management and external communications. Furthermore, one of the requirements of social responsibility is the provision of information on the company's social and environmental impacts. Consequently, we also analyzed the voluntary disclosure of social and environmental information by work integration social enterprises in the Balearic Islands and the variables that determine the level of disclosure.
Featuring 10 phenological estimators using simulated data

1. Studies reporting phenological changes in response to climate change are numerous and concern all groups of living organisms. Phenological changes could cause mismatching in food chains, thus inducing important perturbations in ecosystem functioning. Nevertheless, the relevancy of the conclusions drawn from phenological studies strongly depends on the estimation accuracy of such phenological changes. Many different estimators exist and some have already raised major criticism, although they continue to be used. Therefore, there is a crucial need for an extensive study documenting the behaviour of phenological estimators.
Urban structure analysis of mega city Mexico City using multisensoral remote sensing data

Mega city Mexico City is ranked the third largest urban agglomeration to date around the globe. The large extension as well as dynamic urban transformation and sprawl processes lead to a lack of up-to-date and area-wide data and information to measure, monitor, and understand the urban situation. This paper focuses on the capabilities of multisensoral remotely sensed data to provide a broad range of products derived from one scientific field - remote sensing - to support urban managing and planning. Therefore optical data sets from the Landsat and Quickbird sensors as well as radar data from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) and the TerraSAR-X sensor are utilised. Using the multi-sensoral data sets the analysis are scale-dependent. On the one hand change detection on city level utilising the derived urban footprints enables to monitor and to assess spatiotemporal urban transformation, areal dimension of urban sprawl, its direction, and the built-up density distribution over time. On the other hand, structural characteristics of an urban landscape - the alignment and types of buildings, streets and open spaces - provide insight in the very detailed physical pattern of urban morphology on higher scale. The results show high accuracies of the derived multi-scale products. The multi-scale analysis allows quantifying urban processes and thus leading to an assessment and interpretation of urban trends.
PERFORMANCE OF AN AUTOMOTIVE BUMPER FROM LALLOH (Corchorus triden L.) PLANT FIBRE REINFORCED EPOXY COMPOSITE UNDER MODIFIED DYNATUP MODEL 8150 TEST

The work presented here is the production of an automotive Bumper from Lalloh plant ( Corchorus tridenL.) fibre reinforced epoxy composite and its performance evaluation using the drop weight test method . An impact test was carried out on the bumper using a test rig modeled after the Dynatup Model 8150 drop weight test set up. Two test variants were used that is, with the bumper completely restraint and the bumper restraint at two-points. The bumper damage were assessed using a set of criteria as outlined by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). Results obtained showed that the bumper performed satisfactorily under the completely restraint condition. However, there were, tears, distortion and delamination observed on the bumper after the two-point constraint test. Although the extent of the tear, distortion and delamination were minimal which did not result in the shattering of the bumper. This therefore showed that, the bumper was able to absorb the impact energy by confining the damage to itself, thereby protecting adjacent components.
Geography of rural enterprise banking and microfinance institutions in Bangladesh

In remote areas of Bangladesh, it can be difficult for entrepreneurs, businesses and farmers to obtain needed bank loans, as banks are typically located in and around administrative centres. In addition, the banks have limitations in their product design (credit and savings) and have mostly avoided the challenges of rural enterprises. During the 1970s, the concept of the Microfinance Institution (MFI) emerged, based on the non-governmental organization model and favouring locations in rural areas not far from the administrative centres and rural markets. In this untapped market, MFIs grew by taking an institutional good practices approach and offering products designed to cater to low-income households and enterprises, although they still face legal constraints in holding public savings deposits. In addition, although the MFI reaches less accessible areas because of its organization pattern, its attempts to upscale MFI credit are not widely successful due to both unwillingness and inability of the existing microfinance client pool to repay loans. Therefore, it is important to explore which entity (bank or MFI) has an advantageous geographic distribution and institutional good practices to meet the needs of rural enterprise.
Breastfeeding Duration and the Risk of Coronary Artery Disease.

BACKGROUND Previous studies have suggested that prolonged breastfeeding has beneficial effects on the health of the mother including the reduction of long-term risk of coronary artery disease (CAD). The mechanism of this association remains unclear. METHODS We surveyed 643 women aged 40-65 years receiving outpatient care at Stanford University Hospital on their reproductive/lactation history, including 137 women (cases) with clinically confirmed CAD. Survey data were supplemented with traditional risk factor data for CAD obtained from the participant's medical record. We then conducted logistic regression analyses to assess the relationship between breastfeeding duration and case-control status for each of the two separate definitions of duration. The first was based on the participant's single longest duration of breastfeeding considering all live births reported and the second was based on a participant's total duration of breastfeeding summed over all live births. For each of these two definitions, we ran three sequential models each with a different reference group-(1) nulliparous women, (2) parous women that never breastfed, and (3) parous women with a short duration of breastfeeding-successively excluding women in the reference group of the previous model(s). RESULTS Just over one-half (51.6%) of the women surveyed reported a history of breastfeeding. We found nominally significant associations (p = 0.04-0.12) for our multivariate analyses that modeled maximum duration of breastfeeding. When compared with nulliparous women, parous women who either never breastfed or always breastfed for <5 months had approximately double the risk of CAD. Among parous women, women who breastfeed for ≥5 months at least once in their lifetime had a ∼30% decrease risk of CAD compared with those who did not initiate breastfeeding. Among parous women who breastfed ≥1 month, women who breastfed ≥5 months had ∼50% decreased risk of CAD. We found similar point estimates of effect for analogous analyses modeling maximum breastfeeding duration but p-values for these analyses were not significant. Unadjusted analyses demonstrated higher valued odds ratios and lower p-values suggesting the presence of some confounding by traditional risk factors. CONCLUSIONS Parous women who breastfeed ≥5 months in at least one pregnancy seem to be at decreased risk of CAD later in their life, whereas parous women who either never breastfed or discontinued breastfeeding early seem to be at increased risk. More research is needed to more reliably quantify and determine the nature of the relationship between parity, breastfeeding duration, and risk of CAD.
Tapping the Brake on Cardiac Growth

Disclaimer/Complaints regulations If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: http://uba.uva. nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible.
Cross-cultural adaptation and validation to Brazil of the Medication Counseling Behavior Guidelines

This work aimed to translate cross-culturally adapts, and validate the “Medication Counseling Behavior Guidelines” instrument into Brazilian Portuguese. The process of cross-cultural adaptation was carried out using international recommendations. The generated versions were evaluated for the semantic, idiomatic, cultural, and conceptual equivalences and the pre-test was carried out with undergraduate pharmacy students. The reliability of the instrument was evaluated through inter-observer reliability, test-retest, and internal consistency tests. The final version was submitted for content validation. The process of cross-cultural translation and validation result in the Brazilian-Portuguese version of the tool was done. During the translation and back-translation stages, only grammatical changes were made to establish cross-cultural equivalence between the versions under analysis. Regarding the semantic evaluation, six items (15.4%) revealed less than 80% agreement between the judges and were adjusted. Agreement greater than 80% was verified for all items assessed as cultural and conceptual equivalences. In the pre-test, four items (10.2%) were modified. Inter-observers and test-retest reliability demonstrated good to excellent reproducibility for most items (ICC = 0.60-0.98) and internal consistency was considered high (Cronbach's alpha = 0.99). Psychometric evaluation demonstrated and confirmed the validity of the Brazilian-Portuguese version of the tool to assess patient counseling practices. The tool can be used by pharmacists and undergraduate pharmacy students to improve the quality of patient counseling. Key words: Validation studies, health communication, counseling, simulation training.
Testing the e ff ects of opacity and the chemical mixture on the excitation of pulsations in B stars of the Magellanic Clouds

The B-type pulsators known as β Cephei and Slowly Pulsating B (SPB) stars present pulsations driven by theκ mechanism, which operates thanks to an opacity bump due to th e iron group elements. In low-metallicity environments such as th e Magellanic Clouds, β Cep and SPB pulsations are not expected. Nevertheless, recent obse rvations show evidence for the presence of B-type pulsator candidates in both galaxies. We seek an explanation for the excitation of β Cep and SPB modes in those galaxies by examining basic input physics in stellar modelling: i) the specific metal mixture of B-type stars in the Magellanic Clouds; ii) the role of a potential underestimation of stellar opacitie s. We first derive the present-day chemical mixtures of B-type s tars in the Magellanic Clouds. Then, we compute stellar models for that metal mixture and pe rform a non-adiabatic analysis of these models. In a second approach, we simulate parametri c enhancements of stellar opacities due to di fferent iron group elements. We then study their e ffects in models of B stars and their stability. We find that adopting a representative chemical mixture of B s tars in the Small Magellanic Cloud cannot explain the presence of B-type pulsators there . An increase of the opacity in the region of the iron-group bump could drive B-type pulsations , but only if this increase occurs at the temperature corresponding to the maximum contributi on of Ni to this opacity bump. We recommend an accurate computation of Ni opacity to unders tand B-type pulsators in the Small Magellanic Cloud, as well as the frequency domain obse rved in some Galactic hybrid β Cep-SPB stars.
Obtaining antioxidants from botanic matrices applying novel extraction techniques.

Botanic matrices are abundant sources of antioxidants which have the capacity to avoid the lipid o xidation of food and present remarkab le health benefits. The natural antioxidants might be obtained applying many extraction techniques. Satisfactory results of obtaining extracts with antio xidant properties and high yields using modern extraction techniques are shown by recent studies. The selection of the suitable technique depends on the desired class of substances to be extracted. In this overview, the advances reached in scientific researches involving natural antio xidants are presented. The advantages and potential applicat ions of four novel ext raction techniques: Supercritical Flu id Ext raction, Pressurized Liquid Extraction, M icro wave Assisted Extraction and Ultrasound Assisted Extraction are discussed, considering the characteristics of the target compounds. These techniques reduce the solvent consumption and abridge the extraction time. Consequently, the process productivity is increased.