Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Recent Progresses in Electrochemical DNA Biosensors for SARS-CoV-2 Detection

Coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) is still a major public health concern in many nations today. COVID-19 transmission is now controlled mostly through early discovery, isolation, and therapy. Because of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the contributing factor to COVID-19, establishing timely, sensitive, accurate, simple, and budget detection technologies for the SARS-CoV-2 is urgent for epidemic prevention. Recently, several electrochemical DNA biosensors have been developed for the rapid monitoring and detection of SARS-CoV-2. This mini-review examines the latest improvements in the detection of SARS-COV-2 utilizing electrochemical DNA biosensors. Meanwhile, this mini-review summarizes the problems faced by the existing assays and puts an outlook on future trends in the development of new assays for SARS-CoV-2, to provide researchers with a borrowing role in the generation of different assays.
Discovery of planetary nebulae in NGC 4214 using SITELLE

We present data taken with the imaging Fourier transform spectrograph SITELLE, at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, of the nearby dwarf starburst galaxy NGC 4214. From these data, we identify 18 new planetary nebula candidates in the outer part of the galaxy. For each planetary nebula, we provide the flux of the strong emission lines, the [Oiii]λλ5007,4959 Hα and Hβ, as well as the radial velocity. We also provide the kinematics for 13 of the 17 planetary nebulae previously discovered in the central part of the galaxy with HST data by Dopita et al. (2010). We present a novative technique to obtain accurate velocity measurement for objects with [Oiii] emission but without Hα emission with SITELLE. We use the [Oiii] emission line luminosity function of the planetary nebulae to establish a new velocity-independent distance for the galaxy. This method gives a distance D = 3.31+0.20 −0.27 Mpc for NGC 4214.
Exposure to pollution during pregnancy and occurrence of miscarriage

Abstract A cross-sectional study was carried out to estimate the prevalence of miscarriages in a population of 360 women distributed in areas exposer to higher and lower vehicle traffic air pollution on the Island of São Luís, MA, Brazil, and identify associated variables. Participants were interviewed and bivariate and multivariate logistic regressions were conducted. The overall miscarriage prevalence was of 15.83%, totaling 25.56% (n=180) in the higher exposure area and 6.11% (n=180) in the lower exposure area. Maternal alcohol consumption (OR=3.11), STIs during pregnancy (OR=2.74), living in a high-exposure area (OR=8.32), having suffered physical or psychological distress during pregnancy (OR=4.25) and repeated miscarriages (OR=39.11) were all associated to the miscarriage outcome. The findings reported herein thus indicate potential vehicle traffic air pollution contribution as a risk factor in the etiology of miscarriages.
The effect of pectinase pretreatment on the extraction of essential oil from the seed kernels of Nutmeg (Myristica fragrans)

In this study, the seed kernels of Nutmeg (Myristica fragrans) were pretreated with partially purified pectinase (PPP) prior to hydrodistillation to enhance the extraction of essential oil. The yield of the essential oil obtained after pretreatment with PPP was 4.70%. GC-MS analysis of the essential oils obtained after pretreatments with PPP showed a total of 33 constituents classified into monoterpenes (51.52%), sesquiterpenes (21.21%) and phenylpropanoids/aromatic (27.27%) compounds. Comparison was made by pretreating the nutmeg seeds with a pure pectinase (CP) obtained from Sigma-Aldrich. The fraction obtained when pretreated with CP was made up of 32 components with monoterpenes (51.31%), sesquiterpenes (18.75%) and phenylpropanoids/aromatic (28.12%) compounds. The major components of essential oils obtained after pretreatments with PPP and CP were sabinene, α-pinene, β-pinene and myristicin. This research shows that the extraction of Myristica fragrans seed kernel essential oil can be improved using PPP when compared with the yield of the control (3.80%) obtained from the seed kernels that were not pretreated with the enzymes prior to hydrodistillation.
Dynamic Load Model Systems of Tendon Inflammation and Mechanobiology

Dynamic loading is a shared feature of tendon tissue homeostasis and pathology. Tendon cells have the inherent ability to sense mechanical loads that initiate molecular-level mechanotransduction pathways. While mature tendons require physiological mechanical loading in order to maintain and fine tune their extracellular matrix architecture, pathological loading initiates an inflammatory-mediated tissue repair pathway that may ultimately result in extracellular matrix dysregulation and tendon degeneration. The exact loading and inflammatory mechanisms involved in tendon healing and pathology is unclear although a precise understanding is imperative to improving therapeutic outcomes of tendon pathologies. Thus, various model systems have been designed to help elucidate the underlying mechanisms of tendon mechanobiology via mimicry of the in vivo tendon architecture and biomechanics. Recent development of model systems has focused on identifying mechanoresponses to various mechanical loading platforms. Less effort has been placed on identifying inflammatory pathways involved in tendon pathology etiology, though inflammation has been implicated in the onset of such chronic injuries. The focus of this work is to highlight the latest discoveries in tendon mechanobiology platforms and specifically identify the gaps for future work. An interdisciplinary approach is necessary to reveal the complex molecular interplay that leads to tendon pathologies and will ultimately identify potential regenerative therapeutic targets.
An Efficient System for Implementation of Goods and Service Tax in India using Blockchain

—In India, Goods and Service Tax (GST) is an indirect taxation system imposed on the supply of goods and services and is aimed to replace issues of direct taxes. GST is paid by all the users in the transaction system where the total cost of the product and profit is added and based on the total amount, the tax is calculated. This tax is paid to the Central Government and State Government. The tax refunds are calculated based on the tax liability of the user and returned back to the users. This refunding system normally takes a duration of 30 days from filing a GST refund form. The period may alter in some cases depending on the amount of GST refunds to be processed. In general, the refund value is high creating a financial burden to the users and the business in turn. Hence, we aim to create a web application to compute and levy GST by employing Blockchain Technology. Use of blockchain technology enables to securely host the public transactions where multiple customers/ vendors/suppliers all are all users who don’t trust each other are brought onto a single system. The distributed ledgers are efficient, transparent and more secure because of Hash Function used for calculating unique hash numbers. The information flow can be tracked from an end-to-end basis in real-time. Thereafter, Smart Contract does the needful calculation of taxes and adjust the amount of tax to be paid back to the user and to the Government.
THE DRONE - A METHODOLOGICAL TOOL, FOR GENERATING BASE LAYERS IN GIS

One of the latest paradigms of today's interdisciplinary studies in geosciences, consists of the implementation of the newest, most accurate, and relevant datasets available, in order to emphasize the appearance, causality or effects of different phenomena, which interfere with humans. Therefore, there is a permanent strive for data, relevant in geographical analysis, which is highly accurate, and also cost-effective. Due to the recent developments in UAV technology, and lowering of production costs, drones have been integrated into methodological workflows all around the world, in numerous fields, ranging from habitat delineation, to geomorphologic mapping. Most such studies use either a digital surface model (DSM) or ortophoto imagery generated from drone aerial images. Also, Structure From Motion algorithms (SFM) have been highly developed recently, into detecting ever more complicated shapes and objects. This means that the drone has turned into an indispensable tool for generating base layers used in any GIS-based study, because it generates fast, high accuracy, repeatable, on demand data sets. This paper intends to reveal a methodological approach towards generating the two, most important raster layers for the majority of spatial analyses: the digital surface model/digital elevation model, and the ortophoto, respectively.
Employees Reaction to Selection Process and Its Effect on Behavioural Outcomes in Organizations of Nepal

Background: Limited prior research has focused on social aspect of recruitment and selection (R&S) process: the behavioral outcomes, the effect of perceptions of selection process, decisions made by new employees and its effect on the organization. Objectives: This study aims to analyze employees’ perception to recruitment and selection process and resultant behavioral and attitudinal outcomes in organizations in Nepal and also examines the moderation effect of PJF. Methods: The study follows quantitative-hypothetico-deductive research methodology. Altogether 210 employees from public and private organizations of Nepal participated in the study. Moderated multiple regression was used to test hypotheses and moderation effect. Results: Regression result shows significant and positive relation between R&S process- PPV, TPJ and RI with outcome variables OC and OE and significant negative relation with TI. Moderating effect was seen in the relation between PPV, PJF and OC. Conclusion: R&S process in organizations should be fair. This process if perceived as unfair by applicants, there is high degree of turnover once they are employed. This has high cost on organizations and also loss of competent and talented employees.
Salinity Stress Tolerance in Potato Cultivars: Evidence from Physiological and Biochemical Traits

Salinity stress is a major constraint to sustainable crop production due to its adverse impact on crop growth, physiology, and productivity. As potato is the fourth most important staple food crop, enhancing its productivity is necessary to ensure food security for the ever-increasing population. Identification and cultivation of salt-tolerant potato genotypes are imperative mitigating strategies to cope with stress conditions. For this purpose, fifty-three varieties of potato were screened under control and salt stress conditions for growth and yield-related traits during 2020. Salt stress caused a mean reduction of 14.49%, 8.88%, and 38.75% in plant height, stem numbers, and tuber yield, respectively in comparison to control. Based on percent yield reduction, the genotypes were classified as salt-tolerant (seven genotypes), moderately tolerant (thirty-seven genotypes), and salt-sensitive genotypes (nine genotypes). Seven salt-tolerant and nine salt-sensitive genotypes were further evaluated to study their responses to salinity on targeted physiological, biochemical, and ionic traits during 2021. Salt stress significantly reduced the relative water content (RWC), membrane stability index (MSI), photosynthesis rate (Pn), transpiration rate (E), stomatal conductance, and K+/Na+ ratio in all the sixteen genotypes; however, this reduction was more pronounced in salt-sensitive genotypes compared to salt-tolerant ones. The better performance of salt-tolerant genotypes under salt stress was due to the strong antioxidant defense system as evidenced by greater activity of super oxide dismutase (SOD), peroxidase (POX), catalase (CAT), and ascorbate peroxidase (APX) and better osmotic adjustment (accumulation of proline). The stepwise regression approach identified plant height, stem numbers, relative water content, proline content, H2O2, POX, tuber K+/Na+, and membrane stability index as predominant traits for tuber yield, suggesting their significant role in alleviating salt stress. The identified salt-tolerant genotypes could be used in hybridization programs for the development of new high-yielding and salt-tolerant breeding lines. Further, these genotypes can be used to understand the genetic and molecular mechanism of salt tolerance in potato.
The Prevalence of Teleophthalmology in the Piedmont Region of Italy: Current Situation and Future Perspectives

Purpose: This cross-sectional study aims to evaluate the actual prevalence of telemedicine, with a particular attention to teleophthalmology programs, in the Piedmont region of Northern Italy and investigate the prospects of the discipline, comparing the situation with the rest of Italy. Information about the current teleophthalmological development is important to assess the state-of-the-art of innovation in medicine in different areas of the world so that there can be a healthy comparison and evaluation of progress and backlog. Methods: We sent questionnaires to every Local Healthcare Authority and gathered the answers in five distinct categories. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we collected information by telephone. We investigated five primary areas: what type of telemedicine services are currently in operation, how they are managed, the presence of any evaluation of patient satisfaction and cost-savings, and the prospects of future teleophthalmology programs to be implemented. Results: Only 2% of the total telemedicine programs are in the field of ophthalmology. The greater parts are in the field of cardiology (15%) and endocrinology (13%). Currently, only one program of teleophthalmology exists in the territory, and at least four more projects are waiting to be approved or funded. Surveys about patient satisfaction were not provided and there was no evidence of cost-saving. Conclusions: Teleophthalmology in Piedmont is slowly developing, although there is a lack of a unified network for storing and managing patients’ data. During the COVID-19 pandemic, telemedicine usage drastically increased, and there is a need to evaluate this trend to understand its place in the future of medicine.
Session Coalgebras: A Coalgebraic View on Regular and Context-free Session Types

Compositional methods are central to the verification of software systems. For concurrent and communicating systems, compositional techniques based on behavioural type systems have received much attention. By abstracting communication protocols as types, these type systems can statically check that channels in a program interact following a certain protocol—whether messages are exchanged in the intended order. In this article, we put on our coalgebraic spectacles to investigate session types, a widely studied class of behavioural type systems. We provide a syntax-free description of session-based concurrency as states of coalgebras. As a result, we rediscover type equivalence, duality, and subtyping relations in terms of canonical coinductive presentations. In turn, this coinductive presentation enables us to derive a decidable type system with subtyping for the π-calculus, in which the states of a coalgebra will serve as channel protocols. Going full circle, we exhibit a coalgebra structure on an existing session type system, and show that the relations and type system resulting from our coalgebraic perspective coincide with existing ones. We further apply to session coalgebras the coalgebraic approach to regular languages via the so-called rational fixed point, inspired by the trinity of automata, regular languages, and regular expressions with session coalgebras, rational fixed point, and session types, respectively. We establish a suitable restriction on session coalgebras that determines a similar trinity, and reveals the mismatch between usual session types and our syntax-free coalgebraic approach. Furthermore, we extend our coalgebraic approach to account for context-free session types, by equipping session coalgebras with a stack.
Numerical modeling of residual stresses in additive manufacturing products using the theory of repeatedly superimposed finite strains

An approach to the residual stress analysis of parts made by powder bed additive manufacturing is proposed. The approach is based on the theory of repeatedly superimposed finite strains. The problem statement is formulated within the framework of nonlinear thermoelasticity. The method of problem solving is developed on the base of finite and spectral element methods. The numerical modeling of a full-sized experiment is performed. In this experiment, the additive manufactured part is notched in order to estimate residual stresses in it. The obtained numerical results are in good agreement with the experimental results. It is concluded from the results that the developed approach is correct and the nonlinear effects are substantial.
Does hiring a manager improve efficiency – owner vs. non-owner management control of rice mills

PurposeIn this study, the impact of owner-operator and non-owner operator rice mills on productive efficiency is investigated.Design/methodology/approachPrimary data collected from a survey of 111 rice mills in the Mwea region of Kenya are used. A metafrontier approach is employed to measure overall technical efficiency which is decomposed into managerial and organisational efficiency.FindingsThe results reveal no significant difference in overall technical and managerial efficiency between owner and non-owner operated mills. However, a significant difference exists in organisational efficiency of mills: non-owner operated mills were found to be performing significantly better than owner-operated.Practical implicationsThe authors provide supporting evidence to the study and discuss some of the significant policy implications stemming from the study.Originality/valueIt is recognised that for owners to take the risk of divesting control to a hired manager rather than manage the firm themselves can have major strategic, financial and often emotional consequences. However, there is little empirical evidence on how production efficiency will develop as a result of hiring a manager with the underlying economic theory providing ambiguous guidance. Standard economic theory assumes that firms behave as profit maximisers, which can be achieved by operating efficiently. However, this may not always be the case and as the literature indicates, this may especially be so for small businesses in low- and middle-income countries.
Climatology of sea‐effect snow in Finland

Convective sea‐effect snowfall, in the form of snowbands, is observed over the northern Baltic Sea annually. Quasi‐stationary snowbands may last up to several days over the sea and, depending on the wind direction, move towards the coast. This study provides climatology of spatial and temporal occurrence of snowbands in Finland for a 48‐year period (1973–2020). We used a set of detection criteria together with ERA5 reanalysis at off‐shore areas and FMIClimGrid gridded observational data for on‐shore areas to find the days favouring snowband formation. Only those snowband days (SBD) when snow reached the Finnish coastal mainland were considered. The total annual number of SBDs in Finland varied from 6 to 40 with an average of 16. SBDs were detected most frequently over the Gulf of Bothnia near the western coast of the country. The largest increase in snow depth (SDI) during an SBD (67 cm/day) also took place on the western coast, although the long‐term mean of SDI (3–5 cm/day) was highest over the southern coast. Throughout the country, November and December showed the highest frequency of SBDs. However, between the periods 1973–1996 and 1997–2020, the seasonal cycle of SBDs shifted 1 month forward from late autumn to mid‐winter as the decrease in the number of SBDs during December as well as the increase during January and February were statistically significant in Finland. In northern Baltic Sea, long‐term increases in monthly means of sea surface temperature (SST) and air temperature at the atmospheric level of 850 hPa (T850) were in line with the decadal changes in the occurrence of SBDs. The increasing trend in SST favours the formation of snowbands but in late autumn the probability for snowband formation decreased because even larger increases in T850 resulted in diminishing differences between SST and T850.
Tritium Transport Modeling at the Pore Scale in Ceramic Breeder Materials Using TMAP8

Fusion reactors depend on the blanket material to breed and release tritium at the same rate or faster than it is consumed by the fusion reaction. Cellular ceramic breeders (CCBs) are dense materials that can maintain a high tritium breeding ratio while promoting tritium release because of highly connected pores. Assessing the tritium breeding capabilities of these materials requires a combination of extensive experimental and modeling efforts. In this work, we develop and calibrate a multiphysics model of tritium transport. This novel model accounts for ceramic and pore diffusion, trapping and detrapping, and several surface reactions at the pore surface. We perform a sensitivity analysis and calibrate the model by comparing its predictions against experimental measurements of deuterium absorption. The calibrated model is then used to model tritium absorption in samples with different pore microstructures to investigate the effect of pore interconnectivity on tritium absorption. The model is part of the development of the multiscale, multiphysics framework for tritium transport [i.e., the Tritium Migration Analysis Program (TMAP8)], which is itself built on top of the finite-element multiphysics framework multiphysics object-oriented simulation environment (MOOSE). This study demonstrates some of TMAP8’s capabilities and is the first step toward assessing the tritium breeding capabilities of ceramic breeder material designs.
Effect of Lean Management Application in Pharmaceutical Inventory Stella Maris Hospital Makassar

This study aimed to analyse the effect of lean application in pharmaceutical inventory Stella Maris Hospital Makassar. The study used qualitative method through action research approach and the data were collected through triangulation. The numbers of informants are seven informants. Data were collected by document review, observation and deep interview. The results showed that application of lean management in drugs such planning reduced Non Value Added (NVA) activities 26%, ordering reduced NVA activities 2%, inventory storage reduced NVA activities 69% and distribution processes NVA activities 22%. In all cycle of management of pharmaceutical inventory reduced 30,01% of drugs stagnant and 14,79% of drugs stock out and also increase value to waste ratio of 15% until 34%.
Modeling Radio Wave Propagation for Wireless Sensor Networks in Vegetated Environments: A Systematic Literature Review

The use of wireless sensor networks (WSN) for monitoring variables in agricultural environments and natural forests has been increasing in recent years. However, the sizing of these systems is affected by the inaccuracy of the radio wave propagation models used, leading to possible increased costs and measurement errors. This systematic literature review (SLR) aims to identify propagation models widely used in WSN deployments in agricultural or naturally vegetated environments and their effectiveness in estimating signal losses. We also identified today’s wireless technologies most used in precision agriculture (PA) system implementations. In addition, the results of studies focused on the development of new propagation models for different environments are evaluated. Scientific and technical analysis is presented based on articles consulted in different specialized databases, which were selected according to different combinations of criteria. The results show that, in most of the application cases, vegetative models present high error values when estimating attenuation.