Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Tolerant and hyperaccumulators autochthonous plant species from mine tailing disposal sites.

Mining activity in Zacatecas Mexico has generated huge areas affected by heavy metals contamination, especially lead. The phytoremediation is a user-friendly technology for the cleanup of contaminated environments. A crucial aspect for the practical use of this technique is the selection of adequate native plant species with high tolerance and capacity to accumulate the metals. The aim of this study was to identify autochthonous plant species that have potential capability for remediation of soil contaminated with lead. Seventeen different families of endemic plant species were identified in a polluted area showing large differences in the shoot’s lead accumulation. The highest shoot Pb concentrations were found in Amaranthus hybridus (2208 μg/g). However, the lead bioconcentration factor for this plant is less than 1. Only for Buddleja scordioides (Buddlejaceae) and Cerdia congestiflora (Caryophilaceae) the Pb bioconcentration factors are 1.31 and 1.05, respectively, which classifies them as lead-tolerant species.
NASA AMES RESEARCH CENTER CLIMATE CHANGE EFFECTS AND ADAPTATION RESEARCH: HIND- AND FORECASTING FLOOD RISK OF NASA AMES RESEARCH CENTER USING THE BASINS MODEL

NASA Ames Research Center (ARC), located at the southern end of San Francisco Bay, CA is at increased risk of flooding under future climate change scenarios. Sea level rise, accompanied with tidal action, storm surges, and local erosion, may cause inundation if levee heights are not increased. Also, possible changes in storm frequency and intensity, as well as land use changes, could cause inland flooding by fresh water. This analysis uses the BASINS (Better Assessment Science Integrating point & Non-point Sources) model to simulate hydrologic conditions at NASA ARC during selected past El Nino events. The 1997/98 storm event caused flooding on the Center, while the 1977/78 and the 1992/93 events, which were similar in precipitation amount and frequency, did not. BASINS modeled these past heavy precipitation events and other future storm events under projected climate conditions to assess flood risk at NASA ARC. These preliminary results will assist master planners in adapting new procedures for NASA ARC future developments with awareness of anticipated climate change effects.
Importancia y probabilidad de uso del e-commerce en PyMES

La pandemia del Covid-19 ha acelerado el ingreso de consumidores al comercio electrónico (e-commerce), lo cual ha llegado a ser una oportunidad para expandir el mercado de las Pequeñas y Medianas Empresas (PyMES). La presente investigación fue de carácter no experimental, de tipo descriptivo-correlacional con diseño transversal. Los principales hallazgos revelan que a medida que aumenta la edad de los empresarios, la importancia del e-commerce disminuye. Además, a medida que aumenta la edad de los empresarios es menos probable que hagan uso del e-commerce en sus PyMES. Concluyendo que los empresarios que le dan más importancia al e-commerce, es más probable que implementen este modelo de negocio online en sus PyMES.
THE EFFECT OF FINANCIAL LEVERAGE, PROFITABILITY, AND INSTITUTIONAL OWNERSHIP TOWARDS INCOME SMOOTHING IN BASIC INDUSTRY AND CHEMICAL, MISCELLANEOUS INDUSTRY, AND CONSUMER GOODS INDUSTRY LISTED ON INDONESIA STOCK EXCHANGE FOR THE PERIOD 2019-2021

The purpose of this study is to obtain empirical evidence about the effect of financial leverage, profitability, and institutional ownership towards income smoothing in basic industry and chemical, miscellaneous industry, and consumer goods industry listed on Indonesia Stock Exchange for the period 2019-2021. This study used 65 samples and 195 data from companies in basic industry and chemical, miscellaneous industry, and consumer goods industry that have been selected using purposive sampling technique. The data was processed using Eviews version 12 software. The result of this study shows that financial leverage and profitability have significant negative effect towards income smoothing, while institutional ownership has no effect towards income smoothing.
Knowledge, protection behaviours and seroprevalence of Lyme borreliosis in inhabitants of Lublin Province, eastern Poland - evaluation of a prophylaxis programme.

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVE Lyme borreliosis (LB) is the most frequent tick-borne disease with 17,338 cases reported in Poland in 2022. Since research on a LB vaccine is still ongoing, the promotion of individual behaviours and limiting of tick exposure is one of the most effective ways to prevent LB. The aim of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the LB prevention programme by assessing the knowledge, practice behaviours, seroprevalence of LB and satisfaction among the population of the Lublin Province in eastern Poland. MATERIAL AND METHODS The prevention programme was carried out among 2,920 participants who were asked about their exposure to ticks, history of LB and prevention behaviours. Awareness of knowledge was evaluated before and after training. Seroprevalence of LB was rated by ELISA and immunoblot assays. RESULTS Over 73% of participants reported tick bites in their lifetime, without significant differences between rural and urban area inhabitants. More than 80% of individuals declared that they use protective measures (PPM), such as proper clothes and body checking; repellents were the least frequently used by participants. The diagnosis of LB but not tick bites in a lifetime influenced the more frequent use of PPM. Increase in knowledge was observed in 86% of participants after education, and the highest knowledge was noted among respondents with higher education. The seroprevalence of anti-B. burgdorferi antibodies was 37% and was higher among men than women (40% vs. 36%). CONCLUSIONS The population of Lublin Province is highly exposed to tick bites and infection with B. burgdorferi. The high seroprevalence and increase in knowledge confirmed the effectiveness and need for preventive programmes. These results can be useful for optimizing and enhancing the effects of future prevention campaigns.
Seeding the Grassroots of Research on Furries: Lessons Learned from 15 Years of Creative Knowledge Mobilization, Valuing Community Partnerships, and Correcting the Record on Stigmatized Communities with Evidence-Based Scholarship

ABSTRACT This paper documents a case study of how academics can use traditional research and non-traditional knowledge mobilization to improve the dissemination of findings related to stigmatized communities. The International Anthropomorphic Research Project (IARP) used peer-reviewed scholarship to challenge pervasive media misconceptions and misinformation about furries. Finding the reach of traditional academic outlets was inadequate to meaningfully impact mainstream misconceptions, we rebranded our research efforts under the name Furscience and utilized social marketing and creative dissemination to repackage the IARP’s research into more public-friendly, accessible formats. Furscience has become a multi-purpose platform specifically engineered to forge connections among academics, furries, the public, and media. It also supports the furry community’s own diverse, anti-stigma efforts by providing data, public education, and partnerships. We offer preliminary evidence that suggests Furscience has increased its public reach and that furries, themselves, see improvements in how the media and public understand their community. This case study offers academics who work with stigmatized populations—especially those plagued by misinformation—and engage in translational research an example of how data, community and media partnerships, and non-traditional dissemination strategies can improve research accessibility and anti-stigma efforts. We conclude with a summary of the lessons learned by Furscience.
Assessment of Habitat, Fish Communities, and Streamflow Requirements for Habitat Protection, Ipswich River, Massachusetts, 1998-99

The relations among stream habitat, fish communities, and hydrologic conditions were investigated in the Ipswich River Basin in northeastern Massachusetts. Data were assessed from 27 sites on the mainstem of the Ipswich River from July to September 1998 and from 10 sites on 5 major tributaries in July and August 1999. Habitat assessments made in 1998 determined that in a year with sustained streamflow for most of the summer, the Ipswich River contains diverse, highquality aquatic habitat. Channel types are predominantly low gradient glides, pools, and impoundments, with a sandy streambed and a forest or shrub riparian zone. Features that provide fish habitat are located mostly along stream margins; these features include overhanging brush, undercut banks, exposed roots, and woody debris. These habitat features decrease in availability to aquatic communities with declining streamflows and generally become unavailable after streamflows drop to the point where the edge of water recedes from the stream banks. The mainstem and tributaries were sampled to determine fish species composition, relative abundance, and length frequency. Fish sampling indicates that the fish community in the Ipswich River is currently a warm-water fish community dominated by pond-type fish. However, historical temperature data, and survival of stocked trout in the mainstem Ipswich into late summer of 1998, indicate that the Ipswich River potentially could support cold-water fish species if adequate flows are maintained. Dominant fish species sampled in the mainstem Ipswich River were redfin pickerel (Esox americanus), American eel (Anguilla rostrata), and pumpkinseed (Lepomis gibbosus), which together represented 41, 22, and 10 percent, respectively, of 4,745 fish sampled. The fish communities of the mainstem and tributaries contained few fluvial-dependent or fluvial-specialist species (requiring flow), and were dominated by macrohabitat generalists (tolerant of low-flow, warmwater, and ponded conditions). In comparison to a nearby river (Lamprey River, N.H.), and a reference fish community developed for inland New England streams, the Ipswich fish community would be expected to have appreciably higher percentages of fluvial-dependent and fluvial-specialist species were streamflows restored. Four riffle sites on the mainstem of the Ipswich River were identified as critical habitat areas because they are among the first sites to exhibit fish-passage problems or to dry during low flows. A watershed-scale precipitation-runoff model previously developed for the Ipswich River was used to simulate streamflows at these four sites for the period 1961–95 under no withdrawals (for water supply) and 1991 land use to evaluate habitat suitability under conditions that approximate the natural flow conditions. These simulated flows were used to calculate streamflow requirements by the Tennant and New England
Climate Change and Pakistan’s Environmental Policy in the Light of International Obligations

Climate Change is a global threat having its impacts on every sector of life. Although the causes stem from the industrialization of developed countries but the impacts of Climate Change are not restricted to only developed countries. The research deals with outlining the major gaps that hinder the implementation of international obligations. It starts from elaborating the major impacts that climate change pose to Pakistan such as ecological, agriculture, and health related. It also outlines the legislation done by Provinces and Federal Government to tackle this issue. In last, the major reason is explained and a suggestion of Cooperative federalism is also given, which can help figure out better laws and their implementation throughout Pakistan.
Use of an Asparaginyl Endopeptidase for Chemo-enzymatic Peptide and Protein Labeling

Transpeptidases are ideal biocatalysts for site-specific peptide and protein labeling, whereas reactions that target N-terminus cysteine with commercially available reagents have become common practice. However, a versatile approach that allows bioconjugation at the terminus of choice (N or C), while avoiding the use of backbone-modified substrates (e.g. depsipeptide) or large excess of reagent, is highly desirable. Aiming to meet these benchmarks, we have combined the advantages of asparaginyl endopeptidase (AEP) catalysis with a N-terminal cysteine trapping reaction and created a chemo-enzymatic labeling system. In this approach, polypeptide with a Asn-Cys-Leu recognition sequence are ligated with a counterpart possessing an N-terminal Gly-Leu by AEP; the byproduct Cys-Leu is subsequently trapped by a stable and inexpensive scavenger, 2-formyl phenylboronic acid (FPBA), to yield an inert thiazolidine derivative, thereby driving the reaction forward to product formation. By carefully screening the reaction conditions for optimal compatibility and minimal hydrolysis, conversion to the ligated product in the model reaction resulted in excellent yields. The versatility of this AEP ligation/FPBA coupling system was further demonstrated by site-specific labeling the N- or C-termini of various proteins.
Reification of Structural Violence in Video Games. Crime, Media, Culture. p. 1.

The Grand Theft Auto franchise features prominently within existing research exploring graphic, virtual, lawless, and damagingly realistic interpersonal violence within video games. Following a review of this literature, we empirically interrogate notions of the ‘realistic’ and the ‘violent’ during gameplay, finding that the undertones of systemic, structural, capitalistic violence are experienced by players as providing the gritty sense of the ‘real’ that the game has been criticised for. Using Galtung’s concept of ‘structural violence’ and Žižek’s notion of the ‘real’, we unpack structural violence as the forerunning violent experience in the open world game. Due to the hidden and subdued nature of this violence, often taken for granted and experienced passively, we argue that it is the most impactful player experience that simultaneously makes the game playable and contextualises violent game activities. For cultural criminology, our data suggest that embedded and discrete forms of violence should be the leading edge of concern when studying the digital economy and playable forms of social harm.
A regional spatial-retrofitting approach to geovisualise regional urban growth: An application to the Golden Horseshoe in Canada

Understanding urban change in particular for larger regions has been a great demur in both regional planning and geography. One of the main challenges has been linked to the potential of modelling urban change. The absence of spatial data and size of areas of study limit the traditional urban monitoring approaches, which also do not take into account visualization techniques that share information with the community. This is the case of the Golden Horseshoe in southern Ontario in Canada, one of the fastest growing regions in North America. An unprecedented change on the urban environment has been witnessed, leading to an increased importance of awareness for future planning in the region. With a population greater than 8 million, the Golden Horseshoe is steadily showing symptoms of becoming a mega-urban region, joining surrounding cities into a single and diversified urban landscape. However, little effort has been done to understand these changes, nor to share information with policy makers, stakeholders and investors. These players are in need of the most diverse information on urban land use, which is seldom available from a single source. The spatio-temporal effect of the growth of this urban region could very well be the birth of yet another North American megacity. Therefore, from a spatial perspective there is demand for joint collaboration and adoption of a regional science perspective including land use and spatio-temporal configurations. This calls forth a novel technique that allows for assessment of urban and regional change, and supports decision-making without having the usual concerns of locational data availability. It is this sense, that we present a spatial-retrofitting model, with the objective of (i) retrofitting spatial land use based on current land use and land cover, and assessing proportional change in the past, leading to four spatial timestamps of the Golden Horseshoe’s land use, while (ii) integrating this in a multi-user open source web environment to facilitate synergies for decision-making. This combined approach is referred to as a regional-spatial-retrofitting approach (RSRA), where the conclusions permit accurate assessment of land use in past time frames based on Landsat imagery. The RSRA also allows for a collective vision of regional urban growth supporting local governance through a decision-making process adhering to Volunteered Geographic Information Systems. Urban land use change can be refined by means of contribution from end-users through a web environment, leading to a constant understanding and monitoring of urban land use and urban land use change.
Relations entre l'excès de poids, la qualité de l'alimentation et l'insécurité alimentaire chez les Premières Nations vivant sur les réserves de la Colombie-Britannique, Canada

There is consistent evidence showing that the prevalence of excess weight is increasing all over the world. In Canada, the prevalence is 59.4%, of which 23.1% can be ascribed to obesity and 36.0% to overweight. These proportions are higher in aboriginal populations, along with higher prevalence of food insecurity and a transition diet characterized by less traditional foods known to be of high nutrient content, and more market foods of lower nutritional density. Because of this situation, the World Health Organization has recommended new research strategies and initiatives in order to document the health status of these populations and prevent negative health consequences. Our study aimed to describe the phenomena of excess weight and food insecurity among adult First Nations (FN), aged 19 years and over, living on the reserves of British Columbia (BC); this sample is the first of a ten year project, the “First Nations Food, Nutrition and Environment Study” (FNFNES) aiming to document the nutritional status and exposure to contaminants in Canadian First Nations communities living south of the 60 parallel. Specifically, this thesis aims to link three health dimensions: excess weight, diet quality and food insecurity. We explored whether in the context of FN people living on the reserves of BC, 1) an inadequate diet quality is associated with a higher risk of excess weight; 2) household food insecurity is associated with inadequate diet quality; and 3) together, diet quality and food insecurity might explain the high prevalence of excess weight. Our results (from univariate, bivariate, MANOVA and logistic regression analysis of data collected in 2008/2009) show that among women (n = 493) and men (n = 356) respectively, the prevalences were 44.8% and 35.4% for obesity, and 31.6% and 41.3% for overweight, for a total of 76.4% and 76.7% for excess weight; for food insecurity, the prevalence was 39.3% for women and 34.8% for men. Only 42.4% of women and 43.8% of men had sufficient access to traditional foods. After controlling for sociodemographic and lifestyle variables, the results of multivariate analysis suggest that although the prevalences of
Distributional Impacts of Climate Change and Food Security in Southeast Asia

Climate and agriculture are closely linked, as weather and climate are the primary factors in agricultural production. Due to high levels of CO2, future projections of climate change indicate increasing temperatures and varied rainfall, both which will have major impacts on the agricultural sector. In this context, this paper assesses food security with respect to climate changes over Southeast Asia, with a focus on southern Viet Nam. This multidisciplinary study integrates regional climate modelling, agricultural science-crop modelling and risk assessments, which form the base for the creation of regional/local information products that will have direct societal applications. This study is useful for assessing socio-economic risks and leads to opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration, which will bring direct benefits to the Southeast Asian/Association of Southeast Asian Nations region to develop adequate adaptive practices towards risk management, food security, diversification, and planning.
Seeking Alpha : Excess Risk Taking and Competition for Managerial Talent Viral

We present a model of labor market equilibrium in which managers are riskaverse, managerial talent (“alpha”) is scarce and firms compete for this talent. When there is lack of managerial mobility across firms, firms provide efficient long-term compensation that allows for learning about managerial talent and assigning managers to tasks based on their talent. In this case, firms can insure low-quality managers since high-quality managers have limited outside options. In contrast, the ability of managers to move across firms raises the prospect of high-quality managers extracting full economic rents due their skill and this prevents firms from providing co-insurance among managers. In anticipation, risk-averse managers may churn across firms before their performance is fully learnt and thereby prevent their efficient assignment to tasks. The result is excessive risk-taking with pay for short-term performance and build up of longterm risks. As the model is suited to explaining compensation and turnover in the financial sector, we conclude with analysis of policies to address the externality in compensation among financial firms. JEL classification: D62, G32, G38, J33.
E-GOVERNMENT SUCCESS FACTORS FROM A BUSINESSES PERSPECTIVE IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: A CASE OF JORDAN

This paper presents a study which examines several e-government success factors in Jordan. Due to the pace of globalization and rapid global growth of technology and the Internet information, many governments around the world have turned their services from traditional services into e-government services. Were the citizens, business organizations and other stakeholders are served via the internet. Jordan is one of the rare countries in the Middle East with a history of commitment to good governance and ICT-related initiatives. In recent years, Jordan’s efforts to provide e-government services to the public have been recognized. But still Jordan faces the problem of low usage levels of these electronic services, plus several scholars addressed that several studies were conducted from citizen perspective but few for businesses perspective. For a better understanding of e-government and its influence on the society as all and on the business society in particular the researchers carried out this study to identify the success factors which affect e-government adoption in Jordan, also to investigate the factors that determine business organization satisfaction towards e-government in Jordan. In this paper the researcher will discuss four factors that affect the success of e-government services from businesses perspective in Jordan as followed: e-service quality, perceived usefulness
Microbial life of the deep biosphere

This book brings together a variety of topics, covering the broad range of issues that are associated with deep biosphere exploration. In order to explain our observations from deep subsurface ecosystems it is necessary to develop interdisciplinary approaches, ranging from microbiology and geochemistry to physics and modeling. This volume will be of high interest to biologists, chemists and earth scientists all working on the deep biosphere.