Effect of Planting Dates and ZnO Nanoparticles Spraying on the Some Growth Indicators, Aromatic Oil and Its Content of Active Compounds of Pimpinella anisum L. Plant

A field experiment was conducted during a winter season of 2023 in the botanical garden of the College of Basic Education - Al-Mustansiriya University to knowing the effect of planting dates and ZnO nanoparticles spraying on the some growth indicators, aromatic oil and its content of active compounds of anise plant. A split-plots arrangement according to randomized complete block design (RCBD) was used with three replications. The main plots contained two planting dates (1/11 and 15/11), whereas the sub plots contained spraying of two concentrations of ZnO nanoparticles (5 and 10 mg L-1) in addition to spraying of distilled water only (0 mg nano-Zn L-1). The results revealed that second planting date (15/11) was significantly superiority in the plant content of nitrogen (15.65 mg N g-1), plant content of phosphorous (9.72 mg P g-1), plant height (73.33 cm), main branches number (20.56 branch plant-1) and fruits number (20.33 fruit inflorescence-1). Otherwise the first date (1/11) was significantly superiority in the 1000-fruits weight (3.89 g) and aromatic oil percentage (5.26%). As well, the spraying of ZnO nanoparticles at a concentration of 10 mg L-1 was significantly superiority in plant height (73.17 cm) and 1000-fruits weight (4.21 g) and aromatic oil percentage (5.66%), while the  spraying of ZnO nanoparticles at a concentration of 5 mg L-1 was significantly superiority and gave a highest average of the plant content of nitrogen (14.98 mg N g-1), plant content of phosphorous (9.66 mg P g-1), main branches number (19.67 branch plant-1), fruits number (19.33 fruit inflorescence-1). Further, the results of HPLC analysis showed that the percentages of active compounds of anise aromatic oil were varied by the effect of planting date and spraying of ZnO nanoparticles

Gender Speech Differences in Politeness Strategies Among University Students: The Malaysian Context

According to Lakoff (1975), women use more politeness strategies than men because of their inferior position in a society. Furthermore, Lakoff indicated that women also use different strategies in order to talk in less assertive ways such as with the use of tag questions, indirect statements, and discourse particles. Many studies which have been conducted, based on her claims, showed inconsistent findings. Commentators such as Romaine (1994), Holmes (1995), Gordon (1997), Cameron (1992), Tannen (1993), and Wardhaugh (1998) are of the idea that the use of politeness strategies is dependent on many social factors that are reflected in the use of the language. Meanwhile, studies on gender speech differences, especially those concerning the use of politeness strategies, have been conducted in different contexts and fields. However, few such studies have been conducted in the Malaysian context and none so far has focused on university students. In carrying out the study of gender speech differences in politeness strategies among university students, the researcher utilizes a qualitative as well as a quantitative design. The study sample consisted of the students of BA English language programme at the Faculty of Modern Languages and Communication, Universiti Putra Malaysia. The data was collected via recordings of cross-gender conversations and questionnaires. The findings suggest that females tend to use more politeness strategies than males at the university level in the Malaysian context, which lend support to Lakoff's (1975) claim that women use more politeness strategies than men. However, not all of the reasons for using politeness strategies support Lakoffs claim that by using politeness strategies, women avoid straightforward statements due to their inferior positions in the society. Politeness strategies appeared to be mostly effected through the use of discourse particles. Additionally, the use of tag questions a s politeness strategies is more frequent among females, and they mainly use them as negative strategies. It is also noted that females use more direct statements to effect politeness strategies and mainly use them positively, which is not in line with Lakoffs claim. The discourse particles are mainly used by university students as negative politeness strategies. However, a comparison of the results also showed that males use more negative politeness strategies than females. Another finding is that a single strategy could be used to function both positively and negatively. It is also observed that the most frequently used discourse particles by the respondents are you know, I think, and yah. Tag questions used as politeness strategies are the forms right and ok. Most of the direct statements used as positive politeness strategies are the would clauses. The study highlights some points of gender speech differences in politeness strategies among university students in the Malaysian context

Effectiveness of Combined Exercise and Nutritional-Behavioral Intervention on Health Outcomes among Patients with Bariatric Surgery

Context: Many bariatric surgery patients experience suboptimal long-term weight outcomes, including weight regain. Weight regaining threatens the benefits initially achieved from surgery, including improved health outcomes, and patients still require hard work and lifelong behavioral change to lose and maintain weight successfully. Aim: This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of combined exercise and nutritional-behavioral intervention on health outcomes among patients with bariatric surgery. Methods: A quasi-experimental (study/control group) design was utilized in the present study that was conducted at surgical departments and outpatient clinics in the Benha University Hospital, Qualubia Governorate, from January 2021 until April 2022. A convenience sample of 85 patients ended with 60 patients who completed the study (Intervention group 30 & control group 30). They were recruited according to to sample size equation based on the patient admitted to the study setting in 2020. Two tools were utilized for data collection; the patient structured interviewing questionnaire and the patient’s health outcomes questionnaires that included anthropometric measures, eating behavior and food frequency questionnaire, international physical activity questionnaire, and the Moorehead-Ardelt quality of life questionnaire. Results: The findings revealed a mean sample age of 35.53±4.06 for the intervention group and 34.47±4.11 for the control group. The intervention and control groups revealed a highly statistically significant difference regarding all knowledge elements and the total knowledge score. Besides, a statistically significant improvement in the intervention group's knowledge throughout the study phases. A highly statistically significant difference was revealed in the percentage of weight loss (%wt L) among the intervention group throughout the following study periods (first month, six months, and one year of intervention), with statistically significant differences between the intervention and control group after one and six months, and after one year of intervention regarding their weight, % wt L, BMI, and excess BMI loss percentage. Eating habit scores revealed statistically significant differences between the intervention and control group regarding eating behaviors and food frequency at one and six months and one year of intervention. Residence (p=0.01), total patient knowledge (p=0.002), food frequency (p=0.000), and physical activity (p=0.001) level predicted weight loss in the intervention group, while age was the only predictor in the control group (p=0.02). Conclusion: Implementing the combined exercise and nutritional-behavioral intervention post bariatric surgery significantly improved patients' health outcomes in terms of improved patient knowledge, weight loss percentage, eating habits, physical activity, and quality of life levels among the intervention group compared to the control group. There is a need to raise knowledge of bariatric surgery patients regarding the value of living a healthy lifestyle for improving surgical outcomes and maintaining weight loss. &nbsp

Studies on Prostaglandins, Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs, and Helicobacter pylori in Peptic Ulcer Disease

Gastric acid has always been recognized as a major factor in the pathogenesis of peptic ulcer disease. Recently, it has been suggested that three more factors are likely to influence the natural history of peptic ulceration: prostaglandins (PGs), non-steroidal-anti- inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), and Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori)

The Determinants of Foreign Direct Investment in Brazil

Brazil has been one of the significant recipients of foreign direct investment (FDI) among the newly emerging markets of global economy over the last 20 years, and has recorded rapid and sustained growth rates in a number of different industrial sectors. Indeed, FDI plays a significant role in the Brazilian economy. Brazil has been pursuing different foreign investment policies at different times depending on the development objectives and economic situation in the country. The present study has focussed on to empirically examine the influence of macroeconomic variables on Foreign Direct Investment in the Brazilian economy. The chosen macroeconomic variables are Gross Domestic Product (GDP), GDP per Capita (GDPPC), GDP growth rate(GDPGR), Trade ratio(TR), Exchange rate(ER), Inflation (INF) and rate of interest (Ri) as major determining factors. Regression method is applied to assess the functional relationship among these variables. The study is confined to the period of 20 years over 1990-2009 in Brazil. The findings of this study show that there is a strong positive relationship between Ex Rate, GDP, GDPPC and TR to the flow of FDI in the Brazilian economy.However, negative association between GDPGR, INF and Ri to FDI

Benchmarking Apache Spark and Hadoop MapReduce on Big Data Classification

Most of the popular Big Data analytics tools evolved to adapt their working environment to extract valuable information from a vast amount of unstructured data. The ability of data mining techniques to filter this helpful information from Big Data led to the term Big Data Mining. Shifting the scope of data from small-size, structured, and stable data to huge volume, unstructured, and quickly changing data brings many data management challenges. Different tools cope with these challenges in their own way due to their architectural limitations. There are numerous parameters to take into consideration when choosing the right data management framework based on the task at hand. In this paper, we present a comprehensive benchmark for two widely used Big Data analytics tools, namely Apache Spark and Hadoop MapReduce, on a common data mining task, i.e., classification. We employ several evaluation metrics to compare the performance of the benchmarked frameworks, such as execution time, accuracy, and scalability. These metrics are specialized to measure the performance for classification task. To the best of our knowledge, there is no previous study in the literature that employs all these metrics while taking into consideration task-specific concerns. We show that Spark is 5 times faster than MapReduce on training the model. Nevertheless, the performance of Spark degrades when the input workload gets larger. Scaling the environment by additional clusters significantly improves the performance of Spark. However, similar enhancement is not observed in Hadoop. Machine learning utility of MapReduce tend to have better accuracy scores than that of Spark, like around 3%, even in small size data sets.Comment: 2021 5th International Conference on Cloud and Big Data Computing (ICCBDC 2021

Management of social links - fluctuations and absences

Fluctuation is a natural phenomenon which every organization must deal with. Early observation of increased unwanted fluctuations (but also absence) and detection of reasons that cause it, can help the organization to solve them. Paper identifies the causes of fluctuations and absences in a particular company and suggests appropriate measures for gradual reduction using the necessary tools of motivation. When you are citing the document, use the following link http://essuir.sumdu.edu.ua/handle/123456789/3457