LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Disrupting Demand for Commercial Seed: Input Subsidies in Malawi and Zambia

iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The Indaba Agricultural Policy Research Institute is a non-profit company limited by guarantee and collaboratively works with public and private stakeholders. IAPRI exists to carry out agricultural policy research and outreach, serving the agricultural sector in Zambia so as to contribute to sustainable pro-poor agricultural development. The Zambia portion of this study was funded by the USAID Zambia Mission (USAID/Zambia). The authors also wish to thank Drs. Kim Yi Dionne and Melinda Smale for helpful comments on earlier versions of the paper. We further would like to acknowledge Patricia Johannes for her valuable formatting and editorial assistance. Any views expressed or remaining errors are solely the responsibility of the authors. Input subsidy programs that provide inorganic fertilizer and improved maize seed to small farmers below market rates are currently receiving a great deal of support as a sustainable strategy to foster an African Green Revolution. In recent years numerous countries in Sub-Zambia have implemented such programs at substantial cost to government and donor budgets. For example, in 2008 Malawi spent roughly 70% of the Ministry of Agriculture's budget or just over 16% of the government's total budget subsidizing fertilizer and seed. In Zambia between 2004 and 2011, an average of 40% of the government's agricultural sector budget was devoted to fertilizer and maize seed subsidies each year. Unlike the universal input subsidies that were common prior to the agricultural market reforms of the 1980s and 1990s, many of the current input subsidy programs in SSA target the subsidies towards households that meet certain criteria. By selecting people who would not otherwise participate in input markets, in principle these targeted input subsidies should not disrupt purchases of inputs at commercial prices in the way that universal input subsidies did in the past. The extent to which input subsidies disrupt commercial purchases of inputs is an important determinant of the impact of the subsidy program on total input use. If an input subsidy has a positive effect on purchases of inputs at commercial prices, then the subsidy can be said to crowd in commercial purchases. On the other hand, if an input subsidy has a negative effect on commercial purchases, then the subsidy can be said to crowd out or displace commercial purchases. In this study, we use nationally representative household panel survey data from Malawi and Zambia to estimate the extent to which subsidized improved maize seed and subsidized …
Suggested improvements to Industry/University collaboration

From the perspective of a large technology-driven Corporation, this paper discusses key aspects of University-Industry-Government Partnerships. The focus is how relationships and processes might improve to efficiently optimize benefit to all parties in a complex environment.
Generalized Sparse Classifiers for Decoding Cognitive States in fMRI

The high dimensionality of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data presents major challenges to fMRI pattern classification. Directly applying standard classifiers often results in overfitting, which limits the generalizability of the results. In this paper, we propose a new group of classifiers, “Generalized Sparse Classifiers” (GSC), to alleviate this overfitting problem. GSC draws upon the recognition that numerous standard classifiers can be reformulated under a regression framework, which enables state-of-theart regularization techniques, e.g. elastic net, to be directly employed. Building on this regularized regression framework, we exploit an extension of elastic net that permits general properties, such as spatial smoothness, to be integrated. GSC thus facilitates simultaneous sparse feature selection and classification, while providing greater flexibility in the choice of penalties. We validate on real fMRI data and demonstrate how explicitly modeling spatial correlations inherent in brain activity using GSC can provide superior predictive performance and interpretability over standard classifiers.
Can smooth view transitions facilitate perceptual constancy in node-link diagrams?

Many visualizations use smoothly animated transitions to help the user interact with information structures. These transitions are intended to preserve perceptual constancy during viewpoint transformations. However, animated transitions also have costs -- they increase the transition time, and they can be complicated to implement -- and it is not clear whether the benefits of smooth transitions outweigh the costs. In order to quantify these benefits, we carried out two experiments that explore the effects of smooth transitions. In the first study, subjects were asked to determine whether graph nodes were connected, and navigated the graph either with or without smooth scene transitions. In the second study, participants were asked to identify the overall structure of a tree after navigating the tree through a viewport that either did or did not use smooth transitions for view changes. The results of both experiments show that smooth transitions can have dramatic benefits for user performance -- for example, participants in smooth transition conditions made half the errors of the discrete-movement conditions. In addition, short transitions were found to be as effective as long ones, suggesting that some of the costs of animations can be avoided. These studies give empirical evidence on the benefits of smooth transitions, and provide guidelines about when designers should use them in visualization systems.
Acceptance rates in state-federal vocational rehabilitation of clients with brain injury: Is racial disparity an issue?

PRIMARY OBJECTIVE
To utilize Aday and Andersen's Framework for the Study of Access to examine racial disparity within the State-Federal vocational rehabilitation system, among clients with brain injury. Research questions included: Do pre-disposing characteristics such as age, race, ethnicity, gender, marital status and education influence vocational rehabilitation acceptance rates in the US? Do enabling characteristics such as referral source, insurance coverage and primary source of support at application influence vocational rehabilitation acceptance rates in the US? Is there a difference, based on race, in the reason for case closure for vocational rehabilitation services?


METHODS AND PROCEDURES
Exhaustive CHAID analysis was conducted with acceptance for rehabilitation as the criterion variable and pre-disposing characteristics as predictor variables. Chi-square analysis was calculated with regard to reason for closure.


MAIN OUTCOMES AND RESULTS
Descriptive findings are presented. Of the pre-disposing factors, the most significant predictor of acceptance rate was education level. Pearson Chi-square analyses revealed significant differences between White and non-White clients with brain injury with regard to reason for closure.


CONCLUSIONS
The data indicate that racial differences were only a small part of the overall equation and again that distinct disparity by race is not evidenced in the RSA-911 data for persons with a primary or secondary diagnosis of brain injury.
Activated platelets in subjects at increased risk of IDDM

Activated platelets respond to activated leukocytes and endothelial cells via adhesion molecules linking inflammation and thrombosis. Platelets of recent-onset insulin-dependent diabetic (IDDM) patients have been shown to be activated independent of metabolic control. This study evaluates the levels of circulating activated platelets exposing adhesion molecules in healthy subjects at increased risk of IDDM (surface markers were: P-selectin (CD62), thrombospondin, lysosomal GP53 (CD63) ). From the DENIS and the ENDIT screening programmes 19 identified islet cell antibody positive (titre ≥ 20 Juvenile Diabetes Foundation units) first degree relatives of IDDM patients (male/female 9/10; age 22 ± 15 years; body mass index (BMI): 20.0 ± 4.3 kg/m2) with clearly normal metabolism (HbA1: 6.1 ± 0.8 %; fasting blood glucose: 4.95 ± 0.67 mmol/l) were available for this investigation. Platelet CD62 as well as thrombospondin and CD63 expression were determined by flow cytometry. We matched 50 normal volunteers for age (29 ± 6 years), anthropometric measures (male/female 26/24; BMI: 22.3 ± 2.8 kg/m2) and metabolic parameters (HbA1: 5.8 % ± 0.3; fasting blood glucose: 4.41 ± 0.53 mmol/l) served as control subjects. The mean number of CD62+ platelets was increased 3.2-times in prediabetic patients: 1.94 × 2.91±1 vs 0.60 × 1.83±1 %, p < 0.0001. Thrombospondin+ and CD63+ platelet levels were concomitantly increased (1.45 × 2.38±1/5.97 × 2.89±1 % vs 0.52 × 2.01±1/1.64 × 2.26±1 %, p < 0.0001 for both comparisons). Thus, intravasal platelet activation is already present in potentially prediabetic subjects representing an antecedent, potentially pathogenic feature of IDDM. [Diabetologia (1997) 40: 573–577]
A new age in AquaMedicine: unconventional approach in studying aquatic diseases

BACKGROUND
Marine and aquaculture industries are important sectors of the food production and global trade. Unfortunately, the fish food industry is challenged with a plethora of infectious pathogens. The freshwater and marine fish communities are rapidly incorporating novel and most up to date techniques for detection, characterization and treatment strategies. Rapid detection of infectious diseases is important in preventing large disease outbreaks.


MAIN TEXT
One hundred forty-six articles including reviews papers were analyzed and their conclusions evaluated in the present paper. This allowed us to describe the most recent development research regarding the control of diseases in the aquatic environment as well as promising avenues that may result in beneficial developments. For the characterization of diseases, traditional sequencing and histological based methods have been augmented with transcriptional and proteomic studies. Recent studies have demonstrated that transcriptional based approaches using qPCR are often synergistic to expression based studies that rely on proteomic-based techniques to better understand pathogen-host interactions. Preventative therapies that rely on prophylactics such as vaccination with protein antigens or attenuated viruses are not always feasible and therefore, the development of therapies based on small nucleotide based medicine is on the horizon. Of those, RNAi or CRISPR/Cas- based therapies show great promise in combating various types of diseases caused by viral and parasitic agents that effect aquatic and fish medicine.


CONCLUSIONS
In our modern times, when the marine industry has become so vital for feed and economic stability, even the most extreme alternative treatment strategies such as the use of small molecules or even the use of disease to control invasive species populations should be considered.
The best time to acquire new skills: age-related differences in implicit sequence learning across the human lifespan.

Implicit skill learning underlies obtaining not only motor, but also cognitive and social skills through the life of an individual. Yet, the ontogenetic changes in humans' implicit learning abilities have not yet been characterized, and, thus, their role in acquiring new knowledge efficiently during development is unknown. We investigated such learning across the lifespan, between 4 and 85 years of age with an implicit probabilistic sequence learning task, and we found that the difference in implicitly learning high- vs. low-probability events--measured by raw reaction time (RT)--exhibited a rapid decrement around age of 12. Accuracy and z-transformed data showed partially different developmental curves, suggesting a re-evaluation of analysis methods in developmental research. The decrement in raw RT differences supports an extension of the traditional two-stage lifespan skill acquisition model: in addition to a decline above the age 60 reported in earlier studies, sensitivity to raw probabilities and, therefore, acquiring new skills is significantly more effective until early adolescence than later in life. These results suggest that due to developmental changes in early adolescence, implicit skill learning processes undergo a marked shift in weighting raw probabilities vs. more complex interpretations of events, which, with appropriate timing, prove to be an optimal strategy for human skill learning.
PHR Based Life Health Index Mobile Service Using Decision Support Model

In modern society, interest in health is increasing and the development of medical devices and wireless communication enabled people to get healthcare services easily anytime and anywhere, i.e. ubiquitous healthcare. The development of IT convergence and network technology enabled users to obtain user-centered useful information easily through portable mobile devices as well as computers. Currently, healthcare related user-centered healthcare contents are being actively served and demand related to disease prevention or health promotion is steadily increasing. This paper proposes PHR-based life health index mobile services using a decision support model. A decision support model is developed by using health index related data of existing health weather index service and national health and nutrition survey provided by the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) and applications of the mobile environment are developed so that users can receive healthcare services easily anytime and anywhere. The developed mobile service application implemented its interface for the user’s convenient healthcare and was developed to enable interlocking with the user’s PHR information through web server. Unlike comprehensive and standardized index services of existing KMA health weather index and life health index service, the developed mobile service is serving the user’s health status in three stages of danger, alert, safety by using personalized PHR information. The development of the PHR-based life health index mobile service using the decision making model allowed users to check current health status index and obesity measurement, body mass index (BMI), abdominal obesity, potential obesity risk index etc. easily anytime and anywhere only with simple input in the interface of mobile application. Also, accurate and & Kyungyong Chung dragonhci@gmail.com Hoill Jung hijung1982@gmail.com 1 Intelligent System Laboratory, School of Computer Information Engineering, Sangji University, 83, Sangjidae-gil, Wonju-si, Gangwon-do 220-702, Korea 2 School of Computer Information Engineering, Sangji University, 83, Sangjidae-gil, Wonju-si, Gangwon-do 220-702, Korea 123 Wireless Pers Commun DOI 10.1007/s11277-015-3069-8
Mean value coordinates in 3D

Abstract: Trivariate barycentric coordinates can be used both to express a point inside a tetrahedron as a convex combination of the four vertices and to linearly interpolate data given at the vertices. In this paper we generalize these coordinates to convex polyhedra and the kernels of star-shaped polyhedra. These coordinates generalize in a natural way a recently constructed set of coordinates for planar polygons, called mean value coordinates.
Hypoxia-specific tumor imaging with 18F-fluoroazomycin arabinoside.

UNLABELLED
The study was performed to compare the (18)F-labeled nitroimidazole compound fluoroazomycin arabinoside ((18)F-FAZA) with the standard hypoxia tracer fluoromisonidazole ((18)F-FMISO) in detection of tumor tissue hypoxia and to verify the oxygenation dependency of (18)F-FAZA uptake.


METHODS
Biodistribution of (18)F-FAZA was studied at various time points in EMT6 tumor-bearing BALB/c mice and in AR42J and A431 tumor-bearing nude mice and compared with that of (18)F-FMISO. The presence of tumor tissue hypoxia was verified in 5 EMT6 and 5 AR42J tumors using an oxygen-sensing needle electrode system. To evaluate the oxygenation dependency of (18)F-FAZA uptake, using the Munich prototype animal PET scanner, 2 serial PET scans were performed in 13 A431 tumor-bearing nude mice breathing pure oxygen or room air on 1 d and then selecting the other oxygen breathing condition on the following day. In addition, digital autoradiography was performed with EMT6 tumor-bearing (18)F-FAZA-dosed, nude mice breathing either room air (n = 8) or carbogen (n = 9).


RESULTS
Tissue partial pressure of oxygen (Po(2)) electrode measurements revealed that tumor hypoxia was present under room air breathing in EMT6 (tissue Po(2) = 2.9 +/- 2.6) and AR42J tumors (tissue Po(2) = 0.4 +/- 0.2), which was significantly lower compared with that of reference tissue (tissue Po(2) = 25.8 +/- 6.7 and tissue Po(2) = 29.0 +/- 3.0 [mean +/- SD], respectively; P < 0.01). In all tumor models, (18)F-FAZA displayed significantly higher tumor-to-muscle and tumor-to-blood ratios compared with (18)F-FMISO, indicating a faster clearance of (18)F-FAZA from normal tissues. In AR42J tumors, (18)F-FAZA tumor-to-normal ratios were found to increase over time. Serial animal (18)F-FAZA PET studies showed that the tumor-to-background ratio was significantly higher in animals breathing room air compared with that of animals breathing pure oxygen (7.3 +/- 2.3 vs. 4.2 +/- 1.2, respectively; P < 0.001). Similarly, autoradiography showed significantly higher tumor-to-muscle ratios in mice breathing room air compared with those of animals breathing carbogen (5.3 +/- 0.8 vs. 2.2 +/- 0.8; respectively; P < 0.02).


CONCLUSION
(18)F-FAZA shows superior biokinetics and is, thus, a promising PET tracer for the visualization of tumor hypoxia. This study also verified a hypoxia-specific uptake mechanism for (18)F-FAZA in murine tumor models.
Relationship between pretreatment specific IgE and the response to omalizumab therapy.

BACKGROUND
Omalizumab, an anti-IgE antibody, has proven efficacy in patients with moderate-to-severe and severe persistent allergic (IgE-mediated) asthma. While previous analyses have had some limited success in predicting which patients will gain greatest benefit based on pretreatment baseline characteristics, it remains important to try to improve this predictability.


METHODS
Following a run-in phase, patients (12-75 years) inadequately controlled despite current therapy were randomized to receive omalizumab or placebo for 28 weeks in a double-blind, parallel-group, multicenter study (INNOVATE). Univariate analyses were performed to assess whether pretreatment specific IgE serum levels and related variables could be identified that were predictive of a response to omalizumab patients (n = 337) enrolled in INNOVATE. Response was measured via variables including exacerbations, QoL, FEV(1) and physicians' overall assessment.


RESULTS
A total of 305 patients (90.5%) were sensitive to more than one allergen and the majority of patients were positive to D1 Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus and D2 Dermatophagoides farinae. Patients with relatively high values of D1 or D2, but with these making a relatively low contribution to total specific IgE load, appeared to attain most benefit from omalizumab. However, no consistent predictive effect for omalizumab response was observed either for total specific IgE or levels of IgEs specific for individual allergens.


CONCLUSIONS
Based on these data, pretreatment allergen-specific IgE levels do not provide any better prediction of response to treatment as compared with pretreatment total IgE. At present, the most reliable method of identifying patients who respond to omalizumab treatment remains a physician's assessment.
An improved optimal design scheme for high voltage cable accessories

Cable accessory always fits cable with a shrink range in order to ensure a certain interface pressure in the actual use, so cable accessory keeps in the expansive state after installation. But the expanded accessory will lead to not only a thinner insulation thickness and a shorter length but also a possible problem in the accessory, as the angle of stress cone and the shape at end of high voltage (HV) shielding tube may far deviate from the original design structure. This will be a vital threat to the reliability of cable accessory in service. In this paper, an improved design scheme for HV cable accessories was proposed to ensure the optimum electrical design after installation. The key process was the deduction of deformation and displacement equations of cable accessory during expansion by the theory of elastic mechanics. As joints are always much weaker than terminations in the cable system, the case studies were conducted only on cable joints in this paper, and the electrical fields were calculated to evaluate their performances. By contrast with the electrical field distributions before and after improvements, the results show that the expansion will not only change the joint structure but also aggravate the electrical fields at the interface or in the bulk of the joint. At last, a comparison was made on an actual cable joint which kept in the expansive or relaxation state, so as to verify the correction of the deformation and recovery equations proposed in this paper. This improved design scheme can also be applied for termination design, especially be great helpful for the higher or extra HV cable accessories' manufacture and the long-term operation safety.
Morbidity and mortality after bowel resection for acute mesenteric ischemia.

BACKGROUND
Patients presenting with acute mesenteric ischemia (AMI) sufficiently advanced to require bowel resection have a high morbidity and mortality. The objective of this study was to analyze these patients to determine if certain pre- or intraoperative variables are predictive of death or complications which could then be used to develop a predictive model to aid in surgical decision-making.


METHODS
Patients undergoing bowel resection for AMI were identified from the American College of Surgeons' National Surgical Quality Improvement Program database (2007-2008). Multiple logistic regression analysis was performed.


RESULTS
The 861 patients identified had a median age of 69 years. Thirty-day postoperative morbidity and mortality were 56.6% and 27.9%, respectively. Pre- and intraoperative variables significantly associated with postoperative mortality (C statistic, 0.84) included preoperative do not resuscitate order, open wound, low albumin, dirty vs clean-contaminated case, and poor functional status. Pre- and intraoperative variables significantly associated with postoperative morbidity (C statistic, 0.79) included admission from chronic care facility, recent myocardial infarction, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, requiring ventilator support, preoperative renal failure, previous cardiac surgery, and prolonged operative time. A predictive risk calculator was developed using these variables.


CONCLUSION
Mortality and morbidity rates after bowel resection for AMI are high. A risk calculator for prediction of postoperative mortality and morbidity has been developed and awaits validation in subsequent studies.