Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mushroom value chain analysis in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Mushroom value chain analysis was conducted in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. In rural areas of Ethiopia eating mushroom is a common practice in traditional way.The objective of the study was to measure the amount of value added along the chain. Primary and secondary data were collected from 120 producers, 5 traders, 8 spawn suppliers, 6 supermarkets, 7 hotels and restaurants and 40 end users. For analysis descriptive and inferential statistics such as, Percentage, value added, gross value added, t-test, -test, F-test, were applied. On average, about 14.5 quintal mushroom is produced per season with the productivity of 4.4 kilogram per bed. The average price of mushroom range from 43.6 to 57.9 ETB per kilogram. Mushroom value chain actors were input suppliers, producers, traders, processors and end users. There were eight mushroom marketing channels in the study area. The highest and the lowest amount of the total value added were 171.87 and 20.77 ETB per kilogram. Spawn suppliers play the greatest role in the collection and distribution of mushroom along the marketing channels. Substrate left after mushroom production was disposed in different ways. Most 54.2% of mushroom producers were throwing it away because they believed it causes environmental pollution. About 31.4% of the respondent used spent spawn for compost. Based on the results it can be concluded that, demographic, cultural, socio- economic and institutional factors influences mushroom value chain. It is recommended that, higher educational and research institutes should release mushroom technologies and scale up suitable varieties and substrate. Relevant governmental bodies should also create awareness about the nutritional and medicinal values of mushroom, generate market information, facilitate licensing, establish standard and quality control mechanisms and link producers to potential market. Food processing companies should also give attention to add value to mushroom for local and international markets. Key words: Ethiopia, Addis Ababa, mushroom, value chainand value added.
Serum Vitamin D in patients with alopecia areata

Background: Alopecia areata (AA) is a common, recurrent, autoimmune hair disorder. It has been found that vitamin D deficiency is associated with many autoimmune diseases. Aims: The current study aimed to estimate serum levels of 25-hydroxy vitamin D in patients with AA. Materials and Methods: This case–control study included 60 patients with AA and 60 age, gender, skin phototype, and body mass index-matched healthy subjects as a control group. Levels of serum 25-hydroxy vitamin D were estimated using ELISA technique. Results: Serum 25-hydroxy vitamin D levels were significantly lower in AA cases when compared with healthy controls (P < 0.001). The least values were significantly associated with alopecia totalis/universalis compared with patchy AA (P< 0.001) and ophiasis (P = 0.04). Severe AA showed significantly the lowest vitamin D levels compared with cases with mild (P = 0.002) and moderate disease (P = 0.03). A significant inverse correlation was found between 25-hydroxy vitamin D levels and age of the patients (r = −0.38; P = 0.03). There was no significant association between serum 25-hydroxy vitamin D levels and gender, disease duration, disease recurrence, nail affection, duration of sun exposure/day, or positive family history of AA. Conclusion: AA patients have lower levels of 25-hydroxy vitamin D than healthy subjects. More studies are required to assess the value of vitamin D supplementation in the treatment of that disease.
First-Order Estimates of Coastal Bathymetry in Ilulissat and Naajarsuit Fjords, Greenland, from Remotely Sensed Iceberg Observations

Warm water masses circulating at depth off the coast of Greenland play an important role in controlling rates of mass loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet through feedbacks associated with the melting of marine glacier termini. The ability of these warm waters to reach glacier termini is strongly controlled by fjord bathymetry, which was unmapped for the majority of Greenland’s fjords until recently. In response to the need for bathymetric measurements in previously uncharted areas, we developed two companion methods to infer fjord bathymetry using icebergs as depth sounders. The main premise of our methods centers around the idea that deep-drafted icebergs will become stranded in shallow water such that estimates of iceberg surface elevation can be used to infer draft, and thus water depth, under the assumption of hydrostatic equilibrium. When and where available, surface elevations of icebergs stranded on bathymetric highs were extracted from digital elevation models (DEMs) and converted to estimates of iceberg draft. To expand the spatial coverage of our inferred water depths beyond the DEM footprints, we used the DEMs to construct characteristic depth–width ratios and then inferred depths from satellite imagery-derived iceberg widths. We tested and applied the methods in two fjord systems in western Greenland with partially constrained bathymetry, Ilulissat Isfjord and Naajarsuit Fjord, to demonstrate their utility for inferring bathymetry using remote sensing datasets. Our results show that while the uncertainties associated with the methods are high (up to ±93 m), they provide critical first-order constraints on fjord bathymetry.
NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE Human-Induced Change in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current

Global climate models indicate that the poleward shift of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current observed over recent decades may have been significantly human induced. The poleward shift, along with a significant increase in the transport of water around Antarctica, is predicted to continue into the future. To appreciate the magnitude of the poleward shift it is noted that by century’s end the concomitant shrinking of the Southern Ocean is predicted to displace a volume of water close to that in the entire Arctic Ocean. A simple theory, balancing surface Ekman drift and ocean eddy mixing, explains these changes as the oceanic response to changing wind stress.
Detection of peripheral artery disease by duplex ultrasonography among hemodialysis patients.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Peripheral arterial disease (PAD) is a known predictor of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality among hemodialysis patients. Although ankle-brachial BP index (ABI) is a simple and reliable test for PAD screening, its sensitivity has been suggested to decrease among dialysis patients. DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS, & MEASUREMENTS We performed a cross-sectional outpatient cohort study to examine prevalence of PAD among hemodialysis patients using duplex ultrasonography of the lower extremity artery. We also evaluate the influence of increased arterial stiffness on impaired accuracy of ABI for PAD screening. RESULTS Of 315 total patients, 23.8% had PAD. PAD was associated with younger age, diabetes, current smoking, atherosclerotic comorbidities, increased total cholesterol levels, increased triglyceride levels, and lower Kt/V. The receiver operating characteristic analysis (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve = 0.846) showed that sensitivity and specificity of ABI values for PAD were 49.0 and 94.8%, respectively. An ABI cut-off value of 1.05 resulted in the best sensitivity (74.5%) and specificity (84.4%). There was a significant difference in sensitivity of ABI levels <0.9 for detecting PAD among patients in different brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity quartiles. In patients with the highest brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity quartile, PAD was most prevalent (46.5%), and ABI had the highest accuracy in detecting PAD (area under the curve, 0.933). CONCLUSIONS These results suggest that duplex ultrasonography was a useful tool for screening asymptomatic PAD among hemodialysis patients and that the diagnostic value of ABI for PAD was affected by various factors.
A Survey of Emergency Medicine Residents’ Use of Educational Podcasts

Introduction Emergency medicine (EM) educational podcasts have become increasingly popular. Residents spend a greater percentage of their time listening to podcasts than they do using other educational materials. Despite this popularity, research into podcasting in the EM context is sparse. We aimed to determine EM residents’ consumption habits, optimal podcast preferences, and motivation for listening to EM podcasts. Methods We created a survey and emailed it to EM residents at all levels of training at 12 residencies across the United States from September 2015 to June 2016. In addition to demographics, the 20-question voluntary survey asked questions exploring three domains: habits, attention, and motivation. We used descriptive statistics to analyze results. Results Of the 605 residents invited to participate, 356 (n= 60.3%) completed the survey. The vast majority listen to podcasts at least once a month (88.8%). Two podcasts were the most popular by a wide margin, with 77.8% and 62.1% regularly listening to Emergency Medicine: Reviews and Perspectives (EM:RAP) and the EMCrit Podcast, respectively; 84.6% reported the ideal length of a podcast was less than 30 minutes. Residents reported their motivation to listen to EM podcasts was to “Keep up with current literature” (88.5%) and “Learn EM core content” (70.2%). Of those responding, 72.2% said podcasts change their clinical practice either “somewhat” or “very much. ” Conclusion The results of this survey study suggest most residents listen to podcasts at least once a month, prefer podcasts less than 30 minutes in length, have several motivations for choosing podcasts, and report that podcasts change their clinical practice.
Ensemble Methods for Automatic Thesaurus Extraction

Ensemble methods are state of the art for many NLP tasks. Recent work by Banko and Brill (2001) suggests that this would not necessarily be true if very large training corpora were available. However, their results are limited by the simplicity of their evaluation task and individual classifiers.Our work explores ensemble efficacy for the more complex task of automatic thesaurus extraction on up to 300 million words. We examine our conflicting results in terms of the constraints on, and complexity of, different contextual representations, which contribute to the sparseness-and noise-induced bias behaviour of NLP systems on very large corpora.
Experimental studies of hydrated analogue materials of relevance to Solar System bodies using synchrotron radiation

Synchrotron X–ray powder diffraction on beamline I11 at the Diamond Light Source is used to study the in situ formation of CO2/CH4 clathrates. Frozen aqueous salt solutions were subjected to gas pressures between 5–26 bar and thermally cycled in the temperature range 90–270 K. This was done to replicate the likely sub–surface ocean compositions and pressures found on Europa, Enceladus and Titan and the Martian cryosphere. By using varying composition and concentration of the salt solutions we measure their inhibiting effect on clathrate formation, and in some cases find that the salts can affect the clathrate structure. Synchrotron X–ray powder diffraction and in situ Raman spectroscopy are used to observe the change in structure of epsomite as it is cycled through a range of temperatures replicating diurnal and seasonal changes on the Martian surface. We find no evidence to support a low temperature phase of epsomite which would be the more prevalent form on colder surfaces. Results are presented on the study of in situ synchrotron X–ray powder diffraction on meridianiite formation. A slow cooling rate was applied to the sample using a cold cell on I11’s Long Duration Experiment facility; in situ cooling experiments were also performed on I11s time–resolved facility. Large ice crystals which then break into smaller particles as meridianiite forms were observed and the implications for ice rheology are discussed. A sample simulating Europa’s ocean composition was also investigated in the same Long Duration Experiment. It is shown that meridianiite seemingly prevents gypsum forming at low temperatures, which has implications for organic material beneath the surface of Europa.
Fostering School Belonging in Secondary Schools Using a Socio-Ecological Framework

The benefits of belonging and feeling connected to school for adolescent mental health and wellbeing are well documented, but how belonging is fostered is less understood. The present article puts forward a new conceptual framework of school belonging based on Bronfenbrenner's (1979) sociological model of human development, using evidence from a range of previous peer-reviewed studies to better understand the factors that occur across five levels that affect a students’ sense of school belonging (i.e., the individual level, the microsystem, the mesosystem, the exosystem, and the macrosystem). The conceptual framework is used to present a range of evidence-based school belonging strategies (some with examples) that schools can use to enhance student belonging. This article makes an original contribution to the field of psychological and educational research by presenting a socio-ecological framework to explore the themes that influence school belonging within a secondary school system. It broadens the frame of reference of school belonging beyond the individual student to consider features of the broader school system and environment.
Seasonality Influence on Biochemical and Hematological Indicators of Stress and Growth of Pirarucu (Arapaima gigas), an Amazonian Air-Breathing Fish

Environmental factors such as seasonal cycles are the main chronic stress cause in fish increasing incidence of disease and mortality and affecting productive performance. Arapaima gigas (pirarucu) is an Amazonian air-breathing and largest freshwater fish with scales in the world. The captivity development of pirarucu is expanding since it can fatten up over 1 kg per month reaching 10 kg body mass in the first year of fattening. This work was conducted in three periods (April to July 2010, August to November 2010, and December 2010 to March 2011) defined according to rainfall and medium temperatures. Seasonality effect analysis was performed on biochemical (lectin activity, lactate dehydrogenase, and alkaline phosphatase activities) and hematological (total count of red blood cells, hematocrit, hemoglobin, and hematimetric Wintrobe indexes) stress indicators, as well as on growth and wellbeing degree expressed by pirarucu condition factor developed in captivity. All biochemical and hematological stress indicators showed seasonal variations. However, the fish growth was allometrically positive; condition factor high values indicated good state of healthiness in cultivation. These results reinforce the robust feature of pirarucu and represent a starting point for understanding stress physiology and environmental changes during cultivation enabling identification and prevention of fish adverse health conditions.
Lessons from Reforms in Central and Eastern Europe in the Wake of the Global Financial Crisis

The response of the ten new eastern members of the European Union to the global financial crisis has valuable lessons of crisis resolution for the euro area. These countries were severely hit by the crisis in the fall of 2008 and responded with extensive reforms. Crisis made the unthinkable possible. This paper outlines the main reform measures that the ten Central and East European (CEE) countries carried out. It then quantifies to what extent the CEE countries resolved the macroeconomic crisis and explores the effects of the reforms on future growth prospects. The fourth and major section discusses how the political economy of the crisis resolution actually worked. Finally, the author examines what lessons euro area countries can learn from the crisis resolution of the newest members of the European Union.
Can Sex Differences in Science Be Tied to the Long Reach of Prenatal Hormones? Brain Organization Theory, Digit Ratio (2D/4D), and Sex Differences in Preferences and Cognition

Brain organization theory posits a cascade of physiological and behavioral changes initiated and shaped by prenatal hormones. Recently, this theory has been associated with outcomes including gendered toy preference, 2D/4D digit ratio, personality characteristics, sexual orientation, and cognitive profile (spatial, verbal, and mathematical abilities). We examine the evidence for this claim, focusing on 2D/4D and its putative role as a biomarker for organizational features that influence cognitive abilities/interests predisposing males toward mathematically and spatially intensive careers. Although massive support exists for early brain organization theory overall, there are myriad inconsistencies, alternative explanations, and outright contradictions that must be addressed while still taking the entire theory into account. Like a fractal within the larger theory, the 2D/4D hypothesis mirrors this overall support on a smaller scale while likewise suffering from inconsistencies (positive, negative, and sex-dependent correlations), alternative explanations (2D/4D related to spatial preferences rather than abilities per se), and contradictions (feminine 2D/4D in men associated with higher spatial ability). Using the debate over brain organization theory as the theoretical stage, we focus on 2D/4D evidence as an increasingly important player on this stage, a demonstrative case in point of the evidential complexities of the broader debate, and an increasingly important topic in its own right.
Off-line cursive handwriting recognition compared with on-line recognition

Off-line handwriting recognition has wider applications than on-line recognition, yet it seems to be a harder problem. While on-line recognition is based on pen trajectory data, off-line recognition has to rely on pixel data only. We present a comparison between an off-line and an on-line recognition system using the same databases and system design. Both systems use a sliding window technique which avoids any segmentation before recognition. The recognizer is a hybrid system containing a neural network and a hidden Markov model. New normalization and feature extraction techniques for the off-line recognition are presented, including a connectionist approach for non-linear core height estimation. Results for uppercase, cursive and mixed case word recognition are reported. Finally a system combining the on- and off-line recognition is presented.
Microscopic characterization of defect structure in RDX crystals

Three batches of the commercial energetic material RDX, as received from various production locations and differing in sensitivity towards shock initiation, have been characterized with different microscopic techniques in order to visualize the defect content in these crystals. The RDX crystals are embedded in an epoxy matrix and cross‐sectioned. By a treatment of grinding and polishing of the crystals, the internal defect structure of a multitude of energetic crystals can be visualized using optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy and confocal scanning laser microscopy. Earlier optical micrographs of the same crystals immersed in a refractive index matched liquid could visualize internal defects, only not in the required detail. The combination of different microscopic techniques allows for a better characterization of the internal defects, down to inclusions of approximately 0.5 μm in size. The defect structure can be correlated to the sensitivity towards a high‐amplitude shock wave of the RDX crystals embedded in a polymer bonded explosive. The obtained experimental results comprise details on the size, type and quantity of the defects. These details should provide modellers with relevant and realistic information for modelling defects in energetic materials and their effect on the initiation and propagation of shock waves in PBX formulations.
A Framework for Automated Spine and Vertebrae Interpolation-Based Detection and Model-Based Segmentation

Automated and semi-automated detection and segmentation of spinal and vertebral structures from computed tomography (CT) images is a challenging task due to a relatively high degree of anatomical complexity, presence of unclear boundaries and articulation of vertebrae with each other, as well as due to insufficient image spatial resolution, partial volume effects, presence of image artifacts, intensity variations and low signal-to-noise ratio. In this paper, we describe a novel framework for automated spine and vertebrae detection and segmentation from 3-D CT images. A novel optimization technique based on interpolation theory is applied to detect the location of the whole spine in the 3-D image and, using the obtained location of the whole spine, to further detect the location of individual vertebrae within the spinal column. The obtained vertebra detection results represent a robust and accurate initialization for the subsequent segmentation of individual vertebrae, which is performed by an improved shape-constrained deformable model approach. The framework was evaluated on two publicly available CT spine image databases of 50 lumbar and 170 thoracolumbar vertebrae. Quantitative comparison against corresponding reference vertebra segmentations yielded an overall mean centroid-to-centroid distance of 1.1 mm and Dice coefficient of 83.6% for vertebra detection, and an overall mean symmetric surface distance of 0.3 mm and Dice coefficient of 94.6% for vertebra segmentation. The results indicate that by applying the proposed automated detection and segmentation framework, vertebrae can be successfully detected and accurately segmented in 3-D from CT spine images.
Asymptomatic myasthenia gravis influences pregnancy and birth

Women with myasthenia gravis (MG) have an increased risk of complications and adverse pregnancy outcome. This study has examined if this is true also for asymptomatic MG. Using data from the Medical Birth Registry of Norway, births of women prior to receiving an MG diagnosis or in complete clinical MG remission were compared with all non‐MG births in Norway in the same period (1967–2000). Forty‐nine births occurred in 37 women, 11 of them in clinical remission, and six thymectomized. The perinatal mortality was increased (P = 0.02) and induction of birth (P = 0.007) occurred more frequently. Protracted labor occurred more frequently in the target group (P = 0.03). One of the three children that died had Potter's syndrome. Both mothers with children who died were in complete clinical MG remission. One had previously given and one subsequently gave birth to a child with neonatal MG. The results indicate that complications in birth and pregnancy are not only related to clinical MG disease severity but to the underlying immunological dysfunction.
Noninvasive estimation of motor unit conduction velocity distribution using linear electrode arrays

Determining the conduction velocity of motor unit action potentials is one of the most important problems in surface electromyography. The estimate of one average conduction velocity value depends on a variety of uncontrollable factors. More meaningful information is obtained from the estimation of the distribution of the different delays in the myoelectric signals. A solution to the problem is the separation and characterization of the individual components propagating at different velocities. A technique, based on surface electrode array recording, is proposed to estimate motor unit conduction velocity distribution. The method consists in the identification of the single action potentials in the time scale domain (with the continuous wavelet transform) and in the estimation of their conduction velocities based on the beamforming algorithm. The performances of the technique have been evaluated using simulated and real myoelectric signals. The results demonstrate that the technique Is accurate and reliable. The method may be useful for the diagnosis of neuromuscular disorders, for the monitoring of muscle fatigue and for noninvasive investigation of individual motor units.