Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparison of different evaporation estimates over the African continent

Evaporation is a key process in the water cycle, with implications ranging from water management, to weather forecast and climate change assessments. The estimation of continental evaporation fluxes is complex and typically relies on continental-scale hydrological or land-surface models. However, it appears that most global or continental-scale hydrological models underestimate evaporative fluxes in some regions of Africa, and as a result overestimate stream flow. Other studies suggest that land-surface models may overestimate evaporative fluxes. In this study, we computed actual evaporation for the African continent using a continental version of the global hydrological model PCR-GLOBWB, which is based on a water balance approach. Results are compared with other independently computed evaporation products: the evaporation results from the ECMWF reanalysis ERA-Interim and ERA-Land (both based on the energy balance approach), the MOD16 evaporation product, and the GLEAM product. Three other alternative versions of the PCR-GLOBWB hydrological model were also considered. This resulted in eight products of actual evaporation, which were compared in distinct regions of the African continent spanning different climatic regimes. Annual totals, spatial patterns and seasonality were studied and compared through visual inspection and statistical methods. The comparison shows that the representation of irrigation areas has an insignificant contribution to the actual evaporation at a continental scale with a 0.5° spatial resolution. The choice of meteorological forcing data has a larger effect on the evaporation results, especially in the case of the precipitation input as different precipitation input resulted in significantly different evaporation in some of the studied regions. ERA-Interim evaporation is generally the highest of the selected products followed by ERA-Land evaporation. The satellite based products (GLEAM and MOD16) do not show regular behaviour when compared to the other products, though this depends on the region and the season considered. The results from this study allow for a better understanding of the differences between products in each climatic region. Through an improved understanding of the causes of differences between these products and their uncertainty, this study provides information to improve the quality of evaporation products for the African continent and, consequently, leads to improved water resources assessments at regional scale.
The memorable souvenir-shopping experience: antecedents and outcomes

ABSTRACT This study examines the relationship among authenticity, satisfaction, co-creation, memorable souvenir-shopping experiences, and place attachment. A post-holiday web-based survey was conducted among tourists to Rovaniemi, Finland, and a valid sample of 301 tourists was used for data analysis. The survey results show that satisfaction and co-creation during onsite souvenir shopping at a tourism destination create memorable souvenir shopping experiences, and that such memories enhance tourists’ feelings of attachment to the destination. The implications for retail management are that souvenir vendors should offer a large assortment of souvenirs to suit tourists’ individual tastes. Souvenir retailers can enhance customer satisfaction through taking such steps as training personnel on customer shopping satisfaction, extending operating hours, broadening the accepted means of payment, and improving the quality and display of products as well as the external appearance of their shops. Additionally, souvenir retailers should interact with customers and engage in onsite co-creation to arouse interest and attention.
Pengaruh Konseling Pemberian Asi Eksklusif Terhadap Peningkatan Berat Badan Bayi Di Puskesmas Karang Pule Tahun 2017

Latar belakang : Puskesmas Karang Pule pada tahun 2014 dan 2015 memiliki penurunan pemberian ASI Eksklusif terlihat dari cakupan ASI Eksklusif dan termasuk paling rendah pertama di wilayah Puskesmas Se-Kota Mataram. Kurangnya pemberian ASI Eksklusif dari ibu ke bayi berpengaruh terhadap penurunan berat badan bayi. Tujuan : Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui pengaruh pemberian konseling ASI Eksklusif terhadap peningkatan berat badan bayi di Puskesmas Karang Pule Tahun 2017. Metode : Penelitian ini menggunakan rancangan penelitian Pre Eksperimental dengan pendekatan One Group Pretest â€“ Posttest . Populasi dalam penelitian ini adalah semua ibu menyusuiÂ yang memiliki bayi berumur 1-5 bulan di Puskesmas Karang Pule pada saat penelitian berlangsung menggunakan purposive sampling sesuai dengan kriteria inklusi dan eksklusi. Instrumen dalam penelitain ini adalah lembar balik, leaflet, lembar bantuan pengamatan menyusui dan formulir kajian riwayat menyusui menurut Gulo, 2010. Analisis data menggunakan analisis Univariat yaitu dengan mean dan median tiap variabel. Analisis Bivariat dalam penelitian ini menggunakan program SPSS ( Statistical Product and Service Solutions ) dengan menguji hipotesis menggunakan Uji T dependen (paired T test). Hasil : Berat badan dari 30 bayi sebelum diberikan konseling 5.712 dan total peningkatan berat badan 30 bayi yaitu 0.889. Hipotesis menunjukkan terdapat pengaruh konseling pemberian ASI Eksklusif terhadap peningkatan berat badan bayi pada taraf signifikan 5% dengan tingkat pengaruh nilai R ( corelational ) 0.901. Kesimpulan : Dengan demikian dapat disimpulkan, ada pengaruh konseling pemberian ASI Eksklusif terhadap peningkatan berat badan bayi di Puskesmas Karang Pule tahun 2017. Kata Kunci: Konseling ASI Eksklusif , Peningkatan Berat Badan Bayi
Segmentation of X‐ray computed tomography images of porous materials: A crucial step for characterization and quantitative analysis of pore structures

Nondestructive imaging methods such as X‐ray computed tomography (CT) yield high‐resolution, three‐dimensional representations of pore space and fluid distribution within porous materials. Steadily increasing computational capabilities and easier access to X‐ray CT facilities have contributed to a recent surge in microporous media research with objectives ranging from theoretical aspects of fluid and interfacial dynamics at the pore scale to practical applications such as dense nonaqueous phase liquid transport and dissolution. In recent years, significant efforts and resources have been devoted to improve CT technology, microscale analysis, and fluid dynamics simulations. However, the development of adequate image segmentation methods for conversion of gray scale CT volumes into a discrete form that permits quantitative characterization of pore space features and subsequent modeling of liquid distribution and flow processes seems to lag. In this paper we investigated the applicability of various thresholding and locally adaptive segmentation techniques for industrial and synchrotron X‐ray CT images of natural and artificial porous media. A comparison between directly measured and image‐derived porosities clearly demonstrates that the application of different segmentation methods as well as associated operator biases yield vastly differing results. This illustrates the importance of the segmentation step for quantitative pore space analysis and fluid dynamics modeling. Only a few of the tested methods showed promise for both industrial and synchrotron tomography. Utilization of local image information such as spatial correlation as well as the application of locally adaptive techniques yielded significantly better results.
Top 40 Priorities for Science to Inform US Conservation and Management Policy

To maximize the utility of research to decisionmaking, especially given limited financial resources, scientists must set priorities for their efforts. We present a list of the top 40 high-priority, multidisciplinary research questions directed toward informing some of the most important current and future decisions about management of species, communities, and ecological processes in the United States. The questions were generated by an open, inclusive process that included personal interviews with decisionmakers, broad solicitation of research needs from scientists and policymakers, and an intensive workshop that included scientifically oriented individuals responsible for managing and developing policy related to natural resources. The process differed from previous efforts to set priorities for conservation research in its focus on the engagement of decisionmakers in addition to researchers. The research priorities emphasized the importance of addressing societal context and exploration of trade-offs among alternative policies and actions, as well as more traditional questions related to ecological processes and functions.
Anesthetic effects of adding intrathecal neostigmine or magnesium sulphate to bupivacaine in patients under lower extremities surgeries

Background: Regional anesthesia is widely used to perform different surgical procedures including those performed on the extremities. In this study, the anesthetic effects of adding intrathecal neostigmine or magnesium sulphate to bupivacaine in patients under lower extremities surgeries were assessed. Materials and Methods: In this double-blind randomized clinical trial, 90 patients, candidate for lower extremities surgeries in a training hospital, were recruited. The patients with ASA class I and II aging from 20 to 65 years between 2009 and 2010 were evaluated. The selected patients were randomly assigned to receive either bupivacaine alone (Group A, n=30), or bupivacaine plus magnesium sulphate 50% (Group B, n=30), or bupivacaine plus neostigmine (Group C, n=30). Then sensory and motor onset and complete block and the time of recovery were measured. Results: The sensory block onset time were 3.03 ± 0.981 in group A, 3.90 ± 2.71 in group B and 3.7 ± 1.08 in group C and knee flexion time were not significantly different among the three groups (P > 0.05), whereas the time to complete motor block was significantly longer in group C and motor recovery time were significantly different between groups (P=0.001). Conclusions: According to the obtained results, it may be concluded that magnesium sulphate is a safe and effective adjuvant for increasing the onset time of motor block.
Host-Based Intrusion Detection for Advanced Mobile Devices

New security threats emerge against mobile devices as the devices computing power and storage capabilities evolve. We address in this paper the issue of augmenting current intrusion detection approaches with host-based intrusion detection models for mobile devices. We show that host-based approaches are required, since network-based monitoring alone is not sufficient to encounter the future threats. We outline some of the data types on mobile devices that could be used to construct intrusion detection models, and finally propose a framework for mobile device intrusion detection
Scheduling medical research experiments - an application of project scheduling methods

We consider a medical research project that was carried out at the University of Kiel (Germany). This paper deals with the task of scheduling this real-world project. The original problem is shown to be an instance of an extension of the well-known resource-constrained project scheduling problem (RCPSP) with makespan minimization as objective. We obtain a moderately sized problem which consists of 62 activities with time-varying resource request and 27 renewable resources with time-varying availabilities. Subsequently, a genetic algorithm that has recently been suggested for the RCPSP is employed to schedule the real-world project. Within less than one minute, a schedule is obtained which is proved to be optimal. Moreover, we compare the schedule found by the genetic algorithm with the hand-made one according to which the original project was performed. The makespan of the computed schedule is more than 10 % shorter than the hand-made one. We conclude that Computer based systems are useful for scheduling projects of moderate size, and that the genetic algorithm considered here is well suited for solving real-world project scheduling problems.
Business in the United States: Who Owns It, and How Much Tax Do They Pay?

“Pass-through” businesses like partnerships and S-corporations now generate over half of US business income and account for much of the post-1980 rise in the top-1% income share. We use administrative tax data from 2011 to identify pass-through business owners and estimate how much tax they pay. We present three findings: (1) relative to traditional business income, pass-through business income is substantially more concentrated among high-earners; (2) partnership ownership is opaque: 20% of the income goes to unclassifiable partners, and 15% of the income is earned in circularly owned partnerships; and (3) the average federal income tax rate on US pass-through business income is 19%—much lower than the average rate on traditional corporations. If pass-through activity had remained at 1980’s low level, strong but straightforward assumptions imply that the 2011 average US tax rate on total US business income would have been 28% rather than 24%, and tax revenue would have been approximately $100 billion higher.
Products of stochastic matrices: Exact rate for convergence in probability for directed networks

We study the products W<sub>k</sub>···W<sub>1</sub> of random stochastic, not necessarily symmetric matrices. It is known that, under certain conditions, the product W<sub>k</sub> · · · W<sub>1</sub> converges almost surely (a.s.) to a random rank-one matrix; the latter is equivalent to |λ<sub>2</sub>(W<sub>k</sub> · · · W<sub>1</sub>)| → 0 a.s. , where λ<sub>2</sub>(·) is the second largest (in modulus) eigenvalue. In this paper, we show that the probability that |λ<sub>2</sub>(W<sub>k</sub> · · · W<sub>1</sub>)| stays above ε ∈ (0,1] in the long run decays to zero exponentially fast ~ e<sup>-kI</sup>. Furthermore, we explicitly characterize the rate of this convergence I and show that it depends only on the underlying graphs that support the matrices W<sub>k</sub>'s. Our results reveal that the rate I is essentially determined by the most likely way in which the union (over time) of the support graphs fails to form a directed tree.
Advertising at the threshold: Paratextual promotion in the era of media convergence

In the media convergence era, brands are embracing hybrid forms of advertising communication such as branded content, product placement and sponsored TV ‘pods’, brand blogs, shareable video, programmatic advertising, ‘native’ advertising and more, as alternatives to, and extensions of, traditional mass media advertising campaigns. In this article, we draw on Genette’s theory of transtextuality to reframe this phenomenon from a paratextual purview. We suggest that the analogy of the paratext articulates the iterative, ambiguous, participative and intertextual character of much contemporary brand communication. We describe extended examples of paratextual advertising and promotion that illustrate the fluid and mutually contingent relation of advertising text to paratext, and we outline an analytical framework for future research and practice.
White matter microstructure between the pre‐SMA and the cingulum bundle is related to response conflict in healthy subjects

Response conflict involves selectively attending to relevant information and suppressing distracting, irrelevant information. The medial frontal cortex (MFC) is considered to be involved in response conflict. However, it remains unclear which white matter connectivity is associated with response conflict. This study aimed to delineate the neural connectivity of response conflict in healthy subjects and investigate the association between white matter microstructure and performance of a response conflict task.
Information Characteristics and the Structure of Landscapes

Various techniques for statistical analysis of the structure of fitness landscapes have been proposed. An important feature of these techniques is that they study the ruggedness of landscapes by measuring their correlation characteristics. This paper proposes a new information analysis of fitness landscapes. The underlying idea is to consider a fitness landscape as an ensemble of objects that are related to the fitness of neighboring points. Three information characteristics of the ensemble are defined and studied. They are termed: information content, partial information content, and information stability. The information characteristics of a range of landscapes with known correlation features are analyzed in an attempt to reveal the advantages of the information analysis. We show that the proposed analysis is an appropriate tool for investigating the structure of fitness landscapes.
Clinical usefulness of the metabolic syndrome for the risk of coronary heart disease does not exceed the sum of its individual components in older men and women. The Three-City (3C) Study

Objectives To investigate the respective associations and clinical usefulness of the metabolic syndrome (MetS) and its individual components to predict the risk of first coronary heart disease (CHD) events in elderly. Design The Three-City is a French prospective multisite community-based cohort. Setting Three large French cities: Bordeaux, Dijon and Montpellier. Participants 7612 subjects aged 65 and over who were free of CHD at baseline. Main outcome measures The MetS was defined by the 2005 National Cholesterol Education Program Adult Treatment Panel III criteria. Results During a median follow-up of 5.2 years, 275 first CHD events were adjudicated. The MetS was associated with increased risks of total (adjusted HR: 1.78; 95% CI 1.39 to 2.28), fatal (HR: 2.40; 95% CI 1.41 to 4.09) and non-fatal (HR: 1.64; 95% CI 1.24 to 2.17) CHD events. The association with total CHD was significant in women (HR: 2.56; 95% CI 1.75 to 3.75) but not in men (HR: 1.39; 95% CI 0.99 to 1.94; p for interaction=0.012). When in the same multivariable model, hyperglycemia and abdominal adiposity in women, hyperglycemia, lower HDL cholesterol and abdominal adiposity (inverse association) in men were the components significantly associated with CHD. The components of the MetS but not the MetS itself improved risk prediction beyond traditional risk factors (NRI= 9.35%, p<0;001). Conclusion The MetS is a risk marker for CHD in community-dwelling elderly subjects but may not be useful for CHD risk prediction purposes compared to its individual components.
eIF4E is a central node of an RNA regulon that governs cellular proliferation

This study demonstrates that the eukaryotic translation initiation factor eIF4E is a critical node in an RNA regulon that impacts nearly every stage of cell cycle progression. Specifically, eIF4E coordinately promotes the messenger RNA (mRNA) export of several genes involved in the cell cycle. A common feature of these mRNAs is a structurally conserved, ∼50-nucleotide element in the 3′ untranslated region denoted as an eIF4E sensitivity element. This element is sufficient for localization of capped mRNAs to eIF4E nuclear bodies, formation of eIF4E-specific ribonucleoproteins in the nucleus, and eIF4E-dependent mRNA export. The roles of eIF4E in translation and mRNA export are distinct, as they rely on different mRNA elements. Furthermore, eIF4E-dependent mRNA export is independent of ongoing RNA or protein synthesis. Unlike the NXF1-mediated export of bulk mRNAs, eIF4E-dependent mRNA export is CRM1 dependent. Finally, the growth-suppressive promyelocytic leukemia protein (PML) inhibits this RNA regulon. These data provide novel perspectives into the proliferative and oncogenic properties of eIF4E.
Stable isotope evidence for increasing dietary breadth in the European mid-Upper Paleolithic

New carbon and nitrogen stable isotope values for human remains dating to the mid-Upper Paleolithic in Europe indicate significant amounts of aquatic (fish, mollusks, and/or birds) foods in some of their diets. Most of this evidence points to exploitation of inland freshwater aquatic resources in particular. By contrast, European Neandertal collagen carbon and nitrogen stable isotope values do not indicate significant use of inland aquatic foods but instead show that they obtained the majority of their protein from terrestrial herbivores. In agreement with recent zooarcheological analyses, the isotope results indicate shifts toward a more broad-spectrum subsistence economy in inland Europe by the mid-Upper Paleolithic period, probably associated with significant population increases.
Measles Virus Infects Human Dendritic Cells and Blocks Their Allostimulatory Properties for CD4+ T Cells

Measles causes a profound immune suppression which is responsible for the high morbidity and mortality induced by secondary infections. Dendritic cells (DC) are professional antigen-presenting cells required for initiation of primary immune responses. To determine whether infection of DC by measles virus (MV) may play a role in virus-induced suppression of cell-mediated immunity, we examined the ability of CD1a+ DC derived from cord blood CD34+ progenitors and Langerhans cells isolated from human epidermis to support MV replication. Here we show that both cultured CD1a+ DC and epidermal Langerhans cells can be infected in vitro by both vaccine and wild type strains of MV. DC infection with MV resulted within 24–48 h in cell–cell fusion, cell surface expression of hemagglutinin, and virus budding associated with production of infectious virus. MV infection of DC completely abrogated the ability of the cells to stimulate the proliferation of naive allogeneic CD4+ T cell as early as day 2 of mixed leukocyte reaction (MLR) (i.e., on day 4 of DC infection). Mannose receptor–mediated endocytosis and viability studies indicated that the loss of DC stimulatory function could not be attributed to the death or apoptosis of DC. This total loss of DC stimulatory function required viral replication in the DC since ultraviolet (UV)-inactivated MV or UV-treated supernatant from MV-infected DC did not alter the allostimulatory capacity of DC. As few as 10 MV- infected DC could block the stimulatory function of 104 uninfected DC. More importantly, MV-infected DC, in which production of infectious virus was blocked by UV treatment or paraformaldehyde fixation, actively suppressed allogeneic MLR upon transfer to uninfected DC–T-cultures. Thus, the mechanisms which contribute to the loss of the allostimulatory function of DC include both virus release and active suppression mediated by MV-infected DC, independent of virus production. These data suggest that carriage of MV by DC may facilitate virus spreading to secondary lymphoid organs and that MV replication in DC may play a central role in the general immune suppression observed during measles.
Developmental Links Between Speech Perception in Noise, Singing, and Cortical Processing of Music in Children with Cochlear Implants

The perception of speech in noise is challenging for children with cochlear implants (CIs). Singing and musical instrument playing have been associated with improved auditory skills in normal-hearing (NH) children. Therefore, we assessed how children with CIs who sing informally develop in the perception of speech in noise compared to those who do not. We also sought evidence of links of speech perception in noise with MMN and P3a brain responses to musical sounds and studied effects of age and changes over a 14–17 month time period in the speech-in-noise performance of children with CIs. Compared to the NH group, the entire CI group was less tolerant of noise in speech perception, but both groups improved similarly. The CI singing group showed better speech-in-noise perception than the CI non-singing group. The perception of speech in noise in children with CIs was associated with the amplitude of MMN to a change of sound from piano to cymbal, and in the CI singing group only, with earlier P3a for changes in timbre. While our results cannot address causality, they suggest that singing and musical instrument playing may have a potential to enhance the perception of speech in noise in children with CIs.