Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Nutrient constraints to tropical agroecosystem productivity in long-term degrading soils

Soil degradation is one of the most serious threats to sustainable crop production in many tropical agroecosystems where extensification rather than intensification of agriculture has occurred. In the highlands of western Kenya, we investigated soil nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) constraints to maize productivity across a cultivation chronosequence in which land-use history ranged from recent conversion from primary forest to 100 years in continuous cropping. Nutrient treatments included a range of N and P fertilizer rates applied separately and in combination. Maize productivity without fertilizer was used as a proxy measure for indigenous soil fertility (ISF). Soil pools of mineral nitrogen, strongly bound P and plant-available P decreased by 82%, 31% and 36%, and P adsorption capacity increased by 51% after 100 years of continuous cultivation. For the long rainy season (LR), grain yield without fertilizer declined rapidly as cultivation age increased from 0 to 25 years and then gradually declined to a yield of 1.6 Mg ha , which was maintained as time under cultivation increased from 60 to 100 years. LR grain yield in the old conversions was only 24% of the average young conversion grain yield (6.4 Mg ha ). Application of either N or P alone significantly increased grain yield in both the LR and short rainy (SR) seasons, but only application of 120 kg N ha 1 on the old conversion increased yield by 41 Mg ha . In both SR and LR, there was a greater average yield increment response to N and P when applied together (ranging from 1 to 3.8 Mg ha 1 for the LR), with the greatest responses on the old conversions. The benefit–cost ratio (BCR) for applying 120 kg N ha 1 alone was o1 except on the old conversions, while BCRs were41 for applying 25 kg P ha 1 alone at all levels of conversion for both seasons. Application of both N (120 kg N ha ) and P (25 kg P ha ) on the old conversions resulted in the greatest BCRs. This study clearly indicates that maize productivity responses to N and P fertilizer are significantly affected by the age of cultivation and its influence on ISF, but that loss of productivity can be restored rapidly when these limiting nutrients are applied. Management strategies should consider ISF and economic factors to determine optimal N and P input requirements for achieving and sustaining profitable crop production on degraded soils.
School injuries in an occupational health perspective: what do we learn from community based epidemiological studies?

OBJECTIVE: The paper reviews community based epidemiological studies of injuries at school. It discusses their main findings in the light of a frame of analysis that emphasizes multidimensionality of causes, and in a Swedish context, where school injuries are legally regarded as occupational injuries. METHODS: A frame of analysis, inspired by research in the arena of occupational accident, was developed. It employs four key concepts to distinguish between injury and accident sequence, and between situational and structural factors as potential injury determinants. It also stresses the interaction between pupil, school, and community, in injury genesis. In parallel, a review of community based epidemiological studies of school injuries was undertaken after searching the relevant literature. The knowledge gathered from these studies is appraised in the light of the frame of analysis. RESULTS: In general, the studies point to potential risk groups, and to hazardous locations and activities. They address injury characteristics, but largely fail to define typical mechanisms. The literature sheds little light on whether there are particular characteristics of the community, school, or pupil(s)--other than gender and age--that influence injury event occurrence. CONCLUSIONS: Further research should devote attention to the sequences of events culminating in school injuries, and to the structural determinants of accident sequences. In this, surveillance systems might prove to be of great utility.
ENDOSCOPIC MANAGEMENT OF BILE DUCT STONES

Endoscopic sphincterotomy (EST) and endoscopic papillary balloon dilation (EPBD) are endoscopic techniques that are used for the removal of bile duct stones. Although EST and EPBD have become established techniques, occasionally the management of bile duct stones may be difficult in cases of large stones, multiple stones, and tapering or tortuosity of the distal common bile duct. In such patients, extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy, mechanical lithotripsy or electrohydraulic lithotripsy, laser lithotripsy, or surgical intervention may be necessary. Furthermore, recently EST plus a large papillary balloon dilation has been popular for the treatment of difficult bile duct stones. Currently, endoscopic lithotripsy for bile duct stones seems to be a promising standard technique.
Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas Globalization and Monetary Policy Institute Is Monetary Policy a Science? the Interaction of Theory and Practice over the Last 50 Years

In recent decades, the declarations of " independent " central banks and the conduct of monetary policy have been assigned an ever increasing role in the pursuit of economic and financial stability. This is curious since there is, in practice, no body of scientific knowledge (evidence based beliefs) solid enough to have ensured agreement among central banks on the best way to conduct monetary policy. Moreover, beliefs pertaining to every aspect of monetary policy have also changed markedly and repeatedly. This paper documents how the objectives of monetary policy, the optimal exchange rate framework, beliefs about the transmission mechanism, the mechanism of political oversight, and many other aspects of domestic monetary frameworks have all been subject to great flux over the last fifty years. The paper also suggests ways in which the current economic and financial crisis seems likely to affect the conduct of monetary policy in the future. One possibility is that it might lead to yet another fundamental reexamination of our beliefs about how best to conduct monetary policy in an increasingly globalized world. The role played by money and credit, the interactions between price stability and financial stability, the possible medium term risks generated by " ultra easy " monetary policies, and the facilitating role played by the international monetary (non) system all need urgent attention. The paper concludes that, absent the degree of knowledge required about its effects, monetary policy is currently being relied on too heavily in the pursuit of " strong, balanced and sustainable growth. " white.william@sunrise.ch. This paper will be published as a Chapter in a book prepared to celebrate the 50th anniversary of SUERF (The European Money and Finance Forum). The views in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, the Federal Reserve System or any of the institutions to which the author is or has been associated. 1 " In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
Stimulus Set Meaningfulness and Neurophysiological Differentiation: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

A meaningful set of stimuli, such as a sequence of frames from a movie, triggers a set of different experiences. By contrast, a meaningless set of stimuli, such as a sequence of ‘TV noise’ frames, triggers always the same experience – of seeing ‘TV noise’ – even though the stimuli themselves are as different from each other as the movie frames. We reasoned that the differentiation of cortical responses underlying the subject’s experiences, as measured by Lempel-Ziv complexity (incompressibility) of functional MRI images, should reflect the overall meaningfulness of a set of stimuli for the subject, rather than differences among the stimuli. We tested this hypothesis by quantifying the differentiation of brain activity patterns in response to a movie sequence, to the same movie scrambled in time, and to ‘TV noise’, where the pixels from each movie frame were scrambled in space. While overall cortical activation was strong and widespread in all conditions, the differentiation (Lempel-Ziv complexity) of brain activation patterns was correlated with the meaningfulness of the stimulus set, being highest in the movie condition, intermediate in the scrambled movie condition, and minimal for ‘TV noise’. Stimulus set meaningfulness was also associated with higher information integration among cortical regions. These results suggest that the differentiation of neural responses can be used to assess the meaningfulness of a given set of stimuli for a given subject, without the need to identify the features and categories that are relevant to the subject, nor the precise location of selective neural responses.
Fecundability and spontaneous abortions in women with self-reported oligo-amenorrhea and/or hirsutism: Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1966 Study.

BACKGROUND Women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) suffer from anovulatory infertility and hospital-based studies suggest that they have an increased risk of spontaneous abortion. Our aim was to investigate the proportion of women, with self-reported oligo-amenorrhea and/or hirsutism in a general population, who had suffered from infertility, the percentage of them managing to conceive and their rate of spontaneous abortion. METHODS At age 31, a postal questionnaire including questions about hirsutism and oligo-amenorrhea was sent to all women from the population-based Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1966 (total n = 5889). Of these, 4535 (79.5%) answered the questionnaire, 1103 reported hirsutism and/or oligo/amenorrhea (symptomatic women) and 3420 were non-symptomatic. The fecundability ratio (FR) was defined as the probability of conception of a clinically detectable pregnancy within 12 months. RESULTS The overall pregnancy (77.7% versus 75.6%) and spontaneous abortion (19.3% versus 18.6%) rates did not differ between the two groups and the risk of spontaneous abortion was not associated with body mass index (BMI), waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) or waist circumference. Symptomatic women had suffered more often from infertility than non-symptomatic women (19.4% versus 11.1%, P < 0.01). Oligo-amenorrhea and/or hirsutism (FR = 0.74, P < 0.001) and obesity (FR = 0.68, P = 0.002) were both independently associated with decreased fecundability, but symptomatic women had become pregnant and had one or two successful deliveries as often as non-symptomatic women. CONCLUSIONS Women with self-reported oligo-amenorrhea and/or hirsutism had lower fecundability and suffered more often from infertility, but had at least one delivery as often as non-symptomatic women, and did not exhibit an increased risk of spontaneous abortion.
Paucity of Intact Non-Induced Provirus with Early, Long-Term Antiretroviral Therapy of Perinatal HIV Infection

The latent reservoir is a major barrier to HIV eradication. Reservoir size is emerging as an important biomarker to assess the likelihood of HIV remission in the absence of antiretroviral therapy (ART) and may be reduced by earlier initiation of ART that restricts HIV spread into CD4+ T cells. Reservoir size is traditionally measured with a quantitative viral outgrowth assay (QVOA) that induces replication-competent HIV production through in vitro stimulation of resting CD4+ T cells. However, the recent identification of replication-intact, non-induced proviral genomes (NIPG) suggests the QVOA significantly underestimates (by 62-fold) latent reservoir size in chronically-infected adults. Whether formation and persistence of Intact, NIPG is thwarted by early ART initiation and long-term virologic suppression in perinatal infection is unclear. Here, we show that the latent reservoir in 11 early treated, long-term suppressed perinatally infected children and adolescents was not inducible by QVOA and dominated by defective, NIPG. Single genome analysis of 164 NIPG from 232 million cultured resting CD4+ T cells revealed no replication-intact, near-full length sequences. Forty-three (26%) NIPG contained APOBEC3G-mediated hypermutation, 115 (70%) NIPG contained large internal deletions, one NIPG contained nonsense mutations and indels, and 5 (3%) NIPG were assigned as “Not Evaluable” due to multiple failed sequencing attempts that precluded further classification. The lack of replication competent inducible provirus and intact NIPG in this cohort indicate early, long-term ART of perinatal infection leads to marked diminution of replication-competent HIV-1 reservoirs, creating a favorable state towards interventions aimed at virologic remission.
AIS Electronic

This paper presents a country specific case study, with specific reference to the social and business conditions prevalent in an emerging economy, namely India. In this case we see the unique conditions like cultural and religious diversity, vastness of the geography, difference in taxation systems between the different states of India, customer perception of the particular transnational brand, local sales and distribution practices, local customer needs, which have constrained the growth of the organisation in the past. However visualising the power of an integrated flexible ERP system, and the availability of well trained ERP experts and engineering graduates at nominal salaries, SONY India put together an international IT project management team that went ahead to design and implement a system that becomes the backbone of the revitalized supply chain. A quantum growth of 40% for three consecutive years from 2004 is recounted in this paper.
Glucose regulates lipid metabolism in fasting king penguins.

This study aims to determine whether glucose intervenes in the regulation of lipid metabolism in long-term fasting birds, using the king penguin as an animal model. Changes in the plasma concentration of various metabolites and hormones, and in lipolytic fluxes as determined by continuous infusion of [2-3H]glycerol and [1-14C]palmitate, were examined in vivo before, during, and after a 2-h glucose infusion under field conditions. All the birds were in the phase II fasting status (large fat stores, protein sparing) but differed by their metabolic and hormonal statuses, being either nonstressed (NSB; n = 5) or stressed (SB; n = 5). In both groups, glucose infusion at 5 mg.kg-1.min-1 induced a twofold increase in glycemia. In NSB, glucose had no effect on lipolysis (maintenance of plasma concentrations and rates of appearance of glycerol and nonesterified fatty acids) and no effect on the plasma concentrations of triacylglycerols (TAG), glucagon, insulin, or corticosterone. However, it limited fatty acid (FA) oxidation, as indicated by a 25% decrease in the plasma level of beta-hydroxybutyrate (beta-OHB). In SB, glucose infusion induced an approximately 2.5-fold decrease in lipolytic fluxes and a large decrease in FA oxidation, as reflected by a 64% decrease in the plasma concentration of beta-OHB. There were also a 35% decrease in plasma TAG, a 6.5- and 2.8-fold decrease in plasma glucagon and corticosterone, respectively, and a threefold increase in insulinemia. These data show that in fasting king penguins, glucose regulates lipid metabolism (inhibition of lipolysis and/or of FA oxidation) and affects hormonal status differently in stressed vs. nonstressed individuals. The results also suggest that in birds, as in humans, the availability of glucose, not of FA, is an important determinant of the substrate mix (glucose vs. FA) that is oxidized for energy production.
XMM–Newton observations of Sagittarius A East

We present an analysis of a recent XMM-Newton observation of Sgr A East, a supernova remnant located close to the Galactic Centre. Very high-quality X-ray spectra reveal many emission lines from highly ionized atoms consistent with a multitemperature thin thermal plasma in ionization equilibrium. We use a two-temperature model to fit the spectra and derive temperatures of 1 and 4 keV. There is significant concentration of iron (Fe) towards the centre of the X-ray source such that the Fe abundance varies from ∼4 times solar in the core down to ∼0.5 solar in the outer regions, which contrasts with the rather uniform distribution of other metals such as sulphur (S), argon (Ar) and calcium (Ca), which have abundances in the range 1-3. The derived total energy, mass and abundance pattern are consistent with a single supernova event, of either Type Ia or Type II origin, involving a relatively low-mass progenitor star. A weak 6.4-keV neutral Fe fluorescence line is also detected, the illumination source most likely being Sgr A East itself. The morphology and spectral characteristics of Sgr A East show no clear linkage to putative past activity in Sgr A*.
Global connectivity potentials for random field models

Markov random field (MRF, CRF) models are popular in computer vision. However, in order to be computationally tractable they are limited to incorporate only local interactions and cannot model global properties, such as connectedness, which is a potentially useful high-level prior for object segmentation. In this work, we overcome this limitation by deriving a potential function that enforces the output labeling to be connected and that can naturally be used in the framework of recent MAP-MRF LP relaxations. Using techniques from polyhedral combinatorics, we show that a provably tight approximation to the MAP solution of the resulting MRF can still be found efficiently by solving a sequence of max-flow problems. The efficiency of the inference procedure also allows us to learn the parameters of a MRF with global connectivity potentials by means of a cutting plane algorithm. We experimentally evaluate our algorithm on both synthetic data and on the challenging segmentation task of the PASCAL VOC 2008 data set. We show that in both cases the addition of a connectedness prior significantly reduces the segmentation error.
The Arabidopsis TRM1–TON1 Interaction Reveals a Recruitment Network Common to Plant Cortical Microtubule Arrays and Eukaryotic Centrosomes[C][W]

TON1 is essential for cortical microtubule organization and preprophase band formation in plants. This work describes a superfamily of Arabidopsis thaliana proteins (TRMs) interacting with TON1 and show that TRM1 is able to target TON1 to microtubules. Partial sequence conservation of TON1 and TRMs with animal proteins points to a common protein network involved in centrosomal and cytoskeletal functions in eukaryotes. Land plant cells assemble microtubule arrays without a conspicuous microtubule organizing center like a centrosome. In Arabidopsis thaliana, the TONNEAU1 (TON1) proteins, which share similarity with FOP, a human centrosomal protein, are essential for microtubule organization at the cortex. We have identified a novel superfamily of 34 proteins conserved in land plants, the TON1 Recruiting Motif (TRM) proteins, which share six short conserved motifs, including a TON1-interacting motif present in all TRMs. An archetypal member of this family, TRM1, is a microtubule-associated protein that localizes to cortical microtubules and binds microtubules in vitro. Not all TRM proteins can bind microtubules, suggesting a diversity of functions for this family. In addition, we show that TRM1 interacts in vivo with TON1 and is able to target TON1 to cortical microtubules via its C-terminal TON1 interaction motif. Interestingly, three motifs of TRMs are found in CAP350, a human centrosomal protein interacting with FOP, and the C-terminal M2 motif of CAP350 is responsible for FOP recruitment at the centrosome. Moreover, we found that TON1 can interact with the human CAP350 M2 motif in yeast. Taken together, our results suggest conservation of eukaryotic centrosomal components in plant cells.
16S rRNA Gene Sequence-Based Identification of Bacteria in Automatically Incubated Blood Culture Materials from Tropical Sub-Saharan Africa

Background The quality of microbiological diagnostic procedures depends on pre-analytic conditions. We compared the results of 16S rRNA gene PCR and sequencing from automatically incubated blood culture materials from tropical Ghana with the results of cultural growth after automated incubation. Methods Real-time 16S rRNA gene PCR and subsequent sequencing were applied to 1500 retained blood culture samples of Ghanaian patients admitted to a hospital with an unknown febrile illness after enrichment by automated culture. Results Out of all 1500 samples, 191 were culture-positive and 98 isolates were considered etiologically relevant. Out of the 191 culture-positive samples, 16S rRNA gene PCR and sequencing led to concordant results in 65 cases at species level and an additional 62 cases at genus level. PCR was positive in further 360 out of 1309 culture-negative samples, sequencing results of which suggested etiologically relevant pathogen detections in 62 instances, detections of uncertain relevance in 50 instances, and DNA contamination due to sample preparation in 248 instances. In two instances, PCR failed to detect contaminants from the skin flora that were culturally detectable. Pre-analytical errors caused many Enterobacteriaceae to be missed by culture. Conclusions Potentially correctable pre-analytical conditions and not the fastidious nature of the bacteria caused most of the discrepancies. Although 16S rRNA gene PCR and sequencing in addition to culture led to an increase in detections of presumably etiologically relevant blood culture pathogens, the application of this procedure to samples from the tropics was hampered by a high contamination rate. Careful interpretation of diagnostic results is required.
Logistics and cloud computing service providers’ cooperation: a resilience perspective

Abstract Cloud computing (CC) services can offer substantial cost-effective global operational and relationship benefits if the cooperation between logistics and CC services are resilient. Potential vulnerabilities to cooperation of CC and logistics service providers can occur with respect to vital factors such as security and trust. Extant studies have demonstrated CC benefits as well as few challenges associated with CC services application. However, no extant study has examined the inter-organisational benefits based on cooperative resilience between CC and logistics service providers in terms of both capability and trust vulnerability factors. This study examines the cooperative resilience of logistics and CC service providers based on innovation diffusion theory within a supply chain risk assessment framework. Using structural equation modelling techniques, we investigate the relationship between the vulnerability factor (trust), capability factor (security) and collaboration benefits (relationship and operational) offered by CC service providers based on 236 Chinese logistics service firms’ perceptions of CC adoption. The results indicate Chinese logistics companies perceive security impediments as a major factor affecting cooperative resilience between logistics service and CC service providers.
Hypothesis Assessment and Inequalities for Bayes Factors and Relative Belief Ratios

We discuss the denition of a Bayes factor and develop some inequalities relevant to Bayesian inferences. An approach to hypothesis assessment based on the computation of a Bayes factor, a measure of the strength of the evidence given by the Bayes factor via a posterior probability, and the point where the Bayes factor is maximized is recommended. It is also recommended that the a priori properties of a Bayes factor be considered to assess possible bias inherent in the Bayes factor. This methodology can be seen to deal with many of the issues and controversies associated with hypothesis assessment. We present an application to a two-way analysis.