Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Foodsheds and City Region Food Systems in Two West African Cities

In response to changing urban food systems, short supply chains have been advocated to meet urban food needs while building more sustainable urban food systems. Despite an increasing interest in urban food supply and the flows of food from production to consumption, there is a lack of empirical studies and methodologies which systematically analyse the actual proportion and nutritional significance of local and regional food supplied to urban markets. The aim of this empirical study therefore was to compare the geographical sources supplying food to the urban population (“foodsheds”) in Tamale, Ghana and Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, to record the supplied quantities and to assess the level of interaction between the sources and the respective city. The study was conducted over two years, covering the seasons of abundant and short supply, via traffic surveys on the access roads to the two cities, and in the Tamale markets, resulting altogether in more than 40,000 records of food flow. Results indicated that food sources were highly crop- and season-specific, ranging from one-dimensional to multi-dimensional foodsheds with diverse sources across seasons. Across the commodity-specific foodsheds, city region boundaries were established. Within the proposed city region a relatively large proportion of smallholders contributed to urban food supply, taking advantage of the proximity to urban markets. While food provided from within the city region offers certain place-based benefits, like the provision of fresh perishable crops, a larger geographical diversity of foodsheds appeared to enhance the resilience of urban food systems, such as against climate related production failures.
Significance of Molecular Signaling for Protein Translation Control in Neurodegenerative Diseases

It has long been known that protein synthesis is inhibited in neurological disorders. Protein synthesis includes protein transcription and translation. While many studies about protein transcription have been done in the last decade, we are just starting to understand more about the impact of protein translation. Protein translation control can be accomplished at the initiation or elongation steps. In this review, we will focus on translation control at initiation. Neurons have long neurites in which proteins have to be transported from the cell body to the end of the neurite. Since supply of proteins cannot meet the need of neuronal activity at the spine, protein locally translated at the spine will be a good solution to replace the turnover of proteins. Therefore, local protein translation is an important mechanism to maintain normal neuronal functions. In this notion, we have to separate the concept of global and local protein translation control. Both global and local protein translation control modulate normal neuronal functions from development to cognitive functions. Increasing lines of evidence show that they also play significant roles in neurodegenerative diseases, e.g. neuronal apoptosis, synaptic degeneration and autophagy. We summarize all the evidence in this review and focus on the control at initiation. The new live-cell imaging technology together with photoconvertible fluorescent probes allows us to investigate newly translated proteins in situ. Protein translation control is another line to modulate neuronal function in neuron-neuron communication as well as in response to stress in neurodegenerative diseases.
Assessment of Chicken Feed, Feeding Management and Chicken Productivity in Intensive Poultry Farms at Selected Farms of Three Zonesin Tigray Region

The study was conducted to identify major causes of total organs condemnation in cattle slaughtered at Hawassa city municipal abattoir and to estimate the associated direct financial losses. To this effect, a cross sectional active abattoir survey was conducted on 609 cattle from October 2015 to April 2016. During ante mortem examination, various types of abnormalities were detected in 39 (6.4%) cattle which includes rough hair coat 8(1.3%), teeth grinding 7 (1.2%), dyspnea 5 (0.8%), diarrhea 5(0.8%), lameness 4(0.7%), nasal discharge 2(0.3%), blindness 2 (0.3%), early LSD signs 2 (0.3%), dry muzzle 2 (0.3%), paraphimosis 1 (0.2%) and gangrenous testis 1 (0.2%). On postmortem examination inspected, 96.1% (585) of the examined lungs (n=609) were condemned due to different disease conditions such as pneumonia (43.2%), hydatid cyst (24.8%), emphysema (18.9%), atelectasis (14.9%), and congestion (1%). Similarly, 63.1% of livers inspected were condemned due to fasciolosis (24.3%), calcification (15.3%), fibrosis (10.3%), fatty change (4.4%) and abscessation (1.8%). Heart and kidneys also had various abnormalities. The study further revealed that a total of 2,535,022.42 ETB (116, 611.03 USD) was lost due to the organs condemned during the active abattoir survey. To reduce organ condemnation rate and hence the associated financial loss and public health consequences, educating the public/the concerned bodies to avoid eating of raw meat, to improve canine health care and cattle management systems, to institute stray dog population management, to properly dispose condemned organs, and to implement regular deworming with effective anti-helminths are important. Moreover, proper and detail meat inspection at the abattoir and proper disposal or incineration of condemned organs are also recommended.
The interaction between mixed-lineage kinase 3 and the tumor suppressor protein merlin

Neurofibromatosis type 2 (NF2) is an autosomal dominant disorder of the nervous system which affects 1 in 30,000 individuals. The NF2 gene encodes a 595 amino acid tumor suppressor protein called Merlin that is a member of the ezrin, radixin, moesin (ERM) family of proteins. Patients with Neurofibromatosis Type 2 exhibit loss of function mutations in the NF2 gene and develop schwannomas and meningiomas. Mixed Lineage Kinase 3 (MLK3) is a mitogen activated protein kinase kinase kinase (MAP3K) that activates multiple MAPK signaling pathways. Stable overexpression of wildtype MLK3 in NIH3T3 cells is transforming and we previously observed that depletion of MLK3 inhibits proliferation of different types of normal and tumor cells. We also found that overexpression of Merlin inhibited MLK3 kinase activity and blocked the interaction between MLK3 and B-Raf. The goal of this research is to identify the region of Merlin that is required for the interaction with MLK3 and the inhibition of MLK3 kinase activity. We purified GST fusion proteins of Merlin expressed in bacteria consisting of the full length (aa 1-590), the N-terminus (aa 1-332) and two additional deletion mutants lacking the N-terminus (aa 308-590 and aa-340-590). Full-length histidine-tagged MLK3 (His-MLK3) was also expressed and purified from bacteria and in vitro binding assays were performed with His-MLK3 and the different deletion mutants of GST-Merlin. We observed that His-MLK3 protein bound to full length Merlin and the Merlin deletion mutants lacking the N-terminus (aa 308-590 and aa 340-590). However, the Merlin deletion mutant containing the alpha helical region and the C-terminus (aa 1-332) did not interact with His-MLK3. We conclude that the region of Merlin that is required for the interaction with MLK3 lies within aa 340-590.
A bridge to change: Experiences of participation in “VINN”— a motivational program for convicted women

The objective of this study was to examine women’s perceptions after participation in a motivational and gender-sensitive program (VINN) and to explore what was experienced as helpful. The qualitative data consisted of reports and transcriptions from 13 group interviews with 65 participants on probation or imprisoned in Sweden, Denmark, Russia, Estonia and Norway. The data were analysed according to systematic text condensation. The participants’ perceptions could be grouped into the following clusters: confidence and trust, deeper understanding, change and future hopes. The women appreciated the collaborative atmosphere focusing on quality of life, autonomy, strengths, coping and resources. The most beneficial experiences reported, regardless of country, were that their personal repertoires of actions were expanded during their participation, and their confidence in their ability to desist from crime and substance abuse in the future increased. The results support the program’s salutogenic approach combined with motivational interviewing as a bridge to change. Future research should investigate whether the participants report sustainability of the changes.
Process evaluation of the Albany Physical Activity and Nutrition (APAN) program, a home‐based intervention for metabolic syndrome and associated chronic disease risk in rural Australian adults

Issue addressed The Albany Physical Activity and Nutrition (APAN) study investigated the effects of the APAN program, a home-based intervention on dietary and physical activity behaviours and chronic disease risk for rural Australian adults. This paper reports on the process evaluation to gain insight into the link between intervention elements and outcomes. Methods The APAN program comprised resources to improve participants' diet and physical activity. Printed and online resources were provided to participants, complemented by motivational interviews via telephone. Process evaluation used mixed-methods, with a sample of 201 intervention participants residing in a disadvantaged rural area. Participants were aged 50 to 69 years with, or at risk of, metabolic syndrome. Quantitative data were collected using an online survey (n=73); qualitative data were collected via telephone exit interviews with intervention completers (n=8) and non-completers (n=8), and recruitment notes recorded by research assistants. Results The attrition rate of the program was 18%; major reasons for withdrawal were health and personal issues and a loss of interest. The majority of participants found the printed resources useful, attractive, and suitable to their age group. The website was the least preferred resource. Reasons for completing the program included the desired health benefits, wanting to honour the commitment, and wanting to assist with research. Conclusions Carefully planned recruitment will reduce the burden on resources and improve uptake. Understanding reasons for attrition such as family or personal barriers and health issues will assist practitioners to support participants overcome these barriers. Given participants' preference for printed resources, and the known effectiveness of these in combination with other strategies, investigating methods to encourage use of telephone and online support should be a priority. So what? This process evaluation provided an overview of recruitment challenges and preferred intervention components. It is desirable that future work determines the most effective intervention components for rural adults at risk of chronic disease.
Researchers' Scientific Performance in ResearchGate: The Case of a Technology University

With the advancement of technology and changes made in the scientific communication model, changes have been made in scientific evaluation methods. New technologies offer indicators that measure all the actions and interactions of scientists in the digital environment and create new aspects of scientific communication. This work has some purposes; first, mapping profile of scientific activities of faculty members of Sharif University of Technology (SUT) in “ResearchGate” (RG), second, intend to test the correlation h-index between the RG and Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus and Google Scholar (GS). Third, investigate SUT faculty members’ top h cited research RG in WoS, Scopus, and GS. Fourth, investigate Altmetric score of SUT faculty members’ top h cited research RG with Altmetric Explorer (AE). For this purpose, the SUT faculty members were searched in RG. Information was noted for those who were members in RG. Then, all their h index and the number of citations of top h cited research were extracted from WoS, Scopus and GS. Altmetric scores of Top h cited research of SUT faculty members was obtained by using AE. The degree of correlation between RG h index and WoS h index was higher than the h index of other citation databases. Also, the results indicate that there are errors in the calculation of the Almetric score by AE. Only 3% of the top h cited research of SUT faculty members had Altmetric score. While 95.72% of them had been read at least once in Mendeley and 78.7% of them had been cited in Mendeley.
Inhibition of fibroblast growth factor receptor-signaling sensitizes imatinib-resistant gastrointestinal stromal tumors to low doses of topoisomerase II inhibitors

The acquired resistance of gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs) to the targeted-based therapy remains the driving force to identify the novel approaches that are capable of increasing the sensitivity of GISTs to the current therapeutic regimens. Our present data show that BGJ398, a selective fibroblast growth factor receptor (FGFR) inhibitor, sensitizes imatinib (IM)-resistant GIST cells with receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK) switch (loss of c-KIT/gain of pFGFR2a) to the low doses of topoisomerase II inhibitors – doxorubicin (Dox) and etoposide (Eto). Mechanistically, pretreatment of IM-resistant GIST cells with BGJ398 for 12 h markedly enhanced proapoptotic and growth-suppressive effects of Dox (or Eto). Indeed, a significant cleavage of PARP and caspase-3 was observed in GIST cells treated with a combination of FGFR and topoisomerase II inhibitor. In contrast, no signs of apoptosis were detected in IM-resistant GIST cells treated with BGJ398, whereas the low doses of Dox (Eto) exerted the minor proapoptotic effects on GISTs. The mechanism of BGJ398-induced sensitization of GIST to topoisomerase II inhibitors might be because of attenuation of DNA damage signaling and repair. Indeed, we observed a marked decrease in Rad51 expression in GIST cells treated with BGJ398 together with Dox. Similar results were obtained when an overexpressed pFGFR2a was knocked down by corresponding siRNA before Dox (Eto) exposure. Moreover, FGFR inhibition/depletion caused a loss of Rad51 foci in Dox-treated GIST cells, suggesting that FGFR-signaling plays an important regulatory role in homology-mediated DNA repair. Our data show that combined therapy (RTKs inhibitors supplemented with low doses of topoisomerase II inhibitors) might be effective for unresectable and metastatic forms of GISTs. In case of resistance to IM because of RTKs switch indicated above, FGFR inhibitors (e.g. BGJ398) might be potentially useful because of their ability to sensitize tumor cells to topoisomerase II inhibitors and induce tumor cell apoptosis by targeting DNA double-strand breaks repair.
Functional categories, agrammatism and language acquisition

This paper incorporates an attempt to provide an alternative structural account of agrammatism based on recent developments in the Principles and Parameters framework. It is argued that these developments now make it possible to draw a theoritically-based and empirically viable distinction between impaired categories and the spared categories. It is argued further that the deficit underlying agrammatism results on generation of an impoverished structure of sentence, which lacks functional categories altogether.
Factors associated with vocal fold pathologies in teachers.

OBJECTIVE To analyze factors associated with the prevalence of the medical diagnosis of vocal fold pathologies in teachers. METHODS A census-based epidemiological, cross-sectional study was conducted with 4,495 public primary and secondary school teachers in the city of Salvador, Northeastern Brazil, between March and April 2006. The dependent variable was the self-reported medical diagnosis of vocal fold pathologies and the independent variables were sociodemographic characteristics; professional activity; work organization/interpersonal relationships; physical work environment characteristics; frequency of common mental disorders, measured by the Self-Reporting Questionnaire-20 (SRQ-20 >7); and general health conditions. Descriptive statistical, bivariate and multiple logistic regression analysis techniques were used. RESULTS The prevalence of self-reported medical diagnosis of vocal fold pathologies was 18.9%. In the logistic regression analysis, the variables that remained associated with this medical diagnosis were as follows: being female, having worked as a teacher for more than seven years, excessive voice use, reporting more than five unfavorable physical work environment characteristics and presence of common mental disorders. CONCLUSIONS The presence of self-reported vocal fold pathologies was associated with factors that point out the need of actions that promote teachers' vocal health and changes in their work structure and organization.
Object-centric debugging

During the process of developing and maintaining a complex software system, developers pose detailed questions about the runtime behavior of the system. Source code views offer strictly limited insights, so developers often turn to tools like debuggers to inspect and interact with the running system. Unfortunately, traditional debuggers focus on the runtime stack as the key abstraction to support debugging operations, though the questions developers pose often have more to do with objects and their interactions. We propose object-centric debugging as an alternative approach to interacting with a running software system. We show how, by focusing on objects as the key abstraction, natural debugging operations can be defined to answer developer questions related to runtime behavior. We present a running prototype of an object-centric debugger, and demonstrate, with the help of a series of examples, how object-centric debugging offers more effective support for many typical developer tasks than a traditional stack-oriented debugger.
Socioeconomic Status and Self-Rated Oral Health; Diminished Return among Hispanic Whites

Background. An extensive body of knowledge has documented weaker health effects of socio-economic status (SES) for Blacks compared to Whites, a phenomenon also known as Blacks’ diminished return. It is, however, unknown whether the same diminished return also holds for other ethnic minorities such as Hispanics or not. Aim. Using a nationally representative sample, the current study aimed to compare Non-Hispanic and Hispanic Whites for the effects of SES on self-rated oral health. Methods. For the current cross-sectional study, we used data from the Collaborative Psychiatric Epidemiology Surveys (CPES), 2001–2003. With a nationally representative sampling, CPES included 11,207 adults who were either non-Hispanic Whites (n = 7587) or Hispanic Whites (n = 3620. The dependent variable was self-rated oral health, treated as dichotomous measure. Independent variables were education, income, employment, and marital status. Ethnicity was the focal moderator. Age and gender were covariates. Logistic regressions were used for data analysis. Results. Education, income, employment, and marital status were associated with oral health in the pooled sample. Although education, income, employment, and marital status were associated with oral health in non-Hispanic Whites, none of these associations were found for Hispanic Whites. Conclusion. In a similar pattern to Blacks’ diminished return, differential gain of SES indicators exists between Hispanic and non-Hispanic Whites, with a disadvantage for Hispanic Whites. Diminished return of SES should be regarded as a systemically neglected contributing mechanism behind ethnic oral health disparities in the United States. Replication of Blacks’ diminished return for Hispanics suggests that these processes are not specific to ethnic minority groups, and non-White groups gain less because they are not enjoying the privilege and advantage of Whites.
Cluster Adaptive Training for Deep Neural Network Based Acoustic Model

Although context-dependent DNN-HMM systems have achieved significant improvements over GMM-HMM systems, significant performance degradation has been observed if the acoustic condition of the test data mismatches that of the training data. Hence, adaptation and adaptive training of DNN are of great research interest. Previous DNN adaptation works mainly focus on adapting parameters of a single DNN by applying linear transformations to feature or hidden-layer output; introducing vector representation of non-speech variability into the input. In these methods, large number of parameters are required to be estimated during adaptation. In this paper, the cluster adaptive training (CAT) framework is employed for DNN adaptive training. Here, multiple weight matrices are constructed to form the basis of a canonical parametric space. During adaptation, for a new acoustic condition, an interpolation vector is estimated to combine the weight basis into a single adapted weight matrix. Since only the interpolation vector need to be estimated during adaptation, the number of updated parameters is much smaller than existing DNN adaptation methods. The CAT-DNN approach was evaluated on an English switchboard task in unsupervised adaptation mode. It achieved significant WER reductions over the unadapted DNN-HMM, relative 7.6% to 10.6%, with only 10 parameters.
Some Evidence on the Uniqueness of Initial Public Debt Offerings

Debt initial public offerings (IPOs) represent a major shift in a firm's financing policy by both extending debt maturity and altering the public-private debt mix. In contrast to findings for seasoned debt offerings, we document a significantly negative stock price response to debt IPO announcements. This result is consistent with debt maturity and debt ownership structure theories. The equity wealth effect is negatively related to the offer's maturity, and positively related to the degree of bank monitoring. We find that firms with less information asymmetry and firms with higher growth opportunities experience a less adverse stock price response. Copyright The American Finance Association 2000.
Seasonal variation in peritoneal dialysis-associated peritonitis: a multi-centre registry study.

BACKGROUND The role of seasonal variation in peritoneal dialysis (PD)-related peritonitis has been limited to a few small single-centre studies. METHODS Using all 6610 Australian patients receiving PD between 1 October 2003 and 31 December 2008, we evaluated the influence of seasons on peritonitis rates (Poisson regression) and outcomes (multivariable logistic regression). RESULTS The overall rate of peritonitis was 0.59 episodes per patient-year of treatment. Using winter as the reference season, the peritonitis incidence rate ratios (95% confidence interval) for summer, autumn and spring were 1.02 (0.95-1.09), 1.01 (0.94-1.08) and 0.99 (0.92-1.06), respectively. Significant seasonal variations were observed in the rates of peritonitis caused by coagulase-negative Staphylococci (spring and summer peaks), corynebacteria (winter peak) and Gram-negative organisms (summer and autumn peaks). There were trends to seasonal variations in fungal peritonitis (summer and autumn peaks) and pseudomonas peritonitis (summer peak). No significant seasonal variations were observed for other organisms. Peritonitis outcomes did not significantly vary according to season. CONCLUSIONS Seasonal variation has no appreciable influence on overall PD peritonitis rates or clinical outcomes. Nevertheless, significant seasonal variations were observed in the rates of peritonitis due to specific microorganisms, which may allow institutions to more precisely target infection control strategies prior to higher risk seasons.