Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Agricultural development in the northern savannah of Ghana

Since declaring independence in 1957, the Republic of Ghana has become a stable constitutional democracy. Ghana's economy has grown substantially over the past decade, yet remains primarily agrarian, accounting for 50% of the total employment and 25% of the country's Gross Domestic Product. Smallholder rain-fed farming using rudimentary technologies dominates the agricultural sector accounting for 80% of total agricultural production. Approximately 90% of smallholder farms are less than two hectares in size, and produce a diversity of crops. The major crops cultivated in Ghana include numerous cereal, root and tuber, leguminous, fruit, vegetable and industrial crops. Maize is the most widely cultivated crop in Ghana, and accounts for a significant proportion of the daily caloric intake. However, significant yield gaps exist where actual maize yields are 50 to 80% less than achievable yields. The following document was written after conducting a three month 2012 summer internship in Ghana as an agronomic expert volunteer for the Ghana Agricultural Development and Value Chain Enhancement (ADVANCE) Project. My primary objectives included monitoring ADVANCE crop production demonstration plots and farmers' fields to diagnose and address crop health issues, with the goal of identifying why smallholders in the north continue to get lower than expected yields even when good agronomic practices (GAPs) are being implemented. Observations indicate GAPs are not being adopted, partly because they are not often being implemented correctly at demonstration plots. The benefits of GAPs can be better realized through improved planning, communication, cooperation and education among all participants. This document is divided into four chapters. The first chapter is an introduction to the Republic of Ghana. Chapter 2 is a brief introduction to agriculture production in Ghana, emphasizing agriculture in the northern savannah and the major challenges facing development in the north. Chapter 3 is a detailed summary of my experience working on the ADVANCE Project. The final chapter discusses how agricultural development—in particular maize productivity—can be improved in the northern savannah of Ghana.
Patients receiving maintenance dialysis have more severe functionally significant skeletal muscle wasting than patients with dialysis-independent chronic kidney disease.

BACKGROUND Chronic renal replacement therapy patients exhibit reduction in skeletal muscle function as a result of a combination of metabolic effects and muscle fibre size reduction. The aim of this study was to compare muscle mass with function in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) at stages 4 and 5 on haemodialysis (HD) and peritoneal dialysis (PD), and investigate the associations of muscle wasting in a cross-sectional cohort. METHODS We studied 134 patients (60 HD, 28 PD and 46 CKD 4). The three groups were well matched for age, sex, diabetes and dialysis vintage. Cross-sectional area (CSA) of muscle and fat was measured from a standardized multi-slice CT scan of a 6 cm long section of thigh. CSA of soft tissue was taken from appropriate fat and muscle densities. Functional assessment was by the sit-to-stand 60 test, assessing both the number of sit-to-stands possible under controlled conditions in 60 s (STS 60), and the time taken to perform five sit-to-stand movements (STS 5). Data were collected on a wide range of potential determinants of muscle CSA. RESULTS There were no significant differences in haemoglobin between males or females or between any of the groups studied. Serum phosphate and calcium-phosphate product were higher in HD patients as compared to CKD4 patients, but there were no differences in these variables when comparing PD patients with either CKD4 or HD patients. Muscle CSA correlated well with objective functional assessments in males (STS 60 R = 0.52, P<0.0001) and females (R = 0.41, P = 0.004), and STS performance was reduced in dialysed patients as compared with CKD 4. Univariate analysis demonstrated that muscle CSA was associated with serum albumin concentration (R = 0.49, P<0.0001), age (R = -0.35, P = 0.005) and C-reactive protein (R = -0.34, P = 0.004). Creatinine clearance, dialysis adequacy, dialysis vintage and time-averaged serum bicarbonate, calcium and phosphate concentrations were not correlated with muscle CSA. CONCLUSION In conclusion, patients with dialysis-treated CKD 5 exhibited more functionally significant muscle wasting than patients with CKD 4. This may be amenable to modification with targeted exercise or amelioration of factors associated with observed differences in muscle mass.
Comparative evaluation of vector machine based hyperspectral classification methods

This paper presents a comparison of the classification performance of some vector machine based classification methods, namely, Import Vector Machines (IVM), Support Vector Machines (SVM) and Relevance Vector Machines (RVM), for hyperspectral images. Evaluation is carried out in terms of the number of vectors and classification accuracies. Furthermore, novel to this paper, Discriminative Random Field method with Graph Cut algorithm is applied to the probabilistic classification output of IVM based hyperspectral classification results, and it is shown that this approach significantly increases classification accuracies.
Bmc Molecular Biology

Extraordinary diversity among members of the large gene family, 185/333, from the purple sea urchin, Strongylocentrotus purpuratus Abstract Background: Recent analysis of immune-related genes within the sea urchin genome revealed a number of large gene families with vertebrate homologues, such as the Toll-like and NOD/NALP-like receptor families and C-type lectins in addition to a rudimentary complement system. Therefore, the immune response of the purple sea urchin appears to be more complex than previously believed. Another component of the sea urchin immune response is an unusual family of mRNAs, known as 185/333, which is strongly upregulated in response to pathogen challenge. The work presented here indicates that this family of transcripts is derived from an unexpectedly diverse gene family.
Flexible Bronchoscope Damage and Repair Costs in a Bronchoscopy Teaching Unit

Background: A significant part of the budget of our bronchoscopy unit represents repair costs for damaged bronchoscopes. Objectives: The purpose of this study was to determine the frequency, type and cause of damage to the bronchoscope as well as the repair costs. Methods: Frequency, type and cause of bronchoscope damage and repair costs of 13 new bronchoscopes that were used between August 1, 2001, and December 31, 2006, were retrospectively studied. Results: We recorded 47 instances of bronchoscope damage during the study, which is 1 instance of damage/141.6 procedures. Six instances of damage (12.7%) were potentially preventable. The most frequent wear and tear damage was to the rubber sheath on the distal bending portion of flexible bronchoscopes, and the most frequently preventable damage was that of the suction channel of the bronchoscope. The repair costs totaled 34,950.00 EUR or 5.25 EUR/procedure. 17,781.00 EUR (50.9%) can be attributed to preventable damage. The use of bronchoscopes for educational purposes was not associated with a higher rate of bronchoscope damage at our institution. Conclusions: Only a small number of occurrences of bronchoscope damage in our unit are potentially preventable, but they still represent an important expense. The relatively low occurrence of preventable damage is a result of the successful bronchoscopy training program.
The effect of clustering in client-caching architectures

Computer systems deployed in contemporary industrial and production environments typically involve a large number of workers who work simultaneously to draft new components and/or trace provided services. Efficient database support for such systems is crucial. The handling of high volume data among various sites of a network based infrastructure poses new challenges as it can be only carried out by aggregates of data servers and powerful workstations/PCs (clients). Operating in such environments, client/server databases (C/S DBSs) (M. Carey et al., 1991) have shown reduced response times for client transactions over their centralized counterparts. Previous work has indicated, however, that when the number of clients attached per server becomes large, C/S DBSs fail to guarantee satisfactory performance rates. This is known as the scalability problem. Client object caching is used as a mechanism to improve system scalability by easing resource contention at the server sites. Design and manufacturing databases display different operational characteristics from their conventional counterparts as they routinely support multiple and mostly independent projects. In such settings, a group of cooperating designers or workers achieve a complex task by closely interacting among themselves and dynamically sharing design data. We exploit the aforementioned feature of design and manufacturing databases, and propose a cluster based caching configuration. The cluster based configuration groups sites according to the similarity of their access patterns. This results in improved client performance rates and offers better scalability.
Diverse Roles of Neurotensin Agonists in the Central Nervous System

Neurotensin (NT) is a tridecapeptide that is found in the central nervous system (CNS) and the gastrointestinal tract. NT behaves as a neurotransmitter in the brain and as a hormone in the gut. Additionally, NT acts as a neuromodulator to several neurotransmitter systems including dopaminergic, sertonergic, GABAergic, glutamatergic, and cholinergic systems. Due to its association with such a wide variety of neurotransmitters, NT has been implicated in the pathophysiology of several CNS disorders such as schizophrenia, drug abuse, Parkinson’s disease (PD), pain, central control of blood pressure, eating disorders, as well as, cancer and inflammation. The present review will focus on the role that NT and its analogs play in schizophrenia, endocrine function, pain, psychostimulant abuse, and PD.
On the Self-Similar Nature of Ethernet Traffic ( extended version )

We demonstrate that Ethernet local area network (LAN) traffic is statistically self-similar, that none of the commonly used traffic models is able to capture this fractal behavior, that such behavior has serious implications for the design, control, and analysis of high-speed, cell-based (B-ISDN) networks, and that aggregating streams of such traffic typically intensifies the selfsimilarity ("burstiness") instead of smoothing it. Intuitively, the critical characteristic of this self-similar traffic is that there is no natural length of a "burst": at every time scale ranging from a few milliseconds to minutes and hours, similar-looking traffic bursts are evident. Our conclusions are supported by a rigorous statistical analysis of hundreds of millions of high quality Ethernet traffic measurements collected between 1989 and 1992, coupled with a discussion of the underlying mathematical and statistical properties of self-similarity and their relationship with actual network behavior. We also consider some implications for congestion control in B-ISDN and present traffic models based on self-similar stochastic processes. Selfsimilar traffic models provide simple, accurate, and realistic descriptions of traffic scenarios encountered during B-ISDN deployment.
Towards an Economy-Based Optimisation of File Access and Replication on a Data Grid

We are working on a system for the optimised access and replication of data on a Data Grid. Our approach is based on the use of an economic model that includes the actors and the resources in the Grid. Optimisation is obtained via interaction of the actors in the model, whose goals are maximising the profits and minimising the costs of data resource management. In the system, local optimisation results in global optimisation through emergent marketplace behaviour. In this paper we give an overview of our model and present part of the complex economic reasoning required to support this desired marketplace interaction model.
03.27: Punching shear behaviour of an innovative connection between steel tubular column to flat concrete slab

This paper presents the results of an experimental investigation into the punching shear behaviour and resistance of a simple and effective method of connection between steel tubular column and concrete flat slab using welded shear studs. The shear stud used is the same type as used in conventional steel/concrete composite beams. A major difference between the shear stud behaviour in the proposed system and in composite beam is that in the proposed system, the amount of concrete available to resist punching shear is limited due to small depth of the flat concrete slab. The experimental studies have investigated the effects on punching shear behaviour and resistance of the proposed shear connection system under different design variables including concrete depth above the shear stud, concrete grade, and shear stud dimensions (length and diameter). The results indicate that it is possible to use the proposed simple connection system to provide sufficient punching shear resistance in realistic flat slab construction. Punching shear resistance is dependent on the concrete depth above shear stud. Concrete grade is also important, however, it is the concrete tensile strength that directly determines punching shear resistance. The dimensions of shear stud have relatively minor influences.
Effects of Torque and Friction Coefficients on the Fretting Characteristics of Annular Face Gear Contact Interface

In present, the annular face gear connect structures are widely used in combined rotor of heavy-duty gas turbine or aeroengine to transmit the torque and force. The fretting wear will happen on the face gear contact interfaces after long-time operation. This paper investigates the evolution of contact characteristics including contact stress, slide distance, and wear depth of face gear contact interfaces under the conditions of different torque and friction coefficients by means of finite element analysis method. It can be concluded that the distribution of the contact stress and slip distance on the face gear contact interface are inhomogeneous, and the stress close to the tooth root is the largest, so the largest wear occurs near the tooth root in the inner surface. Increased torque can improve the contact stress and slip distance. The larger friction coefficient effectively reduces the wear of contact surfaces.
Deaf Readers as Bilinguals: An Examination of Deaf Readers' Print Comprehension in Light of Current Advances in Bilingualism and Second Language Processing

Much work has examined whether deaf and hearing individuals’ reading strategies are qualitatively different, under the assumption that such differences might account for discrepancies in levels of reading achievement (cf., Allen 1986; Gallaudet Research Institute 2005; Holt 1994; Karchmer and Mitchell 2003; Traxler 2000; Wauters et al. 2006). While generalizing over the performance of deaf readers is not trivial, the evidence seems to converge on the reader’s quality of modality-independent language experience as the best predictor for reading abilities (Mayberry et al. 2011). In order to better understand the relationship between sign literacy and written literacy, more attention needs to be devoted to the fact that most deaf readers are bilingual in a signed and a written language and that, in most cases, the written language is, effectively, their second language. The growing body of research on bilingualism and L2 processing is rapidly advancing our understanding of the architecture of the bilingual brain and of the individual factors that might affect both production and comprehension in a second language. This body of research has great potential to illuminate aspects of deaf readers’ behavior that have heretofore appeared vexing. In turn, including deaf literacy studies within the larger context of research on bilingualism will contribute to a richer picture of the bilingual experience.
Self-Organizing Hierarchical Routing for Scalable Ad Hoc Networking

As devices with wireless networking become more pervasive, mobile ad hoc networks are becoming increasingly important, motivating the development of highly scalable ad hoc networking techniques. In this paper, we present the design and evaluation of a novel protocol for scalable routing in ad hoc networks as part of the Safari project. We develop a probabilistic, self-organizing network hierarchy formation protocol that recursively forms the nodes of the ad hoc network into an adaptive, proximity-based hierarchy of cells. We develop a hybrid routing protocol that uses this hierarchy and also develop an ondemand reactive routing protocol to scale to large numbers of nodes. The mapping of unique node identifiers to hierarchical addresses is done using a distributed hash table that leverages the hierarchical network structure. We evaluate this scalable routing protocol through analysis and simulations, showing individually as well as together the performance of the hierarchy formation protocol, the overhead of address mapping, and the performance of the routing protocol. As devices with wireless networking become more pervasive, mobile ad hoc networks are becoming increasingly important, motivating the development of highly scalable ad hoc networking techniques. In this paper, we present the design and evaluation of a novel protocol for scalable routing in ad hoc networks as part of the Safari project. We develop a probabilistic, self-organizing network hierarchy formation protocol that recursively forms the nodes of the ad hoc network into an adaptive, proximity-based hierarchy of cells. We develop a hybrid routing protocol that uses this hierarchy and also develop an on-demand reactive routing protocol to scale to large numbers of nodes. The mapping of unique node identifiers to hierarchical addresses is done using a distributed hash table that leverages the hierarchical network structure. We evaluate this scalable routing protocol through analysis and simulations, showing individually as well as together the performance of the hierarchy formation protocol, the overhead of address mapping, and the performance of the routing protocol.
The contribution of gene expression profiling to breast cancer classification, prognostication and prediction: a retrospective of the last decade

In the last decade, the development of microarrays and the ability to perform massively parallel gene expression analysis of human tumours were received with great excitement by the scientific community. The promise of microarrays was of apocalyptic dimensions, with some experts envisaging that it would be a matter of a few years for this technology to replace traditional clinicopathological markers in clinical practice and treatment decision‐making. The replacement of histopathology by high‐tech and more objective approaches to cancer diagnosis, prognostication and prediction was, at that time, a foregone conclusion. Ten years after the initial publications of translational research studies using microarrays, one cannot deny that this technology has changed the way breast cancer is perceived. It has brought the concept of breast cancer heterogeneity to the forefront of cancer research, and the fact that distinct subtypes of breast cancer are completely different diseases that affect the same anatomical site. Furthermore, it has led to the development of prognostic and predictive ‘gene signatures’, which are yet to be fully incorporated into clinical practice. Importantly, though, the prognostic and predictive power of microarrays has been shown to be complementary to, rather than a replacement for, traditional clinicopathological parameters. Here we endeavour to provide a fair and balanced assessment of what microarray‐based gene expression analysis has taught us in the last decade and its contribution to breast cancer classification, prognostication and prediction. Copyright © 2009 Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Lorentz Invariance and Superluminal Particles

If textbook Lorentz invariance is actually a property of the equations describing a sector of matter above some critical distance scale, several sectors of matter with different critical speeds in vacuum can coexist and an absolute rest frame (the vacuum rest frame, possibly related to the local rest frame of the expanding Universe) may exist without contradicting the apparent Lorentz invariance felt by "ordinary" particles (particles with critical speed in vacuum equal to $c$ , the speed of light). Sectorial Lorentz invariance, reflected by the fact that all particles of a given dynamical sector have the same critical speed in vacuum, will then be an expression of a fundamental sectorial symmetry (e.g. preonic grand unification or extended supersymmetry) protecting a parameter of the equations of motion. We study the breaking of Lorentz invariance in such a scenario, with emphasis on mixing between the "ordinary" sector and a superluminal sector, and discuss with examples the consequences of existing data. The sectorial universality of the value of the high-energy speed in vacuum, even exact, does not necessarily imply that Lorentz invariance is not violated and does not by itself exclude the possibility to produce superluminal particles at accelerators or to find them in experiments devoted to high-energy cosmic rays. Similarly, the stringent experimental bounds on Lorentz symmetry violation at low energy cannot be extrapolated to high-energy phenomena. Several basic questions related to possible effects of Lorentz symmetry violation are discussed, and potential signatures are examined.
Adaptive dual-layer super-twisting control and observation

ABSTRACT In this paper, a super-twisting-like structure with adaptive gains is proposed. The structure is parameterised by two scalar gains, both of which adapt, and by an additional time-varying term. The magnitudes of the adaptive terms are allowed to both increase and decrease as appropriate so that they are as small as possible, in the sense that they do not unnecessarily over-bound the uncertainty, and yet are large enough to sustain a sliding motion. In the paper, a new time varying gain is incorporated into the traditional super-twisting architecture. The proposed adaption law has a dual-layer structure which is formally analyzed using Lyapunov techniques. The additional term has the effect of simplifying the stability analysis whilst guaranteeing the second-order sliding mode properties of the traditional super-twisting scheme.