Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Two Africas ? Why Africa ’ s ‘ Growth Miracle ’ has barely reduced poverty by

Growth improved substantially in most countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) since 1990, but poverty in SSA as a whole has fallen by about a third, compared to by half or more in other developing regions. While some countries have had little or no success in reducing poverty, many have had significant achievements. The paper argues that inter-country differences, traceable to colonial experience, are crucial to understanding this varied SSA performance. This is based on a distinction between relatively labour-intensive ‘smallholder’ colonial economies and capital-intensive ‘extractive economies’ exporting minerals and plantation crops. Because of the more equitable income distribution and African political inclusion generated in smallholder economies, at independence they were in a better position than extractive economies to translate growth into poverty reduction. Since the 1990s (when poverty data are available) the distinction in terms of poverty reduction can be observed. The empirical analysis estimates the growth elasticity of poverty using various specifications, some including inequality. There are two key robust findings: i) smallholder economies significantly outperform extractive economies in poverty reduction; and ii) growth rates do not differ on average between the two groups, but the growth elasticity of poverty is higher in smallholder economies. JEL: I32, N37, O10, O55,
Mixing Times of Markov Chains: Techniques and Examples

The emphasis of these notes is on techniques explained through examples, and I did not try to make the results as general as possible. Instead, the ideas are exposed in the simplest form that I know of, and a couple of examples are selected to illustrate the idea concretely. The book by Levin, Peres and Wilmer [17] is a key reference that contains many more examples and more precise results; we refer to it often and follow its exposition in a number of cases. However we depart from it in the organisation of the material and several proofs; some topics which are not covered in that book but are included here include the connection to representation theory and the Diaconis–Shahshahani upper bound lemma, as well as analytic methods based on functional inequalities such as Nash and Log-Sobolev inequalities. On the other hand, I didn’t include things like the path coupling method, electrical network theory, and important examples such as lamplighters and spin systems such as Glauber dynamics for Ising model and q-colourings.
β-Caryophyllene causes remyelination and modifies cytokines expression in C57BL/6 mice with experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis

Harleson Lopes Mesquita1, Livia Beatriz Almeida Fontes1, Laetitia Alves Cinsa1, Ademar Alves Da Silva Filho2, Akinori Cardozo Nagato1, Beatriz Julião Vieira Aarestrup1, José Otávio do Amaral Corrêa2*, Fernando Monteiro Aarestrup1 1Laboratory of Experimental Imunology and Patology, CBR, Federal University of Juiz de Fora, Juiz de Fora, Brazil. 2Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Faculty of Phamarcy, Federal University of Juiz de Fora, Juiz de Fora, Brazil.
A big sh in a small pond: Ability rank and human capital investment∗

We study the impact of a student's ordinal rank in a high school cohort on educational attainment several years later. To identify a causal e ect, we compare multiple cohorts within the same school, exploiting idiosyncratic variation in cohort composition. We nd that a student's ordinal rank signi cantly a ects educational outcomes later in life. If two students with the same ability have a di erent rank in their respective cohort, the higherranked student is signi cantly more likely to nish high school, attend college, and complete a 4-year college degree. These results suggest that low-ranked students under-invest in their human capital even though they have a high ability compared to most students of the same age. Exploring potential channels, we nd that students with a higher rank have higher expectations about their future career, and feel that they are being treated more fairly by their teachers. JEL Codes: I21, I23, J24
The acquisition of linking theories: A Tolerance and Sufficiency Principle approach to deriving UTAH and rUTAH

ABSTRACT We investigate concrete acquisition theories for a derived approach to linking theory development and explore to what extent two prominent linking theories in the syntactic literature—UTAH and rUTAH—can be derived from the data that English-learning children encounter. We leverage a conceptual acquisition framework that specifies key aspects of the child’s acquisition task, including realistic child-directed input and a cognitively motivated mechanism for inference (the sufficiency threshold, derived from the Tolerance and Sufficiency Principles). We find that rUTAH can be derived but UTAH can’t, if children derive their linking theories from their input as specified here. We discuss the implications of these results for both syntactic theory and acquisition theory.
A Review of Intelligent Controller , Sensing and Communication , and Human Factors Aspects for Information-Aware Connected Autonomous Vehicles

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) are equipped with a rich set of sensors, such as radar, light detection and ranging (LIDAR), global positioning system (GPS), odometer, and camera, which are used to detect their surroundings by analyzing sensors data to develop collision free path and route the desired destination. To achieve the user acceptance, reliability and comfort of an AV system, it is necessary to push technological advancements and multi-disciplinary research not only, on sensing technologies and control systems, but also on communication (i.e., vehicle-tovehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I)) technologies and human factors. AV systems with V2V and V2I capabilities can build Connected Autonomous Vehicle (CAV) systems. However, it is very critical to design a CAV system, which can sense and communicate with its surroundings and ensure system reliability, safety, and users’ comfort. In this paper, we conducted an in-depth review on three key aspects of CAV systems: communication-aware controller design, sensing and communication technologies, and human factors. AV controller is the heart of any CAV systems. Communication technology can improve the CAV controller, that can support safety, stability, and comfortable operation of the AVs. Traditional AVs are equipped with different sensing (i.e., radar, LIDAR, camera, and GPS) and communication technologies (V2V and V2I) to provide reliable information to the controller. As human will be the user of CAVs, diverse human factor issues, such as user acceptance and trust, must be considered to design an AV for mass adaptation. Finally, future research challenges for designing the CAV systems have been identified with the goal of motivating the design of more advanced technologies that integrate the three areas for CAVs.
PR ] 2 1 Ju l 2 01 9 Tempered Fractional Brownian Motion Revisited Via Fractional Ornstein-Uhlenbeck Processes

Tempered fractional Brownian motion is revisited from the viewpoint of reduced fractional Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process. Many of the basic properties of the tempered fractional Brownian motion can be shown to be direct consequences or modifications of the properties of fractional Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process. Mixed tempered fractional Brownian motion is introduced and its properties are considered. Tempered fractional Brownian motion is generalised from single index to two indices. Finally, tempered multifractional Brownian motion and its properties are studied.
Rule-based Data Quality Management Data ( Integration ) Layer Statistical Processing with Markov Logic

Having access to high quality data is of great importance in data analysis. However, data in the real world is often considered dirty: it contains inaccurate, incomplete, inconsistent, duplicated, or stale values. A number of distinct data quality issues are known in the field of data quality management such as data consistency, currency, accuracy, deduplication and information completeness [Fan and Geerts 2012]. As previous work has observed, such data quality issues are detrimental to data analysis [Council 2013],[Fan and Geerts 2012] and cause huge costs to businesses [Eckerson 2002]. Therefore, improving data quality with respect to business and integrity constraints is a crucial component of data management. A common approach to increase data quality is to formulate a set of data cleaning rules that detect semantic errors by utilizing data dependencies [Fan and Geerts 2012], [Arasu et al. 2009], [Dallachiesa et al. 2013], [Geerts et al. 2013]. However, previous research identified a number of requirements and accompanying challenges, which are associated with creating such rule sets (c.f., Section 2): Interleaved rules. First, while each such rule usually addresses one data quality issue individually, the individual rules as a whole typically interact [Fan and Geerts 2012], [Fan et al. 2014]. For instance, a rule that deletes duplicates might perform better after missing data has already been imputed, while, on the other hand, a rule that imputes missing data might perform better if duplicates have already been removed. Therefore, we argue to model data quality rules such as deduplication and missing value imputation jointly, rather than as separate processes. Second, rules in such a rule-set may need to be modeled ”soft” and ”hard” in order to balance constraints of different importance [Yakout et al. 2013], especially within a set of interacting rules. Automation. Different execution orders of interleaved rules produce different results [Dallachiesa et al. 2013]. Imposing the difficult problem of manually specifying the execution order on the user conflicts with the automation principle of data curation systems [Stonebraker et al. 2013].
Comparison of geomatic techniques for rockfall monitoring

Rockfalls are slope instabilities very frequent and harmful in mountainous areas. They cause damage in infrastructures (roads and railways), buildings, vehicles and people. Several tests were carried out to understand better these events. The field activities comprised real scale tests and the characterization of natural events in the N-E of Spain, mainly in the Pyrenees range. Moreover, in order to understand the behaviour of the blocks during the fall real scale tests were carried out. We dropped a total of 124 rock blocs under controlled conditions. Prior to the block release and during their propagation downslope, several geomatic techniques were used to monitor the volumes, shapes and trajectories of the original blocks and their fragments (due to breakage); it is worth to highlight the videogrammetry to determine the trajectories of the blocks. In order to survey the natural rock walls, source of the rockfalls, the so-called massive data capture by photogrammetry (both terrestrial and UAV-drone with image and video) and Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) have been used, in this way the different techniques can be compared. Finally, for the monitoring of some rock cliffs, with recurrent rockfalls, the TLS was used, trying to catch some precursory displacements that may help in the risk management of the areas at the bottom. In our contribution, the aforementioned geomatic techniques (videogrammetry, photogrammetry – terrestrial or aerial --, and TLS) are combined and compared, highlighting the pros and cons of the different methods and their applications according to environmental conditions.
Prevalence and risk factors for hypertension among school attending adolescents in Kancheepuram district

Background: Hypertension among school going adolescents as an evolving public health concern in urban India is well recognized. In the present study, an attempt was made to find the prevalence of hypertension among school attending adolescents in 11-19 years age group and to study the socio-demographic, and life style habits prevalent in this study group contributing to hypertension in this study group. Materials and Methods: Descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted during September 2012 to January 2013 in secondary and matriculation schools in sub-urban parts of Rathinamangalam, Kancheepuram District. A total of 1540 students were randomly selected from six schools in the study area and purposive sampling of adolescents is done for the operational feasibility. Blood pressure readings along with socio-demographic and life-style characteristics were recorded using a pre-tested questionnaire. Results: Among 1540 students, the prevalence of hypertension (>95 percentile distribution per age and gender) among male adolescents in this study is 1.9% and 1.72% among female adolescents. The prevalence of isolated systolic hypertension (>95 percentile distribution per age and gender) among males is 0.71% when compared with 0.28% in females. Conclusion: Prevalence of hypertension is found to be less but life style factors, which can have negative effect on blood pressure, are highly prevalent. Preventive efforts should target school attending adolescents to promote healthy life styles habits.
An experimental comparison of several non linear controllers for power converters

In this paper, the authors present an experimental comparative study of five controllers for boost DC-to-DC power converters recently reported in the control literature. They all enjoy some provable stability properties, which are briefly recalled in the paper. To carry out these experiments, the authors constructed a low cost electronic card, which captures the essential features of a commercial product, but with all the sensors required to monitor the behaviour of the system. The algorithms are compared with respect to ease of implementation, in particular their sensitivity to the tuning parameters, and closed-loop performance. The latter is evaluated with the standard criteria of steady-state and transient behaviour, and disturbance attenuation. Motivated by the experimental evidence, they propose several modifications to the basic schemes, for some of them they establish some new theoretical results.
Timing of Artificial Insemination Relative to Behavioral Estrus and Synchronized Ovulations in Lactating Dairy Cows

The widespread adoption by dairy farmers of hormonal protocols that synchronize ovulation and allow for a timed artificial insemination (TAI) in lactating dairy cows has radically changed the way that AI breeding programs are implemented and managed on dairy farms. Before development of hormonal protocols that allow for TAI, many studies were conducted to determine the optimal timing of insemination in relation to detection of behavioral estrus (Trimberger and Davis, 1943; Foote, 1979; Nebel et al., 1994). Because most cows submitted for TAI after hormonal synchronization show little or no outward signs of estrous behavior upon which to base timing of insemination, a new line of research has arisen to optimize the timing of induced ovulation (accomplished using GnRH analogs) after induction of luteal regression (accomplished using PGF2α or its analogs) within an Ovsynch protocol as well as timing of AI in relation to the induced ovulation. This paper is an overview of the salient studies in these research areas, which will serve as the basis for practical recommendations for timing AI in relation to behavioral estrus and synchronized ovulations in lactating dairy cows.
INFLUENCE OF WATER CONTENT ON GAS PORE PRESSURE IN CONCRETES AT HIGH TEMPERATURE

In this paper, results of measurements of gas pore pressure in ordinary concrete (OC) and high performance concrete (HPC) heated up to 600 °C are presented. The same experimental equipment and procedures than Kalifa and co-authors were used, thus enabling the measurement of gas pore pressure and temperature at different depths in prismatic concrete specimens (0.3 x 0.3 x 0.12 m3) heated on one face. The specimens were instrumented during the manufacturing process. The equipment included five probes to simultaneously measure pressure and temperature at different depths. During the test, the specimen was placed on a balance to measure its weight loss in order to provide information on water transfers, which is valuable for validating numerical codes. In the paper, a comparison of results obtained on conditioned in air, pre-dried (at 80 °C) and water saturated samples are presented. As expected, the pressure peaks obtained for pre-dried concretes are the lowest of the three conditioning. Surprisingly, however, the results of gas pore pressure of samples saturated with water exhibited lower values than non pre-treated samples. This result is attributed to crack induced development due to liquid water expansion. Results are compared to previous results on the influence of the heating rate.
DURABILITY OF RECYCLED AGGREGATE CONCRETE. AN APPROACH TO INFLUENCE OF DOSAGE CONDITION ON THE PERMEABILITY. METHODOLOGY PROPOSE OF REBARS CORROSION ANALYSIS

The first stage of experimental program designed to analysis durability aspects on recycled aggregates concrete is presented. A pilot programme was established comprising laboratory tests to adjust the mix design required, beginning with the characterisation of the materials to be used. Subsequently, concrete was produced, with replacement ratios of 20% 50% and 100% of the coarse recycled aggregate and also a conventional concrete with natural aggregates. This paper discusses the concrete properties: compression strength, permeability. A very good behavior is found for concretes with substitution rates up to 20%. With higher substitution rates, if the total water / cement ratio is kept constant, mechanical behavior is also maintained. Permeability has proved to be affected in concretes with substitution rates greater than 50%. To study rebar corrosion in concrete, tests to suggest a methodologies which include conventional rebar were proposed; the test specimens will be subjected to conditions simulating exposures environmental water sea XS1, XS2, XS3, such as EN 206-1 (E2 [1]) or environment 4a for Model Code [2] or equivalent to conditions IIIa, IIIb and IIIc as defined by the Spanish Code EHE-08 [3], related to marine environments.
he deterrence of crime through private security efforts : heory and evidence aul

Private individuals and entities invest in a wide variety of market-provisioned self-protection devices or services to mitigate their probability of victimization to crime. However, evaluating the effect of such private security measures remains understudied in the economics of crime literature. Unlike most previous studies, the present analysis considers four separate measures of private security: security guards, detectives and investigators, security system installers, and locksmiths. The effects of laws allowing the concealed carrying of weapons are also evaluated. As private security efforts are potentially endogenous to
Assessing the Relational Nature of Child Physical Abuse and Neglect Among 12-Year-Old Girls

Child maltreatment is a historical and current problem in the United States. Children are exposed to physical abuse, neglect, and sexual abuse in alarming numbers. In 2014, state agencies found an estimated 702,000 victims of child maltreatment. With two thirds of this group representing child neglect victims, research studies and effective interventions are needed for this group in particular. This study examined the relational nature of child neglect versus child physical abuse. The sample population consisted of 68 girls aged 12 years old at the Midwest site of the Longitudinal Studies of Child Abuse and Neglect research project. The secondary analysis was completed with descriptive, correlational, and multiple regression analyses. The results of the analysis revealed the mother–child relationship was significantly related to the presence of neglect and was significantly related to the presence of physical abuse. Peer relationships were not found to be significantly related to the presence of neglect or physical abuse. In the multiple-regression analysis, child neglect versus child physical abuse was more predictive of a negative mother–child relationship. Of note, the outcomes of the study lead to a better understanding of the need for relational interventions in treating victims of child abuse and neglect, as well as the relational nature of abuse and neglect demand interventions that focus on the victim and the caregiver/perpetrator. Such interventions can only result in socially and emotionally connected individuals, improving the functioning of the adolescent and the future adult.
PREY PREFERENCE BY DELPHASTUS CATALINAE (COLEOPTERA: COCCINELLIDAE) ON BEMISIA ARGENTIFOLII (HOMOPTERA: ALEYRODIDAE): EFFECTS OF PLANT SPECIES AND PREY STAGES

BioOne sees sustainable scholarly publishing as an inherently collaborative enterprise connecting authors, nonprofit publishers, academic institutions, research libraries, and research funders in the common goal of maximizing access to critical research. PREY PREFERENCE BY DELPHASTUS CATALINAE (COLEOPTERA: COCCINELLIDAE) ON BEMISIA ARGENTIFOLII (HOMOPTERA: ALEYRODIDAE): EFFECTS OF PLANT SPECIES AND PREY STAGES
Aflatoxigenic moulds and aflatoxins in street-vended snacks in Lagos , Nigeria

Twenty-five snack samples made separately from corn, groundnut, nuts (coconut, tiger nut and walnut) and wheat were evaluated for the incidence of aflatoxigenic moulds and aflatoxins. The snacks were collected from street vendors in five locations within Lagos, Nigeria. Only 9 out of the 25 snacks belonging to the cornand groundnut-based categories yielded isolates of Aspergillus flavus and A. tamarii. A. flavus was significantly (p<0.05) predominant (>90%) than A. tamarii in both snack groups. About 36% of the Aspergillus isolates produced aflatoxin in neutral red desiccated coconut agar medium. Approximately 81% of the toxigenic A. flavus from groundnut-based snacks produced more aflatoxin than those from cornbased snacks. Aflatoxins were detected in 68% (17/25) of the snacks at total aflatoxin (TA) concentrations of 0–50μg/kg. Only aflatoxin B1 (AFB1), AFB2 and AFG1 were detected in the snacks. AFB1 was the most prevalent aflatoxin in all snacks. With exception of nut-based snacks, all other snacks were contaminated with TA concentrations at levels exceeding the maximum allowable limits (MAL) for TA in foods (15μg/kg) as recommended by the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC).
Seed-Coating Agent Affects on the Physiology and Biochemistry of Astragalus

Astragalus membranaceus (Fisch.) Bge (AR, Huangqi in Chinese), one of the most important medicinal plants in Asia, was found to exhibit various bioactivities. We developed the appropriate seed coating technology to encounter agronomic and cultivation and carried the seed physiological effects and mechanisms. To better understand the effect and mechanism of seedcoating agent (SCA) on the physiology and biochemistry of AR, the physiological and biochemical effects of SCA on AR were studied under field experiment. The results showed that the seed treated with SCA obviously increased germination rate of AR seed, maintained dramatically higher vigor of root, and chlorophyll content, promoted the area of photosynthesis, significantly improved the dry weight of root, stem, leaf and accumulated more soluble sugar, when compared with the uncoated without the treatment, which provided a guarantee to enhance the hardness resistance of seedlings, and finally to enhance the quality of AR. It can improve photosynthesis and accelerate metabolism, promote the formation and transformation of proteins and carbohydrates, thus providing more material and energy for growth and development of AR. Seed coating can improve astragaloside content, improve the quality of AR, so as to improve medicinal value.