Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Conflict, Nutritional Status and Patterns of Young Child Feeding

Background: Malnutrition in countries of the Eastern Mediterranean region (EMR) impedes their development. Aim: To study patterns of complementary feeding (CF) and continued breastfeeding (CBF) on nutritional status and deaths from micronutrient deficiencies (MDs) in EMR countries. Methods: Data from ten EMR countries were compiled using UNICEF Global expanded health survey (2018). Data included EBF, CBF rates. CF core indicators included introduction of soft and semi-solid and solid food (ISSS) at 6-8 months, minimum acceptable diet (MAD), minimum dietary diversity (MDD) and minimum meal frequency (MMF). Analysis was done in relation to age, sex, residence, wealth quintiles, maternal education, anemia, stunting and wasting in children under-five of age (CU5) and deaths from MDs. Results: CBF was higher in the uneducated, poor and rural areas. MMF, MDD and MAD increased significantly by education and higher wealth quintiles and urban residence (P<0.01). Correlations were significant for stunting with CBF (r0.76), MDD (r0.96), MAD (r-0.96), wasting with CBF (r0.79), MAD (r-0.96) at P<0.01, anemia in CU5 (r0.62). MDs were significantly associated with CBF, stunting and wasting (P<0.05). Conclusions: In the poor, inadequate food diversity and suboptimal breastfeeding practices in the second year of life influence nutritional status of CU5 and cascade nutritional deficiencies.
Growth and carbon assimilation limitations in Ricinus communis (Euphorbiaceae) under soil water stress conditions

Water availability may influence plant carbon gain and growth, with large impacts on plant yield. Ricinus communis (L.), a drought resistant species, is a crop with increasing economic importance in Brazil, due to its use in chemical industry and for the production of biofuels. Some of the mechanisms involved in this drought resistance were analyzed in this study by imposing progressive water stress to pot-grown plants under glasshouse conditions. Water withholding for 53 days decreased soil water gravimetric content and the leaf water potential. Plant growth was negatively and significantly reduced by increasing soil water deficits. With irrigation suspension, carbon assimilation and transpiration were reduced and remained mostly constant throughout the day. Analysis of A/Ci curves showed increased stomatal limitation, indicating that limitation imposed by stomatal closure is the main factor responsible for photosynthesis reduction. Carboxylation efficiency and electron transport rate were not affected by water stress up to 15 days after withholding water. Drought resistance of castor bean seems to be related to a pronounced, early growth response, an efficient stomatal control and the capacity to keep high net CO2 fixation rates under water stress conditions.
Microreview Malaria ’ s deadly grip : cytoadhesion of Plasmodium falciparum-infected erythrocytes

Joseph D. Smith,1,2* J. Alexandra Rowe,3 Matthew K. Higgins4 and Thomas Lavstsen5 Seattle Biomedical Research Institute, Seattle, WA 98109, USA. Department of Global Health, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA. Centre for Immunity, Infection and Evolution, Institute of Immunology and Infection Research, School of Biological Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, EH9 3JT, UK. Department of Biochemistry, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QU, UK. Centre for Medical Parasitology, Department of International Health, Immunology & Microbiology, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Copenhagen and Department of Infectious Diseases, Copenhagen University Hospital (Rigshospitalet), 1014 Copenhagen, Denmark.
AFM-Based Characterization Method of Capacitive MEMS Pressure Sensors for Cardiological Applications

Current CMOS-micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) fabrication technologies permit cardiological implantable devices with sensing capabilities, such as the iStents, to be developed in such a way that MEMS sensors can be monolithically integrated together with a powering/transmitting CMOS circuitry. This system on chip fabrication allows the devices to meet the crucial requirements of accuracy, reliability, low-power, and reduced size that any life-sustaining medical application imposes. In this regard, the characterization of stand-alone prototype sensors in an efficient but affordable way to verify sensor performance and to better recognize further areas of improvement is highly advisable. This work proposes a novel characterization method based on an atomic force microscope (AFM) in contact mode that permits to calculate the maximum deflection of the flexible top plate of a capacitive MEMS pressure sensor without coating, under a concentrated load applied to its center. The experimental measurements obtained with this method have allowed to verify the bending behavior of the sensor as predicted by simulation of analytical and finite element (FE) models. This validation process has been carried out on two sensor prototypes with circular and square geometries that were designed using a computer-aided design tool specially-developed for capacitive MEMS pressure sensors.
Predictors of intention to quit smoking among hospital male personnel

Smoking is the most preventable cause of premature death in the world and its disadvantages impose heavy financial burden on the health system. Among the behavioral models of health education, the most applicable one in smoking cessation is Transtheoretical Model (TTM). This study aimed to detect the predictors of smoking cessation among hospital male personnel. The participants were 200 current and former smokers Personnel working at four hospitals. The instruments included decisional balance scale, self-efficacy scale, processes of change scale (behavioral and experiential), and stages of change which were completed by self-report. Descriptive statistics analysis showed that 66.5% of participants were located in the earlier stages of change. Bivariate spearman correlations showed that self-efficacy, processes of change and decisional balance were significantly correlated with the stage of change. Besides, ordinal regression revealed that experiential processes of change, self-efficacy and behavioral processes were the strongest predictors for the change stages of smoke cessation. The current study revealed that the readiness to quit smoking is significantly predicted by the mechanisms of self-efficacy and the process of change such as environment reevaluation, stimulus control and counter conditioning, which can lead to positive progress in the change stages of smoke cessation. The findings of this study showed that using TTM for smoking cessation would be very effective in improving readiness to quit smoking among hospitals personnel.
The Impact of Functional Competencies on Firm Performance of Pharmaceutical Industry in Jordan

This study aims to clarify the impact of functional competencies on the firm performance of the Jordanian pharmaceutical manufacturing companies, by using competencies framework (marketing competencies, research and development competencies, information system competencies, production competencies and human resources competencies). To address these issues, a field survey of 17 pharmaceutical manufacturing companies in Jordan was conducted with the use of structured questionnaires, data was gathered by sample consists of the Jordanian pharmaceutical manufacturing companies' managers. A total of 85 questionnaires were distributed to pharmaceutical manufacturing companies and 62 surveys were returned back at gross response rate of 72.94%. Various data analysis procedures were applied to test the hypothesis such as: descriptive statistics, simple regressions, and multiple regressions. Findings showed that there is a significant impact of the functional competencies on the firm performance, and explains (57.6%) of the variation in firm performance from the sample point view. Also, results showed that production competencies, research and development competencies, and marketing competencies have the most impact on the firm performance.
Assessment of Quality of Antenatal Care Service Provision and Associated Factor at Governmental Health Facilities of Harar Town, Eastern Ethiopia, 2017

Background: Antenatal care is comprehensive care that pregnant women receive from organized health care services to promote and maintain optimal health of the mother throughout the pregnancy, labor and puerperium. High quality antenatal care is important to safeguard their health help women maintain normal pregnancies and reduce the rate of maternal and infant morbidity and mortality. Studies conducted to assess quality of antenatal care service which describes the components of antenatal care that the woman receive during her pregnancy and do not describe the factor that affects quality service and also they do not illustrate the quality service. Therefore this study tried to fill the gap which was not address by previous studies.
NO 3 radical measurements in a polluted marine environment: links to ozone formation

Abstract. Nighttime chemistry in polluted regions is dominated by the nitrate radical (NO3) including its direct reaction with natural and anthropogenic hydrocarbons, its reaction with NO2 to form N2O5, and subsequent reactions of N2O5 to form HNO3 and chlorine containing photolabile species. We report nighttime measurements of NO3, NO2, and O3, in the polluted marine boundary layer southwest of Vancouver, BC during a three week study in the summer of 2005. The concentration of N2O5 was calculated using the well known equilibrium, NO3+NO2↔N2O5. Median overnight mixing ratios of NO3, N2O5 and NO2 were 10.3 ppt, 122 ppt and 8.3 ppb with median N2O5/NO3 molar ratios of 13.1 and median nocturnal partitioning of 4.9%. Due to the high levels of NO2 that can inhibit approach to steady-state, we use a method for calculating NO3 lifetimes that does not assume the steady-state approximation. Median and average lifetimes of NO3 in the NO3-N2O5 nighttime reservoir were 1.1–2.3 min. We have determined nocturnal profiles of the pseudo first order loss coefficient of NO3 and the first order loss coefficients of N2O5 by regression of the NO3 inverse lifetimes with the [N2O5]/[NO3] ratio. Direct losses of NO3 are highest early in the night, tapering off as the night proceeds. The magnitude of the first order loss coefficient of N2O5 is consistent with, but not verification of, recommended homogeneous rate coefficients for reaction of N2O5 with water vapor early in the night, but increases significantly in the latter part of the night when relative humidity increases beyond 75%, consistent with heterogeneous reactions of N2O5 with aerosols with a rate constant khet=(1.2±0.4)×10−3 s−1−(1.6±0.4)×10−3 s−1. Analysis indicates that a correlation exists between overnight integrated N2O5 concentrations in the marine boundary layer, a surrogate for the accumulation of chlorine containing photolabile species, and maximum 1-h average O3 at stations in the Lower Fraser Valley the next day when there is clear evidence of a sea breeze transporting marine air into the valley. The range of maximum 1-h average O3 increase attributable to the correlation is ΔO3=+1.1 to +8.3 ppb throughout the study for the average of 20 stations, although higher increases are seen for stations far downwind of the coastal urban area. The correlation is still statistically significant on the second day after a nighttime accumulation, but with a different spatial pattern favouring increased O3 at the coastal urban stations, consistent with transport of polluted air back to the coast.
Impact of the Uncertainty of Distributed Renewable Generation on Deregulated Electricity Supply Chain

Active districts are districts that have a system in place to coordinate distributed energy generation and external grid to meet the local energy demand. They are now widely recognized as a clear opportunity toward distributed renewable integration. Despite apparent benefits of incorporating renewable sources in an active district, uncertainty in renewable generation can impose unprecedented challenges in efficient operation of the existing deregulated electricity supply chain, which is designed to operate with no or little uncertainty in both supply and demand. While most previous studies focused on the impact of renewables on the supply side of the supply chain, we investigate the impact of distributed renewable generation on the demand side. In particular, we study how the uncertainty from distributed renewable generation in an active district affects the average buying cost of utilities and the cost-saving of the active district. Our analysis shows that the renewable uncertainty in an active district can: 1) increase the average buying cost of the utility serving the active district, termed as local impact and 2) somewhat surprisingly, reduce the average buying cost of other utilities participating in the same electricity market, termed as global impact. Moreover, the local impact will lead to an increase in the electricity retail price of active district, resulting in a cost-saving less than the case without renewable uncertainty. These observations reveal an inherent economic incentive for utilities to improve their load forecasting accuracy, in order to avoid economy loss and even extract economic benefit in the electricity market. We verify our theoretical results by extensive experiments using real-world traces. Our experimental results show that a 9% increase in load forecasting error (modeled by the standard deviation of the mismatch between real-time actual demand and day-ahead purchased supply) will increase the average buying cost of the utility by 10%.
A phylogenetic analysis of the change in genomic location of the sex determining region in the genus Chironomous (Diptera:Chironomidae)

Sex determination in the genus Chironomus is a dominant male determining (MD) system, based on a single gene or a small group of genes at a particular chromosomal location. However, that location may change between, or even within, species. The MD location of the 24 species in which it is known has been plotted on a cytological phylogeny to determine whether there are phylogenetically significant trends in the locations observed. A site on arm G is observed in the basal southern hemisphere branches of the tree, then there is a marked difference in the frequency of sites between the species in the southern hemisphere and those of the northern hemisphere. The Australasian members of the pseudothummi-cytocomplex show a predominance of a site near the arm C centromere, while northern hemisphere members of this and the other cytocomplexes seem largely to have a site on arm F. A site on arm A is found in some species in both hemispheres, some of which can be explained by incomplete lineage sorting, but others are most likely due to independent origin. A similar possibility exists in relation to the other more sporadically occurring site on arm B, while the presence of an arm G site in C. bernensis of the lacunarius-cytocomplex is most likely an independent occurrence. Further studies, particularly of the species of other southern hemisphere areas, and of North America, are required to strengthen these initial tentative conclusions about the phylogenetic relationships of MD location.
Reforms, Macroeconomic Policy and Economic Performance in Germany

The conventional diagnosis of Germany’s poor economic performance focuses on supply-side weaknesses and the need for more vigorous reforms to make low-skill labour markets more flexible. We question this on both theoretical and empirical grounds. In an extended version of a New Keynesian model shifts in aggregate demand can move the economy along a range of constant-inflation medium-run unemployment equilibria. The evolution of the real exchange rate and the external balance help to identify whether aggregate supply or aggregate demand shifts have been dominant in accounting for changes in unemployment. We provide some prima facie evidence for Germany and the UK that aggregate demand factors have played an important role in sustaining growth in the UK and weakening it in Germany over the medium run. We show that Germany has a relatively strong record in implementing OECD recommended reforms but the expected employment effects in low-skill service sectors appear disappointing and poverty has increased. By contrast, it is in high productivity sectors including services that the German economy has performed well, especially in exports. Here labour markets are not flexible in the conventional sense: codetermination, vocational training, and coordinated wage bargaining are important. We pursue the implications of these claims for the design and political economy of reforms in Germany.
Substrate Quality Effects on Decomposition of Three Livestock Manure Composts with Similar Stability Degree in an Acid Loamy Soil

Decomposition of compost applied to soils is affected basically by its biological stability; but, many other chemical properties of the compost may also influence compost organic-C mineralization. This study was conducted to investigate the principal substrate quality factors of composts that determine C mineralization of compost with similar stability degree (SD). Three composts samples with similar SD but different chemical properties such as pH, C/N, K 2 SO 4 -extractable C, and molar ratio of NH 4 + to NO 3 - were mixed with an acid loamy soil and CO 2 emission was monitored during the laboratory incubation for 100 days. Temporal pattern of cumulative compost organic-C mineralization expressed as % of total organic C (C% TOC) followed double exponential first order kinetics model and the C% TOC ranged from 4.8 to 11.8% at the end of incubation. The pattern of C% TOC among the composts was not coincident with the SD pattern (40.1 to 58.6%) of the composts; e.g. compost with the lowest SD resulted in the least C% TOC and vice versa. This result indicates that SD of compost can not serve as a concrete predictor of compost mineralization as SD is subject not only to maturity of compost but also to characteristics of co-composting materials such as rice hull (low SD) and sawdust (high SD). Meanwhile, such pattern of C% TOC collaborated with pH, C/N, K 2 SO 4 -extractable C, and molar ratio of NH 4 + to NO 3 - of the composts that are regarded as chemical indices of the progress of composting. Therefore, for better prediction of compost mineralization in soils, it is necessary to consider both SD and other chemical indices (pH, C/N, and molar ratio of NH 4 + to NO 3 - ).
Coercivity Values Enhancement by Incorporation of Magnetic Powders in Inorganic Matrix Hosts

Enhancement in coercivity values of precursor powders of cobalt ferrite embedded in silica xerogel as well as polyaniline was observed using vibrating sample magnetometry. We compared the magnetic properties of pure precursor powders of ferrite cobalt prepared by coprecipitation method and those embedded in xerogel and polyaniline matrix, prepared by sol-gel and by a conventional in situ chemical oxidation polymerization, respectively. The main magnetic effect is the altered coercivity value growing two magnitude orders for the precursor powders of cobalt ferrite embedded in silica xerogel and in polyaniline. The value goes from 52 Oe to 2200 Oe and 1054 Oe for pure coprecipitated precursor powder and embedded in silica xerogel, and embedded in polyaniline, respectively, without any heat-treatment.
Ultrashort Self-Assembling Peptide Hydrogel for the Treatment of Fungal Infections

The threat of antimicrobial resistance to society is compounded by a relative lack of new clinically effective licensed therapies reaching patients over the past three decades. This has been particularly problematic within antifungal drug development, leading to a rise in fungal infection rates and associated mortality. This paper highlights the potential of an ultrashort peptide, (naphthalene-2-ly)-acetyl-diphenylalanine-dilysine-OH (NapFFKK-OH), encompassing hydrogel-forming and antifungal properties within a single peptide motif, thus overcoming formulation (e.g., solubility, drug loading) issues associated with many currently employed highly hydrophobic antifungals. A range of fungal susceptibility (colony counts) and cell cytotoxicity (MTS cell viability, LIVE/DEAD staining® with fluorescent microscopy, haemolysis) assays were employed. Scanning electron microscopy confirmed the nanofibrous architecture of our self-assembling peptide, existing as a hydrogel at concentrations of 1% w/v and above. Broad-spectrum activity was demonstrated against a range of fungi clinically relevant to infection (Aspergillus niger, Candida glabrata, Candida albicans, Candida parapsilosis and Candida dubliniensis) with greater than 4 log10 CFU/mL reduction at concentrations of 0.5% w/v and above. We hypothesise antifungal activity is due to targeting of anionic components present within fungal cell membranes resulting in membrane disruption and cell lysis. NapFFKK-OH demonstrated reduced toxicity against mammalian cells (NCTC 929, ARPE-19) suggesting increased selectivity for fungal cells. However, further studies relating to safety for systemic administration is required, given the challenges toxicity has presented in the wider context of antimicrobial peptide drug development. Overall this study highlights the promise of NapFFKK-OH hydrogels, particularly as a topical formulation for the treatment of fungal infections relating to the skin and eyes, or as a hydrogel coating for the prevention of biomaterial related infection.
Changes in soil carbon stocks in Brazil due to land use: paired site comparisons and a regional pasture soil survey

In this paper we calculated soil carbon stocks in Brazil studying 17 paired sites where soil stocks were determined in native vegetation, pastures and crop-livestock systems (CPS), and in other regional samplings encompassing more than 100 pasture soils, from 6.58 to 31.53° S, involving three major Brazilian biomes: Cerrado, Atlantic Forest, and the Pampa. The average native vegetation soil carbon stocks at 10, 30 and 60 cm soil depth were equal to approximately 29, 64, and 92 Mg ha −1 , respectively. In the paired sites, carbon losses of 7.5 Mg ha −1 and 11.6 Mg ha −1 in CPS systems were observed at 10 cm and 30 cm soil depths, respectively. In pasture soils, carbon losses were similar and equal to 7.5 Mg ha −1 and 11.0 Mg ha −1 at 10 cm and 30 cm soil depths, respectively. Differences at 60 cm soil depth were not significantly different between land uses. The average soil δ 13 C under native vegetation at 10 and 30 cm depth were equal to −25.4‰ and −24.0‰, increasing to −19.6‰ and −17.7‰ in CPS, and to −18.9‰, and −18.3‰ in pasture soils, respectively; indicating an increasing contribution of C 4 carbon in these agrosystems. In the regional survey of pasture soils, the soil carbon stock at 30 cm was equal to approximately 51 Mg ha −1 , with an average δ 13 C value of −19.67‰. Key controllers of soil carbon stock in pasture sites were sand content and mean annual temperature. Collectively, both could explain approximately half of the variance of soil carbon stocks. When pasture soil carbon stocks were compared with the average soil carbon stocks of native vegetation estimated for Brazilian biomes and soil types by Bernoux et al. (2002) there was a carbon gain of 6.7 Mg ha −1 , which is equivalent to a carbon gain of 15% compared to the carbon soil stock of the native vegetation. The findings of this study are consistent with differences found between regional comparisons like our pasture sites and plot-level paired study sites in estimating soil carbon stocks changes due to land use changes.