Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
International trade, and land use intensification and spatial reorganization explain Costa Rica’s forest transition

While tropical deforestation remains widespread, some countries experienced a forest transition—a shift from net deforestation to net reforestation. Costa Rica had one of the highest deforestation rates in the 1980s and is now considered as a model of environmental sustainability, despite being a major producer of bananas and pineapples. We tested three land use processes that are thought to facilitate forest transitions. First, forest transitions may be accompanied by land use displacement through international trade of land-based products, which may undermine the global-scale environmental benefits of national forest protection. Second, reforestation is often associated with land use intensification in agriculture and forestry, allowing for land sparing. Third, this intensification may partly result from a geographical redistribution of land use at the sub-national scale to better match land use with land suitability. These hypotheses were verified for Costa Rica’s forest transition. We also tested whether forest increased mainly in regions with a low ecological value and agriculture expanded in regions with a high ecological value. Intensification and land use redistribution accounted for 76% of land spared during the forest transition, with 32% of this spared area corresponding to net reforestation. Decreasing meat exports led to a contraction of pastures, freeing an area equivalent to 80% of the reforested area. The forest transition in Costa Rica was environmentally beneficial at the global scale, with the reforested area over 1989–2013 corresponding to 130% of the land use displaced abroad through imports of agricultural products. However, expansion of export-oriented cropland caused deforestation in the most ecologically valuable regions of Costa Rica. Moreover, wood extraction from forest plantations increased to produce the pallets needed to export fruits. This highlights the importance of a multi-scale analysis when evaluating causes and impacts of national-scale forest transitions.
NBER WORKING PAPER SERIES THE EFFECT OF DISABILITY INSURANCE PAYMENTS ON BENEFICIARIES’ EARNINGS

A crucial issue in studying social insurance programs is whether they affect work decisions through income or substitution effects. We examine this in the context of U.S. Social Security Disability Insurance (DI), one of the largest social insurance programs in the U.S. The formula linking DI payments to past earnings has discontinuous changes in the marginal replacement rate that allow us to use a regression kink design to estimate the effect of payment size on earnings. Using Social Security Administration data on all new DI beneficiaries from 2001 to 2007, we document a robust income effect of DI payments on earnings. Our preferred estimate is that an increase in DI payments of one dollar causes an average decrease in beneficiaries’ earnings of twenty cents. This suggests that the income effect represents an important factor in driving DI-induced reductions in earnings. Alexander Gelber Goldman School of Public Policy University of California at Berkeley 2607 Hearst Ave Berkeley, CA 94720 and NBER agelber@berkeley.edu Timothy Moore Department of Economics George Washington University 2115 G Street NW, Monroe Hall Room 302 Washington, DC 20052 and NBER tim_moore@gwu.edu Alexander Strand Social Security Administration Office of Retirement and Disability Policy 500 E. St., NW Washington, DC 20254 Alexander.Strand@ssa.gov
Role of glucocorticoid negative feedback in the regulation of HPA axis pulsatility

Abstract The hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis is the major neuroendocrine axis regulating homeostasis in mammals. Glucocorticoid hormones are rapidly synthesized and secreted from the adrenal gland in response to stress. In addition, under basal conditions glucocorticoids are released rhythmically with both a circadian and an ultradian (pulsatile) pattern. These rhythms are important not only for normal function of glucocorticoid target organs, but also for the HPA axis responses to stress. Several studies have shown that disruption of glucocorticoid rhythms is associated with disease both in humans and in rodents. In this review, we will discuss our knowledge of the negative feedback mechanisms that regulate basal ultradian synthesis and secretion of glucocorticoids, including the role of glucocorticoid and mineralocorticoid receptors and their chaperone protein FKBP51. Moreover, in light of recent findings, we will also discuss the importance of intra-adrenal glucocorticoid receptor signaling in regulating glucocorticoid synthesis.
Efficiency of Secondary Education of a Selected OIC Countries

The purpose of this study is to investigate the level of technical efficiency of secondary education in 16 selected OIC countries (including West Bank and Gaza). Education efficiency has become an important issue given the pressing levels of public deficit and debt of many countries. Since the educational sector always receives high priority in budget allocations, an evaluation of whether the allocations made for education has been technically efficient is important. With budget constraints and high expectation by the public to see a continuous improvement in students’ academic achievement, the educational sector has been put under pressure to deliver. The study employs TIMSS 2011 data, involving 40 countries. The technique used to calculate the level of technical efficiency is Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). Almost all of the 16 selected OIC members are technically inefficient in utilising their educational resources to achieve better TIMSS results in comparison with the non-OIC countries. Even after controlling for the environmental factors, secondary education in the OIC countries remain technically inefficient.
Pyrethroid insecticides maintain repellent effect on knock-down resistant populations of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes

Pyrethroid-treated clothing is commonly worn for protection against mosquitoes; pyrethroids are both insecticides and repellents. Pyrethroid resistance has become increasingly common in Aedes aegypti, the vector of dengue, Zika, and other arboviruses, but it is not clear whether resistance is associated with reductions in repellency. In order to determine whether long-lasting permethrin impregnated (LLPI) clothing is protective, we used Aedes aegypti from New Orleans, LA (pyrethroid-sensitive) and San Juan, PR (resistant) to measure both lethality and repellency. PCR and Sanger sequencing were used to confirm resistance status by detecting mutations in the kdr gene at positions 1016 and 1534. Arm-in-cage trials of 100 Aedes aegypti females from both populations were performed for 10 minutes to bare arm or an arm clothed in untreated military camouflage or military camouflage impregnated with deltamethrin, permethrin, or etofenprox. Trials were repeated 4–5 times on different days. Number of landings, number of blood meals, and immediate and 24-hour mortality were recorded. Mortality was extremely low in all trials. Compared to untreated cloth, mosquitoes demonstrated a trend towards a 2%-63% reduction in landings and a statistically significant 78–100% reduction in blood feeding on pyrethroid-treated cloth for most insecticides. Effects were observed in both pyrethroid-sensitive and pyrethroid-resistant mosquito populations. Our data show that kdr mutations are associated with pyrethroid resistance but are likely not the only contributors. Pyrethroids appear to maintain repellent effect against resistant mosquitoes. This finding suggests that even in places where pyrethroid resistance is widespread, permethrin still has a role for use as a repellent on clothing to protect against mosquito bites.
The Determinants Of Monetary Policy Transparency In Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract he study investigates the contribution of key macroeconomic and institutional variables in shaping the likelihood of choosing a monetary policy transparency regime in Sub-Saharan Africa. Monetary policy transparency refers to political transparency, operational transparency, policy transparency, economic transparency and procedural transparency by a central bank. Whereas monetary policy, on the other hand, refers to the regulation of the money supply and interest rates by a central bank, with the goal of controlling inflation and stabilizing the currency. One of the peculiarities of developing countries is that they lack credibility in their monetary policy because of a lack of transparency. Therefore this study employs the logit model in determining the factors likely to lead to a choice of monetary policy transparency in Sub-Saharan Africa. The results reveal that only four variables; (current account, real output, financial depth and trade openness) out of seven independent variables are the determinants of transparency in Sub-Saharan Africa. The other variables, real interest rate, consumer price index and GDP growth are found to be statistically insignificant.
An Evaluation of Deep CNN Baselines for Scene-Independent Person Re-identification

In recent years, a variety of proposed methods based on deep convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have improved the state of the art for large-scale person re-identification (ReID). While a large number of optimizations and network improvements have been proposed, there has been relatively little evaluation of the influence of training data and baseline network architecture. In particular, it is usually assumed either that networks are trained on labeled data from the deployment location (scene-dependent), or else adapted with unlabeled data, both of which complicate system deployment. In this paper, we investigate the feasibility of achieving scene-independent person ReID by forming a large composite dataset for training. We present an in-depth comparison of several CNN baseline architectures for both scene-dependent and scene-independent ReID, across a range of training dataset sizes. We show that scene-independent ReID can produce leading-edge results, competitive with unsupervised domain adaption techniques. Finally, we introduce a new dataset for comparing within-camera and across-camera person ReID.
Adipose-derived Stem Cell Enrichment in Autologous Fat Grafting to the Breast

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Correlation between Interalar Distance and Mesiodistal Width of Maxillary Anterior Teeth in Thrissur, Kerala, Indian Population

Aims and Objectives: The aim of this study was to assess the validity of interalar distance as an aid in maxillary anterior teeth selection in Thrissur, Kerala, Indian population. The study also evaluated whether interalar distance and maxillary anterior teeth undergo any changes as age increases in this population and whether there is a gender difference in these parameters in this population. Materials and Methods: A study was planned on 1200 participants in Thrissur Municipal Corporation area, Kerala, India, with the aim of checking the validity of interalar distance as a successful aid in maxillary anterior teeth selection. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS version 21.0. Mean standard deviation and 95% confidence intervals were estimated. Student's t-test was used for comparison between gender and two age groups such as 18–25 and 40–50 years. One-way ANOVA analysis was done for combined effects. Results: The study showed that there is a high statistical significance between the interalar distance and the mesiodistal width of six maxillary anterior teeth in females (P < 0.01) and no significance in males. Conclusion: The study concluded that, within the population evaluated, there was a high significant correlation between interalar distance and the mesiodistal width of six maxillary anterior teeth in both males and females. Both interalar distance and mesiodistal width of maxillary anterior teeth showed a significant increase in size as age increases. There was a significant increase in size difference for males compared to females in relation to interalar distance and not for mesiodistal width of maxillary anterior teeth.
Reagent‐induced asymmetric induction in addition reaction of reduced glutathione onto bis‐Mannich chalcones

The stereochemistry of non‐enzyme catalyzed nucleophilic addition of GSH to 4′‐hydroxychalcone 1 and its bis‐Mannich derivative 2 was investigated at different pH values (pH 3.2, 6.1, 7.4, and 8.0). The stereochemical outcome of the reactions was evaluated by HPLC‐UV‐Vis method. Under strongly acidic conditions (pH 3.2), an unexpected diastereoselective addition of GSH onto the bis‐Mannich derivative 2 was observed. Such a selectivity could not be observed in the similar reaction of 2 with N‐acetylcysteine. The observed stereoselectivity can be rationalized by ion‐pair formation between the protonated Mannich nitrogens and the deprotonated GSH(glutamate)‐carboxylate. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first example of reagent‐induced asymmetric induction in Michael‐type additions of thiols.
Associations between Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus and Arterial Stiffness: A Prospective Analysis Based on the Maine-Syracuse Study

Background: The aim of this study was to investigate prospective associations between type 2 diabetes mellitus status and the gold standard non-invasive method for ascertaining arterial stiffness, carotid femoral pulse wave velocity. Methods: The prospective analysis employed 508 community-dwelling participants (mean age 61 years, 60% women) from the Maine-Syracuse Longitudinal Study. Pulse wave velocity at wave 7 (2006-2010) was compared between those with type 2 diabetes mellitus at wave 6 (2001-2006) (n = 52) and non-diabetics at wave 6 (n = 456), with adjustment for demographic factors, cardiovascular risk factors and lifestyle- and pulse wave velocity-related factors. Results: Type 2 diabetes mellitus status was associated with a significantly higher pulse wave velocity (12.5 ± 0.36 vs. 10.4 ± 0.12 m/s). Multivariate adjustment for other cardiovascular risk factors and lifestyle- and pulse wave velocity-related variables did not attenuate the findings. The risk of an elevated pulse wave velocity (≥12 m/s) was over 9 times higher for those with uncontrolled type 2 diabetes mellitus than for those without diabetes (OR 9.14, 95% CI 3.23-25.9, p < 0.001). Conclusions: Type 2 diabetes mellitus, particularly if uncontrolled, is significantly associated with risk of arterial stiffness later in life. Effective management of diabetes mellitus is an important element of protection from arterial stiffness.
ENG DEFICIENCY IS AN IMPORTANT RISK FACTOR FOR BOTH HEMORRHAGIC AND ISCHEMIC STROKES

Endoglin (ENG, also known as CD105) is a transforming growth factor β (TGFβ) associated receptor and is required for both vasculogenesis and angiogenesis. Angiogenesis is important in the development of cerebral vasculature and in the pathogenesis of cerebral vascular diseases. ENG is an essential component of the endothelial nitric oxide synthase activation complex. Animal studies showed that ENG deficiency impairs stroke recovery. ENG deficiency also impairs the regulation of vascular tone, which contributes to the pathogenesis of brain arteriovenous malformation (bAVM) and vasospasm. In human, functional haploinsufficiency of ENG gene causes type I hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia (HHT1), an autosomal dominant disorder. Compared to normal population, HHT1 patients have a higher prevalence of AVM in multiple organs including the brain. Vessels in bAVM are fragile and tend to rupture, causing hemorrhagic stroke. High prevalence of pulmonary AVM in HHT1 patients are associated with a higher incidence of paradoxical embolism in the cerebral circulation causing ischemic brain injury. Therefore, HHT1 patients are at risk for both hemorrhagic and ischemic stroke. This review summarizes the possible mechanism of ENG in the pathogenesis of cerebrovascular diseases in experimental animal models and in patients.
Interactive comment on “Intercomparison of an Aerosol Chemical Speciation Monitor (ACSM) with ambient fine aerosol measurements in Downtown

In this manuscript Budisulistiorini et al. investigate the performance of an ACSM during a long-term deployment in Atlanta, GA by comparing it to various established online and offline measurement techniques. Although the ACSM is yet around for several years, literature evaluating its performance is still relatively sparse making this manuscript a valuable addition. The manuscript is well structured and written apart from a few missing articles. However, there are very few significant new findings and some of the conclusions could have been investigated more closely. Altogether I second the publication in AMT after the following comments have been addressed.
Inflammatory cytokines IL-6, IL-10, IL-13, TNF-α and peritoneal fluid flora were associated with infertility in patients with endometriosis.

OBJECTIVE To investigate the correlations of inflammatory factors, interleukin-6 (IL-6), IL-10, IL-13 and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), and composition of bacterial flora in the peritoneal fluid with infertility in endometriosis patients. PATIENTS AND METHODS A total of 55 patients diagnosed with endometriosis and infertility in the Gynecology Clinic of our hospital from June 2014 to July 2017 were selected as observation group, and another 30 non-endometriosis and non-infertility patients were enrolled as control group. The peritoneal fluid was extracted from patients in both groups, and the total white cell count and the percentage of leukocyte subset were determined. The total genome deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) of microorganisms in peritoneal fluid was extracted, and the composition of microorganisms was analyzed using the Ion Torrent PGM platform (BGI). The levels of IL-6, IL-10, IL-13, and TNF-α in peritoneal fluid were detected via enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Moreover, the correlations of inflammatory factors in the peritoneal fluid with endometriosis complicated with infertility were analyzed via Logistic regression analysis. RESULTS The total white cell count, monocytes, neutrophils, eosinophils and basophils in endometriosis patients complicated with infertility were significantly higher than those in control group (p<0.05). Results of ELISA showed that the levels of IL-6, IL-10, IL-13, and TNF-α in peritoneal fluid of endometriosis patients complicated with infertility were significantly higher than those in control group (p<0.05). In peritoneal fluid of patients in both groups, Proteobacteria and Firmicutes were mainly dominated, followed by Actinobacillus, Bacteroidetes, Fusobacteria and Tenericutes, and there was no significant difference in the Eumycota between the two groups (p>0.05). Logistic regression analysis results showed that there were significant correlations of inflammatory factors (IL-6, IL-10, IL-13, and TNF-α) with endometriosis complicated with infertility. CONCLUSIONS There are many kinds of Eumycota in the peritoneal fluid of endometriosis patients complicated with infertility, but they are not the main pathogenic factors. Inflammatory factors (IL-6, IL-10, IL-13, and TNF-α) can be used as important reference indexes for the diagnosis of endometriosis complicated with infertility.
Elevated temperature increases meiotic crossover frequency via the interfering (Type I) pathway in Arabidopsis thaliana

For most eukaryotes, sexual reproduction is a fundamental process that requires meiosis. In turn, meiosis typically depends on a reciprocal exchange of DNA between each pair of homologous chromosomes, known as a crossover (CO), to ensure proper chromosome segregation. The frequency and distribution of COs are regulated by intrinsic and extrinsic environmental factors, but much more is known about the molecular mechanisms governing the former compared to the latter. Here we show that elevated temperature induces meiotic hyper-recombination in Arabidopsis thaliana and we use genetic analysis with mutants in different recombination pathways to demonstrate that the extra COs are derived from the major Type I interference sensitive pathway. We also show that heat-induced COs are not the result of an increase in DNA double-strand breaks and that the hyper-recombinant phenotype is likely specific to thermal stress rather than a more generalized stress response. Taken together, these findings provide initial mechanistic insight into how environmental cues modulate plant meiotic recombination and may also offer practical applications.
A BARTLETT CORRECTION FACTOR FOR TESTS ON THE COINTEGRATING RELATIONS

Likelihood ratio tests for restrictions on cointegrating vectors are asymptotically χ2 distributed. For some values of the parameters this asymptotic distribution does not give a good approximation to the finite sample distribution. In this paper we derive the Bartlett correction factor for the likelihood ratio test and show by some simulation experiments that it can be a useful tool for making inference.
Are sequential sample designs useful for examining post-traumatic changes in character strengths?

ABSTRACT Previous research on differences in character strengths as a result of traumatic cultural events has relied on non-overlapping samples of individuals who completed online questionnaires before and after the event. This study expands on these previous studies by examining differences in self-reports of character strengths before, between, and after two terror attacks on Paris, France, in 2015, and further comparing these differences to contemporaneous differences in two other countries. Completers of the inventory during the same periods from the United States (N = 528,912) and Australia (N = 174,591) served as the comparison groups. After controlling for age and gender, six strengths in the French sample, nine strengths in the Australian sample and seven in the US sample remained significant. A clear discernable pattern did not emerge. Effect sizes were consistently miniscule, which when combined with very large samples may account for finding significance even though within-nation differences are unreliable.