Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
HEALTH PRODUCTION FUNCTION FOR PREVENTIVE HEALTH PROGRAMS

Production function studies have mainly been directed at the formal health care sector, in particular hospitals. Health production function relating medical and/or non-medical health inputs to good health, however, have not been intensively investigated. This paper explores the possibility of employing a health production function to examine the relationship between preventive health programs and health status. A review of previous empirical works is presented. When morbidity or mortality is used as a ,measure of health status, a modification of the usual production function is needed as morbidity or mortality is expected to decline when health input increase. This paper examines six possible function forms, i.e. linear, quadratic, log-linear, reciprocal log-linear, and double log. The paper also considers the use of a health production function to construct isoquants for health status and to estimate the elasticity of production and the elasticity of substitution between health inputs. Some empirical results on the production relationship between morbidity, safe water, and sanitation are presented.
TELOMERE SHORTENING IN A LONG-LIVED MARINE BIRD: CROSS-SECTIONAL ANALYSIS AND TEST OF AN AGING TOOL

Abstract A correlation between length of telomere restriction fragments (TRFs) and age has recently been demonstrated in several bird species. Comparisons of different-aged individuals within a population have shown that TRFs typically shorten with age and that this shortening continues throughout the life span of the species. In addition, it has been shown that telomere rate-of-change (TROC) correlates tightly with life span across several bird species. Previous studies of long-lived birds, however, have shown exceptions to these trends, demonstrating no declines in TRF length in adults in some cases and increases in TRF length with age in other cases. Here, we report known ages of individuals from a colony of Great Frigatebirds (Fregata minor) based on recaptures of leg-banded birds, including two individuals that were at least 44 years of age, the oldest Great Frigatebirds ever reported. Using a previously developed molecular technique, we report a predictable, nonlinear decline of TRF length with age in this population. Telomere restriction fragments decline more rapidly early in life but continue to shorten throughout the life span examined. The rate of decline in TRF for this species does not fit the tight correlation previously reported between TROC and life span in other species. Finally, we tested the ability to estimate age and age structure of breeding females on the basis of the calibration of TRF length and individuals of known age. Because of the slow telomere-attrition rate and the variability observed in TRF lengths at given ages, estimations of age of individuals and of estimated age structure of breeding birds in this population are not particularly reliable. Encogimiento del Telómero en un Ave Marina Longeva: Análisis de Secciones Cruzadas y Evaluación de una Herramienta de Envejecimiento
Radiographic Determination Of Sex Differences In Ischiopubic Index Of A Nigerian Population

The objective of this research work was to study the ischiopubic index in Cross River State in Nigeria. This was done by measuring the pubic and ischial lengths in 214-ray films (114 males and 100 females) of Cross River State indigenes. The ischiopubic index was calculated by dividing the pubic length by ischial length and by multiplying by 100.The sex differences of the pubic length, ischial length and ischiopubic index was found to be statistically significant when male and female x-ray films are compared (p<0.001). The demarking points of these parameters were worked out to determine sex. The demarking point of the ischiopubic index was more useful in sex determination assigning sex to 69% males and 81% females. The ischiopubic index therefore is a useful parameter in sexing of the hipbone. This research carried out in Departments of Radiology of the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital and the University of Calabar Medical Center There was no external funding for this research
A modeling study of ice formation affected by aerosols

This study investigates the effects of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) and ice nuclei (IN) on ice formation in mixed‐phase clouds using an adiabatic parcel model. The simulations with lower updrafts represent mixed‐phase stratiform clouds, and those with higher updrafts represent deep convective clouds. Increasing CCN concentration can lead to more ice crystals with smaller sizes, but does not affect the height of freezing nucleation at lower updrafts. At higher updrafts, ice number concentration is more sensitive to CCN, and CCN effect on ice nucleation height is also more noticeable. This study also investigates the effects of IN properties (number concentration, size, contact angle) on ice formation assuming the immersion freezing mechanism. At very low IN number concentration, ice nucleation is dominated by homogeneous freezing and ice number concentration is relatively high. As IN number concentration is increased, ice number concentration decreases because both heterogeneous and homogeneous freezing processes occur. A mixed‐phase layer extends up to the height for homogeneous freezing and there is a competition between the two freezing processes. As IN number concentration is further increased, ice number concentration increases because heterogeneous freezing dominates ice nucleation. IN number concentration needs to be higher for heterogeneous freezing to dominate ice nucleation at higher updrafts and lower at lower updrafts. Increasing IN size and contact coefficient also increases the contribution of heterogeneous freezing to ice nucleation. Finally, spheroids are used to represent columnar and plate‐like ice crystals. CCN and IN effects are not dependent on the assumption of ice crystal shapes.
Scale-Up Experiments ∗

Most randomized controlled trials (RCT) of social programs test interventions at modest scale. While the hope is that promising programs will be scaled up, we have few successful examples of this scale-up process in practice. Ideally we would like to know which programs will work at large scale before we invest the resources to take them to scale. But it would seem that the only way to tell whether a program works at scale is to test it at scale. Our goal in this paper is to propose a way out of this Catch-22. We first develop a simple model that helps clarify the type of scale-up challenge for which our method is most relevant. Most social programs rely on labor as a key input (teachers, nurses, social workers, etc.). We know people vary greatly in their skill at these jobs. So social programs, like firms, confront a search problem in the labor market that can lead to inelastically-supplied human capital. The result is that as programs scale, either average costs must increase if program quality is to be held constant, or else program quality will decline if average costs are held fixed. Our proposed method for reducing the costs of estimating program impacts at large scale combines the fact that hiring inherently involves ranking inputs with the most powerful element of the social science toolkit: randomization. We show that it is possible to operate a program at modest scale n but learn about the input supply curves facing the firm at much larger scale S × n by randomly sampling the inputs the provider would have hired if they operated at scale S × n. We build a simple two-period model of social-program decision making and use a model of Bayesian learning to develop heuristics for when scale-up experiments of the sort we propose are likely to be particularly valuable. We also present a series of results to illustrate the method, including one application to a real-world tutoring program that highlights an interesting observation: The noisier the program provider’s prediction of input quality, the less pronounced is the scale-up problem.
Dynamical Influences on Cirrus Cloud Formation Process

Abstract An air parcel model has been used to study dynamic influences on cirrus cloud microphysical processes. Representative data selected from a measurement campaign carried out over southern Germany during March 1994 were used for a base-case model run where a modeled air parcel moved in a wave trajectory with a period similar to the measured Brunt–Vaisala frequency and an amplitude of about 30 m. Six case studies were performed for this paper. In each case, ice crystal nucleation processes were examined as an air parcel moved with trajectories having different wave forms. A random walk trajectory simulating turbulence with turbulent structure was also considered. The relationships between the parameters in the air parcel trajectories and crystal microphysical properties are discussed. Simulation results show that after two wave cycles, the model-produced crystal spectra are usually narrower than typical measurement data;however, broader spectra can be produced for certain types of trajectories. The b.
Fertilization trajectory of the root crop Raphanus sativus across atmospheric p CO 2 estimates of the next 300 years Brian

Plant biomass is known to increase in response to elevated atmospheric CO2 concentration (pCO2); however, no experiments have quantified the trajectory of crop fertilization across the full range of pCO2 levels estimated for the next 300 years. Here we quantify the aboveand below-ground biomass response of Raphanus sativus (common radish) across eight pCO2 levels ranging from 348 to 1791 ppmv. We observed a large net biomass increase of 58% above ground and 279% below ground. A large part of the net increase (38% of the above-ground and 53% of the below-ground) represented biomass fertilization at the high levels of pCO2 (700–1791 ppmv) predicted if fossil fuel emissions continue unabated. The trajectory of below-ground fertilization in R. sativus greatly exceeded a trajectory based on extrapolation of previous experiments for plants grown at pCO2 < 800 ppmv. Based on the experimental parameters used to grow these plants, we hypothesize that these experiments represent the maximum CO2 fertilization that can be achieved for this plant growing under low light levels. If the below-ground biomass enhancement that we have quantified for R. sativus represents a generalized root-crop response that can be extrapolated to agricultural systems, below-ground fertilization under very high pCO2 levels could dramatically augment crop production in some of the poorest nations of the world, provided that water resources are sufficient and sustainable. © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Random walk models for the movement and recruitment of reef fish larvae

The factors influencing the movement and recruitment of settlement stage larvae are investigated using random walk models. Individual-based sensing and orientating abilities are included explicitly in the model. We consider 2 simple reef environment models consisting of a simple circular reef with and without a constant cross-current. The sensing ability of the larvae is modelled as either fixed or spatially dependent, together with a fixed orientating ability. The survival probability is found to be highly sensitive to both the sensing and orientating abilities of the larvae, as well as to the properties of the reef environment itself.
Effects of type and level of fibre on digestive physiology and performance in reproducing and growing rabbits

The study aimed to evaluate the effect of level and type of fibre on performance and digestive traits of lactating does and growing rabbits. Two lactation diets were formulated to contain a similar level of NDF (29%): a mixture of alfalfa hay and wheat straw in diet L1 was substituted with apple pulp in diet L2. Three fattening diets were formulated: diet F1 was the same than diet L1 whereas F2 and F3 had higher level of NDF (33 and 36%, respectively) with a mixture of wheat straw and alfalfa hay in diet F2 substituted by apple pulp in diet F3. A total of 110 does and their litters were controlled during two consecutive lactations from 21 to 35 d. At weaning (35 days of age) 480 rabbits were housed collectively (four per cage) and 180 individually. Another 54 rabbits were slaughtered to determine digestive traits at 45 days of age. At 35 days of age, L1 rabbits showed 5.9 and 6.9% higher daily feed intake and body weight than L2 rabbits. In the fattening period (35 to 63 days), L1 rabbits showed a higher growth rate but a lower feed efficiency than L2 animals. In the fattening period, F1 rabbits showed a 5.9% higher weight gain and 8.8% lower feed conversion than F2 animals, whereas animals fed diet F2 had a higher weight gain (7.6%) and a worse feed conversion (6.5%) than animals fed diet F3. The highest apparent ileal digestibility of DM values was obtained for diets F1 and F3. Villi length tended to be longer (P<0.10) in animals fed the diet F1 and F3. No significant influence of treatments was detected on caecal pH, anaerobic bacteria counting or rabbit mortality (only 0.9% on average). In conclusion the substitution of a mixture of wheat straw and alfalfa hay by apple pulp in isofibrous diets increases feed efficiency but also impairs feed intake and growth rate. Furthermore, in a context of low mortality, diets with 29-30% NDF would lead to better performances in the fattening period than diets containing 33-36% NDF levels.
Effects of Improvements in Interval Timing on the Mathematics Achievement of Elementary School Students

This article examines the effect of improvements in timing/rhythmicity on mathematics achievement. A total of 86 participants attending 1st through 4th grades completed pre- and posttest measures of mathematics achievement from the Woodcock-Johnson III Tests of Achievement. Students in the experimental group participated in a 4-week intervention designed to improve their timing/rhythmicity by reducing latency response to a synchronized metronome beat. The intervention required, on average, 18 daily sessions of approximately 50 minutes each. The results from this nonacademic intervention indicate the experimental group’s posttest scores on the measures of mathematics were significantly higher than the nontreatment control group’s scores. This article proposes an integration of psychometric theory and contemporary information processing theory to provide a context from which to develop preliminary hypotheses to explain how a nonacademic intervention designed to improve timing/rhythmicity can demonstrate a statistically significant effect on students’ mathematics achievement scores.
Soft and hard selection on plant defence traits in Arabidopsis thaliana Joanna

Whether population regulation is global or local determines if hard or soft selection, respectively, is operating. Differences between hard and soft selection, in turn, affect the maintenance of genetic variation and the mean strength of natural selection in heterogeneous environments. Here we investigated whether there were differences in the strength of soft and hard selection on plant defence traits in a spatially replicated field experiment with Arabidopsis thaliana. We estimated selection gradients for basal branch number and susceptibility to apical meristem herbivory in 10 spatial environments of an Arabidopsis field experiment. Net patterns of soft selection across these 10 spatial environments were calculated as weighted averages of the selection gradients, weighted by the frequency of each environment. Hard selection was estimated in a similar fashion, except that selection gradients for each spatial environment were first multiplied by a fitness ratio that assigned more or less weight to selection gradients depending on whether local mean fitness in that environment was greater or less than global mean fitness across all environments. In general, soft selection was stronger than hard selection, possibly because selection on plant defence traits is relaxed in environments that otherwise lead to high fitness. To evaluate the sensitivity of our results to the frequency of spatial environments, we repeated our analyses under several different hypothetical scenarios in which we varied the cumulative frequency of the environments that led to highest fitness. In these analyses, we found that the mean strength of hard and soft selection, and the relative magnitude of the two estimates, varied greatly depending on the frequency of high fitness environments. These analyses also revealed that estimates of the overall pattern of selection in spatially heterogeneous environments can be very sensitive to the frequency of individual, unusual environments – for example, environments with above average fitness but local patterns of selection dramatically different from other above average fitness environments. We suggest that more empirical effort be devoted to characterizing the frequency of selective environments in natural systems, although that is likely to be extremely challenging.
Are M & A returns and the effect of diversification different during a financial crisis ?

This thesis researches what effect the economic crisis of ’08-’09 had on the returns of M&A deals, and whether the type of diversification in the deal affected this relationship. In order to do this, a sample of 898 M&A deals announced between 2006 and 2011 is constructed. With this data an event study is executed, followed by an OLS regression. Both the event study and the regression find a significant negative effect of the crisis period on the abnormal returns of M&A deals, while no significant moderating effect of both cross-border and industrial diversification is found. The results show that it is important for other research on M&A returns to look at the state of the economic cycle at the point in time the M&A deal was announced, as this could influence the outcomes of these studies. Furthermore, the results should discourage firms to participate in M&A deals during crisis periods, as these will be value destroying compared to the same deals during non-crisis periods. Field
Gaussian, Hermite-Gaussian, and Laguerre-Gaussian beams: A primer

The paper aims at presenting a didactic and self-contained overview of Gauss-Hermite and Gauss-Laguerre laser beam modes. The usual textbook approach for deriving these modes is to solve the Helmoltz electromagnetic wave equation within the paraxial approximation. Here, a different technique is presented: Using the plane wave representation of the fundamental Gaussian mode as seed function, all higher-order beam modes are derived by acting with differential operators on this fundamental solution. Even special beam modes as the recently introduced Bessel beams are easily described within that framework.
Analysis of the stochastic channel model by Saleh & Valenzuela via the theory of point processes

In this paper we revisit the classical channel model by Saleh & Valenzuela via the theory of spatial point processes. By reformulating this model as a particular point process and by repeated application of Campbell’s Theorem we provide concise and elegant access to its overall structure and underlying features, like the intensity function of the component delays and the delaypower intensity. The flexibility and clarity of the mathematical instruments utilized to obtain these results lead us to conjecture that the theory of spatial point processes provides a unifying mathematical framework to define, analyze, and compare most channel models already suggested in literature and that the powerful tools of this framework have not been fully exploited in this context yet.
Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease , the Gut Microbiome , and Diet 1 , 2

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the most common liver disorder in the world, yet the pathogenesis of the disease is not well elucidated. Due to the close anatomic and functional association between the intestinal lumen and the liver through the portal system, it is speculated that the gut microbiome may play a pivotal role in the pathogenesis of NAFLD. Furthermore, diet, which can modulate the gut microbiome and several metabolic pathways involved in NAFLD development, shows a potential tripartite relation between the gut, diet, and the liver. In this review, we summarize the current evidence that supports the association between NAFLD, the gut microbiome, and the role of diet. Adv Nutr 2017;8:240–52.
Relative Humidity in Liquid, Mixed-Phase, and Ice Clouds

The results of in situ observations of the relative humidity in liquid, mixed, and ice clouds typically stratiform in nature and associated with mesoscale frontal systems at temperatures 45°C Ta 5°C are presented. The data were collected with the help of instrumentation deployed on the National Research Council (NRC) Convair-580. The length of sampled in-cloud space is approximately 23 10 3 km. The liquid sensor was calibrated in liquid clouds with the assumption that the air in liquid clouds is saturated with respect to water. It was found that the relative humidity in mixed-phase clouds is close to saturation over water in the temperature range from 5° to 35°C for an averaging scale of 100 m. In ice clouds the relative humidity over ice is not necessarily equal to 100%, and it may be either lower or higher than saturation over ice, but it is always lower than saturation over water. On average the relative humidity in ice clouds increases with a decrease of temperature. At 40°C the relative humidity over ice is midway between saturation over ice and liquid. A parameterization for the relative humidity in ice clouds is suggested. A large fraction of ice clouds was found to be undersaturated with respect to ice. The fraction of ice clouds undersaturated with respect to ice increases toward warmer temperatures.
The Bayesian Ontology Language BEL

We introduce the new probabilistic description logic (DL) BEL, which extends the light-weight DL EL with the possibility of expressing uncertainty about the validity of some knowledge. Contrary to other probabilistic DLs, BEL is designed to represent classical knowledge that depends on an uncertain context; that is, some of the knowledge may hold or not depending on the current situation. The probability distribution of these contexts is expressed by a Bayesian network (BN). We study different reasoning problems in BEL, providing tight complexity bounds for all of them. One particularly interesting property of our framework is that reasoning can be decoupled between the logical (i.e., EL), and the probabilistic (i.e., the BN) components. We later generalize all the notions presented to introduce Bayesian extensions of arbitrary ontology languages. Using the decoupling property, we are able to provide tight complexity bounds for reasoning in the Bayesian extensions of many other DLs. We provide a detailed analysis of our formalism w.r. t. the assumptions made and compare it with the existing approaches.
Effect of high-pressure steam treatment on enzymatic saccharification of oil palm empty fruit bunches

The effectiveness of high-pressure steam treatment (HPST) with various treatment temperatures (170, 190, 210, and 230 °C) on the enzymatic hydrolysis yield of oil palm empty fruit bunches (OPEFB) was successfully investigated. Analysis of the compositions of raw and treated OPEFB showed that significant changes occurred after the HPST was performed. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis showed that the treated OPEFB gave better results in removing the silica bodies as compared to the untreated OPEFB. This analysis was in agreement with FTIR results, which revealed a significant decrease in the content of hemicelluloses after HPST. During saccharification, the amount of sugar produced was higher for treated OPEFB than untreated OPEFB. Thus, the results suggest that HPST can be applied as an alternative treatment method for the alteration of OPEFB structure and to enhance the digestibility of the biomass, therefore improving enzymatic hydrolysis.