Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Persistence Behaviour of Thiamethoxam in Brinjal Crop and Soil Using QuEChERS Methodology

Quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged and safe (QuEChERS) method validated for the estimation of thiamethoxam residues in brinjal fruits and soil samples following application of recommended dose (50 g a.i. ha -1 ) and double the dose (100 g a.i. ha -1 ). Brinjal fruit and soil samples were collected at 0 (1 h), 1, 3, 5, 7, 10 and 15 days after applications. Residues of thiamethoxam in brinjal fruit samples persisted up to 7 th day and 10 th day and the initial deposits (1 h after spraying) were found to be 0.12 μg g -1 and 0.21 μg g -1 at recommended and double the recommended dose, respectively. While the initial deposits in soil samples were found to be 0.04 μg g -1 at the recommended dose and 0. 07μg g -1 at double the recommended dose. This seems to be the first report regarding the direct estimation of thiamethoxam in brinjal fruits by using a method that is simple, efficient, and easy to adopt in laboratories engaged in pesticide residue analysis. The residues were estimated using GC equipped with electron-capture detector (ECD) system and confirmed by GCMS.
Detection of shared antigenic determinants between Mycobacterium leprae heat shock protein 65 and human heat shock protein 60

In these studies, it was investigated whether M. leprae and man share antigenic determinants which may be located on Heat Shock Proteins (HSPs), and which may be responsible for tissue destruction. Using immunoperoxidase singlestaining technique on cryostat sections it was observed that three antibodies which are directed against HSP 60 (polyclonal antibodies SPA 804 and SPA 805 and monoclonal antibody SPA 807) probably reacted specifically with macrophages and epitheloid cells in leprosy skin sections. On Western Blotting, it was observed that the antibodies against human HSP 60 and monoclonal antibodies (MoAbs) against M. leprae HSP 65 (F 47-10, F 67-18, F 88-1) all reacted strongly with sonicated M. leprae proteins with a molecular mass of 65 kDa indicating similarity of some antigenic determinants between human HSP 60 and M. leprae HSP 65. Subsequently, a comparative immunohistochemical study of the staining patterns of antibodies against human HSP 60 and antibodies against M. leprae HSP 65 using cryostat skin sections of paucibacillary (PB) leprosy, multibacillary (MB) leprosy and other granulomatous skin disorders revealed that the MoAbs F 47-10 and F 67-18 reacted only weakly with the granulomas in PB leprosy and in other granulomatous skin diseases, but stained MB leprosy granuloma strongly. The MoAb F 88-1 and the polyclonal antibodies SPA 804, SPA 805 and the MoAb SPA 807 stained granulomas of PB patients and of other granulomatous skin disorders with the same intensity as that MB patients. Using a double-staining technique, it was observed that the antigenic determinants recognized by the MoAb against human HSP 60 (SPA 807) and the MoAbs against M. leprae HSP 65 (F 67-18, F 47-10, F 88-1) were mostly located in the macrophages. These findings do not contradict our suggestion, that similarities between antigenic determinants on Heat Shock Proteins of M. leprae and the human host may be at least in part responsible for the induction of an autoimmune reaction causing granuloma formation with subsequent tissue damage in leprosy. The results of this study also indicated that some of these determinants are probably located on HSP 60. A similar explanation possibly applies to the findings in the other granulomatous diseases, e.g. sarcoidosis probably mycobacterial induced and necrobiosis lipoidica related to diabetis, in which antigenic similarities between bacterial HSP 65 and human HSP 60 are considered to play a part.
Parent Child Relationship and Self Esteem among School Going Adolescents

Introduction: Adolescence can be described as the transition between childhood and adulthood. The parent child relationship consists of a combination of the behaviour, feelings and expectations in a parent child relationship is unique and its very parent and child specific. The relationship involves the full extent of a child's development. Selfesteem is a student’s overall evaluation of him or herself, including feelings of general happiness and satisfaction. The integral part of students self esteem is the support from peers and parents. These are very much important for an individual personality which influences significant concomitant changes in behavioral, personality and academic functioning of the school going adolescents. Study aimed to find out the nature of parent-child relationship and self esteem among school going girls and boys. Methods and Materials: The sample for the present study was based on purposive sampling technique. The study was carried out at two schools of Ranchi district. Total of 120 respondents (60 girls and 60 boys) were taken from Anita Girls School and St. Joseph School at Ranchi. Socio-demographic data sheet, General Health Questionnaire-12 (GHQ-12), Parent Child Relationship Scale and Rosenberg Self Esteem Scale were administered on all the students individually. Result: The findings of the study showed that parent child relationship and self esteem of boys was better than that of girls. Conclusion: The present study showed the importance of parent child relationship and self esteem among school going adolescents.
Paraphyly of Chinese Amolops (Anura, Ranidae) and phylogenetic position of the rare Chinese frog, Amolops tormotus

In order to evaluate the five species groups of Chinese Amolops based on morphological characteristics, and to clarify the phylogenetic position of the concave-eared torrent frog Amolops tormotus, we investigated the phylogeny of Amolops by maximum parsimony, Bayesian Inference, and maximum likelihood methods using two mitochondrial DNA fragments (12S rRNA, 16S rRNA). Our results supported a sister group relationship of Amolops ricketti and Amolops hainanensis. However, the grouping of Amolops mantzorum and Amolops monticola needs to be resolved with more data. Amolops tormotus was nested in genus Odorrana. Thus, recognition of the A. tormotus group is unwarranted and A. tormotus should be referred to genus Odorrana as O. tormota. This species is the sister group of O. nasica plus O. versabilis. The new classification implies that the genus Wurana is to be considered as junior subjective synonym of Odorrana.
SEXUAL PRACTICES AND ASSOCIATED FACTORS AMONG YOUTHS , SHIRE TOWN , TIGRAY , NORTHERN , ETHIOPIA

Young people are particularly vulnerable to problems of sexual and reproductive health and many young people are exposed to a great risk of contracting serious sexually transmitted diseases, HIV/ AIDS and teen age pregnancy. Therefore, this study aimed to assess sexual practices and associated factors among youths, shire town, Tigray, Northern Ethiopia. Methods: Community based cross sectional study was employed among 806 youths of shire town selected by multistage sampling technique. Data was collected from July 1526/ 2013. Structured pre tested questionnaires via face to face interview were used to collect the data. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression model was used to determine the effect of independent variables on the outcome variable. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 16.0. Finally the results were presented using text, graphs and tables. Results: A total of 781 youths were enrolled in this study, making a response rate of 96.8%. Three hundred fifty four (45.3%) of the respondents ever had sexual intercourse in their life time. Occupation in their own business [AOR:2.31,95%CI; 1.02,5.26],received information on RH issues [AOR: 1.69,95% CI; 1.20,2.36], grade 7-12 [AOR: 1.53, 95%CI :1.07-2.18] and did not know health facilities providing RH services[ AOR: 4.33,95%CI :1.03,18.18] were found to be significantly associated with sexual practices. Conclusion and recommendation: The knowledge of youths on reproductive and sexual right was limited. Forty eight point six percent of youths ever had multiple sexual partners. The District health office should strengthen age appropriate sexual education and youth friendly services to improve knowledge and for safe sexual practices.
A representation of excessive functions as expected suprema

Abstract: For a nice Markov process such as Brownian motion on a domain i n R, we prove a representation of excessive functions in terms of expected suprema. This is motivated by recent work of El Karoui [5] and El Karoui and M eziou [8] on the max-plus decomposition for supermartingales. Our results provide a singular analogue to the non-linear Riesz representation in El Karoui and Föl lmer [6], and they extend the representation of potentials in Föllmer and Knispel [1 0] by clarifying the role of the boundary behavior and of the harmonic points of the given excessive function.
Australian Society for Concrete Pavements Concrete Pavements Conference 2013 Aggregate interlock efficiency at concrete pavement joints

The aim of this paper is to present the aggregate interlock efficiencies achieved at concrete pavement joints, by doing a comparison between South African and American aggregates. It presents an investigation into modelling aggregate interlock shear transfer in jointed concrete pavements in order to develop a model suitable to South African conditions. The data obtained from laboratory studies, using South African aggregates, was compared with results obtained from a similar study on typical aggregates used in the United States of America. One of the conclusions reached from the study on South African aggregates was that there was no significant deterioration of the crack face during dynamic loading, which indicated that fatigue of the aggregates at the joint face did not play a role. This could be attributed to the high quality crushed stone used in South Africa. Furthermore, it was shown that jointed concrete pavements constructed with South African aggregates, relying only on aggregate interlock for load transfer, performed better than similar pavements constructed with American aggregates. The parallel can be drawn to similar aggregates in Australia; on either end of the scale.
A systematic review and meta-analysis of 4 candidate polymorphisms with the risk of gout

The purpose of this research was to assess the contribution of 4 genetic polymorphisms to the risk of gout. A systematic search was performed for qualified case-control studies on 4 variants with gout among PubMed, EMBASE, CNKI and China Wanfang literature databases. Using the REVMAN software, odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated to evaluate the contribution of the 4 genetic variants to gout. We harvested a total of 19 studies among 6,797 cases and 15,904 controls for the current meta-analyses. Our results showed that ABCG2 rs2231142 (OR = 2.13, 95% CI = 1.81-2.50, P < 0.00001), SLC2A9 rs3733591 (OR = 0.78, 95% CI = 0.67-0.91, P = 0.002), SLC2A9 rs16890979 (OR = 0.33, 95% CI = 0.18-0.58, P = 0.0002), and SLC2A9 rs6855911 (OR = 0.66, 95% CI = 0.56-0.77, P < 0.00001) were significantly associated with the risk of gout. Our results showed four genetic variants (including ABCG2 rs2231142, SLC2A9 rs3733591, rs16890979 and rs6855911) were significantly associated with gout.
Liquidity Affects Job Choice: Evidence from Teach for America*

Can access to a few hundred dollars of liquidity affect the career choice of a recent college graduate? In a three-year field experiment with Teach For America (TFA), a prestigious teacher placement program, we randomly increase the financial packages offered to nearly 7,300 potential teachers who requested support for the transition into teaching. The first two years of the experiment reveal that although most applicants do not respond to a marginal $600 of grants or loans, those in the worst financial position respond by joining TFA at higher rates. We continue the experiment into the third year and self-replicate our results. For the highest-need applicants, an extra $600 in loans, $600 in grants, and $1,200 in grants increase the likelihood of joining TFA by 12.2, 11.4, and 17.1 percentage points (or 20.0%, 18.7%, and 28.1%), respectively. Additional grant and loan dollars are equally effective, suggesting a liquidity mechanism. A follow-up survey bolsters the liquidity story and also shows that those drawn into teaching would have otherwise worked in private-sector firms.
Extent of potential drug interactions among patients receiving anti-hypertensive medications.

OBJECTIVE To investigate the frequency of potential antihypertensive drug interactions among patients with cardiovascular diseases receiving antihypertensive medications. METHODS The study took place in Nablus, Palestine starting April through October 2003. Patients with cardiovascular diseases (n=876) or who were receiving one or more antihypertensive medications were evaluated. All drugs prescribed for the patients were obtained from their medical files. A drug interaction database was developed based on updated Drug Interaction Facts to examine potential and level of drug interactions in each patient's regimen. Data were entered and analyzed using SPSS software. RESULTS The number of "unique" pairs of potential drug interactions among the antihypertensive agents present in the data was 433. These included 16 cases (3.7%) level one; 34 cases (7.8%) level 2; 116 cases (26.8%) level 3; 136 cases (31.4%) level 4, and 131 (30.3%) level 5 interactions. Both increasing age and number of drugs were significantly associated with the potential for significant interactions at all levels with a p value less than 0.025. CONCLUSIONS This study found a high frequency of potential drug interactions with agents typically used for hypertension. Similar investigations need to be carried out among patients with other types of chronic diseases. Drug interaction software might be necessary in governmental pharmacy departments.
Paper submission for the European Population Conference 2016-Preliminary Childlessness and Upward Intergenerational Support : Cross-National Evidence from Eleven European Countries

Childless individuals are often depicted as “selfish” as they opt out of raising children in favour of investing resources in themselves. Yet no research has investigated whether this claim holds in alternative domains of social life, such as intergenerational family support. Using data from the Generations and Gender Survey (GGS) for 11 European countries, this article examines differences between childless and non-childless individuals in the provision of financial, care, and emotional transfers to their elderly parents. Results do not support the idea that the childless are less prone to providing transfers upwards than individuals with children. In fact, estimates from multivariate logistic regressions suggest that, ceteris paribus, childless adults are 26 to 31 per cent more likely to provide support to their parents as compared to the non-childless, with the effect driven by transfers to the mothers. Some evidence further hints at the existence of a cross-gender effect, whereby childless males are more likely to transfer to their mothers, whereas childless females are more likely to transfer to their fathers. These findings enrich the literature on childlessness and ageing, and support the view that researchers and policy makers should take into more consideration not only what childless people receive or need in old age, but also what they give.
CP-Based SBHT-RLS Algorithms for Tracking Channel Estimates in Multicarrier Modulation Systems

Cyclic prefix (CP) in multicarrier modulation systems has been considered as an alternative to the training sequences to track channel estimates. In this paper, two new algorithms are developed that exploit CP from their data detection part and employ systolic block Householder transformation recursive least squares (SBHT-RLS) algorithms for channel tracking in multicarrier systems. The new methods are compared with the existing CP exploiting correlation matrix based block RLS (CMB-RLS) channel tracking approach to outline their relative advantages. Aspects of computational complexity and parallel implementation are addressed, and the algorithms are tested in terms of their channel estimation and tracking capabilities. Performance of the algorithms is also evaluated for varying forgetting factor parameter values, constellation size, and word lengths. Floating-point and fixed-point simulations are tailored to illustrate pertinent tradeoffs.
FATTY ACIDS CONTENT AND COMPOSITION OF MILK FAT FROM COWS CONSUMING PASTURE AND TOTAL MIXED RATION

The study was aimed to determine the composition and content of fatty acids in milk from cows consuming pasture and total mixed ratio (TMR). During this study it was established that the proportion of saturated fatty acids in total content of studied fatty acids was insignificantly lower in the milk fat from pasture fed cows (55.15%) than in the milk fat from confine fed cows (56.07%, P > 0.05). Statistically significant differences (P < 0.05) were observed in the content of unsaturated fatty acids (32.87 versus 30.07% for pasture and confine fed cows’ milk fat, respectively). Pasture group cows produced significantly higher amounts of PUFAs – 6.02% versus 5.24% (P < 0.05) of TMR group. Within PUFAs, the highest concentration of C18:2 and C18:3 was observed in the milk fat from pasture cows (3.70% versus 3.27% and 0.51% versus 0.44%, P < 0.05, respectively). The study showed that pasture fed cows produced significantly higher concentrations of CLA in milk fat compared to TMR fed cows – 0.66 and 0.51% (P < 0.05), respectively. The study results revealed that milk fat from pasture fed cows had better proportion of unsaturated:saturated fatty acid in nutritional aspect, with more polyunsaturated FA and more CLA, than the milk fat from TMR fed cows had.
Deep-Learning-Based Audio-Visual Speech Enhancement in Presence of Lombard Effect

When speaking in presence of background noise, humans reflexively change their way of speaking in order to improve the intelligibility of their speech. This reflex is known as Lombard effect. Collecting speech in Lombard conditions is usually hard and costly. For this reason, speech enhancement systems are generally trained and evaluated on speech recorded in quiet to which noise is artificially added. Since these systems are often used in situations where Lombard speech occurs, in this work we perform an analysis of the impact that Lombard effect has on audio, visual and audio-visual speech enhancement, focusing on deep-learning-based systems, since they represent the current state of the art in the field. We conduct several experiments using an audio-visual Lombard speech corpus consisting of utterances spoken by 54 different talkers. The results show that training deep-learning-based models with Lombard speech is beneficial in terms of both estimated speech quality and estimated speech intelligibility at low signal to noise ratios, where the visual modality can play an important role in acoustically challenging situations. We also find that a performance difference between genders exists due to the distinct Lombard speech exhibited by males and females, and we analyse it in relation with acoustic and visual features. Furthermore, listening tests conducted with audio-visual stimuli show that the speech quality of the signals processed with systems trained using Lombard speech is statistically significantly better than the one obtained using systems trained with non-Lombard speech at a signal to noise ratio of −5 dB. Regarding speech intelligibility, we find a general tendency of the benefit in training the systems with Lombard speech.
Forecasting and Nowcasting Emerging Market GDP Growth Rates: The Role of Latent Global Economic Policy Uncertainty and Macroeconomic Data Surprise Factors

In this paper, we assess the predictive content of latent economic policy uncertainty and data surprises factors for forecasting and nowcasting GDP using factor-type econometric models. Our analysis focuses on five emerging market economies, including Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, South Africa, and Turkey; and we carry out a forecasting horse-race in which predictions from various different models are compared. These models may (or may not) contain latent uncertainty and surprise factors constructed using both local and global economic datasets. The set of models that we examine in our experiments includes both simple benchmark linear econometric models as well as dynamic factor models (DFMs) that are estimated using a variety of frequentist and Bayesian data shrinkage methods based on the least absolute shrinkage operator (LASSO). We find that the inclusion of our new uncertainty and surprise factors leads to superior predictions of GDP growth, particularly when these latent factors are constructed using Bayesian variants of the LASSO. Overall, our findings point to the importance of spillover effects from global uncertainty and data surprises, when predicting GDP growth in emerging market economies.
Rice Pots or Not ? Exploring Ancient lfugao Foodways through Organic Residue Analysis and Paleoethnobotany

A number of cooking pots and associated plant remains have been recovered in recent excavations at the Old l<iyyangan Village in lfugao, Philippines. These finds present the opportunity to explore the foodways of the precolonial lfugao through organic residue and paleoethnobotanical analyses. Preliminary results of pottery residue and macrobotanical analyses are here integrated to build confidence for the identification of rice and other potential food items in their processed and/or cooked stage. By exploring the foodways of the Old l<iyyangan Village using these methods, we hope to contribute to larger scale issues of lfugao society, including past social organization and the human-environment relationship.
Simian immunodeficiency virus encephalitis in the white matter and degeneration of the cerebral cortex occur independently in simian immunodeficiency virus-infected monkey

Highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) has been successful to reduce progression of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). Nevertheless, recent autopsy analysis of the brain from patients with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-1 infection reported same or even increasing numbers of AIDS encephalopathy. This insufficient effect of HAART for central nervous system (CNS) complication might be explained by independent pathogenetic processes in lymph node and CNS. We inoculated macaques with three Simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) strains and investigated relationship between degree of the lymph node pathology and that of AIDS-related brain pathology. Animals infected with T-cell-tropic viruses SIVmac239 and SHIV-RT developed typical AIDS pathology in the lymph node 46 to 156 weeks after infection. The cerebral cortex of these animals showed focal or diffuse gliosis, and electron microscopic analysis demonstrated degenerative changes, such as accumulation of dense lamellar bodies in the dendrites and swelling of astrocytic processes. However, there was no evidence of microglial nodules or multinucleated giant cells in the white mater. The animals infected with macrophage-tropic SIV239env/MERT did not develop lymph node pathology of AIDS in the same or longer period of infection. The white mater of the animal, however, showed microglial nodules with multinucleated giant cells, a pathological hallmark of AIDS encephalopathy. SIV immunoreactivity was demonstrated in these giant cells as well as macrophage/microglia cells. On the other hand, there was no abnormality in the cerebral cortex. These findings suggest that there are two independent pathogenetic processes in AIDS encephalopathy: immune response against virus infected macrophage/microglial cells in the white mater without immunodeficiency and cortical degeneration caused in the late stage of AIDS.