Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prevalence of soil transmitted helminths and impact of Albendazole on parasitic indices in Kotto Barombi and Marumba II villages (South-West Cameroon)

�This study assessed the actual prevalence of geohelminths and the impact of albendazole on parasitic indices in Kotto Barombi and Marumba II. Stools samples were collected from 420 school children and examined using the Kato-katz faecal technique. Participants were treated with 600 mg of albendazole. Baseline prevalence of infections and mean parasite loads were 26.4% and 6226.9e/g (Ascaris lumbricoides), 31.0% and 252.4 e/g (Trichuris trichiura), and 1.4% and 468.0e/g (Necator americanus). Four children (0.9%) were infected with Strongyloides stercoralis. A significant difference of prevalence was observed between the two villages for A. lumbricoides (P = 0.0001) and T. trichiura (P = 0.0005), and parasite loads for T. trichiura (P = 0.0001). Single infection (T. trichiura or A. lumbricoides) and double infection (A. lumbricoides - T. trichiura) were more prevalent. Post treatment control showed a decrease of prevalence and mean parasite load to 24.4% and 2969.5e/g (A. lumbricoides), and 24.0% and 112.8e/g (T. trichiura), and 0.0% for N. americanus and S. stercoralis. Efficacy and egg reduction rates were 84.6% and 55.3% (T. trichiura), 82.0% and 52.2% (A. lumbricoides), and 100.0% for N. americanus and S. stercoralis. These results suggest that geohelminths infections remain a serious health problem in school children in Kotto Barombi focus.
The importance of education aid for primary, secondary and tertiary educational outcomes.

This study adds to the existing literature by studying the relationship between education aid and educational outcomes in developing countries. Using the most recent and complete data on aid disbursements, aid for education is further disaggregated to aid for primary, - secondary and higher education. The results obtained indicate that aid has a positive effect on primary- and secondary educational outcomes. The effect of aid for higher education on tertiary enrolment rates is not significant and not robust for various specifications. Furthermore, the results suggest that aid for primary education yields the highest returns when it is donated to low-income countries. Aid for higher education achieves the greatest effect when it is donated to lower-middle-income countries. Due to missing data for educational outcomes and a limitation in the years covered by the data panel, the results are only considered as an indication of the possible impact of aid for education.
Density estimation implications of increasing ambient noise on beaked whale click detection and classification

Acoustic based density estimates are being increasingly used. Usually density estimation methods require one to evaluate the effective survey area of the acoustic sensors, or equivalently estimate the mean detection probability of detecting the animals or cues of interest. This is often done based on an estimated detection function, the probability of detecting an object of interest as a function of covariates, usually distance and additional covariates. If the actual survey data and the data used to estimate a detection function are not collected simultaneously, as in Marques et al. (2009), the estimated detection function might not correspond to the detection process that generated the survey data. This would lead to biased density estimates. Here we evaluate the influence of ambient noise in the detection and classification of beaked whale clicks at the Atlantic Undersea Test and Evaluation Center (AUTEC) hydrophones, to assess if the density estimates reported in Marques et al. (2009) might have been biased. To do so we contaminated a data set with increasing levels of ambient noise, and then estimated the detection function accounting for the noise level as an additional covariate. The results obtained suggest that for the particular results obtained at AUTEC’s deep water hydrophones the influence of ambient noise on the beaked whale’s click detection probability might have been minor, and hence unlikely to have had an impact on density estimates. However, we do not exclude the possibility that the results could be different under other scenarios.
The relationship between the government bond issues and economic growth in Kenya

Interest in the relationship between the real and the financial sector has usually been on the banking sector and the stock markets, thus mostly leaving the Bond Markets out as a third essential source of external finance. The capital markets play important roles in the economy growth of the market. The role of public debt in promoting economic growth in Kenya has been the subject of much debate among economists, development specialists and researchers. In spite o f this, there are only few empirical studies that investigate the contributions of public debt and in this case, the issuance o f Treasury/ Government bonds to economic growth in Kenya. This gap is filled by providing empirical evidence to establish the relationship between the economy (represented by the Gross Domestic Product) and issuance of Government Bonds in Kenya. This study explores the relationship between issuance of Treasury/ Government bonds and economic growth in Kenya using data that spans from the year 2003 to the year 2011 and establishing through causal study if changes in one variable cause changes in the other. The time series data is on gross domestic product, market capitalization o f bonds, value of bonds traded and total new issues o f bonds. Regression analysis is used to analyse the data used in this study. The results show that the issuance of Government bonds has a positive effect on the level of economic growth in Kenya. The findings imply that Kenya could enhance its economic growth by effectively and strategically strengthening the Bonds market and the uptake o f Government Bonds. The conclusion of the study is that the supply-leading hypothesis of economic growth prevailed in Kenya during the period under study from 2003 to 2011. This implies that economic growth was finance-led through funds mobilization. It is recommended therefore that the regulatory authority should initiate policies that would encourage more companies to access the market and also be more proactive in their surveillance role in order to check sharp practices which undermine market integrity and erode investors’ confidence.
Predictive value of Lipocalin 2 and hyperuricemia on maternal and fetal outcome in pre-eclampsia

Background: Pre-eclampsia is a complex hypertensive syndrome that originates in early pregnancy and leads to considerable maternal and fetal morbidity and mortality. Lipocalin 2 is low in healthy human tissue but increased in pathological conditions following endothelial cell injury. Women with pre-eclampsia showed elevated uric acid level in the maternal blood.Objective: To assess the predictive value of Lipcalin 2 and hyperuricemia on the severity of pre-eclampsia and on maternal and fetal outcome.Patients and Methods: Sixty women enrolled in the present study were forty affected by preeclampsia and 20 women with uncomplicated pregnancies formed the control group. All women included in the study were subjected to; complete history taking; clinical and blood pressure evaluation; measurements of biochemical parameters and evaluation of maternal and fetal well-being.Results: Thirty-two of hypertensive women were mild pre-eclampsia having blood pressure ≥140/90mmHg but less than 160/110mmHg. Eight cases were severe pre-eclampsia with the presence of blood pressure ≥160/110 mmHg. All hypertensive women showed statistically significant increased biochemical parameters compared to control "p<0.001". Lipocalin 2 and serum uric acid levels in the studied group showed a positive correlation with various biochemical parameters and hyperuricaemia showed a good relation with the pathogenesis of the maternal and fetal manifestations.Conclusion: Lipocalin 2 could be used as a sensitive indicator of severity of preeclampsia. On the other hand hyperuricaemia showed a good relationship with fetal outcome in hypertensive disorder of pregnancy, identifying those fetuses that are likely to have Intra Uterine Growth Retardation and high perinatal mortality.
The asymmetric drift, the local standard of rest, and implications from RAVE data

Context. The determination of the local standard of rest (LSR), which corresponds to the measurement of the peculiar motion of the Sun based on the derivation of the asymmetric drift of stellar populations, is still a matter of debate. The classical value of the tangential peculiar motion of the Sun with respect to the LSR was challenged in recent years, claiming a significantly larger value. Aims. We present an improved Jeans analysis, which allows a better interpretation of the measured kinematics of stellar populations in the Milky Way disc. We show that the Radial Velocity Experiment (RAVE) sample of dwarf stars is an excellent data set to derive tighter boundary conditions to chemodynamical evolution models of the extended solar neighbourhood. Methods. We propose an improved version of the Stromberg relation with the radial scalelengths as the only unknown. We redetermine the asymmetric drift and the LSR for dwarf stars based on RAVE data. Additionally, we discuss the impact of adopting a different LSR value on the individual scalelengths of the subpopulations. Results. Binning RAVE stars in metallicity reveals a bigger asymmetric drift (corresponding to a smaller radial scalelength) for more metal-rich populations. With the standard assumption of velocity-dispersion independent radial scalelengths in each metallicity bin, we redetermine the LSR. The new Stromberg equation yields a joint LSR value of V� = 3.06 ± 0.68 km s −1 , which is even smaller than the classical value based on Hipparcos data. The corresponding radial scalelength increases from 1.6 kpc for the metal-rich bin to 2.9 kpc for the metal-poor bin, with a trend of an even larger scalelength for young metal-poor stars. When adopting the recent Schonrich value of V� = 12.24 km s −1 for the LSR, the new Stromberg equation yields much larger individual radial scalelengths of the RAVE subpopulations, which seem unphysical in part. Conclusions. The new Stromberg equation allows a cleaner interpretation of the kinematic data of disc stars in terms of radial scalelengths. Lifting the LSR value by a few km s −1 compared to the classical value results in strongly increased radial scalelengths with a trend of smaller values for larger velocity dispersions.
The effect of colchicine pretreatment on isolated microspore culture of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.).

Colchicine is an alkaloid and microtubule-depolymerizing agent, disrupts microtubule formation during the cell division at metaphase stage and prevents anaphase thus resulting in an unreduced chromosome number before cell division. The main advantageous for genetic studies and plant breeding programmes using colchicine for rapid and huge production of fertile plants through anther and microspore culture. Therefore, the aim of this investigation was to find out the impact of colchicine on the response of fertile plants in wheat isolated microspore culture. In this case colchicine applied to the anthers compared with direct treatment on the isolated microspores. For first experiment 100 mg/l colchicine added seperately with three different basal media and found in all cases more or less fertile plants production compared to control (without colchicine). Colchicine application on anther culture medium showed significant increase in embryo formation and green plant regeneration. The direct treatment of colchicine to isolated microspore culture decreased three - four fold embryoids induction but improved fertile plant regeneration. Application of colchicine for both cases in anther and microspore culture increased the average chromosome doubling frequency (84.94%) compared to the control (55.26%) where colchicine was not added. For the second experiment, different concentrations of colchicine (50, 100, 150 mg/l for three days) added in AMC medium and found that reduced number of embryos and regenerated green plants, while the regeneration of albino plants was stimulated. When colchicine concentration increased the number of embryos decreased significantly, while the doubling index increased which is the main target of this study. In this case average frequency of diploid plants were increased (81.73%) compared with control (72.40%) among the three treatments. This finding has increased the knowledge about the benefit of colchicine application and optimized its concentration on isolated microspore for improving doubled haploids production in wheat microspore culture.
Inverse modeling of seasonal drought effects on canopy CO2/H2O exchange in three Mediterranean ecosystems

[1] We present a two-criteria inverse modeling approach to analyze the effects of seasonal drought on ecosystem gas exchange at three Mediterranean sites. The three sites include two nearly monospecific Quercus ilex L. forests, one on karstic limestone (Puechabon), the other on fluvial sand with access to groundwater (Castelporziano), and a typical multispecies shrubland on limestone (Arca di Noe). A canopy gas exchange model Process Pixel Net Ecosystem Exchange (PROXELNEE), which contains the Farquhar photosynthesis model coupled to stomatal conductance via the Ball-Berry model, was inverted in order to estimate the seasonal time course of canopy parameters from hourly values of ecosystem gross carbon uptake and transpiration. It was shown that an inverse estimation of leaf-level parameters was impossible when optimizing against ecosystem H2O or CO2 fluxes alone (unidentifiable parameters). In contrast, a criterion that constrained the optimization against both H2O and CO2 fluxes yielded stable estimates of leaf-level parameters. Two separate model inversions were implemented to test two alternative hypotheses about the response to drought: a reduction in active leaf area as a result of patchy stomatal closure or a change in photosynthetic capacities. In contrast to a previously tested hypothesis of classical (uniform) stomatal control, both hypotheses were equally able to describe the seasonality of carbon uptake and transpiration on all three sites, with a decline during the drought and recovery after autumn rainfall. Large reductions of up to 80%, in either active leaf area or photosynthetic capacities, were necessary to describe the observed carbon and water fluxes at the end of the drought period. With a threshold-type relationship, soil water content was an excellent predictor of these changes. With the drought-dependent parameter changes included, the canopy model explains 80–90% of the variance of hourly gross CO2 uptake (root mean squared error (RMSE): 1.1–2.6 μmol m−2 s−1) and 70–80% of the variance of hourly transpiration (RMSE: 0.02–0.03 mm h−1) at all sites. In addition to drought effects, changes in leaf photosynthetic activity not related to water availability, i.e., high spring activity, were detected through the inverse modeling approach. Moreover, our study exemplifies a kind of multiconstraint inverse modeling that can be profitably used for calibrating ecosystem models that are meant for global applications with ecosystem flux data.
Role of the fundamental solution in Hardy—Sobolev-type inequalities

Let n ≥ 3, Ω ⊂ Rn be a domain with 0 ∈ Ω, then, for all the Hardy–Sobolev inequality says that and equality holds if and only if u = 0 and ((n − 2)/2)2 is the best constant which is never achieved. In view of this, there is scope for improving this inequality further. In this paper we have investigated this problem by using the fundamental solutions and have obtained the optimal estimates. Furthermore, we have shown that this technique is used to obtain the Hardy–Sobolev type inequalities on manifolds and also on the Heisenberg group.
Breaking Collusion in Auctions Through Speculation: An Experiment on CO2 Emission Permit Market

The European Emission Trading Scheme (EU-ETS) has chosen to adopt an auctioning procedure to initially allocate CO2 emission permits. Free allocation of permits becomes an exception for the third phase (2013-2020) and firms have to buy all their permits on the market or via auctions. The ability of bidders to collude is a key concern about the design of the auction format. To counter the bidding ring, the auction can be open to bidders without compliance obligations (speculators). This paper aims at studying experimentally speculation as a collusion breaking device in two different auction mechanisms: the uniform price sealed bid auction and the ascending clock auction. Our results suggest that a uniform sealed bid auction open to speculators should be chosen from a revenue maximization point of view. In this mechanism, compliance agents are adopting an outbidding strategy toward speculators. This strategy significantly increases the seller’s revenue, compared to the more collusive clock auction. In this one, on the contrary, bidders accommodate speculators, letting them buy permits in the auction and buying their necessary permits on the secondary market. However, as opening the auction to speculators deteriorates efficiency, the regulator faces a trade-off between these two objectives.
Differences between protected and unprotected reefs of the western Caribbean in attributes preferred by dive tourists

Tropical marine protected areas (MPAs) may promote conditions that are attractive to dive tourists, but a systematic basis for assessing their effectiveness in this regard is currently lacking. We therefore interviewed 195 dive tourists in Jamaica to determine which reef attributes they most preferred to see on dives. Attributes relating to fishes and other large animals (‘big fishes’, ‘other large animals’, ‘variety of fishes’, ‘abundance of fishes’, and ‘unusual fishes’) were more appreciated than those relating to reef structure and benthos (‘reef structure e.g., drop-offs’, ‘variety of corals’, ‘large corals’, ‘coral cover’, ‘unusual corals’, ‘sponges’, ‘unusual algae’, ‘lobsters, crabs etc.’). We then surveyed reef condition with regard to those aspects (abundance and variety of fishes, number of ‘unusual’, and number of ‘large’ fish) at four Caribbean MPAs and reference areas. In two cases, Hol Chan Marine Reserve in Belize and Parque Nacional Punta Frances in Cuba, these fish attributes were more pronounced in the MPAs than in the reference areas. Differences between the Montego Bay Marine Park in Jamaica (MBMP) and adjacent reference areas were mainly restricted to shallow sites (<6m), while at Grand Cayman no differences between fully protected and partially protected areas were detected. Management had not been fully effective in the MBMP in the preceding months, while fishing pressure in the partially protected areas on Grand Cayman was very light. We conclude that, if fishing restrictions are well enforced, western Caribbean MPAs can be expected to be effective in ways appreciated by dive tourists.
Diel peroxy radicals in a semi-industrial coastal area: nighttime formation of free radicals

Abstract. Peroxy radicals were measured by a PeRCA (Peroxy Radical Chemical Amplifier) instrument in the boundary layer during the DOMINO (Diel Oxidant Mechanisms In relation to Nitrogen Oxides) campaign at a coastal, forested site influenced by urban-industrial emissions in southern Spain in late autumn. Total peroxy radicals (RO 2 * = HO 2 + ΣRO 2 ) generally showed a daylight maximum between 10 and 50 pptv at 13:00 UTC, with an average of 18 pptv over the 15 days of measurements. Emissions from the industrial area of Huelva often impacted the measurement site at night during the campaign. The processing of significant levels of anthropogenic organics leads to an intense nocturnal radical chemistry accompanied by formation of organic peroxy radicals at comparable levels to those of summer photochemical conditions with peak events up to 60–80 pptv. The RO 2 production initiated by reactions of NO 3 with organic trace gases was estimated to be significant, but not sufficient to account for the concentrations of RO 2 * observed in air masses carrying high pollutant loading. The nocturnal production of peroxy radicals in those periods seems therefore to be dominated by ozonolysis of volatile organic compounds, in particular alkenes of industrial petrochemical origin. RO 2 * diurnal variations were consistent with HO 2 measurements available at the site. HO 2 /RO 2 * ratios generally varied between 0.3 and 0.6, though on some occasions this ratio was likely to have been affected by instrumental artifacts (overestimated HO 2 ) associated with high RO 2 loads.
Trade and Employment in a Vertically Specialized World

With the steady growth of global production networks, each country’s trade now has a more complex relation to the international division of labour. This paper decomposes the employment effects of a country’s trade into five components, specifically the labour content (1) in exports, (2) in imports, (3) in the import content of exports, (4) in the export content of imports, and (5) in intermediates contained in imports from a third country. The last three components are strictly due to a country’s participation in global production networks. Based on the countries included in the panel, the analysis shows that in 2009 about 88 million jobs were generated worldwide through their participation in global production networks (GPN) trade, which is about 14 per cent of the total number of jobs generated by international trade. Countries that demanded the most labour as a result of GPN trade are the large developed economies with the exception of China. With regard to the import content of exports, the analysis shows that in 2009, it led to the demand for about 44 million jobs within the 39 countries. Third-country intermediates contained in importsgenerated labour demand of about 39 million jobs and the export content of imports created demand for about 5 million jobs.
Genetic relatedness among quince ( Cydonia oblonga Miller) accessions from Turkey using amplified fragment length polymorphisms

Among fruit species cultivated in Turkey, quince shows a great deal of morphological variability and adaptability to the various environments. We attempted to study genetic relationships among 40 quince accessions using amplified fragment length polymorphisms (AFLPs) for future breeding programs. The accessions were previously characterized based on their pomological and yield characteristics and then the best ones were planted in a single collection in Ataturk Central Horticultural Research Institute, Yalova, Turkey. Six AFLP primer combinations generated a total of 746 bands, 493 of which were polymorphic (66.1%). Resolving powers of the AFLP primers ranged from 48.0 to 99.6 making a total of 421.5. Unweighted Pair Group Method with Arithmetic Average (UPGMA) clustering of the accessions showed three major clusters and ‘SapancaEsme’ and ‘Esme-3’ were the closest accessions with 95% similarity. Our study indicated that there is a high level of genetic diversity among quince accessions in Turkey and the results of this study can be used for future cultivar breeding programs in quince.
Africa's Economic Future: Learning from the Past

African countries have been growing fast recently. In 2007, for example, GDP growth averaged 6.2 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA),1 nearly double the rate in 2002 (World Bank 2009) and comparable to those in other regions of the world. Since 1995, some 26 African countries, representing 70 percent of the SSA population and 78 percent of the GDP, have grown their GDPs by an average of 6.9 percent annually, a rate that is comparable to the 6.7 percent rate over the same period for the emerging South Asian giant, India, for instance (Arbache et al. 2008).