Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The impact of poverty cycles on economic research: evidence from econometric analysis

Abstract Poverty is a global problem, and fighting it is a historical task faced by humanity. The outbreak of poverty crises has a certain cyclicality, and the development of economic research may react to poverty cycles. To validate this view, we take the United States as an empirical example and establish a quantitative research architecture based on the bibliometrics and econometrics. In the first place, we conduct a bibliometric analysis of selected search terms relevant to poverty cycles. After that, the time-series data in the actual economy are collected for reflecting the trends and fluctuations in economic activity affected by poverty cycles. Meanwhile, with both bibliometric and economic data, a detrending measure via the band-pass (BP) filter is performed to estimate cycles. Finally, the Granger causality tests are implemented to explore the interaction between poverty cycles and economic research directly. As a supplement, this paper also provides a quantitative evaluation analysis, namely impulse-response functions, to investigate the influence of economic variables on bibliometric ones. The final results show there indeed exists an impact of poverty cycles in economic activity on relevant discussions in the scientific literature.
Estimating animal utilization densities using continuous‐time Markov chain models

A long‐standing goal in ecology is to describe an animal's home range or utilization density (UD) without complete knowledge of the animal's movement. There are a number of methods available to calculate a UD from telemetry data, but the most common methods limit the UD to cover areas where the animal was observed during tracking, and do not account for preferential use of different habitats (resource selection). The limiting distribution of a continuous‐time Markov chain (CTMC) matches the intuitive understanding of a UD for an animal following a CTMC movement model. By modelling continuous‐time movement through discrete‐gridded space we can infer environmental effects on animal movement and then predict a UD over the desired spatial area that captures preferential use of space. The r packages crawl and ctmcmove allow ecologists to use telemetry data to predict the UD of an animal using the limiting distribution of a CTMC movement model. We used data collected from Steller sea lions in Alaska to illustrate use of this method for investigating range‐wide space use. Our findings show how these packages, and this method, can aid our understanding of space‐use by predicting use outside the areas where animals were observed, avoiding barriers to movement, including environmental covariates and removing the release effect of telemetry studies. These results will be important for both conservation and management, particularly when determining critical habitat designation.
Syntaxin-3 Regulates Biphasic Glucose Stimulated Insulin Secretion in the Pancreatic Beta Cell

The molecular basis of exocytosis of insulin granules during biphasic glucose stimulated insulin secretion (GSIS) of pancreatic beta cells remains unclear. Of the exocytotic Syntaxin (Syn) family of SNARE proteins, Syn-1A has been postulated to mediate exocytosis of docked insulin granules during first phase GSIS, while Syn-4 facilitates both phases of GSIS. Syn-3 is also abundant in islet beta cells, but its function in GSIS is unknown. Our study aims to investigate the role of Syn-3 in biphasic insulin secretion and how it regulates the recruitment to plasma membrane and/or exocytotic fusion of insulin granules. Confocal microscopy showed endogenous Syn-3 (and exogenously overexpressed Syn-3 WT-EGFP) to be localized to insulin granules. We first examined the function of endogenous Syn-3 by down-regulating its expression employing siRNA and lenti-shRNA viruses, the latter to establish a stable knockdown INS-1 cell line; which impaired GSIS. Total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy (TIRFM) of Syn-3 depleted INS-1 cells showed no change in the number of docked insulin granules and preservation of fusion competence of previously docked granules – which are functions previously attributed to Syn-1A. Remarkably, Syn-3 depletion caused marked reduction in the number of newcomer granules and their subsequent exocytotic fusion, which encompassed both first and second phases of GSIS. We then examined the effects of
Study of plasmid profile, susceptibility patterns of clinical Staphylococcus aureus isolated from patients with otitis media in Basrah

The present study was designed to investigate plasmid profile, the prevalence of multidrug resistant Staphylococcus aureus, which was done in Basrah, Iraq, during the period between September 2010 and January 2011. A total of seventy six Ear swab were collected from seventy six patients (32 male and 44 female) with chronic and acute suppurative otitis media (CSOM, ASOM) with or without discharges. Thirty five (46.02%) isolates diagnosed as Staphylococcal spp and twenty four (31.6%) as S. aureus isolates from (10 male and 14 female). S. aureus isolates tested for antibiotic susceptibility, high antibiotic resistance to Ampicillin, Carbenicillin, Amoxicillin, Nalidixic acid, and Ceftriaxone , mid resistance to Streptomycin , Erythromycin and Oxacillin, low resistance to Neomycin, Tetracycline, Kanamycin,Tobramycin ,Gentamicin, Clinamycin, Cephalexin, and sensitive to Chloramphenicol, Vancomycin, Ciprofloxacin and Rifampicin . S.aureus isolates showed multiple antibiotic resistance, Such that, two isolates resisted four types of antibiotics. Five isolates were resisted five types of antibiotics. three isolates resisted six types of antibiotics . Five isolates resisted seven types of antibiotics. Two isolates resisted eight types of antibiotics . Two isolates resisted nine types of antibiotics. Two isolates resisted ten types of antibiotics. Two isolates resisted eleven types of antibiotics. Only one isolate resisted fifteen types of antibiotics. The MAR index of the isolates ranged between 0.2 and 0.75. All isolates harbore Large molecular weight plasmids ranging from (21 – 22) Kbp .
Bioinformatic approaches for identifying single nucleotide variants and profiling alternative expression in cancer transcriptomes

Over the last decade, the advent of high-throughput sequencing (HTS) has given us the ability to study DNA and RNA sequences at nucleotide resolution at an unprecedented speed and at a relatively low cost. This has been an invaluable tool in the study of cancer, allowing projects such as The Cancer Genome Atlas and the International Cancer Genome Consortium to sequence thousands of tumours from multiple cancer types. The ever-increasing amounts of data created by these projects demanded new analysis methods: in the first part of this thesis, I focus on method development for mutation calling in genome and transcriptome data. I present SNVMix, a single nucleotide variant (SNV) caller based on a set of probabilistic models created to adapt to variations in allele representation in a tumour. Differential allele representation in DNA can occur when multiple clones are present in the sequenced tumour, and in RNA can occur due to differences in gene expression or allele bias. These situations are nearly ubiquitously encountered in cancer sequencing studies, and thus need to be accounted for. I demonstrate that SNVMix was able to outperform another contemporary SNV caller that does not account for variations in allele representation. I also present BWA-R, an adaptation of the Burrows Wheeler Aligner, that can properly align RNA-Seq paired-end reads to a genome reference extended with exon-exon junction sequences formed through splicing. I show that BWA-R provides better alignments for SNV calling in transcriptomes, resulting in an increase in the proportion of true positive calls obtained. In the second part of this thesis, I analyze RNA-Seq data from a triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) cohort and describe the alternative splicing profiles of the previously defined Basal and NonBasal subgroups. TNBC is characterized by the absence of estrogen and progesterone receptors and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2), which precludes the use of currently available targeted therapies. TNBC patients are thus treated with chemotherapy, and outcomes are generally poor. I identify alternatively expressed genes that may be relevant to the biology of these two subgroups and that could provide clues for further studies or treatment options.
Infrared Small Target Detection Based on Non-Overlapping Patch Model via l0-l1 Norm

Infrared small target detection technology has sufficient applications in many engineering fields, such as infrared early warning, infrared tracking, and infrared reconnaissance. Due to the tiny size of the infrared small target and the lack of shape and texture information, existing methods often leave residuals or miss the target. To address these issues, a novel method based on a non-overlapping patch (NOP) joint l0-l1 norm is proposed with the introduction of sparsity regularized principal component pursuit (SRPCP). The NOP model makes the patch lighter in the first place, reducing time consumption. The adoption of the l0 norm enhances the sparsity of the target, while the adoption of the l1 norm enhances the robustness of the algorithm under clutter. As a smart optimization method, SRPCP solves the NOP model fittingly and achieves stable separation of low-rank and sparse components, thereby improving detection capacity while suppressing the background efficiently. The proposed method ultimately yielded favorable detection results. Adequate experiment results demonstrate that the proposed method is competitive in terms of background suppression and true target detection with respect to state-of-the-art methods. In addition, our method also reduces the computational time.
Exploring the Requirements of the Mycobacterium Phage Brujita Integrase

Temperate phages establish lysogeny and immunity to superinfection upon phage integration. Brujita Integrase (Int) is a model for a recently discovered subclass of tyrosine integrases, which lack traditional N-terminal arm-binding domains and contain additional C-terminal degradation tags. Typically, the arm-binding domain recognizes binding sites in the phage attachment DNA (attP) and serves to control the directionality in integration and excision. The absence of this domain raises the question of how Brujita Int binds attachment site substrates to control site selectivity and directionality. In this work, we describe the DNA and protein requirements for Brujita Int function, how it implements site selection, directionality control, and higher order complex formation. We show that Brujita Int is a simple recombinase, which resembles Cre, FLP, and XerC/D more closely than it does the tyrosine phage integrases. In contrast to Lambda Int, Brujita Int uses small DNA substrates, does not discriminate between attP and attB sites, and lacks directional control. It also shows unusual binding to its attachment sites. Binding to attB occurs at two half sites, B and B’ in a cooperative manner, such that binding at B’ is required for binding at B. Binding to attP is also unusual. The attP site is comprised of three half sites, P, P’, and an additional site to the left of P, P1. However, binding is not detected at P, although this site is required for recombination. Additionally, P1 is required for recombination, presumably to stabilize binding at P. Finally, we have solved the crystal structure of the Brujita Int and have found residues responsible for higher order complex formation. In total, our results indicate that Brujita Int may represent an evolutionary precursor to the canonical tyrosine integrases. Moreover, given its relative simplicity, Brujita Int presents a useful tool for the creation of synthetic genetic circuits as well as genome manipulation.
Citrus infestation by the black scale, Parlatoria ziziphi Lucas (Homoptera: Diaspididae) in Tlemcen, Algeria

In a 2-year study on black scale, Parlatoria ziziphi Lucas (Homoptera, Diaspididae) infestation on two citrus varieties viz., Thomson and Portuguese at El Fehoul station in Tlemcen North-West of Algeria, Parlatoria ziziphi was found infesting both varieties. The upper surface of leaves was always more infested than the lower surface by Parlatoria ziziphi for both Thomson and Portuguese varieties. In terms of leaves infestation rates, it's very important at the southern exposure and the center of the plot for Thomson variety, and with 100% in the southern and northern exposure of the Portuguese variety. In case of fruit, the rate of infestation is the most important in the south of plot with 87.9% for Thomson variety and 79% for the Portuguese variety. The infestation rate of the leaves does not change after harvesting the fruit. This species of scale insect is cosmopolitan and attacks many species of Citrus family. It is also very common on citrus in Algeria.
Corporate Risk: CEO Overconfidence and Incentive Compensation

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to investigate the association between corporate risk and the interaction between CEO incentive compensation and CEO overconfidence.Design/methodology/approachThis empirical study performs random and fixed effect (FE) regression analysis. It uses option-implied measures of CEO overconfidence.FindingsThe authors contribute to the existing literature by showing (1) that the positive association between high CEO incentive compensation and corporate risk only exists in the sphere of overconfident CEOs and (2) that the positive association between overconfident CEOs and corporate risk only exists in the sphere of high CEO incentive compensation. The authors show that the combination of high CEO incentive compensation and CEO overconfidence is associated with an increase in corporate risk of approximately 6% while the individual effects are for all practical reasons negligible. The results imply that only the combination of high CEO incentive compensation and CEO overconfidence is associated with a significantly elevated level of corporate risk.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings are based on S&P 1500 non-financial firms in the period 2007–2016.Practical implicationsThe findings have important implications in terms of CEO selection and compensation.Originality/valueThis study provides empirical evidence on the importance of the dual presence of high CEO incentive compensation and CEO overconfidence for corporate risk. The previous literature has primarily investigated these phenomena in isolation.
Impact of Satellite Constellations on Optical Astronomy and Recommendations Toward Mitigations

In May 2019 SpaceX launched its first batch of 60 Starlink communication satellites, which surprised astronomers and laypeople with their appearance in the night sky. Astronomers have only now, a little over a year later, accumulated enough observations of constellation satellites like those being launched by SpaceX and OneWeb, and run computer simulations of their likely impact when fully deployed, to thoroughly understand the magnitude and complexity of the problem. This research informed the discussion at the Satellite Constellations 1 (SATCON1) workshop held virtually 29 June to 2 July 2020 and led to recommendations for observatories and constellation operators. The SATCON1 report concludes that the effects on astronomical research and on the human experience of the night sky range from “negligible” to “extreme. ”
A complex junction recognition method based on GoogLeNet model

Complex junctions are typical microstructures in large‐scale road networks with intricate structures and varied morphologies. It is a challenge to identify junctions in map generalization and car navigation tasks accurately. Generally, traditional recognition methods rely on low‐level characteristics of manual design, such as parallelism and symmetry. In recent years, preliminary studies using deep learning‐based recognition methods were conducted. However, only a few junction types can be recognized by existing methods, and these methods cannot effectively identify junctions with irregular shapes and numerous interference sections. Hence, this article proposes a complex junction recognition method based on the GoogLeNet model. First, the Delaunay triangulation clustering algorithm was used to automatically identify the center point and spatial range of training samples for complex junctions. Second, vector training samples were selected from OpenStreetMap (OSM) data of 39 cities across China, and the samples were then augmented through simplification, rotation, and mirroring. Finally, the vector sample data were transformed into raster images, and the GoogLeNet model was trained to learn the high‐level fuzzy characteristics. Experiments based on OSM data from Tianjin city, China, revealed that compared with state‐of‐the‐art methods, the proposed method effectively identified more types of complex junctions and achieved a significantly higher identification accuracy. Furthermore, the proposed method has strong generalizability and anti‐interference capability.
The Removal of Children in Domestic Violence: Widening Service Provider Perspectives

A range of service providers support mothers and children who are experiencing domestic violence (DV). However, research tends to focus on the role of service providers in child protection services and DV services. This potentially excludes valuable insights from a wider range of nongovernment service providers on the systemic issues that mothers experiencing DV and child separation may experience. This research explored the perspectives of 16 different nongovernment service providers about working with women who have had their children removed while experiencing DV. The study used an intersectional feminist approach that highlighted intersecting gendered and racialized power relations in service responses functioning to reinforce multiple dimensions of disadvantage. The study found that mother blame was a pervasive issue both within and outside of child protection services. Service providers described the challenges of navigating a system that revictimizes women, with particular impacts for Aboriginal and culturally diverse mothers. The findings reinforced the importance of preventing mother blame, holding perpetrators of DV more accountable, and improving collaboration across services and for more flexible responses to women living with violence.
Evaluation of semi-nested polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and mannan antigen detection compared to blood culture for diagnosis of candidemia

Invasive Candida infections have emerged as an important pathogen in the last decade, especially in immunocompromized patients. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the detection of Candida species in blood samples from pediatric patients with sepsis by blood culture method versus antigen detection method by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and molecular method by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). This cross-sectional study was carried out on children at Mansoura University Children Hospital (MUCH) with the presence of clinical signs suggesting sepsis with absence of prior antifungal therapy. Laboratory diagnosis included blood culture, mannan antigen detection of Candida species by ELISA and semi-nested PCR. Candida species were detected by blood culture in 15.6% of the children and was detected by PCR and antigen detection in 20% for each. Candidemia was more frequently detected among patients with central venous lines (38.5%), children with Diabetes Mellitus (DM) (23.1%) and children with frequent blood transfusions (15.4%). However, these risk factors were not statistically significant. Mortality rate among children with candidemia was 42.9%. The sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of antigen detection method by ELISA compared to culture, were 71.4, 89.5 and 86.7%, respectively. The sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of semi-nested PCR compared to culture were 85.7, 92.1 and 91.1% respectively. It can be concluded from this study that Candida species is a frequent pathogen associated with pediatric sepsis. Blood culture though is a reliable laboratory method for its diagnosis may lack sensitivity and requires prolonged time. Seminested PCR for detection of candidemia is sensitive, specific and accurate method. Mannan antigen detection by ELISA is rapid and easy; however, it may lacks specificity; it can be used as a preliminary method for screening. Further studies are recommended to detect the appropriate laboratory algorithm for early diagnosis of candidemia to start antifungal therapy appropriately.
Compressed sensing–based electromechanical admittance data loss recovery for concrete structural health monitoring

Considerable amount of electromechanical admittance data needs to be collected, transmitted and stored during in-situ and long-term structural health monitoring applications, and data loss could be inevitably met when processing the monitoring electromechanical admittance signals. In this article, an innovative compressed sensing–based approach is proposed to implement data recovery for electromechanical admittance technique–based concrete structural health monitoring. The basis of this approach is to first project the original conductance signature onto an observation vector as sampled data, and then transmit the observation vector with data loss to storage station, and finally recover the missing data via a compressed sensing process. For comparison, both convex optimization theory and orthogonal matching pursuit algorithm are introduced to accomplish the compressed sensing–based electromechanical admittance data loss recovery. Prior detection test of a concrete cube subjected to varied temperatures and practical monitoring experiment of full-scale concrete shield tunnel segment undergone bolt-loosened defects are utilized to validate the feasibility of the proposed approach. In lost electromechanical admittance data recovery process, two types of data loss, namely, single-consecutive-segment loss and multiple-consecutive-segment losses, in sampled data are taken into consideration for sufficiently interpreting the effectiveness and accuracy of the convex optimization and orthogonal matching pursuit approaches. In the temperature recognition and damage identification stage, amplitude and frequency shifts in resonance peaks, cooperated with a common statistical index called root-mean-squared-deviation, are harnessed to achieve the goal after the lossy conductance signatures are recovered. The results show that the orthogonal matching pursuit–based data recovery approach is superior to the convex optimization approach because of its smaller calculation of consumption as well as lower recovered errors.