Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Land Use / Land Cover Change And Impact On Carbon Stocks In The Atacora Chain Of Mountains, A Biodiversity Hotspot In Benin (West Africa)

Mountain areas are fragile ecosystems that play important roles in people’s livelihoods and maintenance of the global ecosystem through the provision of many ecosystem services. Land use/cover (LULC) change is considered one of the major threats to mountain areas due to its effects on ecosystem services including carbon stocks. In this study we assessed LULC change between 1987 and 2015 and its impact on aboveground carbon stocks in the Atacora Chain of Mountains (ACM) in Benin, West Africa. Supervised classification was performed to delineate LULC classes on three dates (1987, 2001 and 2015), and forest measurements carried out in the land cover classes, to estimate the aboveground biomass and the subsequent carbon stocks. Seven land cover classes were delineated: gallery forests, woodlands, savanna, water, settlements, bare lands and farm lands. LULC changes were characterized by three transitions: 1) the change of man-made land cover into savanna, 2) the change of natural vegetation into man-made land cover and 3) the degradation of gallery forests and woodland into less wooded vegetation. The aboveground carbon stock in gallery forests, woodland and tree savanna were significantly greater than in shrub savanna. During the 28 years of assessment, LULC change in gallery forests, woodland and savanna caused an estimated overall aboveground carbon release of 17.10% in the ACM. From the aboveground carbon quantity in the ACM, it appeared that this ecosystem is a potential carbon reservoir. Because the aboveground carbon stock in shrub savanna is significantly lower as compared to gallery forests, woodland and tree savanna and the rates of degradation from gallery forests and woodland to savanna are high, 53.62% and 59.99% respectively in 28 years, LULC change may undermine the ACM ability to store carbon and contribute to climate change mitigation. There is a need to investigate the drivers of this degradation for actions to preserve the natural vegetation in the ACM. Keywords: Atacora Chain of Mountains; Land use/land cover (LULC); Benin; West Africa; Carbon stock DOI: 10.7176/JEES/10-6-13 Publication date: June 30 th 2020
The Decline of Small Cities: Increased Competition from External Shopping Malls or Long-Term Negative Trends?

We use the entry of 17 external shopping malls in Sweden to investigate how they have affected the performance of incumbent firms located in the city centres of small cities. Estimating a traditional fixed effects regression model while controlling for firm-specific heterogeneity, we find that entry by external shopping malls decreased the labour productivity of incumbent firms in city centres by 5.31%. Revenues decrease by 6.62%, while the reduction in the number of employees (0.45%) is small and not significantly different from zero. However, using time-specific fixed effects to control for common time trends in retailing in small cities, we find that the impact on labour productivity, revenues and the number of employees due to the entry of external shopping malls becomes insignificant. Thus, incumbent firms in small cities have a negative development path mainly due to long-term economic trends, possibly because of the combination of urbanization effects and a lack of local investments.
Stability and Behavior in Carbonate Cores for New EOR Polymers at Elevated Temperatures in Hard Saline Brines

The goal of this work was to identify viable polymers for use in polymer flooding high-temperature carbonate reservoirs with hard, saline brines. This study extensively examined recent EOR polymers for stability, including new ATBS polymers with a high degree of polymerization, scleroglucan, NVP-based polymers, and hydrophobic associative polymers. For each polymer, stability experiments were performed over a two-year period under oxygen-free conditions (less than one parts per billion, ppb or ~μg/L) at various temperatures up to 180°C in brines with total dissolved solids (TDS) ranging from 0.69% to 24.4%, including divalent cations from 0.034% to 2.16%. Use of Arrhenius analysis was a novel feature of this work. This rarely-used method allows relatively rapid assessment of the long-term stability of EOR polymers. Rather than wait years or decades for results from conventional stability studies at the reservoir temperature, reliable estimates of the time-temperature stability relations were obtained within two years. Arrhenius analysis was used to project polymer viscosity half-lives at the target reservoir temperature of 99°C. The analysis suggests that a set of ATBS polymers will exhibit a viscosity half-life over 5 years at 120°C and over 50 years at 99°C—representing a novel finding of this work and a major advance for extending polymer flooding to higher temperatures. For five polymers that showed potential for application at higher temperatures, corefloods were performed under anaerobic conditions. Another novel feature of this work was that anaerobic floods were performed without using chemical oxygen scavengers, chemical stabilizing packages, or chelating agents (that are feared to alter rock properties). Using carbonate cores and representative conditions, corefloods were performed to evaluate polymer retention, rheology in porous media, susceptibility to mechanical degradation, and residual resistance factor for each of the polymers at 99°C.
Utilization of Renewable Oxygenates as Gasoline Blending Components

This report reviews the use of higher alcohols and several cellulose-derived oxygenates as blend components in gasoline. Material compatibility issues are expected to be less severe for neat higher alcohols than for fuel-grade ethanol. Very little data exist on how blending higher alcohols or other oxygenates with gasoline affects ASTM Standard D4814 properties. Under the Clean Air Act, fuels used in the United States must be 'substantially similar' to fuels used in certification of cars for emission compliance. Waivers for the addition of higher alcohols at concentrations up to 3.7 wt% oxygen have been granted. Limited emission testing on pre-Tier 1 vehicles and research engines suggests that higher alcohols will reduce emissions of CO and organics, while NOx emissions will stay the same or increase. Most oxygenates can be used as octane improvers for standard gasoline stocks. The properties of 2-methyltetrahydrofuran, dimethylfuran, 2-methylfuran, methyl pentanoate and ethyl pentanoate suggest that they may function well as low-concentration blends with gasoline in standard vehicles and in higher concentrations in flex fuel vehicles.
Perceived community support about the implementation of a smoke-free environment regional regulations in the Tegal municipality

A – Study Design, B – Data Collection, C – Statistical Analysis, D – Data Interpretation, E – Manuscript Preparation, F – literature search, G – Funds Collection Background. A smoke-free environment regional regulation is expected to greatly decrease the negative impact of ciga rette smoking in public places; however, community perception of the regulation prior to its implementation remains unclear. Objectives. This research aims to determine community perception and support for the implementation of a smoke-free environment regional regulation in the Tegal municipality. Material and methods. A quantitative study with a cross-sectional approach was conducted in seven zones identified as smoke-free environments under Government Act No. 36 of 2009. Perception and support were determined through surveys using an accidental sampling framework. A total of 226 samples were collected to explore community perception of the demands, obstacles and opportu nities surrounding the implementation of a smoke-free environment regional regulation in the Tegal municipality. Results. This study shows that 84.50% of the respondents agreed with (84.50%) and completely (84.96%) supported the implementa tion of a smoke-free environment regulation in the Tegal municipality. In fact, most of the respondents with an active smoking status (62.50%) also agreed with and supported this regulation. Support for implementation of a smoke-free environment regional regulation was mainly determined by age group. The elderly and adult age group supported the implementation of such a regulation more than the adolescent age group. Furthermore, respondents with fair knowledge, attitude and commitment were 14 times more supportive of the implementation than those with poorer knowledge, attitude and commitment. Conclusions. This research shows that those with an active smoking status also support this regional regulation, which indicates that active smokers understand the importance of protecting people around them from cigarette smoking.
Crowding and the architecture of the visual system

In crowding, perception of an object deteriorates in the presence of nearby elements. Although crowding is a ubiquitous phenomenon, since elements are rarely seen in isolation, to date there exists no consensus on how to model it. Previous experiments showed that the global configuration of the entire stimulus must be taken into account. These findings rule out simple pooling or substitution models and favor models sensitive to global spatial aspects. In order to investigate how to incorporate global aspects into models, we tested a large number of models with a database of forty stimuli tailored for the global aspects of crowding. Our results show that incorporating grouping like components strongly improves model performance. Crowding and the Architecture of the Visual System. Chapter 3 – Beyond Bouma’s Window: How to Explain Global Aspects of Crowding?
Learning to Estimate the Body Shape Under Clothing From a Single 3-D Scan

Estimating the 3-D human body shape and pose under clothing is important for many applications, including virtual try-on, noncontact body measurement, and avatar creation for virtual reality. Existing body shape estimation methods formulate this task as an optimization problem by fitting a parametric body model to a single dressed-human scan or a sequence of dressed-human meshes for a better accuracy. This is impractical for many applications that require fast acquisition, such as gaming and virtual try-on due to the expensive computation. In this article, we propose the first learning-based approach to estimate the human body shape under clothing from a single dressed-human scan, dubbed Body PointNet. The proposed Body PointNet operates directly on raw point clouds and predicts the undressed body in a coarse-to-fine manner. Due to the nature of the data—aligned paired dressed scans and undressed bodies; and genus-0 manifold meshes (i.e., single-layer surfaces)—we face a major challenge of lacking training data. To address this challenge, we propose a novel method to synthesize the dressed-human pseudoscans and corresponding ground truth bodies. A new large-scale dataset, dubbed body under virtual garments, is presented, employed for the learning task of body shape estimation from 3-D dressed-human scans. Comprehensive evaluations show that the proposed Body PointNet outperforms the state-of-the-art methods in terms of both accuracy and running time.
Comparison of clinical and epidemiological characteristics of deceased and recovered patients with COVID-19 in Sabzevar, Iran

Background and Aim: SARS-CoV-2 is the most dangerous virus in the coronavirus family and is a serious warning to all countries in the world Despite the efforts of researchers, there are widespread ambiguities about it The aim of this study was to compare the clinical and epidemiological characteristics of deceased and recovered patients with COVID-19 Methods: This descriptive-analytical study was performed in patients with COVID-19 in Vasei Hospital in Sabzevar, Iran in March and April 2020 The tools used were the researcher-made questionnaire, interview and medical files Results: From the 178 patients, 52 8% were women and the mean age was 57 1±18 years 85 4% have recovered and 14% have died Shortness of breath (72 5%) was the most common symptom, followed by cough (61 8%) and fever (48 9%) 43 8% of all patients and 71 9% of deceased patients had at least one underlying disease There were significant differences in terms of cough in recovered cases and decreased level of consciousness in deceased patients (P 0 05) Increased white blood cell counts, decreased lymphocytes, and increased neutrophils were significantly higher in deceased patients (P 0 05) Conclusion: Due to the high rate of infection and death in older people with underlying diseases, precautionary measures should be taken in this group It is also helpful to pay attention to patients' symptoms in admission to identify the patient's prognosis An increase in white blood cells and neutrophils and a decrease in lymphocytes indicate that the immune system is involved in these patients More research is needed to identify the pathogenesis and underlying factors in these patients © 2020 Baqiyatallah University of Medical Sciences All rights reserved
Applying UTAUT2 to Explain the Use of Physical Activity Logger Applications Among Young Elderly

Digital wellness technologies have been proposed as a promising way to promote the levels of physical activity and to solve the prevalent problem of physical inactivity among elderly people. In this study, we propose and test a research model for explaining the acceptance and use of these technologies in the case of the young elderly segment (people aged 60– 75 years) and physical activity logger applications. The proposed model is theoretically founded on UTAUT2, and it is empirically tested by using the data collected from 115 Finnish young elderly users of a physical activity logger application and analysed with partial least squares based structural equation modelling (PLS - SEM). We find habit to act as the strongest antecedent of use intention, followed by performance expectancy and hedonic motivation with approxi mately equally strong effects. In contrast, the effects of effort expectancy and social influence on use intention were found as statistically not significant.
Supercritical fluid impregnation with biocides of wood using temperature reduction

approved Jeffrey J. Morrell Supercritical fluid (SCF) impregnation is a promising preservative treatment method, however, the development of SCF processes has been slowed by a limited understanding of the process. Developing a better understanding of the effects of various process parameters on treatment results would allow for a more rational development of SCF impregnation. We explored a new process that introduced biocide in a methanol solution and then reduced temperature to induce deposition. Temperature induced deposition produced more reproducible retentions between batches and reduced biocide consumption in comparison with the saturation method. A close relationship was observed between biocide input (g) and retention up to 0.5 kg/m3 (Y = 0.0255x, R2 = 0.9535) using this method. Operating at higher temperature and pressure reduced treatment reproducibility. Although temperature induced deposition required additional cooling times, it also produced higher retentions, an absence of clogging in lines, allowed for methanol recycling, and created the potential for recycling liquid CO2. One possible drawback was the presence of a liquid phase at the end of the process that might result in biocide movement from the interior to the surface in wood. Redacted for privacy Different wood materials including ponderosa pine sapwood, plywood, and oriented strand board showed varying biocide treatability due to differences in structural composition and permeability of the various materials. Although liquid impregnation produced similar retentions in all three wood materials, the liquid treatment can cause detrimental effects on the mechanical and physical properties of wood composites. SUPERCRITICAL FLUID IMPREGNATION WITH BIOCIDES OF WOOD USING TEMPERATURE REDUCTION
Social interaction in an office environment: A qualitative study after relocation to a smart office

The purpose of this study was to examine user experiences on social interaction after moving into a smart office environment. The study was conducted after the relocation to ‘Stadhuistoren,’ a smart office building of Eindhoven Municipality. Semi-structured interviews with eleven office users and observation for five working days were conducted. The data was analyzed based on grounded theory and thematic analysis. The results revealed various components of social interaction happening in the new office environment and emphasized the importance of spontaneous meetings and the need for non-work-related conversations. This study further suggests that the spatial configuration, and if possible smart applications, should facilitate social interaction in an office environment.
Empathic Anger and Personal Anger in Response to Fairness Violations: Relations to Self and Other-Oriented Motivation and Behavior

EMPATHIC ANGER AND PERSONAL ANGER IN RESPONSE TO FAIRNESS VIOLATIONS: RELATIONS TO SELF AND OTHER-ORIENTED MOTIVATION AND BEHAVIOR By Athena Hensel Cairo, M.S. A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Virginia Commonwealth University. Virginia Commonwealth University, 2020. Major Director: Jeffrey D. Green, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology Prosocial behavior research has shown that empathy-elicited compassionate concern often motivates actions performed with an ultimate goal of helping others even at cost to oneself, whereas empathic distress motivates low-cost help with an ultimate goal of helping oneself. Less is known about the motivational outcomes of empathic anger felt when witnessing injustice or harm to others. Though empathic anger predicts third-party compensation and punishment, it is unclear whether this motivation is ultimately self or other-oriented. Three experimental studies examined the empathic anger-altruism hypothesis, that empathic anger evoked when witnessing another being treated unjustly would evoke altruistic motivation to help the victim or punish the offender. In all three studies, empathic anger evoked motivation to punish a third-party offender. In contrast to the empathic anger-altruism hypothesis, Studies 2 and 3 found that witnessing third-party injustice typically led participants to punish an unfair offender, rather than help a third-party victim. Participants were equally likely to choose to punish an unfair delegator when witnessing third party unfairness as when they were personally treated unfairly. The lack of EMPATHIC ANGER AND ALTRUISM vii willingness to help may be explained by low empathic concern evoked when witnessing a stranger be treated unfairly, compared to when remembering or imagining a close other be treated unfairly. Study 3 also found that motivation to punish the unfair offender was not altruistic, as participants overwhelmingly chose to self-compensate or avoid a decision when their response decision was costly. Implications for our understanding of the mechanisms underlying empathic anger, and the fundamental self or other-oriented nature of the emotional response, are discussed.
Phytochemicals (phenolic acids, flavonoids, and alkaloids) contribution to the feeding value of mulberry (Morus spp.) for rabbits

The feeding value of mulberry leaves for rabbits was quantitatively evaluated based on a single-factor design with five levels in diets (0, 5, 10, 15 and 20%). Results showed that rabbits given mulberry at 20 and 15% had a relatively lower body weight gain, higher feed conversion ratio, and lower meat ether extract contents than that in the 0% group (P < 0.05). Increased activities of antioxidant enzymes and reduced formation of thiobarbituric acid-reactive substances were detected in the plasma of mulberrytreated rabbits. Mulberry reduced the production of trichloroacetic acid perceptible N and NH3-N and increased total volatile fatty acids in rabbit cecum content through optimizing the intestinal micro-flora. Comparative analysis revealed that the content of phytochemicals in mulberry may be the main factor responsible for the feeding levels in rabbit diet, contributes to the effect of enhancing the antioxidant capacity of rabbit bodies and also optimizes intestinal micro-flora.
Recurrent Cholera Outbreaks, Democratic Republic of the Congo, 2008–2017

In 2017, the exacerbation of an ongoing countrywide cholera outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo resulted in >53,000 reported cases and 1,145 deaths. To guide control measures, we analyzed the characteristics of cholera epidemiology in DRC on the basis of surveillance and cholera treatment center data for 2008–2017. The 2017 nationwide outbreak resulted from 3 distinct mechanisms: considerable increases in the number of cases in cholera-endemic areas, so-called hot spots, around the Great Lakes in eastern DRC; recurrent outbreaks progressing downstream along the Congo River; and spread along Congo River branches to areas that had been cholera-free for more than a decade. Case-fatality rates were higher in nonendemic areas and in the early phases of the outbreaks, possibly reflecting low levels of immunity and less appropriate prevention and treatment. Targeted use of oral cholera vaccine, soon after initial cases are diagnosed, could contribute to lower case-fatality rates.
Application of Flory-Treszczanowicz-Benson model and Prigogine-Flory-Patterson theory to Excess Molar Volume of Binary Mixtures of Ethanol with Diisopropyl Ether, Cyclohexane and Alkanes (C6-C9)

− Densities ( ρ ) for binary mixtures of ethanol (1) + diisopropyl ether (DIPE) or cyclohexane or alkane (C 6 -C 9 ) (2) were measured at 298.15 K, 308.15 K and 318.15 K. The excess molar volume ( ) of binary mixtures was calculated using ρ data and correlated with Redlich-Kister polynomial equation. The values for binary mixtures of ethanol (1) + cyclohexane or n-alkane (C 6 -C 9 ) (2) were positive, whereas for ethanol (1) + DIPE (2) these were negative. The magnitude of values follows the order: cyclohexane > n -nonane > n -octane > n -heptane > n -hexane > DIPE. The values have been interpreted qualitatively and also quantitatively in terms of Flory-Treszczanowicz-Benson (FTB) model and Prigogine-Flory-Patterson (PFP) theory. The values predicted using FTB model agree well with experimental values at all mole fractions. But the PFP theory describes well data in ethanol-rich region ( x 1 > 0.5) for all binary mixtures and is able to predict the sign of vs x 1 curve for ethanol-lean region ( x 1 < 0.5) except for ethanol (1) + nonane (2) mixtures.