Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
‘Poverty, Equity and Growth in Developing and Transition Countries: Statistical Methods and Empirical Analysis’

We analyze yield effects of tissue culture (TC) banana technology in the Kenyan small farm sector, using recent survey data and an endogenous switching regression approach. TC banana plantlets, which are free from pests and diseases, have been introduced in East Africa since the late-1990s. While field experiments show significant yield advantages over traditional banana suckers, a rigorous assessment of impacts in farmers’ fields is still outstanding. A comparison of mean yield levels between TC adopters and non-adopters in our sample shows no significant difference. However, we find a negative selection bias, indicating that farmers with lower than average yields are more likely to adopt TC. Controlling for this bias results in a positive and significant TC net yield gain of 7%. We also find that TC technology is more knowledgeintensive and more responsive to irrigation than traditional bananas. Simulations show that improving access to irrigation could lift TC productivity gains to above 20%. The analytical approach developed and applied here may also be useful for the evaluation of other knowledgeintensive package technologies and innovations in perennial crops.
Re-examining green purchase behaviour and the green consumer proﬁle: new evidences

Purpose – This paper aims to re-examine the determinants of ecologically conscious consumer behaviour (ECCB) by analysing the green consumer proﬁle (socio-demographic and psychographic variables), building on the work of Straughan and Roberts. Moreover, the study explores the determinants of effective green purchase behaviour (GPB) considering ECCB and green purchase intention (GPI) previously evaluated. Design/methodology/approach – The authors conducted a quantitative study based on an online survey. Data collection was implemented in two different phases: in the ﬁrst phase ECCB, GPI and proﬁling variables were measured. One month later, the same respondents evaluated their effective GPB. Through path analysis the effects of ECCB and GPI on GPB were measured. Findings – The results show that psychographic variables, with emphasis on perceived consumer effectiveness (PCE) and altruism, are more relevant than socio-demographics in explaining ECCB. The consumers with higher ECCB have shown higher green purchase intention (GPI). ECCB has a positive impact on GBP, higher than GPI, which in turn mediates that relationship. Research limitations/implications – The research results may lack generalizability. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to test the proposed propositions further. Practical implications – The paper provides evidence that whenever ecological consciousness is high, the gap between GPI and GPB is less evident, which provides clear evidence that an understanding of green consumer proﬁles and behaviour can enable organizations to respond better to new management challenges. Originality/value – This paper provides a comprehensive understanding about the green consumer proﬁle and behaviour, including the effect of GPI on GPB, and which contribute to the coordination of future marketing strategies to target this segment.
Environmentally-Friendly Stadium Travel of Football Fans: A Stated Preferences Study

Drawing on a rational choice framework, this study investigates fans’ stated preferences for (more) environmentally-friendly stadium travel (bicycles/e-scooters) on game days. Data from fans of a German Football Bundesliga club were collected using an online survey in 2021 (n = 1,652). Travel preferences were assessed using the contingent behavior method. The results of regression analyses indicate that the likelihood of using environmentally-friendly transportation means increases with perceived benefits, while perceived costs decrease this likelihood. Specifically, perceived environmental benefits and being an environmental role model had a positive effect, while monetary, convenience, and time-related costs had a negative effect.
Student Motivation: The Culture and Context of Learning

1. The Culture, Context of Learning F. Salili, et al. Part I: Attribution Theory/Beliefs and Values: Current Status and Research. 2. Intrapersonal, Interpersonal Theories of Motivation from an Attribution Perspective B. Weiner. 3. Inferences about Responsibility, Values: Implication for Academic Motivation S. Graham. 4. The Social Functions of Attributional Face Saving Tactics J. Juvonen. 5. Declining Optimism in Ethnic Minority Students: The Role of Attributions, Self-Esteem C. van Laar. 6. Chinese Students' Teachers' Inferences of Effort, Ability Y. -yi Hong. Part II: Goal Orientation Theory: New Ideas and Recent Research. 7. Cultural Diversity, Student Motivation, Achievement M.L. Maehr, R. Yamaguchi. 8. Goal Orientation, Self-Regulated Learning in The College Classroom: A Cross-Cultural Comparison P.R. Pintrich, et al. 9. Contextual Influences on Motivation, Performance: An Examination of Achievement Goal Structures T. Urdan. 10. Cross-Cultural Response to Failure: Considering Outcome Attributions with Different Goals H. Grant, C.S. Dweck. 11. The Influence of Culture, Context on Student's Motivational Orientation, Performance F. Safili, et al. 12. Goals, Motivation of Chinese Students -Testing The Adaptive Learning Model K. Shi, et al. Part III: Context of Learning and Classroom Instruction. 13. Classroom Context Effects on Young Children's Motivation D.J. Stipek. 14. Teaching Across Cultures J.B. Biggs. 15. Significance of Cultural, Motivation Variables on Students' Attitudes Towards Group Work S. Volet. 16. Research on Classroom Instruction, Its Effects - Shortcomings, Dead Ends, and Future Perspectives A. Helmke. Author Index. Subject Index.
Measurement of the Beam Energy Distribution of a Medical Cyclotron with a Multi-Leaf Faraday Cup

Accurate knowledge of the beam energy distribution is crucial for particle accelerators, compact medical cyclotrons for the production of radioisotopes in particular. For this purpose, a compact instrument was developed, based on a multi-leaf Faraday cup made of thin aluminum foils interleaved with plastic absorbers. The protons stopping in the aluminum foils produce a measurable current that is used to determine the range distribution of the proton beam. On the basis of the proton range distribution, the beam energy distribution is assessed by means of stopping-power Monte Carlo simulations. In this paper, we report on the design, construction, and testing of this apparatus, as well as on the first measurements performed with the IBA Cyclone 18-MeV medical cyclotron in operation at the Bern University Hospital.
TRPV1 in experimental autoimmune prostatitis

Chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome (CP/CPPS) is a disorder that is characterized by persistent pelvic pain in men of any age. Although several studies suggest that the transient receptor potential vanilloid 1 (TRPV1) channel is involved in various pathways of chronic pain, the TRPV1 channel has not been implicated in chronic pelvic pain associated with CP/CPPS.
Rowanberry—A Source of Bioactive Compounds and Their Biopharmaceutical Properties

After a period of intense development in the synthesis pharmaceutical industry, plants are making a comeback in the public focus as remedies or therapeutic adjuvants and in disease prevention and ensuring the wellbeing and equilibrium of the human body. Plants are being recommended more and more in alimentation, in their natural form, or as extracts, supplements or functional aliments. People, in general, are in search of new sources of nutrients and phytochemicals. As a result, scientific research turns to lesser known and used plants, among them being rowanberries, a species of fruit very rich in nutrients and underused due to their bitter astringent taste and a lack of knowledge regarding the beneficial effects of these fruit. Rowan fruits (rowanberries) are a rich source of vitamins, polysaccharides, organic acids and minerals. They are also a source of natural polyphenols, which are often correlated with the prevention and treatment of modern world diseases. This article presents the existing data regarding the chemical composition, active principles and biopharmaceutical properties of rowan fruits and the different opportunities for their usage.
Shape Memory of Elastic Capsules Under the Effect of Spontaneous Shape

Red blood cells can recover their resting shape after having been deformed by shear flow. Their rims are always formed by the same part of the membranes, and the cells are said to have shape memory. Modeled as two-dimensional elastic capsules, their recovery motion and shape memory is studied, mainly focused on the effect of the spontaneous shape. The fluid-structure interaction is modeled using immersed boundary method. Based on the simulations, the resting shapes of capsules are obtained and the area ratio of spontaneous shape is found to play an important role. After remove of shear flow, all capsules can recover their resting shapes, while only capsules with noncircular spontaneous shapes present shape memory. As the spontaneous shape approaches a circle but still noncircular, the capsule spends more time on recovery process. We consider how these capsules deform depending on the membrane bending energy, and find that the relaxation speed is positive correlated to the range of values of dimensionless bending energy. These results may help to identify different spontaneous shapes for capsules especially RBCs through future experiments. AMS subject classifications: 74F10
Retrospective observational study of a novel smartphone app on the management of patients with mild cognitive impairment or mild dementia

Introduction In this study, we aimed to evaluate the feasibility, utility, and potential effects of LQ-M/D App, a smartphone application developed by Life Quest Inc., Tokyo, Japan, for patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and mild dementia. The app incorporates cognitive and physical exercise training, lifestyle habit acquisition features, and a continuity improvement feature added in the post-update version to enhance user engagement. The continuity improvement feature includes the optimization of training content, and disease education, and enables family monitoring via a family app. Methods A retrospective analysis was conducted on app usage, cognitive and exercise training implementation and interruptions, questionnaire response rates, and cognitive assessments in a single institution. A total of 20 patients used the app, with 10 patients using the pre-update version without the continuity improvement feature, and the other 10 patients using the post-update version with the continuity improvement feature. Results and Conclusion The results demonstrated that the LQ-M/D App could be effectively used by the study population, and the continuity improvement feature positively influenced app usage in several aspects. Although a potential association between app usage and cognitive ability was suggested, the scatter in the data points warrants cautious interpretation. Limitations of the study included a small sample size, a single institution setting, and the retrospective nature of the study. In the future, a randomized controlled trial design using a larger sample size and multiple institutions to further evaluate the effectiveness of LQ-M/D App in managing MCI and mild dementia should be performed.
Evidence-Based Practice Competency of Registered Nurses in the Greek National Health Service

Nurses’ competency toward evidence-based practice (EBP) has been extensively investigated by several studies worldwide. However, factors affecting the competence of Greek nurses working in the NHS have not been fully investigated in terms of EBP. Thus, this study aimed to explore the impact of the individual qualifications of nurses on their competence toward EBP. Data from 473 registered nurses working in 10 hospitals in the Greek National Health Service (NHS) were collected between October and December 2020 using a convenience sampling method in a cross-section design. The Greek version of the 35-item (five-point Likert scale) Evidence-Based Practice Competency Questionnaire for Professional Registered Nurses (EBP-COQ Prof) was used to assess the competence level of nurses, focusing on attitudes, skills, and knowledge, as well as the utilization of EBP in clinical practice. One-way ANOVA and Pearson coefficient tests were applied to compare the possible differences among variables (two or more groups) as appropriate. A multi-factorial regression model was applied to explore participants’ qualifications, including demographics (MSc degree, gender, English language knowledge, etc.) as independent variables, and to control for potential confounding effects toward EBP competency. The p-values < 0.05 were considered statistically significant. The mean age of the 473 participants (402 women and 71 men) was 44.7 ± 9.2 years old. The mean value of competence subscales was found as follows: attitudes 3.9 ± 0.6, knowledge 3.7 ± 0.6, skills 3.1 ± 0.8, and utilization 3.4 ± 0.7. A multivariate regression analysis revealed that associates of “Master’s degree” (t = 3.039, p = 0.003), “Writing an academic article” (3.409, p = 0.001), “Working in a University clinic” (2.203, p = 0.028), and “Computer Skills” (2.404, p = 0.017) positively affected “Attitudes”, “Knowledge”, “Skills”, and “Utilization”, respectively. The research data suggest that nurses working in the Greek NHS were limited in competence regarding EBP in comparison with other European countries. Therefore, vocational, educational, and training programs tailored to EBP enhancement are crucially important. This study was not registered.
Generation in Waiting: The Unfulfilled Promise of Young People in the Middle East

Young people in the Middle East (15-29 years old) constitute about one-third of the region's population. Growth rates for this age group trail only sub-Saharan Africa. This presents the region with an historic opportunity to build a lasting foundation for prosperity by harnessing the full potential of its young population. Yet young people in the Middle East face severe economic and social exclusion due to substandard education, high unemployment, and poverty. Thus the inclusion of youth is the most critical development challenge facing the Middle East today. A Generation in Waiting portrays the plight of young people, urging greater investment designed to improve the lives of this critical group. It brings together perspectives from the Maghreb to the Levant. Each chapter addresses the complex challenges facing young people in many areas of their lives: access to decent education, opportunities for quality employment, availability of housing and credit, and transitioning to marriage and family formation. This volume presents policy implications and sets an agenda for economic development, creating a more hopeful future for this and future generations in the Middle East. Selected contributors include Ragui Assaad (University of Minnesota), Brahim Boudarbat (University of Montreal), Jad Chaaban (American University in Beirut), Nader Kabbani (Syria Trust for Development), Taher Kanaan (Jordan Center for Public Policy Research and Dialogue), Djavad Salehi-Isfahani (Wolfensohn Center for Development and Virginia Tech), and Edward Sayre (University of Southern Mississippi).
Carr, Andrew, Weatherall, Andrew and Jones, Gareth (2020) The effects of thinning management on bats and their insect prey in temperate broadleaved

Trees, woods, forests and associated biodiversity are being affected by anthropogenic climate breakdown, and need management to maintain delivery of a wide range of ecosystem services. Wood harvested from sustainably managed woodlands can be used to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions through carbon substitution, directly using biomass for bioenergy to replace fossil fuels or indirectly through the use of wood products instead of higher carbon footprint materials such as concrete and steel. However, it is also important to understand how managing woodlands to mitigate climate change affects biodiversity. We tested the hypotheses that thinning woodland benefits bats and their insect prey by measuring bat species/species group richness and activity, and insect species/species group richness and biomass in 27 pairs of managed and under-managed broadleaved woodlands, and explored temporal responses to time since management. Sixteen woodland characteristics were measured to investigate how management affected woodlands, and to assess the relative importance of these characteristics to bats and their insect prey. Woodland thinning significantly reduced five woodland characteristics known to be important for woodland-dwelling bats. Standing dead trees were three times more abundant, and tree cavities five times more frequent in under-managed woodland compared with managed paired sites. Woodland thinning significantly increased bat richness and activity. Common and adaptable bat species, and those that forage along woodland edges (e.g. Pipistrellus pipistrellus), were positively affected by management, presumably exploiting less cluttered woodland interiors. Rarer bat species, and species that roost predominantly in trees (e.g. Barbastella barbastellus) were negatively affected by management, which reduced roosting opportunities. Overall bat activity and species richness were relatively low in woodland that had not been thinned for 30 years before increasing. Insect biomass peaked after 30 years of no thinning. We recommend minimum intervention management to conserve rare bat species in woodlands, although common and adaptable bat species may benefit from intermediate to heavy thinning. Sustainably thinned woodland could be greatly improved for all bats by retaining or mimicking habitat characteristics that are more representative of old growth woodland such as (i) standing dead trees, (ii) tree cavities, (iii) heterogeneous canopy architecture, and (iv) an overall uncluttered below-canopy vegetation with pockets of densely cluttered shrubs.
A Visible and Infrared Image Fusion Framework Based on Dual-Path Encoder-Decoder and Multi-Scale Discrete Wavelet Transform

In recent years, extensive research has been conducted on visible and infrared image fusion (VIF) task using traditional multi-scale transform-based and deep learning model-based methods. However, there is still a need to explore the combination of neural networks and multi-scale transform. This paper proposes a novel fusion framework based on a dual-path encoder-decoder and multi-scale transform. A dual-path encoder is trained to extract rich features at different depths from source images, while a shared decoder is trained to efficiently reconstruct images from the extracted feature space. We apply the discrete wavelet transform (DWT) to generate various frequency components from the extracted features. A fusion module is utilized to achieve fusion for low and high-frequency sub-bands, respectively, which is constrained by a gradient-based fusion loss function and an absolute values maximum-selection strategy. Our proposed method is superior to current state-of-the-art fusion methods, as demonstrated through quantitative and qualitative comparisons of publicly available datasets.
Predicting Free Parking Slots via Deep Learning in Short-Mid Terms Explaining Temporal Impact of Features

Looking for available parking slots has become a serious issue in urban mobility, since it influences traffic and emissions. This paper presents a set of metrics and techniques to predict the number of available parking slots in off-street parking facilities. This study deals with deep learning model solutions according with a mid-term prediction of 24 hours, every 15 minutes. Such a mid-term prediction can be useful for citizens who need to plan a car transfer well in advance and to reduce as much as possible any computational effort. Since most solutions in literature are focused on 1-hour ahead prediction, the proposed solution has been also tested in these conditions. The proposed solution is based on Convolutional Bidirectional LSTM models. Results have been compared in terms of precision metrics based both on occupancy and free slots. The paper also provides a framework to pass from an assessment model based on occupancy to models based on free slots and vice-versa. The obtained results have improved those already available in literature. A formal study has been conducted to perform feature relevance analysis by using explainable AI technique based on gradient and integrated gradient and proposing new heatmaps which highlighted the difference from LSTM and Bidirectional LSTM, feature relevance (base line, weather, traffic, etc.) and the impact of seasonality on predictions, namely the temporal relevance of features. The comparison has been performed on the basis of data collected in garages in the area of Florence, Tuscany, Italy by using Snap4city platform and infrastructure.
Exploring Computer Science Students’ Perception of ChatGPT in Higher Education: A Descriptive and Correlation Study

ChatGPT is an emerging tool that can be employed in many activities including in learning/teaching in universities. Like many other tools, it has its benefits and its drawbacks. If used properly, it can improve learning, and if used irresponsibly, it can have a negative impact on learning. The aim of this research is to study how ChatGPT can be used in academia to improve teaching/learning activities. In this paper, we study students’ opinions about how the tool can be used positively in learning activities. A survey is conducted among 430 students of an MSc degree in computer science at the University of Hertfordshire, UK, and their opinions about the tool are studied. The survey tries to capture different aspects in which the tool can be employed in academia and the ways in which it can harm or help students in learning activities. The findings suggest that many students are familiar with the tool but do not regularly use it for academic purposes. Moreover, students are skeptical of its positive impacts on learning and think that universities should provide more vivid guidelines and better education on how and where the tool can be used for learning activities. The students’ feedback responses are analyzed and discussed and the authors’ opinions regarding the subject are presented. This study shows that ChatGPT can be helpful in learning/teaching activities, but better guidelines should be provided for the students in using the tool.
Improved droplet breakup models for spray applications 1 2 Affiliations 3

15 The current study examines the performance of two zero-dimensional (0D) aerodynamically-induced 16 breakup models, utilized for the prediction of droplet deformation during the breakup process in the 17 bag, multi-mode and sheet-thinning regimes. The first model investigated is an improved version of 18 the widely used Taylor analogy breakup (TAB) model, which compared to other models has the 19 advantage of having an analytic solution. Following, a model based on the modified Navier-Stokes (M20 NS) is examined. The parameters of both models are estimated based upon published experimental 21 data for the bag breakup regime and CFD simulations with Diesel droplets performed as part of this 22 work for the multi-mode and sheet-thinning regimes, for which there is a scarcity of experimental data. 23 Both models show good accuracy in the prediction of the temporal evolution of droplet deformation 24 in the three breakup regimes, compared to the experimental data and the CFD simulations. It is found 25 that the best performance of the two is achieved with the M-NS model. Finally, a unified secondary 26 breakup model is presented, which incorporates various models found in the literature, i.e. TAB, non27 linear TAB (NLTAB), droplet deformation and breakup (DDB) and M-NS, into one equation using 28 adjustable coefficients, allowing to switch among the different models. 29 30