Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
More than a Meal : A resource for communities striving for food sovereignty through the charitable food system

The 2020 pandemic and economic crisis showcased the fragility of the American food system. In the months of quarantine and lockdowns, a growing number of Americans searched for ways to feed themselves and their families. Community-based and volunteer-supported feeding programs worked to bridge the divide between the hungry and their next meal. In many cases, these programs rely on an unpaid workforce and donations – of time, food, and facilities. With limited resources, volunteer-led programs often lack centralized training options; this guidebook seeks to fill that void. This project is a streamlined, introductory-level guide for volunteers and community members working to feed their neighbors through free meal services. The final product offers as a starting point for anti-hunger networks to draw from as they empower those they serve. More than a Meal: A resource for communities seeking food sovereignty within the charitable food system is an educational resource that focuses on advocacy, nutrition, food and kitchen safety, and how feeding programs working within the charitable food system can and should strive for food sovereignty. This guidebook's development unfolded with rural New England in mind, yet it is adaptable to groups outside of this region. The nutrition and food safety sections are rooted in the USDA's guidelines and apply to most people’s dietary needs. Overall, the recommendations and information provided are a snapshot of what it takes for communities to reach food sovereignty through the charitable food system. Future work needs to be done to address social justice, socioeconomic disparities, and limit the impacts of climate change on society as a whole .
Net soil carbon balance in afforested peatlands and separating autotrophic and heterotrophic soil CO 2 effluxes

Peatlands are a significant global carbon (C) store, which can be compromised by drainage and afforestation. Quantifying the rate of C loss from peat soils under forestry is challenging, as soil CO2 efflux includes both CO2 produced from heterotrophic peat decomposition and CO2 produced by tree roots and associated fungal networks (autotrophic respiration). We experimentally terminated autotrophic below-ground respiration in replicated forest plots by cutting through all living tree roots (trenching) and measured soil surface CO2 flux, litter input, litter decay rate, and soil temperature and moisture over 2 years. Decomposition of cut roots was measured and CO2 fluxes were corrected for this, which resulted in a large change in the fraction heterotrophic : autotrophic flux, suggesting that even 2 years after trenching decaying root biomass makes significant contributions to the CO2 flux. Annual peat decomposition (heterotrophic CO2 flux) was 115± 16 g C m−2 yr−1, representing ca. 40 % of total soil respiration. Decomposition of needle litter is accelerated in the presence of an active rhizosphere, indicating a priming effect by labile C inputs from roots. This suggests that our estimates of peat mineralization in our trenched plots are conservative and underestimate overall rates of peat C loss. Considering also input of litter from trees, our results indicate that the soils in these 30-yearold drained and afforested peatlands are a net sink for C, since substantially more C enters the soil organic matter than is decomposed heterotrophically. This study does not account for fluvial C fluxes, which represent a small flux compared to the CO2 soil efflux; further, root litter and exudate deposition could be a significant C source that is only partially sampled by our approach, adding to these plantations being a potential carbon sink. However, the C balance for these soils should be taken over the lifespan of the trees, in order to determine if the soils under these drained and afforested peatlands are a sustained sink of C or become a net source over longer periods of forestry.
Novel COVID Model to Help Early Diagnosis of COVID-19 and Prediction of Disease Severity: A Multicenter Study

Early identification of patients with coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) particularly those who develop critical illness is of great importance and aids in delivering proper treatment and optimizing the use of resources. This work aimed to develop a clinical score at hospital admission for COVID-19 diagnosis and predicting severe disease. This is a multicenter case-control study including 2793 PCR-confirmed consecutive COVID-19 patients and 251 patients without COVID-19 presented to 6 hospitals affiliated to the General Organization for Teaching Hospitals, Egypt (1st-May-2020 to 31st-July-2020). There was no difference among groups regarding age and gender distribution. Patients with COVID-19 had significantly higher white blood cell count, platelet count, ALT, AST, total serum bilirubin, serum creatinine, CRP, Ferritin, D-dimer, and fibrinogen and lower serum albumin and more prolonged INR. ALT, ferritin, D-dimer, and Fibrinogen were significantly higher and oxygen saturation was significantly lower, in patients with severe COVID-19. Multivariate regression analysis revealed Oxygen saturation, ferritin, D-dimer and CRP are the independent factors associated with severity. We developed a novel COVID model which enabled the correct diagnosis of COVID-19 at cutoff point (0.1) with an AUC=0.99, (P-value<0.0001), sensitivity 99%, and specificity 89%. At this point, COVID-19 severity could be diagnosed with AUC of 0.88, sensitivity 87%, specificity 71%.
TOPOLOGICAL ENTROPY OF SIMPLE BRAIDS

Mathematical objects called braids are formed from “strands” (like string or yarn) that intertwine. A certain collection of braids, called simple braids, correspond to permutations, depending on how the strands get permuted. We can think of braids as maps from a disc with some “punctures” to itself; using this idea, we can consider the topological entropy of a braid, which can be zero or positive. What proportion of simple braids have positive topological entropy? The main theorem of this project is that, in the limit as the number of strands increases, the proportion of simple braids that have positive topological entropy approaches 1. This can be proved by showing that we can almost always find a long cycle in the permutation that will enable us to get a braid with three strands that has positive topological entropy, yielding the theorem. Topological entropy of braids can have use beyond just being interesting mathematics, such as for considering how to stir fluids.
Differentiation and Subtype Specification of Enteric Neurons: Current Knowledge of Transcription Factors, Signaling Molecules and Signaling Pathways Involved

The enteric nervous system (ENS) forms the largest component of the autonomic nervous system (ANS). In humans, it contains between 200 and 600 million neurons which are part of intrinsic neuronal circuits managing to generate reflex gastrointestinal (GI) contractile activity without intervention of the central nervous system (CNS) [1,2]. The ENS is located along the length of the GI tract and oversees controlling the main functions such as secretion, motility, and blood flow. In addition, it is also responsible for the communication with the immune system and microbiome [3–5]. The ENS contains a network of neurons and glial cells which are dispersed over two major ganglionated and interconnected plexuses, the myenteric (Auerbach) plexus, and the submucosal (Meissner) plexus. In larger mammals, the submucosal plexus is further subdivided into smaller plexuses [4,6-10]. The neurons of the myenteric plexus are primarily involved in GI motility regulation, while the neurons of the submucosal plexus are involved in the regulation of secretion and vascular tone [3,6,11,12]. The ENS is a highly complex nervous system of which the functioning is dependent on many different neuronal subtypes. To keep an overview of the neuronal subtypes, they are categorized in different classes according to certain characteristics. Among these features are their morphology, electrical properties, chemical coding, and Abstract
THE ANTIMUTAGENIC EFFECT OF MULTIFLORAL HONEY IN SALMONELLA/ MICROSOMAL ASSAY AND ITS CORRELATION WITH THE TOTAL POLYPHENOLIC CONTENT

The objective of this study is to determine the antimutagenic effect of honey and its correlation with the concentration of the total polyphenolic content. Seven honey samples were collected from different regions of Algeria. The total polyphenolic content was determined by Folin-Ciocalteu colorimetric assay. The antimutagenic effect was carried out by the AMES Salmonella/ microsome mutagenicity assay against three known mutagenic substances (4-nitro-o-phenylenediamine, sodium azide, and mitomycin C), using Salmonella typhimurium TA98, TA100, and TA102 strains. The results obtained revealed that Algerian honey contains high polyphenol content, which varied significantly between 38.04 and 286.28 µg of GAE/100 mg of honey. This variation is due to their different botanical and regional origins. In addition, all tested honey exhibited an antimutagenic effect against mutagenic substances; honey is effective to inhibit between 29.18±11.11 % and 73.14±11.14 % of mutagenic activity of chemical substances. There is a strong positive correlation between the total polyphenolic content and the antimutagenic proprieties of honey against the mutagenic substances. The results obtained suggest that honey is effective as an antimutagenic agent; it can play an important role in the protection of the mutagenic effect of DNA caused by chemical substances.
Practical Assessment, Research, and Evaluation Practical Assessment, Research, and Evaluation

Although there has been substantial research on the effects of test accommodations on students’ performance, there has been far less research on students’ use of embedded accommodations and other accessibility supports at the item and whole test level in operational testing programs. Data on embedded accessibility supports from digital logs generated by computer-based assessment platforms are complex, and so decisions need to be made to make sense of the data with respect to appropriate and effective accommodation use. In this study, we explored different ways of defining students’ use of accessibility supports and how to best summarize such use for accountability and other purposes. Examples of descriptive statistical indices and data visualizations are presented using mathematics and English language arts test data from a large statewide assessment. Such data are important for accommodations monitoring required by the United States Department of Education and for identifying schools and districts that may be over-or under-using these accommodations and supports.
Re-ranking for image retrieval and transductive few-shot classification

In the problems of image retrieval and few-shot classiﬁcation, the mainstream approaches focus on learning a better feature representation. However, directly tackling the distance or similarity measure between images could also be efﬁcient. To this end, we revisit the idea of re-ranking the top-k retrieved images in the context of image retrieval (e.g., the k-reciprocal nearest neighbors [48, 75]) and generalize this idea to transductive few-shot learning. We propose to meta-learn the re-ranking updates such that the similarity graph converges towards the target similairty graph induced by the image labels. Speciﬁcally, the re-ranking module takes as input an initial similarity graph between the query image and the contextual images using a pre-trained feature extractor, and predicts an improved similarity graph by leveraging the structure among the involved images. We show that our re-ranking approach can be applied to unseen images and can further boost existing approaches for both image retrieval and few-shot learning problems. Our approach operates either independently or in conjunction with classical re-ranking approaches, yielding clear and consistent improvements on image retrieval (CUB, Cars, SOP, rOxford5K and rParis6K) and transductive few-shot classiﬁcation (Mini-ImageNet, tiered-ImageNet and CIFAR-FS) benchmarks. Our code is available at https://imagine.enpc. fr/~shenx/SSR/ .
LEMLEM W ORKING P APER S ERIES Coping with increasing tides: technological change, agglomeration dynamics and climate hazards in an agent-based evolutionary model

By 2050 about 70% of the world’s population is expected to live in cities. Cities offer spatial economic advantages that boost agglomeration forces and innovation, fostering further concentration of economic activities. For historic reasons urban clustering occurs along coasts and rivers, which are prone to climate-induced flooding. To explore trade-offs between agglomeration economies and increasing climate-induced hazards, we develop an evolutionary agent-based model with heterogeneous boundedly-rational agents who learn and adapt to a changing environment. The model combines migration decision of both households and firms between safe Inland and hazard-prone Coastal regions with endogenous technological learning and economic growth. Flood damages affect Coastal firms hitting their labour productivity, capital stock and inventories. We find that the model is able to replicate a rich set of micro-and macro-empirical regularities concerning economic and spatial dynamics. Without climate-induced shocks, the model shows how lower transport costs favour the waterfront region leading to self-reinforcing and path-dependent agglomeration processes. We then introduce five scenarios considering flood hazards characterized by different frequency and severity and we study their complex interplay with agglomeration patterns and the performance of the overall economy. We find that when shocks are mild or infrequent, they negatively affect the economic performance of the two regions. If strong flood hazards hit frequently the Coastal region before agglomeration forces trigger high levels of waterfront urbanization, firms and households can timely adapt and migrate landwards, thus absorbing the adverse impacts of climate shocks on the whole economy. Conversely, in presence of climate tipping points which suddenly increase the frequency and magnitude of flood hazards, we find that the consolidated coastal gentrification of economic activities locks-in firms on the waterfront, leading to a harsh downturn for the whole economy
CDH1 methylation in peritoneal washes as a prognostic factor for gastric cancer

Gastric cancer is a major public health problem, considered the fifth most frequently diagnosed cancer worldwide. Peritoneal metastasis is the main causes of mortality related to gastric cancer. The hypermethylation of tumor suppressors genes is a promising factor for the development of predictive biomarkers. In gastric tumors, reduced expression of CDH1 suppressor gene contributes to tumor invasion and triggering metastasis. We aim to evaluate the promoter region methylation profile of the CDH1 gene as a peritoneal metastasis indicator in patients with gastric cancer. CDH1 methylation profile were evaluate in 47 samples of peritoneal washes from patients with gastric cancer by bisulfite sequencing PCR (BSP). Thirty-three CpGs sites in the CDH1 promoter region were individually evaluated. Samples with ≥ 10% of methylated CpGs sites were considered hypermethylated. Statistical analysis was performed by Fisher's Exact test using R-Studio program (p≤0.05). Twenty-nine (62%) samples showed hypermethylation in the promoter region of CDH1, with preferential methylation at the CpGs sites located in the region 5' upstream from gene. Statistical analysis showed that CDH1 hypermethylation was significantly different in patients with advanced stages of tumor depth of invasion (p=0.03). Our results suggest that CDH1 gene methylation analysis is a useful tool in predicting tumor progression and invasiveness in gastric cancer patients and could have a major impact for the field of precision cancer medicine.
Heterodera cajani on Pigeonpea: Influence of Soil Moisture and Temperature 1

The effect of soil moisture on penetration, development, and reproduction of Heterodera cajani on pigeonpea (cv. ICPL 87) was investigated in growth chambers held at 20 and 25 C, and in a greenhouse where temperature fluctuated between 25 and 32 C. Averaged across temperatures, the percentage of juveniles that penetrated roots was 34.3, 31.8, 8.8, and 3.7% at 24, 32, 16, and 40% soil moisture levels, respectively. Numbers of females per root system 4 weeks after infesting soil with second-stage juveniles was 79.6 at 24%, 65.3 at 32%, 26.1 at 16%, and 2.9 at 40% soil moisture. Nematode reproduction was greatest (P = 0.001) at 24% soil moisture and 25 C. Reproductive factor was 19.4 at 24%, 15.2 at 32%, 5.7 at 16%, and 0.5 at 40% soil moisture level. Nematode penetration, development, and reproduction at different moisture levels were greater (P = 0.01) at 25 and 25-32 C than at 20 C. Plant growth was retarded at 40% soil moisture and 20 C in comparison to that at 24 and 32% moisture levels and 25 C. This information on influence of temperature and soil moisture will be helpful in developing models for predicting changes in H. cajani densities in pigeonpea fields during rainy and postrainy dry seasons in the semi-arid tropics.
Research on Development of Reading-Writing Integration in Chinese EFL College Education

Based on the review of the studies on the relationship between reading and writing and how reading-writing integration pedagogy was created, the author did a research on the development of reading-writing integration in Chinese English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) college education. Along with a short interview and small-range survey of the teacher and students from the College of Foreign Languages in Zhejiang University of Technology. The study showed that reading ability and writing performance had a significant relation and it suggested reading-writing integration pedagogy is useful and effective under the basic national conditions of Chinese advanced foreign language education.
ASSESSMENT OF QUALITATIVE COLONIC CANCER OF OVARIAN CANCER ORIGIN

Background: Colorectal cancer (CRC) has increased in the last decades, which constitutes about 10% of cancer mortality. In women and men, it becomes the second and third most prevalent cancer. Objective: To explore the origin and factors for colorectal cancer in Iraq including age, family history, diabetes, smoking, serum carcinembryonic antigen (CEA) as a predictor factor, stages of cancer, bowl habit, and symptoms. Patients and methods: This study was conducted in surgical unit at Baghdad, during the period from 2003 to 2020. This is a case series study for 736 patients with colorectal cancer. The data gathered included: history of presence ovarian cancer, age, family history, diabetes and smoking, serum CEA, stages of the disease, bowl habit and symptoms. Data are presented as mean and percentage, and were analyzed by using the test of Chi square. Results: Colorectal cancer patient ages were between 2050 years were the higher proportion of patients and were significantly (p ≤ 0.01) higher than the other patients with ≥ 50 years or ≤ 25 years. Female with CRC of ovarian origin (59.5 %) were significantly (p ≤ 0.01) higher than female patients with non ovarian origin (40.5%). Patients with family history were 31.2% of the total patients. Diabetic patients presented at 37.2%. Most of the patients had serum CEA ≥ 5 ng/mL (82.7%) and they were highly significant (p ≤ 0.001) for serum CEA than the patients with less than 5. Stage 2 (42.3%) was significantly higher than stage 1 (15.6%), 3 (21.3%) and 4 (14.5%). For bowl habit, constipation presented 75.7% was significantly higher than diarrhea (24.3%). In addition, symptoms of bleeding per rectum (71.1%) was significantly higher than symptoms of pain was 28.9%. Conclusion: Colorectal cancer is significant disease in Iraq with ovarian cancer origin. Middle age patients presented the highest percentage. Education of patients about bowl habit and symptoms of colorectal cancer should be applied especially constipation and bleeding per rectum.
Efficiency Analysis Working Papers WP-EA-02 Efficiency Analysis of East European Electricity Distribution Utilities – Legacy of the Past?

As the European Union is extending eastwards, there is also an increasing need for comparative efficiency analysis in the EU-member countries. This paper is the first cross-country efficiency analysis of electricity distribution in Central Europe (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary). We compare the relative efficiency of East European local distribution companies (LDCs) among themselves, as well as with German (LDCs), using two common benchmarking methods: the non-parametric Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), and, as a parametric approach, the Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA). First results indicate that the Polish distribution companies are inefficiently small. Czech Republic and Slovakia feature the highest efficiency. The results shed light on the need for further restructuring in Eastern Europe.
The Extent, Nature, and Origin of K and Rb Depletions and Isotopic Fractionations in Earth, the Moon, and Other Planetary Bodies

Moderately volatile elements (MVEs) are depleted and isotopically fractionated in the Moon relative to Earth. To understand how the composition of the Moon was established, we calculate the equilibrium and kinetic isotopic fractionation factors associated with evaporation and condensation processes. We also reassess the levels of depletions of K and Rb in planetary bodies. Highly incompatible element ratios are often assumed to be minimally affected by magmatic processes, but we show that this view is not fully warranted, and we develop approaches to mitigate this issue. The K/U weight ratios of Earth and the Moon are estimated to be 9704 and 2448, respectively. The 87Rb/86Sr atomic ratios of Earth and the Moon are estimated to be 0.072 5 and 0.015 4, respectively. We show that the depletions and heavy isotopic compositions of most MVEs in the Moon are best explained by evaporation in 99%-saturated vapor. At 99% saturation in the protolunar disk, Na and K would have been depleted to levels like those encountered in the Moon on timescales of ∼40–400 days at 3500–4500 K, which agrees with model expectations. In contrast, at the same saturation but a temperature of 1600–1800 K relevant to hydrodynamic escape from the lunar magma ocean, Na and K depletions would have taken 0.1–103 Myr, which far exceeds the 1000 yr time span until plagioclase flotation hinders evaporation from the magma ocean. We conclude that the protolunar disk is a much more likely setting for the depletion of MVEs than the lunar magma ocean.
Physics of runaway electrons with shattered pellet injection at JET

Runaway electrons (REs) created during tokamak disruptions pose a threat to the reliable operation of future larger machines. Experiments using shattered pellet injection (SPI) have been carried out at the JET tokamak to investigate ways to prevent their generation or suppress them if avoidance is not sufficient. Avoidance is possible if the SPI contains a sufficiently low fraction of high-Z material, or if it is fired early in advance of a disruption prone to runaway generation. These results are consistent with previous similar findings obtained with Massive Gas Injection. Suppression of an already accelerated beam is not efficient using High-Z material, but deuterium leads to harmless terminations without heat loads. This effect is due to the combination of a large magnetohydrodynamic instability scattering REs on a large area and the absence of runaway regeneration during the subsequent current collapse thanks to the flushing of high-Z impurities from the runaway companion plasma. This effect also works in situations where the runaway beam moves upwards and undergoes scraping-off on the wall.