Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Reverse migration under the devolved governance system in Kenya: Subsequent implications for income and occupation

Reverse migration is on a steady increase under the devolved system of governance in Kenya. The situation could be attributed to an array of triggers such as; the ongoing rural development programmes, backdrop of non-availability of livelihood and job opportunities in the city. Upon return to the rural areas, it could be perceived that the returnees encounter some socio-economic shocks, which tend to impact their income and career. To ascertain the impact, we use a binomial probit model to estimate the probability of income and occupational change. We postulate that harsh encounters in the city inspire those with savings, newly acquired entrepreneurial acumen, and land to migrate out of the city and exploit rural job opportunities. Study participants were people that had moved from Nairobi to their rural counties. Using snowball sample selection, we obtained 49 adult participants mean age = 41years, SD = 15.95, female 48%, employed 68%, married 59%, and 29% educated up to university Results found that significance for career and income changes varies across participants socio-economics status or demographics. For instance, those aged 35–59 years (r2 = 0.399, ME = 0.421); land size greater than 2.5 acres (r2 = 0.507, ME = 0.473) and postgraduate degree (r2 = 0.513, ME = 0.591) had significant income increment. For 60 + years (r2=-0.369, ME=-0.312), primary-leavers (r2=-0.459, ME=-0.226) had significant decrease in income upon return. Conversely, females (r2 = 0.326, ME = 0.348), and migrants aged 60 + years (r2 = R2 = 0.797, ME = 0.651) were more prone to career change; all at . 01 significance level. Attributes such as marital status, age 25-34yrs, secondary or college-level education are weak income or career change determinants. We conclude that rural land size, more than 2.5acres was a significant incentive for reverse migration, since the likelihood of shifting to agriculture and establishing a robust livelihood source and income after assigning other dummy variables, and setting the baseline at two years was evident across groups.
Periodic DFT Study of the Tetragonal ZrO2 Nanocrystals: Equilibrium Morphology Modeling and Atomistic Surface Hydration Thermodynamics

A thorough periodic DFT/PW91 study of water sorption (0.1 < Θ < 1) on tetragonal ZrO2 (P42/nmc) nanocrystals was performed by means of the plane-wave periodic DFT calculations complemented by atomistic thermodynamics. All (101), (001), (100), (111), and (110) planes exposed by faceted t-ZrO2 nanocrystals were taken into account, and their atomic structure, surface reconstruction, and stabilization upon water adsorption were systematically investigated and analyzed in detail. Using the calculated surface energies of the reconstructed planes, a doubly truncated tetragonal-bipyramidal shape of the tetragonal zirconia nanocrystallites in dry and wet conditions was predicted by means of the Wulff construction. The results remain in very good agreement with the experimental HR-TEM images. For each of the exposed planes, the computed changes in the free enthalpy of water adsorption under specified hydration conditions were used to construct two-dimensional surface coverage versus temperature and pressure diagram.
Total Laparoscopic Hysterectomy in Patients with Deep Infiltrative Endometriosis: How Different is it, or should be, from the Standard Procedure?

Endometriosis including deep infiltrative disease affects mainly women of reproductive age. The majority of these women requiring surgery are treated with fertility-sparing procedures. Hysterectomy is reserved for patients with advanced endometriosis and severe pain symptoms and those with recurrences, for whom the open approach is the usual choice. For patients with deep endometriosis total laparoscopic hysterectomy may represent a safe and valid option providing that a more extended operation in comparison with standard laparoscopic hysterectomy is practiced, to address also deep nodules. Important prerequisites for a surgeon to undertake such procedures are thorough knowledge of pelvic retroperitoneal anatomy, advanced laparoscopic skills, and experience in pelvic radical surgery. This procedure should aim for a complete removal of all deep lesions using a multi-disciplinary approach when necessary. Incomplete surgery is associated with an increased risk of postmenopausal anatomic relapse, recurrence of pain symptoms, and postmenopausal complications. Hormone replacement therapy after hysterectomy and ovarian conservation are among the most important risk factors for recurrence and re-operation. There is also a theoretical risk of a malignancy developing in residual deep lesions that is difficult to quantify. Athanasios Protopapas*, Themistoklis Grigoriadis and Stavros Athanasiou Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology, University of Athens, Greece
Modelling the mass budget and future evolution of Tunabreen, central Spitsbergen

Abstract. Tunabreen is a 26-km long tidewater glacier. It is the most frequently surging glacier in Svalbard, with four documented surges in the past hundred years. We have modelled the evolution of this glacier with a Minimal Glacier Model (MGM), in which ice mechanics, calving and surging are parameterized. The model geometry consists of a flow band to which three tributaries supply mass. The calving rate is set to the mean observed value for the period 2012–2019, and kept constant. For the past 120 years, a smooth Equilibrium Line Altitude (ELA) history is reconstructed by finding the best possible match between observed and simulated glacier length. There is a modest correlation between this ELA history and meteorological observations from Longyearbyen. The simulated glacier retreat is in good agreement with observations. Runs with and without surging show that the effect of surging on the long term glacier evolution is limited. Due to the low surface slope and associated strong height -mass balance feedback, Tunabreen is very sensitive to changes in ELA. For a constant future ELA equal to the reconstructed value for 2020, the glacier front will retreat by 8 km during the coming hundred years. For an increase of the ELA of 2 m per year, the retreat is projected to be 13 km and Tunabreen becomes a land-based glacier around 2100. The calving rate is an important parameter: increasing its value by 50 % has about the same effect as a 50 m increase in the ELA, the corresponding equilibrium glacier length being 18 km (as compared to 25.8 km in the reference state). Response times vary from 150 to 400 years, depending on the forcing and on the state of the glacier (tidewater or land-based).
A Life Cycle Cost Analysis of Structural Insulated Panels for Residential Buildings in a Hot and Arid Climate

In hot and humid climatic conditions, cooling tends to dominate building thermal energy use. Cooling loads can be reduced through the adoption of efficient building envelope materials, such as Structural Insulated Panels (SIPs). This study quantifies the life cycle cost and operational energy of a representative case-study house in Bahrain using SIPs and hollow concrete blocks (HCBs) for the envelope over a period of 50 years. Operational energy is calculated using a dynamic energy simulation tool, operational costs are calculated based on the energy demand and local tariff rates, and construction costs are estimated using market prices and quotations. The life cycle cost is quantified using the Net Present Cost technique. Results show that SIPs yield a 20.6% reduction in cooling energy use compared to HCBs. For SIP costs of 12 and 17 USD/m2, the SIP house was cheaper throughout, or had a higher capital cost than the HCB house (breaking even in year 33), respectively. We propose policy recommendations with respect to material pricing, electricity tariffs, and energy efficiency, to improve the operational energy efficiency of houses in Bahrain and similar countries along the Arabian Peninsula.
Pre-Service Teachers’ Views about Effective Use of the Whatsapp Application in Online Classrooms

This study applied a qualitative method to investigate Saudi students’ perspectives on the effectiveness of using the WhatsApp application to support their learning and interaction in online courses. A purposive sample including eight Saudi pre-service teaching students (three males, five female) was selected from the College of Education at King Faisal University (KFU) in Saudi Arabia. These participants were interviewed face-to-face using a semi-structured interview technique. Member-checking and peer review strategies were used to check the trustworthiness of the findings. After the data was analyzed, two themes emerged: (1) the effectiveness of using the WhatsApp application and (2) the critical challenges involved in the usage of the WhatsApp application in an academic context. The effectiveness of using the WhatsApp application in this context includes (1) convenience and practice, (2) communication, (3) material sharing, (4) course information sharing, and (6) ease of use. The tendency for instructors to ignore student questions and a lack of interaction rules represent the critical challenges involved in the usage of WhatsApp in an educational context. Several recommendations were made based on the results of this study.
Improvement of behavioural pattern and alpha-synuclein levels in autism spectrum disorder after consumption of a beta-glucan food supplement in a randomised, parallel-group pilot clinical study

Background Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are a wide range of behavioural disabilities for which there are no definite interventional modalities available. Remedial therapies remain the only option but with varying outcomes. We have evaluated the Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS) and alpha-synuclein levels in this parallel-group, multiple-arm pilot clinical study after supplementation with a biological response modifier beta-glucan food supplement (Nichi Glucan). Methods Six subjects with ASD (n=6) Gr. 1 underwent conventional treatment comprising remedial behavioural therapies and L-carnosine 500 mg per day, and 12 subjects (n=12) Gr. 2 underwent supplementation with the Nichi Glucan 0.5 g two times per day along with the conventional treatment. Results There was a significant decrease in the CARS score in all of the children of the Nichi Glucan Gr.2 compared with the control (p=0.034517). Plasma levels of alpha-synuclein were significantly higher in Gr. 2 (Nichi Glucan) than in the control group Gr. 1 (p=0.091701). Conclusion Improvement of the behavioural pattern CARS score and a correlating alpha-synuclein level, followed by a safe beta-glucan food supplement, warrants further research on other parameters, such as gut-microbiota evaluation, and relevant neuronal biomarkers which is likely to cast light on novel solutions.
An Oxford Nanopore-based Characterisation of Sputum Microbiota Dysbiosis in Patients with Tuberculosis: from baseline to 7 days after Antibiotic Treatment

Background. Diagnostics for tuberculosis (TB) and treatment monitoring remains a challenge, particularly in less-resourced laboratories. Further, the comprehensive sputum microbiota of TB patients during treatment are less described, particularly using long-read sequencers. Methods. DNA from sputum samples collected from newly-diagnosed TB patients were sequenced with Oxford Nanopores MinION. MG-RAST and R packages (Phyloseq, Microbiome) were used to determine the OTUs abundances, alpha or beta diversities, functional components, OTUs networks and ordination plots. Statistical significance of the generated data were determined using GraphPad. Results & conclusion. Antibiotics reduced the abundance and functional subsystems of each samples microbiota from baseline until day 7, when persistent, tolerant, and resistant microbiota, including fungi, grew back again. Variations in microbiota abundance and diversity were patient-specific. Closer microbiome network relationships observed in baseline samples reduced until day 7, when it became closer again. Bacterial microbiota networks and spatial ordination relationships were closer than that of other kingdoms. Actinobacteria phylum and Mycobacterium were more affected by antibiotics than other phyla and genera. Parasites, viruses, and fungi were less affected by antibiotics than bacteria in a descending order. Resistance genes/mechanisms to important antibiotics, plasmids, transposons, insertion sequences, integrative conjugative elements were identified in few samples. MinION can be adopted clinically to monitor treatment and consequent dysbiosis, and identify both known and unknown pathogens and resistance genes to inform tailored treatment choices, specifically in TB.
Development of a Low Temperature, Molten Hydroxide Direct Carbon Fuel Cell

The performance and characterization of a batch, direct carbon fuel cell (DCFC), employing molten hydroxide electrolytes, is presented. Particular attention was focused on reducing the operating temperature of the system to minimize corrosion of both fuel cell materials and fuel carbon. Constant power was achieved over a current density range of 37 to 92 mA/cm2 (200 to 500 mA) with NaOH electrolyte at 550 °C, and up to 170 mA/cm2 with a NaOH/KOH (54/46 mol %) eutectic. The voltage decreased with temperature, becoming unstable at ≤400 °C. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) measurements showed that charge-transfer resistance, Rp, is more temperature-dependent than the ohmic resistance, Ro, with Rp decreasing by 55% for the anode and 82% for the cathode with an increase in temperature from 370 °C to 500 °C. Stable operation was achieved at temperatures as low as 400 °C with the hydroxide eutectic electrolyte. This was attributed to the higher concentration of superoxide ions in the eutectic, as ide.
EPIDEMIOLOGY AND ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE PROFILE OF BACTERIAL UROPATHOGENS IN MALE PATIENTS: A 10-YEAR RETROSPECTIVE STUDY

The purpose of our present study was to establish the incidence of UTIs in adult male patients in the Southern region of Hungary over a long surveillance period (2008 2017). The antimicrobial susceptibility testing was performed using the disk diffusion method. Overall, n = 3750 of these outpatient samples (17.73%) and n = 5902 of inpatient samples (30.54%) originated from male patients. Members of the Enterobacteriaceae family were the most commonly isolated (outpatient: 64.4%, inpatient: 55.57%), with E. coli being the most common urinary pathogen in male patients (outpatient: 37.23%, inpatient: 27.40%), followed by Enterococcus spp. (outpatient: 22.72%, inpatient: 23.43%), and P. aeruginosa (outpatient: 7.15%, inpatient: 9.2%). Between 2010 and 2017, n = 501 (62.65 ± 13.51 per year) extended-spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL) positive isolates were recorded from outpatients and n = 737 (105.28 ± 31.99 per year) from inpatients (p = 0.032). Similarly to other bacterial infections, patients affected by drug-resistant urinary pathogens may encounter a poor clinical outcome and complications.
Anomaly-Aware Semantic Segmentation by Leveraging Synthetic-Unknown Data

Anomaly awareness is an essential capability for safety-critical applications such as autonomous driving. While recent progress of robotics and computer vision has enabled anomaly detection for image classification, anomaly detection on semantic segmentation is less explored. Conventional anomaly-aware systems assuming other existing classes as out-of-distribution (pseudo-unknown) classes for training a model will result in two drawbacks. (1) Unknown classes, which applications need to cope with, might not actually exist during training time. (2) Model performance would strongly rely on the class selection. Observing this, we propose a novel Synthetic-Unknown Data Generation, intending to tackle the anomaly-aware semantic segmentation task. We design a new Masked Gradient Update (MGU) module to generate auxiliary data along the boundary of in-distribution data points. In addition, we modify the traditional cross-entropy loss to emphasize the border data points. We reach the state-of-the-art performance on two anomaly segmentation datasets. Ablation studies also demonstrate the effectiveness of proposed modules.
Oxygen Homeostasis and Mitochondrial Function in COVID-19 and ARDS Patients: The Ultimate Vital Signs

The leading cause of death from the COVID-19 is the development of Pneumonia and Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome-ARDS. Advanced physiological monitoring of COVID -19 patients in real time is a missing tool that avoid the optimization of better diagnosis and evaluating the efficacy of the treatment given. As of today, the monitoring of the systemic vital signs provides important information regarding the respiratory and cardiovascular systems including the pulse oximetry that provide data on hemoglobin oxygenation in the macro circulation. Our hypothesis is that the pathophysiology of COVID-19 and ARDS patients includes severe changes in the microcirculatory hemodynamics and cellular disturbances in Tissue and cellular Oxygen Homeostasis. Therefore, we postulate that real time monitoring of mitochondrial NADH redox state and microcirculatory blood flow, volume and hemoglobin oxygenation is the missing information that will affect dramatically the outcome of COVID-19 and ARDS patients. During the last 2 decades we studied the mechanism of blood flow redistribution activated in animal models as well as in patients exposed to total body negative oxygen balance. This mechanism is activated by the sympathetic pathway. This effect is not equal in all organs of the body, namely, in the most vital organs brain, heart, and adrenal glands oxygen supply is preserved while in the less vital organs (visceral and peripheral organs) hypo perfusion and negative oxygen balance is recorded. In order to evaluate the tissue oxygen homeostasis, we developed a new concept named LifenLight Score (LLS)TM based on the monitoring of four physiological parameters measured in real time from one of the less vital organs in the body. Our developed device is monitoring mitochondrial function by measuring the NADH auto fluorescence and microcirculatory blood flow, tissue reflectance and hemoglobin oxygenation. In animal model we monitored simultaneously the brain and the small intestine. In patients we used a 3-way Foley catheter introduced to the bladder via the urethra. We found that monitoring the less vital organ could serve as an early warning signal to the development of negative oxygen balance in the body as well as indicate of a recovery process in the improvement of the oxygen balance homeostasis. In conclusion, we hypothesize that using our new monitoring system will be able to detect deterioration process related to hypoxia in COVID-19 and ARDS patients, as well as to monitor improvement in tissue oxygen balance due to various treatments such as exposure to hyperoxia.
Contract Length and Severance Pay

Renewable fixed-term contracts are widespread in executive compensation. This paper studies why these contracts are optimal, what determines their length, and how that length affects managerial behavior. The model relates a contract's length to the period during which dismissing a manager triggers severance pay. Though longer contracts are more costly to terminate, their severance protection can discourage managers from trying to avoid replacement through window dressing or concealing soft information. Thus, the board's choice of contract length balances higher replacement costs with a higher likelihood of window dressing. The predicted determinants of contract length and severance pay are supported empirically. <br>
Board Gender Diversity and Firm Value in Times of Crisis: Evidence from the COVID-19 Pandemic

We provide robust evidence that stocks of the firms with gender-diverse boards experienced higher abnormal returns during the period when negative market sentiment induced by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic was at its peak. Further, we find that the documented effect was amplified among financially constrained firms, firms with longer cash conversion cycle, and firms with high information uncertainty, while was mitigated among firms led by more effective management teams. Our findings are consistent with the view that market interpreted board gender diversity as a positive signal regarding firms’ ability to weather the economic implications of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Financial Reporting and Employee Job Search

We investigate the effects of financial reporting on current employee job search; i.e., whether firms' public financial reports cause their employees to reevaluate their jobs and consider leaving. We develop a simple model in which current employees use earnings announcements to inform job search decisions, and empirically measure job search based on employees' activity on a popular job market website. We find that job search by current employees increases significantly during earnings announcement weeks, especially when employees are more mobile and when within-firm information frictions are greater. We also find that employees use earnings announcements to update their expectations about their employers' economic prospects, consistent with learning. Our paper contributes to the burgeoning labor and accounting literature by providing among the first evidence closely linking financial reports to employee learning and job search.
Measuring Intergenerational Income Mobility: A Synthesis of Approaches

The literature on intergenerational income mobility uses a diverse set of measures and there is limited knowledge about whether these measures provide similar information and yield similar conclusions. We provide a framework to highlight the key concepts and properties of the different estimators. We then show how these measures relate to one another empirically. Our main analysis uses income tax data from Australia to produce a comprehensive set of empirical estimates for each of 19 different mobility measures at both the national and regional level. We supplement this analysis with other data that uses either within or between country variation in mobility measures. A key finding is that there is a clear distinction between relative and absolute measures both conceptually and empirically. A region may be high with respect to absolute mobility but could be low with respect to relative mobility. However, within broad categories, the different mobility measures tend to be highly correlated. For rank-based estimators, we highlight the importance of how the choice of the distribution used for calculating ranks can play a critical role in determining its properties as well as affect empirical findings. These patterns of results are important for policy makers whose local economy might fare well according to some mobility indicators but not others. (Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality Working Paper)