Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Residents’ Dependency on Forest Resources: A Case Study on Ratargul Freshwater Swamp Forest of Bangladesh

The only freshwater swamp forest of Bangladesh namely Ratargul Freshwater Swamp Forest (RFWSF) has a great contribution to the livelihoods of the surrounding local communities. Local communities or residents of the area depend heavily on this biodiversity-rich swamp forest for income, employment, fuelwood, and non-wood forest resources. An exploratory study was carried out in the swamp forest to explore the availability and consumption pattern of various forest Original Research Article Das et al.; AJEE, 13(2): 51-64, 2020; Article no.AJEE. 60434 52 resources, and dependency levels of residents on the RFWSF. Data were collected using a semistructured questionnaire from 301 respondents (randomly selected from the residents) of the surrounding nine villages. The study revealed that respondents were dependent largely on the RFWSF for fuelwood, bamboo, cane, murta, ornamental resource, and other raw materials for cottage industries. Among the respondents 27% were involved in the harvesting of fish resources, followed by fuelwood (23%), grass (11%), and fodder (6%) collection. Bamboo was the main source of fuel for 41 % of the respondents and 40% depended on twigs and branches of trees. The findings of the study revealed that residents were highly dependent on the non-wood forest resources of the RFWSF for their livelihoods. Besides, a substantial amount of wood resources was consumed by the residents as fuelwood. Excessive unscientific exploitation of the forest resources disturbed the ecological functions and threatened the wildlife habitats of the RFWSF tremendously. The study recommended raising awareness and capacity building among the forest-dependent residents, proper implementations of forest law, and sustainable management could be the effective pathway for the upliftment of the resident’s condition with ecological rehabilitation in the RFWSF.
Is a COVID-19 Second Wave Possible in Emilia-Romagna (Italy)? Forecasting a Future Outbreak with Particulate Pollution and Machine Learning

The Nobel laureate Niels Bohr once said that: “Predictions are very difficult, especially if they are about the future”. Nonetheless, models that can forecast future COVID-19 outbreaks are receiving special attention by policymakers and health authorities, with the aim of putting in place control measures before the infections begin to increase. Nonetheless, two main problems emerge. First, there is no a general agreement on which kind of data should be registered for judging on the resurgence of the virus (e.g., infections, deaths, percentage of hospitalizations, reports from clinicians, signals from social media). Not only this, but all these data also suffer from common defects, linked to their reporting delays and to the uncertainties in the collection process. Second, the complex nature of COVID-19 outbreaks makes it difficult to understand if traditional epidemiological models, such as susceptible, infectious, or recovered (SIR), are more effective for a timely prediction of an outbreak than alternative computational models. Well aware of the complexity of this forecasting problem, we propose here an innovative metric for predicting COVID-19 diffusion based on the hypothesis that a relation exists between the spread of the virus and the presence in the air of particulate pollutants, such as PM2.5, PM10, and NO2. Drawing on the recent assumption of 239 experts who claimed that this virus can be airborne, and further considering that particulate matter may favor this airborne route, we developed a machine learning (ML) model that has been instructed with: (i) all the COVID-19 infections that occurred in the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna, one of the most polluted areas in Europe, in the period of February–July 2020, (ii) the daily values of all the particulates taken in the same period and in the same region, and finally (iii) the chronology according to which restrictions were imposed by the Italian Government to human activities. Our ML model was then subjected to a classic ten-fold cross-validation procedure that returned a promising 90% accuracy value. Finally, the model was used to predict a possible resurgence of the virus in all the nine provinces of Emilia-Romagna, in the period of September–December 2020. To make those predictions, input to our ML model were the daily measurements of the aforementioned pollutants registered in the periods of September–December 2017/2018/2019, along with the hypothesis that the mild containment measures taken in Italy in the so-called Phase 3 are obeyed. At the time we write this article, we cannot have a confirmation of the precision of our predictions. Nevertheless, we are projecting a scenario based on an original hypothesis that makes our COVID-19 prediction model unique in the world. Its accuracy will be soon judged by history—and this, too, is science at the service of society.
Evaluation of molecular variability in germplasm of vanilla (Vanilla planifolia G. Jackson in Andrews) in Southeast Mexico: implications for genetic improvement and conservation

Molecular variability of vanilla (Vanilla planifolia) and three wild species was assessed to explore the possible sources of variation that can be used for crop improvement. A total of 154 ISSR loci were analysed by the UPGMA, assignment tests of individuals (STRUCTURE) and indices of genetic diversity. The assignment tests were done at two levels: first considering the four species and then only the accessions of V. planifolia. The molecular analysis indicated 99.3% polymorphism among all species and 70.45% within V. planifolia. The UPGMA showed the separation of these four species into three groups and grouped V. planifolia accessions into three subgroups. The more genetically differentiated accessions were of the Rayada morphotype and a wild accession was from Oaxaca, followed by a wild accession from Quintana Roo; all the commercial accessions of V. planifolia (Mansa morphotype) were grouped together. The STRUCTURE analysis differentiated between V. planifolia and the three wild species, and among the accessions of the Mansa and Rayada morphotypes and the wild accessions. The STRUCTURE analysis also indicated the presence of mixed individuals. These results are of great importance since the accessions of V. planifolia that are genetically more differentiated are the most threatened due to the scarcity of these individuals, the destruction of habitat and replacement by the commercial morphotype. These individuals should be salvaged and used to expand the genetic background of vanilla.
Development of an Updated Global Land In Situ‐Based Data Set of Temperature and Precipitation Extremes: HadEX3

We present the second update to a data set of gridded land‐based temperature and precipitation extremes indices: HadEX3. This consists of 17 temperature and 12 precipitation indices derived from daily, in situ observations and recommended by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Expert Team on Climate Change Detection and Indices (ETCCDI). These indices have been calculated at around 7,000 locations for temperature and 17,000 for precipitation. The annual (and monthly) indices have been interpolated on a 1.875°×1.25° longitude‐latitude grid, covering 1901–2018. We show changes in these indices by examining ”global”‐average time series in comparison with previous observational data sets and also estimating the uncertainty resulting from the nonuniform distribution of meteorological stations. Both the short and long time scale behavior of HadEX3 agrees well with existing products. Changes in the temperature indices are widespread and consistent with global‐scale warming. The extremes related to daily minimum temperatures are changing faster than the maximum. Spatial changes in the linear trends of precipitation indices over 1950–2018 are less spatially coherent than those for temperature indices. Globally, there are more heavy precipitation events that are also more intense and contribute a greater fraction to the total. Some of the indices use a reference period for calculating exceedance thresholds. We present a comparison between using 1961–1990 and 1981–2010. The differences between the time series of the temperature indices observed over longer time scales are shown to be the result of the interaction of the reference period with a warming climate. The gridded netCDF files and, where possible, underlying station indices are available from www.metoffice. gov.uk/hadobs/hadex3 and www.climdex. org.
Upskilling, Deskilling or Polarisation? Evidence on Change in Skills in Europe

What are the directions of change in the complexity of work and the required skill levels of the labour force in Europe? Three prominent strands of literature suggest conflicting expectations – upskilling, deskilling and polarisation. This question is answered by employing a novel work complexity indicator that measures how tasks are performed at work according to three dimensions: routinisation of tasks, autonomy at work and continuous skill-building. The measurements rely on the European Working Conditions Surveys carried out in 2005, 2010 and 2015. The results show that the European labour markets witness upskilling with some polarisation, although there are significant cross-national differences. They also show that, individually, neither shifts in work complexity within occupations (deskilling hypothesis), nor changes in employment structure (the focus of the upskilling and polarisation hypotheses) can provide an adequate view of trends in the European labour markets. Instead, both vectors of change should be analysed collectively.
Online Hate Speech

Online Hate Speech ist ein virulentes, gesamtgesellschaftliches Problem: User*innen von sozialen Netzwerken und Online-Medien sind zunehmend davon betroffen. Auch der Rechtsstaat und Organisationen müssen neue Umgangsstrategien finden. Die Autor*innen dieses Sammelbandes betrachten Online Hate Speech aus interdisziplinären Perspektiven der Rechts-, Politik-, Medien- und Sozialwissenschaften und aus der Praxis. Sie bieten Einblicke in neueste rechtliche Entwicklungen, in die mediale bzw. zivilgesellschaftliche Auseinandersetzung, die Betroffenheit von Personen(-Gruppen) und in die Strafrechtstheorie und -praxis. Praktische Handlungsempfehlungen für Politik, Medien, Zivilgesellschaft und Einzelne für den Umgang mit Online Hate Speech runden die Publikation ab. Die Inhalte des Sammelbandes entstammen dem Projekt „NoHate@WebStyria“ der Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz, der FH JOANNEUM und der Antidiskriminierungsstelle Steiermark - gefördert durch den Zukunftsfonds Steiermark. Creative Commons Licence Terms: Namensnennung – Keine Bearbeitungen 4.0 International ( CC BY-SA 4.0 ) Sie dürfen: Teilen — das Material in jedwedem Format oder Medium vervielfältigen und weiterverbreiten und zwar für beliebige Zwecke, sogar kommerziell. Unter folgenden Bedingungen: 1. Namensnennung — Sie müssen angemessene Urheber- und Rechteangaben machen, einen Link zur Lizenz beifügen und angeben, ob Änderungen vorgenommen wurden. 2. Keine weiteren Einschränkungen — Sie dürfen keine zusätzlichen Klauseln oder technische Verfahren einsetzen, die anderen rechtlich irgendetwas untersagen, was die Lizenz erlaubt. Die vollständigen Creative Commons Lizenzbestimmungen finden Sie unter: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode.de Die Rechte an den einzelnen Textbeiträgen und die Verantwortung für deren Inhalt liegen bei den Autor*innen. Trotz sorgfältigster Bearbeitung erfolgen alle Angaben ohne Gewähr. Eine Haftung des Verlages, der Herausgeber*innen und der Autor*innen ist ausgeschlossen.
Transfer Learning for Stenosis Detection in X-ray Coronary Angiography

Coronary artery disease is the most frequent type of heart disease caused by an abnormal narrowing of coronary arteries, also called stenosis or atherosclerosis. It is also the leading cause of death globally. Currently, X-ray Coronary Angiography (XCA) remains the gold-standard imaging technique for medical diagnosis of stenosis and other related conditions. This paper presents a new method for the automatic detection of coronary artery stenosis in XCA images, employing a pre-trained (VGG16, ResNet50, and Inception-v3) Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) via Transfer Learning. The method is based on a network-cut and fine-tuning approach. The optimal cut and fine-tuned layers were selected following 20 different configurations for each network. The three networks were fine-tuned using three strategies: only real data, only artificial data, and artificial with real data. The synthetic dataset consists of 10,000 images (80% for training, 20% for validation) produced by a generative model. These different configurations were analyzed and compared using a real dataset of 250 real XCA images (125 for testing and 125 for fine-tuning), regarding their randomly initiated CNNs and a fourth custom CNN, trained as well with artificial and real data. The results showed that pre-trained VGG16, ResNet50, and Inception-v3 cut on an early layer and fine-tuned, overcame the referencing CNNs performance. Specifically, Inception-v3 provided the best stenosis detection with an accuracy of 0.95, a precision of 0.93, sensitivity, specificity, and F1 score of 0.98, 0.92, and 0.95, respectively. Moreover, a class activation map is applied to identify the high attention regions for stenosis detection.
Frequency of Thrombophilic Gene Mutations in Patients with Deep Vein Thrombosis and in Women with Recurrent Pregnancy Loss

Abstract Thrombophilia may be anticipated by single or combined hereditary defects in encoding genes factor V, Prothrombin, and MTHFR. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence and associated risks of V Leiden (G1691A), Prothrombin (G20210A), and MTHFR (C677T) mutations in Saudi women with Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) and women with recurrent pregnancy loss (RPL). Protein C and protein S activity were measured to determine combined effects, if any. We examined 60 women with a history of DVT and 60 with RPL, extracted DNA from EDTA blood and determined three mutations by using multiplex PCR reactions followed by Strip Assay KIT. Pro C Global assay was used to determine the cutoff value [PCATNR = 0.80]. Protein C/S chromogenic assay was used to estimate protein C and S percentages. Frequency of Factor V Leiden G/A genotype in patients with DVT 7 (11.6%) had a significant association for DVT χ2 (OR = 5.1, P = 0.03). In women with RPL the three mutations did not show any significant association, levels of Protein C, protein S and PCAT-NR in patient groups not different from controls (P > 0.05). In conclusion, we recommend expanding on these data to provide larger-scale studies.
Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in children and adolescent with post-traumatic stress symptom: A comparison of 16D and condition-specific instruments

The objective of this study was to compare Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) as measured by the 16D instrument with four condition-specific instruments in children and adolescents with significant post-traumatic stress disease (PTSD), to assess the validity of the 16D instrument. In addition, we test for differences in health for the PTSD population compared to a representative sample of Finnish schoolchildren. The study included 156 children and adolescents with trauma-related symptoms in Norway. The condition-specific instruments included were; Child PTDS Symptom Scale (CPSS); Mood and Feelings Questionnaire (MFQ); Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED), and; Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). We found that the 16D HRQoL score was significantly correlated with all condition-specific instruments (CPSS, SCARED, MFQ, and SDQ), where SCARED had the highest correlation with the 16D (-0.659, p < 0.01). Several of the corresponding items (sleep, distress, discomfort and symptoms, mental functioning, and school and hobbies) of the condition-specific instruments were correlated above the threshold (convergent validity, ρ > 0.4). Children and adolescents with symptoms of post-traumatic stress experienced a significant health loss of 0.177 compared to a representative sample of Finnish 12 to 15-years-old schoolchildren with a Cohen’s d of 1.07, and the health difference was significant for all 16 dimensions. These findings support the use of the 16D to measure health outcomes in cost-utility analysis. More studies are needed to examine the responsiveness. Published: Online August 2020.
Geographies of food beyond food: transfiguring nexus-thinking through encounters with young people in Brazil

ABSTRACT Engaging contemporary forms of nexus-thinking with interdisciplinary food scholarship and childhood and youth studies, this paper explores the social, cultural and political implications of young people’s entangled connections with – and beyond – food. The paper draws on a large-scale research project investigating young Brazilians’ relationships with and understandings of the water-energy-food nexus. Based upon ethnographic, mixed-methods research, we attend to young people’s everyday, material experiences of water-energy-food, and call for a transfigured nexus-thinking, alive with the lives, cares, relationalities and politics at the heart of ‘the nexus’. Through examples ranging from participants’ routines, rhythms and mobilities to experiences of food insecurity, we show how young people express a range of social-political sensibilities that articulate with food and expand nexus-thinking in several interconnected ways. First, by exposing the multi-scalar and multi-temporal processes underlying their everyday ‘nexuses’. Second, by destabilizing the water-energy-food nexus to include ever-new elements emerging from lived experiences of resource access. Third, by showing the embeddedness of resources in the cultures, politics and social fabric of communities. Fourth by uncovering the workings of social difference in articulating nexus dis/connections. It is through these encounters with youths in Brazil that we propose a (re)politicisation and critical transfiguration of nexus thinking.
Geotrauma: Violence, place and repossession

Geographical interest is growing in psychological trauma from political, social, urban and ecological violences. This paper reviews temporal and spatial aspects of trauma, emphasizing Black, postcolonial, indigenous, feminist and queer analyses. These inform an idea of geotrauma, the ongoing clasping of collective traumas and place. After outlining the multiple temporalities of geotrauma, the paper identifies overlapping placings of trauma by geographers and others: memorial places, retraumatizing places, layered places, hardwired places, mobile places, places of repossession and healing places. Repositioning survivors as experts in narrating and understanding trauma enables recognition of resistance and the mobilization of place in addressing trauma.
Understanding different perspectives on economic growth and climate policy

Should economic growth continue in a world threatened by the prospect of catastrophic climate change? The scientific and public debate has brought forth a broad spectrum of views and narratives on this question, ranging from neoclassical economics to degrowth. We argue that different positions can be attributed to underlying differences in views on (a) factors that determine human well‐being, (b) the feasibility and desirability of economic growth, (c) appropriate intervention points, and (d) preferences about governance and policy options. For each of these dimensions, we propose points of agreement on which a consensus between conflicting positions might be achieved. From this basis, we distill a sustainability transition perspective that could act as a basis for a renewed debate on how to align human well‐being with environmental sustainability.
Combined effects of seed and soil quality drive seedling performance of a late‐successional canopy tree in a tropical forest

Habitat loss and fragmentation affect the structure and functioning of forested ecosystems worldwide, yet we lack an understanding of how species respond to environmental changes. Here, we examined reproductive success and seedling performance of Poulsenia armata (Moraceae) in continuous and fragmented forests of Los Tuxtlas, southern Mexico. We further investigated how maternal habitat and soil conditions manifested in the seedling stage. We determined seed quality and seedling performance by combining isotopic analyses in seed quality with field observations of P. armata fruit production and a common‐‐garden experiment. Soil conditions in forest fragments negatively impacted P. armata reproductive success. Trees of P. armata in forest fragments were smaller in size and produced fewer fruits and smaller seeds with lower quality compared with trees from the continuous forest. The combined effects of maternal habitat and soil conditions determined seedling survival and growth of this tropical tree. Notably, seedlings had restricted plasticity for biomass allocation to roots, limiting the capacity of fragmented populations to compensate for the initial low N content in seeds. Trees in forest fragments at Los Tuxtlas produced offspring competitively inferior and potentially less resilient than counterparts in continuous forest, jeopardizing future persistence of this late‐successional tree species.
SEASONAL VARIATION OF ECTOPARASITE MITE Tropilaelaps clareae and Varroa jacobsoni ON Apis mellifera

Present studies were undertaken to study the seasonal variation ofectoparasite mite, Varroa jacobsoni Oudemans and Tropilaelaps clareae Delfinado and Baker on European honeybee, Apis mellifera L.in Palampur, Himachal Pradesh. Each experimental apiary of A. mellifera colony consists of different number of frames. For these studies annual seasonal cycle was divided into winter, spring and early summer, summer, rainy and autumn. Data on seasonal variations in population of ectoparasitic mites on A. mellifera colonies revealed that population of V. jacobsoni was maximum during the month of April(14.20±2.82), whereas, peak period of T. clareae infestation was observed in the months of September(28.80±9.21) and October(25.70±8.52) than other months of the year.
A new set of primers for COI amplification from purpleback flying squid (Sthenoteuthis oualaniensis)

Abstract Despite the contribution of DNA barcoding towards understanding the biodiversity and distribution of species, the success of the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I gene (COI) amplification has been quite variable when it comes to Cephalopoda. Some species in this class such as Sthenoteuthis oualaniensis seem to be more difficult to amplify COI than others due to failed amplifications with universal primer and lack of specific set of primers. In this study, we developed new Sthenoteuthis – specific primer set, which significantly increased average amplification success. The new primer set will aid the recovery of barcodes from this difficult group and facilitate further studies in phylogeny and cryptic diversity of Sthenoteuthis oualaniensis.