Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
SHARPEN: A Scheme to Restore the Distribution of Averaged Precipitation Fields

A key strategy in obtaining complete global coverage of high-resolution precipitation is to combine observations from multiple fields, such as the intermittent passive microwave observations, precipitation propagated in time using motion vectors, and geosynchronous infrared observations. These separate precipitation fields can be combined through weighted averaging, which produces estimates that are generally superior to the individual parent fields. However, the process of averaging changes the distribution of the precipitation values, leading to an increase in precipitating area and decrease in the values of high precipitation rates, a phenomenon observed in IMERG. To mitigate this issue, we introduce a new scheme called SHARPEN, which recovers the distribution of the averaged precipitation field based on the idea of quantile mapping applied to the local environment. When implemented in IMERG, precipitation estimates from SHARPEN exhibit a distribution that resembles that of the original instantaneous observations, with matching precipitating area and peak precipitation rates. Case studies demonstrate its improved ability in bridging between the parent precipitation fields. Evaluation against ground observations reveals a distinct improvement in precipitation detection skill, but also a slightly reduced correlation likely because of a sharper precipitation field. The increased computational demand of SHARPEN can be mitigated by striding over multiple grid boxes, which has only marginal impacts on the accuracy of the estimates. SHARPEN can be applied to any precipitation algorithm that produces an average from multiple input precipitation fields and is being considered for implementation in IMERG V07.
How does entrepreneurial leadership affect innovation work behavior? The mediating role of individual and team creativity self-efficacy

PurposeThis paper explored the ways through which entrepreneurial leadership practices of chief executive officers (CEOs) enhance their employees' innovation at workplace in knowledge-based firms. Building on social cognitive theory and resource-based view of firms, this paper argues that entrepreneurial leadership fosters employees' innovation work behavior by enhancing their individual and team creativity self-efficacy.Design/methodology/approachThe sample was selected from knowledge-based firms in Iran using the simple random sampling method. Two mediation models were tested using data from 41 CEOs and 207 employees in two separate phases.FindingsThe analysis supported that CEOs' entrepreneurial leadership improves their employees' innovation work behavior through enhancing their individual and team creativity self-efficacy.Originality/valueThe research contributes motivational and enabling mechanisms at both individual and team levels that entrepreneurial leaders use to improve employees' innovation work behavior in the context of knowledge-based firms. The findings may assist managers and business leaders in effectively leading innovation process.
Prevalence of intestinal parasitic infections and associated risk factors among children attending a tertiary care hospital

hospital-based prospective study to estimate the prevalence rates of IPIs and to assess the risk factors associated with in (cid:976)ive analysed for IPIs and associated risk 2019. Information on the associated risk factors obtained from a questionnaire Microscopic examination of was by direct slide and after the formol-ether technique. overall prevalence of IPIs was dual analysis from an open well, a of IPIs Multivariate logistic regression of with years) and
Social networks, language and identity negotiations among queer migrants in Scotland

ABSTRACT In this article, we explore queer migrants’ social networks and the role language plays in how they negotiate companionship, romance and sex within queer community and diasporic environments. We draw on interviews with 56 self-identified LGBT migrants from Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union living in Scotland, UK. In doing so, we bring into conversation and critically engage with perspectives from queer migration literature and from work on migrants’ social networks and language use. In the article, we show how language underpins access to English-speaking and ethnic social circles, and how it is powerfully bound up with emotions, affect and perceptions of social proximity or distance. We argue for the need to move beyond abstract notions of queer or diasporic communities, and for an exploration of queer migrants’ sociality grounded in their personal communities, social networks and the language(s) used within them. We argue that this approach can better capture queer migrants’ complex identity negotiations and diverse sources of support and belonging, without assuming the primacy of either sexuality or ethnicity.
Does FDI and economic growth harm environment? Evidence from selected West African countries

Abstract This study examines the effect of FDI, economic growth, energy consumption, human capital and biocapacity on carbon emissions in selected West African countries over the period 1970–2017. Employing the long run cointegration estimators, the empirical results confirmed the existence of U-shaped and N-shaped pattern between the estimated variables on CO2 emissions. However, the panel quantile estimates revealed that N-shaped exists only for high carbon emissions countries, but not in the middle and low carbon emissions nations. In addition, the results provide evidence of inverted U-shaped relationship between growth and CO2 emissions and this point to the fact that the EKC hypothesis is valid for ECOWAS countries. The panel quantile causality results indicated that FDI, biocapacity, energy consumption and human capital cause carbon emissions in all the estimated quantiles. The study provided suggestions for policymaking towards reducing carbon emissions in the region.
AUTHENTICITY IN RELATIONSHIPS SCALE (AIRS): TURKISH ADAPTATION AND VALIDATION STUDY

Bu calismanin amaci, Lopez ve Rice (2006) tarafindan gelistirilen Iliskide Otantiklik Olcegi’nin Turk orneklemindeki psikometrik ozelliklerini incelemektir. Arastirmanin calisma grubu, 263 lisans ogrencisinden olusmaktadir. Iliskide Otantiklik Olcegi’nin yapi gecerligini degerlendirmek amaciyla dogrulayici faktor analizi yapilmistir. Bulgular, uyum iyiligi indekslerinin yeterli duzeyde oldugunu ve olcegin iki faktorlu yapisinin dogrulandigini gostermistir (χ2 / df= 1.8; GFI= 0.88; CFI= 0.90; TLI= .88; RMSEA= 0.05). Olcegin Cronbach Alfa ic tutarlilik katsayisi . 80 bulunmustur. Olcegin yakinsak gecerligini saptamak amaciyla, Otantiklik Olcegi ve Iliski Doyumu Olcegi kullanilmistir. Buna gore, Iliskide Otantiklik Olcegi ile Otantiklik Olcegi ve Iliski Doyumu Olcegi arasinda pozitif yonde anlamli iliskiler bulunmustur. Yani sira, olcme degismezligi analizinin sonuclari, kadinlarin ve erkeklerin olcek maddelerine verdikleri yanitlarin benzer bir oruntude oldugunu ortaya koymustur. Bu nedenle, Iliskide Otantiklik Olcegi’nin cinsiyet faktoru acisindan olcme degismezligine sahip oldugu soylenebilir. Sonuc olarak, mevcut calismanin bulgulari, Iliskide Otantiklik Olcegi’nin Turk kulturunde gecerli ve guvenilir bir olcek olarak kullanilabilecegini gostermektedir.
Modeling the Dependence of Immunodominance on T Cell Dynamics in Prime-Boost Vaccines

The protection induced by vaccines against infectious diseases such as malaria, dengue or hepatitis relies on a the creation of immune memory by T cells, key components of the human immune system. The induction of a strong T cell response leading to long lasting memory can be improved by using prime-boost (PB) vaccines, which consist in successive inoculations of appropriate vectors carrying target antigens that can be recognized by specific T cell clones. A problem faced by PB vaccines is the fact that T cell response is often biased towards a few clones that can identify only a small set of antigens, out of the many that could be displayed by the pathogen. This phenomenon, known as immunodominance, can significantly compromise the effectiveness of vaccination. In this work we will use mathematical modeling to better understand the role of T cell population dynamics in the onset of immunodominance in PB vaccines. In particular, we will use mathematical analysis and simulations to compare single-dose vaccines with PB ones, both for homologous (where the same antigen is used in every shot) and heterologous protocols (in which different antigens are used at each step).
Serum tumour markers combined with clinicopathological characteristics for predicting MMR and KRAS status in 2279 Chinese colorectal cancer patients: a retrospective analysis

Background Although serum tumour markers (STMs), clinicopathological characteristics and the status of KRAS and MMR play an important role in optimizing the treatment and improving the prognosis of colorectal cancer, their interrelationships remain largely unknown. Methods A retrospective analysis of 2279 patients who underwent KRAS or MMR status testing and STM measurements prior to treatment over the past four years was conducted. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression were performed to identify independent predictive factors of KRAS and MMR status. The area under receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC) was used to evaluate the predictive value of individual and combined factors. Results Of the 784 patients tested for KRAS and 2279 patients tested for MMR status, KRAS mutations and dMMR were identified in 276 patients (35.20%) and 177 patients (7.77%), respectively. Logistic regression analysis demonstrated that right colon, well and moderate differentiation and negative CA19-9 were independent predictors for KRAS mutations. The ROC curve yielded an AUC of 0.609 for the combination of the three factors. Age < 65 was an independent predictive factor for dMMR, along with tumour size > 4.6 cm, right colon, poor differentiation, harvested lymph nodes ≥ 22, no lymph node metastasis, no perineural invasion, negative CEA and positive CA72-4. When the nine criteria were used together, the AUC was 0.849. Conclusion Both STMs and clinicopathological characteristics were found to be significantly associated with the status of KRAS and MMR. The combination of these two factors possessed a strong predictive power for targeted genes among CRC patients.
Interaction of an anticancer drug, gefitinib with human serum albumin: insights from fluorescence spectroscopy and computational modeling analysis

Binding of gefitinib (GEF), a promising anticancer drug to human serum albumin (HSA), the major transport protein in blood circulation was investigated using fluorescence, UV-vis absorption and circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy as well as computational modeling. Fluorescence quenching of HSA upon GEF addition was found to be a static quenching process, as revealed from the decreasing trend of the Stern–Volmer quenching constant with increasing temperature as well as UV-vis absorption spectral results. Fluorescence quenching titration results demonstrated moderate binding affinity with the binding constant, Ka value as 1.70 × 104 M−1 between GEF and HSA at 15 °C. Thermodynamic data (ΔH = −7.74 kJ mol−1 and ΔS = +54.06 J mol−1 K−1) suggested participation of both hydrophobic interactions and hydrogen bonds in stabilizing the GEF–HSA complex, which was further supported by computational modeling results. The far-UV and the near-UV CD spectra showed secondary and tertiary structural changes in HSA, whereas three-dimensional fluorescence spectral results indicated microenvironmental perturbations around protein fluorophores upon GEF binding. Binding of GEF to HSA offered significant protection to the protein against thermal destabilization. Competitive site-marker displacement results along with computational modeling analysis suggested a preferred location of the GEF binding site as site III, located in subdomain IB of HSA. Some common metal ions have been found to interfere with GEF–HSA interaction.
Socio-demographic Determinants of Indonesian Mothers’ Psychological Distress during COVID-19 Pandemic

The Indonesian government imposed a large-scale social restriction policy to prevent the spread of COVID-19 This policy affected the community, including mothers, and may have caused psychological strain on them This study aimed to (i) establish a dataset on the psychological distress reported by mothers in Indonesia and (ii) identify demographic factors and pandemic-related characteristics that determine psychological distress An online survey was administered from April 20 to April 25, 2020, and 1534 surveys were submitted Bivariate and multivariate regression models were constructed to examine the associations between sociodemographic variables, depression, anxiety, and stress The results demonstrated that the level of the psychological distress domain scores was relatively low;additionally, stress was reported the most, followed by anxiety and depression The number of children and being informed of a neighbor who tested positive were correlated with depression symptoms The mother's age and being notified of a neighbor who tested positive correlated with anxiety symptoms The length of the marriage and being notified of a neighbor who tested positive correlated with stress symptoms These data help identify persons at greater risk of suffering from psychological distress and provide a baseline for further research and interventions targeting the mothers' psychological distress
SSCAE: A Neuromorphic SNN Autoencoder for sc-RNA-seq Dimensionality Reduction

Single-cell RNA sequencing is an emerging technique in the field of biology that departs radically from the previous assumption of gene-expression homogeneity within a tissue. The large quantity of data generated by this technology enables discoveries of cellular biology and disease mechanics that were previously not possible, and calls for accurate, scalable, and efficient processing pipelines. In this work, we propose SSCAE (spiking single-cell autoencoder), a novel SNN-based autoencoder for sc-RNA-seq dimensionality reduction. We apply this architecture to a variety of datasets, and the results show that it can match and surpass the performance of current state-of-the-art techniques. Moreover, the potential of this technique lies in its ability to be scaled up and to take advantage of neuromorphic hardware, circumventing the memory bottleneck that currently limits the size of sequencing datasets that can be processed.
Variation in Physicochemical Properties and Proximate Composition of Improved and Traditional Varieties of Rice in Sri Lanka

Sri Lankan traditional rice varieties (SLTRV) have been known to be associated with higher nutritional and healthcare properties but along with the rice market, cultivation of improved rice varieties is highly dominated at present. Therefore, this comparative study was done to investigate physicochemical parameters and proximate composition of selected traditional and improved rice varieties grown in Sri Lanka. Thirty-nine rice varieties including traditional and improved were cultivated and harvested at Rice Research Station, Ambalantota, Sri lanka. The physicochemical parameters, Gelatinization Temperature (GT) and Amylose Content (AC) and the proximate composition (crude ash, crude fiber, crude protein, crude fat and carbohydrate) were analysed. GT of the samples varied between 66.14 – 71.74°C, where five improved rice varieties H4, At 405, At 362, Bw 272 6b and Ld 408 showed low GT of 66.14°C. AC varied between 17.0 - 31.3 % and only one improved variety (At 405) was found with low AC. The proximate compositions were also independent from each other within varieties. Higher protein contents (>9.0%) were found with the improved varieties of H4, H7 and Bw 272-6b whereas the lowest (5.2 %) was also recorded with the improved variety of At 362 which is a highly cultivated variety in Sri Lanka. Crude fat contents of ≥2.4 % were recorded with five rice varieties namely, Suduru samba, Rath suwandel, Suwandel, Bw 272-6b and Ld 368. The varieties of Beheth heenati, Suwndel, Bw 272-6b and Basmathi 442 showed crude ash content of ≥1.2 %. Carbohydrate content had significant negative correlations with other nutrients except for crude fibre. It can be concluded that there was no significant difference in physicochemical properties and proximate composition in the studied traditional varieties of rice over the improved varieties except for the protein content. Many of the improved varieties contained higher protein content compared to the SLTRV.
Relationship Between Sperm Quality and Male Reproductive Hormones Among Male Partners with Fertility Complications: Attending CHUB

Background Infertility remains a highly prevalent global condition in the second decade of the new millennium. Reproductive hormones determine sperm quality as they initiate and maintain spermatogenesis. Hormonal imbalance can cause abnormal sperm quality that can be treated by hormonal replacement therapy. Objective To assess the relationship between sperm quality and male reproductive hormones among male partners with fertility complications attending CHUB. Methods The study was a descriptive cross-sectional, and a convenient sampling strategy was used to recruit subjects at CHUB. Sixty-two male subjects with fertility complications provided both semen and blood sample to analyze sperm quality and reproductive hormones. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze data. Results Both FSH and LH showed a strong negative correlation with sperm count which is more profound with FSH (r= -0.722) than LH (r= -0.545). Testosterone showed a strong positive correlation with sperm count (r= 0.712). FSH and LH showed a negative correlation with sperm motility which is more profound in FSH (r= -0.312) than LH (r= -0.302). Testosterone also showed a positive correlation with sperm motility (r= 0.360). Conclusion Our study found a correlation between sperm quality and male reproductive hormones. We further suggest other studies to investigate predictive power of male reproductive hormones. Rwanda J Med Health Sci 2020;3(3):315-328
A selective and sensitive pre-column derivatization HPLC method for the trace analysis of genotoxic impurity hydroxylamine in active pharmaceutical ingredients

A simple and robust high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method for the trace analysis of genotoxic impurity hydroxylamine in Vorinostat and Zileuton, two active pharmaceutical ingredients, is described. This method was based on a conventional pre-column derivatization with 9-fluorenylmethyl chloroformate using UV detection. In order to avoid the degradation of the API during derivatization, an innovative pretreatment utilizing precipitation prior to derivatization is proposed, and this simple and robust method demonstrates reliable recovery and excellent anti-interference capability. To minimize and stabilize the competition, optimization of the derivatization was conducted under both hydrous and anhydrous conditions in terms of reaction time, temperature, concentrations of FMOC-Cl, sodium borate, alkaloid species and the corresponding volumes, and pH values. To compare the reactivity, all of the derivatives of hydroxylamine and APIs were identified by LC-TOF/MS and LC-MS/MS. The optimized analytical method was fully validated, which demonstrated it to be sensitive, repeatable, accurate and convenient for routine quality control. The result suggested that the trace level of genotoxic impurity hydroxylamine in APIs could be effectively determined by this classical and robust HPLC method, and degradation in the procedure and competition in derivatization issues have been resolved successfully.
Tax reforms in Spain: efficiency levels and distributional patterns

This paper approximates the efficiency levels of the most relevant tax categories and their distributional patterns for a European country considering Spain as an illustrative example. This is done computing the ‘marginal’ excess burden of these taxes, taking into account the structure of the Spanish tax system before and after the major tax reforms undertaken since 2010. In doing so we use a static applied general equilibrium model, which features heterogeneous households classified according to their taxable income. In addition, and in identical terms, another alternative tax reform is evaluated: a flat value-added tax system and a reduction in employers’ social security contributions. Our results indicate that the alternative tax reform would have slightly improved the degree of efficiency of these taxes while implying a lower negative impact on aggregate income. Regarding distributive effects, we do not find significant differences between the actual and the alternative tax policies.
How Musicality, Cognition and Sensorimotor Skills Relate in Musically Untrained Children

Abstract. Whereas a growing corpus of research has investigated the impact of music practice on several domains of cognition, studies on the relationships between musicality and other abilities and skills in musically untrained children are scarce. The present study examined the associations between musicality, cognition, and sensorimotor skills in 69 musically untrained primary school children of around 10 years of age, using a test battery of musical, cognitive, and sensorimotor abilities. We analyzed the results using nonparametric correlations and an exploratory factor analysis. It was our anticipation that basic cognitive resources (short-term and working memory, attention, processing speed) would relate to both higher-order cognition and musicality. Results indicated that, in musically untrained children, the interconnections between musical and cognitive abilities restrain to auditory short-term and working memory. Direct associations between musicality and higher-order cognitive processes did not occur. An interesting secondary finding comprised associations between sensorimotor function, as measured by the Purdue Pegboard test, and higher-order cognition. Specifically, we found an association between bimanual coordination of fine finger dexterity and matrix reasoning. This outcome suggests that higher-order cognitive function benefits from an efficient mastering of procedural aspects of sensorimotor skills.
Adoption Index of Women Goat Farmers in Various Aspirational District of Niti-Ayog in West Bengal, India

The Small animal husbandry plays a key role in sustainable livelihood and income generation of the rural pro-poor stakeholders in India. The goat as farm animals has widest ecological range and most reliable livelihood resources of poor people since their domestication during Neolithic period of about 10 million years ago. Goat farming has tremendous potential for income and employment generation, especially in rural areas (Singh et al., 2015). This small ruminant plays a significant role in providing self-employment through supplementary income to millions of resource poor farmers and acts as a cushion in distress situations like draught, famine etc. India possesses an enormous goat population of 124.5 million i.e. 18% of the World population. (Anonymous, 2015). Goats and their products accounted for about 8.5% of value of livestock