Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Energy Consumption, Economic Growth, and Environmental Degradation in OECD Countries

The world is governed by the issues of environmental degradation, climate control, pollutant emissions and other such phenomena due to the increasing dilapidation of environmental resources. For a while now, the focus has been on the production of green technologies, clean energy solutions and the development of a sustainable module that will aid in the restoration and protection of the environment. In this scenario, the dependence on consumption patterns of energy, economic growth (EG), and environmental degradation (ED) have become the focus of many researchers and policymakers. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries are understandably characterized as the fastest developing nations of the world. However, literature evaluating the influence of energy consumption (EC) and economic growth (EG) on environmental degradation has presented conflicting results. This study aims to solve this conflict by presenting a panel dataset comprised of 35 OECD between 2000–2014. The Generalized Method of Moments Panel Vector Autoregression (GMM-PVAR) has been used to estimate the impact and causal relationship between the variables. The results of the study indicate that EG and consumption patterns of energy are vital for the improvement of the environmental performance of the firms. In contrast to other empirical literature, this study finds that the economic development of the country or countries and the patterns of consumption have started to coagulate with set environmental performance parameters. Environmental policies, consumption patterns and plans for EG are all being aligned in OECD countries. The results of this study are robust, as different methods for the evaluation have been used.
Plasticity in the antipredator behavior of the orange-footed sea cucumber under shifting hydrodynamic forces

Abstract Marine invertebrates that move too slowly to evade unfavorable environmental change may instead exhibit phenotypic plasticity, allowing them to adjust to varying conditions. The orange-footed sea cucumber Cucumaria frondosa is a slow-moving suspension feeder that is preyed on by the purple sunstar Solaster endeca. The sea cucumber’s antipredator behavior involves changing shape and detaching from the substratum, which might increase its probability of being displaced by water motion into an unsuitable environment. We hypothesized that sea cucumbers’ antipredator responses would be diminished under stronger hydrodynamic forces, and that behavioral strategies would be flexible so that individuals could adjust to frequent changes in water flows. In a natural orange-footed sea cucumber habitat, individuals lived along a pronounced hydrodynamic gradient, allowing us to measure antipredator behavior under different water flow strengths. We placed purple sunstars in physical contact with sea cucumbers living at various points along the gradient to elicit antipredator responses. We then repeated this procedure in a laboratory mesocosm that generated weak and strong hydrodynamic forces similar to those observed at the field site. Subjects in the mesocosm experiment were tested in both wave conditions to determine if their antipredator behavior would change in response to sudden environmental change, as would be experienced under deteriorating sea conditions. Antipredator responses did not covary with hydrodynamic forces in the field. However, antipredator responses in the mesocosm experiment increased when individuals were transplanted from strong to weak forces and decreased when transplanted from weak to strong forces. Overall, our results indicate environmentally induced plasticity in the antipredator behavior of the orange-footed sea cucumber.
Possibilities to forecast early summer rainfall in the Lesotho Lowlands from the El-Niño/Southern Oscillation

Lesotho is located approximately at latitude 30°S in the interior of Southern Africa. The mesocale climate is complicated and governed by various weather systems. The inter-annual rainfall variability is great, resulting in low food security, since the growing of crops is almost exclusively rain-fed. Reliable forecasts of austral summer rainfall, especially early summer rainfall (Octo berDecember), are thus valuable. Earlier research has shown that the El Nino/Southern Oscillation signal from the Pacific can be discerned in Southern Africa. In general the signal from the El Nino/Southern Oscillation is strongest in the later part of the early summer. October, November and early summer rainfall are significantly correlated with certain preceeding values of the Souther n Oscillation Index (SOI), but weakly so. December rainfall and aggregate November-December rainfall are significantly correlate d fairly strongly (r = 0.5 approximately) with certain preceeding SOI values. Lead times of four months seem to be attainable. A contingency analysis basically yields similar results, working on the assumption that the response is non-linear in the sense t hat a certain threshold of the strength of the Southern Oscillation has to be surpassed to ”trigger” a rainfall response in Lesotho. For wet Decembers the average monthly SOI for the preceeding months May to November is positive during all months. For dry Decembers it is negative.
COVID-19 and global food security

The coronavirus pandemic has sparked not only a health crisis but also an economic crisis, which together pose a serious threat to food security, particularly in poorer countries. COVID-19 & Global Food Security brings together a groundbreaking series of IFPRI blog posts looking at the impacts of COVID-19 and the policy responses. IFPRI researchers and guest bloggers provide key insights and analysis on how the global pandemic is affecting global poverty and food security and nutrition, food trade and supply chains, gender, employment, and a variety of policy interventions, as well as reflections on how we can use these lessons to better prepare for future pandemics. These pieces draw on a combination of conceptual arguments, global and country-level simulation models, in-country surveys, case studies, and expert opinions. Together, they present a comprehensive picture of the current and potential impact of COVID-19 and the world’s policy responses on global food and nutrition security.
Anemia Diagnosis on a Simple Paper-based Assay

In developing countries, the maternal and neonatal mortality rate is often affected by prenatal period anemia, a preventable and ubiquitous impairment attributed due to low hemoglobin (Hgb) concentration. We report the development of a simple, frugal (~ 0.02 $ per test), rapid and high fidelity paper-based colorimetric microfluidic device for point-of-care (POC) detection of anemia. We validate our findings with 32 blood samples collected from different patients covering a wide spectrum of anemia and subsequently, compare with standard pathological results measured using a hematology analyzer. POC based Hgb estimates are correlated with the pathological gold standard estimates of Hgb levels (r = 0.909), and the POC test method yielded similar sensitivity and specificity for detecting mild anemia (n = 8) (<11 g/dl) (sensitivity: 87.5%, specificity: 100 %) and for severe anemia (n = 3) (<7 g/dl) (sensitivity: 100 %, specificity: 100 %). The estimated Hgb levels are, within 1.5 g/dl from the pathological estimate, for 91 % of the blood samples. Results demonstrate the elevated efficacy and viability of this POC colorimetric diagnostic test, in comparison to the state-of-the-art complex and expensive diagnostic tests for anemia detection.
Mestizaje and Conviviality in Paraguay

This paper traces the origin of the powerful mestizaje discourse as a marker of Paraguayan identity through the lens of gender and family relations. Rules and practices of family formation and sexuality reflect not only cultural but also sociopolitical hierarchies, and they allow us to connect the microand macro levels. An analysis of the different regimes of conviviality in Paraguay and the role that legitimate or illegitimate birth played in the struggle over group formation and social hierarchy also shows the capacities of a peripheral colonial elite to establish their own standards of social distinction, or the ones of the old elite in early independence period to circumvent a policy directed at their destruction. Finally, we explaine the rise of the nationalistic ideology of mestizaje as a uniquely Paraguayan characteristic at the beginning of the 20th century, and the reasons for its persistence in the 21st century
Effects of human settlement and roads on diel activity patterns of elephants (
 Loxodonta africana
 )

As the human footprint expands worldwide, people and wildlife are coming into greater contact, and areas of human activity may be simultaneously associated with risk and reward for animals. To avoid human threats while exploiting opportunities, animals may adjust their spatiotemporal activity, using areas of anthropogenic disturbance at night when people are less active. We combined four camera trap datasets from Mozambique's Gorongosa National Park to evaluate the effects of roads and settlement on diel activity patterns of elephants (Loxodonta africana). We found high rates of elephant activity along the boundary of the park, where elephants can access cultivated crops, and along roads, which serve as movement corridors. However, elephants restricted their activity to the night and crepuscular periods in these areas of human disturbance, seeking refuge in the interior of the park away from roads and settlements during the day. Our findings suggest that a history of killing and antagonism has instilled a fear of humans in this elephant population, with implications for research, tourism and human–elephant coexistence. Our study highlights the utility of camera traps in monitoring human–wildlife conflict and habituation and demonstrates the value of integrating disparate camera trap datasets for comparative analyses on landscape or even continental scales.
Exploiting Latent Features of Text and Graphs

As the size and scope of online data continues to grow, new machine learning techniques become necessary to best capitalize on the wealth of available information. However, the models that help convert data into knowledge require nontrivial processes to make sense of large collections of text and massive online graphs. In both scenarios, modern machine learning pipelines produce embeddings — semantically rich vectors of latent features — to convert human constructs for machine understanding. In this dissertation we focus on information available within biomedical science, including human-written abstracts of scientific papers, as well as machinegenerated graphs of biomedical entity relationships. We present the Moliere system, and our method for identifying new discoveries through the use of natural language processing and graph mining algorithms. We propose heuristically-based ranking criteria to augment Moliere, and leverage this ranking to identify a new gene-treatment target for HIV-associated Neurodegenerative Disorders. We additionally focus on the latent features of graphs, and propose a new bipartite graph embedding technique. Using our graph embedding, we advance the state-of-the-art in hypergraph partitioning quality. Having newfound intuition of graph embeddings, we present Agatha, a deep-learning approach to hypothesis generation. This system learns a data-driven ranking criteria derived from the embeddings of our large proposed biomedical semantic graph. To produce human-readable results, we additionally propose CBAG,
Genetic and genotypic diversity of Puccinia psidii - the cause of guava/eucalypt/myrtle rust - and preliminary predictions of global areas at risk

Puccinia psidii (Basidiomycota, Uredinales) is a biotrophic rust fungus that was first reported in Brazil from guava (Psidium guajava) in 1884 (Winter 1884) and later from nonnative eucalypt (Eucalyptus capitelata and Corymbia citriodora, syn. Eucalyptus citriodora; Joffily 1944). Considered to be of Neotropical origin, the rust has also been reported to infect diverse myrtaceous hosts elsewhere in South America, Central America, the Caribbean, Mexico, the United States (California, Florida, and Hawaii), Japan, Australia, China, and most recently South Africa and New Caledonia (Carnegie et al. 2010; Giblin 2013; Kawanishi et al. 2009; MacLachlan 1938; Marlatt and Kimbrough 1979; Mellano 2006; Perez et al. 2011; Roux et al. 2013; Uchida et al. 2006; Zambino and Nolan 2011; Zhuang and Wei 2011). Given the rate at which the pathogen is spreading and its wide host range, the objectives of this study are to determine how much genetic diversity exists within populations across the species’ putative native range as well as areas of recent introduction, evaluate possible pathways of spread, and predict the geographic area that is climatically suitable for the species to determine areas at risk of invasion.
Psychosocial Predictors of Love Satisfaction Among College Students from Madeira

Abstract This study examined three sets of psychosocial variables (love styles, perceived social support, and social and emotional loneliness) as predictors of satisfaction with love life among 357 college students from Madeira (57% females). The participants completed four scales, including the Love Attitudes Scale (LAS), the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Support (MSPSS), the Social and Emotional Loneliness Scale (SELSA-S), and the Satisfaction with Love Life Scale (SWLLS). Confirmatory factor analysis supported the unidimensionality of the SWLLS among college students in Madeira region. Overall, satisfaction with love life was significantly predicted by indicators of love styles, perceived social support, and social and emotional loneliness, accounting respectively for 51%, 28%, and 60% of the variance being explained. The study provided additional evidence of the importance of love styles, social support and loneliness in satisfaction with love life.
Are All Internet Users’ Information Privacy Concerns (IUIPC) Created Equal?

: The current study is a conceptual replication of Malhotra, Kim, and Agarwal’s (2004) nomological model of internet user information privacy concerns (IUIPC). We empirically tested the same hypotheses and use conceptually similar (but not exact) measures and analyses. In addition, while the original study explored privacy concerns from a customer perspective within an e-commerce context, this replication explored privacy concerns from a participant perspective within a social networking context. By this, we test the boundaries of the original theory and the strength of the relationships. The findings from this replication study were partially consistent with the original study. Specifically, the relationship between IUIPC and risk beliefs was supported, and the relationship between trusting beliefs and behavioral intention (i.e., revelation of private information) was supported. Consistent with the original study, this study found that sensitive information significantly decreased participants’ intention to reveal private information. However, several other significant relationships in the original study were found non-significant in the context of this replication study. Future research is impacted by this study as we found that not all online information privacy concerns are created equal.
In vivo assessment of fungicides and bioagents for Alternaria blight of radish (Alternaria raphani Groves & Skolko)

Alternaria blight is most important disease in radish caused by Alternaria raphani and also cause serious damage to the crop yield 46.48% and varied from year to year. In vivo, evaluation of six fungicides (Mancozeb, Carbendazim, Ridomil-MZ and Copper oxy chloride (CoC) with 2.5 gm/kg seed; Propiconazole and Hexaconazole with 2.5 ml); three bioagents i.e. (B. cereus, P. fluorescens and T. harzianum with 5 gm/kg seed) tested against A. raphani. Among fungicides Mancozeb was minimum PDI (5.18, 8.02 and 11.44%) and minimum PDS (9.33, 14.66 and 17.33%) at 35, 45 and 55 DAS also most effective and followed by Carbendazim, Ridomil-MZ respectively. In bioagents T. harzianum showed minimum PDI (12.51, 15.17 and 18.74%) and PDS (22.00, 25.33 and 29.66%) at 35, 45 and 55 DAS; also most effective. Maximum yield (kg/plot) showed by Mancozeb (7.28 kg) and followed by Carbendazim, Ridomil-MZ and minimum yield was found in B. cereus.
The Evolution of Technological Substitution in Low-Wage Labor Markets

This paper uses minimum wage hikes to evaluate the susceptibility of low-wage employment to technological substitution. We find that automation is accelerating and supplanting a broader set of low-wage routine jobs since the Financial Crisis. Simultaneously, low-wage interpersonal jobs are increasing and offsetting routine job loss. However, interpersonal job growth does not appear to be enough – as it was prior to the Financial Crisis – to fully offset the negative effects of automation on low-wage routine jobs. Employment losses are most evident among non-Asian people of color who experience outsized losses at routine jobs and smaller gains at interpersonal jobs.
Histopathological Study of Different VLM Stages of Toxocara canis Infection in Liver of Rabbits

Toxocariasis is a zoonotic parasitic disease caused by Toxocara canis nematode emberyonated egg which is usually transmitted to humans mainly in children via the faecal–oral route, or accidently ingested larvae from uncooked liver or meat of infected ruminants and poultry. T. canis larvae remains a problem throughout the world because it remains on arrested stage without development to adult stage and causes multisystem disease in the paratenic hosts such as humans, ruminants, poultry and rodents, most infections are asymptomatic and manifests in humans causing the well-characterized syndrome; Visceral Larva Migrans (VLM). The result of this study indicated detection of T. canis larval stage in liver tissues of infected rabbits at third week post infection. In conclusion the result indicated the possibility of using histopathological examination to diagnosis if there was an infection with T. canis larval stage in paratenic host tissues. It was also recommend that this test could be used to ensure that meat and its products of any local or imported are free from this infection.
Faunal diversity of Cladocera (Crustacea: Branchiopoda) with notes on biogeographically important species in the floodplain wetlands of the Subansiri river basin, India

The plankton samples collected from the Subansiri floodplain wetlands revealed a rich Cladocera assemblage of 55 species belonging to 30 genera and 7 families. The species richness represents 42% and 75% of the total amount of fresh water species reported from India and Assam, respectively. Chydoridae was the most speciose family, with 31 species, while Ilyocryptidae was represented by a single species. Sididae, Daphniidae, Bosminidae, Moinidae and Macrothricidae were represented by four, five, three, two and four species, respectively. The faunal composition is represented by cosmopolitan, tropical and oriental elements. The documentation of Diaphanosoma dubium , Latonopsis australis , Simocephalus mixtus , Chydorus sphaericus , Chydorus parvus , Chydorus ovalis , Alonella clathratula , Pleuroxus cf. denticulatus , Picripleuroxus quasidenticulatus , Celsinotum macronyx , Coronatella anodonta and Kurzia (Rostrukurzia) brevilabris has biogeographic importance. We provide brief geographical distributional remarks about these 12 species from the collected samples. This was a preliminary study, as the fauna from the Indian subcontinent is poorly documented, and requires a taxonomic revision as a whole. The faunistic diversity of cladocerans comprises a clear representation of a tropical cladoceran assemblage.
Credit demand versus supply channels: Experimental- and administrative-based evidence

This paper identifies and quantifies -for the first time- the relative importance of borrower (credit demand) versus bank (supply) balance-sheet channels. We submit fictitious applications (varying households'characteristics) to the major Italian online-mortgage platform. In this way we ensure that all banks receive exactly the same mortgage applications, and that -for each application- there are other identical ones except for one borrower-level characteristic. We find that: (i) Borrower and bank channels are equally strong in causing (and explaining) loan acceptance (each channel changes acceptance by 50 p.p. for the interquartile range and explains 29% of R-square). (ii) Differently, for pricing, borrower factors are much stronger. (iii) Banks supplying less credit accept riskier borrowers. Finally -exploiting administrative credit register data- we document borrower-lender assortative matching: safer banks have more credit relations with safer firms. Moreover, the measure of credit supply estimated in the experiment (differently from a very similar measure estimated from the observational mortgage data) determines bank credit supply to firms and risk-taking in administrative data.
Principles for Enhancing Earth System Governance and Sustainable Development Through Informality

Even though the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change introduced the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) framework as a novel mechanism for improving climate change governance and promoting sustainable development, some studies show that NDCs are still far from achieving the 2°C target. Non-state actors from the informal economy can potentially improve the implementation of the NDCs framework and Sustainable Development Goals framework as much of the urban population growth occurring in developing nations is taking place in slums/informal settlements. This paper is therefore an inductive inquiry to address knowledge gaps on how non-state actors can augment Earth System Governance and NDC implementation in the context of Global South cities. The paper highlights that Earth System Governance and climate change adaptation may be improved by increasing the use of South-South Climate Finance mechanisms in urban adaptation programmes and to facilitate institutional reforms that can lead to substantial increases in domestic tax collection.
The Elephant in the Room: The Often Neglected Relevance of Speciesism in Bias Towards Ethnic Minorities and Immigrants

The area of intergroup bias and, specifically attitudes towards ethnic minorities and/or immigrants, has received a great amount of investigation by (cross-cultural) psychologists, spanning many theories and perspectives (Hewstone et al., 2002). However, one perspective rarely taken in mainstream psychology is one that acknowledges the inter-linkage of bias towards ethnic minorities and/or immigrants and that towards non-human animals (NHAs), despite relatively substantial literature outside of psychology emphasizing it (Singer, 2002). In the present paper, we draw from relevant literature outside and inside of psychology that speaks to the connectivity between attitudes towards marginalized human outgroups and NHAs, focusing on the mechanism of dehumanization in intergroup bias. We also shed light on more recent psychological research, specifically the Interspecies Model of Prejudice (IMP; Costello & Hodson, 2010; Costello & Hodson, 2014a; 2014b) as an example on how psychological research could incorporate speciesism into the discussion of intergroup bias. It is hoped that highlighting the existing rare, yet valuable, research endeavours within psychology inspires further engagement from psychologists interested in cross-cultural, intersectional, and diversity research in order to help better the lives of both marginalized human outgroups and NHAs.