Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Geographical and longitudinal approach to rural livelihood security and crisis responses in Central Kenya: The case of crop variety and livestock breed selection

The study took a geographical and longitudinal approach as opposed to cross-sectional approach in detecting dynamic changes in livelihood strategies of smallholder farmers at two sites in Kabendera and Kiambogo, Central Kenya. The aim was to enhance the understanding of the ways in which households cope and adapt under increasingly evident and significant economic changes and agro-climatic events using the case of crop variety and livestock breed selection. It revealed that households engaged in various economic activities classified into five sectors namely: Agriculture, non-farm activities, livestock, forest product extraction, and off-farm activities. A partitioning of the households into four groups with reference to the sectoral composition of their annual net incomes revealed that all the four livelihood strategy clusters comparatively employed one dominant sector/activity with percentage contribution to annual net total income being above average and other sectors/activities playing a secondary role except for one cluster which is truly diversified. These were referred to as forest product extractors, non-farm activity entrepreneurs, diversified livestock keepers and agriculturists. The analysis of household’s coping and adaptation experiences using crop variety and livestock breed selection brought to light a multiplicity of criteria upon which farmers based their decisions. These were grouped into six explanatory factors: Geographic-environmental, economic-commercial, administrative, agronomic, socio-cultural and historical. On the basis of these findings, the study argued for place-based analysis at both household-level and local-levels in enhancing understanding of local-level decisions in adoption of different livelihood strategies in the face of changing economic conditions and agro-climatic events. Even though the study is limited to the local scope, it can provide a basis for designing policies aimed at rural livelihood security improvement to inform and facilitate targeting of outside interventions such as food security programs which can be built on existing livelihood strategies. Key words: Rural livelihood, coping strategies, economic liberalization, drought, Kenya.
Continuity Under a Different Name: The Outcome of Privatisation in Serbia

ABSTRACT Normally, privatisation is seen as beneficial. This paper considers the case of Serbia – a latecomer in the matter – where privatisation was partly a result of exogenous pressures and where the process has been deemed a failure. In Serbia, a sizeable number of privatised firms were bought by bureaucrats and politicians and all firms were subjected to a period of supervision. We argue that the design of this process allowed rent-seekers to conserve their privileges through asset-stripping, which explains the failure. In order to do so, we perform an empirical analysis of the determinants of liquidation, merger and bankruptcy of privatised firms from 2002 to 2015. We construct a novel data set from primary sources, free of the ‘survivorship bias’ and containing proxies for various types of owners, indirect signs of asset-stripping strategy and a broad range of controls. Our results indicate that firms owned by politicians faced significantly higher risks of bankruptcy, especially after the end of supervision.
THE FACET VERSUS GLOBAL APPROACHES TO JOB SATISFACTION 342 ANTECEDENTS TO JOB SATISFACTION 344 CONSEQUENCES OF JOB SATISFACTION

The expression “You are what you do” could not have been more fitting for our ancestors, who frequently took their names from hereditary occupations: Archer, Brewer, Butcher, Dalal, Daruwala, Gandhi, Guerrero, Jagger, Judge, Kuznetsov(a), Mason, Miner, Naylor, Porter, Schneider, Skinner, Smith/Schmidt/Schmitt, Sodawaterbottleopenerwala, Tinker, and Zapatero, to name but a few (Hulin, 2002). The connection between work and identity today may not be quite so literal, but it is no less consequential. After accounting for time spent sleeping and eating, most adults spend the majority of each weekday working. A satisfying job can provide meaning to life and be a source of self-worth; a dissatisfying job can be intolerable and a source of sleepless nights. Oral histories (e.g., Working; Terkel, 1974), ruminative essays (e.g., The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work; de Botton, 2009a), novels (e.g., The Remains of the Day; Ishiguro, 1988), plays (e.g., Death of a Salesman; Miller, 1949), and poems (e.g., Mowing; Frost, 2002), among others, provide eloquent illustrations of the impact of work on human existence and dignity. Although it seems quite possible for people to get through life without forming attitudes about Justin Bieber, the town of Alice Springs, the Mona Lisa, CrocsTM Clogs, dim sum, blood donation, a university’s honor code, or tax cuts for the wealthy, it seems inconceivable that people
Explorer Chicken CD 14 , unlike mammalian CD 14 , is transmembrane rather than GPI-anchored

A cDNA encoding the chicken homologue of the human myelomonocytic differentiation antigen, CD14, was cloned by RT-PCR from chicken bone marrow cell RNA, using oligonucleotide primers based on the predicted cDNA sequence. The cloned chicken CD14 (chCD14) cDNA encodes an open reading frame of 465 amino acids (aa), with 31–34% aa identity to mouse, bovine and human (hu) CD14. As in mouse and man, chCD14 is a leucine-rich protein. In mammals, CD14 is a GPI-anchored protein. Protein structure analysis suggested that chCD14, by contrast, was potentially a trans-membrane protein. The predicted aa sequence comprises an extracellular domain of 417 aa, followed by a 23-aa trans-membrane segment, and a 25-aa intracytoplasmic region, the latter containing no obvious signalling motifs. COS-7 cells were transfected with p3XFLAG-CMV-8::chCD14 or pCDM8::huCD14, incubated with or without PI-PLC and stained with anti-FLAG or anti-huCD14 antibody respectively. PI-PLC cleaved huCD14 but not chCD14, suggesting that chCD14 is not GPI-anchored. Real-time quantitative RT-PCR analysis revealed that chCD14 mRNA was expressed in most lymphoid and non-lymphoid tissues, except muscle. ChCD14 mRNA was also expressed in most cells examined but strongly expressed in chicken peripheral blood monocyte/macrophages and KUL01 splenocytes. 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Risk, uncertainty and pasture investment decisions

The private decisions of farmers to invest in new technologies interest economists because these decisions influence the rate of farm productivity growth and the returns to public investment in agricultural research and development. Economic analysis of decisions to invest in new technologies on farms involves considering the effects of these decisions on the profitability and risk of the farm business. This is done routinely using whole-farm economic models and techniques such as stochastic simulation. Such analysis can be used to predict the extent to which a technology is likely to be adopted in equilibrium, when the consequences of adoption are known to all potential adopters. Until this equilibrium is reached, however, potential adopters of new technologies face uncertainty about the consequences of adoption. This alters expectations about the effects on profitability and risk of adoption, and hence alters investment decisions. The resolution of uncertainty over time through learning is therefore a key determinant of the rate at which new technologies are adopted, and hence should be represented in dynamic economic models which seek to explain these decisions.
SIMILARITY AND LIKING EFFECTS ON INTERPERSONAL ATTRACTION: TEST OF THE TWO-DIMENSIONAL TRUST-RESPECT MODEL

In the two-dimensional cognitive model of interpersonal attraction, (a) trust in willingness to facilitate goals/needs of each other and (b) respect for capacity to execute that willingness have been postulated to be necessary for relationship development. However, the extant literature shows supremacy of trust over respect in drawing two strangers together. Thus, the present authors hypothesized that trust and respect might drive attraction equally when the partner’s liking for the participant is known along with attitude similarity between them. When attitude similarity and partner’s liking were manipulated and both respect and trust were measured before attraction in an experiment conducted in Singapore (N = 176), there were similar additive effects on the three responses of trust, respect, and attraction. Importantly, and as hypothesized, trust and respect equally mediated the similarity and liking effects when trust was conceptualized as preceding respect in determining attraction.
Ketogenic Diet Affects Sleep Architecture in C57BL/6J Wild Type and Fragile X Mice

Nearly half of children with fragile X syndrome experience sleep problems including trouble falling asleep and frequent nighttime awakenings. The goals here were to assess sleep–wake cycles in mice in response to Fmr1 genotype and a dietary intervention that reduces hyperactivity. Electroencephalography (EEG) results were compared with published rest–activity patterns to determine if actigraphy is a viable surrogate for sleep EEG. Specifically, sleep–wake patterns in adult wild type and Fmr1KO littermate mice were recorded after EEG electrode implantation and the recordings manually scored for vigilance states. The data indicated that Fmr1KO mice exhibited sleep–wake patterns similar to wild type littermates when maintained on a control purified ingredient diet. Treatment with a high-fat, low-carbohydrate ketogenic diet increased the percentage of non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep in both wild type and Fmr1KO mice during the dark cycle, which corresponded to decreased activity levels. Treatment with a ketogenic diet flattened diurnal sleep periodicity in both wild type and Fmr1KO mice. Differences in several sleep microstructure outcomes (number and length of sleep and wake bouts) supported the altered sleep states in response to a ketogenic diet and were correlated with altered rest–activity cycles. While actigraphy may be a less expensive, reduced labor surrogate for sleep EEG during the dark cycle, daytime resting in mice did not correlate with EEG sleep states.
Effect of Alum Waste Addition on the Fluidity, Initial and Finial Setting and Compressive Strength of Ordinary Portland Cement Mortar

Alumwaste obtained from the AluminumSulfate Company of Egypt (Shaba Al-Masria) causes several environmental problems related to its dumping and particles fineness. The possibility of using this waste as cementitious materialin the preparation of cement mortar paste was studied. The effect of five levels of waste addition from 0 to 10% by weight on the properties of the formed mortars was investigated. These properties include the fluidity of mortar, the initial and final setting times and the compressive strength at 28 days.
Relationship between Preoperative Echocardiographic Parameters and the Incidence of Postoperative Complications in Patients Undergoing Clipping of Unruptured Intracranial Aneurysms: A Retrospective Cohort Study

Background and Objectives: Preoperative echocardiography is widely performed in patients undergoing major surgeries to evaluate cardiac functions and detect structural abnormalities. However, studies on the clinical usefulness of preoperative echocardiography in patients undergoing cerebral aneurysm clipping are limited. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the correlation between preoperative echocardiographic parameters and the incidence of postoperative complications in patients undergoing clipping of unruptured intracranial aneurysms. Materials and Methods: Electronic medical records of patients who underwent clipping of an unruptured intracranial aneurysm from September 2018 to April 2020 were retrospectively reviewed. Data on baseline characteristics, laboratory variables, echocardiographic parameters, postoperative complications, and hospital stays were obtained. Univariable and multivariable logistic regression analyses were performed to identify independent variables related to the occurrence of postoperative complications and prolonged hospital stay (≥8 d). Results: Among 531 patients included in the final analysis, 27 (5.1%) had postoperative complications. In multivariable logistic regression, the total amount of crystalloids infused (1.002 (1.001–1.003), p = 0.001) and E/e’ ratio (1.17 (1.01–1.35), p = 0.031) were significant independent factors associated with the occurrence of a postoperative complication. Additionally, the maximal diameter of a cerebral aneurysm (1.13 (1.02–1.25), p = 0.024), total amount of crystalloids infused (1.001 (1.000–1.002), p = 0.031), E/A ratio (0.22 (0.05–0.95), p = 0.042), and E/e’ ratio (1.16 (1.04–1.31), p = 0.011) were independent factors related to prolonged hospitalization. Conclusions: Echocardiographic parameters related to diastolic function might be associated with postoperative complications in patients undergoing clipping of unruptured intracranial aneurysms.
Online Class, Cyberbullying, and Internet Addiction during COVID-19 and Its Effect on Mental Health of UPM Undergraduate Students

The pandemic of COVID-19 is a major public health problem throughout the world. The study conducted is to examine whether the relationship between online classes, Cyberbullying, and internet addiction can affect the mental health of undergraduate students at Universiti Putra Malaysia. The respondent is randomly chosen from students. The study employed quantitative methodology by distributing questionnaires among undergraduate students (n=167). The results of the study show that there is a significant difference in the mental health of depression and stress between male and female students. However, there are contradictory results for the mental health of anxiety the result demonstrated that there was no significant difference in the mental health of anxiety between male and female students. Furthermore, it also was found that there was a significantly correlated in all relationships between online classes and mental health, for Internet addiction and mental health among undergraduate students. There was a contradiction for cyberbullying as the result was only significantly correlated for mental health (stress), mental health (depression) and anxiety was not significantly correlated. The results indicated that both independent variables of cyberbullying and Internet addiction behavior were found to be significant predictors of mental health among undergraduate students. The results of this study are thought to aid other researchers by adding to the scant academic literature in this field.
STRUCTURAL DESIGN GUIDELINES FOR WIND TUNNEL MODELS MADE BY RAPID PROTOTYPING

Design guidelines are presented to help in designing subsonic wind tunnel models fabricated by rapid prototyping. The focus is on the structural design and manufacturing aspects, which include the overall model architecture, attaining adequate stiffness and strength by reinforcing the polymer models with metallic inserts, realization of suitable connections between parts, and issues related to the design of the individual components. Four aircraft models designed by students as part of their final-year aerospace engineering project have been produced. The testing results indicate that aerodynamic data of acceptable quality can be collected from rapid prototyping models while offering significant cost and production time advantages over machined metal ones.
Genetic analysis of plectranthus L. (Lamiaceae) in Saudi Arabia based on RAPD and ISSR markers.

The genetic diversity and phylogenetic analyses of seven species of the genus Plectranthus (Lamiaceae) from Saudi Arabia were carried out by using the Inter Simple Sequence Repeats (ISSR), Randomly Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD), and combined ISSR and RAPD markers. Ten RAPD primers and five ISSR primers generated 137 polymorphic amplified fragments, which pointed a relatively high level of genetic variation in Plectranthus. RAPD markers revealed a higher level of polymorphism (105 bands) than ISSR (32 bands). The clustering of genotypes within groups showed difference upon comparison of RAPD and ISSR derived dendrograms. We could identify four clades within Plectranthus, which are largely in support, with a bit contradiction, of traditional groupings. Taxonomic and phylogenetic implications are discussed in comparison with the available gross morphological, anatomical, and phytochemical data. The results of this study present useful data for assessing the taxonomy of Plectranthus both at subgeneric and sectional levels. Moreover, our results indicate some level of resemblance among the species of subgenus Germanea and support the monophyly of this subgenus. The most interesting outcome of this analysis was identifying P. arabicus with distinguishing characters and suggesting that it should be treated as a distinct subgenus. In the same vein, distinguishing differences between the closely related endemic species P. asirensis and P. hijazensis were also noted suggesting that they should be placed in different subgenus. Similarly, P. asirensis and P. cylindraceus should be placed under a monophyletic group and this shows some closeness with P. tenuiflorus.
Carbon isotope composition of Caribbean Sea surface waters: Response to the uptake of anthropogenic CO2

The burning of fossil fuels and deforestation have significantly increased atmospheric CO2 levels, from ∼280 ppm prior to the industrial revolution to the present value of ∼390 ppm. Suess (1955) was the first to show that the carbon isotopic composition of the atmosphere is changing in response to the anthropogenic input of radiocarbon‐dead, 13C depleted CO2 from fossil fuel combustion. Here we report a high resolution planktonic foraminiferal δ13C record from the Caribbean Sea for the last 300 years that clearly resolves the timing and magnitude of the marine 13C Suess effect associated with the oceanic uptake of anthropogenically derived CO2. Cariaco Basin sediment trap and upper‐most box core sediment δ13C match both the trend and magnitude of observed δ13C changes in atmospheric CO2 over the last 15 years. The longer sediment record suggests the marine Suess effect to be −0.75 ‰ from pre‐industrial values, with most of the change occurring since 1950, coincident with the rapid rise in atmospheric CO2 noted in ice core and instrumental data. If the current anthropogenic CO2 emission trend continues, extrapolating our marine δ13C rate curve into the future suggests that the rate of marine δ13C change caused by anthropogenic CO2 will increase to −0.10 ‰ yr−1 by the end of this century, an increase of more than an order of magnitude from 1950 values.
Patients’ Perspectives on Commencing Oral Anticoagulants in Atrial Fibrillation: An Exploratory Qualitative Descriptive Study

Background: Oral anticoagulants (OACs) are prescribed to patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) in order to lower stroke risk. However, patient refusal to commence OACs hinders effective anticoagulation. This study aimed to explore barriers and facilitators to patient agreement to commence OACs from the perspectives of patients with AF attending Australian general practices. Methods: A qualitative descriptive study utilising semi-structured individual interviews was conducted from March to July 2022. Results: Ten patients (60% male, median age = 78.5 years) completed interviews. Patients’ passive roles in decision-making were identified as a facilitator. Other prominent facilitators included doctors explaining adequately and aligning their recommendations with patients’ overall health goals, including the prevention of stroke and associated disabilities, and a clear understanding of the pros and cons of taking OACs. Reportedly insufficient explanation from doctors and the inconvenience associated with taking warfarin were identified as potential barriers. Conclusion: Addressing factors that influence patient agreement to commence OACs should be an essential aspect of quality improvement interventions. Subsequent studies should also delve into the perspectives of eligible patients with AF who choose not to commence OACs as well as the perspectives of both patients and doctors regarding the decision to continue OAC treatment.
Collateral Scarcity Premia in Euro Area Repo Markets

Collateral plays a very important role in financial markets. Without easy access to high-quality collateral, dealers and market participants would find it more costly to trade, with a negative impact on market liquidity and the real economy through increased financing costs. The role of collateral has become increasingly significant since the global financial crisis, partly due to regulatory reforms. Using bond-level data from both repo and securities lending markets, this paper introduces a new measure of collateral reuse and studies the drivers of the cost of obtaining high-quality collateral, i.e. the collateral scarcity premium, proxied by specialness of government bond repos. We find that the cost of obtaining high-quality collateral increases with demand pressures in the cash market (short-selling activities), even in calm financial market conditions. In bear market conditions ‒ when good collateral is needed the most ‒ this could lead to tensions in some asset market segments. Collateral reuse may alleviate some of these tensions by reducing the collateral scarcity premia. Yet, it requires transparency and monitoring due to the financial stability risks associated. Finally, we find that the launch of the ECB quantitative easing programme has a statistically significant, albeit limited, impact on sovereign collateral scarcity premia, but this impact is offset by the beginning of the ECB Securities Lending Programme. JEL Classification: E52, G12, G23