Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of Climate Change, Poverty and Macroeconomic Policies on Agricultural Trade Performance in Nigeria

Aims: This study ascertained the joint influences of climate factors, poverty and macroeconomic environment on agricultural export performance in Nigeria. Study Design: The study is a survey based on time series data. Place and Duration of Study: Secondary data covering 32 years (1978-2009) obtained from Central Bank of Nigeria’s Annual Report and Statistical Bulletin and National Bureau of Statistics were used for the survey. Methodology: The sample size was 32 (years) based on data availability. Data analysis was conducted using bound testing approach of co-integration advanced by Pesaran et al. [25] otherwise known as Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL). model. Test for unit roots in the series were done at their levels and first differences using Augmented Dickey Fuller and Philips Perron tests before applying the ARDL model. Results: Preliminary results from the ARDL model indicated that climate variability (variations in mean annual rainfall), gross fixed capital formation (proxy for wealth accumulated in the economy) and macroeconomic variables including interest rate and volume of domestic credit advanced to the private sector significantly influenced the performance level of agricultural export. However, on the long-run, macroeconomic factors (interest rate and credit to the private sector) and gross fixed capital of the economy (with p values of 0.01, 0.07 and 0.03 respectively were the most significant
A bicomponent Plasmodium falciparum investigational vaccine composed of protein-peptide conjugates

There is yet no licensed vaccine against malaria, a serious human disease affecting mostly children, with an annual death rate of about one million. Plasmodia, the malaria-causing parasites, have two obligatory hosts: mammals or birds, in which they multiply asexually, and mosquitoes with sexual multiplication. The most common and serious type of malaria is caused by Plasmodium falciparum. The circumsporozoite protein (CSP), a major surface antigen of sporozoites, is a protective antigen. A unique feature of P. falciparum CSP is its large central domain composed of over 30 tetrapeptide repeats of Asn-Ala-Asn-Pro (NANP). Several NANP peptide-protein conjugates were tested clinically but elicited a low level of CSP antibodies for a short duration. To provide a CSP-based candidate vaccine, we investigated recombinant CSP and NANP conjugates of various peptide lengths, with different N-terminal amino acids, bound at different ratios to various carrier proteins. Injected into mice, CSP alone and CSP or NANP conjugates induced antibodies with booster responses and were positive by the sporozoite imunofluorescent assay. The use of the mosquito stage P. falciparum ookinete surface protein, Pfs25, cross-linked onto itself as a carrier for NANP, induced in mice high levels of uniquely long-lasting antibodies to both vaccine components with secondary biological activities, that will provide immunity to liver infection by sporozoites and block transmission by mosquitoes.
What Makes Retirees Happier: A Gradual or 'Cold Turkey' Retirement?

This study explores the factors that affect an individual’s happiness while transitioning into retirement. Recent studies highlight gradual retirement as an attractive option to older workers as they approach full retirement. However, it is not clear whether phasing or cold turkey makes for a happier retirement. Using longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Study, this study explores what shapes the change in happiness between the last wave of full employment and the first wave of full retirement. Results suggest that what really matters is not the type of transition (gradual retirement or cold turkey), but whether people perceive the transition as chosen or forced.
Cellulase digestibility of pretreated biomass is limited by cellulose accessibility

Attempts to correlate the physical and chemical properties of biomass to its susceptibility to enzyme digestion are often inconclusive or contradictory depending on variables such as the type of substrate, the pretreatment conditions and measurement techniques. In this study, we present a direct method for measuring the key factors governing cellulose digestibility in a biomass sample by directly probing cellulase binding and activity using a purified cellobiohydrolase (Cel7A) from Trichoderma reesei. Fluorescence‐labeled T. reesei Cel7A was used to assay pretreated corn stover samples and pure cellulosic substrates to identify barriers to accessibility by this important component of cellulase preparations. The results showed cellulose conversion improved when T. reesei Cel7A bound in higher concentrations, indicating that the enzyme had greater access to the substrate. Factors such as the pretreatment severity, drying after pretreatment, and cellulose crystallinity were found to directly impact enzyme accessibility. This study provides direct evidence to support the notion that the best pretreatment schemes for rendering biomass more digestible to cellobiohydrolase enzymes are those that improve access to the cellulose in biomass cell walls, as well as those able to reduce the crystallinity of cell wall cellulose. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 2007; 98: 112–122. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Advertising, Concentration and Profitability in Manufacturing

This paper predicts an inverted-U relationship between concentration and advertising only for oligopolistic industries facing relatively less elastic demand curves. It rejects the inverted-U theory based on the hypothesis that the large firms collude and lends empirical support to the idea that causation runs from concentration to advertising intensity. By confirming that the effect of advertising on profitability is significant and greater for industries producing homogeneous goods than for those producing heterogeneous goods, this study fails to support the barriers-to-entry hypothesis. Copyright 1991 by Oxford University Press.
Influence of injury and cytokines on synthesis of monocyte chemoattractant protein‐1 mRNA in peripheral nervous tissue

The signals and the source of the signals for monocyte/macrophage entry into the injured peripheral nervous tissue are not yet defined. This study was undertaken to determine the distribution of the chemokine monocyte chemoattractant protein‐1 mRNA in injured rat and mouse nerves and to investigate the mechanisms that regulate its synthesis in rat Schwann cells. Results from RNase protection assays showed that, following sciatic nerve transection in rats, mRNA for monocyte chemoattractant protein‐1 was induced at the site of lesion within 3 h of surgery and in more distal segments from 24 h for at least 8 days. In cultured Schwann cells, tumour necrosis factor‐α but not interleukin‐1β, interleukin‐6, transforming growth factor‐β1, platelet‐derived growth factor‐BB or nerve growth factor induced monocyte chemoattractant protein‐1 mRNA in a time‐ and dose‐dependent fashion. The induction of monocyte chemoattractant protein‐1 mRNA in Schwann cells treated with tumour necrosis factor‐α was reduced by inhibitors of nuclear factor‐κB and the p38 mitogen‐activated protein kinase. In mice that lack the two receptors for tumour necrosis factor, the message for JE, a murine homologue of monocyte chemoattractant protein‐1, was still induced within 6 h of injury at the lesion site. However, in more distal segments 4 days after transection the concentration of JE mRNA was lower than that of control mice. Tumor necrosis factor‐α is the only cytokine that was shown to induce monocyte chemoattractant protein‐1 mRNA in cultured Schwann cells and is one of the factors that regulate the synthesis of monocyte chemoattractant protein‐1 in injured nerves.
The evolution of polyandry: multiple mating and female fitness in insects

Theory suggests that male fitness generally increases steadily with mating rate, while one or a few matings are sufficient for females to maximize their reproductive success. Contrary to these predictions, however, females of the majority of insects mate multiply. We performed a meta-analysis of 122 experimental studies addressing the direct effects of multiple mating on female fitness in insects. Our results clearly show that females gain directly from multiple matings in terms of increased lifetime offspring production. Despite a negative effect of remating on female longevity in species without nuptial feeding, the positive effects (increased egg production rate and fertility) more than outweigh this negative effect for moderate mating rates. The average direct net fitness gain of multiple mating was as high as 30-70%. Therefore, the evolutionary maintenance of polyandry in insects can be understood solely in terms of direct effects. However, our results also strongly support the existence of an intermediate optimal female mating rate, beyond which a further elevated mating rate is deleterious. The existence of such optima implies that sexual conflict over the mating rate should be very common in insects, and that sexually antagonistic coevolution plays a key role in the evolution of mating systems and of many reproductive traits. We discuss the origin and maintenance of nuptial feeing in the light of our findings, and suggest that elaborate and nutritional ejaculates may be the result of sexually antagonistic coevolution. Future research should aim at gaining a quantitative understanding of the evolution of female mating rates. Copyright 2000 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.
Plasmonic Photopatterning: High‐Resolution and High‐Throughput Plasmonic Photopatterning of Complex Molecular Orientations in Liquid Crystals (Adv. Mater. 12/2016)

On page 2353, Q. -H. Wei and co-workers present a plasmonic photopatterning technique for aligning liquid-crystal (LC) molecules into arbitrarily complex patterns. By encoding target molecular orientations in plasmonic metamasks, this technique enables repeatable and scalable alignments of LCs with high spatial resolution and high throughput, which promises applications in the fabrication of various LC devices.
Electrical Stimulation (ES) in the Management of Sexual Pain Disorders

We performed an open study to investigate the use of electrical stimulation (ES) on the vestibular area and vaginal introitus in women with sexual pain disorders. We recruited 29 women (age range 20-45 years) from among the patients at our Reproductive Psychobiology Unit to participate in the present study. They each experienced vestibular pain, inducing dyspareunia and vaginism. We performed ES with an ECL43400 apparatus (Elite, EssediEsse srl, Milan, Italy) once a week for 10 weeks. To evaluate the muscular activity of the perineal floor and sexual function, we employed the same apparatus with a vaginal probe for recording myoelectrical activity ( V), we employed a VAS scale for evaluating pain, and we administered the Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI; Rosen et al., 2000) before and after the study protocol. We analyzed data by parametric and nonparametric comparisons and correlations, as appropriate. Our major findings were as follows: (a) the contractile ability of pelvic floor muscles (p
Exact Configuration of Poverty, Inequality and Polarization Trends in the Distribution of well-being in Cameroon

This study attempts to carry out a comprehensive analysis of poverty, inequality and polarization trends using Cameroon household surveys collected before and during the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) process. The theoretical decomposition frameworks propelling the study are motivated mainly by the Shapley value. Empirical estimates are obtained from the software DAD 4.4 using both money-metric and child nutrition indicators, and poverty lines, with the monetary threshold derived nonparametrically. Effects within-zones account for much of monetary poverty changes than effects between-zones. The findings that inter-zone effects contribute to alleviating rural poverty while aggravating urban poverty, suggests the potential for rural–urban migration to alleviate rural poverty. Changes in money-metric poverty and health deprivation sharply contrast each other. While health poverty deteriorated, income poverty retreated. This is an indication that economic growth may not necessarily engender significant reduction in all dimensions of well-being. Changes in health poverty are driven largely by effects of redistribution, whereas for income poverty the growth component seems to be more important. Both income and non-income dimensions highlight the dominant role of within-group components in accounting for inequality trends. However, while the between-group contributions to inequality are negligible in the health dimension, they are non-negligible in the income space. In terms of levels, polarization and inequality are more of an urban than a rural problem, yet inequality and polarization worsened only in rural areas in the period 1996–2001. As a whole, polarization indices do not give dissimilar trends from standard measures of inequality. The conflicting results from income and health well-being indicators are attributable to the observation that the economic rebound in Cameroon was preceded by fiscal austerity measures embedded in the Structural Adjustment Programmes that engendered a decline in the availability of public goods. Moreover, health indicators are slow-moving compared with income or expenditure, which does not include the quality of service received from social expenditures on health and nutrition. These results have implications for policy making: in terms of income deprivation, emphasis could be on growth-based labour-intensive policies that create opportunities for the rural poor to increase their incomes; and in terms of child health and perhaps general health, emphasis could be on redistribution of health infrastructure and personnel to increase outreach.
Developing an Effective Customer Loyalty Program

Despite the large number of firms offering loyalty programs and their high levels of consumer membership, many of these loyalty programs have not been successful. This article differentiates among four different types of loyalty programs and offers a series of guidelines to assist firms to develop, implement, and control an effective loyalty program. It also describes several potential pitfalls that need to be avoided.
Measurement of the ratio of sea to valence quarks in the nucleon.

The ratio of sea to valence quarks for nucleons in tungsten has been measured for the fractional momentum range 0.04{lt}{ital x}{sub {ital N}}{lt}0.36. The determination is based on the relative production rate of muon pairs by {pi}{sup +} and {pi}{sup {minus}} beams on a tungsten target. The results provide the most accurate determination to date of this ratio in the region {ital x}{sub {ital N}}{lt}0.1 and {ital Q}{sup 2}{gt}20 GeV{sup 2}, and are in good agreement with earlier measurements.
A Tale of Two Investors: Estimating Optimism and Overconfidence

We estimate investors’ sentiment from option and stock prices by anchoring objective beliefs to a neoclassical pricing kernel. Our estimates of sentiment correlate well with other sentiment measures such as the Baker–Wurgler index, the Yale/Shiller crash confidence index and the Duke/CFO survey responses, and yet contain additional information. Our analysis points out three significant issues related to overconfidence. First, the Baker–Wurgler index strongly reflects excessive optimism but not overconfidence. Second, overconfidence drives the pricing kernel puzzle. Third, the dynamics of optimism and overconfidence generate a perceived negative risk-return relationship, while objectively the relationship is positive. Optimism and overconfidence about market returns co-move together, inflating asset prices in good times and exacerbating market crashes in bad times.
Shale Gas Boom Affecting the Relationship Between LPG and Oil Prices

Abstract Liquefied petroleum gases (LPGs) together with other natural gas liquids (NGLs) have played an important role in the current U.S. shale gas boom. Depressed gas prices in recent years have made pure natural gas operations less profitable. The result is that liquids components in gas production have become increasingly important in ensuring the profitability of shale gas operations. In this paper we investigate whether the shale gas expansion, which has led to an increase in associated LPG production, has also affected the historically strong relationship between LPG and oil prices. Revealing the strength and stability of the LPG/oil relationship is relevant when it comes to the future profitability and development of the U.S. natural gas sector. Our results suggest that the LPG/oil relationship has weakened in recent years with a move towards cheaper liquids relative to oil. This is consistent with developments in the natural gas sector with increased liquids production. A consequence is that U.S. natural gas operations cannot automatically rely on high liquids prices to ensure profitability.
Risk And Return: New Insights For Theory, Measurement And Management

This study investigates the risk-return relationship by using an ordinal strategic risk measure of risk rather than the more conventional variance-based measures. A set of hypotheses is specified linking ordinal strategic risk, return, and organizational slack. Empirical results are interesting in that they allow elaborating the idea that strategic risk may have a positive effect on subsequent performance and that performance has a negative effect on subsequent risk. Such a self-correcting cycle offers an interesting contrast to the “vicious circle” proposed by previous risk-return research based on prospect theory. Overall, this paper suggests that new conceptual and methodological risk approaches are needed to better understand the risk taking process in organizations.
MIT Advanced Vehicle Technology Study: Large-Scale Naturalistic Driving Study of Driver Behavior and Interaction With Automation

Today, and possibly for a long time to come, the full driving task is too complex an activity to be fully formalized as a sensing-acting robotics system that can be explicitly solved through model-based and learning-based approaches in order to achieve full unconstrained vehicle autonomy. Localization, mapping, scene perception, vehicle control, trajectory optimization, and higher-level planning decisions associated with autonomous vehicle development remain full of open challenges. This is especially true for unconstrained, real-world operation where the margin of allowable error is extremely small and the number of edge-cases is extremely large. Until these problems are solved, human beings will remain an integral part of the driving task, monitoring the AI system as it performs anywhere from just over 0% to just under 100% of the driving. The governing objectives of the MIT Advanced Vehicle Technology (MIT-AVT) study are to 1) undertake large-scale real-world driving data collection that includes high-definition video to fuel the development of deep learning-based internal and external perception systems; 2) gain a holistic understanding of how human beings interact with vehicle automation technology by integrating video data with vehicle state data, driver characteristics, mental models, and self-reported experiences with technology; and 3) identify how technology and other factors related to automation adoption and use can be improved in ways that save lives. In pursuing these objectives, we have instrumented 23 Tesla Model S and Model X vehicles, 2 Volvo S90 vehicles, 2 Range Rover Evoque, and 2 Cadillac CT6 vehicles for both long-term (over a year per driver) and medium-term (one month per driver) naturalistic driving data collection. Furthermore, we are continually developing new methods for the analysis of the massive-scale dataset collected from the instrumented vehicle fleet. The recorded data streams include IMU, GPS, and CAN messages, and high-definition video streams of the driver’s face, the driver cabin, the forward roadway, and the instrument cluster (on select vehicles). The study is on-going and growing. To date, we have 122 participants, 15610 days of participation, 511638 mi, and 7.1 billion video frames. This paper presents the design of the study, the data collection hardware, the processing of the data, and the computer vision algorithms currently being used to extract actionable knowledge from the data.
US Managers' Use of ‘Pro Forma’ Adjustments to Meet Strategic Earnings Targets

Abstract: The practice of reporting manager-adjusted ‘pro forma’ earnings numbers in quarterly earnings press releases has attracted considerable attention in recent years in the United States. Prior research suggests that while some managers report these adjusted numbers to better reflect core earnings, others may use these earnings adjustments to meet strategic earnings targets on a pro forma basis when they fall short based on GAAP reporting standards. Assuming the latter motivation could potentially mislead investors, the difficulty lies in distinguishing the ‘good guys’ from the ‘bad guys. ’ Using hand-collected pro forma earnings data, we investigate the extent to which different types of earnings adjustments affect the spread between pro forma earnings and GAAP earnings from continuing operations. Moreover, we investigate which types of adjustments managers use to meet strategic earnings targets. In addition to the exclusion of one-time items like restructuring charges, the results indicate that managers often exclude recurring expenses such as depreciation, research and development, and stock-based compensation to meet these strategic targets. The exclusion of recurring items is especially indicative of aggressive pro forma reporting. Finally, we find that firms that report adjusted earnings numbers only sporadically are more likely than firms that adjust earnings figures on a regular basis to use pro forma reporting to achieve strategic earnings targets by excluding recurring items.
Neonatal invasive candidiasis in Tunisian hospital: incidence, risk factors, distribution of species and antifungal susceptibility

The aim of our study was to assess epidemiological features of neonatal invasive candidiasis in Farhat Hached hospital of Sousse, Tunisia, including incidence, risk factors, mortality, species distribution and antifungal susceptibility. Laboratory data from 1995 to 2010 and medical records of 127 invasive candidiasis cases were reviewed. We tested the susceptibility of 100 Candida sp isolates by using ATB fungus®3 and to fluconazole by using E‐test® strips. A total of 252 cases of neonatal invasive candidiasis occurred over the study period. The incidence increased 1.8‐fold from 1995 to 2006 and decreased fourfold from 2007 to 2010. Candida albicans was the predominant species up to 2006 and a shift in the species spectrum was observed with increase of the non‐albicans species mainly C. parapsilosis. The agreement between the ATB Fungus® and the E‐test® for determining fluconazole susceptibility was high. All tested isolates were susceptible to fluconazole, flucytosine, amphotéricine B and voriconazole and the itraconazole resistance rate was 5%. The mortality rate was 63%. The invasive candidiasis incidence increased from 1995 to 2006 and decreased from 2007 to 2010. The spectrum of Candida species and the lack of fluconazole‐resistant strains argue for the usefulness of fluconazole as an empiric treatment.