Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Impact of Coffee Certification on Small-Scale Producers’ Livelihoods: Evidence from Ethiopia

What is the impact of product certification on small-scale farmers’ livelihoods? To what extent does the participation of Ethiopian small-scale coffee farmers in certified local cooperative structures improve their socio-economic situation? To answer these questions, this paper employs household data of 249 coffee farmers from six different cooperatives collected in the Jimma zone of Southwestern Ethiopia in 2009. Findings show that the certification of coffee cooperatives has in total a low impact on small-scale coffee producers’ livelihoods mainly due to (1) low productivity, (2) an insignificant price premium, and (3) poor access to credit and information from the cooperative. Differences in production and organizational capacities between the local cooperatives are mirrored in the extent of the certification benefits for the smallholders. ‘Good’ cooperatives have reaped the benefits of certification, whereas ‘bad’ ones did not fare well. In this regard the “cooperative effect” overlies the “certification effect”.
Benthic Nitrogen Loss in the Arabian Sea Off Pakistan

A pronounced deficit of nitrogen (N) in the oxygen minimum zone (OMZ) of the Arabian Sea suggests the occurrence of heavy N-loss that is commonly attributed to pelagic processes. However, the OMZ water is in direct contact with sediments on three sides of the basin. Contribution from benthic N-loss to the total N-loss in the Arabian Sea remains largely unassessed. In October 2007, we sampled the water column and surface sediments along a transect cross-cutting the Arabian Sea OMZ at the Pakistan continental margin, covering a range of station depths from 360 to 1430 m. Benthic denitrification and anammox rates were determined by using 15N-stable isotope pairing experiments. Intact core incubations showed declining rates of total benthic N-loss with water depth from 0.55 to 0.18 mmol N m−2 day−1. While denitrification rates measured in slurry incubations decreased from 2.73 to 1.46 mmol N m−2 day−1 with water depth, anammox rates increased from 0.21 to 0.89 mmol N m−2 day−1. Hence, the contribution from anammox to total benthic N-loss increased from 7% at 360 m to 40% at 1430 m. This trend is further supported by the quantification of cd1-containing nitrite reductase (nirS), the biomarker functional gene encoding for cytochrome cd1-Nir of microorganisms involved in both N-loss processes. Anammox-like nirS genes within the sediments increased in proportion to total nirS gene copies with water depth. Moreover, phylogenetic analyses of NirS revealed different communities of both denitrifying and anammox bacteria between shallow and deep stations. Together, rate measurement and nirS analyses showed that anammox, determined for the first time in the Arabian Sea sediments, is an important benthic N-loss process at the continental margin off Pakistan, especially in the sediments at deeper water depths. Extrapolation from the measured benthic N-loss to all shelf sediments within the basin suggests that benthic N-loss may be responsible for about half of the overall N-loss in the Arabian Sea.
Participation and Child Protection: The Importance of Context

This paper examines the effects of discourses about participation on child protection practice. The paper critiques the prevalent conceptualizations of participation on the grounds that, often, these ideals have been imported from other disciplines without due regard for the specificities of child protection practice. Initially, the critique is focused on how participatory discourses have resisted adaption to the child protection field. For example, participation and paternalism are often paired dualistically, with the consequence that participation is seen as an unquestionable good, whilst practices that do not conform to this ideal are associated with paternalism and considered to be antithetical to just child protection practice. By examining some of the typical responses, within the child protection literature and amongst child protection professionals, to the prevalent discourses about participation it is argued that these discourses have actually thwarted the development of participatory processes in child protection work. This is because these discourses do not engage with the expectations associated with child protection work, particularly the use of statutory power that such practice demands. The final part of the paper identifies how post-structural theory, particularly the work of Foucault, can highlight and dismantle some of the assumptions about power on which participatory models have rested and allow for the development of a participatory ethos which is receptive to the specificities of child protection work.
pke: an open source python-based keyphrase extraction toolkit

We describe pke, an open source python-based keyphrase extraction toolkit. It provides an end-to-end keyphrase extraction pipeline in which each component can be easily modified or extented to develop new approaches. pke also allows for easy benchmarking of state-of-the-art keyphrase extraction approaches, and ships with supervised models trained on the SemEval-2010 dataset.
Socialization Revisited: A Critique of the Sport-Related Research.

This paper discusses the apparent malaise within sport socialization research. After evaluating the previous literature as well as existing critiques, we suggest that the majority of problematic assumptions have occurred at the methodological rather than the theoretical level. Many methodological limitations are evident, such as sampling bias, using males as a standard, and the failure to use control groups. In addition a breakdown between theory and subsequent operationalization has occurred, as demonstrated by the reduction of the socialization process to a unidirectional situation. The discussion concludes by suggesting that there is continuous need to shuttle between theoretical conceptualization and empirical exposition.
A three-dimensional finite element study on the stress distribution pattern of two prosthetic abutments for external hexagon implants

Objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the mechanical behavior of two different straight prosthetic abutments (one- and two-piece) for external hex butt-joint connection implants using three-dimensional finite element analysis (3D-FEA). Materials and Methods: Two 3D-FEA models were designed, one for the two-piece prosthetic abutment (2 mm in height, two-piece mini-conical abutment, Neodent) and another one for the one-piece abutment (2 mm in height, Slim Fit one-piece mini-conical abutment, Neodent), with their corresponding screws and implants (Titamax Ti, 3.75 diameter by 13 mm in length, Neodent). The model simulated the single restoration of a lower premolar using data from a computerized tomography of a mandible. The preload (20 N) after torque application for installation of the abutment and an occlusal loading were simulated. The occlusal load was simulated using average physiological bite force and direction (114.6 N in the axial direction, 17.1 N in the lingual direction and 23.4 N toward the mesial at an angle of 75° to the occlusal plan). Results: The regions with the highest von Mises stress results were at the bottom of the initial two threads of both prosthetic abutments that were tested. The one-piece prosthetic abutment presented a more homogeneous behavior of stress distribution when compared with the two-piece abutment. Conclusions: Under the simulated chewing loads, the von Mises stresses for both tested prosthetic-abutments were within the tensile strength values of the materials analyzed which thus supports the clinical use of both prosthetic abutments.
Towards intelligent analysis techniques for object pretenuring

Object pretenuring involves the identification of long-lived objects at or before their instantiation. It is a key optimization for generational garbage collection systems, which are standard in most high performance Java virtual machines. This paper presents a new study of factors that are used to indicate object lifespans. We adopt the information theory measurement of normalized mutual information to compare these various different factors in a common framework. A study of garbage collection traces from four standard Java benchmark programs shows that there is high dependence on some of these factors such as allocation site and object type. We also identify and measure new factors based on object-oriented metrics.
Precoder Index Modulation

Index modulation, where information bits are conveyed through antenna indices (spatial modulation) and subcarrier indices (subcarrier index modulation) in addition to information bits conveyed through conventional modulation symbols, is getting increased research attention. In this paper, we introduce {\em precoder index modulation}, where information bits are conveyed through the choice of a precoder matrix at the transmitter from a set of pre-determined pseudo-random phase precoder (PRPP) matrices. Combining precoder index modulation (PIM) and spatial modulation (SM), we introduce a PIM-SM scheme which conveys information bits through both antenna index as well as precoder index. Spectral efficiency (in bits per channel use) and bit error performance of these index modulation schemes are presented.
Desvendando o perfil dos gastos educacionais dos municípios brasileiros

This article synthesizes the results of the survey "Profile of Educational Expenditures in Brazilian Municipalities - 2009 Base Year", developed by the Association of Municipal Education Directors. The research was motivated by the fact that the available information on the costs of municipal education was inaccurate. The research proved the fragility of the indicators systematized by Siope, showing that there is an underreporting of municipal spending on early childhood education and education for youth and adults. It also showed that the weighting factors used by Fundeb are distant from the values effectively practiced, especially for day care center. One finding is that the Fundeb has failed to be effective in reducing regional inequality. It also proves the distance between the minimum quality standard established by the National Council of Education and the effective spending by municipalities in the Northeast.
Sparse Variable PCA Using Geodesic Steepest Descent

Principal component analysis (PCA) is a dimensionality reduction technique used in most fields of science and engineering. It aims to find linear combinations of the input variables that maximize variance. A problem with PCA is that it typically assigns nonzero loadings to all the variables, which in high dimensional problems can require a very large number of coefficients. But in many applications, the aim is to obtain a massive reduction in the number of coefficients. There are two very different types of sparse PCA problems: sparse loadings PCA (slPCA) which zeros out loadings (while generally keeping all of the variables) and sparse variable PCA which zeros out whole variables (typically leaving less than half of them). In this paper, we propose a new svPCA, which we call sparse variable noisy PCA (svnPCA). It is based on a statistical model, and this gives access to a range of modeling and inferential tools. Estimation is based on optimizing a novel penalized log-likelihood able to zero out whole variables rather than just some loadings. The estimation algorithm is based on the geodesic steepest descent algorithm. Finally, we develop a novel form of Bayesian information criterion (BIC) for tuning parameter selection. The svnPCA algorithm is applied to both simulated data and real functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data.
Peroxisome matrix and membrane protein biogenesis

Peroxisomes play an important role in lipid metabolic pathways and are implicated in many human disorders. Their biogenesis has been studied over the last two decades using many uni and multi‐cellular model systems and many aspects of the mechanisms and proteins involved in peroxisome biogenesis are conserved from yeast to humans. In this manuscript we review the recent progress made in our understanding of the mechanisms by which matrix and membrane proteins are sorted to and assembled into peroxisomes. © 2009 IUBMB IUBMB Life 61(7): 713–722, 2009
Cytogenetic confirmation of a positive NIPT result: evidence-based choice between chorionic villus sampling and amniocentesis depending on chromosome aberration

ABSTRACT It has been shown that in non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) there is a small chance of a false-positive or false-negative result. This is partly due to the fact that the fetal cell-free DNA present in maternal plasma is derived from the cytotrophoblast of chorionic villi (CV), which is not always representative for the fetal karyotype due to chromosomal mosaicism. Therefore, a positive NIPT result should always be confirmed with invasive testing, preferably amniocentesis, in order to investigate the fetal karyotype. However, since this invasive test can only be safely performed after 15.5 weeks of gestation while NIPT can be done from the 10th week of gestation, this potentially means an unacceptable long waiting time for the prospective parents to receive a definitive result. Based on our experience with cytogenetic investigations in CV and the literature, we determined whether CV sampling may be appropriate for confirmation of an abnormal NIPT result.
The Matrix Composition of Banking Customer Value

ABSTRACT This article proposes the matrix of relationships among service quality, perceived risk, and customer value in the banking industry. Functional value was found to be affected mainly by reliable cues and accuracy of service quality and negatively affected by financial, functional, and physical risks, whereas conditional values are influenced by responsiveness of service quality and negatively influenced by temporal risk. Furthermore, emotional value was found to be affected mainly by empathy of service quality and negatively affected by psychological risk, whereas social values are influenced by tangible cues of service quality and negatively influenced by social risk. Finally, exact epistemic value is affected by responsiveness of service quality and negatively affected by psychological risk.
The adaptive value of functional and life-history traits across fertility treatments in an annual plant.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Plant functional traits are assumed to be adaptive. As selection acts on individuals and not on traits, interpreting the adaptive value of a trait not may be straightforward. For example, productive leaves are associated with fertile environments. However, it is not clear if productive leaves confer an advantage in these habitats, or if they are an advantage as part of a suite of coordinated traits. METHODS Genotypes of Arabidopsis thaliana were grown in high and low nutrient treatments and low, neutral and high pH treatments. Nutrient availability is reduced in acidic or basic soils relative to neutral pH soils. pH treatments were used to alter the availability of resources rather than the amount of resources. KEY RESULTS Leaf function (specific leaf area, SLA) and life history (size at reproduction, age at reproduction) were variable across genotypes and were plastic. High nutrient availability induced higher SLA and larger size at reproduction. Genotypes that reproduced at large size in high nutrient conditions at neutral pH had the greatest fruit production. SLA was only indirectly related to fruit production through a causal relationship with rosette size; in high nutrient conditions, plants with high SLA were large at reproduction and had higher fruit production. In high nutrient and high pH treatments, plants were large at reproduction, but large size at reproduction was associated with low fecundity. This suggests that large size is adaptive under high nutrient availability. CONCLUSIONS Interpreting the adaptive value of functional traits will sometimes only be possible when these traits are considered as a suite of correlated and coordinated traits. Leaf functional traits may be important in defining adaptive strategies in A. thaliana but only through how they affect plant life history. Finally, manipulating soil pH can be a valuable tool in assessing adaptive plasticity on nutrient gradients.
PPAC scaling enablement for 5nm mobile SoC technology

We present a 5nm logic technology scaling step-up holistic approach for 5-track standard cell design employing electrically gate-all-around nanowire architecture (EGAA NW) with much reduced parasitic capacitance and increased effective width for better short channel control and stronger drive. We suggest SiGe P-channel by Ge Condensation for intrinsic mobility improvement and substrate strain, conformal wraparound contact (CWAC) to reduce contact resistance with minimum parasitic capacitance penalty, metal gate (MG) stressor to improve N-channel mobility, EUV single exposure metal patterning with improved tip-to-tip patterning technique for maximum mask count reduction, and Al metallization to reduce metal & via resistances, however still requiring a validation of the proposed electromigration (EM) risk mitigation. We show that finFET can still be extended to 5nm technology to meet Power-Performance-Area-Cost (PPAC) targets. EGAA NW could enable further 50mV less supply voltage to significantly improve 5nm PPAC scaling.
Influenza A Virus (H3N2) Genomic Sequence Difference Measures Based on Word Absence and Expression Levels

In a genomic sequence, the oligonucleotide signature represents the ratio of the observed to expected number of occurrences of all possible nucleotide words of a specific length. Word absence is also found in genomic sequences whereby specific words are not observed despite their expected presence in a random nucleotide distribution. This research uses a combination of word absence and oligonucleotide signatures to quantify differences between inter-epidemic and intra-epidemic Influenza A virus (H3N2) genomic sequences. In addition, word absence/presence patterns are examined for their discrimination of sequences from distinct epidemics or geographic origins within the same epidemic. Interepidemic sequences are well delineated by word absences and difference measures into epidemic specific groups. Intra-epidemic sequences are not consistently well separable in terms of their geographic origins, but show similarities across geographic regions.
Gaze-Based Relevance Feedback for Realizing Region-Based Image Retrieval

In this paper, a gaze-based Relevance Feedback (RF) approach to region-based image retrieval is presented. Fundamental idea of the proposed method comprises the iterative estimation of the real-world objects (or their constituent parts) that are of interest to the user and the subsequent exploitation of this information for refining the image retrieval results. Primary novelties of this work are: a) the introduction of a new set of gaze features for realizing user's relevance assessment prediction at region-level, and b) the design of a time-efficient and effective object-based RF framework for image retrieval. Regarding the interpretation of the gaze signal, a novel set of features is introduced by formalizing the problem under a mathematical perspective, contrary to the exclusive use of explicitly defined features that are in principle derived from the psychology domain. Apart from the temporal attributes, the proposed features also represent the spatial characteristics of the gaze signal, which have not been extensively studied in the literature so far. On the other hand, the developed object-based RF mechanism aims at overcoming the main limitation of region-based RF approaches, i.e., the frequently inaccurate estimation of the regions of interest in the retrieved images. Moreover, the incorporation of a single-camera image processing-based gaze tracker makes the overall system cost efficient and portable. As it is shown by the experimental evaluation, the proposed method outperforms representative global- and region-based explicit RF approaches, using a challenging general-purpose image dataset.
Applying Equivalence Class Methods in Contract Bridge

One of the challenges in analyzing the strategies in contract bridge stems from the fact that it is a Bayesian game with a very large type space, and that players’ action sets depend on their type. This results in a the strategy space being of a size where brute force methods of analysis are not practical. We present a general approach to simplifying this strategy space through the use of equivalence clases over types. The equivalence classes are chosen in such a way that the strategy needs to conditions on less information, thereby reducing the effective size and richness of the strategy. A common subproblem in bridge, the finesse play, is used as an example in applying this approach. Several types of finesses are described and modelled formally, along with the corresponding equivalence classe. The reduction in the strategy space as a result of the equivalence class representation is demonstrated on these examples. We then discuss possible methods of improving or extending this approach to larger subproblems in bridge.
Antiviral Drug Resistance of Human Cytomegalovirus

SUMMARY The study of human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) antiviral drug resistance has enhanced knowledge of the virological targets and the mechanisms of antiviral activity. The currently approved drugs, ganciclovir (GCV), foscarnet (FOS), and cidofovir (CDV), target the viral DNA polymerase. GCV anabolism also requires phosphorylation by the virus-encoded UL97 kinase. GCV resistance mutations have been identified in both genes, while FOS and CDV mutations occur only in the DNA polymerase gene. Confirmation of resistance mutations requires phenotypic analysis; however, phenotypic assays are too time-consuming for diagnostic purposes. Genotypic assays based on sequencing provide more rapid results but are dependent on prior validation by phenotypic methods. Reports from many laboratories have produced an evolving list of confirmed resistance mutations, although differences in interpretation have led to some confusion. Recombinant phenotyping methods performed in a few research laboratories have resolved some of the conflicting results. Treatment options for drug-resistant HCMV infections are complex and have not been subjected to controlled clinical trials, although consensus guidelines have been proposed. This review summarizes the virological and clinical data pertaining to HCMV antiviral drug resistance.