Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Role of Coffee Production and Trade on Gender Equity and Livelihood Improvement in Tanzania

Achieving the sustainable development goals in developing countries will require the realization of benefits from the global supply and value chains, such as coffee, for inclusive economic development and poverty reduction. This study uses the data of 400 men and women randomly sampled coffee farmers from a developing country, Tanzania, to evaluate coffee income distribution, and how general coffee production and trade contribute to gender equity and livelihood improvement. Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition and Gini coefficient models are used for data analysis. We find a gender imbalance from the ownership and control of resources to the participation of men and women in the coffee supply chain. However, investing in supporting the coffee supply chain has an impact on livelihood improvement, due to coffee income inequality reducing effects. There is a gender gap in the income earned from coffee production and trading, which is 44% of the women’s structural disadvantages. Empowerment for equal access to land and credit, and offering trade facilitation services will bridge the existing gender gap. Additionally, developing and disseminating new coffee production technologies that will reduce discrimination, by offering new opportunities and making coffee an inclusive supply chain, remains imperative.
Characteristics and release of monosodium glutamate microcapsules obtained by spray drying

Abstract The present study aimed at investigating the characteristics of monosodium glutamate (MSG) microcapsules. Spray-drying was used to prepare the microcapsules, in which the core material (MSG) was coated with gum Arabic (GA) and maltodextrin (MD), and the weight ratio of MD with GA was 1:2. The characteristics of microcapsules were evaluated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), moisture content, particle size, Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR), differential scanning calorimeter (DSC), thermogravimetry analysis (TGA), release behavior, the flavor, and taste in hot-pot. Few concave wrinkles were observed on the quasispheres surface of microcapsules coated with GA and MD. The particle size of the microcapsules ranged from 14.00 to 30.00 µm in the mean diameter, and moisture content was 2.08%. An FTIR study indicated a successful packet of MSG by wall materials and the formation of MSG microcapsules during spray drying. Results of DSC and TGA showed that hybrid encapsulation was conducive to the improvement of thermal stability of MSG. In the release of hot-pot study, tests of slow-release, electronic nose, and electronic tongue demonstrated that MSG microcapsules were available in hot water conditions to release. The MSG microcapsules coated with GA and MD exhibited long time for slow-release. Therefore, spraying drying is a suitable approach to manufacture slow-released powdered microcapsules.
Bioenergy emerging paradigm: Collaborative networks and determinants in the upgrading process of technological frontiers

This paper examines the collaboration dynamic among areas of knowledge and countries from 1975 to 2017 within the bioenergy field and from a complex network approach, as a driver for the evolution of technological frontiers and emerging paradigms, seeking opportunities for a transition to low carbon economies. The results provide detailed information on international collaboration from patent networks and the spatial distribution of bioenergy, from three perspectives of analysis: origin, development, and potential emerging paths. In addition, the evidence shows that advances in the bioenergy frontiers, more specifically in the biotechnology field, follow a pattern characterized by the intensification of both collaboration and interdependence among several areas of knowledge and countries. With this, we expect to stimulate the debate on innovation dynamics within a complex network perspective and to contribute to policymakers’ decision support regarding bioeconomy innovation systems.
Sex Associated Effects of Noise Pollution in Stone Sculpin (Paracottus knerii) as a Model Object in the Context of Human-Induced Rapid Environmental Change

Simple Summary In this comprehensive multidisciplinary study, we applied a novel multilevel approach to stone sculpins Paracottus knerii Dybowski, 1874, as model organisms and test for the first time the hypothesis of sex-dependent differences in response to long-term noise exposure in fish. The results testify that the stone sculpin females appeared to experience excessive stress, while the males showed adaptive recalibrations. These effects may be explained by a unique adaptive strategy of offspring care in the stone sculpin males and their biological role in reproductive behavior within the species. The findings obtained may help to elucidate the links between noise exposure in the context of human-induced rapid environmental change (HIREC), long-term sex-related changes in fishes, and the possible further evolutionary success of a species. Such HIREC modeling not only provides information about the potential consequences under anthropogenic pressure but also can help identify the natural mechanisms of stress resistance in different species, including those related to sex, and also contribute to the development of effective environmental management practices. Abstract This work simulates the consequences of HIREC using stone sculpins as model organisms. Sex-dependent effects of long-term noise exposure at mean sound pressure levels of 160–179 dB re 1 μPa (SPLpk–pk) were measured. We applied a multilevel approach to testing the stress response: a comparative analysis of the macula sacculi and an assessment of hematological and molecular stress responses. Noise exposure resulted in hair cell loss, changes in some cytometric parameters in blood, and an increase in the number of functionally active mitochondria in the red blood cells of males and its decrease in females, demonstrating a mitochondrial allostatic load and depletion of functional reserve. Finally, a statistically significant decrease in the telomerase activity of the auditory epithelium and a shortening of telomere length in the brain as molecular markers of stress were observed after noise exposure only in females. No significant decrease in telomerase activity and shortening of telomere length in nerve target tissues were observed in stressed males. However, we recorded an increase in the telomerase activity in male gonads. This sex-dependent difference in load may be associated with accelerated cellular aging in females and lower stress-related long-term risk in males. In this article, we discuss possible reasons for these noise-induced stress effects.
Weight Gain Associated with COVID-19 Lockdown in Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background: Lockdown is an effective nonpharmaceutical intervention to reduce coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) transmission, but it restricts daily activity. We aimed to investigate the impact of lockdown on pediatric body weight and body mass index (BMI). Methods: The systematic review and meta-analysis were conducted following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analysis (PRISMA) statement. Four online databases (EMBASE, Medline, the Cochrane Library and CINAHL) were searched. Results: The pooled results showed that lockdown was associated with significant body weight gain (MD 2.67, 95% CI 2.12–3.23; p < 0.00001). The BMI of children with comorbidities or obesity did not change significantly. The BMI of general population was significantly higher during lockdown than before the pandemic (MD 0.94, 95% CI 0.32–1.56; p = 0.003). However, heterogeneity was high (I2 = 84%). Among changes in weight classification, increases in the rates of obesity (OR 1.23, 95% CI 1.10–1.37; p = 0.0002) and overweight (OR 1.17, 95% CI 1.06–1.29; p = 0.001) were reported. Conclusions: Our meta-analysis showed significant increases in body weight and BMI during lockdown among school-age children and adolescents. The prevalence of obesity and overweight also increased. The COVID-19 pandemic worsened the burden of childhood obesity.
The Intention of Accounting Software’s Adoption for Village-owned Enterprises Financial Reporting in Indonesia

: This research aims to analyse the influence of performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence and facilitating conditions on the intention to adopt accounting software in village-owned enterprises (VOE). The data collected by a convenient sampling method by sending the questionnaire to the respondents by e-form. The result showed that only performance expectancy significantly affected the intention to adopt accounting software for financial reporting. Meanwhile, effort expectancy, social influence and facilitating conditions were not significantly affected the intention to adopt accounting software in village-owned enterprises.
Expecting to teach a novel golf putting task did not enhance retention performance: A replication attempt of Daou and colleagues (2016;2016)

While research has identified several practice variables that purportedly enhance motor learning, recent replication failures highlight the importance of conducting high-powered, pre-registered replications. The “expecting to teach” phenomenon was first reported in the motor learning literature by Daou and colleagues and suggested learners benefit from practicing with the understanding they will later need to teach the skill. The extant data have been mixed but generally positive. While expecting to teach has been shown to enhance motor learning of a golf putt, the mechanisms linked with this benefit are yet to be determined. As such, this study sought to replicate the expecting to teach effect and to extend those findings by exploring participants’ thought processes. Participants (N = 76) were randomly assigned to one of two groups in which they were told that they were learning a golf putt in order to 1) be tested on the skill or 2) to teach the skill to another individual. On Day 1, participants completed pre-test putts, a pre-acquisition intrinsic motivation inventory (IMI), a 2-minute study of an instructional booklet, 50 practice putts and a post-acquisition IMI. During practice, participants were also afforded opportunities to continue studying the booklet and to complete additional putts. Participants returned 24-hours later to complete a retention, a transfer (50 cm longer golf-putt), and a free recall test, as well as a post-study survey to reveal thoughts they engaged in after practice but before (or during) the retention test. Similar to Daou et al., no significant differences were found with study time, number of acquisition putts, or motivation. However, golf-putting performance during retention resulted in no differences for radial error, g = −. 13 (95%CI [−.55, .29]), between the two groups and no differences were shown for the recall test. The present study fails to replicate the benefits reported in the original experiments.
Future Generation Computer Systems

Due to the COVID19 pandemic, more higher-level education programmes have moved to online channels, raising issues in monitoring students’ learning progress. Thanks to advances in online learning systems, however, student data can be automatically collected and used for the investigation and prediction of the students’ learning performance. In this article, we present a novel approach to analyse students’ learning behaviour, as well as the relationship between these behaviours and learning assessment results, in the context of programming education. A bespoke method has been built based on a combination of Random Matrix Theory, a Community Detection algorithm and statistical hypothesis tests. The datasets contain fine-grained information about students’ learning behaviours in two programming courses over two academic years with about 400 first-year students in a Medium-sized Metropolitan University in Dublin. The proposed method is a noval approach to data preprocessing which can improve the analysis and prediction based on learning behavioural datasets. The proposed approach deals with the issues of noise and trend effect in the data and has shown its success in detecting groups of students who have similar learning behaviours and outcomes. The higher performing groups have been found to be more active in practical-related activities throughout the course. Conversely, we found that the lower performing groups engage more with lecture notes instead of doing programming tasks. The learning behaviours data can also be used to predict students’ outcomes (i.e. Pass or Fail the terminal exams) at the early stages of the study, using popular machine learning classification techniques.
Impact of Pilot Overhead and Channel Estimation on the Performance of Massive MIMO

This paper studies the impact of additional pilot overhead for covariance matrix estimation in a time-division duplexed (TDD) massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system. We choose average uplink (UL) and downlink (DL) spectral efficiencies (SEs) as performance metrics for the massive MIMO system, and derive closed form expressions for them in terms of the additional pilot overhead. The expressions are derived by considering linear minimum mean squared error (LMMSE)-type and element-wise LMMSE-type channel estimates that represent LMMSE and element-wise LMMSE with estimated covariance matrices, respectively. Using these expressions, a detailed theoretical analysis of SE behavior as a function of pilot overhead for both LMMSE-type and element-wise LMMSE-type channel estimation are presented, followed by simulations, which also demonstrate and validate theoretical results.
Dynamics of the formation of thin LaNbO4 films using magnetron sputtering

Doped lanthanum niobate thin films were deposited using magnetron sputtering technique. W and Mg cathodes were used for doping LaNbO4 thin films. Thin films were deposited on two types of substrates: amorphous optical quartz (SiO2) and polycrystalline Alloy 600 (Ni-Cr-Fe). The structural and morphological analysis was performed using X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive spectrometry (EDS), atomic force microscope (AFM). The nonequilibrum growth of the thin films and the nonlinear dynamics of the sputtered atoms and their oxides is observed. XRD analysis revealed that Mg promotes crystallite formation in La1-xMgxNbO4 thin films and W inhibits crystallite formation in LaNb1-xWxO4 thin films. EDS analysis showed that La1-xMgxNbO4 and LaNb1-xWxO4 thin films are nonstoichiometric. They have deficit or excess oxygen and Nb (compared to lanthanum). It was noticed that the nonstoichiometry has influence on the morphology of thin films. The cross section of formed thin films analysis showed that grains or fibers are not visible in the thin films with excess oxygen concentration and thin films with deficit of oxygen has fiber type structure. Oxygen concentration also influences the surface morphology. The roughness of the surface increases (0.2 nm ÷ 0.3 nm for La1-xMgxNbO4 and 0.2nm ÷ 0.8 nm for LaNb1-xWxO4) with decreasing oxygen concentration.
A high‐efficiency mobile phone antenna with a narrow ground clearance reducing the effect of head and hand

A high‐efficiency mobile phone antenna covering GSM band (880–960 MHz), DCS1800, PCS1900, UMTS, LTE2300 and LTE2500 band (1710–2690 MHz) with a narrow ground clearance of 2 mm is proposed considering the effect of head and hand of human. Such antenna for metal‐rimmed smartphone applications is to address the performance deterioration caused by the users. It is found that a high efficiency can be obtained by making the main beam of the antenna not point to the head and hand because less energy is absorbed by human tissue in this case. Theory of characteristic mode (TCM) is applied to guide the design of the higher band (HB) antenna to obtain the desired radiation pattern. The simulated results, which strictly refer to the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA) standard, show that the average efficiency with considering the effect of head and hand (ECEHH) of the designed antenna is improved by 9%, compared to the contrast antenna. A prototype of the proposed antenna is fabricated and measured. The simulated and measured results are in good agreement, which proves that the proposed antenna has a high ECEHH in the HB.
From Research to Practice: Designing a Treatment Program for Individuals Convicted of Child Sexual Exploitation Material

The term evidence-based is increasingly found in treatment manuals and program titles designed for individuals convicted of a sexual offense. However, whether the presented evidence truly qualifies as “evidence-based” is questionable. I will share my experience as the clinical director for a private outpatient agency where we designed a program based on the existing peer-reviewed literature on individuals convicted of Child Sexual Exploitation Material (CSEM) offenses. I will describe the steps that we followed in developing a workgroup to explore and apply the knowledge from research to our clinical practice. We adapted the term evidence-informed to acknowledge that the program relied on existing literature in combination with the experiences and expertise of our clinical team. A fictitious case that reflects an amalgamation of facts is presented to demonstrate the assessment and treatment processes. Implications for organizational consensus to conduct program evaluation and research are discussed.
‘I felt more homely over there … ’: analysing tourists’ experience of Indianness at Bollywood Parks Dubai

ABSTRACT In recent years, Bollywood has expanded into a global, trans-textual phenomenon, consumed by a large audience-base worldwide. Existing research has shown how Bollywood offers Indians – both home and abroad – a cinematic image of their homeland, fostering a sense of belonging. This paper focuses on the popularity of Bollywood’s transmedia culture in an international setting. More, in particular, it offers an empirical exploration of the tourist experience of Bollywood Parks Dubai – the first and largest theme park dedicated to Bollywood. Based on a series of in-depth interviews with 18 participants and accompanied by participant observations, this paper shows how Indian tourists use this leisure zone far away from the Indian subcontinent as a platform to connect and celebrate larger notions of Indianness. In experiencing nation-pride in a playful manner beyond the national borders, ideas of contemporary Indianness are redefined in a cosmopolitan context. The paper concludes by critically examining these popular celebrations of nationalism.
Biogeochemical and biophysical responses to episodes of wildfire smoke from natural ecosystems in southwestern British Columbia, Canada

Abstract. Area burned, number of fires, seasonal fire severity, and fire season length are all expected to increase in Canada, with largely unquantified ecosystem feedbacks. However, there are few observational studies measuring the ecosystem‐scale biogeochemical and biophysical properties during smoke episodes, and hence accessing productivity effects of changes in incident diffuse photosynthetically active radiation (PAR). In this study, we leverage two long-term eddy covariance measurement sites in forest and wetland to study four smoke episodes, which happened at different times and differed in length, over four different years. We found that the highest decrease of shortwave irradiance due to smoke was about 50 % in July and August but increased to about 90 % when the smoke arrived in September. When the smoke arrived in the later stage of summer, impacts on H and LE were also greatest. Smoke generally increased the diffuse fraction from ~0.30 to ~0.50 and turned both sites into stronger carbon-dioxide (CO2) sinks with increased productivity of ~18 % and ~7 % at the forest and wetland sites, respectively. However, when the diffuse fraction exceeded 0.80 as a result of dense smoke, both ecosystems became CO2 sources as total PAR dropped to low values. The results suggest that this kind of natural experiment is important for validating future predictions of smoke‐productivity feedbacks.
AUTOMATED SYSTEM FOR BEE COLONY WEIGHT MONITORING

Real time, continuous and remote monitoring of the honeybee colonies with application of information and communication technologies (ICT) is becoming increasingly frequent in industry and in a scientific research. Combination of ICT and beekeeping led to the development of the Precision Beekeeping approach. Successful implementation of the Precision Beekeeping system includes development of the bee colony monitoring hardware solution and computer software for data collection and further analysis. This paper describes developed and implemented bee colony monitoring unit for weight and temperature monitoring. Bee colony weight is one of the key metrics of the strength of a colony. Changes in weight can reflect the productivity rate of the colony, as well as its health and state. Developed monitoring system is based on Raspberry Pi Zero W single board computer with several connected sensors for bee colony temperature and environmental parameter monitoring. Weight is measured using single point load cell with possibility to measure weight up to 200kg, which is enough for the beehive measurements. Data transfer from the remote bee colony is provided by the external 3G router. For data storage and analysis cloud-based data warehouse is developed. Collected data is accessible in the web system with user friendly interface for data visualisation and reporting. Within this research scale calibration process is described and accuracy of the weighting is evaluated and possible challenges are discussed. Described monitoring system is developed within the Horizon 2020 project SAMS, which is funded by the European Union within the H2020-ICT-39-2016-2017 call. To find out more visit the project website https://sams-project.eu/.
Consent through the lens of semantics: State of the art survey and best practices

The acceptance of the GDPR legislation in 2018 started a new technological shift towards achieving transparency. GDPR put focus on the concept of informed consent applicable for data processing, which led to an increase of the responsibilities regarding data sharing for both end users and companies. This paper presents a literature survey of existing solutions that use semantic technology for implementing consent. The main focus is on ontologies, how they are used for consent representation and for consent management in combination with other technologies such as blockchain. We also focus on visualisation solutions aimed at improving individuals’ consent comprehension. Finally, based on the overviewed state of the art we propose best practices for consent implementation.
Linking critical thinking disposition, cognitive flexibility and achievement: Math anxiety’s mediating role

Abstract The purpose of this study was to investigate the interplays among the critical thinking disposition, cognitive flexibility, math anxiety and math achievement with structural equation modeling and determine the degree of the mediating effect of math anxiety in primary, middle and high schools. Within the scope, we also focused on the predicting variables of math achievement and compared the general tendency of these variables by gender, school type and grade level. The participants of the study were 1628 students from grades 4, 8 and 12. While critical thinking disposition and cognitive flexibility had a significant and positive effect both among themselves and on math achievement, math anxiety had a significant and negative effect on all these variables in the models. Although math anxiety has a partial mediating effect on math achievement at middle school and high school levels, it shows no such effect in primary school.