Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Assessment of adoption of improved sweet potato production technologies among farmers in Ohaji/Egbema Local Government Area of Imo State, Nigeria

The study assessed adoption of improved sweet potato production technologies among farmers in Ohaji/Egbema Local Government Area of Imo State, Nigeria. The specific objectives were to describe the socio-economic characteristics of the farmers; ascertained the stages of adoption of improved sweet potato production technology and identified the constraints to the adoption of improved sweet potato production technologies among farmers in the study area. Multi stage sampling procedure was used in the selection of 60 sweet potato farmers. Data were collected with the aid of structured and validated questionnaire. Descriptive statistical tools (frequency, percentages and mean) were used to analyze the data generated. Findings on the socio-economic characteristics revealed that the mean age of sweet potatoes farmers in the study area was 35.5years, 55% of them were female, majority were married (65.0%), average household size was eight persons with an average monthly income of N21, 500 and an average farm size of 1.1ha. Majority of the farmers were literate (51.6%), an average farming experience was 13 years, majority (85.5%) belonged to social organization and (61.7%) of farmers had contact with extension officers. The majority (78.3%) of the farmers were aware of the improved technologies of sweet potato while most farmers adopted 10 out of the 14 improved sweet potato technologies. In the overall, (51.7%) adopted the improved sweet potato. Major constraints to adoption of improved sweet potato were low consumer preference associated with sweet potato products (75.0%), lack of capital (70.0%), unavailability of land for cultivation (65.0%), high cost of labour (61.7%) and lack of market to sell increase quantity of sweet potato (55.0%). Based on the findings of the study, it is recommended that extension agents should help farmers to increase adoption by intensifing campaigns and trainings on sweet potato technology through community- level education program. Also, government should intervene in the problems of high cost and unavailability of such farm inputs as fertilizer and agrochemicals by strengthening the input delivery system of the extension service in order to increase their adoption of sweet potato production technologies. Keywords: Sweet potato, Improved production technologies, Adoption.
Mesozoic exhumation history of the Grenvillian Oaxacan Complex, southern Mexico

We present the first fission‐track results from the Grenvillian Oaxacan Complex, southern Mexico. Time–temperature modelling of the data indicates that two significant Mesozoic cooling episodes are recorded in the Oaxacan Complex and these are interpreted as resulting from exhumation. The older cooling event took place from the Late Triassic to Middle Jurassic and is possible linked to the break‐up of Pangea (including the initial opening of the Gulf of Mexico during the Jurassic). The younger exhumation period in the Early Cretaceous is contemporaneous with the final stages of rifting of the Gulf of Mexico. Key stratigraphic records also provide independent evidence for these exhumation episodes. In our view, both Mesozoic rapid exhumation events were controlled by the activity of the Caltepec Fault Zone and the Oaxaca Fault. Our data suggest that both these large fault systems have remained active since, at least, the Late Triassic.
How to predict tree death from inventory data – Lessons from a systematic assessment of European tree mortality models

The future development of forest ecosystems depends critically on tree mortality. However, the suitability of empirical mortality algorithms for extrapolation in space or time remains untested. We systematically analyzed the performance of 46 inventory-based mortality models available from the literature using nearly 80 000 independent records from 54 strict forest reserves in Germany and Switzerland covering 11 species. Mortality rates were predicted with higher accuracy if covariates for tree growth and (or) competition at the individual level were included and if models were applied within the same ecological zone. In contrast, classification of dead vs. living trees was only improved by growth variables. Management intensity in the calibration stands, as well as the census interval and size of the calibration datasets, did not influence model performance. Consequently, future approaches should make use of tree growth and competition at the level of individual trees. Mortality algorithms for applicatio.
Genetic characterization and habitat use of Eurycea pterophila salamanders from Jacob's Well, Hays County, Texas

Abstract We sampled Eurycea pterophila, typically considered a spring-associated species, from unprecedented depths within Jacob's Well, a natural cave in the Trinity Aquifer. Nearly all of the captures followed high spring-flow events (25–70 cubic feet per second [cfs]), with almost no individuals seen or trapped during low flow (<10 cfs). We analyzed the cytochrome b mitochondrial gene DNA sequences and identified four haplotypes present at Jacob's Well, two of which were unique to the site. However, this variation fit within the range of genetic variation for E. pterophila, indicating there is only one species present. Comparisons with other central Texas species indicate this population is part of the previously reported polytomy referred to as the Eurycea neotenes complex. Because our study had a large sample size from a single locality, we were able to detect discord between our phylogenetic tree, which showed uniformity among individuals from Jacob's Well and nearby populations, and our FST analyses, which showed no migrants among these populations. These observations highlight the need for larger sample sizes to illuminate relationships among central Texas Eurycea populations.
Aflatoxin B1 Cytotoxicity in Neurons in Culture

Aflatoxin B1 (AFB1), a metabolite produced by Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus parasiticus, is mainly known for its strong hepatotoxic and hepatocarcinogenic actions. Acute and reversible effects due to exposure to aflatoxin and the presence of aflatoxins in various human tissues and organs have also been reported. In particular, aflatoxin M1 (a metabolite of AFB1) has been identified in human brain tissue, and a syndrome characterised by encephalopathy has been observed in humans poisoned by AFB1. As a first approach to the study of the neurotoxicity of AFB1, we used the human neuronal cell lines, SKNMC and SKNSH. The data reported show clearly that AFB1 is capable of interacting directly with neuronal cells and causing a decrease in cell number following the addition of toxin to the culture. Decrease in cell survival is dependent on the toxin concentration, on time of exposure, and on cell density. The cytotoxic response of these cells has been compared to the effects of AFB1 on hepatoma cells and spinal cord motor neurons. Postmitotic neurons are also susceptible to AFB1 toxicity, although to a lower extent than proliferating cells. A non-proliferating state thus appears to lower, but not destroy, neuron sensitivity to the toxin.
Question Identification in Arabic Language Using Emotional Based Features

With the growth of content on social media networks, enterprises and services providers have become interested in identifying the questions of their customers. Tracking these questions become very challenging with the growth of text that grows directly proportional to the increase of Arabic users thus making it very difficult to be tracked manually. By automatic identifying the questions seeking answers on the social media networks and defining their category, we can automatically answer them by finding an existing answer or even routing them to those responsible for answering those questions in the customer service. This will result in saving the time and the effort and enhancing the customer feedback and improving the business. In this paper, we have implemented a binary classifier to classify Arabic text to either question seeking answer or not. We have added emotional based features to the state of the art features. Experimental evaluation has done and showed that these emotional features have improved the accuracy of the classifier.
Numerical Simulation of a Counter-Rotative Open Rotor Using Phase-Lagged Conditions: Initial Validation on a Single Rotor Case

This paper presents the large Eddy simulation (LES) of a propeller representative of the first rotor of a counter rotative open rotor (CROR) configuration based on a multiple frequency phase-lagged approach in conjunction with a proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) data storage. This method enables to perform unsteady simulations on multistage turbomachinery configurations including multiple frequency flows with a reduction of the computational domain composed of one single blade passage for each row. This approach is advantageous when no circumferential periodicity occurs in the blade rows of the configuration and a full 360 deg simulation would be required. The data storage method is based on a POD decomposition replacing the traditional Fourier series decomposition (FSD). The inherent limitation of phase-shifted periodicity assumption remains with POD data storage but this compression method alleviates some issues associated with the Fourier transform, especially spectrum issues. The paper is first dedicated to compare the flow field obtained with the LES with phase-lagged condition against full-matching URANS, LES simulations, and experimental data available around the blade and in the wake of the rotor. The study shows a close agreement of the phase-lagged LES simulation with other simulations performed and a thicker wake compared with the experiments with lower turbulent activity. The analysis of the losses generated in the configuration, based on an entropy formulation and a splitting between boundary layer and secondary flow structures, shows the strong contribution of the blade boundary layer in the losses generated.
The Role of 5G Technologies: Challenges in Smart Cities and Intelligent Transportation Systems

The new mobile technology, 5G, challenges the current scenario in communications by overcoming the flaws of currently working 4G. Such new technology offers to smart cities and intelligent transportation systems a new way to become fully integrated by allowing massive simultaneous connections and ubiquity of network, even under high mobility situations or dense populated areas. In this way, 5G will become a key enabler for real Internet of Things and its corresponding Internet of Vehicles. This discussion is aimed at providing, in a comprehensive manner, how 5G technology will impact on smart cities, intelligent transportation systems –including autonomous or semi-autonomous vehicles– and vehicular communications, its technical, economic and legal challenges, in the following years.
Indigenous people’s education, career aspirations, career choice and challenges among senior high school students in rural communities in Palawan

The study aims to determine the Indigenous people’s education, career aspirations, career choice, and challenges among senior high school students in rural communities in Palawan. The qualitative and quantitative methods used in the study. Mean, frequency counts, percentages, T-test, and Pearson Moment Correlation were employed. Results revealed that most of the parents had ages 39-44 years old, female, high school level, farmers, and earned below 1,000. As for ethnicity, most of them belong to the Palawan tribe, had 3-4 number of children, and a cash conditional transfer recipient. It also revealed that most of the learners had ages between 18-19 years old, female, Palawan, the first child in the family, enrolled under Technical Vocational and Livelihood, and traveled 5 kilometers distance of residence to the school. There is no significant relationship Between Parent-Respondents Profile and Career Aspirations of the Learners except in parents’ age. There is no significant Relationship Between Learner-Respondents Profile and their Career Aspirations except in age, sex, and track profile. There is no significant relationship between the demographic profile of the parents and the educational challenges except in parent’s occupation, cash conditional transfer recipient, and several children. There is no significant relationship between the learner’s demographic profile and the educational challenges except in distance from school, birth order, and sex. There is a significant difference between career aspirations among learners and their parents, while there is no significant difference between the career choice among indigenous learners and their parents and educational challenges among learners and parents.
A Socio-demographic Comparison of Malnutrition and Malaria Prevalence among Primary School Children in Gombe State Nigeria

Background: Despite the complex nature of inter-relationship between malnutrition and malaria, there has been continued emphasis and need to further re-examine the twin issues side-by-side with a view to forging an integrated public health care strategy. Objective: This study aimed to make comparison and possibly add to the increasing body of evidence on the relationship between malnutrition and malaria among apparently healthy primary school children in Gombe state, Nigeria. Methodology: Between the months of March and June 2019, a total of 745 school children aged 6 to 15 years were studied using a cross sectional design. Selection of the children was done by means of a multi-stage sampling technique, from 12 public and 6 private schools in 6 Local Original Research Article Danjin et al.; EJNFS, 12(7): 97-109, 2020; Article no.EJNFS. 59115 98 Government Areas (LGAs) of the state. Levels of malnutrition among the subjects were measured using three anthropometric indices, namely; stunting (Height-for-age Z-scores, HAZ), underweight (Weight-for-age Z-scores, WAZ) and wasting (Weight-for-height Z-score, WHZ); while screening for malaria infection was done using rapid diagnostic test (RDT) kits. The WHO AnthroPlus and IBM SPSS version 21 statistical software packages were used for data analysis. Descriptive statistics was employed to summarize research findings, while chi square statistics was used to compare proportions at 0.05 alpha significance level. Results: About half (50.9%) of the subjects were boys while girls constitutes the rest 49.1%. The overall prevalence of stunting was 22.5% (19.6 25.6), underweight 20.9% (18.1 23.9), and wasting, 16.8% (13.7 20.4). Furthermore, malaria infection prevalence among the subjects was 13.6%. Age group and sex were found to be significantly associated with malnutrition (underweight or stunting or both) but they weren’t with malaria. On the other hand, while place of residence and level of education were significantly associated with malaria, they were not associated with malnutrition. Overall, both malnutrition and malaria were found to be significantly associated with type of school, senatorial district, tribe, religion, occupation of father, occupation of mother and level of education of mother. On the whole, malnutrition and malaria were significantly associated. Conclusion: In light of the above epidemiological pattern of distribution and associations between the two public health problems, the design of intervention programmes should integrate approaches targeted at the two issues among primary school children.
Reverse recognition of LDPC codes based on log-likelihood ratio

With the development of Adaptive Modulation and Coding (AMC) technology, blind identification of channel coding parameters has recently attracted more attention. To reduce the computational complexity of the closed set recognition of problem low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes, this paper improves a closed set reverse recognition algorithm based on the maximum mean log-likelihood ratio. Before using soft decision information to make a decision, the check vector is first filtered to select some check vectors to reduce the computational complexity. The experimental results show that this method can complete the inverse identification of closed sets of LDPC codes in the case of low signal-to-noise ratio. Compared with the previous algorithm, the time complexity of the proposed algorithm is significantly reduced.
Phenotypic Variation in Endangered Texas Salamanders: Application of Model-Based Clustering for Identifying Species and Hybrids

The endangered Barton Springs and Austin blind salamanders (Eurycea sosorum and E. waterlooensis, respectively) are micro-endemics to the Barton Springs segment of the Edwards Aquifer and its contributing zone in Central Texas. Although vertically segregated within the aquifer system, both species are known from the same spring outflows and occasionally hybridize. We used geometric morphometrics and model-based clustering applied to a large sample of standardized salamander photographs to evaluate the potential for objective phenotypic assignment to either species, as well as putative hybrids. In addition to characterizing variation in head shape, our analyses inferred sets of clusters corresponding to ontogenetic series in both species but did not infer any distinct hybrid clusters. Eurycea sosorum and E. waterlooensis have distinctive head size to trunk length allometries, which contributed to the effective clustering of species, even at small body sizes. We also observed subtle, but significant, microgeographic variation in E. sosorum, suggesting the possibility of population substructuring, phenotypic plasticity, or undetected hybridization.
Encouraging tourist citizenship behavior through resource uniqueness and service quality: The mediating role of emotions

Consumer citizenship behavior is widely considered to be vital to business success. However, the role of resource uniqueness and service quality in encouraging citizenship behavior in tourism settings has not been well understood. Grounded on a framework integrating the Stimulus-Organism-Response Model and Social Exchange Theory, this study examines whether tourism resource uniqueness and service quality affect tourists’ citizenship behaviors (i.e., word-of-mouth recommendations and providing feedback) through the mediating effect of tourist emotion (i.e., positive and negative emotions). A total of 321 samples collected from three types of scenic spots in China were analyzed using structural equation modeling and Bootstrapping procedures. Results suggest that both tourism resource uniqueness and service quality positively predict positive emotion and negatively influence negative emotion, which is further positively and negatively associated with word-of-mouth recommendation and providing feedback, respectively. Moreover, both positive emotion and negative emotion mediate the effects of tourism resource uniqueness and service quality on tourists’ citizenship behaviors. Findings provide evidence that both resource uniqueness and service quality are critical to understand tourists’ citizenship behavior, and offer important marketing implications for destinations to manage tourist emotional experiences.
Detecting Food Fraud in Extra Virgin Olive Oil Using a Prototype Portable Hyphenated Photonics Sensor

Abstract Background Current developments in portable photonic devices for fast authentication of extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) or EVOO with non-EVOO additions steer towards hyphenation of different optic technologies. The multiple spectra or so-called “fingerprints” of samples are then analyzed with multivariate statistics. For EVOO authentication, one-class classification (OCC) to identify “out-of-class” EVOO samples in combination with data-fusion is applicable. Objective Prospecting the application of a prototype photonic device (“PhasmaFood”) which hyphenates visible, fluorescence, and near-infrared spectroscopy in combination with OCC modelling to classify EVOOs and discriminate them from other edible oils and adulterated EVOOs. Method EVOOs were adulterated by mixing in 10–50% (v/v) of refined and virgin olive oils, olive-pomace olive oils, and other common edible oils. Samples were analyzed by the hyphenated sensor. OCC, data-fusion, and decision thresholds were applied and optimized for two different scenarios. Results By high-level data-fusion of the classification results from the three spectral databases and several multivariate model vectors, a 100% correct classification of all pure edible oils using OCC in the first scenario was found. Reducing samples being falsely classified as EVOOs in a second scenario, 97% of EVOOs adulterated with non-EVOO olive oils were correctly identified and ones with other edible oils correctly classified at score of 91%. Conclusions Photonic sensor hyphenation in combination with high-level data fusion, OCC, and tuned decision thresholds delivers significantly better screening results for EVOO compared to individual sensor results. Highlights Hyphenated photonics and its data handling solutions applied to extra virgin olive oil authenticity testing was found to be promising.
Active Power Cycling Test Bench for SiC Power MOSFETs—Principles, Design, and Implementation

One way to achieve the best in class reliability is the implementation of a design for reliability methodology into the design process in order to estimate the lifetime of each individual critical component, based on proper reliability models for failure modes. The main drawback of the above-mentioned approach is that it relies on handbook-based reliability models, which usually are only accurate for particular components. This fact causes the necessity to develop a testing procedure for SiC power metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET), to determine its reliability model parameters. Such model could be further implemented in the design for reliability methodology for the high-performance power supply design process. In this article, a cost effective and industrial friendly laboratory setup for active power cycling of SiC power MOSFETs in SOT-227b housing is presented. By this example, various control strategies for accelerated lifetime testing, degradation indicators for wear-out condition monitoring and junction temperature estimation methods are compared on their impact on test results and complexity in either laboratory setup and its maintenance procedure. Technical issues related to the start-up of active power cycling test and failure detection algorithm are discussed. Finally, test results for SiC power MOSFETs subjected to over 63355 power cycles are presented.
Representative justice in the European normative framework and tensions with the national political discourses

ABSTRACT Political discourses in Europe operate at the supranational, national and local level, with supranational institutions providing a normative framework for the policy making at lower governance level. However, the actual appeal of the legal, political and normative frameworks offered by supranational European institutions remains unclear. For example, while ‘justice’ is deemed constitutive of European values and ideals of democracy, and European institutions offer a clear vision of what ‘justice’ in pluralistic European societies should imply, relatively little is known about how this normative framework is reflected in national-level politics. The current article aims to close this gap by comparing political discourses on representative justice in six European countries with the European normative framework reconstructed on the basis of documents issued by the Council of Europe (CoE) and the European Parliament (EP). The research question we address relates to how the European normative framework on representative justice for minority and vulnerable groups is present and strived for in national political discourses. Our analysis shows that the principles of representative justice set out at the supranational European level lose their appeal at the national level politics permeated with conflicting visions of what is just, for whom and on what moral grounds.