Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
North African mineral dust sources: new insights from a combined analysis based on 3D dust aerosol distributions, surface winds and ancillary soil parameters

Abstract. Mineral dust aerosol is a key player in the climate system. Determining dust sources and the spatio-temporal variability of dust emission fluxes is essential to estimating the impact of dust on the atmospheric radiation budget, cloud and precipitation formation processes, the bio-productivity and ultimately the carbon cycle. Although much effort has been put into determining dust sources from satellite observations, geo-locating active dust sources is still challenging and uncertainties in space and time are evident. One major source of uncertainty is the lack of clear differentiation between near source dust aerosol and transported dust aerosol. In order to reduce this uncertainty, we use 3 dimensional information on the distribution of dust aerosol suspended in the atmosphere calculated from spectral measurements obtained by the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) by using the Mineral Aerosols Profiling from Infrared Radiance (MAPIR) algorithm. In addition to standard dust products from satellite observations, which provide 2 dimensional information on the horizontal distribution of dust, MAPIR allows for retrieving additional information on the vertical distribution of dust plumes. This ultimately enables us to separate between near source and transported dust plumes. Combined with information on near-surface wind speed and surface properties, low-altitude dust plumes can be assigned to dust emission events and low-altitude transport regimes can be excluded. Consequently, this technique will reduce the uncertainty in automatically geo-locating active dust sources. The findings of our study illustrate the spatio-temporal distribution of North African dust sources based on 9 years of data, allowing to observe a full seasonal cycle of dust emissions, differentiating morning and afternoon/evening emissions and providing a first glance at long-term changes. In addition, we compare the results of this new method to the results from Schepanski et al. (2012) which manually identify dust sources from Spinning Enhanced Visible and InfraRed Imager Red Green Blue (SEVIRI RGB) images. The comparison illustrates that each method has its strengths and weaknesses that must be taken into account when using the results. This study is of particular importance for understanding future environmental changes due to a changing climate.
Fundamental policy challenges influencing sustainable development in Africa

Background: There is widespread recognition on the African continent that a coherent and integrated policy response is necessary to adequately deal with issues associated with sustainable development. Despite this general recognition, it is, however, also evident that much still needs to be done to realise a coherent policy response fostered by a transgovernance approach to sustainable development.Aim: The aim of this article is to analyse the nature and scope of development policy influencing Africa’s policy responses to sustainable development challenges.Setting: Challenges associated with sustainable development transcend national borders. This requires trans-border policy responses and transgovernance. Transgovernance goes beyond conventional governance approaches and moves towards a more integrated global and continental response to address sustainability issues. The same applies to Africa as a continent.Methods: In the traditions of interpretivism, the methodology is based on a desktop analysis by means of a literature survey. The qualitative description of the findings focuses on the themes that emerge from the research and the manner in which it was conceptualised and contextualised in terms of unobtrusive research techniques.Results: Results indicate that across Africa there have been varied policy responses to sustainable development challenges. It was established that despite successes on the continent, inclusive of the establishment of various sectoral policy frameworks and coordinating mechanisms, there is still great concern for the general lack of a coordinated response to environmental concerns. Change in policy-making approaches and practices as well as changes in attitudes towards the environment are essential.Conclusion: Policy coherence on the continent is a prerequisite to promote sustainable development. Policy responses need to consider the finite nature of natural resources and the future implications of current government actions (and inactions). Policy-makers need to look forward, contemplating the interrelationship between human-driven development and the environment, and approach policy design in a fundamentally new way.
In Vitro Cytotoxicity of Nanoparticles: A Comparison between Particle Size and Cell Type

The reduction in size of Zinc oxide (ZnO) and Silicon dioxide (SiO2) particles from micron to nano scale offers unique physical characteristics on one hand while making them cytotoxic on other hand. The present study was aimed at comparing cytotoxic effects of ZnO and SiO2 nanoparticles with their micron size and secondary aim was to compare responses of these particles to two different cell types, namely, human lung epithelial cells (L-132) and human monocytes (THP-1). The L-132 and THP-1 cells were exposed to nano and micron size of ZnO and SiO2 particles with different concentrations (5–500 μg/mL) for 24 h, and cytotoxicity was analyzed by MTT assay, live-dead staining, and TC-50 was calculated. ZnO and SiO2 particles showed concentration-dependent cytotoxicity in both cell lines. In size-dependent study, ZnO particles exhibited nearly equal toxicity profile in L-132 cells while in THP-1 cells nano ZnO showed more toxicity than its micron size. The SiO2 particles showed more toxicity in their nano size than micron size in both cell lines. Human monocytes, THP-1 cells, were more sensitive towards the toxicity of both particles than human lung cells, L-132. The results highlight the difference of cytotoxicity between particle sizes and differential sensitivity of cells towards the particles of same composition. In conclusion, ZnO and SiO2 particles exhibited concentration-dependent toxicity, which was more in their nano size than micron counterpart. However, the toxic response varies depending on type of cell exposed due to differential sensitivity.
Object gripping algorithm for robotic assistance by means of deep learning

This paper exposes the use of recent deep learning techniques in the state of the art, little addressed in robotic applications, where a new algorithm based on Faster R-CNN and CNN regression is exposed. The machine vision systems implemented, tend to require multiple stages to locate an object and allow a robot to take it, increasing the noise in the system and the processing times. The convolutional networks based on regions allow one to solve this problem, it is used for it two convolutional architectures, one for classification and location of three types of objects and one to determine the grip angle for a robotic gripper. Under the establish virtual environment, the grip algorithm works up to 5 frames per second with a 100% object classification, and with the implementation of the Faster R-CNN, it allows obtain 100% accuracy in the classifications of the test database, and over a 97% of average precision locating the generated boxes in each element, gripping successfully the objects.
Extragenic Suppressor of Several Mating-Defective Mutants

The SIR) gene product of Saccharomyces cerevisiae is one of several proteins involved in repressing transcription of the silent mating-type genes. Strains with mutations in the genes coding for these proteins are defective in mating due to derepression of the silent loci. We have found that overexpression of the SIR) gene suppresses the mating defects of several of these mutants, including nat) and ardl mutants (the products of these two genes are responsible for N-terminal acetylation of a subset of yeast proteins), certain sir3 mutants, and a histone H4 mutant. The SIR) gene has been sequenced and found to contain an open reading frame coding for a 678-amino-acid protein.
Development of the HadISDH.marine humidity climate monitoring dataset

Abstract. Atmospheric humidity plays an important role in climate analyses. Here we describe the production and key characteristics of a new quasi-global marine humidity product intended for climate monitoring, HadISDH.marine. It is an in situ multivariable marine humidity product, gridded monthly at a 5 ∘ × 5 ∘ spatial resolution from January 1973 to December 2018 with annual updates planned. Currently, only reanalyses provide up-to-date estimates of marine surface humidity, but there are concerns over their long-term stability. As a result, this new product makes a valuable addition to the climate record and will help address some of the uncertainties around recent changes (e.g. contrasting land and sea trends, relative-humidity drying). Efforts have been made to quality-control the data, ensure spatial and temporal homogeneity as far as possible, adjust for known biases in non-aspirated instruments and ship heights, and also estimate uncertainty in the data. Uncertainty estimates for whole-number reporting and for other measurement errors have not been quantified before for marine humidity. This is a companion product to HadISDH.land, which, when combined, will provide methodologically consistent land and marine estimates of surface humidity. The spatial coverage of HadISDH.marine is good over the Northern Hemisphere outside of the high latitudes but poor over the Southern Hemisphere, especially south of 20 ∘ S. The trends and variability shown are in line with overall signals of increasing moisture and warmth over oceans from theoretical expectations and other products. Uncertainty in the global average is larger over periods where digital ship metadata are fewer or unavailable but not large enough to cast doubt over trends in specific humidity or air temperature. Hence, we conclude that HadISDH.marine is a useful contribution to our understanding of climate change. However, we note that our ability to monitor surface humidity with any degree of confidence depends on the continued availability of ship data and provision of digitized metadata. HadISDH.marine data, derived diagnostics, and plots are available at http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadisdh (last access: June 2019) and https://doi.org/10.5285/463b2fcd6a264a39b1e3249dab16c177 (Willett et al., 2020).
CliGAN: A Structurally Sensitive Convolutional Neural Network Model for Statistical Downscaling of Precipitation from Multi-Model Ensembles

Despite numerous studies in statistical downscaling methodologies, there remains a lack of methods that can downscale from precipitation modeled in global climate models to regional level high resolution gridded precipitation. This paper reports a novel downscaling method using a Generative Adversarial Network (GAN), CliGAN, which can downscale large-scale annual maximum precipitation given by simulation of multiple atmosphere-ocean global climate models (AOGCM) from Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project 6 (CMIP6) to regional-level gridded annual maximum precipitation data. This framework utilizes a convolution encoder-dense decoder network to create a generative network and a similar network to create a critic network. The model is trained using an adversarial training approach. The critic uses the Wasserstein distance loss function and the generator is trained using a combination of adversarial loss Wasserstein distance, structural loss with the multi-scale structural similarity index (MSSIM), and content loss with the Nash-Sutcliff Model Efficiency (NS). The MSSIM index allowed us to gain insight into the model’s regional characteristics and shows that relying exclusively on point-based error functions, widely used in statistical downscaling, may not be enough to reliably simulate regional precipitation characteristics. Further use of structural loss functions within CNN-based downscaling methods may lead to higher quality downscaled climate model products.
Measuring the oxygen consumption rate of some inactivated dry yeasts: comparison with other common wine antioxidants

The aim of the study was to evaluate the oxygen consumption kinetics of some inactivated dry yeasts in comparison with those of sulfur dioxide, ascorbic acid and glutathione.The oxygen consumption rates of three inactivated dry yeasts, sulfur dioxide, ascorbic acid and glutathione at the usual doses in a model wine solution were determined by carrying out noninvasive fluorescence measurements. The results indicate that two of the studied inactivated dry yeasts consume oxygen more effectively than sulfur dioxide. These data suggest that some inactivated dry yeasts may be useful for protecting wine against oxidation.This study shows for the first time that inactivated dry yeasts can actually consume oxygen, therefore opening up an interesting area for future research.
Exploring the relationship between resilience and perceived parental authority among adolescents

The present study aimed to explore the association between resilience and perceived parental authority. Resilience is the ability to overcome or bounce back from a situation that causes significant distress to the individual. Parental authority on the other hand, is the pattern of interaction between a parent and child, which influences the relationship between them. A quantitative study was conducted on a sample of 120 adolescents. The parental authority questionnaire (Buri, 1991) and Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (Conner and Davidson, 2003) was used to collect data. Analysis of data revealed that there was a significant correlation between resilience and authoritative parenting style.
Protein Antigen Shared by Thermophilic Campylobacters

A protein antigen with an apparent molecular weight (Mr) of 31,000 was isolated from 0.2 M glycine hydrochloride (pH 2.2) extracts of a typical human fecal isolate, Campylobacterjejuni VC74. The protein was purified to homogeneity on a preparative scale by immunoaffinity chromatography followed by molecular sieving with a Superose 12 column. Isoelectric focusing under nondenaturing conditions indicated a pI of 9.3, and amino acid composition analysis showed that the protein was unusually rich in lysine, containing 14.9 mol% of this basic amino acid. Cysteine and tryptophan were absent. The protein also contained approximately 35% hydrophobic amino acid residues, and N-terminal amino acid analysis showed that 17 of the first 38 residues were hydrophobic. This amino-terminal sequence to residue 22 was virtually identical to that of an antigenically cross-reactive 31,000-Mr protein isolated from another C. jejuni strain belonging to a different heat-labile serogroup. Western blotting (immunoblotting) of glycine extracts of other C. jejuni, Campylobacter coli, and Campylobacter laridis strains belonging to different thermolabile and thermostable serotypes, as well
Effect of dietary betaine supplementation on growth performance, immunity and oxidative stress in Karan fries heifers during heat stress

Thermal stress leads to increase in blood supply to the periphery and a compensatory reduction in the blood supply to the gut leading to increase production of endotoxins in the body causing injury to the organ and increase in acute phase protein responses in the body. Therefore, a need arises of an antioxidant that protects the gut integrity. Recently betaine, a trimethyl form of glycine has been found to ameliorate heat stress. The experiment was divided into two parts. Experiment-I (thermoneutral conditions) and Experiment–II (summer season : hot-dry and hot-humid season) were carried out on eighteen female Karan Fries heifers were taken and randomly divided into 3 groups (n = 6) such as control, Treatment I (Betaine supplemented @ 25g/d/animal), Treatment II (Betaine supplemented @ 50g/d/animal) when the average maximum and minimum temperatures were (23.5°C and 9.9°C) and (35.3°C and 22.4°C), respectively. Betaine supplementation resulted in significant (p<0.05) increase in DMI, body weight gain and plasma GH. The mRNA expression of IGF-1 was significantly (P<0.01) higher in Treatment I.When the groups were compared during hot dry, hot humid and thermo-neutral season, expression of interleukins (IL-6 and IL-10) showed opposite pattern and expression of MnSOD showed similar pattern. The messenger RNA (mRNA) and protein expression of IL-6 was observed to be higher (P<0.01) in control group than Treatment I and Treatment II group and expression of IL-10 and MnSOD were observed to be higher (P<0.01) in Treatment II followed by Treatment I as compared to control. Plasma level of Acute Phase proteins (Serum amyloid A and haptoglobin) and Total Antioxidant capacity were significantly (p<0.05) lower in betaine supplemented groups as compared to control whereas plasma level of cortisol did not differ significantly. In conclusion, betaine administration enhances nutrient utilisation and have a dwindling effect on expression of cytokines, suggesting a possible role of this potent antioxidant immunomodulator on heat stress amelioration.
Effectiveness of dietary interventions on weight outcomes in childhood: a systematic review meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

Background Rapid growth and elevated weight in childhood are significantly associated with obesity in later life, but evidence regarding dietary interventions and weight outcomes is lacking. This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of dietary interventions on body mass index (BMI) and BMI z-score in childhood. Methods PubMed, EmBase, and the Cochrane library were searched from inception till June 2019. Studies that investigated the effectiveness of dietary interventions on BMI and BMI z-score in childhood were considered eligible in our study. The changes in BMI and BMI z-score between dietary interventions and control were calculated by pooled weighted mean differences (WMDs) and 95% CIs were evaluated using random-effects model. Results Twenty-eight randomized controlled trials involving a total of 17,488 children were included. The summary WMDs indicated that children who received dietary interventions had greater reduction in BMI (WMD: –0.12; 95% CI: –0.20 to –0.05; P=0.001) and BMI z-score (WMD: –0.04; 95% CI: –0.06 to –0.02; P=0.001) when compared to the usual controls. Subgroup analyses revealed that the sample size, mean age, duration of interventions, and study quality could affect the effectiveness of dietary interventions in children. Conclusions The findings of this meta-analysis suggested that dietary interventions improved BMI and BMI z-score, whereas these results are limited due to substantial heterogeneity and study quality of the included studies.
Performance Appraisal Management in A Malaysian Secondary School

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________ The purpose of this study is to explore the implementation of performance assessment in one of the Malaysian public secondary schools. Topics like what is a performance appraisal; the goal of having a performance appraisal in school; the processes for conducting performance appraisal at school; the benefits of having a performance appraisal in school; how performance appraisal affects school improvement; ways to improve performance appraisal in school; common problems with school performance appraisal are explored. There are six respondents have been selected in this case study including one principal and six teachers from an urban school in Malaysia. Eight open ended questions have been developed for the interview session with the principal and two open ended questions with teachers. Data were collected with personal in-depth interview and group interview. The results revealed that performance appraisal is important for the principal to track teachers’ productivity, to improve their career, provide a brighter career pathway and help teachers to improve their job quality. Teacher in the other hand thought that the performance appraisal should have stringent criteria and fair evaluation. It is recommended that this process need a highly cooperation and two-way communication between both parties of principal and teachers.
Do Monetary Policy Frameworks Matter in Low Income Countries?

Microeconomic evidence indicates a very high frequency of price adjustment in low income countries (LICs), raising the question of whether LICs may be reasonably characterized as exhibiting monetary neutrality. To address this question, we analyze a cross-country panel dataset of 79 LICs over the period 1990 to 2015 to assess the impact of external shocks on real GDP growth, and we find highly significant differences between LICs where the central bank targets monetary aggregates or inflation compared to LICs that maintain rigid nominal exchange rates. We also conduct an event study of the surprise devaluation of the Central African Franc (CFA) in January 1994 and find that it had highly significant effects on the output growth of 10 CFA countries relative to 18 similar countries outside the CFA zone. Consequently, the hypothesis of monetary neutrality is decisively rejected, and these findings provide strong support for the role of monetary policy frameworks in fostering price stability and macroeconomic stability in LICs. <br><br>Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at <a href="http://www.nber. org/papers/&#119;28536" TARGET="_blank">www.nber. org</a>. <br>
Inferring the basis of binaural detection with a modified autoencoder

The binaural system utilizes interaural timing cues to improve the detection of auditory signals presented in noise. In humans, the binaural mechanisms underlying this phenomenon cannot be directly measured - and hence remain contentious. As an alternative, we trained modified autoencoder networks to mimic human-like behavior in a binaural detection task. The autoencoder architecture emphasizes interpretability and, hence, we “opened it up” to see if it could infer latent mechanisms underlying binaural detection. We found that the optimal network automatically developed artificial neurons with sensitivity to timing cues and with dynamics consistent with a cross-correlation mechanism. These computations were similar to neural dynamics reported in animal models. That these computations emerged to account for human hearing attests to their generality as a solution for binaural signal detection. Methodologically, the study examines the utility of explanatory-driven neural networks and how they may be used to infer mechanisms of audition.
One-Pot Water-Based Hydrophobic Surface Modification of Cellulose Nanocrystals Using Plant Polyphenols

An environmentally friendly procedure for the surface modification of cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) in water is presented. Tannic acid (TA), a plant polyphenol, acts as the primer when mixed with CNCs in suspension, which are then reacted with decylamine (DA), the hydrophobe. Schiff base formation/Michael-type addition covalently attaches primary amines with long alkyl tails to CNC-TA, increasing the particle hydrophobicity (contact angle shift from 21 to 74°). After modification, the CNC-TA-DA particles in the water phase separate, allowing for easy collection of modified material. The dried product is readily redispersible in toluene and other organic solvents, as demonstrated by turbidity measurements, dynamic light scattering, optical microscopy, and liquid crystal self-assembly behavior. Electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, solid-state 13C NMR, and X-ray diffraction support the successful surface modification and indicate that CNC particle mo.