Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Consequences of Environmental Pollution on Agricultural Productivity in Developing Countries: A Case of Nigeria

Environmental pollution is a widespread problem that influences both human health and agricultural productivity. One of the greatest problems facing the world today is environmental pollution, which is increasing every year and causing grave and irreparable damage to the earth and human health. It is these conditions that make environmental pollution a major concern to the developing countries of the world, especially Nigeria. Environmental pollution results from the activities of man through the use of technology to manipulate the ecosystem or environment to meet his needs. Nigeria as a developing country has lost much of her habitable environment due to environmental degradation and pollution, which destroys crops and aquaculture through the contamination of waterways, ground water, and soil and causes flaring of associated gas. There is also rampant mismanagement of the land resources. These have significant negative conse­quences on crop yield and land productivity, which further impoverish the already poor farmers in these areas. With the increasing soil infertility as a result of the destruction of soil micro-organisms and dwindling agricultural produc­tiv­ity, farmers have been forced to abandon their land to seek non-existent alter­native means of livelihood. Therefore, this paper examines the nature of en­vi­ronmental pollution in the area and its consequences on agricultural produc­tiv­ity. Questionnaires were administered to elicit information on soil fertility, crop growth, and crop productivity. A total of 360 questionnaires were adminis­tered using a multistage sampling technique and analyzed using frequency ta­bles and percentages. Results show that environmental pollution reduces the level of soil nutrients and fertility (82%). Crop growth and crop yield are nega­tively affected by pollution (80%); therefore, agricultural productivity is nega­tively affected in Nigeria. The paper recommends, among other things, that efforts be made to im­mediately address the environmental problems of the country if any meaningful development is to be sustained.
A comparative study of abundance of tiger prey base in Bardia-Katarniaghat (Khata) corridor and south-west corner of Bardia National Park, Nepal

The current study was carried out in Bardia National Park and in the Bardia-Katarniaghat (Khata) corridor, which is one of five priority areas identified by Terai Arc Landscape Program (TAL) for habitat restoration due to heavy degradation of forest. The study was conducted from 15 October to 26 November 2011. The main objectives of the study were to compare the composition and abundance of tiger prey in both study areas and to draw inference on tiger habitat quality in the corridor. The line-plot pellet count technique of Wegge (1976) was adopted to assess the composition and abundance of tiger prey. Habitat compositions in the park and the corridor were determined on the basis of proportional length of different habitats along transects. Land use changes in the corridor from 1997 to 2011 were found out by the help of GIS using a topographic map and a Google Earth image. Corridors are connections between separate areas of similar habitat (Bolen & Willam 1995) and geographical extensions, continental or maritime, whose function is to connect areas and facilitate the movement of plants and animals and provide natural conditions that guarantee their conservation (Rivera et al. 2002). The study found out that the abundance of major tiger prey species like chital (Axis axis) and hog deer (A. porcinus) was extremely low in the Khata corridor compared to the south-western part of the park. The less abundant swamp deer (Cervus duvauceli) was restricted to phanta in the park, but was absent in the corridor. Other preferred prey species, such as sambar deer (C. unicolor) was rare in the park, but absent in the corridor. Similarly, nilgai (Boselaphus tragocamelus) and barking deer (Muntiacus muntjac) were scarce in both study areas. Livestock pellet groups were recorded only in the corridor with the highest abundance after wild boar. Relatively small areas of important prey habitats like phanta and tallgrass floodplain ((p ≤ 0.05) in the corridor than in the park, and their poor quality was the main reason for the low density of chief tiger prey species in the corridor. Habitat assessment in the Khata corridor showed that the forest area remained unchanged and there was an insignificant increase in other land types from 1997 to 2011. The study indicated that the effect of past anthropogenic activities, current excessive livestock pressure and infestation of the alien plant Lantana camara were important factors affecting the habitat quality in the corridor. This suggested that tiger habitat quality was not satisfactory in the corridor. Nevertheless, the higher density of wild boar in the corridor may fulfill the feeding requirements of the tiger and can help its transboundary dispersal in some extent. On the other hand, the tiger population may increase with the restoration of habitats, which in turn may increase tiger human conflicts due to the small habitat area. All these issues should be addressed to restore the tiger habitat in the Khata corridor and facilitate its smooth dispersal through it.
Use of ACEi/ARBs, SGLT2 inhibitors and MRAs can help us reach the therapeutic ceiling in CKD

ABSTRACT Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is increasing in prevalence worldwide, posing major implications for public health such as kidney failure requiring dialysis, and increased risk of cardiovascular and all-cause mortality. Diabetic and hypertensive kidney disease represent the two most common causes of CKD. Until a few years ago, lifestyle modifications, blood pressure, glycaemic and lipid control, along with angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor or angiotensin-receptor blocker monotherapy were the only measures for retarding these two diseases and were the cornerstone of treatment for CKD of any aetiology. Effective application of all these measures could reduce the estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) decline in proteinuric CKD roughly from 10–12 to 5–6 mL/min/1.73 m2/year, hence leaving a large unmet need in CKD treatment. In recent years, major kidney outcome trials showed that the addition of sodium–glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors (SGLT2i) in patients with CKD with or without type 2 diabetes (T2D) and of the non-steroidal mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist finerenone in patients with CKD with T2D can largely improve kidney and cardiovascular outcomes. Elegant analyses of these trials shed further light on these effects, showing that SGLT2i or finerenone use on top of standard-of-care treatment in patients with albuminuric CKD can further reduce chronic eGFR annual loss to 2–2.5 mL/min/1.73 m2, while SGLT2is in normoalbuminuric CKD can reduce this loss <0.5 mL/min/1.73 m2, i.e. well below the aging-related GFR loss. Therefore, current evidence suggests that available treatments, if properly implemented, can help us reach the therapeutic ceiling in the majority of CKD patients.
Muscle Hypertrophy Is Linked to Changes in the Oxidative and Proteolytic Systems during Early Tenderization of the Spanish Breed “Asturiana de los Valles”

For fresh meat consumers, eating satisfaction is of utmost importance and tenderness is one of the most important characteristics in this regard. Our study examined beef of different animal biotypes of the autochthonous breed “Asturiana de los Valles” (AV) to determine if early postmortem oxidative and proteolytic processes may influence the final tenderness of the product. This meat-specialized breed shows different biotypes depending on the frequency of a myostatin mutation “mh” that induces double-muscling or muscular hypertrophy (mh/mh, mh/+, +/+). Samples from the longissimus dorsi muscles of yearling bulls were analyzed during the first 24 h postmortem. Changes in the redox balance of muscle cells were significant in the first hours after slaughter; total antioxidant activity was higher in the mh/mh biotype and it followed the shortening of the sarcomeres, a key parameter in understanding meat tenderness. The two proteolytic systems studied (proteasome and lysosome) followed distinct patterns. Proteasome activity was higher in the (mh/+) biotype, which correlated with higher protein damage. Lysosome proteolysis was increased in the more tender biotypes (mh genotypes). Autophagic activation showed significant differences between the biotypes, with (mh/mh) showing more intense basal autophagy at the beginning of the postmortem period that decreased gradually (p < 0.001), while in the normal biotype (+/+), it was slightly delayed and then increased progressively (p < 0.001). These results suggest that this type of catalytic process and antioxidant activity could contribute to the earlier disintegration of the myofibers, particularly in the mh/mh biotypes, and influence the conversion of muscle into meat.
Bed morphology and stability in steep open channels

Bed Morphology and stability of steep open channels Steep headwater streams are often characterised by alternating steps and pools (Fig.1). The specific pattern can be seen as image of the complex interaction between topography, hydrology, geology and vegetation of a river catchment area. As bed roughness is large relatively to flow depth, the flow field and thus flow resistance and stability are largely influenced by bed morphology. The purpose of the present research project is to investigate the bed morphology and the stability in steep open channels in order to enlarge the physical background for hazard assessment. A better knowledge of bed morphology and stability is also required for the design of stable and nature-orientated man-made structures.
Psychological Distress in Low-Income and Economically Marginalized Populations in India: Protective and Risk Factors

Studies at the juncture of development economics and public health take on considerable responsibility in addressing inequality and related mental health distress. Mental healthcare in economically marginalized populations requires depicting the linkages between socioeconomic status and psychological distress. In the present work, a sequential mixed-methods design was used to study 190 people in such communities in India. Gender-dependent psychological distress was found according to the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K-10) with moderate distress in women (M = 26.30, SD = 9.15) and mild distress in men (M = 21.04, SD = 8.35). Regression analysis indicated that gender significantly predicted psychological distress, followed by age, marital status, and the level of education of the head of the family. The Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of semi-structured interviews of the six women who scored the highest on the distress scale unveiled three master themes: (1) manifestation of psychological distress, (2) contextual challenges, and (3) sources of strength and resilience. Overall, participants reported a lack of resources, community violence, gender discrimination, and widespread substance use as major contributors to the ongoing distress. These findings can pave the way for future studies to expand beyond independent economic indicators and curate clinical interventions for culturally competent mental healthcare.
A Novel Coplanar-Strip-Based Excitation Technique for Design of Broadband Circularly Polarization Antennas With Wide 3 dB Axial Ratio Beamwidth

In this communication, a novel excitation technique for the design of a single-point-fed compact low-profile wide-slot antennas with broadband circular polarization (CP) and wide 3 dB axial ratio (AR) beamwidth is presented. Two inverted L-shaped parasitic strips placed coplanar to the microstrip line of an asymmetric coplanar waveguide (CPW) and a horizontal strip that protrudes from the vertical edge of the backside ground plane of the substrate are used for CP excitation. The overall footprint of the structure is only $L_{s} \times W_{s} = 0.3\lambda _{0} \times 0.28\lambda _{0}$ when measured at the lowest operating frequency. The antenna prototype has been experimentally validated. The measured results indicate that a wide impedance bandwidth of 72% (2.26–4.85 GHz) and a CP bandwidth of 66% (2.44–4.87 GHz) can be achieved. In addition to the wideband characteristics in terms of the impedance bandwidth and CP, a stable bidirectional radiation pattern with a wide 3 dB beamwidth of 85° ± 5° is obtained for 58% of the total CP bandwidth without involving any complex circuitry. Furthermore, by placing a flat metallic reflector behind the antenna, a unidirectional radiation pattern is produced without changing the geometrical dimensions of the proposed antenna. The average realized gain of the antenna without a reflector is 3.3 dBi, whereas it increases up to 6.3 dBi with the substrate-size reflector.
Real-Time Wide-Range Carrier Frequency Offset Compensation by Multi-Thread PADE for Fully Softwarized Access Networks

With the evolution of access systems by network function virtualization (NFV) and the software-defined network (SDN), further softwarization including transmission functions is required in order to fully utilize the advantages that softwarization offers to network operators in terms of more flexible and rapid service creation and migration. The softwarization of digital signal processing (DSP) is a prime target, but frequency offset compensation (FOC) has serial processing, which makes its softwarization difficult. In particular, the pre-decision-based angle differential estimator (PADE) of wide-range FOC needs long serial iterations since it obtains stable solutions by using small loop gain in the loop filter. This paper proposes a multiplication-based FOC implementation and a novel multi-thread PADE algorithm for real-time softwarization. The multiplication-based implementation enables parallel compensation of phase rotation by multiplying the estimated CFOs by sampling numbers for Viterbi-and-Viterbi (VV) method and PADE. In addition, our multi-thread PADE algorithm significantly reduces the iterations needed for FOC estimation; using multi-threading, it estimates multiple frequency offsets using the loop filters with large loop gain. This calculation needs relatively few iterations, but its outputs are very noisy, and final frequency offset estimates are obtained after removing the noise by clustering and averaging the results. The results of simulations and experiments, which use a general-purpose server with a graphic processing unit, show that our PADE algorithm is 1,308 times faster than the conventional implementation and 5-Gb/s real-time processing is achieved while maintaining the FOC performance.
Quantifying the Potential Impact of Autonomous Vehicle Adoption on Government Finances

There is some understanding that autonomous vehicles will disrupt public sector policies and the existing transportation industry, but this disruption is often loosely defined and tends to ignore how it would affect governments financially. The primary objective of this paper is to quantify the short-term impact of introducing autonomous vehicles on government finances. The analysis focuses on eight Canadian governments, encompassing four government tiers. Public discourse and academic literature are used to generate nine predicted changes (forecast variables) in future adoption scenarios. Using the predicted rate of autonomous vehicle adoption, the remaining variables are converted into financial changes by combining them with government financial records, infrastructure inventory datasets, and project cost estimates. The results suggest that, while revenue impacts are fairly minimal, and mostly impact Canadian provinces, the cost of implementing the expected vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication upgrades could be expensive for governments with smaller populations, especially municipalities. The revenue analysis indicates the biggest shift is likely to be a loss in gas tax, which affects federal and provincial revenues, yet this share is relatively small compared with the size of these governments’ budgets. The expense analysis suggests that, although provinces have extensive road networks, the cost of upgrading all of their highways may not be unreasonable compared with their yearly revenue intake. On the other hand, municipalities would require substantial new funds to be able to make the same upgrades.
Trust, Ethnicity and Integrity in East Africa: Experimental Evidence from Kenya and Tanzania

Abstract Political economy comparisons of Kenya and Tanzania have often found the political salience of ethnicity to be far higher in the former than the latter, with a negative impact on intercommunal trust. This difference has tended to be explained on the basis of the different kinds of leadership that the two countries experienced after independence. However, these findings have typically been demonstrated using aggregate or survey data. This paper assesses the salience of ethnicity at the individual level for the first time, deploying monetized two-round trust games in urban Kenya and Tanzania. The experimental games isolate the comparative impact of common knowledge of ethnicity and integrity among a quasi-random selection of 486 citizens. Verifying previous findings, we observe higher levels of trust and trustworthiness in Tanzania as compared with Kenya. Further, in comparison with Kenya, any shared knowledge of ethnic identities in Tanzania leads players to transfer fewer resources, while common knowledge that both players are “honest” led to higher transfers there than in Kenya. These results provide robust evidence of higher levels of trust in Tanzania, and of the negative effect in that country of common knowledge of ethnicity on levels of cooperation. The findings demonstrate the way in which political context can shape the impact of ethnic diversity, and encourage further experimental research that looks at the intersubjective dynamics of social cooperation.
Preventing and Managing Iatrogenic Dry Eye Disease during the Entire Surgical Pathway: A Study Focusing on Patients Undergoing Cataract Surgery

Patient expectations for cataract surgery are continuously increasing, and dry eye disease (DED) represents a major cause of patient dissatisfaction in eye surgery. The present opinion paper aims to provide useful insights to improve the entire pathway of a patient undergoing cataract surgery, from the preoperative setting to the postoperative one. The available evidence from main clinical trials published on this topic is presented in association with experience-based points of view by the authors. Ocular surface disease (OSD) is common in patients presenting for cataract surgery, and more than half of these patients have DED and meibomian gland dysfunction (MGD), even in the absence of symptoms. Therefore, there is a need to encourage preoperative assessments for the risk of DED development or worsening in all patients as a routine approach to cataract surgery. New all-in-one diagnostic machines allow for fast and noninvasive screening of the ocular surface status. Once a preoperative diagnosis of DED/OSD is reached, ocular surface optimization should be obtained before surgery. In the case of unresolved OSD, the decision to delay surgery should be considered. The surgical procedure can be optimized by avoiding large incisions, limiting microscope light intensity and exposure, and avoiding an aspirating speculum or preserved eye drops. Postoperatively, the continued avoidance of preserved agents is advisable, as well as a limited exposure to epitheliotoxic antibiotics and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. Short-term, preservative-free, soft corticosteroids may be useful for patients with extensive or persistent inflammation.
The Early Cambrian worm tube Onuphionella from California and Nevada

Two new species of worm tubes referable to the genus Onuphionella occur in Lower Cambrian strata in eastern California and western Nevada. Onuphionella durhami n. sp. is found in the Campito Formation (in pre-trilobite strata, in the Fallotaspis and, possibly, the Nevadella Zones) and O. claytonensis n. sp. occurs in the Middle Member of the Poleta Formation (Nevadella Zone). The unusual tubes are armored with an imbricated coat of mica flakes, reminiscent of the modern genus Owenia. The lowest occurrence of Onuphionella in western North America corresponds closely with the lowest occurrence of the genus in the Baltic region, indicating that correlations between the two regions are not greatly in error.
Inspection of Floating Offshore Wind Turbines Using Multi-Rotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: Literature Review and Trends

Operations and maintenance (O&M) of floating offshore wind turbines (FOWTs) require regular inspection activities to predict, detect, and troubleshoot faults at high altitudes and in harsh environments such as strong winds, waves, and tides. Their costs typically account for more than 30% of the lifetime cost due to high labor costs and long downtime. Different inspection methods, including manual inspection, permanent sensors, climbing robots, remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), can be employed to fulfill O&M missions. The UAVs, as an enabling technology, can deal with time and space constraints easily and complete tasks in a cost-effective and efficient manner, which have been widely used in different industries in recent years. This study provides valuable insights into the existing applications of UAVs in FOWT inspection, highlighting their potential to reduce the inspection cost and thereby reduce the cost of energy production. The article introduces the rationale for applying UAVs to FOWT inspection and examines the current technical status, research gaps, and future directions in this field by conducting a comprehensive literature review over the past 10 years. This paper will also include a review of UAVs’ applications in other infrastructure inspections, such as onshore wind turbines, bridges, power lines, solar power plants, and offshore oil and gas fields, since FOWTs are still in the early stages of development. Finally, the trends of UAV technology and its application in FOWTs inspection are discussed, leading to our future research direction.
Deletion in a regulatory region is associated with underexpression of miR-148b‑3p in patients with prostate cancer

Prostate cancer (PCa) is the leading cause of cancer-related death in men. This pathology is complex and heterogeneous; therefore, elucidating the molecular mechanisms that lead to its origin and progression is imperative. MicroRNAs (miRNAs or miRs) are part of the epigenetic machinery that regulates the expression of human genes, therefore, mutations in the genes that encode them can lead to a dysregulation in their expression, which directly impacts their target genes, which could be oncogenes or tumor suppressor genes. In PCa several dysregulated expression levels of miRNAs are associated with perturbed cellular processes. A differential expression of miRNAs such as miR-145-5p and miR-148-3p has been observed in PCa, possibly due to mutations in regions near the miRNAs. However, the molecular mechanisms that lead to the dysregulation of these miRNAs still need to be clarified. Therefore, the present study aimed to analyze the expression of miRNAs and their relationship with mutations in patients with and without PCa. In total, 71 patients were analyzed: 41 of whom had PCa (CAP group) and 30 with benign pathology (BPD group). Underexpression was observed in miR-145-5p and miR-148b-3p in PCa patients (P=0.03 and P=0.001, respectively). In miR-145-5p, no mutations related to its expression were identified. For miR-148b-3p, a set of mutations were identified in the chr12:54337042/54337043 region, which were grouped into the mutation named DelsAAG. Although this mutation's abnormal allele is related to PCa (P=0.017), a statistically significant difference was observed in the expression of miR-148b-3p between carriers and non-carriers of the mutated allele, identifying a mechanism likely to be involved in the miR-148b-3p dysregulation.