Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Choices and determinants of malaria treatment seeking behaviour by rural households in Enugu state, South-East Nigeria

ABSTRACT Malaria has been found to be a significant contributor to the poor health problem in Nigeria and in Africa. It kills people more than any other infectious disease and about 80% of Nigerian population is exposed to malaria. Several factors influence the choices of households’ treatment provider. This study examines the choices and determinants of malaria treatment seeking behaviour given the demographic characteristics of rural households. Household data were collected through a structured interviewer-administered questionnaire on 600 households selected from the three senatorial zones of Enugu state and analysed using frequencies and regression analysis. It was found that 43% of farmers, 44% of traders, 44% of skilled labourers and 30% of civil servants sourced treatment from ‘chemists’ while 12% of farmers, 20% of traders, 23% of skilled labourers and 40% of civil servants sourced treatment from hospital. Education level of household head, cost of treatment, severity and nearness to facility were found to statistically determine the choice of treatment provider (P < 0.005). The study concluded that educational attainment, distance to health facility, severity of illness and financial status of household head majorly determined the choice of malaria treatment and ‘chemist’ appeared the most-visited treatment provider.
Design of Compact Three-Phase Receiver for Meander-Type Dynamic Wireless Power Transfer System

Three-phase meander-type dynamic wireless power transfer is ideal for the power supply or charging of rail vehicles. However, there is a lack of systematic analysis and design of the three-phase receiver. To achieve the compact design of the three-phase receiver in practical applications, this article studies the compact three-phase receiver with overlapped receiving coils and ferrite core. Based on the analysis of the fundamental coupling characteristic of three-phase meander-type dynamic wireless power transfer, two overlap modes of the receiving coils are concluded and compared. Meanwhile, by considering the influence of mutual inductance harmonic distortion, the accuracy of the receiving coil analysis and design is improved. Furthermore, a practical distributed strip core design is presented to enhance the coupling between transmitting coils and receiving coils. Additionally, the effect of the core on coupling imbalance is analyzed in detail and proves to have little effect on the power transfer. Afterward, a design flow of star-connected series-compensated receiver with the overlapped coils and the distributed strip core is proposed. Finally, for verification, a small prototype with an average output power of 154 W and average efficiency of 97% of the receiving coils is established.
The Influence of Sound Deprivation on Audiologic Outcomes after Cochlear Implantation

The cochlear implant is a prosthesis that is capable to replace listening capability among patients with sensorineural hearing loss. Many studies suggest a negative relationship among duration of sound deprivation and audiometric gain (by means of speech perception test) after cochlear implantation. We evaluated surgical and audiologic results among post-lingual deafened adults, in different times of sound deprivation, and correlated with social isolation, presence of vertigo or tinnitus, and the speech therapy yield, between pre- and post-operative stages. A retrospective study was conducted on patients with post-lingual hearing loss, aged over 18 years old who underwent cochlear implant surgery in a public hospital from 2004 to 2014. Audiological, socio-demographic questionnaire, and manifestations of vertigo and tinnitus, during pre- and post-operative stages, were compared and correlating to the different periods of sound deprivation. Two groups were studied. The group A was composed of 38 participants (14 male and 24 female) with sound deprivation of less than 10 years; and group B was composed of 17 participants (8 male and 9 female) with sound deprivation longer than 10 years. We found no differences regarding age, sex, duration of sound deprivation, mean pure-tone audiometric results (pre- and post-surgery), and speech perception tests (pre-operatively). After one year of the surgery, we observed a significant difference between both groups, with a better performance to group A. The results of speech perception test, after cochlear implantation in group B, were worse than the results obtained in group A, although these correlations are not determinant whether to perform cochlear implant surgery or not.
Co-evolving wing spots and mating displays are genetically separable traits in Drosophila

The evolution of sexual traits often involves correlated changes in morphology and behavior. For example, in Drosophila, divergent mating displays are often accompanied by divergent pigment patterns. To better understand how such traits co-evolve, we investigated the genetic basis of correlated divergence in wing pigmentation and mating display between the sibling species Drosophila elegans and D. gunungcola. Drosophila elegans males have an area of black pigment on their wings known as a wing spot and appear to display this spot to females by extending their wings laterally during courtship. By contrast, D. gunungcola lacks both of these traits. Using Multiplexed Shotgun Genotyping (MSG), we identified a ∼440 kb region on the X chromosome that behaves like a genetic switch controlling the presence or absence of male-specific wing spots. This region includes the candidate gene optomotor-blind (omb), which plays a critical role in patterning the Drosophila wing. The genetic basis of divergent wing display is more complex, with at least two loci on the X chromosome and two loci on autosomes contributing to its evolution. Introgressing the X-linked region affecting wing spot development from D. gunungcola into D. elegans reduced pigmentation in the wing spots but did not affect the wing display, indicating that these are genetically separable traits. Consistent with this observation, broader sampling of wild D. gunungcola populations confirmed the wing spot and wing display are evolving independently: some D. gunungcola males preformed wing displays similar to D. elegans despite lacking wing spots. These data suggest that correlated selection pressures rather than physical linkage or pleiotropy are responsible for the coevolution of these morphological and behavioral traits. They also suggest that the change in morphology evolved prior to the change in behavior.
Revisiting the Global Workspace: Orchestration of the functional hierarchical organisation of the human brain

A central, unsolved challenge in neuroscience is how the brain orchestrates function by organising the flow of information necessary for the underlying computation. It has been argued that this whole-brain orchestration is carried out by a core subset of integrative brain regions, commonly referred to as the ‘global workspace’, although quantifying the constitutive brain regions has proven elusive. We developed a normalised directed transfer entropy (NDTE) framework for determining the pairwise bidirectional causal flow between brain regions and applied it to multimodal whole-brain neuroimaging from over 1000 healthy participants. We established the full brain hierarchy and common regions in a ‘functional rich club’ (FRIC) coordinating the functional hierarchical organisation during rest and task. FRIC contains the core set of regions, which similar to a ‘club’ of functional hubs are characterized by a tendency to be more densely functionally connected among themselves than to the rest of brain regions from where they integrate information. The invariant global workspace is the intersection of FRICs across rest and seven tasks, and was found to consist of the precuneus, posterior and isthmus cingulate cortices, nucleus accumbens, putamen, hippocampus and amygdala that orchestrate the functional hierarchical organisation based on information from perceptual, long-term memory, evaluative and attentional systems. We confirmed the causal significance and robustness of this invariant global workspace by systematically lesioning a generative whole-brain model accurately simulating the functional hierarchy defined by NDTE. Overall, this is a major step forward in understanding the complex choreography of information flow within the functional hierarchical organisation of the human brain.
Contextual facilitators and barriers influencing the continued use of mobile payment services in a developing country: insights from adopters in India

ABSTRACT Mobile payment services hold the potential for financial inclusion in developing economies. Low-income countries are characterized by distinctive conditions like price sensitivity, low digital penetration, high risk of failure, and competitive emerging markets, which further influence mobile payment usage. We develop a research model to identify the contextual facilitators (like price benefit, network externalities, trust, and habit) and barriers (like risk, lack of facilitating conditions, and operational constraints) driving mobile payment usage intention. We test the model using data from 298 survey respondents from India who had adopted and were currently using mobile payment services. The factors that facilitate or constrain users’ intention to continue using mobile payments are essential in understanding the technology’s sustenance and its future in enabling financial inclusion.
Hypoglycaemia and seizures in large‐for‐gestational‐age (LGA) full‐term neonates

Aim/methods: To assess the risk of hypoglycaemia‐associated seizures in large‐for‐gestational‐age (LGA) full‐term neonates data from the Netherlands Perinatal Registry were analysed. Results: From 1997 to 2002 hypoglycaemia was recorded in 1513 of 9318 (16.2%) admitted LGA (defined as birthweight ≥97.7 percentile) full‐term neonates without maternal diabetes, of whom 20 (1.3%) had seizures. In six of these 20, hypoglycaemia was the single cause of seizures.
A spatially explicit database of wind disturbances in European forests over the period 2000–2018

Abstract. Strong winds may uproot and break trees and represent a major natural disturbance for European forests. Wind disturbances have intensified over the last decades globally and are expected to further rise in view of the effects of climate change. Despite the importance of such natural disturbances, there are currently no spatially explicit databases of wind-related impact at a pan-European scale. Here, we present a new database of wind disturbances in European forests (FORWIND). FORWIND is comprised of more than 80 000 spatially delineated areas in Europe that were disturbed by wind in the period 2000–2018 and describes them in a harmonized and consistent geographical vector format. The database includes all major windstorms that occurred over the observational period (e.g. Gudrun, Kyrill, Klaus, Xynthia and Vaia) and represents approximately 30 % of the reported damaging wind events in Europe. Correlation analyses between the areas in FORWIND and land cover changes retrieved from the Landsat-based Global Forest Change dataset and the MODIS Global Disturbance Index corroborate the robustness of FORWIND. Spearman rank coefficients range between 0.27 and 0.48 ( p value 0.05). When recorded forest areas are rescaled based on their damage degree, correlation increases to 0.54. Wind-damaged growing stock volumes reported in national inventories (FORESTORM dataset) are generally higher than analogous metrics provided by FORWIND in combination with satellite-based biomass and country-scale statistics of growing stock volume. The potential of FORWIND is explored for a range of challenging topics and scientific fields, including scaling relations of wind damage, forest vulnerability modelling, remote sensing monitoring of forest disturbance, representation of uprooting and breakage of trees in large-scale land surface models, and hydrogeological risks following wind damage. Overall, FORWIND represents an essential and open-access spatial source that can be used to improve the understanding, detection and prediction of wind disturbances and the consequent impacts on forest ecosystems and the land–atmosphere system. Data sharing is encouraged in order to continuously update and improve FORWIND. The dataset is available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare. 9555008 (Forzieri et al., 2019).
Evolution and maintenance of microbe-mediated protection under occasional pathogen attack

Every host is colonized by a variety of microbes, some of which can protect their hosts from pathogen infection. As microbe-mediated protection can be costly, it is hypothesized, that these costs only pay off in the presence of a pathogen. However, pathogen presence naturally varies over time and can expand once pathogen infection spreads to a new host, as during occasional spill-over from reservoir hosts. We experimentally coevolved populations of Caenorhabditis elegans worm hosts with bacteria possessing protective traits (Enterococcus faecalis), in treatments varying the infection frequency with pathogenic Staphylococcus aureus every host generation, alternating host generations, every fifth host generation or never. We additionally investigated the effect of initial pathogen presence at the formation of the defensive symbiosis. Our results show that enhanced microbe-mediated protection evolved during host-protective microbe coevolution when faced with spill-over infections by a human pathogen occurring rarely over evolutionary history. Initial pathogen presence had no effect on the evolutionary outcome of microbe-mediated protection. We also found that protection was only effective at preventing mortality during the time of pathogen infection. Overall, our results suggest that resident microbes can be a form of transgenerational immunity against occasional pathogen attack or spill-over events.
The Role of Different TV Storytelling Approaches in Engaging U.S. Hispanic Parents and Caregivers Around Early Childhood Development

Educational achievement gaps exist between racial and ethnic groups in the United States; early childhood readiness, fostered in part by parents and caregivers, is crucial. To respond to this challenge, the Univision television network produced content that aired across 3 storytelling genres (scripted drama, reality, news) to entertain and educate Hispanic parents and primary caregivers of children ages 0–5 years about early brain development interventions. This pretest/posttest experimental study assessed the impact of each genre and found significant direct effects on knowledge, attitudes, and behavioral intentions; the effects were mediated by perceived entertainment value and positive emotions.
Aktivitas fisik dan screen based activity dengan pola tidur remaja di Wates

Physical activity and screen based activity with adolescent sleep patterns in Wates Purpose The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between physical activity and screen based activity with sleep patterns in adolescents. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted among junior high school students in August 2016. Samples were 536 respondents selected using stratified random sampling. Data were collected through interviews with a structured questionnaire, and measurements of height and waist circumference. Data analyses used chi-square, mann-whitney and logistic regression tests to explore factors associated with sleep pattern. Results Out off 536 respondents, poor sleep quality (34.5%) and short sleep duration (45.3%) happened among female adolescents. There was a significant correlation between screen based activity with sleep quality in adolescents. Physical activity had a significant relationship with sleep duration. Conclusion Physical activity and SBA was associated with adolescent sleep patterns. Appropriate educational promotions by the Kulon Progo education authorities should be conducted to provide information about the importance of adequate sleep.
Network measures in animal social network analysis: Their strengths, limits, interpretations and uses

We provide an overview of the most commonly used social network measures in animal research for static networks or time‐aggregated networks. For each of these measures, we provide clear explanations as to what they measure, we describe their respective variants, we underline the necessity to consider these variants according to the research question addressed, and we indicate considerations that have not been taken so far. We provide a guideline indicating how to use them depending on the data collection protocol, the social system studied and the research question addressed. Finally, we inform about the existent gaps and remaining challenges in the use of several variants and provide future research directions.
Excrement Strikes Back: The Dark Side of Fecal Microbiota Transplantation

Fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT, also known as bacteriotherapy), a somewhat obscure medical technique, has been historically utilized for hundreds of years throughout the world. Recently and astonishingly, modern medicine has begun to utilize FMT in the fight against Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) and rapidly increasing chronic gastrointestinal maladies such as Crohn’s disease (CD), ulcerative colitis (UC), and Irritable bowel disease (IBD) [1,2]. The modus operandi of FMT is rather simple in that it transfers a healthy donor’s stool into the recipient’s gastrointestinal tract. That way, FMT can restore the patient’s gut microbiome by enhancing the growth of non-pathogenic healthy bacteria in the place of detrimental commensal or antigenic organisms [3]. Thus far, the most commonly studied and documented use of FMT in North America is for Clostridium difficile and Clostridium difficile associated disease (CDAD). CDAD causes severe colitis, which leads to significant morbidity and mortality worldwide and is often acquired by patients with depleted gut microbiota, either due to previous antibiotic use or other medical comorbidities [4]. CDI is one of the most common hospital-associated infections in developed countries, and with the emergence of hypervirulent strains resistant to fluoroquinolone antibiotics in both North America and Europe [5], Clostridium difficile has broadened to affect a growing number of community-based populations as well [6]. This is where FMT comes into play: While antibiotic use in Clostridium difficile and the above conditions can further disrupt the microbiome, FMT aims to recolonize the gut flora with healthy microorganisms capable of re-establishing gut function and breaking the cycle of recurrent CDI and other dysbiotic bacteria [7,8]. The transplantation process often involves a colonoscopy, endoscopy, sigmoidoscopy, or enema and has proven to be an overall efficacious treatment.
Medicinal plant and their bioactive phytochemicals in the treatment of recurrent aphthous ulcers: A review of clinical trials

Considering the unclear etiology of recurrent aphthous ulcers (RAUs), the clinical management of RAU is based on no optimal therapeutic approach. The current study aimed to review the clinical trials on the effectiveness of medicinal plants and their active phytochemicals in the treatment of RAU. Five databases including PubMed, Science Direct, Web of Science, Scopus, and Cochrane Library were searched for retrieving all the relevant clinical trials. The results indicate that a wide range of scientific evidence has approved the therapeutic benefits of natural medicaments in the management of RAU, including Satureja khuzistanica, Aloe vera, Myrrh, Glycyrrhiza glabra, Alchemilla vulgaris, Myrtus communis, Melissa officinalis, Rhizophora mangle, Chamomile, Rosa damascena, Nicotiana tabacum, Punica granatum, Ageratina pichinchensis, Norwegian LongoVital, Lavender oil, and Perilla oil that are known anti-aphthous medical plants. Berberine and acemannan are bioactive substances with diverse pharmacological and therapeutic benefits in patients with aphthous, which made them as the promising alternatives for new pharmacological drugs. This review provides evidence that medicinal plants can be considered as future pharmaceutical drugs or adjuvant treatment with conventional therapeutic approaches to improve their efficacy and alleviate the side effects in the management of RAU. Further clinical studies are also necessary to confirm the efficacy and safety of plant-derived natural products with potential effects in treating RAU.
Least Squares Approximation via Sparse Subsampled Randomized Hadamard Transform

Solving least squares (LS) problems is a major topic in many applications. With recent data explosion, traditional approach is no longer suitable while working with large datasets, instead, randomized algorithms become popular in addressing this issue. In this article we propose a new randomized algorithm - sparse subsampled randomized Hadamard transform (SpSRHT) for solving overdetermined least squares problems. Its unique block structure connects two most commonly used randomized algorithms subsampled randomized Hadamard transform (SRHT) and sparse subspace embedding (SpEmb) and creates a general framework which contains them as special cases. We have shown theoretically that SpSRHT with different parameters reaches the relative-error bound with sketch size ranging from the sketch size required by SpEmb to SRHT. The new algorithm closes the gap between SRHT and SpEmb which provides the possibility of balancing accuracy and efficiency demonstrated in them. This advantage of SpSRHT is also well illustrated in our numerical experiments.
Estimating tree stem diameters and volume from smartphone photogrammetric point clouds

Methods for the three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction of forest trees have been suggested for data from active and passive sensors. Laser scanner technologies have become popular in the last few years, despite their high costs. Since the improvements in photogrammetric algorithms (e.g. structure from motion—SfM), photographs have become a new low-cost source of 3D point clouds. In this study, we use images captured by a smartphone camera to calculate dense point clouds of a forest plot using SfM. Eighteen point clouds were produced by changing the densification parameters (Image scale, Point density, Minimum number of matches) in order to investigate their influence on the quality of the point clouds produced. In order to estimate diameter at breast height (d.b.h.) and stem volumes, we developed an automatic method that extracts the stems from the point cloud and then models them with cylinders. The results show that Image scale is the most influential parameter in terms of identifying and extracting trees from the point clouds. The best performance with cylinder modelling from point clouds compared to field data had an RMSE of 1.9 cm and 0.094 m3, for d.b. h. and volume, respectively. Thus, for forest management and planning purposes, it is possible to use our photogrammetric and modelling methods to measure d.b. h. , stem volume and possibly other forest inventory metrics, rapidly and without felling trees. The proposed methodology significantly reduces working time in the field, using ‘non-professional’ instruments and automating estimates of dendrometric parameters.