Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Climate change impact on crop productivity in the semi-arid tropics of Zimbabwe in the 21 st century

The Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) projections for Southern Africa (based on the outputs of 21 Global Circulation Models (GCM), using the A1B greenhouse gas emission scenario) suggest average annual temperature increases of 3.1°C and changes in annual rainfall of between ‐12 and +6%. Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels for this scena rio are expected to increase to around 700ppm from the current 370ppm. How might these changes impact on crop productivity in the drier semi‐arid cropping systems of the region? This paper reports an analysis of the combined positive (CO2 fertilization) and negative (higher temperature, lower rainfall) impacts of these projected climate changes on crop productivity using the crop systems simulation model APSIM with its climate change module, together with the long‐term daily climate data from Bulawayo (1951–2001). In undertaking these simulations, the effects of the climate change scenarios on the potentia l grain and stover yields of maize, sorghum, pigeonpea and groundnut was examined. APSIM output shows that increasing CO2 concentrations will increase crop yields by around 6–8%. Similarly, reduced rainfall had the expected negative impact on grain yield. However, it is increasing temperature (and not reduced rainfall) that has the most dramatic impact on grain yields; reductions of 16% for the two cereals and 31% for groundnut, but only 3% for pigeonpea. He nce, for the combined effects of climate change, it appears that pigeonpea will be the least affected crop, incurring an 8% reduction in potential grain yield compared to the current potential yield. In contrast, groundnut can be expected to incur a 30% reduction, sorghum a 22% reduction, and maize a 25 % reduction. Model outputs on crop duration, water productivity and stover yield were further analyzed to explain the differences between crop species in response to climate change and their implications for animal feed production. An important implication of this analysis is that adoption of longer duration rather than shorter duration germplas m would seem the more appropriate response in dealing with the main effects of climate change. Another is the preliminary indication that opportunities for increased cropping intensity and increased use of legumes in the farming system could emerge under climate change. However, the largest scope for dealing with reduced crop
Holocene interdependences of changes in sea surface temperature, productivity, and fluvial inputs in the Iberian continental shelf (Tagus mud patch)

Sea surface temperature (SST), marine productivity, and fluvial input have been reconstructed for the last 11.5 calendar (cal) ka B.P. using a high‐resolution study of C37 alkenones, coccolithophores, iron content, and higher plant n‐alkanes and n‐alkan‐1‐ols in sedimentary sequences from the inner shelf off the Tagus River Estuary in the Portuguese Margin. The SST record is marked by a continuous decrease from 19°C, at 10.5 and 7 ka, to 15°C at present. This trend is interrupted by a fall from 18°C during the Roman and Medieval Warm Periods to 16°C in the Little Ice Age. River input was very low in the early Holocene but increased in the last 3 cal ka B.P. in association with an intensification of agriculture and deforestation and possibly the onset of the North Atlantic Oscillation/Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation modes of variability. River influence must have reinforced the marine cooling trend relative to the lower amplitude in similar latitude sites of the eastern Atlantic. The total concentration of alkenones reflects river‐induced productivity, being low in the early Holocene but increasing as river input became more important. Rapid cooling, of 1–2°C occurring in 250 years, is observed at 11.1, 10.6, 8.2, 6.9, and 5.4 cal ka B.P. The estimated age of these events matches the ages of equivalent episodes common in the NE Atlantic–Mediterranean region. This synchronicity reveals a common widespread climate feature, which considering the twentieth century analog between colder SSTs and negative North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), is likely to reflect periods of strong negative NAO.
U.S. Core Based Statistical Areas

U.S. Core Based Statistical Areas represents geographic entities, defined by the United States Office of Management and Budget for use by Federal statistical agencies, based on the concept of a core area with a large population nucleus, plus adjacent communities having a high degree of economic and social integration with that core. A Core-Based Statistical Area consists of a county containing an Incorporated Place or Census Designated Place with a population of at least 10,000 along with any adjacent counties that have at least 25 percent of employed residents of the county who work in the CBSA's core or central county. CBSAs are categorized as being either Metropolitan or Micropolitan. Each Metropolitan Statistical Area must have at least one urbanized area of 50,000 or more inhabitants. Each Micropolitan Statistical Area must have at least one urban cluster of at least 10,000 but less than 50,000 population.
The PESERA coarse scale erosion model for Europe. I. – Model rationale and implementation

The principles and theoretical background are presented for a new process‐based model (PESERA) that is designed to estimate long‐term average erosion rates at 1 km resolution and has, to date, been applied to most of Europe. The model is built around a partition of precipitation into components for overland flow (infiltration excess, saturation excess and snowmelt), evapo‐transpiration and changes in soil moisture storage. Transpiration is used to drive a generic plant growth model for biomass, constrained as necessary by land use decisions, primarily on a monthly time step. Leaf fall, with corrections for cropping, grazing, etc., also drives a simple model for soil organic matter. The runoff threshold for infiltration excess overland flow depends dynamically on vegetation cover, organic matter and soil properties, varying over the year. The distribution of daily rainfall totals has been fitted to a Gamma distribution for each month, and drives overland flow and sediment transport (proportional to the sum of overland flow squared) by summing over this distribution. Total erosion is driven by erodibility, derived from soil properties, squared overland flow discharge and gradient; it is assessed at the slope base to estimate total loss from the land, and delivered to stream channels.
Application of wavelet empirical orthogonal function analysis to investigate the nonstationary character of Ethiopian rainfall and its teleconnection to nonstationary global sea surface temperature variations for 1900–1998

This study employed the wavelet empirical orthogonal function (WEOF) analysis to analyse the nonstationary variability of rainfall in Ethiopia and global sea surface temperature (SST) for 1900–1998. The study found that the nonstationary variations of both the June to September (JJAS) and February to May (FMAM) Ethiopian rainfall can be delineated into three zones: western half of Ethiopia north of the Great Rift Valley (GRV), southern Ethiopia south of the GRV and the GRV from southwestern Ethiopia to the Afar Triangle. The leading wavelet principal component (WPC) signals showed that Ethiopian rainfall had been in stagnation for most of 1900–1998, with major droughts in the 1940s and 1980s. The dominant frequencies of Ethiopian rainfall ranged between 2 and 8 years. In western Ethiopia, the 2–4‐year rainfall frequencies dominated the rainfall variation, but their trends are modulated by 5–7‐year frequencies, whereas in the Afar Triangle, the 5–7‐year frequencies were dominant. Between 1900 and 1998, the Afar Triangle region experienced decreasing rainfall for 60 years (1900–1960). The seasonal global SST revealed that regardless of what time of the year, the strongest contributions to global SST variations occur in the Antarctic Ocean, the El Niño region of South America and in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, followed by the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans. Further, this study also shows annual migrations of SST variations in the El Niño region, the Antarctic and the Atlantic Oceans. The leading SST signal variations show that SST warming started in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, from 1950 to 1975, and spread to the Antarctic Ocean between 1960 and 1990, which probably contributed to the melting of sea ice. Teleconnections between WPC1 of Ethiopian rainfall and SST scale‐averaged wavelet power were found for the El Niño region and northern Atlantic, west of the Sahara desert.
Stacked ensemble deep learning for pancreas cancer classification using extreme gradient boosting

Ensemble learning aims to improve prediction performance by combining several models or forecasts. However, how much and which ensemble learning techniques are useful in deep learning-based pipelines for pancreas computed tomography (CT) image classification is a challenge. Ensemble approaches are the most advanced solution to many machine learning problems. These techniques entail training multiple models and combining their predictions to improve the predictive performance of a single model. This article introduces the idea of Stacked Ensemble Deep Learning (SEDL), a pipeline for classifying pancreas CT medical images. The weak learners are Inception V3, VGG16, and ResNet34, and we employed a stacking ensemble. By combining the first-level predictions, an input train set for XGBoost, the ensemble model at the second level of prediction, is created. Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost), employed as a strong learner, will make the final classification. Our findings showed that SEDL performed better, with a 98.8% ensemble accuracy, after some adjustments to the hyperparameters. The Cancer Imaging Archive (TCIA) public access dataset consists of 80 pancreas CT scans with a resolution of 512 * 512 pixels, from 53 male and 27 female subjects. A sample of two hundred and twenty-two images was used for training and testing data. We concluded that implementing the SEDL technique is an effective way to strengthen the robustness and increase the performance of the pipeline for classifying pancreas CT medical images. Interestingly, grouping like-minded or talented learners does not make a difference.
Cautious Curiosity: A Novel Approach to a Human-Like Gameplay Agent

We introduce a new reward function direction for intrinsically motivated reinforcement learning to mimic human behavior in the context of computer games. Similar to previous research, we focus on so-called ``curiosity agents'', which are agents whose intrinsic reward is based on the concept of curiosity. We designed our novel intrinsic reward, which we call ``Cautious Curiosity'' (CC) based on (1) a theory that proposes curiosity as a psychological definition called information gap, and (2) a recent study showing that the relationship between curiosity and information gap is an inverted U-curve. In this work, we compared our agent using the classic game Super Mario Bros. with (1) a random agent, (2) an agent based on the Asynchronous Advantage Actor Critic algorithm (A3C), (3) an agent based on the Intrinsic Curiosity Module (ICM), and (4) an average human player. We also asked participants (n = 100) to watch videos of these agents and rate how human-like they are. The main contribution of this work is that we present a reward function that, as perceived by humans, induces an agent to play a computer game similarly to a human, while maintaining its competitiveness and being more believable compared to other agents.
Goal Free Evaluation

Evaluasi bebas tujuan atau Goal Free Evaluation (GFE) adalah pendekatan evaluasi di mana evaluator melakukan evaluasi tanpa mengacu pada tujuan dan sasaran yang telah ditentukan sebelumnya. Alasan di balik GFE adalah bahwa evaluator harus memeriksa semua hasil yang relevan; selain itu, tujuan dan sasaran yang dinyatakan hanya mewakili sejumlah hasil potensial yang terbatas. Selanjutnya, jika suatu program mencapai tujuannya, maka tujuan dan sasaran harus jelas, jika tidak, tujuan tersebut tidak relevan. Evaluator bebas tujuan hampir selalu berada di luar program dan pemangku kepentingannya untuk memastikan ketidaktahuan tentang tujuan yang dinyatakan; dengan demikian, evaluator bebas tujuan dengan sengaja menghindari mengetahui tujuan program atau mengabaikannya. Kelebihan dan kekurangan pada evaluasi bebas tujuan menjadi polemik penting dalam penentuan model evaluasi. Pada artikel ini akan dibahas lebih lanjut mengenai model evaluasi bebas tujuan.
One hundred and fifty years of Coulomb stress history along the California‐Nevada border, USA

The region north of the Garlock Fault between the Sierra Nevada and Death Valley has experienced at least eight Mw ≥ 6 earthquakes in historical times, beginning with the 1872, Mw 7.5, Owens Valley earthquake. Furthermore, since 1978, the Long Valley Caldera has been undergoing periods of unrest, with earthquake swarms and resurgence. Our goal is to determine whether the 1872 Owens Valley earthquake and the caldera unrest have influenced the evolution of seismicity in the area. We model the evolution of coseismic, postseismic, and interseismic Coulomb stress change (Coulomb failure stress (ΔCFS)) in the region due to both Mw ≥ 6 earthquakes and caldera inflation in the last 150 years. Our results show that the 1872 Owens Valley earthquake has an important influence on subsequent events, strongly encouraging faulting in northern Owens Valley while inhibiting it elsewhere. There is also a correlation between caldera inflation and seismicity in northern Owens Valley, evidenced by the west‐to‐east migration of earthquakes from the Long Valley Caldera toward the White Mountains immediately following the 1978 caldera inflation event. Finally, we show that a total ΔCFS increase of up to 30 bars in the last 150 years has occurred on part of the White Mountains fault, making it a possible candidate for the next major earthquake in this region.
ADP-Ribosylation Factor 6 Pathway Acts as a Key Executor of Mesenchymal Tumor Plasticity

Despite the “big data” on cancer from recent breakthroughs in high-throughput technology and the development of new therapeutic modalities, it remains unclear as to how intra-tumor heterogeneity and phenotypic plasticity created by various somatic abnormalities and epigenetic and metabolic adaptations orchestrate therapy resistance, immune evasiveness, and metastatic ability. Tumors are formed by various cells, including immune cells, cancer-associated fibroblasts, and endothelial cells, and their tumor microenvironment (TME) plays a crucial role in malignant tumor progression and responses to therapy. ADP-ribosylation factor 6 (ARF6) and AMAP1 are often overexpressed in cancers, which statistically correlates with poor outcomes. The ARF6-AMAP1 pathway promotes the intracellular dynamics and cell-surface expression of various proteins. This pathway is also a major target for KRAS/TP53 mutations to cooperatively promote malignancy in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), and is closely associated with immune evasion. Additionally, this pathway is important in angiogenesis, acidosis, and fibrosis associated with tumor malignancy in the TME, and its inhibition in PDAC cells results in therapeutic synergy with an anti-PD-1 antibody in vivo. Thus, the ARF6-based pathway affects the TME and the intrinsic function of tumors, leading to malignancy. Here, we discuss the potential mechanisms of this ARF6-based pathway in tumorigenesis, and novel therapeutic strategies.
Localization of a Module on Ecosystem (Science 7) in Schools Near the Mapanuepe Lake, Zambales

Creating an original instructional material in teaching science by relating learning content to local information and materials from the learner’s community is one of the main features of the K to 12 Curriculum that will enhance students’ achievement. The study aimed to develop and determine the acceptability of a localized module on ecosystem (Science 7) in Schools near the Mapanuepe Lake, Zambales. The study utilized mixed method- concurrent transformative design. The respondents of the study were four (4) selected evaluators and specialists in the field of Science from the Schools Division of Zambales. The researcher reviewed the grade 7 science curriculum guide then conducted a thorough observation on community near the Mapanuepe Lake, Zambales. Afterwards, he developed a localized module that was given to the respondents identified by the researcher together with the evaluation form. The results of the evaluation were used by the researcher in improving some aspects of the module to come up with a Localized Module on Interaction (Science 7). Results revealed that lessons in Grade 7 Science that concerned with the environment are components of an ecosystem, ecological relationships, and transfer of energy through trophic levels. The module was acceptable. The overall mean 4.52 indicates that the module is Excellent. This means that the aspects of module are very adequately covered and the quality is superior. Five major themes emerged to describe the comments and suggestions of the evaluators and specialists in the improvement of the module. These are the following: Localized activities, Activities are organized, Objectives are met, Translate localized terms, Complete and Simplified.
Pengembangan Aplikasi Taksasi Ketela Pohon Berbasis Android untuk Memprediksi Hasil Panen Ketela Pohon

Penelitian ini merupakan penelitian pengembangan perangkat lunak yang bertujuan untuk mengetahui hasil pengembangan aplikasi taksasi ketela pohon berbasis android untuk memprediksi hasil panen ketela pohon di desa Lalabata Kabupaten Barru dan untuk mengetahui hasil uji kelayakan aplikasi tersebut. Model pengembangan yang digunakan adalah prototipe dengan 7 tahapan yaitu pengumpulan kebutuhan, pembuatan prototype, evaluasi prototype, pengkodean sistem, pengujian sistem, evaluasi sistem, dan penggunaan sistem. Serta menggunakan pengujian standar mutu ISO 25010 dalam uji kelayakan aplikasi. Sebelum melakukan penelitian terlebih dahulu dilakukan validasi sistem/aplikasi oleh validator ahli sistem dan diperoleh peringkat validasi dengan kategori sangat layak untuk digunakan dalam penelitian. Data penelitian diperoleh dengan menggunakan wawancara, observasi dan kuesioner. Hasil dari penelitian ini adalah aplikasi taksasi ketela pohon berbasis android untuk memprediksi hasil panen ketela pohon dan hasil pengujian menggunakan ISO 25010 dengan pengujian menggunakan aspek yaitu funcionally suitability, usability, performance efficiency, portability, compatibility, security, maintability, dan reability.
A Comparison of Iodine Nutritional Status among School Children in Rural and Urban West Bengal, India

The iodine deficiency disorders (IDD) survey was conducted in a rural village Kotulpur of the Bankura district and an urban locality in Dakshineswar of the North 24-parganas district of West Bengal during the post-iodization phase. The prevalence of endemic goitre was found to be 22.7 percent in Kotulpur and 31.4 percent in Dakshineswar. The median urinary iodine level in Kotolpur was 8.25 g/dl, while in Dakshineswar it was 9.75 g/dl. Iodine levels were below 15 ppm in approximately 57 percent of salt samples from Kotolpur and approximately 62 percent of salt samples from Dakshineswar. The mean iodine level in Kotolpur’s drinking water was 6.4±1.2 g/dl, indicating an iodine deficient zone, whereas the iodine content in Dakshineswar’s drinking water was 22±3.8 g/dl, indicating an iodine sufficient zone. The mean urinary thiocyanate level in Kotolpur was 0.506 ± 0.181 mg/dl, while it was 0.741 ± 0.206 mg/dl in Dakshineswar. The current study found that endemic goitre was prevalent in both studied areas, regardless of state. This study confirms that existing goitre prevalence in both rural and urban areas could be due to insufficient iodine intake associated with the consumption of anti-thyroid foods and water.
Satisfação laboral na actividade hoteleira no Algarve e na Andaluzia

TITLE: Job satisfaction in hotels of Algarve and Andaluzia ABSTRACT: Job satisfaction is a key element in any organization, especially within the service sector. The objective of this paper is to present a study on job satisfaction which has been developed in hotels of two competitive inter- national bordering destinations — Algarve (Portugal) and Andaluzia (Spain). Our purpose was to draw some conclu- sions that might help human resources management to improve, and see if our results could be extrapolated to other geographic areas. The methodology has consisted in a fieldwork with a structured and closed questionnaire made up of three groups of questions, which were distributed among the personnel of a random hotel sample stratified by category and number of bedrooms. Several econometric models have been applied to collected data to obtain the results. Some of the main conclusions highlight the employees' low level of remuneration, the importance of rela- tions with their colleagues, and the inconvenience of rotating shifts.
Real-Time Estimation of Directional Wave Spectra Using Non-Stationary Ship Motion Data

The Bayesian modeling procedure is modified for real-time estimation of directional wave spectra using non-stationary ship motion data. The assumption of stationary stochastic processes is applied to the seaway, but not to ship response because it also depends on ship maneuvers. Ship response is strongly affected by changes in the encounter angle and frequency of waves. Therefore, it is need to be a real-time algorithm that can deal with non-stationary stochastic processes and estimate the directional wave spectra. In the proposed algorithm, the iterative calculations of the non-linear equations were optimized and the convergence was not achieved at every time step, but was achieved gradually over several time steps. In order to examine the reliability of the proposed method, real-time estimation was conducted by using the data of onboard experiments. Comparisons between the results of the proposed algorithm and a wave monitoring radar system show good agreements.Copyright © 2009 by ASME
Differential DNA Methylation from Autistic Children Enriches Evidence for Genes Associated with ASD and New Candidate Genes

The etiology of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) is a result of the interaction between genes and the environment. The study of epigenetic factors that affect gene expression, such as DNA methylation, has become an important area of research in ASD. In recent years, there has been an increasing body of evidence pointing to epigenetic mechanisms that influence brain development, as in the case of ASD, when gene methylation dysregulation is present. Our analysis revealed 853 differentially methylated CpG in ASD patients, affecting 509 genes across the genome. Enrichment analysis showed five related diseases, including autistic disorder and mental disorders, which are particularly significant. In this work, we identified 64 genes that were previously reported in the SFARI gene database, classified according to their impact index. Additionally, we identified new genes that have not been previously reported as candidates with differences in the methylation patterns of Mexican children with ASD.