cometadata/datacite-rtg-text-other-reclassification-records huggingface dataset:
Differentiating Semi-Volatile and Solid Particle Events Using Low-Cost Lung-Deposited Surface Area and Black Carbon Sensors
Creators: name: Haugen, Molly J
name: Singh, Ajit
name: Bousiotis, Dimitrios
name: Pope, Francis D
name: Boies, Adam
Publisher: name: Apollo - University of Cambridge Repository
Year: 2022
Subjects: low-cost LDSA
LDSA to BC Ratio
low-cost sensing
semi-volatile particles

description: Low-cost particle sensors have proven useful in applications such as source apportionment, health, and reactivity studies. The benefits of these instruments increase when used in parallel, as exemplified with a 3-month long deployment in an urban background site. Using two lung-deposited surface area (LDSA) instruments, a low-cost method was developed to assess the solid component of an aerosol by applying a catalytic stripper to the inlet stream of one LDSA instrument, resulting in only the solid fraction of the sample being measured (LDSAc). To determine the semi-volatile fraction of the sample, the LDSAC was compared to the LDSA without a catalytic stripper, thus measuring all particles (LDSAN). The ratio of LDSA (LDSAC/LDSAN) was used to assess the fraction of solid and semi-volatile particles within a sample. Here, a low ratio represents a high fraction of semi-volatile particles, with a high ratio indicating a high fraction of solid particles. During the 3-month urban background study in Birmingham, UK, it is shown that the LDSA ratios ranged from 0.2−0.95 indicating a wide variation in sources and subsequent semi-volatile fraction of particles. A black carbon (BC) instrument was used to provide a low-cost measure of LDSA to BC ratio. Comparatively, the LDSA to BC ratios obtained using low-cost sensors showed similar results to high-cost analyses for urban environments. During a high LDSAC/LDSAN ratio sampling period, representing high solid particle concentrations, an LDSA to BC probability distribution was shown to be multimodal, reflecting urban LDSA to BC ratio distributions measured with laboratory-grade instrumentation. Here, a low-cost approach for data analyses presents insight on particle characteristics and insight into PM composition and size, useful in source apportionment, health, and atmospheric studies.
The history of the brain and mind sciences
Creators: name: Freeborn, Alfred
Publisher: name: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Year: 2019
Subjects: subject: Brain
subject: mind
subject: neuroscience
subject: history
subject: technology
subject: 900 Geschichte, Geografie und Hilfswissenschaften

description: This review article critically surveys the following literature by placing it under the historiographical banner of ‘the history of the brain and mind sciences’: Fernando Vidal and Francisco Ortega, Being Brains: Making the Cerebral Subject (New York: Fordham University Press, 2017); Katja Guenther, Localization and its Discontents: A Genealogy of Psychoanalysis & the Neuro Disciplines (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015); Stephen Casper and Delia Gavrus (eds), The History of the Brain and Mind Sciences: Technique, Technology, Therapy (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2017); Jonna Brenninkmeijer, Neurotechnologies of the Self: Mind, Brain and Subjectivity (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). This framework highlights contemporary attempts to historicize the integrative project of neuroscience and set the correct limits to interdisciplinary collaboration. While attempts to critically engage with the ‘neuro’ rhetoric of contemporary neuroscientists can seem at odds with historians seeking to write the history of neuroscience from the margins, it is argued that together these two projects represent a positive historiographical direction for the history of the neurosciences after the decade of the brain.
FIM4R Position Paper on the Desired Evolution of EOSC Authentication and Authorisation Infrastructures
Creators: name: FIM4R Community
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2020
Subjects: EOSC
FIM4R
AAI

description: The European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) will soon enter the next phase of integration and consolidation with the establishment of a common service portal listing underpinning services that enable distributed resources in the areas of computation, data, open access, and above-the-net collaboration services. The Federated Identity Management for Research (FIM4R) community at a recent full-day workshop in Vienna and at the TIIME conference later the same week (17-20 Feb 2020) discussed its views on the evolution of the EOSC Authentication and Authorisation Infrastructure (AAI) and the conclusions are documented here. These have been distributed to the whole FIM4R community, including those who were not in Vienna, with individuals given a two week comment period after which all input was incorporated. This paper is an agreed statement on behalf of the whole community.
title: Ethiopian Seed Law Proclamation No. 782/2013
Creators: name: ITPGRFA Secretariat
Publisher: name: ITPGRFA
Year: 2025
Subjects: subject: AGROVOC: Legal Rights
subject: AGROVOC: Farmers' Rights

description: In 2013, the Ethiopian government adopted a new seed law, ‘Seed Proclamation 782/2013’, repealing the previous Seed Proclamation 206/2000. The Seed Proclamation 782/2013 remains the current seed legislation in Ethiopia and is implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture. This revised seed law provides for certain provisions towards the safeguarding of farmers’ rights. Article 3, which provides for the scope of application, provides the following exceptions: a) the use of farm-saved seed by any person; b) the exchange or sale of farm-saved seed among smallholder farmers of agro-pastoralists; c) seed to be used for research purposes; and d) forestry seed. In regard to the first exception, ‘use’ is not defined in the Proclamation, and the ordinary meaning of the verb use has to be ascribed here, to include; take, hold, or deploy (something) as a means of accomplishing or achieving something; to employ. The current seed law of 2013 provides for much wider safeguards for the possible realisation of farmers’ rights than its predecessor which it replaced. In this revised seed law, specific references are made to small scale farmers and agro-pastoralists, as compared with the previous legislation of 2000.
title: Smallholder farmers’ capacity building on community seed banking
Creators: name: ITPGRFA Secretariat
Publisher: name: ITPGRFA
Year: 2025
Subjects: subject: AGROVOC: Training
subject: AGROVOC: Capacity Development
subject: AGROVOC: Awareness-raising

description: Seed Savers Network-Kenya (SSN-Kenya) is a national grassroots farmers’ organization dedicated to promoting food and seed sovereignty. SSN-Kenya safeguards plant genetic materials through on-farm seed saving, community seed banks, and field genebanks for agrobiodiversity conservation. It has a network of over 50,000 farmers across five counties in Kenya, including Nakuru, Nyandarua, Kiambu, Baringo, and Kakamega in seed saving at farm level, ecological Agriculture, capacity building, community biodiversity register (CBR), open-source seed system (OSSS) and Advocacy for food sovereignty. In its12 years of existence, more than 60 000 small-scale farmers have been trained and empowered in crop diversification using locally available seeds and soil fertility amendments. SSN-Kenya has established 100 community seed banks in different villages of Kenya, where each seed bank covers at least 600 people in a village. Through their various capacity-building activities for the farmers, they saved more than 300 varieties of seeds that may have been lost. More importantly, they improved the food supply to more than 20 000 households and thus lower food insecurity cases while improving health through consumption of more nutritious diets from their farms.
Modelling Pulsar, Neutron Star and Black Hole Binaries in Isolated and Dynamical Environments
Creators: name: Chattopadhyay, Debatri
Publisher: name: Swinburne
Year: 2024

description: The thesis explores theoretical modelling of compact binaries in both isolated and dynamical scenarios, from the perspective of radio pulsar and gravitational wave observations. The evolution of all three types of compact binaries -- double neutron stars, neutron star-black holes, double black holes are investigated in their arguably dominant formation channels. Isolated binary evolution of double neutron stars and neutron star-black holes are studied using population synthesis. Evolution and interactions of black holes in dynamical environment of star clusters is investigated using N-body simulation. The thesis explains current observations and presents predictions for future radio and gravitational wave detectors.
Projecting onto rectangular matrices with prescribed row and column sums
Creators: name: Bauschke, Heinz H.
name: Singh, Shambhavi
name: Wang, Xianfu
Publisher: name: Springer International Publishing
Year: 2022

description: In 1990, Romero presented a beautiful formula for the projection onto the set of rectangular matrices with prescribed row and column sums. Variants of Romero’s formula were rediscovered by Khoury and by Glunt, Hayden, and Reams for bistochastic (square) matrices in 1998. These results have found various generalizations and applications. In this paper, we provide a formula for the more general problem of finding the projection onto the set of rectangular matrices with prescribed scaled row and column sums. Our approach is based on computing the Moore–Penrose inverse of a certain linear operator associated with the problem. In fact, our analysis holds even for Hilbert–Schmidt operators, and we do not have to assume consistency. We also perform numerical experiments featuring the new projection operator.
title: Training and awareness creation work shop for Community Seed Banks
Creators: name: ITPGRFA Secretariat
Publisher: name: ITPGRFA
Year: 2025
Subjects: subject: AGROVOC: Training
subject: AGROVOC: Capacity Development
subject: AGROVOC: Awareness-raising

description: Since 1994, the Ethiopian Biodiversity Institute established over 30 community seed banks (CSBs) and organized Crop Conservator Associations (CCA) in various regional states of Ethiopia. In 2021, a new project has begun with the objectives of establishing a national CSBs platform that will support existing CSBs and networks of nearly 30 CSBs in different agro-ecological zones of Ethiopia, in addition to scaling out their activities and achievements, and contribute to strengthening the informal seed system. The key components of the project will be: (1) to support farmers sustainably use and conserve PGRFA; (2) network households in different agro-ecological zones networked and training on quality seed production from planting to storage; and exchange on technical CSB management and sustainable business model experience among different agro-ecological zones; (3) re-introduce, conserve and disseminate locally adapted varieties with farmers’ participation; (4) enhance seed systems to promote the use of adapted varieties through CSBs and Field Gene Banks (FGBs); (5) diversify local agricultural systems for enhanced resilience through the cultivation of cereals, pulses and others, and (6) characterize, phenotype, evaluate, document and pre-breed crop species of PGRFA for traits of importance to adaptation and resilience.
title: Wie wir leben
title: Wie wir leben
titleType: AlternativeTitle
Creators: name: Mundhenke, Regan
name: Rott, Lena
name: Körner, Claudia
Publisher: name: Umweltbundesamt
Year: 2021
Subjects: subject: Ressourcenschonung
subject: Klimaneutralität
subject: Treibhausgasneutralität
subject: rescue
subject: Wirtschaft | Konsum
subject: Nachhaltigkeit | Strategien | Internationales

description: Wie können wir es schaffen, dass Deutschland bis zum Jahr 2050 treibhausgasneutral ist und gleichzeitig unser Rohstoffbedarf deutlich sinkt? Das zeigt die RESCUE Studie in insgesamt sechs Szenarien auf. Sie zeigen aber auch, dass wir alle gefordert sind: Politik, Wirtschaft, Wissenschaft und wir als Bürger*inen: Wir alle müssen lernen, nichtnachhaltige Wege zu verlassen und besonders treibhausgas- und ressourcenintensive Produkte möglichst schnell zu vermeiden oder zu ersetzen. Die Broschüre zeigt, wie ein treibhausgasneutrales und ressourcensparendes Deutschland in 2050 gestaltet sein und wie unser Leben in einer treibhausgasneutralen und ressourcenschonenden Gesellschaft aussehen könnte. Quelle: www.umweltbundesamt.de
description: Wie können wir es schaffen, dass Deutschland bis zum Jahr 2050 treibhausgasneutral ist und gleichzeitig unser Rohstoffbedarf deutlich sinkt? Das zeigt die RESCUE Studie in insgesamt sechs Szenarien auf. Sie zeigen aber auch, dass wir alle gefordert sind: Politik, Wirtschaft, Wissenschaft und wir als Bürger*inen: Wir alle müssen lernen, nichtnachhaltige Wege zu verlassen und besonders treibhausgas- und ressourcenintensive Produkte möglichst schnell zu vermeiden oder zu ersetzen. Die Broschüre zeigt, wie ein treibhausgasneutrales und ressourcensparendes Deutschland in 2050 gestaltet sein und wie unser Leben in einer treibhausgasneutralen und ressourcenschonenden Gesellschaft aussehen könnte.
title: Facilitating small-scale farmers access to diverse seeds of traditional small grains varieties and landraces, and providing support to sustainable use and conservation of local small grains resources
Creators: name: ITPGRFA Secretariat
Publisher: name: ITPGRFA
Year: 2025
Subjects: subject: AGROVOC: Access and benefit sharing

description: In June 2020, the Institute of Field and Vegetable Crops, Serbia, and the Institute for Plant Genetic Resources, Bulgaria, in cooperation with other national and local organizations, started implementing the project " Redesigning the exploitation of small grains genetic resources towards increased sustainability of grain-value chain and improved farmers’ livelihoods in Serbia and Bulgaria - - GRAINEFIT." The project aims to increase on-farm small grains crop diversity, contribute to food security and enhance resilience to climate change by collecting, multiplying, evaluating, maintaining, and facilitating the adoption, access, and exchange of farmers’ seeds. The core components of the project include the collection of small grains genetic resources from farms, institutes’ collections, and gene banks, as well as local traditional knowledge on crop management and use; seed multiplication, characterization, and evaluation of the small grains genetic resources, among others. Key outcomes of the project include: collection, multiplication, characterization, and evaluation of 141 local landraces and traditional varieties, and the establishment of firm linkages and cooperation between farmers, researchers, and national and local community gene banks is one of the key outcomes. The main lesson learned is that the involvement of farmers conserving and using PGRFA is important in raising awareness of the importance of farm diversification, plant genetic resources, and farmers’ rights.
Análisis de las muestras de tierra agrícola de Uaxactún
Creators: name: Adámek, Jakub
name: Dlapa, Pavel
name: Kováč, Milan
Publisher: name: figshare
Year: 2020
Subjects: subject: Soil Science
subject: 50304 Soil Chemistry (excl. Carbon Sequestration Science)
subject: FOS: Agriculture, forestry and fisheries
subject: 210102 Archaeological Science
subject: FOS: History and archaeology
subject: 210199 Archaeology not elsewhere classified
subject: Archaeology
subject: 210103 Archaeology of Asia, Africa and the Americas
subject: 210308 Latin American History

description: Durante las excavaciones en la temporada 2017, una parte de las operaciones se enfocó a la identificación de las áreas agrícolas prehispánicas de Uaxactún y sus alrededores. Dentro de las excavaciones se tomaron 2 muestras del suelo de diferentes niveles de las terrazas del sitio Dos Torres y 2 muestras de diferentes sondeos de los canales de Chival/Buena Vista. Además, se llevaron 3 muestras comparativas de las milpas de agricultura contemporánea. Todas las muestras fueron examinadas en el laboratorio del Departamento de Pedología (Estudio de los suelos) de la Facultad de Ciencias Naturales, Universidad Comenio en Bratislava, bajo la dirección del Prof. Dr. Pavel Dlapa.
Invited Speaker at IBEC Symposium – Bioengineering day
Creators: name: Basoli, Valentina
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2025

description: The 17th IBEC annual Symposium brings together high-profile international experts for an open forum for interdisciplinary discussions and networking. The symposium was dedicated t Bioengineering for emergent and advanced therapies, one of IBEC’s three major application areas. Scientific community is invited to participate. Attendees from IBEC and abroad are welcome to present their research or projects in poster format. Moreover, some of these contributions was selected by the scientific committee for an oral flash presentation.  During the event, all participants from the IBEC institute (more than 200) were introduced to the latest technologies and advancements of the SwissMAM research group, specifically within the Biofabrication and Biosensor unit. In particular, the Phoenix-OoC project was discussed in the context of the collaboration with IBEC. The presentation generated great interest among the audience.
EDITORS of SOCIAL SCIENCE ASIA : Official Journal of National Research Council of Thailand (NRCT) in conjunction with ABAC Journal, 2020
Creators: name: National Research Council Of Thailand
Publisher: name: National Research Council of Thailand
Year: 2020
Subjects: editor
editorial board

description: SOCIAL SCIENCE ASIA : Official Journal of National Research Council of Thailand (NRCT) in conjunction with ABAC Journal, 6, 3, -
title: Enhancing capacity for climate change adaptation by helping farmers to access genetic resources from the multilateral system of access and benefit sharing
Creators: name: ITPGRFA Secretariat
Publisher: name: ITPGRFA
Year: 2025
Subjects: subject: AGROVOC: Access and benefit sharing

description: From 2016 to October 2019, the International Treaty’s Benefit Sharing Fund supported the implementation of a project "Promoting Open Source Seed Systems for Beans, Millet and Sorghum for Climate Change Adaptation in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda." Implemented by the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, in cooperation with the relevant national research institutes and NGOs. The project was aimed to improve adaptation to climate change and enhance the resource-poor farmers’ food and nutrition security, through the availability, sustainable management and use of a wider range of quality seed varieties – including sorghum, finger millet and beans. The project facilitated 749 genebank accessions of sorghum, finger millet and beans. These varieties were tested through various participatory variety selection both on-station and on-farm, then the selected varieties were further subjected to nutritional analysis. The best performing varieties were then put in catalogues and disseminated to various breeding programs and farming communities. Two community seedbanks were also established to enhance in situ conservation but also to provide access to seeds for over 3000 farmers. The project established knowledge sharing and learning platforms and supported stakeholders in key policy discussions around the implementation of access and benefit-sharing policies; registration of farmers’ varieties and commercialization through QDS systems including open-source seed systems.
title: Strengthening seed delivery systems for dryland cereals and legumes in drought-prone areas of Uganda: the Cluster Granary Seed (CGS) project (updated in May 2021)
Creators: name: ITPGRFA Secretariat
Publisher: name: ITPGRFA
Year: 2025
Subjects: subject: AGROVOC: Access and benefit sharing

description: In 2016, the Cluster Granary Seed Project was implemented in three districts of Uganda, led by the National Semi-Arid Resources Research Institute of NARO, in partnership with World Vision Uganda, the National Plant Genetic Resource Centre and farmer groups. The goal was to contribute to enhancing food security and climate change adaptation in drought-prone areas by strengthening seed systems of target crops, including sorghum, finger-millet, pearl-millet, cowpea, pigeon pea, and groundnut. Specific objectives were to: (1) assemble the diverse local and improved genetic resources; (2) establish an effective and sustainable seed delivery model for increasing access to quality seeds, and (3) build the capacity of farming communities to produce and conserve seeds. Over 300 local and improved genetic resources of the target crops were assembled and characterized through farmer-led demonstrations. As a result, 30 farmer groups are now producing and conserving quality seeds for their communities. A ‘cluster granary’ seed delivery model was developed and operationalized, and over 1500 households have benefited through seed sharing, training sessions, voluntary visits to demonstration sites, World Food Day Celebrations, ‘Plant Clinics’, interaction with scientists, and participating in national agricultural shows and related events. Lessons learned include that capacity building of farmers to produce in diversity and conservation of quality seeds and deliberate conservation for future use is important.
THE MEDIATING ROLE OF CSR ON CORPORATE REPUTATION AND BEHAVIORAL INTENTION: A STUDY OF THAI GEN Y CONSUMERS
Creators: name: Napawan Tantivejakul
Publisher: name: National Research Council of Thailand
Year: 2020
Subjects: corporate social responsibility
perceived fit of values and lifestyles
corporate reputation
behavioral intention
Generation Y

description: SOCIAL SCIENCE ASIA : Official Journal of National Research Council of Thailand (NRCT) in conjunction with ABAC Journal, 6, 3, 13-29
Appendix from The ‘Reading the mind in the Eyes' test and emotional intelligence
Creators: name: Megías-Robles, Alberto
name: Gutiérrez-Cobo, María José
name: Cabello, Rosario
name: Gómez-Leal, Raquel
name: Baron-Cohen, Simon
name: Fernández-Berrocal, Pablo
Publisher: name: The Royal Society
Year: 2020
Subjects: subject: 170299 Cognitive Science not elsewhere classified
subject: FOS: Psychology
subject: 179999 Psychology and Cognitive Sciences not elsewhere classified

description: Additional Statistical results
title: Participation of farmers in the conservation and use of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture, as well as their involvement in decision-making at local and national level
Creators: name: ITPGRFA Secretariat
Publisher: name: ITPGRFA
Year: 2025
Subjects: subject: AGROVOC: Participatory approaches

description: In 2019, the Agricultural University of Tirana, in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and other private stakeholders started implementing the project titled: "Identification, evaluation and genetic improvement of some local crop varieties to face with impact of climate change, increase the productivity, food security and on-farm incomes, for poor farmers in remote mountainous areas in Albania". The core components of the project include: (1) creating awareness on the effects of climate change and the importance of agrobiodiversity conservation, (2) identification, collection and characterization of locally adapted crop varieties of maize and beans, to be used by farmers, (3) improvement of local crop varieties, seed multiplication and distribution to farmers, (4) strengthening of seed system capacities to provide quality seed of adapted local cultivars, among others. Some of the key outcomes of the project include: supporting farmers to maintain and conserve agro-biodiversity in areas vulnerable to climate change and food insecurity, in addition to strengthening of research capacities to produce locally adapted varieties. The lessons learned by the implementation of the measure are that participatory approaches that directly involve beneficiaries during implementation, enhance the success and sustainability of the activity, and that the direct participation of farmers plus cooperation with scientific institutions are key for success.
Pharmaceuticals in the environment
Creators: name: Adler, Nicole
name: Küster, Anette
Publisher: name: My University
Year: 2014
Subjects: Regulierung
Umweltrisikobewertung
Monitoring

description: During the past two decades scientists, regulatory agencies and the European Commission have acknowledged pharmaceuticals to be an emerging environmental problem. In parallel, a regulatory framework for environmental risk assessment (ERA) of pharmaceutical products has been developed. Since the regulatory guidelines came into force the German Federal Agency (UBA) has been evaluating ERAs for human and veterinary pharmaceutical products before they are marketed. The results show that approximately 10% of pharmaceutical products are of note regarding their potential environmental risk. For human medicinal products, hormones, antibiotics, analgesics, antidepressants and antineoplastics indicated an environmental risk. For veterinary products, hormones, antibiotics and parasiticides were most often discussed as being environmentally relevant. These results are in good correlation with the results within the open scientific literature of prioritization approaches for pharmaceuticals in the environment. UBA results revealed that prospective approaches, such as ERA of pharmaceuticals, play an important role in minimizing problems caused by pharmaceuticals in the environment. However, the regulatory ERA framework could be improved by (i) inclusion of the environment in the risk-benefit analysis for human pharmaceuticals, (ii) improvement of risk management options, (iii) generation of data on existing pharmaceuticals, and (iv) improving the availability of ERA data. In addition, more general and integrative steps of regulation, legislation and research have been developed and are presented in this article. In order to minimize the quantity of pharmaceuticals in the environment these should aim to (i) improve the existing legislation for pharmaceuticals, (ii) prioritize pharmaceuticals in the environment and (iii) improve the availability and collection of pharmaceutical data.
Quelle: http://www.researchgate.net/
What Drives Low-Income Older Adults’ Intention to Use Technology-Mediated Mobility Solution? A Mixed-Methods Study
Creators: name: Chan, Diana Yian Lian
Publisher: name: Monash University
Year: 2025
Subjects: classificationCode: 320210
subject: Geriatrics and gerontology
classificationCode: 420308
subject: Health informatics and information systems

description: Mobility is vital for older adults’ health and quality of life. However, low-income older adults face mobility challenges related to access and costs. While technology-mediated mobility solutions can promote healthy aging, technology adoption among low-income older adults remains low amid socioeconomic barriers and limited understanding of their perceptions and needs. This thesis addresses these challenges through three studies: Study-1 reviews factors influencing technology use, identifying critical gaps; Study-2 develops a novel adoption model highlighting the role of threat-coping appraisals and cost-benefit perceptions; Study-3 offers qualitative insights into cognitive processes. Findings inform mobility applications’ development and promotion for this underserved population.
Application of Distributed Acoustic Sensor for Condition Monitoring of Mining Conveyor
Creators: name: Wijaya, Hendrik
Publisher: name: Swinburne
Year: 2024

description: The current monitoring method adopts scheduled manual inspection which is labour-extensive and ineffective as catastrophic failures may occur in between the inspection. The research focusses on the application of distributed optical fibre sensor to provide efficient, reliable, and cost-effective monitoring technology for mining conveyor. This technology allows real-time monitoring of the conveyor and is able to detect anomaly within the conveyor components based on their vibration characteristics. The technology also highly economical where it only consists of one/two optical fibre cables and a computer system to monitor more than tens of km long conveyor.
title: Safeguarding threatened coconut diversity within the upgraded International Coconut Genebank for the South Pacific
Creators: name: ITPGRFA Secretariat
Publisher: name: ITPGRFA
Year: 2025
Subjects: subject: AGROVOC: Management techniques
subject: AGROVOC: Conservation agriculture

description: The Pacific Community (SPC) is a focal point for the project which will be implemented by partners from Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Samoa and COGENT. The project agreement was signed in December 2020 and project activities will start in June 2021. The project objectives are to safeguard threatened germplasm within the ICG-SP by duplication in Fiji and Samoa and to empower farmers to implement in situ conservation of coconut diversity in each of the Pacific countries. Components of the project will involve training in-country, some virtual training, in vitro transfer and field genebank establishment in three countries. Key outcomes will be: (1) characterisation and documentation of a number of priority cultivars in the three countries; and (2) consultation and identification of women and men farmers and sites for in situ conservation of identified coconut diversity in three countries. The collaborative work will contribute to achieving the specific goal of CFP4 as well as the wider goals of the Treaty, in the field of coconut genetic resources conservation and use. Selected farmers will also provide sites for conserving new germplasm identified and thus be involved in conservation and possibly subsequent participatory breeding efforts.
A Graphical #SAT Algorithm for Formulae with Small Clause Density
Creators: name: Laakkonen, Tuomas
name: Meichanetzidis, Konstantinos
name: van de Wetering, John
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2022
Subjects: subject: Computational Complexity (cs.CC)
subject: FOS: Computer and information sciences

description: We study the counting version of the Boolean satisfiability problem #SAT using the ZH-calculus, a graphical language originally introduced to reason about quantum circuits. Using this, we generalize #SAT to a weighted variant we call #SAT+-, which is complete for the class GapP. We show there is an efficient linear-time reduction from #SAT to #2SAT+-, unlike previous reductions from #SAT to #2SAT which blow up the size of the formula by a polynomial factor. Our main conceptual contribution is that introducing weights to #SAT allows for more efficient translations, and we use this to remove the dependence on clause width k in this case. We observe that DPLL-style algorithms for #2SAT can be adapted to #2SAT+- directly and hence the best-known upper bounds for #2SAT apply. Applying an upper bound for #2SAT in terms of variables gives us upper bounds for #SAT in terms of clauses and variables that are better than O*(2^n) for small clause densities of m/n < 2.25, and improve on previous average-case and worst-case bounds for k >= 6 and k >= 4, respectively. Applying a similar bound in terms of clauses produces a bound of O*(1.1740^L) in terms of the length of the formula. These are, to our knowledge, the first non-trivial upper bounds for #SAT that is independent of clause size, and in terms of formula length, respectively. Based on a result of Kutzkov, we find an improved bound on #3SAT for 1.2577 < m/n <= 7/3. Finally, we use this technique to find an upper bound on the complexity of calculating amplitudes of quantum circuits in terms of the total number of gates. Our results demonstrate that graphical reasoning can lead to new algorithmic insights, even outside the domain of quantum computing that the calculus was intended for.
description: In Proceedings QPL 2024, arXiv:2408.05113
title: The European External Action Service’s influence in European security and defence policy: understanding the role of its relational capital
Creators: name: Heimsoeth, Eleonore
Publisher: name: London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)
Year: 2021

description: Ten years after its institutionalisation, there remains little understanding of the European External Action Service’s (EEAS) role, its impact and the extent of its influence in the European security and defence policy-making process. This thesis aims to address this gap by answering whether, to what extent and how the EEAS has the ability to purposefully steer and shape European security and defence policies so that policies’ development and/or outcome is affected. More specifically, what enables or constrains the EEAS’s ability to influence policies? In juxtaposition to the dominant discourse that highlights the EEAS’s scarce material capital, this thesis argues that in order to understand the EEAS’s influence in the policy-making process, it is necessary to analyse its relational capital, defined as the capabilities and resources the institution derives from its networks. The thesis explains how (1) the EEAS’s reach across the governance structure derived from its embeddedness in a policy’s network governance and (2) the use of its networks, may be as conducive for policy impact and/or influence as its formally derived material capital. While the first structural assessment delineates the extent of influence the EEAS may have, the second actor-centric assessment offers a more granular understanding of how and to what effect the EEAS uses its intra- and inter-institutional networks. It assesses how the EEAS mobilises intangible assets such as its human and social capital to wield trust and information. Drawing on 77 elite interviews, three case studies are studied, namely the drafting and implementation of the EU Global Strategy, the Permanent Structured Cooperation and the Civilian CSDP Compact - tackling the 'strategic’, civilian and military components of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). The findings of the thesis corroborate that capabilities derived from and resources mobilised through its relational capital enables or constrains the EEAS’s ability to shape and steer policies, and more significantly, explains the variation in the extent of influence observed. This research offers a two-fold contribution to the academic literature. Theoretically, by highlighting the relevance of relational over material capital for understanding an institution’s influence in European policy-making, it introduces an overlooked yet highly relevant approach to European Foreign Policy. Empirically, it offers an in-depth understanding of the role, impact and influence of the EEAS in an increasingly informal, transgovernmental European security and defence governance.
Leukocyte telomere length in women with and without polycystic ovary syndrome: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Creators: name: Tajada, Mauricio
name: Dieste-Pérez, Peña
name: Sanz-Arenal, Ana
name: Pérez-Roncero, Gonzalo
name: López-Baena, María T.
name: Pérez-López, Faustino R.
Publisher: name: Taylor & Francis
Year: 2022
Subjects: subject: Microbiology
subject: FOS: Biological sciences
subject: Cell Biology
subject: Genetics
subject: Biotechnology
subject: 39999 Chemical Sciences not elsewhere classified
subject: FOS: Chemical sciences
subject: 69999 Biological Sciences not elsewhere classified
subject: 19999 Mathematical Sciences not elsewhere classified
subject: FOS: Mathematics
subject: Cancer

description: To study the telomere length and the telomerase activity in women with and without polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). Relevant studies were searched from PubMed, Embase, and LILACS online databases and manual screening. The mean differences (MDs) or standardized MDs (SMDs) with their 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated. The methodological quality of included studies was evaluated with the Newcastle–Ottawa Scale (NOS), and heterogeneity with the I2 and Tau2 statistics. Six studies including 2109 non-pregnant women with (n = 1155) or without (n = 954) PCOS assessed leukocyte telomere length. There was a non-significant leukocyte telomere length difference (SMD = 0.25, 95% CI: −0.01, 0.51, p = .06, I2 = 81%, Tau2 = 0.08) comparing PCOS patients with the control group. Studied PCOS women were younger (MD = −1.39, 95% CI: −2.47, −0.31 years, I2 = 83%), and had higher body mass index (BMI; MD = 3.66, 95% CI: 2.11, 5.20 kg/m2, I2 = 94%). There were significantly higher testosterone (SMD = 0.88, 95% CI: 0.65, 1.10) and luteinizing hormone levels (SMD = 0.60, 95% CI: 0.12, 1.08) in women with PCOS as compared to controls. There was a low risk of bias and there were not sufficient studies to meta-analyze other cell types. Leukocyte telomere length did not differ between women with and without PCOS. Further studies with large sample sizes and including other outcomes are warranted to further substantiate the reported evidence.
title: Plant Variety Protection in Practice in Vietnam: The Pains in the Gains Achieved (An assessment of the PVP Law Implementation in Vietnam)
Creators: name: ITPGRFA Secretariat
Publisher: name: ITPGRFA
Year: 2025

description: In 2019, SEARICE carried out a research study to assess the impacts of implementing the 1991 Act of the UPOV to various stakeholders in Vietnam since its accession in 2006. The research study was inspired by several other working papers using a multi-stakeholder assessment and focusing on its analysis of lasting effects on developing countries’ seed sector. It was aimed at challenging the claims of UPOV on the effect to the PVP system on annual yield increases of crops in the country. The study revealed that while plant breeding is necessary, agricultural development must be detached from the notion that a draconian plant variety protection law is a fundamental prerequisite. Furthermore, the PVP system showed marginal effects in crop development, is incompatible with the structure of the seed sector and public institutions, and, as it concentrates on rice, may even affect research and development on all other crops. Finally, a sui generis PVP system remains to be the best path to take for Vietnam, and other developing countries considering accession to UPOV.
Dynamic expressibility under complex changes
Creators: name: Vortmeier, Nils
Publisher: name: Technische Universität Dortmund
Year: 2019
Subjects: subject: Dynamic complexity theory
subject: Descriptive complexity
subject: DynFO
subject: Complex changes
subject: 004
subject: Komplexität
subject: Komplexitätstheorie

description: Whenever a database is changed, any previously computed and stored result of a query evaluation on that database becomes invalid and needs to be updated. This update can in principle be conducted by re-evaluating the query from scratch. However, this approach might be too inefficient, especially for large databases. Instead, it is often advantageous to make use of the old query result and possibly further stored auxiliary information. A descriptive framework for studying this dynamic setting of query evaluation was introduced by Patnaik and Immerman in 1994, independently of a very similar formalisation by Dong, Su and Topor that was first published in 1992 and 1993. In this dynamic descriptive complexity framework, auxiliary relations are stored that hold the result of a fixed query as well as further auxiliary information. The update of these auxiliary relations after a change to the input database is specified by first-order formulas that may refer to the input database as well as to the stored auxiliary relations. The dynamic complexity class DynFO contains all queries for which the result can be maintained this way under some specified set of changes. Most of the previous work in the DynFO framework focussed on changes that are insertions and deletions of single tuples. In this thesis we consider also more complex changes, in particular we study changes that insert or delete a set of tuples of bounded size, and changes that are specified by first-order definable queries on the input. The main contribution of this thesis is an investigation of the expressive power of first-order update formulas in the DynFO framework with respect to these classes of complex changes. We show strong DynFO maintainability results under complex changes for queries such as the reachability query for directed and undirected graphs. We also give non-maintainability results for certain restricted dynamic settings. Some of our maintainability results rely on a new technique of dynamic query maintenance. This technique is also used to show that all queries that are definable in monadic second-order logic are in DynFO under single-edge changes of input graphs of bounded treewidth. We experimentally evaluate the dynamic approach and compare the performance of query evaluation from scratch with the performance of different strategies of dynamic query maintenance under complex changes.
Towards Efficient Convolutional Neural Architecture Design
Creators: name: Richter, Mats L.
Publisher: name: Universität Osnabrück
Year: 2022
Subjects: subject: Deep Learning, Neural Architecture Design, Computer Vision, Convolutional Neural Networks
subject: 004 - Informatik
subject: 54.72 - Künstliche Intelligenz
subject: 54.74 - Maschinelles Sehen
subject: I.2.10 - Vision and Scene Understanding
subject: I.5.2 - Design Methodology

description: The design and adjustment of convolutional neural network architectures is an opaque and mostly trial and error-driven process. The main reason for this is the lack of proper paradigms beyond general conventions for the development of neural networks architectures and lacking effective insights into the models that can be propagated back to design decision. In order for the task-specific design of deep learning solutions to become more efficient and goal-oriented, novel design strategies need to be developed that are founded on an understanding of convolutional neural network models. This work develops tools for the analysis of the inference process in trained neural network models. Based on these tools, characteristics of convolutional neural network models are identified that can be linked to inefficiencies in predictive and computational performance. Based on these insights, this work presents methods for effectively diagnosing these design faults before and during training with little computational overhead. These findings are empirically tested and demonstrated on architectures with sequential and multi-pathway structures, covering all the common types of convolutional neural network architectures used for classification. Furthermore, this work proposes simple optimization strategies that allow for goal-oriented and informed adjustment of the neural architecture, opening the potential for a less trial-and-error-driven design process.
title: Supporting farmer seed systems and promoting farmers’ rights and the sustainability of seed in emergency situations
Creators: name: ITPGRFA Secretariat
Publisher: name: ITPGRFA
Year: 2025

description: Eighty per cent of the seed requirements of the smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe, Malawi and Mozambique are sourced from the farmer seed systems. The local seeds or farmers varieties, adapted to local conditions play a significant role in meeting their food and nutrition, cultural and livelihood needs. With Cyclones Idai and Kenneth impacting Southern Africa in March and April of 2019, affected over 3.8 million people and destroyed nearly 800 000 ha of standing crops in these countries. Farmers lost their local seed reserves and crops that were ready for harvest. In response, with funding support from the government of Germany, FAO-ITPGRFA is working with governments, national genebanks and farmers to rebuild seed systems through a project called "Foundations for rebuilding seed systems post Cyclone Idai: Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Malawi". The project started in September 2019 and will end in May 2021, aims at supporting national genebanks to undertake studies to understand what has been lost in cyclone-affected communities in the way of seed reserves and seed diversity, as well as identify what types of crops (including endangered species) small-scale farmers would like to continue to grow, eat and sell. The project also aims to increase knowledge and skills in the restoration of local community-based farmer seed systems and build the capacity of national partners for policy engagement at the national and regional level.
CORPORATE GOVERNANCE AND MANAGEMENT OPPORTUNISTIC BEHAVIOUR
Creators: name: OSAZEVBARU, Henry Osahon
Publisher: name: National Research Council of Thailand
Year: 2020
Subjects: Executive compensation
information asymmetry
analysts' following
Chief Executive Officer.

description: SOCIAL SCIENCE ASIA : Official Journal of National Research Council of Thailand (NRCT) in conjunction with ABAC Journal, 6, 3, 1 - 12
title: Strengthening the local seed systems of Meghalaya and Nagaland (North-East India) through crop festivals, farmers seed exchanges and community seed banks
Creators: name: ITPGRFA Secretariat
Publisher: name: ITPGRFA
Year: 2025
Subjects: subject: AGROVOC: Access and benefit sharing

description: Established in 2012, the North East Slow Food and Agrobiodiversity Society (NESFAS), is a platform that connects people to the pleasure and importance of local food. NESFAS embraced the framework of agroecology in promoting local foods that are responsibly produced, protect the environment and enhances human health and wellbeing. Since 2018, NESFAS is implementing the project, "No one shall be left behind Initiative- Biodiversity for Food, Nutrition and Livelihood Security" in partnership with the indigenous communities of Meghalaya and Nagaland, to preserve and promote the indigenous food systems of the region. Seeds have been the basis of the food chain and food security. As part of their advocacy to protect traditional crops and local seeds, NESFAS and its partner NGOs support communities to strengthen their local seed system through e.g. seed festivals, seed exchanges and community seed banks. The main objective is to create awareness on the importance of local crops and their seeds, recuperate seed varieties that are lost, promote in-situ and on-farm conservation of PGRFA, raise awareness on the importance of local seeds, traditional knowledge and seed sovereignty. The core interventions include participatory crop diversity mapping, displaying indigenous seed varieties, informative sessions, farmer-to-farmer exchange of knowledge and seeds, and facilitating the creation of farmer seed networks. Seed fairs and seed festivals have served as an important vehicle that acknowledges farmers' effort and traditional knowledge for the conservation of PGRFA.