88 research outputs found
Bio-economic evaluation and optimization of livestock intensification in the Central Highlands of Vietnam.
Beef cattle have high market demand in Vietnam and the Dak Lak local government encourages the development of beef value chains. Household surveys were carried out in Cu Jut and Ea Kar districts and farming systems and production specialization were found to differ in each district. Ea Kar farmers were more specialized in livestock production while Cu Jut farmers were more focused on cash crop production. The FarmDESIGN bio-economic model allowed us to study two representative farms, one from Ea Kar and one from Cu Jut district. The Ea Kar farm had a more integrated livestock production system, providing manure to the fields that produced feed for the livestock. Both farms had high farm-level nitrogen balances due to high feed and fertilizer imports. The soil organic matter (SOM) balance in Cu Jut was negative (-48 kg/ha) because of its manure management strategy. On both farms, the residues were removed from the fields, providing no input to SOM and were fed to livestock (Ea Kar) or burnt (CuJut). Livestock intensification scenarios that were implemented for the Ea Kar case study farm showed two possible pathways – forage-based and grain-based cattle fattening. Both strategies could lead to higher operating profits (+35% for forage-based cattle fattening and +59% for grain-based cattle fattening) and lower labor demands if they were skillfully implemented for the latter scenario. However, grain-based fattening negatively affected SOM balance, in contrast to forage-based fattening. The optimization of the current Ea Kar farm with FarmDESIGN indicated that there are options to change the farm setup in order to increase profitability and reduce family labor demands.
However there are some trade-offs to consider. If reducing environmental impact is a priority, there are alternative farm configurations that will produce lower greenhouse gas emissions while increasing SOM and increasing overall farm profitability. These should be assessed along with the farmers’ interests and priorities. Quantitative farm modeling of complex mixed farming systems can assess potential impact and support decision-making, targeting, prioritization and program design for sustainable intensification of livestock systems
ScanDL: A Diffusion Model for Generating Synthetic Scanpaths on Texts
Eye movements in reading play a crucial role in psycholinguistic research studying the cognitive mechanisms underlying human language processing. More recently, the tight coupling between eye movements and cognition has also been leveraged for language-related machine learning tasks such as the interpretability, enhancement, and pre-training of language models, as well as the inference of reader- and text-specific properties. However, scarcity of eye movement data and its unavailability at application time poses a major challenge for this line of research. Initially, this problem was tackled by resorting to cognitive models for synthesizing eye movement data. However, for the sole purpose of generating human-like scanpaths, purely data-driven machine-learning-based methods have proven to be more suitable. Following recent advances in adapting diffusion processes to discrete data, we propose ScanDL, a novel discrete sequence-to-sequence diffusion model that generates synthetic scanpaths on texts. By leveraging pre-trained word representations and jointly embedding both the stimulus text and the fixation sequence, our model captures multi-modal interactions between the two inputs. We evaluate ScanDL within- and across-dataset and demonstrate that it significantly outperforms state-of-the-art scanpath generation methods. Finally, we provide an extensive psycholinguistic analysis that underlines the model's ability to exhibit human-like reading behavior. Our implementation is made available at https://github.com/DiLi-Lab/ScanDL
ScanDL: A Diffusion Model for Generating Synthetic Scanpaths on Texts
Eye movements in reading play a crucial role in psycholinguistic research
studying the cognitive mechanisms underlying human language processing. More
recently, the tight coupling between eye movements and cognition has also been
leveraged for language-related machine learning tasks such as the
interpretability, enhancement, and pre-training of language models, as well as
the inference of reader- and text-specific properties. However, scarcity of eye
movement data and its unavailability at application time poses a major
challenge for this line of research. Initially, this problem was tackled by
resorting to cognitive models for synthesizing eye movement data. However, for
the sole purpose of generating human-like scanpaths, purely data-driven
machine-learning-based methods have proven to be more suitable. Following
recent advances in adapting diffusion processes to discrete data, we propose
ScanDL, a novel discrete sequence-to-sequence diffusion model that generates
synthetic scanpaths on texts. By leveraging pre-trained word representations
and jointly embedding both the stimulus text and the fixation sequence, our
model captures multi-modal interactions between the two inputs. We evaluate
ScanDL within- and across-dataset and demonstrate that it significantly
outperforms state-of-the-art scanpath generation methods. Finally, we provide
an extensive psycholinguistic analysis that underlines the model's ability to
exhibit human-like reading behavior. Our implementation is made available at
https://github.com/DiLi-Lab/ScanDL.Comment: EMNLP 202
Direct and cytokine-mediated effects of albumin-fused growth hormone, TV-1106, on CYP enzyme expression in human hepatocytes in vitro
Some biologics can modulate cytokines that may lead to changes in expression of drugmetabolizing
enzymes and cause drug-drug interactions (DDI). DDI potential of TV-
1106—an albumin-fused growth hormone (GH)—was investigated. In this study, human
blood was exposed to recombinant human growth hormone (rhGH) or TV-1106, followed
by isolation of the plasma and its application to human hepatocytes. While the
treatment of blood with rhGH increased multiple cytokines, treatment of blood with
TV-1106 had no effect on any of the nine cytokines tested. The interleukin (IL)-6 concentration
was higher in the rhGH then in the TV-1106-treated plasma (P < .05). While
rhGH had little or no effect on CYP1A2 or CYP2C19 mRNA but increased CYP3A4
mRNA twofold, TV-1106 had little or no effect on cytochrome P450 (CYP) mRNAs in
hepatocytes. Although the plasma from rhGH-treated blood lowered CYP1A2 activity,
the TV-1106 plasma had no effect on CYP activities. The CYP1A2 activity was lower in
the rhGH- then in the TV-1106-plasma treated hepatocytes (P < .05). The results indicated
that fusing GH with albumin made TV-1106 an unlikely participant of CYP1A2,
CYP2C19 or CYP3A4-facilitated, direct or cytokine-driven DDI.The authors would like to thank scientists in the Scientific Operations
at Sekisui XenoTech for their technical assistance
The European Respiratory Society and European Society of Thoracic Surgeons clinical guidelines for evaluating fitness for radical treatment (surgery and chemoradiotherapy) in patients with lung cancer
The European Respiratory Society (ERS) and the European Society of Thoracic Surgeons (ESTS) established a joint task force with the purpose to develop clinical evidence-based guidelines on evaluation of fitness for radical therapy in patients with lung cancer. The following topics were discussed, and are summarized in the final report along with graded recommendations: Cardiologic evaluation before lung resection; lung function tests and exercise tests (limitations of ppoFEV1; DLCO: systematic or selective?; split function studies; exercise tests: systematic; low-tech exercise tests; cardiopulmonary (high tech) exercise tests); future trends in preoperative work-up; physiotherapy/rehabilitation and smoking cessation; scoring systems; advanced care management (ICU/HDU); quality of life in patients submitted to radical treatment; combined cancer surgery and lung volume reduction surgery; compromised parenchymal sparing resections and minimally invasive techniques: the balance between oncological radicality and functional reserve; neoadjuvant chemotherapy and complications; definitive chemo and radiotherapy: functional selection criteria and definition of risk; should surgical criteria be re-calibrated for radiotherapy?; the patient at prohibitive surgical risk: alternatives to surgery; who should treat thoracic patients and where these patients should be treated
Stepwise assembly of an adamantoid Ru4Ag6 cage by control of metal coordination geometry at specific sites
The geometrically pure ‘complex ligand’ fac-[Ru(Lph)3]2+, in which three pendant bidentate binding sites are located on one face of the complex, reacts with Ag(I) ions to form the adamantoid decanuclear cage [{Ru(Lph)3}4Ag6](PF6)14 which contains a 6-coordinate Ru(II) ion at each vertex of a large tetrahedron and a 4-coordinate Ag(I) ion along each edge
LivestockPlus: The sustainable intensification of forage-based agricultural systems to improve livelihoods and ecosystem services in the tropics
As global demand for livestock products (such as meat, milk, and eggs) is expected to double by 2050, necessary
increases to future production must be reconciled with negative environmental impacts that livestock cause. This
paper describes the LivestockPlus concept and demonstrates how the sowing of improved forages can lead to the
sustainable intensification of mixed crop–forage–livestock–tree systems in the tropics by producing multiple social,
economic, and environmental benefits. Sustainable intensification not only improves the productivity of tropical
forage-based systems but also reduces the ecological footprint of livestock production and generates a diversity of
ecosystem services (ES), such as improved soil quality and reduced erosion, sedimentation, and greenhouse gas
(GHG) emissions. Integrating improved grass and legume forages into mixed production systems (crop–livestock,
tree–livestock, crop–tree–livestock) can restore degraded lands and enhance system resilience to drought and
waterlogging associated with climate change. When properly managed tropical forages accumulate large amounts
of carbon in soil, fix atmospheric nitrogen (legumes), inhibit nitrification in soil and reduce nitrous oxide emissions
(grasses), and reduce GHG emissions per unit livestock product.
The LivestockPlus concept is defined as the sustainable intensification of forage-based systems, which is based
on three interrelated intensification processes: genetic intensification – the development and use of superior
grass and legume cultivars for increased livestock productivity; ecological intensification – the development and
application of improved farm and natural resource management practices; and socio-economic intensification
– the improvement of local and national institutions and policies, which enable refinements of technologies
and support their enduring use. Increases in livestock productivity will require coordinated efforts to develop
supportive government, non-government organization, and private sector policies that foster investments and
fair market compensation for both the products and ES provided. Effective research-for-development efforts that
promote agricultural and environmental benefits of forage-based systems can contribute towards implemention of
LivestockPlus across a variety of geographic, political, and socio-economic contexts
The Rural Household Multiple Indicator Survey, data from 13,310 farm households in 21 countries
The Rural Household Multiple Indicator Survey (RHoMIS) is a standardized farm household survey approach which collects information on 758 variables covering household demographics, farm area, crops grown and their production, livestock holdings and their production, agricultural product use and variables underlying standard socio-economic and food security indicators such as the Probability of Poverty Index, the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale, and household dietary diversity. These variables are used to quantify more than 40 different indicators on farm and household characteristics, welfare, productivity, and economic performance. Between 2015 and the beginning of 2018, the survey instrument was applied in 21 countries in Central America, sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. The data presented here include the raw survey response data, the indicator calculation code, and the resulting indicator values. These data can be used to quantify on- and off-farm pathways to food security, diverse diets, and changes in poverty for rural smallholder farm households
The global burden of injury: Incidence, mortality, disability-adjusted life years and time trends from the global burden of disease study 2013
Background The Global Burden of Diseases (GBD), Injuries, and Risk Factors study used the disabilityadjusted life year (DALY) to quantify the burden of diseases, injuries, and risk factors. This paper provides an overview of injury estimates from the 2013 update of GBD, with detailed information on incidence, mortality, DALYs and rates of change from 1990 to 2013 for 26 causes of injury, globally, by region and by country. Methods Injury mortality was estimated using the extensive GBD mortality database, corrections for illdefined cause of death and the cause of death ensemble modelling tool. Morbidity estimation was based on inpatient and outpatient data sets, 26 cause-of-injury and 47 nature-of-injury categories, and seven follow-up studies with patient-reported long-term outcome measures. Results In 2013, 973 million (uncertainty interval (UI) 942 to 993) people sustained injuries that warranted some type of healthcare and 4.8 million (UI 4.5 to 5.1) people died from injuries. Between 1990 and 2013 the global age-standardised injury DALY rate decreased by 31% (UI 26% to 35%). The rate of decline in DALY rates was significant for 22 cause-of-injury categories, including all the major injuries. Conclusions Injuries continue to be an important cause of morbidity and mortality in the developed and developing world. The decline in rates for almost all injuries is so prominent that it warrants a general statement that the world is becoming a safer place to live in. However, the patterns vary widely by cause, age, sex, region and time and there are still large improvements that need to be made
Measuring performance on the Healthcare Access and Quality Index for 195 countries and territories and selected subnational locations: A systematic analysis from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016
Background A key component of achieving universal health coverage is ensuring that all populations have access to
quality health care. Examining where gains have occurred or progress has faltered across and within countries is
crucial to guiding decisions and strategies for future improvement. We used the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries,
and Risk Factors Study 2016 (GBD 2016) to assess personal health-care access and quality with the Healthcare Access
and Quality (HAQ) Index for 195 countries and territories, as well as subnational locations in seven countries, from
1990 to 2016.
Methods Drawing from established methods and updated estimates from GBD 2016, we used 32 causes from which
death should not occur in the presence of effective care to approximate personal health-care access and quality by
location and over time. To better isolate potential effects of personal health-care access and quality from underlying
risk factor patterns, we risk-standardised cause-specific deaths due to non-cancers by location-year, replacing the local
joint exposure of environmental and behavioural risks with the global level of exposure. Supported by the expansion
of cancer registry data in GBD 2016, we used mortality-to-incidence ratios for cancers instead of risk-standardised
death rates to provide a stronger signal of the effects of personal health care and access on cancer survival. We
transformed each cause to a scale of 0–100, with 0 as the first percentile (worst) observed between 1990 and 2016, and
100 as the 99th percentile (best); we set these thresholds at the country level, and then applied them to subnational
locations. We applied a principal components analysis to construct the HAQ Index using all scaled cause values,
providing an overall score of 0–100 of personal health-care access and quality by location over time. We then compared
HAQ Index levels and trends by quintiles on the Socio-demographic Index (SDI), a summary measure of overall
development. As derived from the broader GBD study and other data sources, we examined relationships between
national HAQ Index scores and potential correlates of performance, such as total health spending per capita.
Findings In 2016, HAQ Index performance spanned from a high of 97·1 (95% UI 95·8–98·1) in Iceland, followed by
96·6 (94·9–97·9) in Norway and 96·1 (94·5–97·3) in the Netherlands, to values as low as 18·6 (13·1–24·4) in
the Central African Republic, 19·0 (14·3–23·7) in Somalia, and 23·4 (20·2–26·8) in Guinea-Bissau. The pace of
progress achieved between 1990 and 2016 varied, with markedly faster improvements occurring between 2000 and
2016 for many countries in sub-Saharan Africa and southeast Asia, whereas several countries in Latin America and
elsewhere saw progress stagnate after experiencing considerable advances in the HAQ Index between 1990 and 2000.
Striking subnational disparities emerged in personal health-care access and quality, with China and India having
particularly large gaps between locations with the highest and lowest scores in 2016. In China, performance ranged
from 91·5 (89·1–93·6) in Beijing to 48·0 (43·4–53·2) in Tibet (a 43·5-point difference), while India saw a 30·8-point
disparity, from 64·8 (59·6–68·8) in Goa to 34·0 (30·3–38·1) in Assam. Japan recorded the smallest range in
subnational HAQ performance in 2016 (a 4·8-point difference), whereas differences between subnational locations
with the highest and lowest HAQ Index values were more than two times as high for the USA and three times as high
for England. State-level gaps in the HAQ Index in Mexico somewhat narrowed from 1990 to 2016 (from a 20·9-point
to 17·0-point difference), whereas in Brazil, disparities slightly increased across states during this time (a 17·2-point
to 20·4-point difference). Performance on the HAQ Index showed strong linkages to overall development, with high
and high-middle SDI countries generally having higher scores and faster gains for non-communicable diseases.
Nonetheless, countries across the development spectrum saw substantial gains in some key health service areas from
2000 to 2016, most notably vaccine-preventable diseases. Overall, national performance on the HAQ Index was
positively associated with higher levels of total health spending per capita, as well as health systems inputs, but these
relationships were quite heterogeneous, particularly among low-to-middle SDI countries.
Interpretation GBD 2016 provides a more detailed understanding of past success and current challenges in improving
personal health-care access and quality worldwide. Despite substantial gains since 2000, many low-SDI and middle-
SDI countries face considerable challenges unless heightened policy action and investments focus on advancing access to and quality of health care across key health services, especially non-communicable diseases. Stagnating or
minimal improvements experienced by several low-middle to high-middle SDI countries could reflect the complexities
of re-orienting both primary and secondary health-care services beyond the more limited foci of the Millennium
Development Goals. Alongside initiatives to strengthen public health programmes, the pursuit of universal health
coverage hinges upon improving both access and quality worldwide, and thus requires adopting a more comprehensive
view—and subsequent provision—of quality health care for all populations.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
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