Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Interaction Effect of Feed Rate and Cutting Speed in CNC-Turning on Chip Micro-Hardness of 304- Austenitic Stainless Steel

— The present work is concerned with the effect of turning process parameters (cutting speed, feed rate, and depth of cut) and distance from the center of work piece as input variables on the chip micro-hardness as response or output. Three experiments were conducted; they were used to investigate the chip micro-hardness behavior at diameter of work piece for 30[mm], 40[mm], and 50[mm]. Response surface methodology (R.S.M) is used to determine and present the cause and effect of the relationship between true mean response and input control variables influencing the response as a two or three dimensional hyper surface. R.S. M has been used for designing a three factor with five level central composite rotatable factors design in order to construct statistical models capable of accurate prediction of responses. The results obtained showed that the application of R.S. M can predict the effect of machining parameters on chip micro-hardness. The five level factorial designs can be employed easily for developing statistical models to predict chip micro-hardness by controllable machining parameters. Results obtained showed that the combined effect of cutting speed at it’s lower level, feed rate and depth of cut at their higher values, and larger work piece diameter can result increasing chi micro-hardness.
Academic Status of Science Graduates: Correlates of Employment Using Selected Schools and Industries in Port-Harcourt Metropolis

Using the Survey design, the researcher investigated the extent to which different organizations and institutions employed graduates with different academic status. Two research instrument called Science Teachers Academic Status Inventory (STASI) and Science Workers Academic Status Inventory (SWASI) were used to collect the data from 2 secondary schools (1 public and 1 private) and 2 industries in Port Harcourt metropolis. Using purposive sampling technique a sample size of 218 graduates (95 teachers and 123 company workers) was drawn from the graduates employed in 2014 and 2015 with academic status between 3 rd class and 1 st class. Simple percentage was used for the descriptive statistics while the multiple correlation of predictability was used for the inferential statistics at 0.05 significant levels. From the findings, a significant positive correlation was obtained for 1 st , 2 nd lower and 3 rd class (r=0.45 and 0.20). The predictor variables jointly accounted for 20% of the variance with better employment for 1 st class. The null hypothesis tested at 0.05 was rejected since there is significant relationship between employment and graduates academic status. The researcher recommended that graduates with high academic status should be given automatic employment in their areas of discipline immediately after their graduation.
Meta-Analysis of Self-Reported Daytime Napping and Risk of Cardiovascular or All-Cause Mortality

Background Whether self-reported daytime napping is an independent predictor of cardiovascular or all-cause mortality remains unclear. The aim of this study was to investigate self-reported daytime napping and risk of cardiovascular or all-cause mortality by conducting a meta-analysis. Material/Methods A computerized literature search of PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane Library was conducted up to May 2014. Only prospective studies reporting risk ratio (RR) and corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CI) of cardiovascular or all-cause mortality with respect to baseline self-reported daytime napping were included. Results Seven studies with 98,163 subjects were included. Self-reported daytime napping was associated with a greater risk of all-cause mortality (RR 1.15; 95% CI 1.07–1.24) compared with non-nappers. Risk of all-cause mortality appeared to be more pronounced among persons with nap duration >60 min (RR 1.15; 95% CI 1.04–1.27) than persons with nap duration <60 min (RR 1.10; 95% CI 0.92–1.32). The pooled RR of cardiovascular mortality was 1.19 (95% CI 0.97–1.48) comparing daytime nappers to non-nappers. Conclusions Self-reported daytime napping is a mild but statistically significant predictor for all-cause mortality, but not for cardiovascular mortality. However, whether the risk is attributable to excessive sleep duration or napping alone remains controversial. More prospective studies stratified by sleep duration, napping periods, or age are needed.
A universal image quality index

We propose a new universal objective image quality index, which is easy to calculate and applicable to various image processing applications. Instead of using traditional error summation methods, the proposed index is designed by modeling any image distortion as a combination of three factors: loss of correlation, luminance distortion, and contrast distortion. Although the new index is mathematically defined and no human visual system model is explicitly employed, our experiments on various image distortion types indicate that it performs significantly better than the widely used distortion metric mean squared error. Demonstrative images and an efficient MATLAB implementation of the algorithm are available online at http://anchovy.ece. utexas.edu//spl sim/zwang/research/quality_index/demo.html.
ISM properties in low-metallicity environments. III. The dust spectral energy distributions of II Zw 40, He 2-10 and NGC 1140

We present new 450 and 850μm SCUBA data and 1.3 mm MAMBO data of the dwarf galaxies II Zw 40, He 2-10 and NGC 1140. Additional ISOCAM, IRAS as well as ground based data are used to construct the observed mid-infrared to millimeter spectral energy distribution of these galaxies. These spectral energy distributions are modeled in a self-consistent way, as was achieved with NGC 1569 (Galliano et al. 2003, AA (ii) a very small (∼3-4nm) average size of grains, consistent with the fragmentation and erosion of dust particles by the numerous shocks; (iii) a significant millimetre excess in the dust spectral energy distribution which can be explained by the presence of ubiquitous very cold dust (T = 5-9 K) accounting for 40 to 80% of the total dust mass, probably distributed in small clumps. We derive a range of gas-to-dust mass ratios between 300 and 2000, larger than the Galactic values and dust-to-metals ratios of 1/30 to 1/2. The modeled dust size distributions are used to synthesize an extinction curve for each galaxy. The UV slopes of the extinction curves resemble that observed in some regions in the Large Magellanic Cloud. The 2175 A bumps of the modeled extinction curves are weaker than that of the Galaxy, except in the case of II Zw 40 where we are unable to accurately constrain the 2175 A bump carrier.
Emotional Intelligence and Academic Achievement among Students at the Higher Secondary Level

The present study aims to investigate emotional intelligence and academic achievement of students at the higher secondary level. Using random sampling technique 321 students, from the higher secondary level in different systems of education, namely, state, matriculation and central board schools are chosen. The Emotional Intelligence Scale (Hydes and others, 2002) has been used to assess the emotional intelligence and the marks scored in Science were taken from their half yearly performance. The data collected is subjected to statistical analysis, namely, mean, standard deviation, 't'- test, 'F'- ratio, Karl Pearson's Product Moment Correlation Co-efficient 'r'. Results show a positive significant correlation between emotional intelligence and academic achievement among the students. Further the students belonging to the central board schools have a higher level of emotional intelligence compared to students in state board but did not differ with students in matriculation board schools at the higher secondary level. Similarly, students belonging to central board schools are found to perform better in academics compared to students in state and matriculation board schools at the higher secondary level.
Modeling Urban Land Cover Growth Dynamics Using Multi-Temporal Satellite Images: A Case Study of Dhaka, Bangladesh

The primary objective of this research is to predict and analyze the future urban growth of Dhaka City using the Landsat satellite images of 1989, 1999 and 2009. Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) and its surrounding impact areas have been selected as the study area. At the beginning, a fisher supervised classification method has been applied to prepare the base maps with five land cover classes. In the next stage, three different models have been implemented to simulate the land cover map of Dhaka city of 2009. These have been named as “Stochastic Markov (St_Markov)” Model, “Cellular Automata Markov (CA_Markov)” Model and “Multi Layer Perceptron Markov (MLP_Markov)” Model. Then the best-fitted model has been selected by implementing a method to compare land cover categories in three maps: a reference map of time 1, a reference map of time 2 and a simulation map of time 2. This is how the “Multi Layer Perceptron Markov (MLP_Markov)” Model has been qualified as the most appropriate model for this research. Later, using the MLP_Markov model, the land cover map of 2019 has been predicted. The MLP_Markov model extrapolates that built-up area increases from 46% to 58% of the total study area during 2009–2019.
Who is Sensitive to Extremes of Temperature?: A Case-Only Analysis

Background: Extremes of temperature are well known to be associated with excess mortality. Less is known about the characteristics of persons that put them at higher risk, particularly the role of medical conditions. Methods: To investigate these effects, I used a case-only approach to analyze 160,062 deaths in Wayne County, Michigan, among persons who were 65 years of age or older, who were covered by Medicare, and who had a previous hospital admission for heart and lung disease. Using their unique Medicare identification number, I traced deaths through Medicare hospital admission records to identify primary and secondary diagnoses for all admissions before death. I investigated the role of diabetes, myocardial infarction, congestive heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and pneumonia as modifiers of the risk of dying on an extreme temperature day. Hot days were defined as those greater than the 99th percentile of all days and cold days as those less than the 1st percentile. I also examined the role of sex, age (85 years of age and older), and nonwhite race as modifiers. Results: I found that patients with diabetes had a higher risk of dying on hot days than other subjects (odds ratio = 1.17; 95% confidence interval = 1.04–1.32). Persons with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease had elevated risks of dying on cold days (1.19; 1.07–1.33). Nonwhites had greater risks on both hot (1.22; 1.09–1.37) and cold (1.25; 1.12–1.40) days, and women had elevated risks on cold days (1.14; 1.02–1.26). The other conditions conveyed no higher risks than average. Conclusions: Sociodemographic characteristics and medical conditions can increase the likelihood of death associated with temperature extremes.
Penalty kick outcomes in UEFA club competitions (2010-2015): The roles of situational, individual and performance factors

This study aimed to investigate main and interaction effects of situational (competition phase, match location, match status and match period), individual (penalty taker’s footedness, playing position, and age difference to the goalkeeper), and performance factors (shot direction and goalkeeper’s action) on penalty kick outcome in UEFA Champions and Europa leagues. Data were collected from soccer Internet sites and TV broadcasts during five consecutive seasons (from 2010-2011 to 2014-2015). A total of 536 penalties were recorded and analysed considering the aforementioned three groups of variables and the respective penalty outcome (goal, saved or missed). Multinomial logistic regression analysis was used to assess the effects of factors on penalty outcome. The logistic regression model revealed the probabilities of penalty kicks being saved significantly increased (1) in the middle of matches (30:01–60:00) and (2) when the shots were directed to lower zones of the goal, in particular to the lower centre-left zone of the goal (penalty taker’s perspective). Besides, the odds of missing the penalty substantially increased when the shot aimed the high zones of the goal. Based on the current findings, penalty takers should be encouraged to direct the shot to the upper corners of the goal and goalkeepers should wait longer in order to dive to the correct side of the ball. Although performance factors were the most decisive for determining the penalty outcome, situational factors such as match period may also influence the success of penalty kicks.
Reliability and validity of bedside version of Arabic Diagnostic Aphasia Battery (A-DAB-1) for Lebanese individuals

ABSTRACT Background: There are several clinical aphasia assessment tools for screening and rehabilitation purposes in different languages. They are used globally to determine important aspects of language functioning in brain damaged individuals. Despite this, a valid bedside operational assessment tool is not available in Arabic to determine the level and severity of aphasia in Lebanese brain damaged patients. Aims: The aim of the present study was to develop the bedside version of Arabic Diagnostic Aphasia Battery (A-DAB-1) to measure severity of aphasia for rehabilitation purposes in Lebanese Arabic-speaking people with aphasia (PWA). Methods & Procedures: This study followed the theoretical framework of the WAB-R as well as connected speech analysis framework of P-WAB-1 developed for Persian (Persian Western Aphasia Battery). An expert native speaking panel was employed to evaluate the faithful translation of A-DAB-1 for matching the sociolinguistic properties of Arabic spoken in Lebanon using the Delphi method. The content validity ratio (CVR) was determined, and the new version of the test was administered to 60 healthy native Arabic-speaking adults living in Lebanon to obtain norms. The final version was administered to 30 Lebanese Arabic-speaking cerebrovascular accident (CVA) PWA introduced by a neurologist. The internal consistency and the test-retest were determined by reassessing ten PWA within 2–4 weeks interval. Outcomes & Results: The results of this study indicated that A-DAB-1 is a valid and reliable bedside clinical assessment tool. It achieved CVR 0.75 and an acceptable internal consistency (alpha = 0.961) and test-retest reliability (ICC = 0.988 p. Also A-DAB-1 showed a good clinical utility to differentiate between normal individuals and the performance of PWA as an operational index of severity. Conclusions: Based on the result, A-DAB-1 can be used as a valid clinical assessment tool for screening aphasia in bedside and to determine the severity of aphasia and efficacy of language intervention in Lebanese Arabic-speaking PWA.
ANC-ERA: Random Access for Analog Network Coding in Wireless Networks

Analog network coding (ANC) is effective in improving spectrum efficiency. To coordinate ANC among multiple nodes without relying on complicated scheduling algorithm and network optimization, a new random access MAC protocol, called ANC-ERA, is developed to dynamically form ANC-cooperation groups in an ad hoc network. ANC-ERA includes several key mechanisms to maintain high performance in medium access. First, network allocation vectors (NAV) of control frames are properly set to avoid over-blocking of channel access. Second, a channel occupation frame (COF) is added to protect vulnerable periods during the formation of ANC cooperation. Third, an ACK diversity mechanism is designed to reduce potentially high ACK loss probability in ANC-based wireless networks. Since forming an ANC cooperation relies on bi-directional traffic between the initiator and the cooperator, the throughput gain from ANC drops dramatically if bi-directional traffic is not available. To avoid this issue, the fourth key mechanism, called flow compensation, is designed to form different types of ANC cooperation among neighboring nodes of the initiator and the cooperator. Both theoretical analysis and simulations are conducted to evaluate ANC-ERA. Performance results show that ANC-ERA works effectively in ad hoc networks and significantly outperforms existing random access MAC protocols.
Risk Diversification by European Financial Conglomerates

We study the dependence between the downside risk of European banks and insurers. Since the downside risk of banks and insurers differs, an interesting question from a supervisory point of view is the risk reduction that derives from diversification within large banks and financial conglomerates. We discuss the limited value of the normal distribution based correlation concept, and propose an alternative measure which better captures the downside dependence given the fat tail property of the risk distribution. This measure is estimated and indicates better diversification benefits for conglomerates versus large banks.
Exploiting the sparse derivative prior for super-resolution

When a band-pass filter is applied to a natural image, the distribution of the output has a consistent, distinctive form across many different images, with the distribution sharply peaked at zero and relatively heavy-tailed. This prior has been exploited for several image processing tasks. We show how this prior on the appearance of natural images can also be used to estimate full-resolution images from incomplete data. The unobserved image pixels are modeled with a factor graph. The constraints in the factor graph are based on the characteristic distribution of image derivatives. We introduce an efficient representation for finding candidate values for patches of the image being estimated, avoiding combinatorial explosion. The usefulness of this approach is demonstrated by applying it to two applications: extracting a high-resolution image from a low-resolution version and estimating a full-color image from an image with one color sample per pixel. We show how the super resolution system produces noticeably sharper images, with few significant artifacts. The demosaicing system produces full-color images with fewer color-fringing artifacts than images from other methods.
Antibodies against the carboxyl‐terminal end of the Trypanosoma cruzi ribosomal P proteins are pathogenic

Sera from patients with chronic Chagas heart disease recognize the carboxyl‐terminal regions of the Trypanosoma cruzi ribosomal P proteins defined by B cell epitopes P013 (EDDDDDFGMGALF) and R13 (EEEDDDMGFGLFD) corresponding to the T. cruzi ribosomal P0 (TcP0) and P2ß (TcP2ß) proteins, respectively. It has been hypothesized that both epitopes may induce antibodies that cross‐react and stimulate the ß 1‐adrenoreceptor. However, no proof as to their pathogenicity has been obtained. We investigated the consequences of immunizing mice with either TcP0 or TcP2ß proteins. Of 24 immunized animals, 16 generated antibodies against the carboxyl‐terminal end of the corresponding protein, 13 of which showed an altered ECG (P < 0.001, 81%). Immunization with TcP0 induced anti‐P013 antibodies that bind to and stimulate cardiac G‐protein‐coupled receptors and are linked to the induction of supraventricular arrhythmia, repolar‐ization, and conduction abnormalities as monitored by serial electrocardiographic analysis. In contrast, immunization with TcP2ß generated anti‐R13 antibodies with an exclusive ß1‐adrenergic‐stimulating activity whose appearance strictly correlated with the recording of supraventricular tachycardia and death. These findings demonstrate that anti‐P antibodies are arrhythmogenic in the setting of a normal heart, since no inflammatory lesions or fibrosis were evident to light microscopic examination. —Lopez Bergami, P., Scaglione, J., Levin, M. J. Antibodies against the carboxyl‐terminal end of the Trypanosoma cruzi ribosomal P proteins are pathogenic. FASEB J. 15, 2602–2612 (2001)
Specialization Without Regret: Transfer Rights, Agricultural Productivity, and Investment in an Industrializing Economy

A number of studies have examined the effects of secure tenure on agricultural investment and productivity. The authors also study the importance of rights to household residual income and land use being transferable. Contemporary China - where industrialization has spread rapidly, if unevenly - is a good place to study the economic effects of transfer rights as well as conventional security of tenure. Village collectives formally own land in China, so there can be no individual land sales, but farmers are sometimes entitled to sell their rights to use the land allocated to them under the household responsibility system. Whether a household has secure tenure depends on whether its landholding will be reduced if the household population declines, whether the landholding will be increased if the household population increases, and how frequent average land adjustments are under the household responsibility system. Analyzing panel data for a sample of farm households, the authors study the"investment regret mitigation effect", which results when greater transfer rights make households more willing to invest because they are less likely to regret such investments when they can recoup the investment value even if they exit farming. The authors find that transfer rights may be especially important in an industrializing economy. A property rights system with incomplete security of tenure but with strong transfer rights that permit"specialization without regret"- so farmers can recoup the value of an investment even if they exit farming - may have much to recommend it.
ESTIMATION OF ABOVE-AND BELOW-GROUND BIOMASS IN BOREAL FOREST ECOSYSTEMS

Regression models for above-ground and below-ground biomass were estimated for 143 sample plots in young and mature coniferous forest. Various canopy height and canopy density metrics derived from the canopy height distributions of first as well as last pulse laser scanner data with a sampling density of approximately 1.1 m were used as independent variables in the regressions. Each of the selected models comprised at least one variable related to canopy height and one related to canopy density. The models for above-ground biomass explained 92% of the variability whereas the models for below-ground biomass explained 86%. The analysis indicated that forest type did not have any significant impact on the estimated models.
On the Rise of Health Spending and Longevity

We use a calibrated stochastic life-cycle model of endogenous health spending, asset accumulation and retirement to investigate the causes behind the increase in health spending and life expectancy over the period 1965-2005. We estimate that technological change along with the increase in the generosity of health insurance may explain independently 53% of the rise in health spending (insurance 29% and technology 24%) while income less than 10%. By simultaneously occurring over this period, these changes may have lead to a “synergy” or interaction effect which helps explain an additional 37% increase in health spending. We estimate that technological change, taking the form of increased productivity at an annual rate of 1.8%, explains 59% of the rise in life expectancy at age 50 over this period while insurance and income explain less than 10%.