Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An All-Digital Scalable and Reconfigurable Wide-Input Range Stochastic ADC Using Only Standard Cells

An all-digital programmable and reconfigurable stochastic analog-to-digital converter (ADC) is presented in this work. This ADC directly benefits from scaling by using only digital gates and relying on an increased mismatch between minimum-sized transistors. The programmability and reconfigurability are achieved by dividing the design into eight channels. The mean of each channel is set independently using a digitally generated analog reference voltage with a 10-bit control word. The output of each channel is linearized using Gaussian linear interpolation. The entire ADC is written in Verilog and synthesized into digital standard cells using regular digital design tools. Fabricated in a 130-nm complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor process, the ADC covers signal-to-noise and distortion ratio from 28 to 34.9 dB with a programmable differential input range of 400-800 mVpp at 140 MS/s and 0.7-V supply.
Chemical and Biological insights of Ouratea hexasperma (A. St.-Hil.) Baill.: a source of bioactive compounds with multifunctional properties

Abstract The study aimed to evaluate in vitro antioxidant, anticholinesterase and antidiabetic properties of Ouratea hexasperma (A. St.-Hil.) Baill. The inflorescence methanol extract and the ethyl acetate fraction of leaves and stems reported the highest Relative Antioxidant Capacity Index (RACI), whereas the dichloromethane fraction of leaves was the best inhibitor of α-amylase and α-glucosidase. Trans-3-O-methyl-resveratrol-2-C-β-glucoside, lithospermoside, 2,5-dimethoxy-p-benzoquinone, lup-20(30)-ene-3β,28-diol, 7-O-methylgenistein, apigenin and luteolin and amentoflavone were isolated from O. hexasperma. Resveratrol derivative was isolated for the first time in Ochnaceae family. Luteolin, followed by apigenin, reported the highest Relative Antioxidant Capacity Index and they were also the best inhibitors of α-glucosidase enzyme.
Modified coronally advanced flap with and without orthodontic button application in management of multiple proximate gingival recession defects: A randomized clinical trial

Background: Gingival recession indicates oral display of the root surface due to apical movement of gingival margin. Coronally advanced flap (CAF) is often used periodontal plastic surgical technique to accomplish root coverage. The purpose of this clinical trial is to assess and compare the effectiveness of modified CAF with orthodontic button application (CAF*B) and without orthodontic button application (CAF) for the correction of multiple recession defects. Materials and Methods: Twenty patients exhibiting bilateral multiple proximate Millers Class I and/or Class II gingival recession defects were included in the study. Each set of proximate recession defects was designated randomly to test or control group. Control group was treated by CAF alone and test group by CAF*B. Baseline and postoperative clinical parameters at 2, 4, and 6 months time interval were recorded. Results: Mean root coverage percentage from baseline to 6 months in control group was 78.30% ± 20.75% and in test group was 92.23% ± 15.6%. Complete root coverage was 43.8% in control group and 77.47% in test group. Visual analog scale pain measurements did not reveal any difference among both the groups. Patient satisfaction with esthetics was very high in CAF*B group when compared with CAF group. Conclusion: Both treatment modalities, i.e., CAF and CAF*B are effectual in the treatment of proximate Miller's Class I and Class II gingival recession defects, but CAF*B showed significantly superior clinical results.
Acidification and warming affect both a calcifying predator and prey, but not their interaction

Both ocean warming and acidification have been demonstrated to affect the growth, perfor- mance and reproductive success of calcifying inverte- brates. However, relatively little is known regarding how such environmental change may affect interspe- cific interactions. We separately treated green crabs Carcinus maenas and periwinkles Littorina littorea under conditions that mimicked either ambient condi- tions (control) or warming and acidification, both sep- arately and in combination, for 5 mo. After 5 mo, the predators, prey and predator-prey interactions were screened for changes in response to environmental change. Acidification negatively affected the closer- muscle length of the crusher chela and correspond- ingly the claw-strength increment in C. maenas. The effects of warming and/or acidification on L. littorea were less consistent but indicated weaker shells in re- sponse to acidification. On the community level, how- ever, we found no evidence that predator-prey inter- actions will change in the future. Further experiments exploring the impacts of warming and acidification on key ecological interactions are needed instead of basing predictions of ecosystem change solely on species-specific responses to environmental change.
Design of Integral Controllers for Nonlinear Systems Governed by Scalar Hyperbolic Partial Differential Equations

The paper deals with the control and regulation by integral controllers for the nonlinear systems governed by scalar quasi-linear hyperbolic partial differential equations. Both the control input and the measured output are located on the boundary. The closed-loop stabilization of the linearized model with the designed integral controller is proved first by using the method of spectral analysis and then by the Lyapunov direct method. Based on the elaborated Lyapunov function, we prove local exponential stability of the nonlinear closed-loop system with the same controller. The output regulation to the set-point with zero static error by the integral controller is shown upon the nonlinear system. Numerical simulations by the Preissmann scheme are carried out to validate the robustness performance of the designed controller to face to unknown constant disturbances.
Pros and Cons of Maternal Cervical Length Screening to Identify Women at Risk of Spontaneous Preterm Delivery

Large randomized controlled trials have demonstrated that universal maternal cervical length screening and treatment with daily vaginal progesterone in women with short cervical length reduces the risk of preterm birth, but large numbers of women must be screened to prevent a relatively small number of preterm deliveries. Issues that should be considered while implementing universal cervical length screening include: (1) the standards of quality and reproducibility for transvaginal ultrasound cervical length ascertainment; and (2) the implications of screening on the application of therapeutic strategies to populations not known to benefit (so-called “indication creep”). Optimal strategies to employ cervical ultrasound and progesterone treatment might be revealed by additional studies investigating cervical length cutoffs, frequency of screening, selective screening in higher-risk groups, and the use of transabdominal cervical length screening as a surrogate for transvaginal cervical length screening.
Emotional Intelligence and Job Satisfaction

Recent trends in testing the psychological aspects of employees has led to consider emotional intelligence as one of the main factors that determine job satisfaction. The study was carried out to test relationship between emotional intelligence and job satisfaction on the basis of the data collected from white collared employees working in the petroleum industry. The study revealed that there is a positive correlation between emotional intelligence (EI) and job satisfaction. The study also examined the variation of EI levels in genders and its role in job satisfaction. It was found that for both male and female employees EI is positively correlated with job satisfaction.
The effect of cryotherapy on nerve conduction velocity, pain threshold and pain tolerance

Objectives: To determine the impact of the application of cryotherapy on nerve conduction velocity (NCV), pain threshold (PTH) and pain tolerance (PTO). Design: A within-subject experimental design; treatment ankle (cryotherapy) and control ankle (no cryotherapy). Setting: Hospital-based physiotherapy laboratory. Participants: A convenience sample of adult male sports players (n = 23). Main outcome measures: NCV of the tibial nerve via electromyogram as well as PTH and PTO via pressure algometer. All outcome measures were assessed at two sites served by the tibial nerve: one receiving cryotherapy and one not receiving cryotherapy. Results: In the control ankle, NCV, PTH and PTO did not alter when reassessed. In the ankle receiving cryotherapy, NCV was significantly and progressively reduced as ankle skin temperature was reduced to 10°C by a cumulative total of 32.8% (p<0.05). Cryotherapy led to an increased PTH and PTO at both assessment sites (p<0.05). The changes in PTH (89% and 71%) and PTO (76% and 56%) were not different between the iced and non-iced sites. Conclusions: The data suggest that cryotherapy can increase PTH and PTO at the ankle and this was associated with a significant decrease in NCV. Reduced NCV at the ankle may be a mechanism by which cryotherapy achieves its clinical goals.
Brainstem Auditory Evoked Potentials in Patients with Subarachnoid Haemorrhage

Objective. The aim of the present study is to typify BAEPs configurations of patients with different location of lesions caused by subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH) and the ensuing complications, in view of assessing the auditory-brainstem system disturbance. Methods. The typization was performed by comparing BAEPs with standard patterns from two sets of types of BAEPs by ipsilateral and binaural stimulation and by cross-stimulation. Results. 94 BAEPs were used for collection of normal referential values: for the absolute latencies and the absolute amplitudes of waves I, II, III, IV and V; for inter-peak latencies I- III, II-III, III-V, I-V and II-V; for amplitude ratios I/V and III/V. 146 BAEPs of patients with mild SAH and 55 from patients with severe SAH, were typified. In 5 types of BAEPs out of a total of 11, the percentage of the potentials in patients with mild SAH and severe SAH differed significantly (p < 0.01). Conclusions. The use of sets of types of BAEPs by ipsilateral, binaural and cross-stimulation correctly classifies the potentials in patients with mild and severe SAH.
The Effect of Waiting Time and Affective Reactions on Customers' Evaluation of Service Quality in a Cafeteria

Abstract This study investigated the impact of waiting time on the evaluation of satisfaction and service quality. Research procedures included two phases. During the first phase, data on wait times, expected wait times, and satisfaction were collected by survey and observation. Surveys on service quality were distributed to customers of a university cafeteria service area in an Eastern city in the United States. The second phase investigated the relationships among waiting time, affective reactions, satisfaction, and service quality. Correlation analyses, regression, and t-tests were used to examine relationships between these variables. Results indicate that failing to meet customers' expected waiting time and reasonablewaiting time could negatively impact their satisfaction and evaluation of service quality. The study confirmed that customers' affective reaction plays a mediating role between discrepancies and satisfaction, and that waiting time is related to the reliability aspect of service quality. The study differentiated the reasonable-perceived discrepancy and the expected-perceived discrepancy. While expected-perceived discrepancy influences only the reliability aspect of service quality, the reasonable-perceived discrepancy seems to influence overall aspects of service.
Alternative Positioning Strategies for Services in Ghana

In spite of its acknowledged importance for the success of the organization, there is little evidence of studies into positioning in sub-Saharan Africa. This research presents the results of an empirically based study that employed a mixed method of qualitative in-depth interviews of managers, and quantitative method of exploratory factor analysis to the data from consumers of services in Ghana. The resultant typology has three positioning strategies: service reliability, social responsibility, and branding. Organizations that adopt these positioning strategies are likely to benefit from the increasingly competitive Ghanaian service market. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Sustainability, Efficiency and Equitability of Water Consumption and Pollution in Latin America and the Caribbean

This paper assesses the sustainability, efficiency and equity of water use in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) by means of a geographic Water Footprint Assessment (WFA). It aims to provide understanding of water use from both a production and consumption point of view. The study identifies priority basins and areas from the perspectives of blue water scarcity, water pollution and deforestation. Wheat, fodder crops and sugarcane are identified as priority products related to blue water scarcity. The domestic sector is the priority sector regarding water pollution from nitrogen. Soybean and pasture are priority products related to deforestation. We estimate that consumptive water use in crop production could be reduced by 37% and nitrogen-related water pollution by 44% if water footprints were reduced to certain specified benchmark levels. The average WF per consumer in the region is 28% larger than the global average and varies greatly, from 912 m 3 /year per capita in Nicaragua to 3468 m 3 /year in Bolivia. Ironically, the LAC region shows significant levels of undernourishment, although there is abundant water and food production in the region and substantial use of land and water for producing export crops like soybean.
Interpreters in Sweden - A Tool for Equal Rights?

This paper deals with professional community interpreting as a tool for guaranteeing equal rights. The main focus is on the interpreter with specialfocus on children in interpreted meetings. Equal access to legal, social and medical rights is a prerequisite for a democratic welfare state. These rights depend to a large extent on verbal communication between an individual and a public servant such as a lawyer, a social worker, a teacher or a doctor. Non-Swedish speakers need interpretation in order to be able to come into contact with these services and enjoy their fullrights. Professional interpretation, therefore, is a necessary tool to enable the public servant to do his/her job; more importantly, it is a tool to obtain maximum legal, social and medical security for the immigrant. The paper deals with the actors involved, and with issues of responsibilityand synergy. The empirical material has been collected from two research projects on community interpreting (2008-2011). A conclusion is that in community interpreting the interpreter and the public servant have responsibilities. Therefore, professionalism together with mutual respect and teamwork are important tools to avoid misunderstandings and to guarantee full access to equal rights.
Corporate governance and game theoretic analyses of shareholder power: the case of Spain

The definition and implementation of control is at the heart of the corporate governance debate. The paper approaches the issue by using power indices derived from the theory of cooperative games. An application to Spanish listed firms shows that incentives for large shareholders to form controlling blocs are high. In the Spanish system of corporate governance ownership concentration is therefore the main mechanism to mitigate agency problems between shareholders and managers. Moreover, these results suggest that the Shapley–Shubik index is not an appropriate measure of shareholder power.
‘There should be no open doors in the police’: criminal investigations in northern Ghana as boundary work*

ABSTRACT In criminal investigations by police officers in northern Ghana, the lines are fluid: civilians arrest suspects on their own, assuming the tasks of the police. Police officers are heavily influenced by civilians, often forming paid alliances with them. Yet such entanglements paradoxically enable state policing and integrate the police into society in a context of low resources and low legitimacy. Other practices limit and frame such transgressions. Using the concept of boundary work, this article analyses how actors maintain and negotiate the seemingly blurred distinction between state and society in West Africa.
Cintilografia de perfusão miocárdica sob baixa dose de dobutamina na identificação do miocárdio viável

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the increase in specificity of dual isotope myocardial perfusion gated SPECT (99mTc-sestamibi/thallium-201), a highly sensitive method to detect viable myocardium, with addition of data on contractile reserve simultaneously acquired by low-dose dobutamine gated SPECT, similarly to echocardiography. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 260 myocardial segments were assessed in 13 patients with myocardial infarction referred for investigation of myocardial viability before undergoing revascularization. Cellular integrity and contractile reserve were evaluated by dual isotope perfusion myocardial gated SPECT with thallium rest and redistribution images and post-stress 99mTc-sestamibi gated-SPECT images under basal conditions and with low-dose dobutamine. The improvement in the contractile performance detected by post-revascularization 99mTc-sestamibi gated SPECT was the parameter considered for determining myocardial viability. For the purpose of results analysis, the functional parameters of the myocardial segments were quantified at the different phases of the study and stratified according to their viability for a later post-revascularization functional comparison. RESULTS: In the statistical analysis, systolic wall thickening demonstrated to be a relevant parameter in the evaluation of myocardial contractile reserve by this method, with a tendency of improvement in the specificity (84%), demonstrating higher values than those observed in the literature. CONCLUSION: This method tends to present an effective contribution in the assessment of myocardial viability.
Oral estrogen replacement therapy in postmenopausal women selectively raises levels and production rates of lipoprotein A-I and lowers hepatic lipase activity without lowering the fractional catabolic rate.

To characterize the apolipoprotein (apo) subfraction specificity of the increase in high density lipoprotein (HDL) levels that is induced by oral estrogen and to explore the metabolic mechanisms thereof, six healthy, postmenopausal women were studied during each of two 5-week periods of a low-fat diet with and without ethinyl estradiol 0.05 mg/d. With estrogen, HDL cholesterol levels increased 36% (mean+/-SD, 47+/-15 versus 63+/-18 mg/dL, basal versus estrogen periods, respectively; P=.004), plasma levels of apo A-I increased by 27% (147+/-24 versus 186+/-34 mg/dL; P=.003), and apo A-II levels increased 17% (39+/-5 versus 46+/-4 mg/dL; P=.0003). Apo A-I mass in particles that contained apo A-I but no apo A-II (ie, Lp A-I) increased 66% (43+/-13 versus 71+/-17 mg/dL; P=.002) while the sum of apo A-I and apo A-II mass in particles with both apo A-I and apo A-II (ie, Lp A-I/A-II) showed only a nonsignificant 14% increase (144+/-23 versus 163+/-29 mg/dL; P=.12). In radioiodinated-protein turnover studies the production rate (PR) of each species changed in proportion to the change in its plasma concentration: Lp A-I PR increased 76% (4.7+/-1.8 versus 8.2+/-2.5 mg x kg(-1) x day(-1); P=. 001) while Lp A-I/A-II PR showed only a nonsignificant increase of 22% (14.1+/-1.8 versus 17.2+/-5.4 mg x kg(-1) x day(-1); P=. 2). Hepatic lipase (HL) activity in postheparin plasma decreased 66% with estrogen (10.4+/-4.3 versus 3.5+/-0.8 micromol x mL(-1) x h(-1); P=. 005) while lipoprotein lipase activity was unchanged (7.1+/-1.6 versus 7.6+/-1.6 micromol x mL(-1) x h(-1); P>. 2). Despite the large decrease in HL activity, the fractional catabolic rate of Lp A-I did not decrease (0.241+/-0.048 versus 0.258+/-0.066 pool/d; P=.2), nor was that of Lp A-I/A-II lessened (0.221+/-0.030 versus 0.233+/-0.053 pool/d; P>.2). Thus, oral estrogen replacement therapy has a novel and potentially antiatherogenic effect: a large and selective increase in Lp A-I levels. The metabolic mechanism of the estrogen-induced increase in Lp A-I concentration appears to be the increase in its PR. Although the ability of estrogen to suppress HL activity has been confirmed, surprisingly this decrease was not accompanied by any decrease in the fractional catabolic rate of Lp A-I or Lp A-I/A-II. This suggests that HL may not play a major role in regulating HDL protein catabolism during suppression of HL by estrogen.
A semiparametric factor model for implied volatility surface dynamics

We propose a semiparametric factor model, which approximates the implied volatility surface (IVS) in a finite dimensional function space. Unlike standard principal component approaches typically used to reduce complexity, our approach is tailored to the degenerated design of IVS data. In particular, we only fit in the local neighborhood of the design points by exploiting the expiry effect present in option data. Using DAX index option data, we estimate the nonparametric components and a low-dimensional time series of latent factors. The modeling approach is completed by studying vector autoregressive models fitted to the latent factors.
The role of the state in the development of accounting in the Portuguese–Brazilian Empire, 1750–1822

This paper explores the role of the state in the development of accounting in the Portuguese–Brazilian Empire (1750–1822) in the context of economic and political transformations. In this period, the interrelations of accounting and the state were central to understanding accounting change in Portugal and Brazil. Through control of accounting education, organization of the accounting occupation, rules of corporate governance and governmental accounting itself, governments adopted accounting technologies in an effort to shape and normalize decisions in order to achieve desirable objectives for the empire. This was particularly so during the reigns of D. José I and D. João VI: the former was responsible for initiatives to improve control over and connect the empire, including the spread of use of double-entry bookkeeping in the Portuguese metropolis; the latter was responsible for initiatives to achieve the same ends once the metropolis moved to Brazil. This paper uses primary and secondary sources to present and contrast those initiatives and the reasoning behind them.
Capital controls and international interest rate differentials

Since the Asian crises it is often taken as granted that capital markets have significant functional deficits. Often these deficits are believed to be so very strong that the ability of free capital markets to guarantee a more or less correct international allocation of capital is denied. It is argued that speculation dominates capital markets so much that capital allocation is purely random. This is one of the major arguments backing the present trend to re-establish capital controls, which emerged after the capital market distortions observed during the Asian flu. In the present article it is shown that capital markets, while certainly prone to many distortions, are well capable of roughly guiding capital to the proper place. Though allocation is not model-like perfect, this steals the thunder from the idea, that closed or government-guided capital markets were able to perform better.