Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Examining the Role of Non-Formal Education as a Conduit to Poverty Reduction and Rural Development: The Case of a Rural Community in a Municipality in Ghana

Non-formal education (NFE) programmes involve literacy and numerical programmes that aim at training people to read and write. Gaining such basic literacy skills enables a person to use the reading, writing and calculation to develop the self and the community as a whole. In the Ghanaian context, the Ministry of Education in the year 2000 established the National Functional Literacy Programme with the chief aim of making accessible literacy and life skills to the rural poor and the illiterate. The aim of this paper was to examine the extent to which non-formal education contributes to literacy improvement, poverty reduction and rural development in a rural community within a municipality in Ghana. The researchers employed Amartya Sen’s capabilities approach to economic and human development and Paulo Freire’s concept of education for conscientization.The findings of the study show that the non-formal education programme plays a very critical role in the reduction of illiteracy coupled with improving the living standard of the rural adult learners, once the programme is well organized and implemented. Thus, the activities of NFE have the potential to make the illiterate poor become functionally literate which is a necessary condition for poverty reduction. Providing skill training is one of the major ways of improving the livelihood of poor people. Based on the impact of NFE activities on those who had graduated from the programme has the potential of reducing illiteracy and improving the standard of living of the people. The impact has been felt in areas like literacy and numeracy, economic, social and political empowerment of learners in the community studied. However, the programme needs to be strengthened to address the issue of funding which has become a major challenge for the NFE. Facilitators and supervisors need enough motivation to commit them fully to the task and learners need support to start their own business to bring about meaningful poverty reduction.
Technical Efficiency in Stochastic Frontier Production Model : an Application to the Manufacturing Industry in Bangladesh

This paper considers Cobb-Douglas Stochastic frontiers in which the technical inefficiency effects are defined by a model with two distributional assumptions. The model involved is the timevarying inefficiency model, proposed by Battese and Coelli (1992) applied to panel data. A truncatednormal and half-normal distributions were used in the model and the time-varying inefficiency effects was estimated. The results show that technical inefficiency has declined over the reference period and the truncated (at zero) normal distribution is preferable to the half normal distribution for the technical inefficiency effects.
Discussions are under open-access review for the journal Ocean Science “ Scale oriented ” embedded modeling of the North-Western Mediterranean in the frame of MFSTEP

An embedded forecasting system was developed for the North-Western Mediterranean including a regional model and a coastal model of the Gulf of Lion. The system is based on the Symphonie hydrodynamic free surface model and on the variational initialization and forcing platform VIFOP. It was shown that a pre-modeling period of 7 days before 5 beginning the forecast allows the growth of the small scales. The embedded forecasts have been compared to the MFS observing system. It was basically found that in the North-Western Mediterranean, the MFS basin-scale model and thus the regional model forecasts are characterized by large negative biases of salinity in the first 100m under the surface leading thus to too light subsurface waters. The underestimation of 10 temperature by the regional model just below the surface and its overestimation at 30 m deep can be associated to an overestimation of the turbulent mixing. The regional and coastal models allow to represent a number of processes especially those induced by the wind as coastal upwelling under stratified conditions, dense water formation over the Gulf of Lion shelf, deep mixing in the convection zone or influence on the Northern 15 Current penetration in the Gulf of Lion.
The effect of common currencies on trade

The theory of optimum currency areas states that the more two countries trade with each other, the better candidates they are for a currency union. In terms of the endogeneity argument, convergence follows from joining a currency union and the integration process itself turns the countries into optimal currency areas. The potential increase in trade is regarded as one of the most important benefits of a currency union. Indirect evidence from studies on the effect of exchange rate volatility on trade does not support this claim. Rose argues that the common currency effect on trade is separate from the effect of the elimination of exchange rate variability and finds a large positive effect of a currency union on trade. Although his methodology has met with crit icism, most studies find a positive estimate. A meta -analysis of the studies confirms that a common currency has a statistically and economically significant trade-creating effect.
Getting Affairs in Order

Abstract Despite growing interest in end-of-life issues, little research has been done concerning end-of-life plans made by patients with cardiovascular disease (CVD), a disease that constitutes the highest mortality in the United States. Even less information is available on patients who undergo major cardiac surgery, a life-altering procedure with some risk of death, in terms of their engagement in end-of-life planning (EOLP). This prospective study enabled the contributors to explore EOLP among 309 middle-aged and older open-heart surgery patients, using survey data from three sequential interviews. A hierarchical logistic regression model shows that older age, higher education, greater social support, and negative religious coping were positively related to the likelihood of engaging in EOLP. Minority race was inversely related to EOLP. Findings suggest the potential role for social workers in helping cardiac patients to access social spiritual resources, and to consider engagement in EOLP.
Cross-Sectional Differences in the Relation between the Accounting Return on Assets and Equity Risk

Some form of accounting return is commonly used in the determination of equity risk (Beaver, Kettler, and Scholes [1970]; Bernhard [1979]). In both academic and practical applications, however, there is concern that current accounting practices render the accounting rate of return useless for this purpose. This paper examines how accounting practices affect the relation between one accounting rate of return (the return on assets or ROA) and equity risk. The connection between ROA and equity risk is found in finance theory. Models from Modigliani and Miller (1958) relate equity risk to the risk of the underlying assets of the firm. In these models, the asset risk is measured by the variance of the firm’s economic rate of return. To the extent that ROA reflects the firm’s economic rate of return, this theory provides the link between equity risk and ROA. There is an ongoing debate, however, concerning the usefulness of ROA. For example, Fisher and McGowan (1983) claim that “the accounting rates of return, even if properly and consistently measured, provide almost no information about economic rates of return. ”’ In contrast, various studies (Beaver and Dukes [ 19731; Board and Walker [1990]; Landsman and Shapiro [ 19951; Penman [1991]) have shown that an empirical relation between firm value and an accounting rate of return does exist. This paper finds support for both positions by examining cross-sectional differences in the relation between ROA and the economic rate of return. The model developed attributes these differences to a firm’s accounting methods. Empirically, I examine both an overall measure of such differences and three specific sources: growth in firm assets, research and development expenditures, and depreciation. Consistent with the criticism of ROA I find that the relation between stock-returnbased measures of equity risk and ROA-based measures of asset risk is associated with cross-sectional differences in accounting practices. But, the evidence is also
Multi-Document Summarization Based on Two-Level Sparse Representation Model

Multi-document summarization is of great value to many real world applications since it can help people get the main ideas within a short time.In this paper, we tackle the problem of extracting summary sentences from multi-document sets by applying sparse coding techniques and present a novel framework to this challenging problem. Based on the data reconstruction and sentence denoising assumption, we present a two-level sparse representation model to depict the process of multi-document summarization. Three requisite properties is proposed to form an ideal reconstructable summary: Coverage, Sparsity and Diversity. We then formalize the task of multi-document summarization as an optimization problem according to the above properties, and use simulated annealing algorithm to solve it.Extensive experiments on summarization benchmark data sets DUC2006 and DUC2007 show that our proposed model is effective and outperforms the state-of-the-art algorithms.
Cash Holdings, Firm Value and Corporate Governance

The present study mainly aims to assess the relationship between cash holdings, firm value and corporate governance on Tehran stock exchange. It is intended to discover whether there is a significant relationship between cash holdings, firm value and corporate governance or not. To achieve this goal, the effects of the following factors on cash holdings were examined: financial leverage, firm size, the percentage of non-executive directors, the percentage of institutional investors, firm value, earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT), financial expenses, cash flows, and opportunity cost of capital. Multiple regression model, based on panel data analysis, was applied to assess the aforementioned relationship, and their significance was determined by F and T statistics. The model's coefficient of correlation was appraised by F-Limer and Hausman tests. Target population of the research contained 99 listed companies on Tehran stock exchange over a 6-year-period from 2006 to 2011. The achieved findings indicated that there is no significant relationship between cash holdings, firm value and corporate governance; there is a significant positive relationship between cash holdings and corporate governance; there is no significant relationship between cash holdings and firm value.
Neurobiological correlates of personality and emotional expression in traumatic brain injury

NEUROBIOLOGICAL CORRELATES OF PERSONALITY AND EMOTIONAL EXPRESSION IN TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY by Christina G. Wong December 2013 Advisor: Dr. Lisa J. Rapport Major: Psychology (Clinical) Degree: Master of Arts Many individuals with traumatic brain injury (TBI) experience cognitive, emotional, and functional deficits, all of which can contribute to chronic stress. Unfortunately, individuals with TBI often engage in less effective coping than non-brain-injured individuals, which has negative implications for rehabilitation. Differences in personality traits have been linked to individual differences in coping styles, physiological stress reactivity, and emotional disclosure. Research on personality and coping after TBI has been sparse. Thus, the present study examined the influence of TBI on the pattern of the relationships between personality, emotional expression, and stress reactivity. Eighty-one adults who sustained moderate to severe TBI and 76 significant others of individuals with TBI participated. Personality was assessed using the Behavioral Inhibition System/Behavioral Activation System (BIS/BAS) scale, and self-report of affectivity was measured with the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS). Verbal and nonverbal emotional expression were gleaned from a 3-minute videotaped speech task for which participants were asked to talk about stressful aspects of recovery from brain injury.
Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia among Elderly Medicare Beneficiaries in Long-Term Care Hospitals

Ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) is a complication of ventilator care that produces excess, avoidable resource use and treatment costs. Control of VAP is an important aspect of quality of care improvement for long-term care hospitals (LTCHs) since they provide post-acute ventilator care for many Medicare beneficiaries. Data for Medicare patients discharged from LTCHs during CY 2004 who received continuous mechanical ventilation are examined (N=13,759). Nearly 25% of Medicare LTCH ventilator patients acquired VAP. Despite having lower mortality and less co-morbidity than non-VAP patients, length of stay (LOS) and total charges were both higher for VAP patients. Some of this excess is avoidable.
Increased Brain Activity in Frontal and Parietal Cortex Underlies the Development of Visuospatial Working Memory Capacity during Childhood

The aim of this study was to identify changes in brain activity associated with the increase in working memory (WM) capacity that occurs during childhood and early adulthood. Functional MRI (fMRI) was used to measure brain activity in subjects between 9 and 18 years of age while they performed a visuospatial WM task and a baseline task. During performance of the WM task, the older children showed higher activation of cortex in the superior frontal and intraparietal cortex than the younger children did. A second analysis found that WM capacity was significantly correlated with brain activity in the same regions. These frontal and parietal areas are known to be involved in the control of attention and spatial WM. The development of the functionality in these areas may play an important role in cognitive development during childhood.
Depression and attributional style: interpretations of important personal events.

The reformulated helplessness model of depression predicts that depressed persons attribute negative life events to internal, stable, and global causes while attributing positive life events to external, unstable, and specific causes. In addition to these hypotheses, the present author predicted that depressed students would attribute negative life events to more controllable causes, compared with nondepressed students. A third prediction was that depressed students' controllable causal attributions would be more closely related to independent judgments of the controllability of events than would the attributions of nondepressed students. These predictions were examined using a less structured methodology than previous studies. Forty-five depressed and 46 nondepressed female college students reported important personal events, provided untutored explanations of their causes, and rated the importance of particular causes of these events. Results confirmed predictions for the internal dimension (p < .01) and for the controllable dimension for negative events (p < .05) but not for the stable dimension. Results did not support the prediction that depressed students' attributions to controllable causes would appear more similar to judges' ratings of the controllability of events.
Rent Preservation and the Persistence of Underdevelopment

When citizens in a poor constrained society are unequally endowed, they are likely to find it hard to agree on reforms, even though the status quo hurts them collectively. Each citizen group or constituency prefers reforms that expand its opportunities, but in an unequal society, this will typically hurt another constituency's rents. Competitive rent preservation ensures no comprehensive reform path may command broad support. The roots of underdevelopment may therefore lie in the natural tendency toward rent preservation in a divided society. (JEL D72, O10, O17)
Explorer Mapping quantitative trait loci in a wild population using linkage and linkage disequilibrium analyses

quantitative trait loci in a wild population using linkage and linkage disequilibrium analyses' Genetics Research, vol 92, no. 4, pp. 273-281. General rights Copyright for the publications made accessible via the Edinburgh Research Explorer is retained by the author(s) and / or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing these publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. Take down policy The University of Edinburgh has made every reasonable effort to ensure that Edinburgh Research Explorer content complies with UK legislation. If you believe that the public display of this file breaches copyright please contact openaccess@ed.ac. uk providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Summary Historical information can be used, in addition to pedigree, traits and genotypes, to map quantitative trait locus (QTL) in general populations via maximum likelihood estimation of variance components. This analysis is known as linkage disequilibrium (LD) and linkage mapping, because it exploits both linkage in families and LD at the population level. The search for QTL in the wild population of Soay sheep on St. Kilda is a proof of principle. We analysed the data from a previous study and confirmed some of the QTLs reported. The most striking result was the confirmation of a QTL affecting birth weight that had been reported using association tests but not when using linkage-based analyses.
Histidine Augments the Suppression of Hepatic Glucose Production by Central Insulin Action

Glucose intolerance in type 2 diabetes is related to enhanced hepatic glucose production (HGP) due to the increased expression of hepatic gluconeogenic enzymes. Previously, we revealed that hepatic STAT3 decreases the expression of hepatic gluconeogenic enzymes and suppresses HGP. Here, we show that increased plasma histidine results in hepatic STAT3 activation. Intravenous and intracerebroventricular (ICV) administration of histidine-activated hepatic STAT3 reduced G6Pase protein and mRNA levels and augmented HGP suppression by insulin. This suppression of hepatic gluconeogenesis by histidine was abolished by hepatic STAT3 deficiency or hepatic Kupffer cell depletion. Inhibition of HGP by histidine was also blocked by ICV administration of a histamine H1 receptor antagonist. Therefore, histidine activates hepatic STAT3 and suppresses HGP via central histamine action. Hepatic STAT3 phosphorylation after histidine ICV administration was attenuated in histamine H1 receptor knockout (Hrh1KO) mice but not in neuron-specific insulin receptor knockout (NIRKO) mice. Conversely, hepatic STAT3 phosphorylation after insulin ICV administration was attenuated in NIRKO but not in Hrh1KO mice. These findings suggest that central histidine action is independent of central insulin action, while both have additive effects on HGP suppression. Our results indicate that central histidine/histamine-mediated suppression of HGP is a potential target for the treatment of type 2 diabetes.
APOE, MAPT, and SNCA genes and cognitive performance in Parkinson disease.

IMPORTANCE Cognitive impairment is a common and disabling problem in Parkinson disease (PD) that is not well understood and is difficult to treat. Identification of genetic variants that influence the rate of cognitive decline or pattern of early cognitive deficits in PD might provide a clearer understanding of the etiopathogenesis of this important nonmotor feature. OBJECTIVE To determine whether common variation in the APOE, MAPT, and SNCA genes is associated with cognitive performance in patients with PD. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS We studied 1079 PD patients from 6 academic centers in the United States who underwent assessments of memory (Hopkins Verbal Learning Test-Revised [HVLT-R]), attention and executive function (Letter-Number Sequencing Test and Trail Making Test), language processing (semantic and phonemic verbal fluency tests), visuospatial skills (Benton Judgment of Line Orientation test), and global cognitive function (Montreal Cognitive Assessment). Participants underwent genotyping for the APOE ε2/ε3/ε4 alleles, MAPT H1/H2 haplotypes, and SNCA rs356219. We used linear regression to test for association between genotype and baseline cognitive performance with adjustment for age, sex, years of education, disease duration, and site. We used a Bonferroni correction to adjust for the 9 comparisons that were performed for each gene. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Nine variables derived from 7 psychometric tests. RESULTS The APOE ε4 allele was associated with lower performance on the HVLT-R Total Recall (P = 6.7 × 10(-6); corrected P [Pc] = 6.0 × 10(-5)), Delayed Recall (P = .001; Pc = .009), and Recognition Discrimination Index (P = .004; Pc = .04); a semantic verbal fluency test (P = .002; Pc = .02); the Letter-Number Sequencing Test (P = 1 × 10(-5); Pc = 9 × 10(-5)); and Trail Making Test B minus Trail Making Test A (P = .002; Pc = .02). In a subset of 645 patients without dementia, the APOE ε4 allele was associated with lower scores on the HVLT-R Total Recall (P = .005; Pc = .045) and the semantic verbal fluency (P = .005; Pc = .045) measures. Variants of MAPT and SNCA were not associated with scores on any tests. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE Our data indicate that the APOE ε4 allele is an important predictor of cognitive function in PD across multiple domains. Among PD patients without dementia, the APOE ε4 allele was only associated with lower performance on word list learning and semantic verbal fluency, a pattern more typical of the cognitive deficits seen in early Alzheimer disease than PD.
Targeted Degradation of the Cyclin-Dependent Kinase Inhibitor ICK4/KRP6 by RING-Type E3 Ligases Is Essential for Mitotic Cell Cycle Progression during Arabidopsis Gametogenesis[W][OA]

Following meiosis, plant gametophytes develop through two or three rounds of mitosis. Although the ontogeny of gametophyte development has been defined in Arabidopsis thaliana, the molecular mechanisms regulating mitotic cell cycle progression are not well understood. Here, we report that RING-H2 group F 1a (RHF1a) and RHF2a, two RING-finger E3 ligases, play an important role in Arabidopsis gametogenesis. The rhf1a rhf2a double mutants are defective in the formation of male and female gametophytes due to interphase arrest of the mitotic cell cycle at the microspore stage of pollen development and at female gametophyte stage 1 of embryo sac development. We demonstrate that RHF1a directly interacts with and targets a cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor ICK4/KRP6 (for Interactors of Cdc2 Kinase 4/Kip-related protein 6) for proteasome-mediated degradation. Inactivation of the two redundant RHF genes leads to the accumulation of ICK4/KRP6, and reduction of ICK4/KRP6 expression largely rescues the gametophytic defects in rhf1a rhf2a double mutants, indicating that ICK4/KRP6 is a substrate of the RHF E3 ligases. Interestingly, in situ hybridization showed that ICK4/KRP6 was predominantly expressed in sporophytes during meiosis. Our findings indicate that RHF1a/2a-mediated degradation of the meiosis-accumulated ICK4/KRP6 is essential to ensure the progression of subsequent mitoses to form gametophytes in Arabidopsis.