Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Impact of Economic Reforms on Performance of the Manufacturing Sector in Nigeria

This paper explores the likely impact of economic reforms on the performance of the manufacturing sector in Nigeria. The paper utilized the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) econometric method on data for the period 1981-2009. The Granger causality test established unilateral relationships that exist between exchange rate, electric power consumption and federal government capital expenditure. The reforms variables have not be able to alter the performance of the manufacturing sector as the present situation of the country demands it over the period under review, as such, manufacturing sector is impacting negatively on economic growth. The study reveals that exchange rate and electric power consumption that captures the reform period have positive and negative effects on manufacturing output respectively and they are statistically significant. On the other hand, other variables aforementioned impact negatively on manufacturing output and they are not statistically significant. Complementarily, the coefficient of determination test student t-test demonstrated that the adopted reforms have not significantly influenced the performance of the manufacturing sector and it has render manufacturing sector inactive to economic growth and development. Policies that would improve the international competitiveness of the Nigerian manufacturing output and improve its level of growth are strongly advocated.
The expression of an alcohol deprivation effect in the high-alcohol-drinking replicate rat lines is dependent on repeated deprivations.

BACKGROUND The alcohol deprivation effect (ADE) is a temporary increase in the ratio of alcohol/total fluid intake and voluntary intake of ethanol (EtOH) solutions over baseline drinking conditions when EtOH access is reinstated after a period of alcohol deprivation. The ADE has been posited to be an animal model for alcohol craving. In the current study, we examined the effects of initial deprivation length and number of deprivation exposures on the ADE in the replicate lines of the high-alcohol-drinking (HAD) rats. METHODS Adult male HAD-1 and HAD-2 rats received 24 hr free-choice access to 10% (v/v) EtOH and water for 6 weeks. Rats were then assigned to groups deprived of EtOH for 0 (control), or 2 to 8 weeks. All deprived groups were then given 24 hr access to EtOH for 2 weeks before being deprived of EtOH for another 2 weeks. This cycle of 2 weeks of access and 2 weeks of deprivation was carried out for a total of four deprivations. RESULTS After the initial EtOH deprivation period, EtOH consumption in HAD-1 and HAD-2 rats returned to baseline levels but failed to exhibit either an early onset ADE (initial 2 hr) or prolonged ADE (24 hr). An ADE was observed in two of the four deprived groups for the HAD-1 rats (2 week and 6 week groups) and in all deprived groups for the HAD-2 rats after a second deprivation, and in all deprived groups of both lines after a third deprivation. In the HAD-2 line, but not in the HAD-1 line, the duration of the ADE was prolonged into the second reinstatement day after the fourth deprivation. CONCLUSIONS The expression of an ADE was observed only after repeated deprivation periods in the HAD lines. The duration of the ADE was prolonged in the HAD-2 line, but not in the HAD-1 line, with repeated deprivations, which suggests a dissociation between selection for alcohol preference and the effects of repeated deprivations on the duration of the ADE.
The influence of temperature and charge-discharge rate on open circuit voltage hysteresis of an LFP Li-ion battery

Open circuit voltage (OCV) is a crucial parameter in an equivalent circuit model (ECM). The path dependence of OCV is a distinctive characteristic of a Li-ion battery; this is known as OCV hysteresis. In this manuscript the influence of temperature and charge/discharge rate on OCV hysteresis has been identified. OCV hysteresis was found to be 13mV higher at 0°C while remaining unchanged at 45°C compared to the 25°C result. In general, OCV hysteresis was found to be less dependent on charge/discharge rate than temperature. The potential explanations of these results have been reported.
Advanced power converters for universal and flexible power management in future electricity networks

→ UNIFLEX-PM project: Flexible, modular, multi-level, multi-cell architecture with MF transformer isolation. → Comprehensive analysis of system operation and limitations undertaken → Control solutions for balancing of power flows within converter derived and implemented → Simulation studies to test control proposals under all expected operation conditions → A 3.3kV, 300/500 kVA experimental prototype of the UNIFLEX-PM structure is nearing completion and is undergoing initial testing → Final paper will provide full power results → Further research should be application oriented
British and American Exports: A Study Suggested by the Theory of Comparative Costs. Part I

The work of Mr. Rostas2 and others on the productivity of British and American industries makes it possible to test some aspects of the theory of comparative costs. According to that theory, when based on a labour theory of value and assuming two countries, each will export those goods for which the ratio of its ouput per worker to that of the other exceeds the ratio of its money wage-rate to that of the other. Before the war, American weekly wages in manufacturing were roughly double the British,3 and we find that, where American output per worker was more than twice the British, the United States had in general the bulk of the export market, while for products where it was less than twice as high the bulk of the market was held by Britain. This is shown clearly in Table I, and more detailed figures are given in Table II. Out of twenty-five products taken, twenty (covering 97% of the sample by value) obey the general rule, and two of the remaining five would cease to be exceptions if a different measure of output per worker were chosen.4
Food experiences and eating patterns of visually impaired and blind people.

PURPOSE The number of visually impaired and blind Canadians will rise dramatically as our population ages, and yet little is known about the impact of blindness on the experience of food and eating. In this qualitative study, the food experiences and eating patterns of visually impaired and blind people were examined. Influencing factors were also explored. METHODS In 2000, nine blind or severely visually impaired subjects were recruited through blindness-related organizations in British Columbia. Participants completed individual semi-structured, in-depth interviews. These were transcribed verbatim, coded, and analyzed to explicate participants' experiences. RESULTS Participants experienced blindness-related obstacles when shopping for food, preparing food, and eating in restaurants. Inaccessible materials and environments left participants with a diet lacking in variety and limited access to physical activity. Seven participants were overweight or obese, a finding that may be related to limited physical activity and higher-than-average restaurant use. CONCLUSIONS This is the first study in which the experience of food and eating is described from the perspective of visually impaired Canadians. Nutrition and blindness professionals must work together to reduce the food-related obstacles faced by visually impaired and blind people. Professionals must address both individual skill development and social and structural inequities.
Participants in trade union-staged demonstrations: a cross-country comparison

Drawing both on social movement studies and labour studies, this article investigates the kind of people who join trade union-staged marches during the current crisis, looking at the presence of (politicized) grievances, collective identity and the embeddedness of mobilization. Data were taken from surveys conducted during 13 marches organized by the main trade unions in five European countries. They show that participants in union-staged demonstrations in countries in which a corporatist model dominates and trade unions have a tradition of business unionism (Belgium and the Netherlands) are characterized by higher political trust, more moderate positions on the left–right continuum and stronger organizational ties. On the other hand, in countries in which unions are less institutionally recognized and with a tradition of oppositional unionism (Italy and Spain), participants in union-staged demonstrations are more mistrustful of politics, located more to the left and rely more upon informal social networks to mobilize. The United Kingdom falls between these two poles.
A combinatorial lemma and its Application to concentrating trees of discrete-time queues

Concentrating rooted tree networks of discrete-time single server queues, all with unit service time, are considered. Such networks occur as subnetworks connecting remote access terminals to a node in a data communications network. It is shown that the network of queues may be replaced by a single queue, with prescribed input, which has the same output as the queue at the root of the tree. The result is applied, in particular, to the case of several queues in tandem, and it is shown how this problem may be reduced to that of just two queues in tandem. The latter problem was analyzed earlier by the author.
Low‐dose exposure to antigen induces sub‐clinical sensitization

We examined the effects of a small initial sensitizing dose of antigen (dinitrochlorobenzene, DNCB) on the subsequent response to a second, defined sensitizing stimulus. The second stimulus was actually the regimen of four doses of DNCB (3.125, 6.25, 12.5, and 25 μg; total 46.9 μg) normally used as the elicitation challenge. In two separate experiments 13 and 18 control subjects received an initial ‘challenge’ with the four doses to induce sensitivity, and 4 weeks later their responses were determined with a second, elicitation challenge. Two groups of 12 and 15 experimental subjects received an inital dose predicted to induce clinically detectable sensitivity in 50% or 25%, respectively. Four weeks later, their responsiveness was determined with quantitative challenge and the subjects who gave no response received a further challenge 4 weeks later. Their responses, compared with those from the control subjects, were augmented, indicating that sub‐clinical priming of the immune system had indeed occurred.
Identiﬁcation and Characterization of Interactions between the Vertebrate Polycomb-Group Protein BMI1 and Human Homologs of Polyhomeotic

In Drosophila melanogaster , the Polycomb -group ( PcG ) genes have been identiﬁed as repressors of gene expression. They are part of a cellular memory system that is responsible for the stable transmission of gene activity to progeny cells. PcG proteins form a large multimeric, chromatin-associated protein complex, but the identity of its components is largely unknown. Here, we identify two human proteins, HPH1 and HPH2, that are associated with the vertebrate PcG protein BMI1. HPH1 and HPH2 coimmunoprecipitate and cofraction- ate with each other and with BMI1. They also colocalize with BMI1 in interphase nuclei of U-2 OS human osteosarcoma and SW480 human colorectal adenocarcinoma cells. HPH1 and HPH2 have little sequence homology with each other, except in two highly conserved domains, designated homology domains I and II. They share these homology domains I and II with the Drosophila PcG protein Polyhomeotic (Ph), and we, therefore, have named the novel proteins HPH1 and HPH2. HPH1 , HPH2 , and BMI1 show distinct, although overlapping expression patterns in different tissues and cell lines. Two-hybrid analysis shows that homology domain II of HPH1 interacts with both homology domains I and II of HPH2. In contrast, homology domain I of HPH1 interacts only with homology domain II of HPH2, but not with homology domain I of HPH2. Furthermore, BMI1 does not interact with the individual homology domains. Instead, both intact homology domains I and II need to be present for interactions with BMI1. These data demonstrate the involvement of homology domains I and II in protein-protein interactions and indicate that HPH1 and HPH2 are able to heterodimerize. mains in which HPH1, HPH2, and BMI1 colocalize is further underlined by our recent ﬁnding that a human homolog of the Polycomb protein also colocalizes with BMI1 in these domains (27). This human Pc homolog also coimmunoprecipitates with BMI1 (27). We further analyzed the subcellular localization of HPH1 and HPH2 in relation to BMI1 in SW480 cells. As in U-2 OS cells, we found complete colocalization between HPH1 (Fig. 8A to C) and HPH2 (Fig. 8D to F) and BMI1 in large, brightly labelled domains. These results demonstrate that the colocalization of HPH1 and HPH2 with the PcG protein BMI1 is not restricted to one cell type. We conclude that HPH1 and HPH2 colocalize with BMI1 in large domains in the nuclei of U-2 OS and SW480 cells. These results further underline the validity of the identiﬁed two- hybrid interaction between HPH2 and BMI1. They strengthen the notion that HPH1, HPH2, and BMI1 are part of a multi- meric protein complex.
Tactile object recognition using deep learning and dropout

Recognizing grasped objects with tactile sensors is beneficial in many situations, as other sensor information like vision is not always reliable. In this paper, we aim for multimodal object recognition by power grasping of objects with an unknown orientation and position relation to the hand. Few robots have the necessary tactile sensors to reliably recognize objects: in this study the multifingered hand of TWENDY-ONE is used, which has distributed skin sensors covering most of the hand, 6 axis F/T sensors in each fingertip, and provides information about the joint angles. Moreover, the hand is compliant. When using tactile sensors, it is not clear what kinds of features are useful for object recognition. Recently, deep learning has shown promising results. Nevertheless, deep learning has rarely been used in robotics and to our best knowledge never for tactile sensing, probably because it is difficult to gather many samples with tactile sensors. Our results show a clear improvement when using a denoising autoencoder with dropout compared to traditional neural networks. Nevertheless, a higher number of layers did not prove to be beneficial.
Five-year results from a randomized, controlled trial on early and delayed loading of implants supporting full-arch prosthesis in the edentulous maxilla.

OBJECTIVES The overall aim was to compare the clinical outcomes of early and delayed implant loading in the totally edentulous maxilla during 5 years of function. MATERIALS AND METHODS Twenty-four patients with edentulous maxillae were randomized in two groups and subjected to early (test, n=16) or delayed (control, n=8) loading. A total of 142 implants were placed and 139 implants (Straumann AG) were loaded with full-arch bridges and followed for 5 years. RESULTS All patients received and maintained a fixed bridge throughout the study period. Five (5.3%) test implants in three patients and two (4.3%) control implants in two patients were lost during the 5 years (NS). There were no differences in implant stability as measured with resonance frequency analysis at 5 years. More bone loss occurred at test than at control implants, -0.8 mm (SD 1.2) vs. -0.3 mm (SD 1.1), respectively. However, test implants showed a more coronal marginal bone level than control implants after 5 years, 2.9 mm (SD 1.1) vs. 3.7 mm (SD 1.2) from the implant shoulder, respectively. No control implants and four (4.4%) test implants in three (18.8%) patients showed >3 mm bone loss after 5 years. Two of the latter implants in one patient also showed increased probing depths, bleeding at probing and plaque accumulation. Tooth fracture was the most common prosthetic complication. The use of lingual gold onlay effectively reduced the number of resin-related complications as opposed to a resilient mouth guard. CONCLUSIONS The present randomized controlled trial showed no important differences between early and delayed loading of implants in the edentulous maxilla after 5 years of function. A favourable long-term marginal bone response to the sandblasted large-grit acid-etched (SLA) surface was observed. Technical complications were mainly resin-related which could be avoided by the use of a lingual gold onlay. It is concluded that early loading of SLA-surface implants for support of full-arch bridges represents a viable therapy for the totally edentulous maxilla.
Energy Efficient Virtual Network Embedding for Cloud Networks

Network virtualization is widely considered to be one of the main paradigms for the future Internet architecture as it provides a number of advantages including scalability, on demand allocation of network resources, and the promise of efficient use of network resources. In this paper, we propose an energy efficient virtual network embedding (EEVNE) approach for cloud computing networks, where power savings are introduced by consolidating resources in the network and data centers. We model our approach in an IP over WDM network using mixed integer linear programming (MILP). The performance of the EEVNE approach is compared with two approaches from the literature: the bandwidth cost approach (CostVNE) and the energy aware approach (VNE-EA). The CostVNE approach optimizes the use of available bandwidth, while the VNE-EA approach minimizes the power consumption by reducing the number of activated nodes and links without taking into account the granular power consumption of the data centers and the different network devices. The results show that the EEVNE model achieves a maximum power saving of 60% (average 20%) compared to the CostVNE model under an energy inefficient data center power profile. We develop a heuristic, real-time energy optimized VNE (REOViNE), with power savings approaching those of the EEVNE model. We also compare the different approaches adopting an energy efficient data center power profile. Furthermore, we study the impact of delay and node location constraints on the energy efficiency of virtual network embedding. We also show how VNE can impact the design of optimally located data centers for minimal power consumption in cloud networks. Finally, we examine the power savings and spectral efficiency benefits that VNE offers in optical orthogonal division multiplexing networks.
The Cortical Representation of Speech

In this study, we compare regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) while French monolingual subjects listen to continuous speech in an unknown language, to lists of French words, or to meaningful and distorted stories in French. Our results show that, in addition to regions devoted to single-word comprehension, processing of meaningful stories activates the left middle temporal gyrus, the left and right temporal poles, and a superior prefrontal area in the left frontal lobe. Among these regions, only the temporal poles remain activated whenever sentences with acceptable syntax and prosody are presented.
Randomised trial of ganciclovir and acyclovir in the treatment of herpes simplex dendritic keratitis: a multicentre study.

AIMS: This study was designed to assess the relative efficacy of topical ganciclovir 0.15% gel and acyclovir 3% ointment in the treatment of herpes simplex dendritic keratitis. METHODS: Both treatment modalities were administered on a five times daily basis to patients suffering from herpes simplex keratitis. Patients were assigned randomly to one of the two treatment groups for the purpose of the trial. They were then examined on days 2, 7, 10, and 14 to assess the rate of healing of the dendritic ulceration. RESULTS: There was no statistically significant difference detected in the rate of healing between the two treatment groups over the course of the trial. CONCLUSIONS: Review of the relative efficacy of topical ganciclovir and acyclovir in the treatment of herpes simplex dendritic keratitis showed that both treatment modalities were equally effective in their ability to heal the viral induced corneal ulceration. There were no significant side effects or adverse effects reported for either treatment modality.
Effects of Enalapril and Nitrendipine on the Excretion of Epidermal Growth Factor and Albumin in Hypertensive NIDDM Patients

OBJECTIVE To compare the effect of the antihypertensive drugs nitrendipine and enalapril on the excretion of epidermal growth factor (EGF) and albumin in hypertensive non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM) subjects. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS After a 4-week washout period, mildly hypertensive (systolic blood pressure [sBP] > 140 mmHg and/or diastolic blood pressure [dBP] >90 mmHg) NIDDM patients with albuminuria (15-200 μg/min) were randomized into an 8-month-long therapy with either nitrendipine (n = 11) or enalapril (n = 10). Blood pressure, EGF, and microalbumin excretion were measured at baseline and throughout the treatment period. RESULTS A significant fall in sBP was noticed in the enalapril group and in dBP in the nitrendipine group. In the enalapril group, EGF excretion progressively increased from 188 to 214 nmol/mmol creatinine after 6 weeks and to 274 after 8 months of therapy (P = 0.03). There was a significant fall in albumin excretion while patients were on enalapril, but in the nitrendipine group, neither albuminuria nor EGF excretion changed significantly. There was no correlation of improved EGF excretion with a decrease in albuminuria or BP. CONCLUSIONS The angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor enalapril has been effective in decreasing albumin and increasing EGF excretion. Measurement of urinary EGF may provide a new valuable index of renal function.
DNA interstrand crosslink formation by mechlorethamine at a cytosine-cytosine mismatch pair: kinetics and sequence dependence.

Expansion of the triplet repeat DNA sequence d[CGG]n.d[CCG]n is a characteristic of Fragile X syndrome, a human neurodegenerative disease. Stable intrastrand conformations formed by both d[CGG]n and d[CCG]n, and involving G-G and C-C mismatch pairs, respectively, are believed to be of importance in the development of the disease. We have shown previously that C-C mismatch pairs can be crosslinked covalently by mechlorethamine, a nitrogen mustard alkylating agent, and hence this reaction may be of value as a probe for conformers of d[CCG]n. To characterize the mechlorethamine C-C crosslink reaction further, here we report the kinetics and sequence dependence of formation of the crosslink species, using a series of model duplexes. The rate of reaction depends on the base sequence proximal to the C-C mismatch pair. Hence, in 19mer duplexes containing a central d[M4M3M2M1Cn1n2n3n4]. d[N4N3N2N1Cm1m2m3m4] sequence, where M-m and N-n are complementary base pairs, the amount of crosslink increased with increasing G-C content of the eight base pairs neighboring the C-C mismatch and with the proximity of the G-C pairs to the C-C mismatch. Molecular dynamics simulations of the solvated duplexes provided an explanation of these data. Hence, for a C-C pair flanked by G-C base pairs the mismatched cytosine bases remain stacked within the duplex, but for a C-C pair flanked by A-T base pairs, the simulations suggested local opening of the duplex around the C-C pair, making it a less effective target for mechlorethamine.