Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Solving Degenerate Reaction-Diffusion Equations via Variable Step Peaceman-Rachford Splitting

This paper studies the numerical solution of two-dimensional nonlinear degenerate reaction-diffusion differential equations with singular forcing terms over rectangular domains. The equations considered may generate strong quenching singularities. This investigation focuses on a variable time step Peaceman--Rachford splitting method for the aforementioned problem. The time adaptation is implemented based on arc-length estimations of the first time derivative of the solution. The two-dimensional problem is split into several one-dimensional problems so that the computational cost is significantly reduced. The monotonicity and localized linear stability of the variable step scheme are investigated. We give some numerical examples to illustrate our results as well as to demonstrate the viability and efficiency of the method over existing methods for the quenching problem. It is also shown that the numerical solution obtained preserves important properties of the physical solution of the given problem.
Blood Pressure Variability and Morning Blood Pressure Surge in Elderly Chinese Hypertensive Patients

This retrospective study aimed to investigate blood pressure variability (BPV), morning systolic blood pressure surge (MBPS), and the associated factors in 513 elderly (65 years and older) and 188 younger (younger than 65 years) hypertensive Chinese patients who had ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) at our hospital from January 1, 2002, to December 31, 2010. The MBPS was lower in the younger patients compared with the elderly patients, and it was highest in the 75 years and older and younger than 80 group (29.0±13.4 mm Hg). Compared with other groups, the 80 years and older group had a significant increase in BPV (P<.05). Multiple linear regression analysis showed that body mass index (BMI; P<.01), up to 50 years of smoking (P≤.03), and circadian blood pressure variation (P<.01) were factors associated with MPBS. In summary, systolic BPV and MBPS were increased in elderly Chinese hypertensive patients, and the MBPS was associated with BMI, years of smoking, and circadian blood pressure variation.
The Role of SMEs in Innovation in the EU. A Case for Policy Intervention

Innovation policies, addressing the barriers that inhibit Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) to innovate, have the potential to be extremely effective. Nevertheless, as this article will illustrate, market failure for innovating SMEs needs to be carefully identified, to better target government policies. And even if policy is well targeted, there could still be failures in implementation, as the evidence from actual policies being implemented in the EU and elsewhere suggest. In order to support policy making for stimulating innovation at SMEs, this article first reviews the empirical evidence on the contribution of SMEs to innovation, examining whether the barriers to innovation are related to market failures and whether SMEs are affected more by market failure induced barriers. We also take a look at trends in actual SME innovation policies in Member States and at EU level and how they have been evaluated on effectiveness. A concluding section channels the insights from this evidence into suggestions for improving policies towards SMEs and Innovation. The potential for specific SME Innovation policies, towards Young Innovative Companies (YICs) with radical innovations is identified.
Forensic Malware Analysis: The Value of Fuzzy Hashing Algorithms in Identifying Similarities

This research aims to examine the effectiveness and efficiency of fuzzing hashing algorithm in the identification of similarities in Malware Analysis. More precisely, it will present the benefit of using fuzzy hashing algorithms, such as ssdeep, sdhash, mvHash and mrsh – v2, in identifying similarities in Malware domain. The obtained results will be compared with the traditional and most common Cryptographic Hashes, such as the MD5, SHA-1 and SHA-256. Furthermore, it will highlight the pros and cons of fuzzy and cryptographic hashing, as well as their adoption in real world applications.
Evaluation of chlorfenapyr for control of the bed bug, Cimex lectularius L.

BACKGROUND The presence of bed bug populations resistant to pyrethroids demands the development of new control tactics, including the use of insecticides with new modes of action. Insecticides that disrupt oxidative phosphorylation in insect mitochondria can be an option. Laboratory assays were used to measure the toxicity of chlorfenapyr to susceptible strains and two strains highly resistant to pyrethroids. The effectiveness of two chlorfenapyr-based formulations was compared, and behavioral responses of bed bugs to dry residues of aerosol sprays were evaluated. RESULTS Chlorfenapyr was effective against all bed bug strains, killing them at a similar rate, regardless of their susceptibility status to pyrethroids. Dry residues aged for 4 months were as toxic as fresh dry residues. The aerosol formulation had contact activity and caused faster mortality than a water-based formulation. Bed bugs did not avoid resting on surfaces treated with aerosol. CONCLUSION Chlorfenapyr is an option for controlling pyrethroid-resistant bed bugs. While it does not cause quick knockdown, its long residual activity and no avoidance behavior of bed bugs to dry residues appear to make this insecticide suitable for bed bug control. A faster insecticidal effect is obtained with the aerosol formulation, suggesting greater bioavailability of the toxicant.
PHYSIOLOGICAL, METABOLITE AND VOLATILE ANALYSIS OF CUT SIZE IN MELON DURING POSTHARVEST STORAGE

Melons are an important component of fresh fruit salads, however, they suffer from limited shelf life. Processing of melon fruit for use in fruit salads induces a number of changes including alterations in colour and texture. In addition, respiration rate and ethylene production are affected. Processing also elicits changes in flavour (sweetness) and aroma (production of volatile organic compounds – VOCs), of critical importance to the consumer. Several parameters govern shelf life; temperature is a critical factor. In this study we tested whether cut size is another parameter that can affect quality indicators. Melon (Cucumis melo ‘Arapaho’) cubes of three sizes were stored at 4°C and assessed for quality at five time-points over a 15-day period. We assessed a number of parameters including firmness, loss of fresh weight, respiration rate, antioxidant capacity, phenolic compounds and carotenoid content. In addition we measured VOC profiles to assess whether there were any qualitative changes associated with storage period and/or cut size. Fresh weight (FW) loss and respiration rate increased significantly with storage time and FW loss was affected by cut size. Total carotenoid levels remained stable during the storage time as did antioxidant capacity in all cut sizes. However, cinnamic acid levels tended to decrease in the last stage of the storage period and changes in β-carotene content correlated with cut size (though not significantly). We were also able to separate the VOC profiles from the different cut sizes indicating that VOCs may be useful markers as indicators of the effects of cut size and storage time on quality.
HRM, Company Performance and Employee Well-being

This paper is dealing with the relationships between HRM, company performance and employee well-being. The relationship between S/HRM and company performance has received much attention in prior literature, while the employee perspective has been widely neglected in this research tradition. The purpose of this paper is two-fold: first, to identify and evaluate how company performance and employee well-being are related, and, secondly, to evaluate the possibilities of HR policies and practices to impact on company performance and employee well-being. The results indicate that the relationship between company performance and employee well-being is weak and difficult to grasp. And such is the direct link between HRM and employee well-being, which is better explained by typical work-related factors. Instead, HR practices are relatively good predictors of company performance.
US Public Opinion on Carrying Firearms in Public Places.

OBJECTIVES To estimate US public opinion, overall and by gun ownership status, about the public places where legal gun owners should be allowed to carry firearms. METHODS We fielded an online survey among 3949 adults, including an oversample of gun owners and veterans, in April 2015. We used cross-tabulations with survey weights to generate nationally representative estimates. RESULTS Fewer than 1 in 3 US adults supported gun carrying in any of the specified venues. Support for carrying in public was consistently higher among gun owners than among non-gun owners. Overall, support for carrying in public was lowest for schools (19%; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 16.7, 21.1), bars (18%; 95% CI = 15.9, 20.6), and sports stadiums (17%; 95% CI = 15.0, 19.5). CONCLUSIONS Most Americans, including most gun owners, support restricting public places legal gun owners can carry firearms. These views contrast sharply with the current trend in state legislatures of expanding where, how, and by whom guns can be carried in public. Recent state laws and proposed federal legislation that would force states to honor out-of-state concealed carry permits are out of step with American public opinion.
Genetic correlations among health traits in different lactations

Diseases reduce animal welfare and result in economic losses for the farmer in the form of extra veterinary treatments and labour, decreasing milk production, discarded milk and involuntary early culling. A reduction in the frequency of diseases by selection is desirable from a general ethical point of view, it might increase consumer acceptance and it is of course of economic importance. If an improvement of the disease resistance is included in dairy cattle breeding programs, it is necessary to obtain reliable estimates of heritabilities, genetic and phenotypic correlations for the disease and milk production traits.
Genetic polymorphism in IGF-II gene and its relationship with growth rate in tilapia nilotica.

Insulin-like growth factor II (IGF-II) is a crucial factor in regulating cell proliferation, growth, migration, differentiation and survival. The objective of this study was to investigate the association of polymorphism in intron 3 and exon 3 of insulin like growth factor II (IGF-II) gene and body weight trait in tilapia nilotica fish using restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) and single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) techniques. Thirty tilapia nilotica fish were precisely selected according to their body weight and ordered from the largest to the smallest body size. DNA was extracted from fish blood samples to amplify 397-bp of IGF-II gene. Amplified IGF-II gene was sequenced only in the seven large and five small size fish. Results revealed that restriction analysis (RFLP) with MSP1 of the (IGF-II) gene (397-bp) do not produce restriction fragments. While, DNA sequencing showed fourteen single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP�s) at different positions in large size fish as they were detected in more than one fish at nucleotides number 318 (C→T), 319 (A→T), 320 (G→A in three fish), 322 (C→A and C→G), 323 (G→C and G→A), 326 (G→A in three fish), 332 (A→T in three fish), 333 (C→A and C→T), 334 (A→C in two fish), 337 (C→T in two fish) and 340 (C→T). Hence, our results reveal the possibility to use these findings as marker for selection of high body weight trait in tilapia nilotica fish.
43 2 Bodily and Motor Contributions to Action Perception

Over the last 50 years, cognitive scientists have been on a hunt for a general architecture of cognition, initially with great enthusiasm (Newell, 1990; Newell, Shaw, & Simon, 1956; Newell & Simon, 1972), but facing an increasing number of problems later on. Although there are still attempts to defi ne such general frameworks (Anderson et al., 2004; Kieras & Meyer, 1997; Wray & Jones, 2005), their impact on defi ning the research agenda for cognitive science seems to have dropped. What is the reason for this development? One of the main problems seems to be that most of these frameworks implicitly assume that cognition is detached from the world and from the body: Perception consists of translating physical stimulation into symbolic representations. Action consists in the manipulation of mental content or symbolic commands to the motor system, and it is frequently fully controlled by the cognitive system. Mechanisms for action execution are oft en underspecifi ed. At present, a countermovement has set in and embodiment is the new keyword. However, diff erent researchers use this term in very diff erent ways that can be traced back to James Gibson (1979), Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1945), Jean Piaget (1969), and William James (1890). Wilson (2002) distinguished six diff erent, but related, theoretical assumptions for which the term embodiment has been used. Th ese assumptions span from radical interactionism, the claim that
A Case Study of Mobile Technology-enabled English Language Learning: the Amazon Kindle e-Reader Initiative in Palestine

The proliferation of increasingly interactive e-reader devices such as the Amazon Kindle represents an opportunity to explore their evolving pedagogical value. This study aims to investigate how use of the Kindle can enhance individuals’ English language learning—more specifically their attitudes, reading comprehension, vocabulary development and pronunciation performance—in the context of informal and lifelong learning in Palestine, and to explore the further potential of scaling up the use of e-readers at a national level. At the piloting stage of this initiative, the study operated at two levels (micro and meso) of the M3 evaluation framework. Mixed methods were used: qualitative data were obtained through a case study of the practices and perceptions of two teachers in two classrooms in the Qalqilia center and quantitative data were collected through a survey of 114 learners. The study shows that the Kindle’s technological affordances are effective in creating a flexible, authentic and interactive environment for English language learning, provided that teachers change their teaching methods to take full advantage of the features of mobile technologies to create innovative learning approaches aligned with the needs of the e-generation. It was also found that despite some concerns with the usability issue, attitudes towards learning English changed positively and learners’ vocabulary and pronunciation improved.
Hypersensitivity of megakaryocyte progenitors to thrombopoietin in essential thrombocythemia

Essential thrombocythemia (ET) is a clonal myeloproliferative disorder characterized by an elevation of platelets in peripheral blood and excessive proliferation of megakaryocytes in bone marrow. The pathological mechanisms for the elevation of megakaryocytes and platelets in ET remain unclear. To study the hypersensitivity of megakaryocyte progenitors to thrombopoietin (TPO), a 9‐year‐old girl, diagnosed with ET, underwent dose‐response experiments with recombinant human TPO, using her bone marrow non‐adherent mononuclear cells and CD34 positive cells. Spontaneous colony‐forming unit‐megakaryocytes (CFU‐Meg) were observed in serum‐deprived cultures of non‐adherent mononuclear cells, whereas they disappeared in cultures of CD34 positive cells. The patient's CFU‐Meg showed maximal growth at concentrations of TPO lower than those for normal children. Dose‐response curves demonstrated a 50–80 fold increase in sensitivity of the patient's CFU‐Meg to TPO. We observed hypersensitivity of megakaryocyte progenitors to TPO in a child with ET. Our results suggest that spontaneous CFU‐Meg formation in patients with ET may be due to hypersensitivity to TPO. Am. J. Hematol. 68:194–197, 2001. © 2001 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Pengaruh rasio keuangan terhadap return saham

The objectives of this study id to examine the effect of financial ratio (current ratio, debt equity ratio, total asset turn over, return on asset, earning per share, and net profit margin) to the stock return. The sample of this study using purposive sampling method, from 149 manufacture companies registered on Indonesia stock exchange only 136 are used as samples for this study. The data was analyzed by statistical program for social science version 17.00.
Insider trading activities around the world: a case study in East Asia

This study investigated whether insiders exploit information advantage of their firms by trading stocks before the simultaneous earnings and dividend announcements around the world. Our findings show that there are significant net-insider-buying activities before the announcements of good news and significant net-insider-selling activities before bad news. What's more, our regression results provide some support for the hypothesis that there is a predictive relation between pre-event insider trading activity and the abnormal return of the announcements.
14-bp Insertion/Deletion Polymorphism of the HLA-G gene in Breast Cancer among Women from North Western Iran.

BACKGROUND The human leukocyte antigen-G (HLA-G) gene is highly expressed in cancer pathologies and is one strategy used by tumor cells to escape immune surveillance. A 14-bp insertion/deletion (InDel) polymorphism of the HLA-G gene has been suggested to be associated with HLA-G mRNA stability and the expression of HLA-G. The aim of present study was to assess any genetic association between this polymorphism and breast cancer among Iranian-Azeri women. MATERIALS AND METHODS In this study 227 women affected with breast cancer, in addition to 255 age-sex and ethnically matched healthy individuals as the control group, participated. Genotyping was performed using polymerase chain reaction and electrophoresis assays. The data were compiled according to the genotype and allele frequencies, compared using the Chi-square test. Statistical significance was set at P<0.05. RESULTS In this case-control study, no significant difference was found between the case and control groups at allelic and genotype levels, although there is a slightly higher allele frequency of HLA-G 14bp deletion in breast cancer affected group. However,when the stage I subgroup was compared with stage II plus stage III subgroup of affected breast cancer, a significant difference was seen with the 14 bp deletion allele frequency. The stage II-III subgroup patients had higher frequency of deletion allele (57.4% vs 45.8%) than stage I cases (χ2=4.16, p-value=0.041). CONCLUSIONS Our data support a possible action of HLA-G 14bp InDel polymorphism as a potential genetic risk factor for progression of breast cancer. This finding highlights the necessity of future studies of this gene to establish the exact role of HLA-G in progression steps of breast cancer.
Motivational interviewing for substance abuse.

BACKGROUND There are 76.3 million people with alcohol use disorders worldwide and 15.3 million with drug use disorders. Motivational interviewing (MI) is a client-centred, semi-directive method for enhancing intrinsic motivation to change by exploring and resolving ambivalence. The intervention is used widely, and therefore it is important to find out whether it helps, harms or is ineffective. OBJECTIVES To assess the effectiveness of motivational interviewing for substance abuse on drug use, retention in treatment, readiness to change, and number of repeat convictions. SEARCH STRATEGY We searched 18 electronic databases, 5 web sites, 4 mailing lists, and reference lists from included studies and reviews. Search dates were November 30, 2010 for Cochrane Library, Medline, Embase and PsychINFO. SELECTION CRITERIA Randomized controlled trials with persons dependent or abusing substance. Interventions were MI or motivational enhancement therapy. The outcomes were extent of substance abuse, retention in treatment, motivation for change, repeat conviction. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS Three authors independently assessed studies for inclusion, and two authors extracted data. Results were categorized into (1) MI versus no-treatment control, (2) MI versus treatment as usual, (3) MI versus assessment and feedback, and (4) MI versus other active treatment. Within each category, we computed meta-analyses separately for post-intervention, short, medium and long follow-ups. MAIN RESULTS We included 59 studies with a total of 13,342 participants. Compared to no treatment control MI showed a significant effect on substance use which was strongest at post-intervention SMD 0.79, (95% CI 0.48 to 1.09) and weaker at short SMD 0.17 (95% CI 0.09 to 0.26], and medium follow-up SMD 0.15 (95% CI 0.04 to 0.25]). For long follow-up, the effect was not significant SMD 0.06 (95% CI-0.16 to 0.28). There were no significant differences between MI and treatment as usual for either follow-up post-intervention, short and medium follow up. MI did better than assessment and feedback for medium follow-up SMD 0.38 (95% CI 0.10 to 0.66). For short follow-up, there was no significant effect . For other active intervention there were no significant effects for either follow-up.There was not enough data to conclude about effects of MI on the secondary outcomes. AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS MI can reduce the extent of substance abuse compared to no intervention. The evidence is mostly of low quality, so further research is very likely to have an important impact on our confidence in the estimate of effect and is likely to change the estimate.
Public Investment Funds and Value-Based Generational Accounting

Governments in various countries are holding large pools of resources managed for public goals. These pools are known under different names, like sovereign wealth funds, public investment funds, pension funds, saving funds, intergenerational funds and so on, reflecting their different historical roots and orientation. Mitchell et al. (2008) make a distinction between three types of publicly held funds, or of public investment funds as they call these funds: (i) reserve funds held for currency stabilization and macroeconomic stabilization purposes; (ii) sovereign wealth funds (SWF) accumulated from natural resource taxes or from fiscal surpluses aimed at sharing the revenues of the exploitation of natural resources with future generations (Norway, Kuwait, Abu Dhabi); and (iii) public pension funds built up either through an explicitly funded arrangement or the result of prefunding the foreseeable increase in social security benefits because of ageing (Japan, Canada).