Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Methodology for the characterization of elastic constants of wood from tree branches

In biomechanical analyses, computational models are essential tools for simulating the behavior of a tree subjected to a load. However, such models allow only approximation of the actual behavior of the tree if the elastic parameters of the wood in different tree parts (stem, branches, and roots) and at least orthotropic behavior are not considered. In addition, as the wood is green, the parameters of strength and stiffness must be adequate for this level of moisture. However, even for stem wood, knowledge of elastic properties is not available for most species used in urban tree planting, and this scarcity of information is even greater for wood branches. The objective of this research was to evaluate methodology, based on wave propagation, in characterizing the 12 elastic constants of wood from branches. Complementarily, compression tests were performed to characterize the strength. The obtained elastic parameters using ultrasound tests were comparable with the values expected based on theoretical aspects related to the behavior of the wood. The results of the compression test complemented the ultrasound characterization, but the application of this method for the complete characterization of the elastic parameters is not feasible for tree branches because of their small size.
CHALLENGES FACING RURAL COMMUNITIES IN ACCESSING SUBSTANCE ABUSE TREATMENT

The overwhelming effects of substance abuse on individuals, families and societies demand effective mechanisms of deterrence. While there is consensus about the importance of prevention, however, there are some challenges in accessing treatment for substance abuse. The study explored barriers that rural communities in North West province, South Africa, encounter in accessing treatment for substance abuse. Social constructivism research paradigm and qualitative research approach were used. A sample consisted of male and female adolescents, educators, parents, mental health worker, clinical psychologist, social worker, traditional healer, as well as a traditional leader. Purposive and snowball sampling were employed to recruit participants. Interviews were used to collect data. Thematic analysis was employed to analyse data. The findings revealed that adolescents found it difficult to access substance abuse treatment facilities due to waiting period before approval was granted and distance they had to travel to reach the facilities. Those who received treatment, lacked after care support due to limited number of social workers allocated to their rural areas and lack of transport funds to attend follow up sessions at rehabilitation centres. The study recommended the establishment of substance abuse treatment centres, especially in rural communities to ensure easy access by adolescents.
Political Connections and Stock Price Crash Risk: Empirical Evidence from the Fall of Suharto

This study examines the relationship between firm-level political connections and stock price crash risk in Indonesia. It employs the difference-in-difference design to deal with the self-selection bias issue regarding the choice of the firms to become a politically connected firm. We use the sudden resignation of the former President of Indonesia, Suharto, to show that politically connected firms are associated with lower stock price crash risk and that the risk for these politically connected firms increased after Suharto resigned. Furthermore, we found evidence that these negative associations are more pronounced in firms with more complex firm structures.
Detecting Aggression and Toxicity using a Multi Dimension Capsule Network

In the era of social media, hate speech, trolling and verbal abuse have become a common issue. We present an approach to automatically classify such statements, using a new deep learning architecture. Our model comprises of a Multi Dimension Capsule Network that generates the representation of sentences which we use for classification. We further provide an analysis of our model’s interpretation of such statements. We compare the results of our model with state-of-art classification algorithms and demonstrate our model’s ability. It also has the capability to handle comments that are written in both Hindi and English, which are provided in the TRAC dataset. We also compare results on Kaggle’s Toxic comment classification dataset.
Thinking critically about critical thinking: Assessing critical thinking of business students using multiple measures

Abstract Critical thinking is a skill that potential employers expect all graduates to possess. Hence, most business management programs consider critical thinking as an important student learning goal. Unfortunately, there is ambiguity about how to best assess critical thinking, both as a skill and a learning outcome. The authors empirically demonstrate how they measure the critical thinking ability of their students in different settings, and how their critical thinking ability improves as they progress through the business program.
Analysis of Physical Demands During Youth Soccer Match-Play: Considerations of Sampling Method and Epoch Length

ABSTRACT Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the physical match profiles of professional soccer players using 3 and 5 min fixed and rolling averages as well as fixed 1 min averages, with considerations to training prescription. Methods: Twenty-nine professional U23 soccer outfield players competed across 17 competitive matches during the 2017/18 season, equating to a total of 130 separate physical match profiles. Match activities were recorded using global positioning system (GPS) devices with integrated micro-electrical mechanical systems (MEMS), recording total distance (TD), high-speed running (HSR), and metabolic power (MP). For each individual match profile and variable, 1, 3, and 5 min peak, post-peak, and average values were calculated using fixed-time epochs (FIXED) and rolling averages (ROLL). Linear mixed models were employed to examine the differences in the dependent variables as a function of the method of measurement. Results: Results revealed significantly higher peak values, for relative TD, relative HSR and relative MP when employing the ROLL sampling method, in comparison to the FIXED method, for both 3 min and 5 min epoch lengths. Analysis of epoch length revealed significantly higher peak values, across all positions, for relative TD, relative HSR and MP for 1 min epochs, in comparison to 3 min and 5 min epochs. Conclusions: The data offers a novel insight into the appropriate identification of physical demands during youth soccer match-play. Researchers and practitioners should consider the sampling method and epoch length when assessing the physical demands of competitive match-play, as well as when designing and prescribing sport-specific conditioning drills.
Does Rice for Poor Subsidy Reduce Child Marriage

Reducing child marriage is seen as one of the essentials to women’s empowerment and wellbeing, ending the intergenerational cycle of poverty and rights violation. In this paper, we use a longitudinal household survey from Indonesia to study whether a food subsidy (Raskin) reduces child marriage. Modelling treatment assignment with Coarsened Exact Matching and Differences-in-Differences, we show that the unconditional rice subsidy significantly reduces the likelihood of marrying as a child.
Alternative certification in the long run: Student achievement, teacher retention and the distribution of teacher quality in New York city

We are grateful to the New York City Department of Education and the New York State Education Department for the data employed in this paper. We appreciate financial support from the Noyce Foundation and the National Center for the Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER). CALDER is supported by IES Grant R305A060018 to the Urban Institute. The views expressed in the paper are solely those of the authors and may not reflect those of the funders. Any errors are attributable to the authors. A large number of school districts still struggle to hire qualified teachers, especially in subjects such as special education, math and science. However, over the last ten years the landscape of teacher supply has been dramatically altered by the substitution of alternatively certified teachers for unlicensed teachers in many school districts (Feistritzer, 2008). An increasing body of research has described the characteristics of alternatively certified teachers and compared their effectiveness on value-added outcomes for students and their attrition to the unlicensed teachers they replaced as well as to teachers from other pathways (disproportionately teach in high needs schools and subjects. While results vary somewhat, these studies find that the students of teachers who enter teacher through highly-selective alternative routes experience better achievement gains than the students of the unlicensed teachers they replaced; comparable, or in some cases somewhat better, math achievement gains than the students of teachers from traditional preparation pathways; and comparable, or in some cases somewhat worse, achievement gains in English language arts than the students of teachers from traditional preparation pathways. This research also finds that alternatively certified teachers are more likely to leave their initial schools and districts than traditionally prepared teachers. Because the widespread hiring of alternatively certified teachers is a relatively recent phenomenon, most of this research focuses on novice teachers and none of it examines the effects of teachers with more than three years of experience. Thus, our understanding of the longer-run effects of the introduction of alternative routes, particularly highly-selective alternative routes, is weak. For this study, we employ a detailed database of all teachers in New York City from 2000-01 through 2007-08 to explore the long run implications of alternative certification. New York City is a good place for such an analysis, as the school district has employed large numbers of alternatively certified teachers since fall 2001 when New York City hired its first cohort of …
Circulating and Pulmonary T-cell Populations Driving the Immune Response in Non-HIV Immunocompromised Patients with Pneumocystis jirovecii Pneumonia

Background: Previous studies in human subjects have mostly been confined to peripheral blood lymphocytes for Pneumocystis infection. We here aimed to compare circulating and pulmonary T-cell populations derived from human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-uninfected immunocompromised patients with Pneumocystis jirovecii pneumonia (PCP) in order to direct new therapies. Methods: Peripheral blood and bronchoalveolar lavage samples were collected from patients with and without PCP. Populations of Th1/Tc1, Th2/Tc2, Th9/Tc9, and Th17/Tc17 CD4+ and CD8+ T cells were quantified using multiparameter flow cytometry. Results: No significant differences were found between PCP and non-PCP groups in circulating T cells. However, significantly higher proportions of pulmonary Th1 and Tc9 were observed in the PCP than in the non-PCP group. Interestingly, our data indicated that pulmonary Th1 was negatively correlated with disease severity, whereas pulmonary Tc9 displayed a positive correlation in PCP patients. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that pulmonary expansion of Th1 and Tc9 subsets may play protective and detrimental roles in PCP patients, respectively. Thus, these specific T-cell subsets in the lungs may serve as targeted immunotherapies for patients with PCP.
The ‘new’ Addis Ababa: shantytown or global city? An assessment of large-scale inner-city renewal, redevelopment and displacement for the construction of a ‘new’ Addis Ababa

The aim of this thesis is to assess large-scale, inner-city renewal, redevelopment, and displacement in Addis Ababa for the construction of a ‘new’ Addis Ababa, while referring to the wider historical, contextual, and the global setting in which this process takes place. This research followed an inductive, qualitative research strategy and used an embedded single-case study research design. Primary data was collected through in-depth, semi-structured interviews, for which thematic-based interview guides were developed; the data was then analysed thematically. The main argument of this thesis is that in Addis Ababa urban renewal and redevelopment have grown in volume and scale transforming into a new form of urban development. The construction of a ‘new’ Addis Ababa as a City-within-a-City on top of the exiting urban fabric is a type of New City development that seeks to re-make and re-model the city alongside Global and World City (GaWC) standards. This research found that the construction of the ‘new’ Addis Ababa is a form of new-built gentrification, which is producing social-economic spatial segregation through a form of social-spatial restructuring at a municipal scale, which can lead to distributional differences and spatial inequality. This research also found, while the construction of the ‘new’ Addis Ababa is still underway (and may always remain partial and incomplete), it is questionable if this urban transformation will ultimately lead to an improved position in global urban hierarchies. The city’s transformation has already had significant exclusionary effects on households displaced for the sake of inner-city renewal and redevelopment. Households without lawful land or tenancy rights are not compensated for their losses when they are displaced. This is a neglect of their basic rights to housing. Even though the transformation of Addis Ababa aims to prevent and reduce illegal settlements, it is instead forcing a specific group of low-income urban dwellers, whose demand is not addressed by the housing market, to migrate and reappear elsewhere in the city as illegal settlers. Households that do receive compensation may on the other hand not be able to afford the relocation associated costs, which puts them at risk for impoverishment. These households are relocated to peri-urban zones through an ex-situ strategy in a dispersed manner, which dismantles their social and economic neighbourhood based inter- and intra-community networks and leads to social and economic losses. The restoration of these social and economic networks post-relocation is hindered by a spatial and lifestyle change imposed on households, which furthermore prohibits them from returning to their old ways of life and hinders their ability to ‘bounce-back’.
Influence of traditional cooking methods on proximate composition, dietary fibre, keeping quality and consumer preference of biofortified fermented cassava fufu

Proximate, dietary fibre, keeping quality compositions and consumer preference of traditional prepared fufu were evaluated. Freshly harvested TMS419 and TMS1368 white root and yellow root cassava tubers weighing 30kg respectively were purchased from Imo state Agricultural Development Programme (ADP). The cassava was peeled, washed, fermented for three days and sieved to get the cassava paste which was traditionally processed by boiling and stirring methods. The samples were labeled A (white boiled cassava fufu), B (white stirred cassava fufu), C (yellow boiled cassava fufu) and D (yellow stirred cassava fufu). A cross-sectional study design was used in selecting 300 respondents using multi-staged sampling technique for consumer preference. A pretested, structured and validated questionnaire was used in collecting data from the respondents. Chemical analysis was carried out to determine the proximate composition, dietary fibre, microbial analysis, and consumer preference. Data was coded and analyzed using Statistical product for service solution (SPSS) version 22.0. Proximate composition showed that sample D was significantly (p<0.05) higher in moisture (62.68%), protein (1.43%), fat (0.34%), fibre (1.02%), ash (0.60%), (37.00%) and dietary fibre (2.8%) while moisture was significantly (p<0.05) higher in sample D (62.68%). The result on microbial load showed that at day 3, sample A had the highest amount of microbial load (9.67x10 5 cfu/g). Majority (76.0%) of the consumers preferred boiling method of fufu preparation, 27% preferred boiling method due to its aroma. More than half (55.3%) and (51%) reported that stirred fufu is easier to prepare and with high quality than boiled fufu respectively. This study observed that white cassava fufu was richer in nutrients, yellow cassava fufu had longer keeping quality and white boiled cassava fufu was mostly preferred. Keywords: Cassava fufu, boiling, stirring, dietary fibre, consumer preference
The Effects of Hedging and Speculation on Cash-Futures Basis: Results from U.S. Wheat Markets

This study examines impacts of hedging and speculation shocks on cash-futures basis for three types of wheat produced in the Northwest U.S. Volatility transfers are measured using a Bayesian vector autoregression (BVAR) procedure to capture the contemporaneous effects of cashfutures basis and open interest positions. By applying a BVAR model and inducing stationarity with the Baxter-King filter this study observes aggregate position sizes relative to actual basis levels within an endogenous structural framework. The results demonstrate a pattern of significant impulse responses to basis from shocks to hedging and speculative total open interest for each market. Positive shocks to open interest create contemporaneous positive impacts on the basis and an increased convenience yield. This implies the risk premium nested within the basis also varies with shocks to hedging and speculative positions. Historical decompositions indicate that hedger and speculator total open interest explains short-run basis volatility for Chicago and Kansas City markets, but not for the Minneapolis market. Evidence is provided that the difference is due to lower liquidity levels in Minneapolis. The results imply that speculator provided liquidity benefits hedgers across the supply chain. This information is valuable to hedgers and liquidity providers, as well as producers, distributors, and exporters.
Performance of cooperative multi-hop multiuser relaying networks

This paper presents both capacity and error performances of cooperative multi-hop multiuser relay system. All multi-hop cooperative relays in the system apply maximal-ratio combining (MRC) scheme, while signal transmission to end users is carried out using opportunistic scheduling algorithm. Numerical results for spectral efficiency and average symbol error probability (ASEP) for considered system are presented and discussed.
The EU Administrative Institutions, Their Law and Legal Scholarship

The chapter approaches the EU administrative institutions as catalysts of the development of administrative law of the European Union. As a chapter of the Oxford Handbook on Comparative Administrative Law, it explains the main traits of those institutions, how legal scholarship has portrayed them and how it has addressed the core aspects of their legal regimes. Furthermore, it traces the emergence and current state of EU administrative law, characterising the different roles comparative administrative law has had at different stages. It highlights the initial dissonance between the specificities of the EU administrative institutions and the statematrix of general principles that were developed on the basis of functional comparison; the role of legal scholarship in shaping EU administrative law, in its efforts to give effect to an “utopia” (Chiti, 2007) of an integrated administration constitutionally framed by general principles and fundamental rights; the limits of resorting to comparative administrative law in the context of EU integration and, briefly, the crossroads at which EU administrative law currently stands. The dominance of administrative institutions in regional and global governance is a truism in many important areas of social and economic life. Food quality, pharmaceuticals, product safety, environment, technology and communications are only a few examples. In all these areas, regulation relies on specialised knowledge, discourses and legal acts developed within and adopted by international, regional and national administrative institutions, which, thereby, and by force of the powers allocated to them, have become central to modern government. At the same time, the proliferation of administrative institutions beyond the state challenged the role and functions of their national counter-parts. They have emerged largely detached from constitutionally framed or stable procedural and substantive rules that, within a state-setting, had provided safer ground for the protection of rights and the legitimacy of democratic processes (Sand, 1998, 274), and they evolved as those rules were being framed. As they progressively changed the governing conditions within the state, the challenges they have posed to democratic government and to rights’ protection soon became those of national administrative institutions too (Sand, 1998, 276). From this perspective, the ‘level’ image, whereby supranational and transnational administrative institutions operate ‘beyond the state’ is as deceptive as it is descriptively appealing. This chapter will focus on the administrative institutions of the EU. It is hoped that the Eurocentric-bias of the analysis can nevertheless be useful as a reference point for the study of 1 I would like to acknowledge helpful suggestions by Peter Cane and Filipe Brito Bastos.
Of milk and honey : returns to education and migration of filipinos

The first study in this dissertation shows that standard estimates of returns to education capture the e↵ects of labor characteristics and ability. It finds that accounting mainly for sector, occupation and region reduces returns to education by three-fifths. Accounting for ability using sibling fixed-e↵ects estimation further reduces returns to schooling by almost half, yields no significant returns to primary and incomplete secondary education, and yields increasing returns to higher education. Earnings and returns to schooling are una↵ected by education quality when controlling for province and key city fixed e↵ects. Returns to schooling and ability are higher in urban areas and regions considered as economic centers suggesting that internal labor migrants are driven by returns to education and ability. The second part of this thesis develops a demand and supply model of migration to estimate the impacts of proximate and underlying factors on both permanent and temporary migration from the Philippines using a Vector Auto-Regressive model. Results show that permanent migration is positively related to destination wages but also to domestic wages and employment indicating that they are positively selected from the local labor force. Permanent migration is negatively related to local demand for labor proxied by GDP per capita but also to local labor supply; positively related to destination demand for labor and negatively related to destination labor supply (both lagged two periods). Temporary migration is also positively related to destination and Philippine wages, negatively related to local labor demand and supply, and positively related to destination labor demand. However, temporary migration is also positively related to destination labor supply indicating that they are negatively selected in the destination labor force. The third study aims to estimate the returns to migration and education for overseas Filipino workers. It finds that earnings of overseas Filipino workers in most key destinations are higher than those of domestic workers, but their returns to schooling are not significantly di↵erent from, or are even lower than, those of domestic workers. These findings together with the result of a Heckman selection