Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Socio-Economic status of fish farmers in Dhumki Upazila under Patuakhali District, Bangladesh

In order to determine the socio-economic aspects of fish farmers in Dumki Upazila under Patuakhali district, a questionnaire survey was conducted in different villages of the Upazila. Data was collected from 40 farm owners for a period of six months from February to July, 2015. The present study indicated that majority of fish farmers (77.5%) were 26-45 years old. On the other hand, 17.5% respondents were less than 25 years old and 5% respondents were 18-15 years old. It was found that majority of the farmers (65%) gained their experience from relatives, 2% from friends and neighbors, 10% by self-education, 5% from DoF and 6% from NGO’s. According to the study, about 60% farmers were involved in agriculture, 12.5% farmers involved for vegetable growing, 12.5% farmers involved in poultry rearing and 5% farmers involved in livestock farming. About 80% farmers were identified as medium producers (30004000) kg/ha. /yr, 15% as low producers (2000-3000) and only 5% farmer identified as high producers. In respect of annual income of the fish farmers in the study area was found to have 82% moderate income (Tk. 100000-400000 Tk.), 15% low income (Tk.1000-100000) and 2.5% high income (above Tk.400000). It was observed that the livelihood status of the fish farmers in Dhumki Upazila was not satisfactory but people were very keen to produce fish and production was satisfactory in this area.
Studying micro-processes of change in teacher thinking and acting in the context of a video-based professional development program

The dissertation examined the effects of teacher professional development (TPD) along multiple dimensions. As a first indicator of TPD effectiveness, changes in teachers’ instructional practices were analyzed. Additionally, changes in teachers’ thinking through video-based discussion and progress in implementing TPD core features were systematically investigated on a micro-level. The Dialogic Video Cycle was used as a TPD case that allowed investigation of the proposed research issues and was compared to a control group with fewer opportunities for situated learning.
Pilot RNAi screening using mammalian cell-based system identifies novel putative silencing factors including Kat5/Tip60

Epigenetic silencing is the reversible inactivation of a gene transcription which occurs as a result of changes in the structure of the chromatin that can be successfully inherited from parent to daughter cells. It involves non-genetic mutations within the genome, as well as post-transcriptional and post-translational mechanisms. Existence of these mechanisms at various levels warrants their role in development and disease and thus it is crucial to study different factors and mechanisms of silencing. The aim of our study was to establish a method for rapid screening for the loss of epigenetic silencing in mammalian cells, to identify factor(s) involved in epigenetic silencing, and to get insights into their mechanism of action. For this purpose, we used RNAi screening approach using shRNAs that targeted our genes of interest. We employed a modified mouse cell line which contained a GFP transgene under the control of CMV promoter which has been silenced by epigenetic modifications. Our screening identified several proteins as epigenetic silencing regulators including Kat5/Tip60, an acetyltransferase of MYST family of proteins. To characterize its function, we performed preliminary experiments using microscopy and Western blot analysis of histone marks. We observed changes in H4 acetylation levels in Kat5/Tip60 knockdown cells. Our study thus serves as a pilot for a genome-wide silencing screening using mammalian cells, and provides preliminary results suggesting that Kat5 can be considered as a silencing factor, which, we propose, could function by maintaining H4 acetylation patterns.
Chapter 4 Remote Sensing of Cell-Culture Assays

This chapter describes a full system developed to perform the remote sensing of cellculture experiments from any access point with internet connection. The proposed system allows the real-time monitoring of cell assays thanks to bioimpedance measurement circuits developed to count the number of cell present in a culture. Cell-culture characterization is performed through the measurement of the increasing bioimpedance parameter over time. The circuit implementation is based on the oscillation-based test (OBT) methodology. Bioimpedance of cell cultures is measured in terms of the oscillation parameters (frequency, amplitude, phase, etc.) and used as empirical markers to carry out an appropriate interpretation in terms of cell size identification, cell counting, cell growth, growth rhythm, etc. The device is capable of managing the whole sensing task and performs wireless communication through a Bluetooth module. Data are interpreted and displayed on a computer or a mobile phone through a web application. The system has its practical application in drug development processes, offering a label-free, high-throughput, and high-content screening method for cellular research, avoiding the classical end-point techniques and a significant workload and cost material reduction.
Representation of moduli spaces of curves and calculation of extremal polynomials

The classical Chebyshev and Zolotarev polynomials are the first ranks of the hierarchy of extremal polynomials, which are typical solutions of problems on the conditional minimization of the uniform norm over a space of polynomials. In the general case such polynomials are connected with hyperelliptic curves the genus of which labels the ranks of the hierarchy. Representations of the moduli spaces of such curves are considered in this paper with applications to the calculation of extremal polynomials. Uniformizing curves by special Schottky groups one obtains effectively computable parametric expressions for extremal polynomials in terms of linear series of Poincare.
A survey on relationship between capital structure, free cash flow and diversification and firm performance of listed companies in Tehran Stock Exchange

Article history: Received May 4, 2014 Accepted 24 September 2014 Available online September 27 2014 This paper presents an empirical investigation to study the effects of free cash flow, share diversification and capital structure on Tobin-Q in selected firms on Tehran Stock Exchange. The population of the survey includes 520 firms listed on this exchange until year 2012 and the survey uses a sample of 105 firms, randomly. The study uses the models originally developed by Palepu (1985) [Palepu, K. (1985). Diversification strategy, profit performance and the entropy measure. Strategic Management Journal, 6(3), 239-255. ] to measure the effects of different factors on Tobin Q. The study has indicated that while capital structure and free cash flow influence positively on Tobin Q, diversification has maintained a negative and meaningful relationship with Tobin Q. © 2014 Growing Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Capital structure Free cash flow Diversification Firm performance
QUALITY OF THE EFFLUENTS OF BULLFROG TADPOLE PONDS

The objective of this study was to determine the quality of the effluent from ponds populated with bullfrog tadpoles by evaluating the physical, chemical and microbiological parameters of the water. Samples were collected bi-weekly on the ponds located at the bullfrog culture sector in the Caunesp. The experimental design was completely randomized with two treatments (inlet and outlet water) and six repetitions (ponds). There was no difference (P>0.01) among treatments for conductivity, however, the values varied in different samples according to growth of tadpoles. The values of temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen and nitrate were higher (P<0.01) in the inlet, while total phosphorus, ammonia, Escherichia coli, chemical oxygen demand (COD), biochemical oxygen demand (BOD5) and turbidity had increased concentrations in the outlet water. The total phosphorus and BOD5 concentrations were higher than permitted by Brazilian environmental legislation. The management adopted to rear bullfrog tadpoles increased the nutrients in the water, with the highest concentrations of ammonia and total phosphorus deriving mainly from the uneaten feed and animal excretion, the latter being the main factor for water eutrophication.
On Bias Correction in a Class of Inflated Beta Regression Models

Inflated beta regression models bear practical applicability in modeling rates and proportions measured continuously in the presence of zeros and/or ones. In this article, the second-order bias of maximum likelihood estimators for zero-or-one inflated beta regression model parameters is derived. This enables one to obtain corrected estimators that are approximately unbiased. Numerical results exhibit that corrected estimators show better performance in terms of mean-square error and bias when compared to maximum likelihood estimators.
A Model of the Confidence Channel of Fiscal Policy

This paper presents a simple macroeconomic model where government spending affects aggregate demand directly and indirectly, through an expectational channel. Prices are fully flexible and the model is static, so intertemporal issues play no role. There are three important elements in the model: (i) fixed adjustment costs for investment; (ii) noisy idiosyncratic information about the economy; and (iii) imperfect substitution among private goods and goods provided by the government. An increase in government spending raises the demand for private goods and raises firms’ expectations about what others will be producing and demanding. The optimal level of government expenditure is larger when the desired level of investment is small, which we interpret as times of low economic activity.
A pH sensor with a double-gate silicon nanowire field-effect transistor

A pH sensor composed of a double-gate silicon nanowire field-effect transistor (DG Si-NW FET) is demonstrated. The proposed DG Si-NW FET allows the independent addressing of the gate voltage and hence improves the sensing capability through an application of asymmetric gate voltage between the two gates. One gate is a driving gate which controls the current flow, and the other is a supporting gate which amplifies the shift of the threshold voltage, which is a sensing metric, and which arises from changes in the pH. The pH signal is also amplified through modulation of the gate oxide thickness.
Identifying the language skill of consecutive interpreters. Towards the development of recommendations on language choices in interpreters’ notes

This article reports on a small-scale empirical study on note-taking in consecutive interpretation. Present-day interpretation labor market has faced a number of changes, as nowadays interpreters challenge themselves to work with different language combinations. A sufficient level of an in-demand language skill is now critical for employability of young trainees in the labor market. The present research illustrates the way interpreter trainees with different language skill sets carry out similar tasks in different interpretation settings. For primary research data, the study uses results of a background survey, complete with audio recordings of the performance and the notes produced by eight subjects while interpreting an English source text consecutively into Japanese. The aim of the study is to explore the differences in consecutive interpretation of interpreters in classical settings (L2 to L1) and in emerging new trends in the labor market (L2 to L3). The article argues that the language skill required for each trend in the interpretation labor market is defined by the specific interpretation settings .
Real-Time Reading and ReactivationEvidence of Syntactic Gap Processing in Japanese Scrambling

This study argues that second language (L2) learners are capable of syntactic gap processing under moderate computational demand, but not when the computational load is excessively taxing. The evidence comes from 1) measurement of real-time reading and 2) probe response data from advanced Korean and English learners’ processing of sentences with scrambling in Japanese. The findings are consistent with a working hypothesis that learners’ syntactic gap processing is severely constrained by limitations on cognitive resources available during L2 processing. The findings contradict the view that late (adult) learners’ gap processing is verb-driven, that is, that their gap processing utilizes information on verb argument structure and pragmatic knowledge (Clahsen & Felser, 2006a).
Childhood diabetes in a Bangladeshi population

Backgrounds and Aims: Several epidemiological investigations revealed that the prevalence of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) has been increasing in the adult population of Bangladesh. But the prevalence of diabetes among the children and adolescents in Bangladesh has not been reported. This study addressed the prevalence of diabetes among the younger people in Bangladesh. Subjects and Methods: We investigated school children of age group 10 - 18 years in rural, suburban and urban communities. Investigations included socio-demographic information, height, weight, mid-upper-arm circumference (MUAC), blood pressure (SBP, DBP) and fasting plasma glucose (FPG). We used WHO criteria (1999) for impaired fasting glucose (IFG) and diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Results: A total of 2152 students (boys/girls: 1064/1088) volunteered the study. Their mean (SD) age was 13.3 (2.0) y, BMI was 18.5 (3.1) and MUAC was 21.2 (3.4) cm. The mean (SD) of FPG was 4.6 (0.87) mmol/l. The prevalence of IFG (95% CI) was 3.4% (2.63 - 4.17) and T2DM was 1.8% (1.23 - 2.37). BMI showed no association with FPG in either sex. In assessing risk for hyperglycemia (FPG > = 5.6mmol/l), logistic regression showed [odds ratio (OR) with 95% CI] that compared with lower age (16 y) higher age had excess risk (OR 5.2, 2.92 - 9.23). Compared with the rural the urban children had higher risk (OR 14.7, 6.41 - 33.78). Higher family income was also found to have higher risk (BDT 8000: OR 2.03, 1.30 - 3.18); whereas, higher BMI and MUAC were proved to be not significant. Conclusions: The prevalence of IFG and T2DM in Bangladeshi children and adolescents appears to be high. The urban children from the higher family income are the most vulnerable for developing diabetes, obesity and hypertension. A prospective cohort including other variables like physical activities, waist-girth, insulin or macro-/micronutrients may explain which risk factors are significant for developing diabetes among children and adolescents in Bangladesh.
Hot gas around SN 1998bw: Inferring the progenitor from its environment

Spatially resolved spectroscopy of the environments of explosive transients carries detailed information about the physical properties of the stellar population that gave rise to the explosion, and thus the progenitor itself. Here, we present new observations of ESO184-G82, the galaxy hosting the archetype of the γ -ray burst/supernova connection, GRB 980425/SN 1998bw, obtained with the integral field spectrograph MUSE mounted at the Very Large Telescope. These observations have yielded detailed maps of emission-line strength for various nebular lines along with physical parameters such as dust extinction, stellar age, and oxygen abundance on spatial scales of 160 pc. The immediate environment of GRB 980425 is young (5–8 Myr) and consistent with a mildly extinguished ( A V ~ 0.1 mag) progenitor of zero-age main-sequence mass between 25 M ⊙ and 40 M ⊙ and an oxygen abundance 12 + log (O / H) ~ 8.2 ( Z ~ 0.3 Z ⊙ ), which is slightly lower than that of an integrated measurement of the whole galaxy (12 + log (O / H) ~ 8.3) and a prominent nearby H ii region (12 + log (O / H) ~ 8.4). This region is significantly younger than the explosion site, and we argue that a scenario in which the GRB progenitor formed in this environment and was subsequently ejected appears very unlikely. We show that empirical strong-line methods based on [O iii] and/or [N ii] are inadequate to produce accurate maps of oxygen abundance at the level of detail of our MUSE observation as these methods strongly depend on the ionization state of the gas. The metallicity gradient in ESO184-G82 is − 0.06 dex kpc -1 , indicating that the typical offsets of at most few kpc for cosmological GRBs on average have a small impact on oxygen abundance measurements at higher redshift.
Serum KIF5A, KIF18A, and p53 Autoantibody Concentrations as Potential Biomarkers of Asbestos Exposure

Background: Asbestos-related diseases remain a significant occupational health problem in much of the world. Evidence of asbestos exposure is not always apparent in routine clinical evaluations of potentially exposed individuals, particularly in the initial stages of pathogenesis, so convenient biomarkers of exposure could be useful in the early identification of individuals at risk. Methods and findings: Based on prior research, we examined serum levels of kinesin family proteins (KIF5A and KIF18A) and p53 autoantibodies in 198 asbestosexposed workers and 164 unexposed controls. Exposed individuals were significantly more likely to have increased KIF5A and decreased KIF18A compared to the unexposed controls; p53 autoantibodies and exposure were unrelated. Conclusion: Serum kinesins may be useful biomarkers of asbestos exposure.
Benchmarking Farmers’ Economic and Social Status in Anantapuramu and Kurnool Arid Districts of Andhra Pradesh for Probable Introduction of Potato Crop

India has experienced rapid growth in potato production during recent past and the country has almost doubled its potato production during 2003–2013. The potato productivity improved 31.4% over this period of time. However, potato production scenario in southern states of India is quite grim and with the result potato consumers of these states always have to purchase potatoes at very high prices compared to the national average prices. With the objective to augment potato production in southern states this study was carried out for analysing socio-economic characteristics of potential potato growers in non-traditional Anantapuramu and Kurnool districts of arid region in Andhra Pradesh. A long list of socio-economic factors viz. education level, occupation pattern, house condition, tractor ownership, food security level, access and affordability to civic amenities, children's education type, possession of household amenities, expenditure pattern and level of mechanization adoption were studied in this study so that most suitable area for potato introduction may be identified.
Uncertainty Across Volatility Regimes

We propose a new non-recursive identification scheme for uncertainty shocks, which exploits breaks in the unconditional volatility of macroeconomic variables. Such identification approach allows us to simultaneously address two major questions in the empirical literature on uncertainty: (i) Does the relationship between uncertainty and economic activity change across macroeconomic regimes? (ii) Is uncertainty a major cause or effect (or both) of decline in economic activity? Empirical results based on a small-scale VAR with US monthly data for the period 1960-2015 suggest that (i) the effects of uncertainty shocks are regime-dependent, and (ii) uncertainty is an exogenous source of decline of economic activity, rather than an endogenous response to it.
Role of macroeconomic variables on firms’ performance: Evidence from the UK

Abstract The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of macroeconomic conditions and predict the base performance of a firm as represented by Return on Asset (ROA) and macroeconomic variables. The predictor variables used in the construction of the models were selected using PCA. For the full sample and the industry-specific sample of data, the regression model evaluated the significance of macroeconomic factors based on t-statistics and the R2 test. The results of the study are promising. The full sample and five out of six industry variable models incorporating lead–lag relationships have an R2 between 0.79 and 0.95. For the full sample, the results of this study indicate that macroeconomic conditions should be incorporated when predicting firms’ performance. For the industry-specific models, the empirical results present a mixed picture of the effect of macroeconomic factors and the lagged ROA on firm performance and the same conclusion for full sample cannot be reached easily when looking at the industry specific results. The results of this paper provide a compelling argument that firm performance is a function of the prior year ROA, and macro-economic variables and that macroeconomic variables and prior year ROA can have impact on future firm performance measure by ROA.
Maximum likelihood drift estimation for a threshold diffusion

We study the maximum likelihood estimator of the drift parameters of a stochastic differential equation, with both drift and diffusion coefficients constant on the positive and negative axis, yet discontinuous at zero. This threshold diffusion is called drifted oscillating Brownian motion. For this continuously observed diffusion, the maximum likelihood estimator coincides with a quasi‐likelihood estimator with constant diffusion term. We show that this estimator is the limit, as observations become dense in time, of the (quasi)‐maximum likelihood estimator based on discrete observations. In long time, the asymptotic behaviors of the positive and negative occupation times rule the ones of the estimators. Differently from most known results of the literature, we do not restrict ourselves to the ergodic framework: indeed, depending on the signs of the drift, the process may be ergodic, transient, or null recurrent. For each regime, we establish whether or not the estimators are consistent; if they are, we prove the convergence in long time of the properly rescaled difference of the estimators towards a normal or mixed normal distribution. These theoretical results are backed by numerical simulations.
Violence and social capital: Evidence of a microeconomic vicious circle

We test with a randomized experiment in the slums of Nairobi whether violence suffered during the 2007 political outbreaks affects trustworthiness learning when participants live group experiences and face opportunism and free riding in public good games (PGGs) between two subsequent trust games (TGs). Our findings document that participants move toward balanced reciprocity after the PGG with the exception of those who have experienced directly or indirectly physical violence and/or forced relocation who exhibit significantly less trustworthiness in the second TG round. Results are robust to several robustness checks controlling for selection into victimization. Since in a framework of asymmetric information and incomplete contracts, trust games mimic sequential economic exchanges whose functioning is crucial to economic growth, we argue that our results identify a microeconomic nexus among socio-political instability, violence and growth helping to solve identification problems of the cross-country literature on the subject.