Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Impact Evaluation of Structural Adjustment Program: A Case of Pakistan

We analyzed the effect of Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) on macroeconomic variables of Pakistan using annual time series data for the years 1981-2001. The impact of four policy instruments of SAP, i.e. reduction in budget deficit, increase in indirect taxes,adjusting the exchange rate and sliding down of subsidies, on employment, income distribution, per-capita income and inflation has been analyzed. It is found that the first policy instrument, i.e. decrease in budget deficit has affected employment, income distribution and inflation adversely. The second policy instrument of imposition of indirect tax negatively affected the employment, income distribution, per capita income and positively affected the inflation. The third policy instrument of SAP was adjustment of exchange rate. It is estimated that adjusting exchange rate has resulted into increased unemployment and inflation. The fourth policy instrument of shrink in subsidies augmented the unemployment, unequal distribution of income and inflation and dwindled the percapita income. It appears that SAP has adversely affected the major socioeconomic variables of the economy. Currently the government is considering for loan from IMF, so it is proposed to avoid such type of policy directives from IMF.
Improvement of Overall Efficiency in the Gas Transmission Networks: Employing Energy Recovery Systems

This study mainly focuses on enhancing the overall efficiency of gas transmission networks. The authors developed a model with detailed characteristics of compressor and pressure reduction stations. Following this, they suggested three different systems with gas turbine including: organic rankine cycle (ORC), air bottoming cycle (ABC), and ABC along with steam injection (SI-ABC). In addition, use of turbo-expander as a good alternative to the expansion valves was also studied. Performance of proposed cycles was investigated on a real case study for natural gas transmission network. Results showed that the highest efficiency would be obtained with ORC system where n-pentane was used as the working fluid and turbo-expander was considered in pressure reduction stations Moreover, the efficiency improvement was estimated to be 22% averagely in comparison with the existing network where the flow was in the span of 50 up to 90 MMSCMD.
The Effect of Ramadan Fasting on the Body Composition, Blood Pressure, Heart Rate of Healthy Young Adults

During the month of Ramadan, Muslims refrain from drinking and eating between sunrise and sunset. This study is aimed to understand the effect of this long intermittent fasting schedule during Ramadan on body composition, and cardiovascular system in healthy young adults. Fifty healthy adults were included and were all tested before and on the 28th day of the Ramadan fast. The parameters studied were body composition, blood pressure and heart rate before and towards the end of the fasting. Significant changes were observed in the form of decreased body weight, Body Mass Index, Waist to Hip Ratio, body fat percentage, blood pressure and heart rate. Dominance of the sympathetic nervous system over the parasympathetic nervous system has been shown to be a strong risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Weight loss has a positive effect on this balance and is associated with significant improvement in autonomic cardiac modulation through enhancement of parasympathetic effect. This increase in vagal tone has shown its effects on the blood pressure and heart rate in this study. At the cellular level fasting reduces the levels of oxidative stress at the same time it acts as repeated mild stress that induces expression of genes that enhance the ability of cells to cope with more severe stress. The effect of fasting on cardiovascular function should be further explored to recognize fasting as a potential non-
Some Aspects of Reproductive Biology with Emphasis on the Effect of Pollution on the Histopathological Structure of Gonads in Oreochromis niloticus from Rosetta Branch, Nile River, Egypt

Fish samples of Oreochromis niloticus were collected from two main fishing sites on the Rosetta Nile Branch (Kafr El-Zayat and Desok areas), the first area is considered to be more polluted than the later one due to the highly industrial activities. The present work aimed to study some aspect of the reproductive biology of the dominant species (O. niloticus) with emphasis on histopathological changes in the gonads. Fish attain the first sexual maturity at length 13.8 cm. The monthly distribution of maturity stages was studied. The gonadosomatic index and the gonads histological examination indicated that, the fish has prolonged spawning activities with a peak value in June. Six stages of gonadal maturation for both sexes were identified. The histopathological changes in gonads due to exposure to different pollutants have been studied. It wa s concluded that fish exposed to higher concentrations of pollutants showed higher incidence of gonada l abnormalities in the form of deformed oocyte and spermatocyte with reduction in their numbers and lack of active oogensis and spermatogenesis.
Mathematical description of tractor slippage with variable tire inflation pressure

Tractor slippage is one of the main economic and environmental indicators for composing of tractor units. It is a key indicator showing the rational interaction of the tire to the road (soil) surface. If it is too big or too small, big energy losses occur. Slippage depends not only on the vertical loads to the driving wheels, but also on the wheel and soil grip area. The grip area between the wheel and soil usually increases by reducing the tire’s air pressure. For the operation of tractor units (especially in agriculture) the preliminary calculation of the slippage, i.e. forecasting of the energy and economic task, is one of the most important. Tractor slippage prediction in most cases is calculated based on the traction coefficients. However, the coefficients mathematical expression does not include indicators that evaluate tire pressure in the tire. From the mathematical point of view, for the ability to optimize the slippage of the driving wheels, while at the same time seeking better ecological and economic performance, it is not enough to evaluate the traction coefficient dependencies on the traction forces and the vertical load of tires, but also dependencies on the tire performance indicators, too. This article will present a mathematical model that allows estimating the slippage of driving wheels at various air pressure in the tractor tires. Based on the experimental tractor slippage dependences on the traction power and air pressure in the tires and the calculations based on the empirical formula, the formulas for calculation of the limiting traction power and the degree of the coefficient of the mathematical model of the towing calculation were made. An expanded calculation method allows to calculate the slippage value of the tractor driven wheel for any permitted tire inflation pressure.
Rotating flow and heat transfer in cylindrical cavities with radial inflow

Design and optimization of an efficient internal air system of a gas turbine requires thorough understanding of the flow and heat transfer in rotating disc cavities. The present study is devoted to numerical modelling of flow and heat transfer in a cylindrical cavity with radial inflow and comparison with the available experimental data. The simulations are carried out with axi-symmetric and 3-D sector models for various inlet swirl and rotational Reynolds numbers upto 2.1×106. The pressure coefficients and Nusselt numbers are compared with the available experimental data and integral method solutions. Two popular eddy viscosity models, the Spalart-Allmaras and the k-e , and a Reynolds stress model have been used . For cases with particularly strong vortex behaviour the eddy viscosity models show some shortcomings with the Spalart-Allmaras model giving slightly better results than the k-e model. Use of the Reynolds stress model improved the agreement with measurements for such cases. The integral method results are also found to agree well with the measurements. Copyright © 2012 by ASME.
A STUDY OF SEASONAL PHYSICOCHEMICAL PARAMETERS IN RIVER USMA

Growing populations may put stresses on natural waters by impairing both the quality of the water and the hydrological budget. Abuja, being relatively a new city and the new Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria, has scarce physicochemical data on its water resources that could assist in making robust decision in mitigating the impact of human societies on natural waters; which may not only preserve natural areas, but improve the quality of life of her growing population. A Study of Seasonal Physicochemical Parameters in River Usuma, Abuja Nigeria was carried out between 2011 and 2012. The water quality was studied at seven sites at upstream and downstream among the towns traversed by the River. Physicochemical parameters of the samples were measured; moreover, possible sources of contamination were analyzed. The parameters measured include; sodium (Na), potassium (K), Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD); Dissolve Oxygen (DO), pH, temperature, Electrical Conductivity (EC), Total Dissolved Solids (TDS), Total Suspended Solids (TSS), total alkalinity, Total Phosphate (TP), Total Nitrate (TN), Total Sulphate (TS) and Total Chloride (TC). The mean values of the measured parameters were compared with National Standard for Drinking Water Quality (NSDWQ) and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) standards. The findings show that all the physicochemical parameters measured were within the tolerable values except TSS that exceeded with the mean values of 6.8, 4.9 and 8.4 mg L-1 respectively for all the seasons. The values of EC and TDS posed a caution that anthropogenic activities are on the daily increase within the study area. The water resources data base which could have validated the observed values is scarce. Therefore, frequent monitoring of physicochemical parameters of Abuja water resources is imperative.
Aerogels in Aerospace: An Overview

Aerogels are highly porous structures prepared via a sol-gel process and supercritical drying technology. Among the classes of aerogels, silica aerogel exhibits the most remarkable physical properties, possessing lower density, thermal conductivity, refractive index, and dielectric constant than any solids. Its acoustical property is such that it can absorb the sound waves reducing speed to 100 m/s compared to 332 m/s for air. However, when it comes to commercialization, the result is not as expected. It seems that mass production, particularly in the aerospace industry, has dawdled behind. This paper highlights the evolution of aerogels in general and discusses the functions and significances of silica aerogel in previous astronautical applications. Future outer-space applications have been proposed as per the current research trend. Finally, the implementation of conventional silica aerogel in aeronautics is argued with an alternative known as Maerogel.
The 2015 Plains Elevated Convection at Night Field Project

AbstractThe central Great Plains region in North America has a nocturnal maximum in warm-season precipitation. Much of this precipitation comes from organized mesoscale convective systems (MCSs). This nocturnal maximum is counterintuitive in the sense that convective activity over the Great Plains is out of phase with the local generation of CAPE by solar heating of the surface. The lower troposphere in this nocturnal environment is typically characterized by a low-level jet (LLJ) just above a stable boundary layer (SBL), and convective available potential energy (CAPE) values that peak above the SBL, resulting in convection that may be elevated, with source air decoupled from the surface. Nocturnal MCS-induced cold pools often trigger undular bores and solitary waves within the SBL. A full understanding of the nocturnal precipitation maximum remains elusive, although it appears that bore-induced lifting and the LLJ may be instrumental to convection initiation and the maintenance of MCSs at night.To gain .
Chapter 3 Non-invasive Stimulation of the Cerebellum in Health and Disease

The cerebellum is linked to motor, cognitive and affective functions. Anatomically, the cerebellum is part of an interconnected network including a wide range of other brain structures. This chapter reviews ways in which non-invasive stimulation has been used to activate or inhibit these circuits and how this has contributed to our understanding of cerebellar function in both motor and non-motor domains. The utility of non-invasive stimulation of the cerebellum in the treatment of neurological and psychiatric diseases (Parkinson’s disease, cerebellar ataxia, stroke, depression and schizophrenia) is discussed. The chapter concludes with consideration of the challenges that must be overcome if noninvasive cerebellar stimulation is to be adopted in a wider clinical setting.
VALIDATION AND VERIFICATION OF A 2 D LATTICE BOLTZMANN SOLVER FOR INCOMPRESSIBLE FLUID FLOW

The lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) is becoming increasingly popular in the fluid mechanics society because it provides a relatively easy implementation for an incompressible fluid flow solver. Furthermore the particle based LBM can be applied in microscale flows where the continuum based Navier-Stokes solvers fail. Here we present the validation and verification of a two-dimensional in-house lattice Boltzmann solver with two different collision models, namely the BGKW and the MRT models [1]. Five different cases were studied, namely: (i) a channel flow was investigated, the results were compared to the analytical solution, and the convergence properties of the collision models were determined; (ii) the lid-driven cavity problem was examined [2] and the flow features and the velocity profiles were compared to existing simulation results at three different Reynolds number; (iii) the flow in a backwardfacing step geometry was validated against experimental data [3]; (iv) the flow in a sudden expansion geometry was compared to experimental data at two different Reynolds numbers [4]; and finally (v) the flow around a cylinder was studied at higher Reynolds number in the turbulent regime. The first four test cases showed that both the BGKW and the MRT models were capable of giving qualitatively and quantitatively good results for these laminar flow cases. The simulations around a cylinder highlighted that the BGKW model becomes unstable for high Reynolds numbers but the MRT model still remains suitable to capture the turbulent von Kármán vortex street. The in-house LBM code has been developed in C and has also been parallelised for GPU architectures using CUDA [5] and for CPU architectures using the Partitioned Global Address Space model with UPC [6].
The Influence of Electrical Current Density and Type of the External Source of Carbon on Nitrogen and Phosphorus Efficiency Removal in the Sequencing Batch Biofilm Reactor

This work presents the results of a study on the effect of electrical current density (53, 105, 158 and 210 mA/m2), type of the external source of carbon (citric acid, potassium bicarbonate), and C/NNO3 ratio (0.5, 1.0 and 1.5) on the effectiveness of nitrogen and phosphorus removal from synthetic wastewater with physicochemical parameters typical of municipal sewage subjected to bio-treatment in the highly efficient system for organic compounds removal ensuring efficient course of the nitrification process. The denitrification efficiency was found to depend on the type and dose of carbon and on the electrical current density. Higher values of this parameter were determined in the reactor with citric acid than in one with potassium bicarbonate used as carbon sources. Total phosphorus was removed in the processes of electrocoagulation and biomass growth. Higher efficiency of dephosphatation was achieved in the reactor with electrical current passage than in the reactor without it. The type of carbon source had little effect on the dephosphatation efficiency. The use of electrical current density of 210 mA/m2 and citric acid as a carbon source with C/N=1.5 allowed achieving 87.61(±1.6)% efficiency of denitrification and 97.69(±2.1)% efficiency of dephosphatation.
THERMAL TO NONTHERMAL ENERGY PARTITION AT THE EARLY RISE PHASE OF SOLAR FLARES

In some flares, the thermal component appears much earlier than the nonthermal component in the X-ray range. Using sensitive microwave observations, we revisit this finding made by Battaglia et al. based on a thorough analysis of RHESSI data. We have found that nonthermal microwave emission produced by accelerated electrons with energy of at least several hundred keV appears as early as the thermal soft X-ray emission, indicating that the electron acceleration takes place at the very early flare phase. The non-detection of the hard X-rays at that early stage of the flares is thus an artifact of a limited RHESSI sensitivity. In all of the considered events, the microwave emission intensity increases at the early flare phase. We found that either thermal or nonthermal gyrosynchrotron emission can dominate the low-frequency (optically thick) part of the microwave spectrum below the spectral peak occurring at 3–10 GHz. In contrast, the high-frequency optically thin part of the spectrum is always formed by the nonthermal, accelerated electron component, whose power-law energy spectrum can extend up to a few MeV at this early flare stage. This means that even though the total number of accelerated electrons is small at this stage, their nonthermal spectrum is fully developed. This implies that an acceleration process of available seed particles is fully operational. While creation of this seed population (the process commonly called “injection” of the particles from the thermal pool into the acceleration process) has a rather low efficiency at this stage, the plasma heating efficiency is high. This imbalance between the heating and acceleration (in favor of the heating) is difficult to reconcile within most of available flare energization models. Being reminiscent of the trade off between the Joule heating and runaway electron acceleration, it puts additional constraints on the electron injection into the acceleration process. As a byproduct of this study, we demonstrate that for those cases when the optically thick part of the radio spectrum is dominated by the thermal contribution, the microwave spectral data yield reliable estimates of the magnetic field and source area at the early flare phase.
A new class of models for bivariate joint tails

Summary. A fundamental issue in applied multivariate extreme value analysis is modelling dependence within joint tail regions. The primary focus of this work is to extend the classical pseudopolar treatment of multivariate extremes to develop an asymptotically motivated representation of extremal dependence that also encompasses asymptotic independence. Starting with the usual mild bivariate regular variation assumptions that underpin the coefficient of tail dependence as a measure of extremal dependence, our main result is a characterization of the limiting structure of the joint survivor function in terms of an essentially arbitrary non‐negative measure that must satisfy some mild constraints. We then construct parametric models from this new class and study in detail one example that accommodates asymptotic dependence, asymptotic independence and asymmetry within a straightforward parsimonious parameterization. We provide a fast simulation algorithm for this example and detail likelihood‐based inference including tests for asymptotic dependence and symmetry which are useful for submodel selection. We illustrate this model by application to both simulated and real data. In contrast with the classical multivariate extreme value approach, which concentrates on the limiting distribution of normalized componentwise maxima, our framework focuses directly on the structure of the limiting joint survivor function and provides significant extensions of both the theoretical and the practical tools that are available for joint tail modelling.
Ileal and total digestibility of amino acids in feeds used in mink and polar fox nutrition

The results of research on the apparent ileal and total digestibility of nitrogen and amino acids in mink and polar foxes are presented. The research reveals lower values of apparent nitrogen and amino acid digestibility coefficients in the small intestine than in the whole alimentary tract of these animals fed on diets containing different sources of animal protein. Fresh fish proteins showed higher ileal and total digestibility of nitrogen and amino acids than fish meal proteins. The increase or sole content of fish meals in the diets caused more rapid digesta passage, a rise in the amount of voided faeces and lower apparent ileal and total digestibility of nitrogen and amino acids. After diets containing whole fish and beef, the amino acids with the highest digestibility were methionine and lysine. After the diets containing fish meal, meat meal, meat-and-bone meal, and poultry by-product meal, arginine was the amino acid that was the quickest to be absorbed from the small intestine in mink and polar foxes. The amino acids of the lowest availability in the small intestine, as well as in the whole alimentary tract of these species appeared to be threonine and cystine. The lowest apparent digestibility of these amino acids probably resulted from their high content in endogenous nitrogen released in the digestive tract of mink and polar foxes.
The States Must Be Crazy: Dissent and the Puzzle of Repressive Persistence

According to forty years worth of research, dissent always increases repression whereas state coercive behavior has a range of different influences on dissident activity. If the outcome of government action is uncertain, why do authorities continue to apply repression? We explore this “puzzle of repressive persistence” using official records of U.S. government activities against the Republic of New Africa, a Black Nationalist organization active in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In particular, we investigate three proposed answers to the puzzle: repression is effective but in a way not currently considered; repression functions by mechanisms not hitherto considered by quantitative researchers; or those who use repression are not actually interested in eliminating dissent. We find that persistence in this case can be attributed to: 1) a long-term plan to eliminate challengers deemed threatening to the U.S. political-economy and 2) the influence of particular agents of repression engaged in a crusade against Black radicals. Both factors increased the likelihood of continued coercion despite short-term failure; indeed such an outcome actually called for additional repressive action. These insights open up a new area of research for conflict scholars interested in occurrence, persistence and escalation.