Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of Short-Term Practice With a Tonic Drone Accompaniment on Middle and High School Violin and Viola Intonation

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of tonic drone accompaniment on the intonation of violinists and violists. Twenty-eight middle and high school students performed an ascending diatonic line and a descending dominant 7th arpeggio on the violin or viola in three trials: pretest, posttest accompanied with drone, and posttest unaccompanied. The students were grouped based on age and years of experience. A significant difference in cent deviation scores was found between age groups but not years of experience. Post hoc analysis revealed a significant difference between the middle-age group and the youngest group. No significant difference was found overall between pretest, drone accompanied posttest, and unaccompanied posttest conditions.
Relationship between Personality Traits and Academic Underachievement among Students in Ekeremor and Yenagoa Local Government Areas of Bayelsa State, Nigeria

The study examined the relationship between selected personality traits and academic underachievement among secondary school students in Bayelsa State. The population of the study consisted of 3,610 SSII students in the two local government areas. Two research questions and two hypotheses were answered and tested respectively using the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS). Instruments used to gather data were; the Bakare’s Progressive Matrices (BPM), used to identify students’ mental abilities, Teachers Made Achievement Test (TMAT) on four subjects and Students’ Personality Descriptive Scale (SPTDS) adopted from the Costa and McCrae [1] Five NEO FFI scale. The study used 200 students identified as underachievers. Pearson products moment correlation was used to answer the research questions and probability level with chosen alpha level of 0.05 used to test the hypotheses. The study found a significant negative relationship between agreeableness and academic underachievement while a significant positive relationship exists between neuroticism and academic underachievement among the senior secondary school students used in the study. Based on these outcomes, it was recommended among others that taking students’ personality inventory in secondary school should be made a regular exercise across the academic levels and school-based reinforcement programme should be designed by education administrators to encourage high ability students to maintain and improve their academic performance as well as monitor cases of underachievement.
Variations of Phospholipases A2 in the Geographic Venom Samples of Pitvipers

The geographic variations of phospholipases A2 (PLAs) in the venom of four medically important pit vipers were investigated. We have studied the PLAs by HPLC‐purification, cDNA cloning and sequencing, mass characterization, and functional classification. We found that: 1) Anti‐platelet acidic PLA isoforms in the venoms of Calloselasma rhodostoma from five southeastern Asian countries, and those of the Crotalus v. viridis from seven American States are differentially expressed depending on locality. The variations could be attributed to their distinct specificities towards the platelets of different prey, and to possible adaptation for playing other functional roles. In contrast, structures of the myonecrotic and the edema‐inducing basic PLAs in both venoms were relatively conserved. 2) A special type of the acidic anti‐platelet PLA is present in the venom of some Protobothrops species. Its expression level is diminished in the snake of the southern or the tropical ranges. 3) The venom of Bamboo tree vipers (Trimeresurus stejnegeri) in Taiwan and China showed extraordinary geographic variations in their acidic and basic PLAs. The high RNA‐polymorphism of their venom proteins may have been derived from interbreeding between several ancestral pit viper species. In addition, migration, isolation of different populations and rapid evolution of the venom proteins to adapt for diversified diets may have resulted in further variations in this venom species.
Why and how do distance learners use mobile devices for language learning

Most of the literature on mobile language learning is located in classroom contexts, and often concerns the use of resources developed by teachers or researchers. However, we also need to understand learner initiated practices, in informal as well as formal settings, where mobile language learners are increasingly using digital resources. In this paper, we focus on the emerging practices of students learning languages at a distance. Adult students of five languages at different levels were surveyed about using their mobile devices to support their learning as well as their motivations in doing so. We also draw on eight follow-up interviews. We discuss the learners’ preferred activities, the resources and apps that they use, and also their motivations for their mobile language practices. These distance learners are very aware of how their devices provide them with high exposure to their target language and the importance of such exposure. They also use their mobile devices to introduce variety into their learning and to make it enjoyable. This knowledge of self-directed learners’ practices is extremely valuable in informing educators about how mobile devices feature in language learning and can be harnessed in contributing to it.
Linkage Mechanisms among key Actors in Rice Innovation System in Southeast Nigeria

A nation’s ability to solve problems and sustain economic growth depends partly on its capabilities in science, technology, and innovation. In assessment of linkage mechanisms among key actors in rice innovation system in southeast Nigeria, actors were classified into six major groups according to their main activity in the system namely research agency, policy personnel, technology transfer agencies, farmers, marketers and consumers. These constituted the population of the study. A total sample size of 539 respondents, made up of 40 researchers, 76 policy personnel, 96 technology transfer agencies, 196 farmers, 51 marketers and 80 consumers were used. Percentages and means were used in data analysis. The study revealed that among the actors in rice innovation system, NCRI and IITA had link with technology transfer agencies, IITA had link with the Ministry of Agriculture. the Ministry of Agriculture had link with farmers ( X =2.51) and NAFDAC had link with researchers ( X =2.83). Among technology transfer agencies, ADP had link with researchers ( X =3.00), policy personnel ( X =2.88), farmers ( X =3.00) and Federal Ministry of Commerce had link with researchers ( X =2.73). Marketers had link with policy personnel ( X =2.72) and farmers ( X =2.68), while consumers had link with farmers ( X =2.72). The major linkage mechanisms that existed among the actors was dissemination of knowledge and information ( X = 3.00). The study concludes that for increase in rice production in southeast Nigeria, there is need for strong linkages among the actors in the rice innovation system.
The Effect of Market Transparency on Corporate Disclosure

I study how increased market transparency affects firms’ disclosure incentives. I exploit the staggered introduction of TRACE, which made bond prices and transactions publicly observable, and show firms provide more guidance when their bonds’ prices and trading become observable. This effect is stronger for firms with informationally sensitive bonds, and firms without exchange-listed bonds prior to TRACE. Also, firms become particularly more likely to disclose bad news, consistent with the notion that investors’ access to market information limits managers’ incentives to withhold information. I corroborate my results using a small controlled experiment, in which prices and trading are revealed for a randomized set of bonds. Taken together, my results suggest that observable market outcomes inform investors not only directly by aggregating and revealing investors’ information and beliefs, but also indirectly by increasing corporate disclosure.
Health administrative data enrichment using cohort information: Comparative evaluation of methods by simulation and application to real data

Background Studies using health administrative databases (HAD) may lead to biased results since information on potential confounders is often missing. Methods that integrate confounder data from cohort studies, such as multivariate imputation by chained equations (MICE) and two-stage calibration (TSC), aim to reduce confounding bias. We provide new insights into their behavior under different deviations from representativeness of the cohort. Methods We conducted an extensive simulation study to assess the performance of these two methods under different deviations from representativeness of the cohort. We illustrate these approaches by studying the association between benzodiazepine use and fractures in the elderly using the general sample of French health insurance beneficiaries (EGB) as main database and two French cohorts (Paquid and 3C) as validation samples. Results When the cohort was representative from the same population as the HAD, the two methods are unbiased. TSC was more efficient and faster but its variance could be slightly underestimated when confounders were non-Gaussian. If the cohort was a subsample of the HAD (internal validation) with the probability of the subject being included in the cohort depending on both exposure and outcome, MICE was unbiased while TSC was biased. The two methods appeared biased when the inclusion probability in the cohort depended on unobserved confounders. Conclusion When choosing the most appropriate method, epidemiologists should consider the origin of the cohort (internal or external validation) as well as the (anticipated or observed) selection biases of the validation sample.
Value Relevance of Government Ownership of Equity (Evidence from Russian Listed Companies)

The impact of government ownership of a firm’s equity has generated much discussion in finance, economics, and politics. Extant literature provides evidence of both positive and negative effect of government ownership on the market value of firms with multiple reasons in favor of both effects. There has also been re search on how such effects may differ in different markets. This paper aims to explore value-relevance in Russian financial markets. We are exploring the relationship between government ownership of a firm’s equity on its market value in Russia with the view of answering the research question of how investors in Russia perceive the fact and degree of government ownership on equity measured through the market value of equity. We are using a sample of 159 Russian listed companies to identify relationships between market value and government ownership of equity. Previous studies support a positive relationship between such variables, however evidence from Russian listed firms proves otherwise. We find little statistically significant evidence of such association in the market in general, how ever the industry effect proved to be significant; we find that government control is severely penalized in manufacturing, while rewarded in service sectors; this effect also depends on the concentration of government ownership. This research con­nects to the efficient market hypothesis (EMH).
The Moderating Role of Government Policy on Contractors’ Risk Attitudes in Malaysia Construction Companies

Contractors’ risk attitudes influence their bidding decisions because of their exposure to uncertainties and competitions. The competing contractors may have, over time, developed different risk attitudes that are part of their own organizational culture. Different risk attitudes explain the peculiarity in how firms do their businesses. In a risky situation, individuals’ perceptions have influence on their own risk attitudes. Organizational risk attitude operates within an organization and it defines the accepted and unaccepted risks. This is attributed to how people perceived the control over the intended behaviour which relies on the availability of resources, competency, educational background, support from other people and past experience in the same project. Therefore, this study aims to identify the factors affecting contractors' risk attitudes and then determine the relationship with government policy. A total of 140 copies of questionnaire were randomly distributed to the construction companies in Malaysia. Out of the 140 copies of questionnaire distributed, 124 copies were returned. Conversely, 12 copies of the questionnaire were found to be unusable due to missing data or provided the same responses to all the questions. Thus, overall, 80% of the total copies of questionnaire were usable thereby making up an effective sample of 112. SmartPLS 3 for structural equation modelling was utilized in confirming the hypotheses developed for the study. The findings of this research confirmed that government policy (rules and regulations) played a moderating role in enhancing the factors affecting contractors’ risk attitudes in construction companies in Malaysia.
Forecasting Bond Returns Using Jumps in Intraday Prices

This article builds on the work of previous researchers who showed that the average jump mean in bond prices can predict excess bond returns, capturing the countercyclical behavior of risk premia. We show that these jumps often take place at 8:30 and 10:00, directly linking them to specific macroeconomic news announcements. Mean reversion, which looks at the total return over the past period rather than just the part related to jumps, has no predictive ability. Hence it is important to consider excess returns related to macroeconomic announcements that matter to market participants, and jumps are a good market proxy for what investors believe is important news. Our improved jump measure produces a Sharpe ratio of 0.52 in an out-of-sample market-neutral investment strategy.
Patterns of terricolous and field layer invertebrates along a boreal mire-forest gradient

Atlegrim, O. & Sjoberg, K. 2003: Patterns of terricolous and field layer invertebrates along a boreal mire-forest gradient. — Entomol. Fennica 14: 227–236. In a study area ca. 5 km N of Umea, Sweden, we tested the relationship between abundance and biomass of terricolous and field layer invertebrate taxa along a light gradient (consisting of four different forest habitats of boreal coniferous forests, each represented by one stand). In 1984, five sampling locations, each having 6 pitfall traps and 3 sweep-net samples, were randomly allocated in each stand. In total, 4879 terricolous invertebrates with a biomass of 63 490 mg and 1894 field-layer invertebrates with a biomass of 17 143 mg were caught. Mean values for each sampling location were used to analyse the pattern of invertebrate groups along the gradient using Spearman rank correlation (n = 20). There was a decrease in both abundance and biomass from shaded to sunny forests of Diptera (both terricolous and field layer), Hymenoptera (terricolous), Collembola (field layer) and Lepidoptera larvae (field layer), and for the abundance of terricolous Coleoptera and field layer Hymenoptera. An increase in both abundance and biomass from shaded to sunny forests was found for terricolous Collembola, Homoptera and Acari, and the abundance of terricolous Formicidae and Coleoptera larvae, and the biomass of field layer Hymenoptera larvae and total invertebrates. Diptera, Coleoptera and, especially, Lepidoptera larvae have earlier been shown to be important prey for several bird species breeding in the boreal forest and the high number and biomass of these taxa in the shaded forest habitats may indicate that preserving buffer zones and fragments of wet, shaded forest, currently done in forest management at final felling, is a good strategy.
Fountain codes : Capacity approaching codes design and implementation

Fountain codes are record-breaking sparse-graph codes for channels with erasures, such as the internet, where files are transmitted in multiple small packets, each of which is either received without error or not received. Standard file transfer protocols simply chop a file up into K packet-sized pieces, then repeatedly transmit each packet until it is successfully received. A back channel is required for the transmitter to find out which packets need retransmitting. In contrast, fountain codes make packets that are random functions of the whole file. The transmitter sprays packets at the receiver without any knowledge of which packets are received. Once the receiver has received any N packets, where N is just slightly greater than the original file size K, the whole file can be recovered. In the paper random linear fountain codes, LT codes, and raptor codes are reviewed. The computational costs of the best fountain codes are astonishingly small, scaling linearly with the file size.
Loyalty Measurement in Tourism : A Theoretical Reflection 2

A successful marketing strategy must focus not only on winning new customers but also on developing the loyalty of hard-won existing ones (Palmer 1994). The relational approach to marketing sets customer loyalty as a strategic objective given that many firms have come to realize the economic importance of a loyal customer base (Oliver 1999). Reichheld and Sasser (1990) are frequently cited to highlight this importance. In quantitive terms it estimates that a firm might increase its profits by between 25% and 85% by retaining 5 % of its customers. A key tool for determining the aforementioned impact is the concept of Customer Lifetime Value (CLV), an idea gaining importance as a measure of business success. Nevertheless, there are authors who counsel the maintaining of a certain degree of caution when it comes to measuring the value of a customer. Saren and Tzokas (1998) defend the idea that calculations cannot be based on repeat purchases given that in some sectors these are uncommon. With regard to the tourism sector, Bigné et al. (2005) hold that it is difficult to measure loyalty on the basis of repeat purchases because consumption is
The Relation of Configural and Feature Face Information Under the Condition of Holistic Process

Although it is acknowledged that human face is processed holistically, little is known about how global configural information interacting with local feature information during holistic face processing. To address this issue, we measured subjects' performance in a face learning and identification task. Sixty-three college students participated in this study which consisted of three experiments. In experiment 1, thirty-six subjects were asked to give subjective scores of face clarity modulated through variant low-pass spatial filters. Five low-pass filter levels were chosen for experiment 2 and 3. In experiment 2, fourteen subjects were instructed to identify which testing face picture was previously presented at the beginning of the task. The test pictures were modulated at two levels. At global level, low-pass filters were applied on the whole face; at local level, one of four face features was masked by a focus window containing corresponding non-filter feature. The distracting testing picture was masked at different face feature from target picture. A repeated two-factor (5 low-pass filter levels × 4 face features) ANOVA analysis was conducted to analyze the behavior performance data. In experiment 3, thirteen subjects performed the same task except for using inverted face instead. And same ANOVA analysis was used to analyze the performance data. The results of experiment 2 revealed that the processing of local features within the focus window was more difficult when global configural information outside of the window filtered at lower level. The similar pattern was also observed in experiment 3. These findings support the holistic face processing and further suggest the competing relation between global configural and local feature information processing. In addition, whether face processing is based on configural or feature information depends on the extracting difficulties of feature information. We have found the interacting pattern between global configural information and local feature information during holistic face processing. This specific pattern shows that the crucial information type for sucessful face processing is dynamic changed depending on the information extracting difficulties, which indicates the adaptability of human visual perception system.
Screening for extracellular hydrolytic enzymes production by different halophilic bacteria

At the present time, some industrial processes require enzymes able to act under extreme physicochemical and environmental conditions. Typical enzymes may be degraded when are acting under high temperature, extreme acidic or alkaline pH, high pressure, etc. Halophilic microorganisms have capacity to support high salt concentration in the medium, allowing live under high ionic strength, low aqueous activity, organic solvents, etc., and their enzymes also have these properties. This study describes the extracellular hydrolytic enzyme production of eight moderately halophilic bacteria, isolated from the semi-desert region of Coahuila Mexico. The evaluated enzymes were amylases, proteases, cellulases, xylanases, DNAases, pectinases, chitinases and lipases using culture media with 14% NaCl (w/v). Halo formation was the method used to detect the positive extracellular enzyme production. Most of the strains were able to produce amylases, cellulases, pectinases and xylanases. Where, xylanases were those with the greatest intensity halo formation, and may have potential to be used for bio-catalytic processes.
Mandatory audit firm rotation in a Big 4 audit firm

Mandatory Audit Firm Rotation (MAFR) has recently been given prominence in the Netherlands, when it took effect January 2016, to improve audit quality directly and to enhance auditor independence which subsequently leads to better audit quality. Previous studies show that evidence on the impact of MAFR on audit quality and auditor independence is inconclusive. On top of this, the measures used in these researches are often only proxies of these real constructs. Through a case study in a Big 4 audit firm located in the Netherlands, this thesis therefore examines how and why MAFR affects audit quality and how independence ‘in fact’ plays a role in this. The results of the case study deepens our understanding into the actual relationship between MAFR and the constructs: audit quality and auditor independence ‘in fact’. The outcomes of research demonstrate that MAFR affects four key themes which are related to these constructs: fresh perspective, altering your opinion and audit approach, work attitude in the year before rotating, and behavior in the interpersonal relationship. Additionally, four factors are identified that impact the extent to which MAFR influences these key themes: internal Partner and Senior Manager rotation, awareness of MAFR by lower level auditors, number of public interest entities, and natural rotation. The results of this research provide input for the ongoing discussion related to MAFR and should be of interest to policy makers and regulators in other countries who are considering to implement this policy.