Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Factors Determining the Predictability of Stock Prices in Emerging Capital Markets : Evidence from Colombo Stock Exchange

Empirical evidence on predictability of stock returns in advanced and emerging capital markets is seemingly mixed. Stock returns in emerging capital markets appear to display weak-form inefficiency. Empirical evidence on the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE), which is one of the emerging capital markets, has also shown that stock returns tend to display weak-form inefficiency, though factors determining such inefficiency are not well-recognized. This paper, therefore, empirically examines factors determining inefficiency of stock prices focusing on macroeconomic and socio political variables. This study uses time series econometric methods for monthly data from 1985(1) to 2011(5). Results show that there is a long-run relationship between stock returns and macroeconomic variables. Results of Error Correction Model (ECM) and Granger causality tests reveal that there are no such casual links in the short-run. Socio-political variables all together tend to affect stock price movements. These findings suggest that public information on macroeconomic and socio-political conditions tend to determine stock price movements in the CSE. The empirical results, therefore, indicate that macroeconomic and socio-political variables can, to a considerable extent, be used to predict price movements in emerging capital markets.
Significant association between MDM 2 T 309 G polymorphism and colorectal cancer

1Clinic of General Surgery, Medicana Sivas Hospital, Sivas, Turkey; 2Department of Nutrition and Diet, Cumhuriyet University, Faculty of Health Sciences, Sivas, Turkey; 3Department of Biochemistry, Omer Halis Demir University, Faculty of Medicine, Nigde, Turkey; 4Department of General Surgery, Cumhuriyet University, Faculty of Medicine, Sivas, Turkey; 5Department of Biochemistry, Cumhuriyet University, Faculty of Medicine, Sivas, Turkey.
Preliminary paleoenvironmental analysis of permafrost deposits

A megaslump at Batagaika, in northern Yakutia, exposes a remarkable stratigraphic sequence of permafrost deposits ~50–80 m thick. To determine their potential for answering key questions about Quaternary environmental and climatic change in northeast Siberia, we carried out a reconnaissance study of their cryostratigraphy and paleoecology, supported by four rangefinder C ages. The sequence includes two ice complexes separated by a unit of fine sand containing narrow syngenetic ice wedges and multiple palaeosols. Overall, the sequence developed as permafrost grew syngenetically through an eolian sand sheet aggrading on a hillslope. Wood remains occur in two forest beds, each associated with a reddened weathering horizon. The lower bed contains high amounts of Larix pollen (>20%), plus small amounts of Picea and Pinus pumila, and is attributed to interglacial conditions. Pollen from the overlying sequence is dominated by herbaceous taxa (~70–80%) attributed to an open tundra landscape during interstadial climatic conditions. Of three hypothetical age schemes considered, we tentatively attribute much of the Batagaika sequence to Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 3. The upper and lower forest beds may represent a mid-MIS 3 optimum and MIS 5, respectively, although we cannot discount alternative attributions to MIS 5 and 7.
Possible role of acylphosphatase , Bcl-2 and Fas / FasL system in the early changes of cardiac remodeling induced by volume overload

To identify early adaptive processes of cardiac remodeling (CR) in response to volume overload, we investigated the molecular events that may link intracellular Ca + homeostasis alterations and cardiomyocyte apoptosis. In swine heart subjected to aorto-cava shunt for 6, 12, 24, 48 and 96 h sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) Ca + pump activity was reduced until 48 h ( 30%), but a recovery of control values was found at 96 h. The decrease in SR Ca -ATPase (SERCA2a) expression at 48 h, was more marked ( 60%) and not relieved by a subsequent recovery, while phospholamban (PLB) concentration and phosphorylation were unchanged at all the considered times. Conversely, acylphosphatase activity and expression significantly increased from 48 to 96 h ( + 40%). Bcl-2 expression increased significantly from 6 to 24 h, but at 48 h, returned to control values. At 48 h, microscopic observations showed that overloaded myocardium underwent substantial damage and apoptotic cell death in concomitance with an enhanced Fas/Fas-L expression. At 96 h, apoptosis appeared attenuated, while Fas/ Fas-L expression was still higher than control values and cardiomyocyte hypertrophy became to develop. These data suggest that in our experimental model, acylphosphatase could be involved in the recovery of SERCA2a activity, while cardiomyocyte apoptosis might be triggered by a decline in Bcl-2 expression and a concomitant activation of Fas. D 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Synthesis , Antimicrobial , and Anti-HIV 1 Activity of Quinazoline-4 ( 3 H )-one Derivatives

The present investigation aims to synthesize 11 compounds of quinazoline-1 derivatives and to test their antimicrobial and anti-HIV1 activities. A quick-witted method was developed for the synthesis of novel substituted quinazolinone derivatives by summarizing diverse diamines with benzoxazine reactions, and it demonstrated the benefits of typical reactions, handy operation, and outstanding product yields.These compoundswere confirmed by elemental analysis, I R, HNMR, CNMR, andmass spectra. Then antimicrobial and anti-HIV1 activities of the compounds were tested in-vitro. It was found that compounds 7–11 possessed a wide range of anti microbial and anti-HIV1 activity.
Z boson production in proton-lead collisions accounting for transverse momenta of initial partons

We report on a recent calculation of inclusive Z boson production in proton-lead collisions at the LHC taking into account the transverse momenta of the initial partons [1]. In the calculation the framework of kT -factorization has been used. The appropriate TMDs for lead nuclei have been constructed using the parton branching method. The results are compared with data from CMS taken at √ s = 5.02 TeV.
FIELD EVALUATION OF PRODUCTIVE PERFORMANCE OF GRADED AND CROSSBRED CATTLE IN CHHATTISGARH

The present study was undertaken to assess the performance of graded and crossbred cattle in Chhattisgarh. A total of 200 cows taking 50 cows from each group were analysed from three blocks i.e. Dhamtari and kurud block of Dhamtari district and Gurur block of Durg district. The animals were divided into four groups: (1) Holstein Friesian/Jersey × Local (Crossbred, (CB)); (2) Gir × Local (G × L); (3) Sahiwal × Local (Sw × L) and (4) Red Sindhi × Local (RS × L). The productive traits considered for the study include daily milk yield (DMY), total lactation milk yield (TLMY), peak yield (PY) and lactation length (LL). All the information was collected from farmer’s interview. Result of this study revealed that all the productive traits showed comparatively higher values for CB cows than graded animals. In case of graded animals G × L and Sw × L showed better performance than RS × L. In case of other non-genetic factors parity and feeding system had significant effect whereas period of calving and season of calving had non-significant effect on all the productive traits under study. From the present investigation it may be concluded that, CB animal showed marginally superior over graded animals in terms of productive performance.
Essentials of a Qualitative Doctorate

I. Introduction: The qualitative doctorate 1. Perspectives on qualitative research II. The Initiatl Stage 2. Selecting a topic and finding a research question 3. Selecting a research approach 4. Proposal writing 5. The importance of ethical issues 6. The role of the literature III. The Research Journey 7. The monitoring process 8. The qualitative research process 9. Problematic issues in the research process IV. The Final Stage 10. Writing up the qualitative dissertation 11. The examination process and defense of the study 12. Dissemination of research findings List of texts for qualitative research Notes References Index About the authors
Thermoelastic Analysis of Porous Media Using a Multiscale Asymptotic Expansion Homogenization Method

In this study, a multiscale finite element analysis coupled with the asymptotic expansion homogenization (AEH) method is employed to investigate the linear thermoelastic behavior of a porous medium. A stochastic method using a mixture of Gaussian functions distribution is used to generate microstructures. The simulated microstructures are produced based on the porosity of a Marcellus shale sample. The AEH method is used to determine the homogenized material properties of simulated random microstructures. A porous medium with material and transport properties that vary between the bedding layers and the matrix is generated. The influence of gas pressure, as well as thermal and mechanical loading on the porous medium is studied and the influence of the pore size and porosity of microstructures on the evolution of stress is investigated.
Usability Evaluation of E-School System in Thi Qar Province

8102 465 Usability Evaluation of E-School System in Thi Qar Province Khalid Abdul Razzaq Abdul Nabi Al Minshid Ministry of Education-Iraq ABSTRACT Over the past thirty years, the world has seen fast evolution in information Technology, and the applications of this science have become available to most governments over the world, including Iraq. Accordingly, the ministry of education in Iraq, since 2003 is making an effort to introduce the ideas of the e-learning technology to take advantage of the benefits of this technology by applying a set of information technology projects so as to prove and develop the education level over Iraqi students. This paper, considers the analysis of the students ' acceptance of e-school system, which is applied in more than forty Iraqi school in Thi-Qar province, so as to identify the most important factors that have a role in accepting students to apply e-school system. 100 questioners were distributed over the students, but only 76 were returned, SPSS software was utilized in order to analysis four factors had elected based on the related work and literature review. The finding represented in; the ease of use was not impact issue of the students acceptance and the important issue for the students is the belief of students that e-school is usefulness for enhancing their grades and education level. Finally, the outcomes can be employed to boost the guidelines on future work.
Analyzing the influence of online behaviors and learnings approaches on academic performance in first year engineering

Over the last four decades, the study of academic performance in higher education has increased its number of information sources to understand phenomena such as student achievement or dropout. The first econometric models in the field commonly used student characteristics, pre-college achievement, and college performance. Then, a large range of psychosocial theories, with its respective instruments (typically questionnaires), added a new layer of analyses that complemented previous models. Recently, colleges and universities have dramatically expanded their capacity to capture student data through different systems. Such is the case of the learning management systems (LMS), which provide dynamic and a large amount of data about student online behavior. We are just beginning to explore how these layers of data come together to explain academic performance. In this study, we seek to understand and model these layers of data from a first year cohort at a large engineering school in Chile (784 students). First, we use support vector regressions to model second semester GPA on student characteristics, pre-college data, first semester grades, and online behavior. We then added to the model information extracted from the LEARN+ questionnaire, a psychosocial instrument that profiles different learning approaches (i.e., surface, strategic, and deep) and environmental perceptions. The results indicate that both online behavior and LEARN+ data increase prediction power. In addition to first semester performance, the features that seem to explaining academic achievement in the second semester to a significant extent are the LMS interaction distribution over the semester, perception of applied knowledge, and the score in the science score in the national admission test. These results are important for first year engineering, since in this field first year performance has long lasting effects on future persistence and achievement.
NOW AND THEN : The Global Nutrition Transition : The Pandemic of Obesity in Developing Countries

Decades ago discussion of an impending global pandemic of obesity was thought of as heresy. Diets in the 1970’s began to shift toward increased reliance upon processed foods, increased away from home intake and greater use of edible oils and sugar-sweetened beverages. Reduced physical activity and increased sedentary time was seen also. These changes began in the early 1990-‘s in the low and middle income world but did not become clearly recognized until diabetes, hypertension and obesity began to dominate the globe. Urban and rural areas from sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia’s poorest countries to the higher income ones are shown to have experienced rapid increases in overweight and obesity status. Concurrent rapid shifts in diet and activity are documented. An array of large-scale programmatic and policy shifts are being explored in a few countries; however despite the major health challenges faced, few countries are serious in addressing prevention of the dietary challenges faced.
1 EU and International Policy Measures : the Liberalization of the European Dairy Market

The milk supply chain has been interested by great changes during the last two decades and, in particular, there has been a great trade liberalization and a conspicuous policy change due to the abolition of milk quotas. These market changes are likely to have had a large impact on the transmission of price along the supply chain. Our analysis aims at exploring how market changes have altered vertical price transmission, and, in particular, how asymmetries have changes over tims. We use an asymmetric error correction model to infer on short run and long-run adjustments and conclude on the potential role played by market changes.
Single-Walled Carbon Nanotube±Polymer Composites: Strength and Weakness**

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PREVALENCE, STRUCTURE AND PREDICTORS OF POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER SYMPTOMS IN CROATIAN PATIENTS FOLLOWING BREAST CANCER

Background: Breast cancer is the most common cancer in female population worldwide. In the psychological response to the disease some patients may develop Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) symptomatology. The aim of this study was to examine the prevalence and structure of PTSD symptoms in Croatian patients following breast cancer and to identify some medical and psychological predictors of severity of these symptoms.Subjects and methods: 97 women, who were one month up to six years post-completion of all primary cancer therapy,participated in the study. The present research is cross-sectional with a mixed method approach. For the screening of PTSD symptoms PTSD Checklist - Civilian Version (Weathers et al. 1991) was used, with two open-ended questions added.Results: Using the cutoff method, 21.6 % participants met criteria for PTSD diagnosis. Qualitative analysis indicated future-oriented intrusive thoughts about reoccurrence of cancer, multidimensional nature of cancer as stressors, and hyperarousal symptoms related to internal stimuli. In hierarchical multiple regression analyses, identified predictors accounted for 35.2% of variability in PCL-C score.PTSD severity was predicted by stressfulness appraisal of the disease (β=0.45; p<0.001), external health locus of control (β=0.17; p<0.05) and self-appraisal of coping with cancer (β=-0.17; p<0.05). Participants who underwent radical mastectomy (M=44.41, SD=15.5) showed higher levels of PTSD than participants who had partial mastectomy (M=33.47, SD=13.68). Conclusion: Prevalence of PTSD symptoms obtained in this study should be considered as significant, taking into account the lifetime prevalence of PTSD in the general female population. Psychological assessment of women following breast cancer should more often include an assessment of posttraumatic stress reactions. Furthermore, results are in the line with issues of utilizing basic concept of PTSD in the oncology setting, and possible need of reconceptualization of cancer-related PTSD.
Accelerated Algorithm for Compressed Sensing Using Nonlinear Sparsifying Transform in CT Image Reconstruction

In our previous paper (J Dong, H Kudo: Proposal of compressed sensing using nonlinear sparsifying transform for CT image reconstruction. Medical Imaging Technology. Vol. 34 pp235-244, 2016), we showed that nonlinear sparsifying transform provides a new framework of compressed sensing (CS) for sparse-view CT image reconstruction. Furthermore, it was experimentally demonstrated to have superiority in improving image quality compared to total variation (TV) minimization, which is the most standard approach in CS. The image quality improvement appears in removing patchy artifacts, preserving accurate object boundaries, and preserving image textures. The TV uses the gradient transform which considers only correlations between adjacent pixels, while the nonlinear sparsifying transform can consider evaluating intensity variations among a specified relatively large search window. This property can be considered to be the key reason for achieving image quality improvement by the nonlinear sparsifying transform. However, the iterative algorithm developed in our previous paper, which can be viewed as a special case of standard iterative-thresholding (IT) algorithm, suffers from a drawback that it converges very slowly leading to a long computation time. The main reason of slow convergence is that the IT algorithm belongs to a class of simultaneous iterative algorithms, in which all projection data are used simultaneously (in parallel) for each image update. However, as is well-known in past research activities of CT image reconstruction, it is expected that the convergence can be significantly accelerated by introducing a class of row-action or block-iterative algorithm. Based on this observation, in this paper, we propose an accelerated algorithm of the CS using nonlinear sparsifying transform. By using proximal splitting framework, we succeeded in performing image update with a row-action-type program. The row-action-type update showed an encouraging acceleration such that both the iteration number and the computation time were reduced significantly compared to our previous simultaneous iterative algorithm. We investigated the efficiency of proposed accelerated algorithm using a numerical phantom and a practical CT image.
The relationship between the hematologic indices after thrombolysis in patients with myocardial infarction

The objective of the present study was to determine the relationship between the hematologic indices including MPV and WBC count at the admission time of patients with ST resolution index in patients with STEMI who were treated by thrombolytic agents. In this prospective study, venous blood samples of 114 patients with STEMI were taken to determine PDW, MPV and WBC count at patients' referral time and before thrombolytic therapy. According to ST resolution index in 90 minutes after thrombolytic therapy, patients were classified in two groups with ST resolution less than 50% and ST resolution of 50% or more. In assessing through ROC curve analysis, it was determined that measuring MPV is not considered as an accurate and effective index in predicting ST resolution after thrombolysis (Area Under Curve: 0.574). WBC count was not an applicable indicator for predicting ST resolution after thrombolysis, as well (Area Under Curve: 0.660). Finally, the results of multiple logistic regression model showed that the only predictor of ST resolution less than 50% is the history of using statins so that history of using statin increased the probability of ST resolution less than 50% for 7 times (P: 0.028, OR: 7.306). There is not a relationship between the occurrence of complete ST resolution (more than 50%) and the values of both MPV and WBC indices. So, measuring these two indicators may not have the enough validity for predicting ST resolution after thrombolysis.
Effect of Knowledge of Task on Organizational Productivity in Nigeria

The growth of any organization as well as its survival in a turbulent business environment is a function of welltrained employees. Knowledge of task is imperative for all employee of an organization for them to be more productive. Training is a process designed to equip nonmanagerial employees with the skill requirements for their category of work in spite of the knowledge they already possess. However, such knowledge form the foundation upon which training is built. The study made use of Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill formular to get it's sample size. Survey design was use, as well as Primary data. A simple regression analysis was used to test the hypothesis. Tested hypotheses showed a significant relationship between employees' knowledge of task performance and productivity in family businesses with a p-value=0.000; r=0.321. This evidence affirmed that knowledge from training enhanced productivity. Result shows that there is a significant relationship between employee knowledge of task and productivity.