Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An improved model of redshift-space distortions around voids: application to quintessence dark energy

Using cosmic voids to probe the growth rate of cosmic structure, and hence the nature of dark energy, is particularly interesting in the context of modified gravity theories that rely on the screening mechanism. In this work we improve the modelling of redshift-space distortions around voids in the dark matter density field, and thus reduce systematic errors in the derivation of cosmological parameters. We also show how specific types of voids can be used to better probe the growth rate, using a flexible void finder. We apply our results to test for a quintessence type of dark energy vs. a LCDM model, and find a good agreement with the fiducial cosmology after implementing an analytical correction to the radial velocity profiles around voids. We additionally outline characteristic imprints of dark energy in the dark matter velocity distributions around voids.
Development of a consensus approach to upper limb rehabilitation early post stroke amongst a cohort of Western Australian therapists

This study aimed to define commonly reported physiotherapy and occupational therapy terminology regarding rehabilitation interventions for moderate to severe upper limb deficits early poststroke and to develop a consensus on ‘standard’ post-stroke upper limb rehabilitation across three stroke services. An audit was undertaken of all middle cerebral artery strokes admitted over a nine-month period to an acute tertiary hospital. Data were collected from 48 cases of middle cerebral artery stroke. Twenty four cases had moderate to severe upper limb impairment, and of these 16 were transferred to the two participating rehabilitation sites. A list of upper limb interventions documented in these 16 cases was distributed to therapists from the three participating sites (nine Physiotherapists, 13 Occupational Therapists) who subsequently attended focus groups. Definitions for reported interventions were developed, collated and refined until group agreement was reached using a modified Delphi method. Approaches to upper limb rehabilitation varied according to therapists’ clinical experience and training background; however, definitions did not vary widely between services or disciplines. A consensus on ‘usual care’ for moderate to severe upper limb deficits within participating stroke services was developed from which a structured, individualised, impairment-based treatment template was produced for use in a subsequent interventional study. Garcia-Vega G, Gregory G, Lind C, Singer B (2016) Development of a consensus approach to upper limb rehabilitation early post stroke amongst a cohort of Western Australian therapists. New Zealand Journal of Physiotherapy 44(3): 133-147. doi: 10.15619/NZJP/44.3. 03
Indigenous knowledge on bio-resources management for livelihood of the people of Sikkim.

Sikkim is not self-sufficient in food production due to limited land availability for cultivation and lower level of productivity affected by constraining mountain specificities such as inaccessibility, fragility and marginality. The people are rich in indigenous knowledge on bio-resources and supplemented their food from the wild plants and animals in the beginning. Now, fifteen types of indigenous farming systems have been identified, and these farming systems and wild boiresource supplements have been described along with field verification study.
Identification of Potential Stormwater Recharge Zones in dense urban context: A Case Study from Pune City

Anthropogenic alterations have affected urban hydrology in India and have generated a wide range of hydrological problems. Such alterations include increase in directly-connected impervious cover thus reducing natural groundwater recharge. In the past urban runoff was largely viewed as a nuisance, but within the new paradigm of sustainability, this water is recognized as a potential resource. This research paper discusses the importance of managing stormwater sustainably by recharging groundwater sources. It indicates the potential of stormwater harvesting, when properly managed, as a tool to counter depleting water sources and ever-increasing demand for water. The present study aims at developing a potential stormwater recharge zone map for a sub watershed in Pune city, India using GIS. Five classes of thematic maps have been integrated to prepare the final map. Each class is assigned a weightage depending on its influence on the recharge of stormwater. The resultant map (potential stormwater recharge zone map) thus prepared is classified into four classes: Very good, good, moderate and poor.
Approaching the Direct Object Pronouns: How Much Grammatical Form Is Necessary in Instruction?

The main goal of this investigation was to determine if there is a more effective approach among focus on forms, focus on meaning, or focus on form for teaching the direct object pronouns to beginning students of Spanish. It will be beneficial to discover which of these three widely-used approaches can best help students to acquire correct pronoun use, and may aid instructors of Spanish in the teaching of these pronouns. In order to compare these approaches, three sections of a beginning Spanish course received instruction in one of the three approaches. The participants of this study were 51 beginning level students who had had 3 years of Spanish instruction at the high school level and were native speakers of English. The study follows a pretest/posttest design. Results find positive results for form-focused instruction over purely meaning-focused instruction for teaching the Spanish direct object pronouns with regards to sentence completion tasks. A main implication of this study is that focus on meaning instruction is not sufficient to help beginning learners improve their production of Spanish direct object pronouns. While results show a more positive impact for focus on form instruction over the more traditional focus on forms approach, additional research comparing these two methods is suggested. It is also important to note that beginning level learners show overall low levels of accuracy with direct object pronouns in Spanish.
Camera-trap study of ocelot and other secretive mammals in the northern Pantanal

Reliable information on abundance of the ocelot (Leopardus pardalis) is scarce. We conducted the first camera-trap study in the northern part of the Pantanal wetlands of Brazil, one of the wildlife hotspots of South America. Using capture-recapture analysis, we estimated a density of 0.112 independent individuals per km2 (SE 0.069). We list other mammals recorded with camera traps and show that camera-trap placement on roads or on trails has striking effects on camera-trapping rates.
The impact of governance and institutions on education and poverty alleviation: a panel study of SAARC economies

The present study examines the impacts of governance and institutions on education and poverty alleviation in South Asia. Poverty, illiteracy and poor quality education are the major problems of developing world. As depraved education and poverty are the main problems of developing nations. Good governance provides a platform for inquiring the long menu of institutional changes and proper initiatives which are currently considered as essential for development. Institutions affect both poverty and education directly and indirectly through number of channels which in turn affect government policies for making decisions regarding poverty reduction and quality education. However, poor governance and weak institutional structure also remained the pressing issue of developing economies. This study endeavors to identify the relationship between these two areas and try to dig out the impacts of governance and institutions on education and poverty in the south Asian economies through econometric techniques.
Links between humans and ecosystems: the implications of framing for health promotion strategies

To explore potential links between ecosystems and human health, we set out three ways of seeing or frames: environmental hazards and burden of illness; ecosystem conditions and human well-being; and environmental justice and human core values. Each frame provides a basis for making connections but also poses certain challenges: expanding research methods, linking with other conditions of human well-being and clarifying value bases. We discuss actions which build on the strengths of the different frames to deal with the challenges: linking with those seeking greater ecosystem protection, focusing on clean production strategies, emphasizing environmental degradation as one aspect of social justice and building on concerns such as reproduction which are closer to human core values. Health promotion practitioners and policy makers can flexibly use the frames in arguing for the betterment of both ecosystems and humans. Links between humans and ecosystems: the implications of framing for health promotion strategies
Assessment of Predisposing Factors for Joint Contracture among Patients with Burn at One of the Governmental University Hospitals

Background: Burn is a serious health problem globally. Every year more than 300, 000 people die from fires only and millions of people are disabled and disfigured by severe burns. Survivors of burns often lead to a life complicated not only by the physical consequences of the burns, but also by stigma and discrimination related to the disability and disfigurement. The aim of the study was to assess the predisposing factors for joint contractures among patients with burn. The research question: what are the predisposing factors for joint contractures among patient with burn? Research design: A descriptive/exploratory research design was utilized to achieve the purpose of this study. Subjects: A convenience sample of 176 adult male and female burn patients diagnosed post burn contracture as a result of 2nd and / or 3rd degree burn injury admitted to the surgical wards and burn unit at one of the governmental university hospitals was recruited in the current study as the burn cases admission increase increased in the following three years (2010, 2011, and 2012) as (405, 543, 487) respectively. The study sample calculated using a power analysis Tool: Burn assessment data sheet consists of two parts: 1- Demographic data sheet and 2- Predisposing factor assessment sheet through direct interview with patients. Results and conclusion: The study results concluded that the highest percent of the predisposing factors for joint contractures among patients with burn injury are (wound not healed on discharge, presence of signs of infection, no physical exercise after discharge, male, accidental burn injury, hospital not near, Rt.arm as a region of burn joint involved and no skin plastic surgery). Middle percent of them are (no health teaching about type of food, Lt. arm region of burn involved, home as a place of burn, married, rural area, limited movement for the affected joint, no application of joint support, educational level as diplome and no health teaching about correct joint positioning) followed by the lowest percent which are (2nd and 3rd degree burn injury, 20- as a percentage of burn injury, refuse to do physical exercise, no movement of the affected joint, Age (18˂ 30), flame burn and late starting of physical exercise. Recommendations: Developing a comprehensive treatment and rehabilitation program for those patients. All burn patients should receive adequate care to avoid post burn complication.
Dhonagoda River: Threats Investigation of River and Biodiversity for Policy Implementation

The River Dhonagoda is one of the important Rivers of Chandpur district with diverse fish biodiversity and supports livelihood for fisher’s community. The present study was conducted from January 2016 to September 2017 to determine the threats on the River Dhonagoda and fish biodiversity and to document fish species with their present conservation status both in the context of Bangladesh and global aspects. The major threats to Dhonagoda River and its fish biodiversity were found to be the illegal River encroachments, use of River bank soil, indiscriminate killing and overexploitation of fish fry and fingerling, habitat destruction, use of destructive fishing gear and methods, silt bed, water pollution and lack of proper management initiatives. A total of 56 fish species were documented belonging to 9 orders and 23 families. The most dominant order was found to be Siluriformes consisting 32% of the total fish population. Cyprinidae was found to be the richest family (21.4%). In the studied areas 15 common groups were recorded where Catfish contributes the highest percentages (32%). River-Estuary was found to be the biggest habitat for the maximum number of fishes (50%). Among the total identified fish species from the River Dhonagoda, 13 threatened fish species (19%) were recorded in which 6 species (46%) were found as Vulnerable (VU), 5 species (38%) as Endangered (EN) and 2 species (16%) as Critically Endangered (CR). To save the River and to conserve its fish biodiversity best management practices have to be adopted and strictly implemented by the proper authority.
Optimization Model for Backup Resource Allocation in Middleboxes

Network function virtualization paradigm enables us to implement network functions provided in middleboxes as software which runs on commodity servers. This paper proposes a backup resource allocation model for middleboxes with considering failure probabilities of network functions and backup servers. Multiple backup servers, each of which is allowed to protect several functions, can be assigned to protect one function. When a function fails, one of the corresponding servers providing protection is required to recover it, if the function is protected by any server. We aim to find an assignment of servers to functions where the unavailability of the function that is in the worst case is minimized. We formulate the backup resource allocation problem as a mixed integer linear programming problem. We prove that the backup resource allocation problem is NP-complete by showing that the partition problem is reducible to it. A heuristic algorithm is introduced to solve the same optimization problem. We analyze the computational time complexity of the heuristic algorithm as a polynomial. We show the comparison results obtained by the heuristic algorithm and by solving the mixed integer linear programming problem in terms of deviation and computational time. The results reveal that the heuristic algorithm needs about 10•5 times computational time, compared to that of solving the mixed integer linear programming problem, to obtain a solution, where the worst unavailability over all the functions is about 1.6 times of the optimal value in average in our examined scenarios.
Mitigating effects of salicylic acid against herbicidal stress

Background, the context and purpose of the study: Pendimethalin [N-(1-ethyl propyl)-2, 6dinitro-3, 4 xylidine] is one of the most commonly used herbicides. It induces harmful effect on non-target plants besides controlling the weed emergence. Salicylic acid (SA) plays an important role in abiotic stress tolerance. Present study was to assess the comparative efficacy of SA in combination with different concentrations of pendimethalin on black gram (Vigna mungo). The seeds of test plant were treated with field relevant concentrations (2, 5 and 10 ppm) of pendimethalin (P) and in combination with SA (0.5 mM) to observe effect of SA against herbicide toxicity. Experiment was performed in petri dish as well as in pot culture. The toxic effect of pendimethalin and SA on seed germination (SG), radicle length (RL) and mitotic index (MI) was evaluated in petri dish culture. Seedling height, pigments, protein, sugar contents and lipid peroxidation (LP) of 15 days old seedling were measured in pot culture. Total antioxidants (TA) were monitored as plant defence against oxidative stress. Results, the main findings: Results showed that SG and seedling growth of Vigna mungo decreased under P1, P2 and P3 treatments. RL and MI were also reduced significantly (p<0.05) in treatments with herbicide and reduction was more pronounced in P 3 treatment. A slight increase of SG and seedling growth was observed in P2 treatment compared to P1. Herbicide treatment remarkably declined pigment, protein and sugar contents of the seedlings when compared with control. TA and malondialdehyde (MDA) content increase significantly under pendimethalin treated seedlings. Combined treatment (P+SA) elevated growth of the seedlings. As a consequence of herbicidal stress, SA enhanced SG, RL, MI, pigment, protein and sugar content significantly. Under combined treatments, LP and TA were decreased when compared with pendimethalin treatment. Conclusions, brief summary and potential implications: SA enhanced growth of Vigna mungo not only in combination with pendimethalin but also in treatment with SA alone as compared to control. Thus the results reveal, the role of SA in protection of Vigna mungo against herbicidal stress is apparent. The results are discussed in light of recent information.
Consumer involvement profiles: An application of consumer involvement in mobile industry

Article history: Received July 28, 2013 Accepted 14 January 2014 Available online February 27 2014 This paper investigates consumer involvement profile among people who intend to purchase mobile devises. The study considers the effects of various factors influencing on purchase intention including consumers’ personal characteristics such as age, gender, income as well as some external factors including advertisement. The study uses a questionnaire in Likert scale, originally developed by O’Cass (2000) [O’Cass, A. (2000). An assessment of consumers' product, purchase decision, advertising and consumption involvement in fashion clothing. Journal of Economic Psychology, 21, 545-576. ]. The questionnaire has been distributed among 385 people, randomly who purchased mobile devices from a mall in city of Tehran, Iran. Using Pearson correlation test, the study has concluded that oral advertisement as well as consumer purchase involvement have positive and strong relationship with consumer’s purchase intention. In terms of age, people aged 20-30 maintained the highest purchase intention. In addition, in terms of gender, men had more purchase involvement than women did. © 2014 Growing Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Critical epidemics, random graphs, and Brownian motion with a parabolic drift

We investigate the final size distribution of the SIR (susceptible-infected-recovered) epidemic model in the critical regime. Using the integral representation of Martin-Löf (1998) for the hitting time of a Brownian motion with parabolic drift, we derive asymptotic expressions for the final size distribution that capture the effect of the initial number of infectives and the closeness of the reproduction number to zero. These asymptotics shed light on the bimodularity of the limiting density of the final size observed in Martin-Löf (1998). We also discuss the connection to the largest component in the Erdős-Rényi random graph, and, using this connection, find an integral expression of the Laplace transform of the normalized Brownian excursion area in terms of Airy functions.
Assessing the Job Selection Criteria of Accounting Students: A Normative Approach

This research assessed to what extent final-year Muslim accounting students in Malaysia considered Islamic principles when choosing a job after graduation. 356 final-year Muslim accounting students in four Malaysian universities were surveyed using an open-ended job selection scenario. The result shows that reality does not live up to the ideal. Only 16% of the respondents apply Islamic principles in making a job selection decision. The remaining 84% are more concerned with other criteria such as personal interests, salary considerations, and company reputation.
Induction of Cytochrome P 450 1 A 1 by Ketoconazole and Itraconazole but not Fluconazole in Murine and Human Hepatoma Cell Lines

Azole antifungal agents are widely prescribed drugs for the treatment of systemic fungal infections; however, since their introduction into the market, increasing evidences of hepatotoxicity have been reported. Therefore, we examined here the ability of three structurally different antifungal drugs, ketoconazole (KTZ), itraconazole (ITZ), and fluconazole (FLZ) to induce the CYP1A1, an enzyme known to play an important role in chemical activation of xenobiotics to toxic metabolites. KTZ and ITZ, but not FLZ, induced the CYP1A1 in murine Hepa 1c1c7 and human HepG2 hepatoma cells at the mRNA, protein and activity levels in a concentrationand time-dependent manner. The increases in Cyp1a1 mRNA levels mediated by KTZ and ITZ were completely blocked by the RNA synthesis inhibitor, actinomycin D, whereas the level of existing mRNA was not altered, implying a requirement of de novo RNA synthesis through a transcriptional mechanism. The ability of these drugs to directly activate the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) transformation and hence xenobiotic responsive element’s binding was strongly correlated with their abilities to induce luciferase activity. Inhibition studies showed that KTZ and ITZ, in addition to being CYP1A1 inducers, are substrates and competitive inhibitors. This study provides the first evidence for the ability of KTZ and ITZ to induce the CYP1A1 gene expression through an AhR-dependent mechanism, and suggests a novel mechanism of the KTZand ITZ-mediated toxicities.
Multiple-Frequency CW Radar and the Array Structure for Uncoupled Angle-Range Indication

The frequency diverse array (FDA) radar has drawn great attention due to its range-, angle-, and time-dependent beampattern. However, the FDA radar suffers ambiguities in determining target locations, i.e., angle and range of targets are coupled. In this letter, we find that the key to decoupling the target location lies in destroying the mutual dependence of angle and range. Hence, the multiple-frequency continuous wave (MFCW) radar is proposed. The range measurement is obtained by transmitting continuous waves with multiple frequencies and separating the multiple echoes by digital mixer in the receiving end. The range information exists in the phase difference among the multiple echoes, and this process can be seen as sampling in range by multiple frequencies. Then, if a receiving array is used for spatial sampling, an angle measurement is obtained and the target location is decoupled. Four modes of the MFCW radar are derived and the reason for the uncoupled angle-range indication in the beampattern is analyzed in detail. The effectiveness of the proposed scheme is verified by simulation results.
The Impact of Democracy on Poverty Levels

Robert Dahl argued that individuals living in a democracy can find better alternatives to meet basic needs such as food, health, education and housing. However, there are two assumptions that cast doubt on this hypothesis. First, democracies are usually developed in more unequal contexts. Second, on democracy, inequality can generate higher levels of poverty. By applying multiple linear regressions and instrumental-variables regressions, it was found that, in a democracy, both the context and citizens could influence on decreasing poverty levels. Procedural elements are essential to generate better contexts and citizens, through different types of participation, can influence the government to offer better public policies, especially those related to poverty levels. Higher citizen participation levels and with better procedural elements, individuals could perceive that their democracy is of higher quality and they would support more this type of regime. In the analysis also it was found that per capita income level is an important indicator of efficiency of citizen participation because political action is only efficient in rich democracies. DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2016. v5n3s1p491