Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Learning by exporting and high-tech capital deepening in Singapore manufacturing industries, 1974–2006

A number of fundamental factors enhance the growth of industries’ productivity. Among others, the export-led and high-tech capital deepening strategies are widely adopted by developing economies. This article attempts to empirically investigate the extent to which both industrial development policies affect the Total Factor Productivity Growth (TFPG) in Singapore manufacturing industries during the period from 1974 to 2006. Using the panel data estimations, I find that both development strategies bring about TFPG via nonneutral technological growth, and the former more largely explains TFPG than does the latter. This study captures the measure of learning by exporting by the lagged export intensity and therefore contributes to the literature, in which only the case of whether or not firms are active in export markets is conventionally employed. Methodologically, my main contributions are a more detailed treatment of (nonneutral) technological changes, and an alternative measure of export intensity.
Can commercialization of NTFPs alleviate poverty? A case study of Ricinodendron heudelotii (Baill.) Pierre ex Pax. kernel marketing in Cameroon

Ricinodendronheudelotii(Baill.) Pierre ex Pax. kernel (njansang)commercializationhas been promotedby the World AgroforestryCentre (ICRAF) in projectvillages in Cameroonwith the aim to alleviate povertyfor small-scale farmers. We evaluated to what extent development interventions improved the financial situation of households by comparing project and control households. The financial importance of njansang to household livelihoods between 2005 and 2010 was investigated through semi-structured questionnaires with retrospective questions, focus group discussions, interviews and wealth-ranking exercises. The importance of njansang increased strongly in the entire study region and the increase was significantly larger in project households. Moreover, absolute numbers of income from njansang commercialization as well as relative importance of njansang in total cash income, increased significantly more in project households (p < 0.05). Although the lower wealth class households could increase their income through njansang trade, the upper wealth class households benefited more from the projects’ interventions. Group sales as conducted in project villages did not lead to significantly higher prices and should be reconsidered. Hence, promotion of njansang had a positive effect on total cash income and can still be improved. The corporative actors for njansang commercializationare encouragedto adapt their strategies to ensure that also the lower wealth class householdsbenefit fromthe conductedprojectinterventions. Inthis respect, frequentprojectmonitoringandimpactanalysis areimportant tools to accomplish this adaptation.
Using markers and field evaluation to identify the source of eyespot resistance gene Pch1 in the collection of wheat breeding lines

Pch1 gene translocated from Aegilops ventricosa provides effective resistance to eyespot in wheat. To track the Pch1 gene introgression, we investigated 372 genotypes obtained from various breeding programs using endopeptidase EpD1b marker, sequence-tagged-site (STS) marker XustSSR2001-7DL, and the score of infection index (K-index) evaluated after in vivo inoculation test. These genotypes were divided into three groups with 136, 124 and 112 genotypes for the field test lasting three years. In 2011, the mean K-index was 0.81, while 2012 and 2013 the mean K-indexes were 1.60 and 1.46, respectively. Both marker results indicated that 18 genotypes possessed Pch1 gene. Statistical analysis of the level of K-index showed that these 18 genotypes were resistant to eyespot, which verified the proper assignment of wheat genotypes with Pch1 gene based on the marker data. Thus, the endopeptidase and XustSSR2001-7DL are useful for identifying sources of eyespot resistance gene Pch1 in wheat breeding program.
Hydropyrolysis of Lignin using Pd/HZSM-5

The aim of this work was to study the formation of cycloalkanes from hydropyrolysis of lignin with HZSM-5 and Pd/HZSM-5 catalysts. Cycloalkanes are high-octane-rating molecules and are a major component of jet fuels. We observed that palladium supported on HZSM-5 catalyzed hydrogenation and deoxygenation reactions that converted phenolic compounds into aromatic hydrocarbons and cycloalkanes. This in situ study analyzed the effect of the catalyst-to-lignin ratio, H2 partial pressure, and temperature on the yields of hydrocarbons with HZSM-5 and 1 wt % Pd/HZSM-5. Pd/HZSM-5 produced 44% more aromatic hydrocarbons than HZSM-5 at a catalyst-to-lignin ratio of 20:1, 650 °C, and a constant H2 partial pressure of 1.7 MPa. The presence of palladium led to a significant difference in yields only at 1.7 MPa H2 partial pressure. In addition, the hydropyrolysis temperature played a substantial role in the equilibrium conversion of hydrogenation reactions that led to cycloalkanes directly from lignin. In an attempt to .
Glyco-profiling of bladder cancer stem cells based on chemotherapy sorting approach

Muscle-invasive bladder cancer (MIBC) is amongst the most common and deadliest genitourinary cancers. The mainstay treatment is Cisplatin-based regimens, which are inefficient in avoiding tumor relapse and disease dissemination, urging novel therapeutics. The modification of cell-surface glycosylation patterns is a recognized hallmark of cancer and appears that the over-expression of the carbohydrate antigen sialyl-Tn (STn) is associated with low proliferating MIBC cases. To further understand the role of STn within the bladder cancer pathology, a combined analysis of STn, Ki-67 (proliferation) and p53 (aggressiveness) was performed by immunohistochemistry in 47 non muscle-invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) and 120 MIBC cases. No relation was found between p53 and Ki-67 expression and STn; however Ki-67 was expressed only in STn negative areas of the tumor. Yet STn was present in almost 80% of MIBC cases, suggesting it is a good indicator of aggressiveness and tumor progression and that it might play a preponderant role in tumor development. Furthermore, STn was found to be a determinant of poorer OS in MIBC cases when compared with NMIBC, suggesting that STn might be a good prognostic marker. Moreover, STn positive MIBC cell line T24 was exposed to an IC50 dosage of Cisplatin to disclose its association with chemoresistance. The STn expression did not vary with drug exposure. In addition, chemoresistant subpopulations over-expressed a panel of genes associated with cancer stem cell phenotype in comparison to the parental culture, namely LIN28A and SPARC that relate with pluripotency and altered interactions with the tumor stroma towards higher motility, respectively. Altogether, these findings reinforce the notion that STn expression is a biomarker of aggressiveness and progression and highlight for the first time its association with chemotherapy resistance. More studies involving more patients are warranted to support these preliminary findings.
Millennial Consumers: Gratifications through the use of Snapchat and its impact on impulsive motivations of purchase

This research examines data on 454 participants from the millennial generation. Through the theory of uses and gratifications, the researchers analyze how content strategies employed by the Snapchat impact the use and sharing of content. In addition, motivations for impulsive purchases are analyzed. This exploratory study uses quantitative methodology through an applied survey. The researchers make use of partial least squares structural equations (SMART-PLS). The results contribute to the theory through the identification of gratification factors such as interaction, relationship management, purchase savings, information, interactivity, easy access to content, distraction, creativity, fun and dynamism.
The hematological and cardiopulmonary effects of epidural xylazine, lidocaine and their combination in acepromazine sedated dogs.

Received: Revised: Accepted: February 07, 2014 February 17, 2014 February 24, 2014 A study was carried out to compare the effects of epidural xylazine, lidocaine and their combination on hematological and cardiopulmonary parameters in dogs. Fifteen healthy dogs were used in this study. The dogs were randomly assigned to three groups of five animals each. The first group was injected with 2% lidocaine hydrochloride at 4 mg/kg body weight, the second with 2% xylazine hydrochloride at 0.6 mg/kg body weight while the third group was injected with the drug combination of lidocaine and xylazine at 2 and 0.3 mg/kg respectively, in the same syringe. All injections were made into the lumbosacral space. Changes in cardio-pulmonary and hematological parameters in dogs were recorded over a 4-hour monitoring period. Epidural administration of lidocaine and xylazine resulted in significant (P<0.05) decline in TEC, PCV and Hb. Significant (P<0.05) changes in heart rate occurred only in dogs administered with epidural xylazine and the drug combination of lidocaine-xylazine. Dogs injected with epidural lidocaine, xylazine and lidocaine-xylazine had significant (P<0.05) changes in their respiratory rates. Lumbosacral injection of lidocaine-xylazine combination resulted in a significant (P<0.05) bradycardia and respiratory depression compared to the individual drugs. It is concluded that significant cardiopulmonary depression should be anticipated particularly when lidocaine-xylazine and xylazine are used for epidural anaesthesia in dogs. Devoted monitoring is therefore imperative to avoid untoward outcomes.
Investment diversification as a strategy for reducing investment risk

Investment diversification is a widely accepted investment strategy, aimed at reducing investment uncertainty, while simultaneously keeping the expected return on investment unaltered. The development of investment diversification coincided with the development of portfolio theory. At the time when traditional portfolio theory was recognized as the leading portfolio management practice, the simple diversification of investments was the most commonly used strategy; however, due to its inability to recognize the importance of the correlation between returns on different investments, simple diversification was later rejected in modern portfolio theory and replaced with efficient diversification. The research study is aimed at conducting a comparative analysis between the simple and efficient diversifications of investments, together with the inevitable analysis of the optimal number of securities in a portfolio and the testing of the validity of the international diversification of investments. By applying a qualitative research methodology, it is concluded that the benefits of the international diversification of investments are still substantial, and as such outweigh specific limitations, and that the number of securities in a portfolio should be increased as long as its marginal benefits, in the form of reduced investment risk, exceed its marginal costs - in terms of increased portfolio management costs, which also represents the main result of the research.
Charitable Giving When Donors are Constrained to Give a Minimum Amount

In some instances charities insist on donors giving more than a minimum amount. In other instances charities frame appeals for funds in a way that suggests there is a minimum donation. So, what are the effects on charitable giving if a minimum donation is required? We first provide a simple theoretical model that shows the effects are ambiguous. We then report the results of two lab experiments that consider very different settings. In the first experiment the only incentive to give is intrinsic motivation. Here we find that a minimum constraint lowers giving. The second experiment involves group interaction with extrinsic incentives to give. Here we find that a minimum constraint increases giving. Our results suggest that the effects of a minimum constraint may depend critically on the mix of intrinsic and extrinsic incentives.
Characteristics of biomass gasification in flue gas by thermo gravimetry fourier transform infrared spectrometer (tg ftir) analysis

Biomass renewable energy sources are widely applied to the process of power generation and heat production. In this paper, the effect of the different heating rate (20, 50, 70 °C/min) on the thermal weight loss process of peanut shell briquette is studied by TG-FTIR (Thermo–gravimetry–Fourier transform infrared spectrometer) method which the gasifying agent is selected by waste flue gas produced from pyrolysis gas combustion. The results show that the pre-pyrolysis water loss stage of peanut shell briquette is below 160 °C such thermal weight loss. The thermal oxidation reaction occurred at 160 - 750 °C for the pyrolysis stage. The coke gasification stage at 750 °C, the coke and CO2 reduction reaction has CO precipitation under high temperature. The pyrolysis kinetics is investigated by Friedman method and DAEM (distributed activation energy model). When the conversion ratio is below 0.25, it is less than 170 kJ/mol of the activation energy. when the conversion ratio is 0.25 – 0.7, the activation energy ranges between 170 and 205 kJ/mol. The result is that the pyrolytic gaseous products are CO2, CO, CH4 and other low molecular hydrocarbons by FTIR method at real-time analysis. The CO2 has the highest absorbance in pyrolytic gaseous products. At the same time, the absorption peak of CO occurred at 750 – 850 °C.
Introduce More Characteristics of Samples into Cross-domain Sentiment Classification

Because of the discrepancy between different domains, the sentiment classifier trained in a source domain can't get a good performance in a target domain. Domain adaptation algorithms aim at solving such problems. One of the main algorithms aim at finding domain-invariable representations of inputs, which pays more attention to the common features of different domains and ignores the characteristics of samples themselves. In our paper, we propose a Fuzziness Based Domain-Adversarial Neural Network with Auto-Encoder (Fuzzy-DAAE). It not only uses a domain classifier to find domain-invariable features, but also uses an auto-encoder to reconstruct inputs to keep characteristics of samples. In order to introduce more supervised information of target samples, we also add unlabeled target samples and their predicted labels to the original training data according to their fuzziness and then retrain the whole model. Experiments on Amazon product reviews show that our proposed model has the best or comparative results compared with the existing models. It's worthwhile to notice that our model can be used in any other domain adaptation tasks, not limited to cross-domain sentiment classification.
Histopathology of Avocado Fruit Infected by Avocado Sunblotch Viroid

Avocado sunblotch viroid (ASBVd) was detected in the exocarp and mesocarp of symptomatic and asymptomatic ‘Hass’ avocado fruit. Macroscopic symptoms caused by the ASBVd in fruits are the result of anatomical and chemical changes in the structure of the exocarp and mesocarp cells, which are typified by marked cellular disorganization, accumulation of phenolic compounds in the cytoplasm and cell walls, and reduction of cytoplasmic content resulting in cell collapse and death. The mesocarp of symptomatic fruits showed a reduction of 28-38% in chlorophyll A and 23-28% in chlorophyll B content, as well as an increase of up to 50-62% in phenolic compounds compared to asymptomatic fruit. The phloem cells of symptomatic fruit showed hyperplasia and the xylem elements were occluded in the mesocarp. Additionally disorganization and cell collapse was observed leading to groove formation in symptomatic fruit. Chlorophyll reduction and increase in phenolic compounds probably leads to the development of yellow or red symptoms in the rind. Asymptomatic fruits did not show any anatomical change despite the presence of the ASBVd . The PCR and dot-blot hybridization membranes showed relatively higher signal intensity in symptomatic fruits in contrast to the asymptomatic ones.
Re-examining the youth program quality survey as a tool to assess quality within youth programming

Abstract The Youth Program Quality Survey is a 24-item measure of program quality designed to evaluate participant perceptions of experiences in short- and long-term youth programs. The Youth Program Quality Survey was developed based on the National Research Council and Institute of Medicine’s eight program setting features that can contribute to the positive development of youth. This measurement tool is quite new within the field and as such little research has been conducted to determine its validity and reliability. The current study is designed to examine three previously proposed factor structures with a sample of 391 youth between the ages of 10 and 18 who participated in 38 different youth programs (e.g. sport, leadership, in-school-mentoring). Confirmatory factor analysis results indicate model fit issues with all three proposed factor structures. Therefore, an exploratory factor analysis is performed to improve model fit, and a revised 4-factor 19-item model is proposed. An analysis of invariance by age shows that the measurement model did not vary between younger and older youth participants. Practical implications and areas of future research are offered.
Moral Hazard, Wildfires, and the Economic Incidence of Natural Disasters

This study measures the degree to which large public expenditures on wildfire protection subsidize development in harm's way. Using administrative firefighting data, we calculate geographically-differentiated implicit subsidies to homeowners throughout the western USA. We first examine how the presence of homes affects firefighting expenditures. These results are used to reconstruct the implied historical cost of protecting each home and to perform an actuarial calculation of expected future protection cost. The expected net present value of this subsidy can exceed 20% of a home's value. It increases with fire risk and decreases surprisingly steeply with development density. A simple model is used to explore effects on expansion of developed areas, density, and private risk-reducing investments. These results demonstrate how policy and institutions influence the costs imposed by a changing climate.
ROLE OF ANTIBIOTIC IN THE OUTCOME OF BRONCHIOLITIS

Objective: To estimate the outcome of bronchiolitis with or without antibiotic to justify the avoidance of antibiotic. Methodology: This was a prospective study done in Khulna Medical College Hospital during six months from October 06 to March 07. All the children below two years admitted in hospital with bronchiolitis were included in the study. The study cases were randomly assigned into one of the three groups - No Antibiotic, Oral Antibiotic and Parenteral Antibiotic. Presenting signs and symptoms were followed up thrice daily to determine the progress of disease. Outcome was estimated by the level of improvement. Results: Sixty cases of bronchiolitis were included in this study. Most (80%) of them were below six months. The disease was frequently associated with similar problem in siblings (46.7%), noncompliance to exclusive breast feeding (38.3%) and family history of asthma (36.7%). Symptoms like sleeping difficulty and restlessness improved little earlier in No Antibiotic group. On the other hand, signs such as chest indrawing and hepatomegaly improved quicker in Parenteral Antibiotic group although the difference was statistically insignificant. Patchy opacities were found in chest x-ray in 45% cases. None of the study cases died but three of them needed special intervention. Hospital stay was shorter in No Antibiotic group (6.2±1.4) than Oral Antibiotic group (6.7±1.1). Conclusion: General supportive therapy is highly effective in bronchiolitis and antibiotic does not influence the course of the disease.
Interest Rate Pass-Through in the UK: Has the Transmission Mechanism Changed During the Financial Crisis?

Interest rate has been the monetary policy tool used by the modern central banks. For monetary policy to be effective, changes in the policy rate should influence the short-term money market rate and retail rates. Using an error correction methodology, this paper examines the short-run and long-run dynamics of interest rate pass through from the LIBOR to four different UK retail rates. The results indicate that interest rate pass-through in the UK is incomplete in the short run, but fairly complete in the long-run and the adjustment of retail rates depend on whether they are below or above their respective long-run values. The results also indicate a temporary, but statistically significant change in the interest rate pass-through since the beginning of the financial crisis in 2007.
Using Self-Monitoring to Increase Following-Direction Skills of Students with Moderate to Severe Disabilities in General Education

We used two multiple baseline designs to investigate effects of a self-monitoring strategy on following- direction skills of six middle school students with moderate to severe disabilities in general education. Students were instructed to acknowledge a given direction, complete the task, and monitor their performance. Results suggest that all students learned the strategy and maintained their performance at mastery levels for the duration of the maintenance condition. Social validation data obtained from participating general and special educators supported these findings. Implications for promoting student-directed learning and inclusive educa- tion are discussed.
Trophic Basis of Production Among Net-Spinning Caddisflies in a Southern Appalachian Stream

Life histories and annual production were determined for six species of net-spinning caddisflies in a headwater stream of the Tallulah River in north Georgia, USA. Five species in the family Hydropsychidae were univoltine, whereas the sixth, a member of the Philopotamidae, had at least two generations per year. Combined annual production, as determined by the Hynes method, was 1.0 g/m2 (ash-free dry mass). Seventy-five percent of the production was concentrated in the two largest species, Arctopsyche irrorata and Parapsyche cardis. The remaining production from highest to lowest percent, was contributed by Dolophilodes distinctus, Hydropsyche sparna, Diplectrona modesta, and Hydropsyche macleodi. Analysis of gut contents alone indicated that detritus was the most important food source. How- ever, food preference and food-specific ecological efficiencies were utilized to calculate the amount of production attributable to each major food category. Surprisingly, almost 80% of all caddisfly production was attributed to animal food, 13% to detritus, and 8% to algae. Actual annual consumption required to account for this production was 2.28 g/m2 animals, 2.54 g/m2 detritus, and 0.51 g/m2 algae. We attempt to quantify the role that net-spinning caddisflies play in the "spiralling" of seston in mountain streams. Our results show that the omnivorous caddisflies are not the major consumer of detritus and algae, and that they produce more detritus in their feces than they consume, thus ap- pearing to lower the food quality of the seston. Net-spinning caddisfly production in this mountain stream appears to be limited by the amount of high quality food available in the seston.