Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Optimization of Radiological Protection in Pediatric Patients Undergoing Common Conventional Radiological Procedures: Effectiveness of Increasing the Film to Focus Distance (FFD)

Background Increasing the x-ray film to focus distance (FFD), has been recommended as a practical dose optimization tool for patients undergoing conventional radiological procedures. In the previous study, we demonstrated a 32% reduction in absorbed dose is achievable due to increasing the FFD from 100 to 130 cm during pediatric chest radiography. The aim of this study was to examine whether increasing the FFD from 100 to 130 cm is equally effective for other common radiological procedures and performing a literature review of published studies to address the feasibility and probable limitations against implementing this optimization tool in clinical practice. Materials and Methods Radiographic examination of the pelvis (AP view), abdomen (AP view), skull (AP and lateral view), and spine (AP and lateral view), were taken of pediatric patients. The radiation dose and image quality of a radiological procedure is measured in FFD of 100 cm (reference FFD) and 130 cm (increased FFD). The thermo-luminescent dosimeters (TLD) were used for radiation dose measurements and visual grading analysis (VGA) for image quality assessments. Results: Statistically significant reduction in the ESD ranged from 21.91% for the lateral skull projection to 35.24% for the lateral spine projection was obtained, when the FFD was increased from 100 to 130 cm (P 0.05). Conclusion Increasing the FFD from 100 to 130 cm has significantly reduced radiation exposure without affecting on image quality. Our findings are commensurate with the literatures and emphasized that radiographers should learn to use of an updated reference FFD of 130 cm in clinical practice.
Feed intake and milk yield responses to shearing in pleven Blackhead sheep with diFFerent levels oF production

ALEKSIEV, Y. , 2011. Feed intake and milk yield responses to shearing in Pleven Blackhead sheep with different levels of production. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 17: 673-679 The effects of shearing on feed intake and milk yield was studied in local Pleven Blackhead breed of sheep kept in a shed. Ten lactating ewes were subdivided into two groups, of five ewes each, according to their daily milk production, a high level group (HL) and a low level group (LL), and shorn at the end of March. Measurements were made for 6 days before shearing and for 15 days thereafter. Ewes were fed a ration of chopped hay administered ad libitum and concentrate and were hand milked twice daily at approximately 0800 h and 1800 h. Shearing did not cause considerable change in feed intake. Daily MY fell gradually throughout the observation in both groups owing to advancing of lactation rather than treatment which effect was short-tem. Average for the week after shearing mean MY in HL and LL sheep dropped by 7.2% and 13.1%, respectively, compared to the pre-shearing levels. The observed reduction in daily yield predominantly was at the expense of morning yield, whereas the afternoon one remained almost constant throughout the study. The results suggest that the MY response to shearing may be ascribed to the differences in the capacity for homeorhetic regulation of nutrient partitioning in sheep with different levels of production.
POPULATION TRENDS OF SHOREBIRDS ON FALL MIGRATION IN EASTERN CANADA 1974-1991

Analysis of data from the Maritimes Shorebird Survey, involving counts of shorebirds made during fall migration in the Atlantic Provinces of Canada, indicated declines in a number of shorebird populations during the period 1974-1991. Significant declines were recorded most consistently for Least Sandpiper (Calidris minutilla), Semipalmated Sandpiper (C. pusilla), and Short-billed Dowitcher (Limnodromus griseus), and decreases for Red Knot (C. canutus) and Black-bellied Plover (Pluvialis squatarola) approached sta- tistical significance in some analyses. Population trends were not constant but varied con- sistently across species during different phases of the study period. Declines occurred in most of the 13 species analyzed during the latter part of the 1970s, followed by increases during the first half of the 1980s, with a less marked tendency towards declines in recent years. A series of cold summers on the breeding grounds during the 1970s may have led to the observed population declines at that time. Statistical power analysis indicated that population changes of 2-5% should be detected at 80% power for the number of sites and years of coverage for which data were available. Received 26 Aug. 1993, accepted 14 Dec. 1993. Many Nearctic shorebird populations undertake very long migrations, some species moving between breeding grounds in the Canadian Arctic and wintering areas near the southern tip of South America (Morrison 1984, Morrison and Ross 1989). Many species, especially those that de- pend on coastal wetlands, concentrate to a marked degree both during migration and on the wintering grounds, with large proportions of the population occurring at only a restricted number of sites (Morrison and Ross 1989, Morrison 1991). Shorebirds are particularly vulnerable to loss or degradation of habitat in such areas (Myers et al. 1987). Extensive loss of wetlands has occurred in North America during the past and present centuries (Senner and Howe 1984). Wetland habitats used by shorebirds elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere are also increasingly threatened by industrial and recreational developments (Bildstein et al. 1991). Little information is available on how shorebird populations are being affected by such threats. Analysis of International Shorebird Survey data collected in the eastern United States between 1974 and 1982-83 indi- cated that three of the 12 species analyzed had declined significantly (Howe et al. 1989). Six of the remaining nine species showed declines which, although not statistically significant, were substantial in terms of annual (3-12%) or cumulative (up to 75%) changes. Declines in shorebird
Corpus-based lexicography: an initial step for designing a bilingual glossary of lexical units in English and in Spanish

Lexicography is basically concerned with the meaning and use of words. In previous decades, lexicographers have investigated the meanings of words and synonyms, but recent lexicographic research has been extended using corpus-based techniques to study the way that words are used and, in particular, how lexical associations are used. Lexicography is, therefore, directly connected to phraseology because both disciplines study sets of fixed expressions (idioms, phrasal verbs, etc.) and other types of multi-word lexical units. This paper presents an overview of two major corpora (CEUNF and COEPROF) compiled for phraseological and lexicographical purposes: the use of lexical bundles in the writing of Spanish university students. Both the CEUNF and the COEPROF have been used to analyze the production of phraseological units (lexical bundles and grammatical collocations) present in argumentative texts written in English by Spanish EFL university students. This study, based on corpus linguistics (McEnery, Xiao & Tono, 2006), phraseology (Cowie, 1998; Howarth, 1996, 1998; McCarthy & O’Dell, 2005, Nesselhauf, 2003, 2005; Granger & Meunier, 2008) and lexicography (Atkins & Rundell, 2008; Bergenholtz et al., 2009; Hartmann, 2001, 2003; Nielsen, 2009: Ooi, 1998), uses two taxonomies taken from Biber et al. (1999) for the lexical bundles (linking and stance lexical bundles) and Benson et al. (1986, 1993) for the grammatical collocations (verbs of communication and mental processes). With these two taxonomies a bilingual list of phraseological units in Spanish and English will be devised in order to contrastively analyze the production of such units by both non-native students and professionals writing in English and with the ultimate goal of designing a lexicographical glossary of bilingual lexical units used in argumentative English writing. For the preliminary quantitative analysis of the data and word searching Wordsmith Tools (Wordlist and Collocates tools) has been used. The analysis of these initial data and the use of the appropriate statistical tools (norming of words, T-test for the statistical significance, etc.) may be seen as a starting point for producing a glossary of lexical items in argumentative writing and improved teaching material for Spanish university learners of English.
How Important are Capital and Total Factor Productivity for Economic Growth?

The authors examine the relative importance of the growth of physical and human capital and the growth of total factor productivity (TFP) using newly organized data on 145 countries that span more than one hundred years for twenty-four of these countries. For all countries, only 3 percent of average output growth per worker is associated with TFP growth. This world average masks interesting variations across countries and regions. Of the nine regions, TFP growth accounts for about twenty percent of average output growth in three regions and between ten and zero percent in the other three regions. In three regions, TFP growth is negative on average. The authors use priors from theories to construct estimates of the relative importance of the variances of aggregate input growth and TFP growth for the variance of output growth across countries. Across all countries, variation in aggregate input growth per worker could account for as much as 35 percent of the variance of the growth of output per worker across countries, and variation in TFP growth could account for as much as 87 percent of that variance. Much of the importance of the variance of TFP growth appears to be associated with negative TFP growth.
Relationship Between Brand Association and Brand Loyalty in the Fans of Private Clubs in Iran

The purpose of this research is to investigate relationship between brand association and brand loyalty in the fans of private clubs in Iran. This research was conducted using surveying– descriptive method and it was an applied research. Its Statistical society consisted of the fans of private Clubs. Sample size Estimated by statistical formula was 448. After excluding incomplete questionnaires, it became 435. Measuring instrument of team brand association questionnaire had been developed by Gladden and Funk (2001). Its Validity and reliability were tested Cronbach's alpha coefficient = 0/89. This questionnaire included 5 parts with 58 questions. Data was analyzed using software SPSS, version 19. Results were obtained using statistical tests such as Kolmogrov Smirnov and pearson correlation. The findings of this research showed that there was significant relationship between brand association and brand loyalty in the fans of private clubs. In addition, they showed that there was correlation between all three factors of brand association (attributes, benefits, attitudes) and brand loyalty in the fans of private club (p = 0.01). Thus, given the findings, authorities should pay attention to relationship between brand association and brand loyalty in order to choose successful strategies.
Socially-Optimal Locations of Duopoly Firms with Non-Uniform Consumer Densities

Advances in the theoretical literature have extended the Hotelling model of spatial competition from a uniform distribution of consumers to the family of log-concave distributions. While a closed form has been found for the equilibrium locations for symmetric log-concave distributions, the literature contains no closed form solution for the socially optimal locations. We provide a closed form solution for the socially optimal locations: one mean-deviation away from the median. We also derive a formula for the excess differentiation ratio which complements the bounds previously derived in the literature, and establish the invariance of this ratio to a form of mean preserving spread. The equilibrium duopoly locations of several types of commonly used distributions were discussed in [1]. This paper provides the closed form solutions for the socially optimal locations to the same set of distributions. We calculate welfare improvements arising from regulation of firm location and show how these vary with the distribution of consumers. While regulating firm locations is sufficient to optimize welfare for symmetric distributions, additional price regulation is required to ensure social optimality for asymmetric distributions. These results are significant for urban policy over firm/store locations.
EVALUATION OF THE EUROSEM MODEL FOR SIMULATING EROSION IN HILLY AREAS OF CENTRAL ITALY

Erosion is one of the main factors involved in soil degradation, affecting 5-6 million hectares of soil every year. The consequent loss of the most fertile portion of the soil and surface water pollution present high economic and environmental costs for the community. Central Italy, because of its characteristic geomorphology and the current prevailing land use options, can be considered a vulnerable area to soil erosion. In fact, the prevalence of clayey soils and cropping systems based on durum wheat, frequently in rotation with sunflower and other spring-summer crops, implies bare soil for many months and exposes it to considerable erosion risk. In the last 15 years, physically-based models have been developed to analyze processes related to erosion and to compare alternative land management options in order to minimize the vulnerability of agricultural lands. In this study, the simulation model EUROSEM has been calibrated and validated using data collected during a 3-year period, in a basin in the province of Ancona (Central Italy). Data collected in 1998 (bare soil) were used for calibration; data from 1999 (sunflower) and 2000 (winter wheat) for validation. Average (of all the elements) calibrated values of saturated hydraulic conductivity (FMIN), effective net capillary drive (G), detachability of soil particles (EROD) and soil cohesion (COH) were, respectively, 1.8 mm h -1 , 346 mm, 2.4 g J -1 and 10 kPa. The model has been shown to effectively simulate runoff and erosion in the evaluated conditions: the modelling efficiency is positive for the entire examined period and the relative root mean square errors (RRMSEs) computed on the cumulated values of 13 events are lower than 80%, both for runoff and erosion. In fact, although there is some imprecision in the simulation of single events, observed and simulated means of all erosion data are similar (respectively 1.53 and 1.14 t ha -1 ), so that the model has been proven adequate for scenario simulations and for alternative management comparisons.
Phenolic compounds and vitamin C as sources of antioxidant activity in black currant fruit (Ribes nigrum L.).

The content of some important phenolic compounds (kaempferol, myricetin, quercetin, and ellagic acid), total phenolics (TPH), vitamin C, and total antioxidant capacity (TAC) in the fruit of three black currant cultivars (Ben Lomond, Ben Sarek and Malling Juel) were studied. The content of individual phenolic compounds showed variability among the studied cultivars. The main flavonol found in cv. Malling Juel was kaempferol (1.60 μg g-1 FW), whereas the lowest values of myricetin (5.46 μg g-1 FW) and quercetin (7.65 μg g-1 FW) were also observed in the fruit of this cultivar. Ellagic acid content was the highest in cv. Ben Lomond (12.90 μg g-1 FW), which is also characterized by lower values of individual flavonols compared to other cultivars tested. However, the highest TPH level was recorded in cv. Ben Lomond (4.71 mg g-1FW). Vitamin C content in fruit of cv. Malling Juel was at a very high level (141.4 mg 100g-1), whereas cv. Ben Lomond expressed the highest level of TAC (7.60 mg asc g-1 FW). Overall, the content and profile of phenolic compounds in the black currant cultivars showed significant contribution to the expressed antioxidant capacity which was confirmed by positive correlation between TPH and TAC obtained in this study. Besides total phenolics, vitamin C is also a significant contributor to the measured antioxidant capacity in black currant fruit indicating that some cultivars with lower phenolic content may express high TAC.
Osmotically dehydrated microwave vacuum drying of carrots

Changrue, V. and V. Orsat. 2009. Osmotically dehydrated microwave vacuum drying of carrots. Canadian Biosystemes Engineering/Le genie des biosystemes au Canada. 51: 3.11 3.19 Osmotic dehydration prior to drying was able to remove free water, which accounts for around 50% of the product’s moisture. The combination of osmotic and microwave vacuum drying was investigated. The advantage of microwave vacuum drying is that it provides faster drying times with a low-temperature process. Since solid gain from osmotic agents might cause a decrease in diffusivity of the osmotically dehydrated product and lower qualities of dried product, it is important to know the effects of osmotic treatment prior to microwave vacuum drying. Two levels of microwave input power (1 and 1.5W/g) and three power modes (continuous, 45 s on/15 s off and 30 s on/30 s off) were studied at an absolute pressure of 8 kPa for the microwave vacuum drying of carrots. Drying kinetics, energy consumption, and quality in terms of water activity, shrinkage, rehydration capacity, color characteristics, and sensory evaluation were studied. Empirical models were established to fit the observed data. In general, osmotic dehydration was able to decrease drying time and energy consumption. Less shrinkage and improved appearance were the advantages in terms of quality. Page’s model showed the best fit among the tested models.
A unied framework for using micro-data to compare dynamic time-dependent price-setting models

This paper develops a statistical framework of steady-state identities which enable us to match the distributions of durations found in the micro-data to generalized Taylor and Calvo models of timedependent pricing. We illustrate the approach with the UK micro CPI data for 1996-2009, and employ the pricing models in a simple macromodel. We nd that the Generalized Taylor Economy generates a hump shaped response function, whilst the Generalized Calvo does not. JEL: E50. Keywords: Price-spell, steady state, hazard rate, Calvo, Taylor. This research began when I was a visitor to the ECB in January 2002 and is a revised version of ECB working paper 676 (2006). The nancial assistance of the Foundation Banque de France helped me in preparing this revision. I would like to thank Michael Beenstock, Vitor Gaspar, Jurgen von Hagen, Engin Kara, Benoit Mojon, Herve Le Bihan, Henri Pages, Adam Rei¤, Luigi Siciliani, Peter N Smith, John B Taylor, John Treble and Mike Wickens for helpful clues in my quest. Thanks also to PhD students at York, Cardi¤ and Lisbon for their comments when I have given this as part of a PhD course on monetary policy over the last 5 years. The paper has been given at seminars at York, Cardi¤, the ECB, Banque de France, and the MMF conference (2006) and European Monetary Forum (2008). I would like to thank Kun Tian and Peng Zhou for estimating the Hazard function, and Yue Jiang for running the policy simulations. I have only myself to blame for any remaining faults. yCardi¤ Business School, Colum Drive, Cardi¤. CF10 3EU, dixonh@cardi¤. ac.uk.
Enhancing Social Network Privacy in Web Browsing

Personalized web search (PWS) has demonstrated its effectiveness in improving the quality of various search services on the Internet. However, evidences show that users’ reluctance to disclose their private information during search has become a major barrier for the wide proliferation of PWS. We study privacy protection in PWS applications that model user preferences as hierarchical user profiles. We propose a PWS framework called UPS that can adaptively generalize profiles by queries while respecting user-specified privacy requirements. Our run time generalization aim sat striking a balance between wopredictive metrics that evaluate the utility of personalization and the privacy risk of exposing the generalized profile. We present two greedy algorithms, namely Greedy D P and Greedy IL, for runtime gene realization. We also provide an on line prediction mechanism for deciding whether personalizing a query is beneficial. Extensive experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of our framework. The experimental results also reveal that Greedy IL significantly out performs Greedy DP in terms of efficiency.
A new reconstruction of temperature variability in the extra‐tropical northern hemisphere during the last two millennia

Abstract. A new temperature reconstruction with decadal resolution, covering the last two millennia, is presented for the extratropical Northern Hemisphere (90–30°N), utilizing many palaeo‐temperature proxy records never previously included in any large‐scale temperature reconstruction. The amplitude of the reconstructed temperature variability on centennial time‐scales exceeds 0.6°C. This reconstruction is the first to show a distinct Roman Warm Period c. ad 1–300, reaching up to the 1961–1990 mean temperature level, followed by the Dark Age Cold Period c. ad 300–800. The Medieval Warm Period is seen c. ad 800–1300 and the Little Ice Age is clearly visible c. ad 1300–1900, followed by a rapid temperature increase in the twentieth century. The highest average temperatures in the reconstruction are encountered in the mid to late tenth century and the lowest in the late seventeenth century. Decadal mean temperatures seem to have reached or exceeded the 1961–1990 mean temperature level during substantial parts of the Roman Warm Period and the Medieval Warm Period. The temperature of the last two decades, however, is possibly higher than during any previous time in the past two millennia, although this is only seen in the instrumental temperature data and not in the multi‐proxy reconstruction itself. Our temperature reconstruction agrees well with the reconstructions by Moberg et al. (2005) and Mann et al. (2008) with regard to the amplitude of the variability as well as the timing of warm and cold periods, except for the period c. ad 300–800, despite significant differences in both data coverage and methodology.
New methods for shape and depth determinations from SP data

We have extended our earlier derivative analysis method to higher derivatives to estimate the depth and shape (shape factor) of a buried structure from self‐potential (SP) data. We show that numerical second, third, and fourth horizontal‐derivative anomalies obtained from SP data using filters of successive window lengths can be used to simultaneously determine the depth and the shape of a buried structure. The depths and shapes obtained from the higher derivatives anomaly values can be used to determine simultaneously the actual depth and shape of the buried structure and the optimum order of the regional SP anomaly along the profile. The method is semi‐automatic and it can be applied to residuals as well as to observed SP data.We have also developed a method (based on a least‐squares minimization approach) to determine, successively, the depth and the shape of a buried structure from the residual SP anomaly profile. By defining the zero anomaly distance and the anomaly value at the origin, the problem o.