Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Integrated Model to Predict Corporate Failure of Listed Companies in Sri Lanka

The primary objective of this study is to develop an integrated model to predict corporate failure of listed companies in Sri Lanka. The logistic regression analysis was employed to a data set of 70 matched-pairs of failed and non-failed companies listed in the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) in Sri Lanka over the period 2002 to 2010. A total of fifteen financial ratios and eight corporate governance variables were used as predictor variables of corporate failure. Analysis of the statistical testing results indicated that model consists with both corporate governance variables and financial ratios improved the prediction accuracy to reach 88.57 per cent one year prior to failure. Furthermore, predictive accuracy of this model in all three years prior to failure is above 80 per cent. Hence model is robust in obtaining accurate results for up to three years prior to failure. It was further found that two financial ratios, working capital to total assets and cash flow from operating activities to total assets, and two corporate governance variables, outside director ratio and company audit committee are having more explanatory power to predict corporate failure. Therefore, model developed in this study can assist investors, managers, shareholders, financial institutions, auditors and regulatory agents in Sri Lanka to forecast corporate failure of listed companies.
“Contagious Accountability”

The use of body-worn cameras (BWCs) by the police is rising. One proposed effect of BWCs is reducing complaints against police, which assumes that BWCs reduce officer noncompliance with procedures, improve suspects’ demeanor, or both, leading to fewer complaints. We report results from a global, multisite randomized controlled trial on whether BWC use reduces citizens’ complaints. Seven discrete tests (N = 1,847 officers), with police shifts as the unit of analysis (N = 4,264), were randomly assigned into treatment and control conditions. Using a prospective meta-analytic approach, we found a 93% before–after reduction in complaint incidence (Z = −3.234; p < .001), but no significant differences between trial arms in the studies (d = .053, SE = .11; 95% confidence interval [CI] = [−.163, .269]), and little between-site variation (Q = 4.905; p = .428). We discuss these results in terms of an “observer effect” that influences both officers’ and citizens’ behavior and assess what we interpret as treatment diffusion between experimental and control conditions within the framework of “contagious accountability. ”
Efficacy of exogenous phytase supplementation on production performance of commercial broiler

An experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of supplementing of exogenous phytase enzyme on productivity of commercial broilers. Four strains of commercial broiler such as Fast feather, Arbor acres, Cobb-500 and Hubbard classic each having 78 numbers were reared for a period of 5 weeks. A total number of 312 day old broiler chicks were distributed into two dietary treatments i.e. basal diet (Control-T 0 ) and basal diet supplemented with phytase enzyme 1g/kg feed (supplemented-T 1 ). The results indicated that broilers fed on diets supplemented with phytase have gained more body weight when compared with control group (P<0.05). The first and second highest body weights were recorded for the strains Cobb-500 and First feather broilers, respectively, which feed on diet containing phytase. Feed consumption varied significantly between the broilers on different dietary regimes. Significant differences (P<0.01) were found in feed conversion ratios among the birds fed on diet with phytase enzyme. The lowest feed conversion ratio was in Cobb-500 fed on phytase diet where as the highest was in Fast Feather provided with only basal diet during the 5 th week of age. Average feed conversion ratios were 1.73 and 1.86 for the supplemented and control group respectively. Use of phytase as feed additive in the diet resulted in high profitability/ broiler. Net profit per live broiler was the also higher in treatment group compared with control groups of birds. The highest net profit per live broiler was observed in Arbor Across strains fed on phytase diet. The result of the present study suggests that the addition of dietary phytase enzyme in the diet of broiler may increase the production performance and reduce the cost of production. Bang. J. Anim. Sci. 2016. 45 (3): 31-39
The role of contextual factors in understanding mathematics teacher efficacy beliefs

The purpose of this article is to argue for a more nuanced view of mathematics teacher efficacy beliefs as a construct. I argue that most researchers studying teacher efficacy assert that teachers should display a strong sense of teacher efficacy, even though the ways teacher efficacy beliefs are often measured are not specific to any content area. This belief apparently is based on the assumption that a strong sense of teacher efficacy results in more effective teaching. Other explanatory variables (e.g., teachers’ content knowledge for teaching and the content to be taught) are important contextual factors affecting teacher efficacy beliefs. I argue that these too often have been neglected in the existing literature. An understanding of the effects of these contextual factors can help reveal why advocating a strong sense of teacher efficacy is too simple a prescription for improving teaching.
Local institutions in southwestern Uganda: the role of integrated agricultural research for development

Local institutions are commonly referred to as mediating factors that govern the relationship between a community and the natural resource base upon which it depends. However, conventional agricultural research and extension approaches have had limited impact in positively influencing the role of institutions in natural resource management (NRM). In this paper we discuss the role of Integrated Agricultural Research for Development (IAR4D) in by-law enactment, implementation and compliance in southwestern Uganda, and the potential benefits of the IAR4D approach for the development of local-level institutions. Although the level of awareness of the enacted by-laws was highest in the conventional sites, compliance was highest in the innovation platform (IP) villages. With the multi-stakeholder participation of the IAR4D approach in the IPs, there was a conducive environment in which to formulate and implement new by-laws, such as those relating to the harvesting and marketing of produce. IAR4D was found to have the potential to empower individual farmers through their interactions with each other, as well as to increase inter-institutional interactions for increased information sharing among stakeholders, thus building social capital for collective action.
Exploring the Antecedents of Learning-Related Emotions and Their Relations with Achievement Outcomes.

Recent work suggests that learning-related emotions (LREs) play a crucial role in performance especially in the first year of university, a period of transition for most students; however, additional research is needed to show how these emotions emerge. We developed a framework which links a course-contextualized antecedent - academic control in Pekrun’s (2006) Control Value Theory of Achievement Emotions - with generic antecedents - adaptive and maladaptive cognitions and behaviors from Martin’s (2007) Motivation and Engagement Wheel framework - to explain a classical problem: the emergence of LREs in a transition period. Using a large sample (N = 3451) of first year university students, our study explores these two antecedents to better understand how four LREs (enjoyment, anxiety, boredom and hopelessness) emerge in a mathematics and statistics course. Through the use of path-modelling, we found that academic control has a strong effect on all four LREs – with the strongest impact observed for learning hopelessness and secondary, for learning anxiety. Academic control, on its turn, builds on contributions from adaptive and mal-adaptive cognitions. Furthermore, adaptive cognitions have an impact on learning enjoyment (positive) and on boredom (negative). Surprisingly though, the maladaptive behaviors impact positively learning enjoyment and negatively learning anxiety. Following this, we predicted performance outcomes in the course and found again academic control as the main predictor, followed by learning hopelessness. Overall, this study brings evidence that adaptive and maladaptive cognitions and behaviours act as important antecedents of academic control, the main predictor of LREs and course performance outcomes.
Knowledge of prostate cancer and screening practices among men in Sokoto, Nigeria

Background: Halting the rising burden of prostate cancer across the globe has become a major public health challenge with the absence of intellectual consensus on the effective strategies for its prevention. However, knowledge of the disease and uptake of prostate cancer screening remain indispensable in mitigating the dire consequences of the prevalent late presentation of patients with the disease in sub-Saharan Africa.Aims and Objectives: This study was designed with an aim to assess prostate cancer knowledge and screening practices among men in Sokoto, Nigeria.Materials and Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among 300 participants (selected by systematic sampling technique) attending the medical and surgical outpatient clinics of UDUTH, Sokoto, Nigeria. Data were collected with a pretested, structured questionnaire and analyzed using IBM SPSS version 20 computer software.Results: The mean age of the respondents was 53.13 ± 7.92 years. Only 15 (5.0%) and 4 (1.3%) of the 300 respondents were aware of prostate cancer and prostate cancer screening respectively. Most of the respondents (95.0%) had poor knowledge of prostate cancer, and none of them have ever had a prostate cancer screening test done, with the most commonly cited reason being lack of awareness (98.6%). Conclusion: This study showed poor knowledge of prostate cancer and zero uptake of prostate cancer screening among the participants. These findings highlight the need for government and healthcare providers to sensitize the public on prostate cancer and its prevention, in addition to facilitating unrestricted access of those at risk to prostate cancer screening services.Asian Journal of Medical Sciences Vol.9(6) 2018 51-56
Using Video Clips to Implement Multicultural Topics of Science and Nature of Science into a Biological Content Course for Pre-Service Teachers- An Action Research Project

I feel as if I was conscious of race since elementary school. I was fortunate enough to attend elementary and junior high schools that were very diverse in a big city. However, moving to a smaller predominantly white town at the start of high school revealed something shocking to me; that I and other African-Americans were viewed more as anomalies than as inclusive members of society. My peers treated me strangely, and the curriculum, including science, seemed starkly bare of any “color”. The only classroom discussion I remember having that included African-Americans involved me defending the Los Angeles riots to my white classmates in an American history class. Even at that time, I knew that this was not normal. The preceding quote describes the first author’s experience with race as a girl and teenager. These experiences stayed with her until her adult years in graduate school. For the sake of simplicity, she will refer to herself in the first person throughout the remainder of this article. My desire to integrate multicultural topics in the college classroom spans many years. When the opportunity arose to design an action research project as a graduate student, including multicultural topics seemed completely natural to me. As an instructor beginning to use nature of science (NOS) and science inquiry (SI) in the current course, drawing on these concepts allowed for consistency with the curriculum and seemed an enjoyable challenge to embark on as well. However, I also realized that adding material with racial or cultural issues could be socially and/or politically controversial, causing potential discomfort for both me and my students (Denning, 2000). Because of this, finding ways to present such material in a non-threatening fashion was necessary. After thoughtful reflection, I felt that using video clips and reflection writing to introduce these issues may be a constructive approach.
Local analysis of frame multiresolution analysis with a general dilation matrix

A multivariate semi-orthogonal frame multiresolution analysis with a general integer dilation matrix and multiple scaling functions is considered. We first derive the formulas of the lengths of the inital (central) shift-invariant space V0 and the next dilation space V1, and, using these formulas, we then address the problem of the number of the elements of a wavelet set, that is, the length of the shift-invariant space W0 := V1 ⊖ V0. Finally, we show that there does not exist a ‘genuine’ frame multiresolution analysis for which V0 and V1 are quasi-stable spaces satisfying the usual length condition.
Spectral Element Approach for Coupled Radiative and Conductive Heat Transfer in Semitransparent Medium

A spectral element method is presented to solve coupled radiative and conductive heat transfer problems in multidimensional semitransparent medium. The solution of radiative energy source is based on a second order radiative transfer equation. Both the second order radiative transfer equation and the heat diffusion equation are discretized by spectral element approach. Four various test problems are taken as examples to verify the performance of the spectral element method. The h-and the p-convergence characteristics of the spectral element method are studied. The convergence rate of p refinement for different values of Planck number follows the exponential law and is superior to that of h refinement. The spectral element method has good property to tolerate skewed meshes. The predicted dimensionless temperature distributions determined by the spectral element method agree well with the results in references. The presented method is very effective to solve coupled radiative and conductive heat transfer in semitransparent medium with complex configurations and demands little on the quality of mesh. DOI: 10.1115/1.2755061
MERIS, MODIS and ETM+ channel configurations in the Estimation of Lake Water Quality from sub-surface reflectance using semi-analytical and empirical algorithms

We studied the estimation of lake water quality from measured subsurface reflectances in order to find out the potential of the channel configurations of three satellite instruments (MERIS, MODIS and ETM+). The semi-analytical method was based on the inversion of a bio-optical reflectance model and the empirical method on using channel ratios or single channels. The dataset, consisting of data from 11 lakes located in Finland, has a wide range of water quality: the sum of chlorophyll a and phaeophytin a (CChl-a) ranging from 0.8 to72 µg l -1 , total suspended solids (CTSS) from 0.4 to 24 mg l -1 and the absorption coefficient of CDOM at 400 nm (acdom(400)) from 0.4 to 14 m -1 . The results from the inversion method indicate that MODIS and MERIS have nearly optimum channel configurations for the estimation of CTSS and acdom(400) in the lakes we studied. The analyses of the empirical algorithms suggest that MERIS has optimum channels for water quality estimations. The estimation accuracy of CTSS and CChl-a by the MERIS and MODIS configurations was about the same for the two estimation methods, but in case of acdom(400) the empirical algorithms were clearly better than the inversion method. acdom(400) was estimated using ETM+ channels with about the same accuracy as by MERIS and MODIS channels.
The Bachelor Pad as Cultural Icon Masculinity, Consumption and Interior Design in American Men's Magazines, 1930–65

Focusing on the representation of domestic interiors in American men’s magazines during the mid-twentieth century, this article explores the history and signifi cance of the ‘bachelor pad’ as an icon of high-living modernity. Beginning with a consideration of Esquire magazine in the 1930s, attention is given to representations of the sleek, stylish bachelor apartment and its role as a totem of forward-looking and ‘liberated’ masculine consumerism. Depicted as a place where men could luxuriate in a milieu of sybaritic indulgence, the ‘bachelor pad’ was confi gured as the spatial manifestation of a consuming masculine subject who later became pervasive amid the consumer boom of the 1950s and 1960s. During this period, the fantasy of the chic, gadget-laden ‘bachelor’s lair’ was a recurring icon of hedonistic, masculine consumption in men’s magazines such as Playboy, Escapade and Rogue. Cosmopolitan and brimming with a la mode luxuries, the ‘bachelor pad’ was a leitmotif in these magazines’ wider celebration of masculine consumer pleasure and desire. Analysis of these representations, it is argued, suggests that in American culture during the mid-twentieth century the ‘masculine’ arena of production and the ‘feminine’ domain of consumption were not neatly and clearly divided. Instead, the iconography of the ‘bachelor pad’ in American men’s magazines points to a signifi cant masculine presence within mid-twentieth century commodity culture.
Popular Perception of Urban Transformation through Megaevents: Understanding Support for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi

With the increasing number and impact of events hosted by cities, understanding the nature of popular support for them and the resulting urban transformations is a crucial task. I examine residents' perceptions of the preparations for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, asking how support differs across social groups and what factors predict support. I find that negative impacts from preparations dominate public opinion, but that there is nevertheless a solid support base for the event. Support tends to be strongest among non-Russians, the younger generation, and residents who have good knowledge of the preparations. Perception of positive impacts—in particular, expected image improvement—is the strongest predictor of support, while perception of negative impacts shows a much weaker association with support. I conclude that delivering on the positive aspects of events might be more important for administrations than minimizing the negative side effects.
The Comparison of ProTaper® and K-Flexofiles in Preparation of Curved Canals: In Vitro Study

Objectives: To compare the performance of ProTaper® rotary instruments and stainless steel K-Flexofiles in preparing curved root canals in terms of changes in angle of curvature, apical transportation and production of canal aberrations and also to record the rate of separation of ProTaper® files. Materials and Methods: Forty-one human mandibular first molars (mesial roots only each with 2 canals) with canal curvature of 15 to 18 degrees were divided into two groups. Forty-one canals were prepared using ProTaper® rotary instruments while forty-one canals were prepared using K-Flexofiles and Gates-Glidden drills. Digital radiographs obtained were analyzed with various image-analyzing programs. The parameters evaluated were reduction in canal curvature, apical transportation, lateral perforation, ledge, and apical zip, elbow, over-instrumentation and instrument separation. The statistical tests used were both independent and paired t-test, general linear models repeated measures, cross-tabulation with Pearson's chi-square test and Fisher's exact test. Significance level was set at 5% (a = 0.05). Results: Significant difference (P < 0.05) was found in the mean curvature reduction and in the occurrence of elbows. Five ProTaper® files fractured during canal preparation procedures; three of them were F3, and two were F2 instruments. Conclusion: ProTaper® rotary instruments maintained the curvatures better however it performed equally in terms of apical canal transportation when compared with stainless-steel instruments. For procedural errors and canal aberrations, ProTaper® instruments produced more elbows. Incidence of fractures was enhanced with increasing size of ProTaper® files, with most fractures occurring with file size #30 (F3) and #25 (F2).
PREVALENCE, PATTERNS AND ASSOCIATED FACTORS OF PHYSICAL ACTIVITY IN INDIAN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Background: As physical activity is beneficial for overall health, regular surveillance is essential among the populace. In India, there is a paucity of data regarding physical activity. The present study was aimed to explore the prevalence, patterns and associated factors of physical activity in university students. Methods: A total of 255 students were interviewed using IPAQ long form. Demographic data including age, height, weight, stay and place of residence was self-reported by subjects. PA levels were presented as median and percentages. Chi-square test was employed to estimate the association between the categorical variables. Results: In the overall sample, 11.37% were inactive, 73.73% were moderately active and 14.9% were found to be highly active. Walking was identified as a major contributor in females while vigorous activity contributed maximally in males. The Leisure-time domain was observed as major contributor and work domain was the least contributor to the total PA levels. Significant associations were seen between physical activity and independent factors such as gender, Stay and BMI. Conclusions: Majority of university students had moderate levels of physical activity. What is new? This study explores a new fact that being a hostler is significantly associated with low levels of physical activity among university students. Article visualizations:
EVALUATION OF NEW HERBICIDES FOR WEED MANAGEMENT IN CHICKPEA (CICER ARIETINUM L.)

A field experiment was conducted on medium black soil during the rabi season of 2002-2003. The experiment comprising of twelve weed management treatments were conducted in a randomized block design with four replications. The results revealed that the highest mean seed (2937 kg ha -1 ) and stover (3215 kg ha -1 ) yields were recorded under conventional methods involving manual weeding and interculturing as and when required. The pre- emergence herbicidal treatments involving fluchloralin (0.675 kg ha -1 ) or oxyfluorfen (0.120 kg ha -1 ) supplemented with postemergence application of imazethapyr (0.050 kg ha -1 ) at 30-35 DAS were also found equally effective. Significantly higher values of growth characters and yield attributes viz., plant height, plant spread, number of branches per plant, number of pods per plant, number of seeds per pod, number of root nodules per plant and seed weight per plant were recorded in these treatments. However, test weight was not significantly influenced by various weed control treatments.