Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Erratum: ‘My Child Doesn’t Eat!’; Parental Feeding Strategies, Parental Attitudes and Family Functioning of Children with Poor Appetite

Purpose: Children’s low interest in food and ‘lack of appetite’ are of serious concern for parents and in consequently for the professionals. This study aimed to examine parental feeding strategies, effects of meal time environment, describe family functioning, and clarify general parental attitudes of the children with poor appetite from a developing country without any physical health problem that might affect growth, cause pain or discomfort during feeding. Methods: Fifty-two mothers and their children were interviewed for data collection on sociodemographic characteristics, meal time structure, parental feeding strategies used by mothers, and child eating response to these strategies. Mothers completed Family Assessment Device (FAD) and Parental Attitude Research Instrument (PARI) for the evaluation of general parental attitudes, and family functioning. Results: Parents most oftenly tended to use praise, offers of food rewards, threats to withhold food/play rewards. In response to parental control strategies, parents reported that 44.2% (n=22) of children ate a few more bites, and 9.6% (n=5) ate no more than they otherwise might have. PARI-I (over-parenting; implying an over controlling, anxious and over-demanding parental attitude) is the most frequent parental attitude in families of child with low interest in food. FAD 5, implying affective involvement in the family, and FAD 7, implying behavioral control in the family are the prominent family functioning dimensions of children whose mothers are concerned about their low interest in food. Conclusion: The results of the study are in accordance with data from developed countries implying little cultural differences.
A Gravity approach to evaluate the significance of trade liberalization in vertically-related goods in the presence of non-tariff barriers

A gravity-based model is developed to explain bilateral trade flows in primary and processed agri-food commodities. It innovates by explicitly accounting for the vertical production linkages between primary and processed agri-food products, tariffs, and subsidies and by estimating the restrictiveness of non-tariff barriers in the upstream sector. Our application focuses on cattle/beef trade flows between forty-two countries. The structural parameters of the model are used to simulate trade flows under various scenarios of import tariffs and domestic and export subsidies reductions. The United States and Australia emerge as the exporting countries that stand to benefit the most from cuts in tariffs and subsidies as bovine meat imports in the European Union and Japan significantly increase. A bootstrap procedure is used to generate confidence intervals around predicted trade liberalization outcomes.
Farmers Knowledge on System of Rice Intensification (SRI) in Andhra Pradesh, India

The present investigation focused to study farmers Knowledge on SRI cultivation was carried out in Mahaboobnagar district, Andhra Pradesh. 120 SRI cultivated farmers constituted the sample. Ex-post facto research design was adopted in the investigation as selected variables have already occurred. A well prepared interview schedule consisting of 35 items testing the level of knowledge of farmers on recommended practices in SRI was prepared and administered. The findings revealed that on majority of farmers (67.5%) had knowledge on SRI cultivation practices to a medium level. Item analysis of Knowledge statements revealed that large majority of respondents had knowledge on items such as seed rate (100%), Varieties suitable for SRI (95%) spreading of seeds loosely and sparsely on nursery bed (85.83%), marker helps in drawing lines (89.17%) etc. Large majority do not possess knowledge on practices such as: number of hills recommended per square meter (62.5%) and weeding interval (43.3%). Correlation analysis revealed that, the variables viz. education, training in SRI, Extension contact, sources of information utilization, perception of respondents on SRI, innovativeness and input availability were found to be positively and significantly correlated to the level of Knowledge of SRI cultivating farmers.
Hidden regular variation and the rank transform

Random vectors in the positive orthant whose distributions possess hidden regular variation are a subclass of those whose distributions are multivariate regularly varying with asymptotic independence. The concept is an elaboration of the coefficient of tail dependence of Ledford and Tawn. We show that the rank transform that brings unequal marginals to the standard case also preserves the hidden regular variation. We discuss applications of the results to two examples, one involving flood risk and the other Internet data.
Effects of Group Awareness and Self-Regulation Level on Online Learning Behaviors

Group awareness can affect student online learning while self-regulation also can substantially influence student online learning. Although some studies identify that these two variables may partially determine learning behavior, few empirical studies or thorough analyses elucidate the simultaneous impact of these two variables (group awareness and self-regulation) on online learning behavior. This paper compared one online collaboration environments with GA support with one without group awareness (NA) support and further investigated how these two variables, different system types (i.e., GA and NA) and different self-regulation levels (i.e., high and low), influence learning task (i.e., assessment) participation, and peer interaction (i.e., asking for help and willing to help) using two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). Analytical results first showed that both variables have significant interaction on assessment participation and requesting rate. GA can particularly stimulate students with high-level self-regulation to engage more learning task (assessment) participation and ask for help more, compared with students with low-level self-regulation. Second, both variables have no significant interaction on willingness to help. The GA class can enhance a student’s willingness to help regardless of his/her self-regulation level.
MPS and MRI efficacy of magnetosomes from wild-type and mutant bacterial strains

The future of Magnetic Particle Imaging (MPI), as a tracer-based imaging modality, crucially relies on the development of high-performing tracers. Due to their ideal structural and magnetic properties, biogenic nanoparticles extracted from magnetotactic bacteria are promising candidates for MPI tracer research. In the present study we investigate the potential of bacterial magnetosomes, extracted from wild-type bacteria of the strain Magnetospirillum gryphiswaldense and various mutants thereof, as new tracer materials for MPI. Furthermore, we investigate the structural and magnetic properties of the magnetosomes as well as their suitability as Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) agents in order to explain differences in MPI and MRI efficacies.
Constraints to credit access by new SMEs in South Africa: A supply-side analysis

The primary objective of this study is to investigate empirically the constraints to credit access by new SMEs from commercial banks and trade creditors. For this purpose an initial 52-item questionnaire was developed after a thorough review of the literature on the business environment. Exploratory factor analysis identified nine factors which included four internal and five external factors. The internal factors were labelled as managerial competencies, collateral, networking and business information. The external factors were labelled the macro-economy, the legal environment, ethical perception, crime and corruption. The instrument used was the self-administered questionnaire. The statistical analyses included descriptive statistics, frequencies, factor analysis T-test and Pearson’s correlation. The findings indicated that there are certain factors in the business environment that constrain credit access to new SMEs. Key words: New SMEs, commercial banks, trade creditors, business environment.
Interference during subject retrieval in sentence comprehension. An interference-based checking account for object attraction

The process of computing syntactic representations during language comprehension includes the checking of dependencies like subject-verb agreement. The rule for subject-verb agreement is as simple as this: If the subject has a certain phi-feature specification, the verb has to have the identical values for these features. In German, subject and verb have to agree in person and number.1 For the processing of subject-verb agreement it is useful to distinguish two phases. First, a phrase structure representation for the subject has to be built and integrated into the current partial phrase marker (CPPM) for the entire sentence. On encountering the verb, not only the verb has to be integrated into the CPPM, but also subject-verb agreement has to be checked by comparing the number specifications of the subject and the verb. In verb-final languages like German, subject and verb can be separated by several items. As a consequence, the subject has to be retrieved from memory in order to carry out the comparison. Both the subject integration phase and the agreement checking phase might be vulnerable to disruptions resulting in an agreement error. In this paper, I will discuss a specific kind of agreement error, namely attraction errors which occur when the subject and verb are separated by a further noun phrase (NP) not matching the subject in number. This intervening NP can be a modifier or an object. I will show that attraction errors elicited by an object cannot be attributed to an erroneous subject representation but rather to an interference-based disruption during subject retrieval in the checking phase. The paper is organized as follows: In section 2 attraction errors are introduced. Section 3 shows that similar agreement errors can be elicited by an object. Sections 4-6 present a series of three experiments investigating object attraction. Finally, section 7 presents an interference-based account for object attraction claiming that agreement errors elicited by an object can be attributed to interference during the checking phase.
Correcting for Mood-Induced Bias in the Evaluation of Political Candidates: The Roles of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation

Participants were induced to feel either happy or sad while reading an article that described a politician’s stand on issues. When participants were unmotivated to evaluate the candidate at the time they read the article, they evaluated him more favorably when they were happy than when they were not. However, when participants were either intrinsically or extrinsically motivated to evaluate the candidate, they adjusted their evaluations to compensate for the biasing influence of the target-irrelevant affect they were experiencing. In fact, they overadjusted, reporting less favorable evaluations of him when they were happy than when they were not. These adjustments for bias occurred on-line, as the candidate’s issue stands were presented, rather than after all of the judgment-relevant information had been received.
Technical efficiency and total factor productivity of rural banks in Ghana

Abstract This study sought to estimate the level of technical efficiency and total factor productivity of RCBs in Ghana using Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA). The total factor productivity (TFP) was decomposed into efficiency change and technical change over the study period. Quarterly data spanning 2009 to 2012 was sourced from the ARB-Apex Bank for a sample of 107 out of 137 RCBs in Ghana. The findings suggested that RCBs have room to improve on their technical efficiency and total factor productivity levels. Technical efficiency change, on average, was the main source of total factor productivity change during the period. The results suggest the shifting of the RCBs production frontier causing improvement in the TFP. The finding implies that efforts to improve efficiency and productivity of RCBs must be focused on improving the operational environment through rigorous efficiency analysis and monitoring by the regulator and management boards. The findings on the relative efficiencies also have implications for investment decision by prospective investors.
Taxation of Income and Economic Growth: An Empirical Analysis of 25 Rich OECD Countries

Several empirical papers have studied the effect of government size, typically measured as government expenditures, on economic growth. There is no consensus on the direction of this impact, even though more recent studies tend to find a negative relationship between the general level of government expenditures and economic growth. This negative relationship is explained by the distortions that raising tax revenues cause on economic activities. There are, however, several ways to raise tax revenues that likely have different distortionary effects and, hence, may impact economic growth differently. This paper analyses how taxation of income influences economic growth. More precisely we study how statutory tax rates on corporate and personal income affect economic growth by using panel data from 1975 till 2010 for 25 rich OECD countries. We find that both taxation of corporate and personal income negatively influence economic growth. The correlation between corporate income taxation and economic growth is more robust, however.
Interpreting the interseismic deformation of the Altotiberina Fault (central Italy) through 2D modelling

The Altotiberina low-angle normal fault in central Italy has been a focus of many recent studies. Although the existence of this fault has long been known, its seismicity and relationship to other faults are still debated. We present a 2D elastoplastic finite-element model that reproduces the interseismic deformation of the Altotiberina Fault. The model predictions are compared to observed geodetic velocities, stress orientations and geological data. The influence of the Altotiberina Fault on interseismic evolution is tested by building several models with different boundary conditions. The best model is 180 km long, 40 km deep and contains two layers with different rheological parameters, two ramps, two faults and four freely slipping segments. The main factors contributing to the large-scale interseismic deformation include basal traction, rheology and the Altotiberina Fault itself, whereas the local, small-scale variations are due to two secondary high-angle faults.
Determinants of capital structure: comparison of empirical evidence for the use of different estimators

This paper briefly tries to define the fundamentals underlying capital structure theories and evaluates whether some a priori assumed macroeconomic determinants can be related to the leverage parameters of interest examined in the paper. For this purpose, we conduct an empirical research that covers 90 selected firms traded on the BSE Stock Exchange. For the empirical analysis panel data methodology has been applied. The study period is 2002-2009 Our main results reveal that there is a negative and statistically significant relationship between non-debt tax shields and size and debt and there is a positive and statistically significant relationship between growth and ratio of fixed assets to total assets debt.
Influence of a diet containing beta-carotene and omega-3 fatty acids on the biochemical and nonspecific humoral immunity indicators and on the results of experimental calf rearing

The aim of this study has been to determine the effect of a diet containing β-carotene and omega-3 fatty acids on the biochemical and nonspecific humoral immunity indicators and on the results of rearing calves to day 60 of life. The study was conducted in 2011-2012, on a herd of Polish Holstein-Friesian cows. 54 calves from the herd were divided into 3 groups, 18 animals in each: CTR, TRT1 and TRT2. During the colostral period lasting for 5 days after birth, calves were drinking the mother’s colostrum. From 6 to 60 days, calves were watered milk replacer formulation. The control group (CTR) consisted of calves after the colostral period given milk replacer formulation without any supplementation. In the two other groups, calves received milk replacers with the supplementation of b-carotene (TRT1 group) in the amount of 25 mg/calf/day or a suspension of liver omega-3 oil (TRT2 group) in the amount of 5 g/calf/day. All calves received solid feed ad libitum. The research showed that the parameters of the metabolic profile of calves (ALT, ASP, CHOL, GLU, UREA, ALP, TG, CRE) were within the normal range, indicating good health of the calves. Moreover, the supplementation had a positive impact on the chosen immunological parameters, including a higher IgG concentration, especially at the end of the milk drinking period. The Grzegorz Zwierzchowski, Chair of Cattle Breeding and Milk Quality Evaluation, Univeristy of Warmia and Mazury, Michała Oczapowskiego 5, 10-719 Olsztyn, Poland, e-mail: khb@uwm.edu. pl
Who are Driving Electric Vehicles? An analysis of factors that affect EV adoption in Hawaii

Electric vehicles (EVs) have the potential to reduce local air pollution as well as greenhouse gas emissions, assuming they are predominantly powered with renewable energy. Upon their reintroduction to the mass vehicle market in 2010, President Obama set a goal of having a million on the road in the U.S. by 2015. Similarly, in Hawaii, the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative target was to have 10,000 EVs on the road by 2015 and 40,000 by 2020. Despite policy support, actual rates of EV adoption have fallen substantially short of stated goals. By the end of 2017, there were about 770,00 EVs within the U.S., with 6,700 of these in Hawaii. This study uses data on EV registrations by zipcode in Hawaii to analyze a variety of demographic and transportation factors that might affect EV adoption. We find that, after controlling for population and gasoline prices, higher income zipcodes are associated with higher levels of EV adoption â€“ where an increase of $10,000 in median income is associated with an additional 6 EVs within the 2010-2016 study time period (where the average zipcode in our sample had 68 EVs in 2016). When educational attainment is measured, we find that a 1% increase in the number of people with at least a bachelorâ€™s degree increases zipcode EV adoption by about 76. We find some evidence that gender can matter, similar to other studies that find that men are more likely to adopt EVs. The effect of age seems to be more robust, where we find that for every 1-year increase from the average zipcodeâ€™s median age, there are 1 to 2 more EVs. Most notably, we find that commute time affects EV adoption in Hawaii â€“ which is somewhat surprising given the relatively limited travel distances of an island geography. We find that a 1% increase in the prevalence of commute times greater than forty-five minutes within a zipcode, likely meaning they are farther from the central business district, is associated with 37 fewer EVs relative to those with a commute time under forty-five minutes. This finding holds even when looking at the island of Oahu alone, which has the majority of the stateâ€™s population as well as the majority of EVs. The island is about forty-four miles long, far less distance than the range offered by most EVs. This suggests that there may be strong risk-aversion associated with EV range anxiety as well as prompts further study of the effect of trip-chaining on EV purchase decisions.
The status of teeth in relation to socio-demographic characteristics, oral hygiene habits and oral health behavior among adolescents in the eastern region of Republika Srpska

Introduction. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of dental caries and analyze the status of teeth in relation to sociodemographic factors and habits and behavior related to oral health among adolescents in the eastern region of Republika Srpska. Material and Methods. The study included 212 adolescents (71 males and 141 females) age 16-18 years. Information about sociodemographic characteristics, oral hygiene habits and behaviors related to oral health were collected using a questionnaire. The prevalence of dental caries was determined by applying the DMFT index and its components (D - decayed, M - extracted, F - filled teeth). The status of teeth was analyzed in relation to socio-demographic variables, oral hygiene habits and behavior related to oral health. Results. The mean DMFT value of examined population was approximately 8.6. A significant difference in the status of teeth of adolescents was reported in relation to the place of residence and oral hygiene habits - brushing frequency and the use of dental floss. A significant difference in the caries prevalence was recorded depending on the elapsed time from last visit and reasons for visiting dentist. Conclusion. The results suggested that the place of residence, oral hygiene habits and behavior related to oral health influenced the status of teeth of adolescents in the eastern region of Republika Srpska.
Structure of Monetary Assets in Transition Economies: Financial Innovation and Structural Transformation

Using a panel data set we investigate the specificities of the structure of monetary assets in transition economies. This analysis reveals the main factors standing behind the structure of deposits held with banks (demand or time deposits), as well as the determinants of the trade-off between cash and demand deposits in Central and Eastern European Countries and in Former Soviet Union countries. We show that the strong preference for cash, which appears in transition countries, is related to the extent of the informal sector, to the low efficiency of the banking sector as well as to the massive currency substitutions. The relatively high share of time deposits compared to demand deposits is due to the inefficiency of the banking system and to the low level of development of alternative financial markets.
ournal of C osmology and A stroparticle hysics J Conformal inﬂation coupled to matter

We formulate new conformal models of inﬂation and dark energy which generalise the Higgs-Dilaton scenario. We embed these models in unimodular gravity whose eﬀect is to break scale invariance in the late time Universe. In the early Universe, inﬂation occurs close to a maximum of both the scalar potential and the scalar coupling to the Ricci scalar in the Jordan frame. At late times, the dilaton, which decouples from the dynamics during inﬂation, receives a potential term from unimodular gravity and leads to the acceleration of the Universe. We address two central issues in this scenario. First we show that the Damour-Polyalov mechanism, when non-relativistic matter is present prior to the start of inﬂation, sets the initial conditions for inﬂation at the maximum of the scalar potential. We then show that conformal invariance implies that matter particles are not coupled to the dilaton in the late Universe at the classical level. When fermions acquire masses at low energy, scale invariance is broken and quantum corrections induce a coupling between the dilaton and matter which is still small enough to evade the gravitational constraints in the solar system.