Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
EFFECT OF DOMESTIC DEBT ON ECONOMIC GROWTH IN THE EAST AFRICAN COMMUNITY

This paper empirically explores the effect of domestic debt, as a share of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), on economic growth in the East Africa Community (EAC) over the period 19902010. This study was based on the Solow growth model augmented for debt. Levin-Lin-Chu test (LLC) was used to investigate the properties of the data with respect to Unit roots. The Hausman specification test was used to select the panel fixed-effects model, which was corrected for heteroscedasticity. The results show that domestic debt has a positive significant effect on per capita GDP growth rate in the EAC. The policy implication is to promote sustainable levels of domestic borrowing to enhance growth.
Lights on the Shadows of Public Procurement Transparency in government contracting as an antidote to corruption?

Transparency is widely promoted as an essential condition for good governance, and as an effective tool against public sector corruption more specifically. Although the empirical evidence on the impact of transparency on corruption is growing, empirical evidence remains mixed. Recent critique holds that a main reason for the lack of robust empirical evidence is that both conceptualization and available measures of government transparency are broad and sometimes imprecise, and that the concepts of transparency are often far removed from the type of information that is relevant to assess government performance. This paper seeks to develop a more precise conceptualization and measure of transparency that is actionable for the stakeholders of government decisions. The paper uses newly collected data of more than 4 million public procurement contracts between 2006-2015 to investigate the impact of transparency on high-level corruption risks in public procurement across Europe. We find a strong negative impact of overall tender transparency on corruption risks. The results also show that ex-ante transparency, i.e. transparency before the contract is awarded, has a stronger effect on corruption risks than ex-post transparency, i.e. the availability of information after the contract has been awarded to a bidder. This suggest that internal transparency, or transparency first and foremost directed to provide information to the parties involved in the bidding process rather than to outside observers, is the main condition for wider public accountability to emerge. However, the effectiveness of this type of transparency is strengthened in contexts where there is also a wider societal demand for reduced corruption. In sum, our results suggest that transparency can reduce corruption risks if the information is both relevant to inside observers and actionable. show
Mucoadhesive Particles: A Novel, Prolonged-Release Nanocarrier of Sitagliptin for the Treatment of Diabetics

Sitagliptin (MK–0431) is a widely and commonly used oral hypoglycemic drug in the treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus; patients typically take higher doses of this drug (50 mg, twice daily). One drawback is that only 38% of the drug is bound reversibly to plasma proteins and 79% is excreted in urine without being metabolized. To overcome this issue, there is a need for a better drug-delivery method to improve its efficacy in patients. It has been found that in existing formulations, the drug content is 72.5% ± 5% and the percentage yield is 84.9% ± 3%. In this study, sitagliptin nanoparticles (sizes ranging from 210 to 618 nm) were developed. The bioadhesion properties of the nanoparticles, as well as the swelling of the nanoparticles on the mucus membrane aided in sustained drug release. The pattern of drug release was in accordance with the Peppas model. Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy demonstrated that there were no significant interactions between sitagliptin and chitosan. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) results showed an absence of drug peaks due to the fact that the drug was present in an amorphous state. Mucoadhesive nanoparticles were formulated using sitagliptin and were effective for about 12 hours in the gastrointestinal tract. When compared to conventional sitagliptin administration, use of a nanoparticle delivery system demonstrated greater benefits for use in oral delivery applications. This is the first time that a drug-delivery method based on the mucoadhesive properties of nanoparticles could prolong the drug-release time of sitagliptin.
Quality of ‘Tainung 1’ papaya produced by partial root zone drying

Resumo A significant portion of papaya production in the state of Minas Gerais originates from irrigated crops, and irrigation management using the partial root zone drying technique (PRD) is a fundamental alternative to reduce water waste. This study aimed to evaluate the quality of ‘Tainung 1’ papaya produced under PRD in semi-arid conditions of northern state of Minas Gerais. PRD treatments were composed of reduction of the calculated irrigation water (CIW) by 50%, applied on one side of the irrigation line, with alternation of 7, 14 and 21 days or without alternation and full irrigation, applying 100 % CIW in both lateral plant rows. Each experimental plot consisted of ten plants, and from six plants, fruits were harvested for evaluations at harvest point and when ripe. At harvest point, fruits had peel color, titratable acidity, ratio, pulp size and thickness similar to those produced without water deficit. Firmness, soluble solids content, fresh mass and central cavity diameter are distinct as a function of PRD condition. When ripe, only firmness varied according to PRD treatments. The quality of ‘Tainung 1’ papaya produced by partial root zone drying in semi-arid conditions was not compromised.
NDT_A_197632 2959..2969

Shilpi Sengar Deepak Raghav Meenakshi Verma Ahmad H Alghadir Amir Iqbal 2 1Department of Physiotherapy, Santosh Medical College, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, India; 2Rehabilitation Research Chair, College of Applied Medical Sciences, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Purpose: Balance is controlled through a complex process involving sensory, visual, vestibular and cerebral functioning which get affected by various neurological disorders such as in stroke. Various types of exercises are designed to address the imbalance that is developed due to these neurological disorders. This study aimed to compare the efficacy of dual-task training using two different priority instructional sets in improving gait parameters in patients with chronic stroke. Methods: This study was a randomized, pretest-posttest experimental group design that compared between two different priority instructional sets (fixed versus variable) of the dualtask training. A convenience sample of thirty patients with chronic stroke due to ruptured middle cerebral artery (mean age±SD = 55.76±5.23; range 48–65 years) was recruited and equally allocated into two groups. Group 1 received dual-task training with fixed priority instructional sets and group 2 received dual-task training with variable priority instructional sets. Both groups were trained for a period of 45 mins each session, 3-sessions per week for 4 weeks. The timed 10-m walk test and foot prints on walkway paper were used to assess the gait parameters (walking speed, stride length and step length) before and after the training session. Results: Within-group analysis revealed a significant improvement (p<0.05) on gait parameters for both the groups. Furthermore, Cohen’s d calculation for the treatment effect size revealed highly larger effect size on gait parameters in group 2 (Cohen’s d>2 SD) than group 1 (Cohen’s d<2 SD) for the all variables. Conclusion: The dual-task training with variable priority instructional sets (group 2) was more effective than dual-task training with fixed priority instructional sets (group 1) in improving gait parameters such as gait speed, stride length, and step length in patients with chronic stroke. Physiotherapists should spread awareness and use this specific set of exercises (variable priority instructional sets) while performing a dual-task balance training program among patients with chronic stroke.
The Weak Spinning Magnetic Force ( F W ) ( The Weak Interaction )

The mechanism produced the Strong Spinning Magnetic Force (SMFs), or the strong force is revisited, in which an opposite Spinning Magnetic Field (SMF) of an electron and proton interacted to produce the particle neutron, which is stabilized within the nucleus due to attachment to the proton’s SMF; the reversed of this mechanism is developed when neutron is forced out of the nucleus, within a period of 15 minutes, the similar SMF of electron and proton within the neutron, opposed each others, creating a state of agitation leading to spiral movement, increased with time, finally resulted in both particle’s opposite SMF created a repulsive force, ejecting the electron from the common status with neutron, in addition to the proton and a neutrino forming the beta decay (β-decay); this Weak Spinning Magnetic Force (FW), in addition to the Magnetic Force (MF) and the Strong Spinning Magnetic Force (SMFs), unified the three forces of nature as an Electromagnetic force, with an aim to bring common sense to the physical world.
Latent Space Regularization for Explicit Control of Musical Attributes

Deep generative models for music are often restrictive since they do not allow users any meaningful control over the generated music. To address this issue, we propose a novel latent space regularization technique which is capable of structuring the latent space of a deep generative model by encoding musically meaningful attributes along speciﬁc dimensions of the latent space. This, in turn, can provide users with explicit control over these attributes during inference and thereby, help design intuitive musical interfaces to enhance creative workﬂows.
Efficacy of insecticides against sesamum leaf webber and capsule borer, Antigastra catalaunalis (Duponchel)

A field experiment was conducted at Agronomy Instructional Farm, Sardarkrushinagar Dantiwada Agricultural University, Sardarkrushinagar (Gujarat) during kharif 2012 and 2013. Based on number of larvae per plant, % flower and capsule infestation recorded after two sprays concluded that all the treatments showed significant difference in reducing larval population, and flower and capsule infestation over control. Spinosad 0.001% was found significantly most effective followed by profenofos 0.05%, dichlorvos 0.05%, acephate 0.075% and triazophos 0.04% whereas, imidacloprid 0.01%, neem oil 1% and Beauveria bassiana 2×108 cfu/gm were the least effective. Maximum yield was obtained with spinosad followed by profenofos and dichlorvos. However, the ICBR was recorded highest with dichlorvos (1: 30.86).
Challenges of non-native English speaker international students on the written assignment in UK universities : a critical review of the recent empirical literature

As a written discourse between students and academic teaching staff, academic writing is fairly important for students in respect of their academic success or failure in higher education. In particular, it is a significant challenge to non-native international students from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds. This study draw on the issues of non-native English speaker international students on the written assignment by reviewing previous empirical studies conducted in UK university context. The review undertaken here investigated two parties, international students and academic teaching staff. The findings showed that non-native international students had much trouble with limited linguistic resources, different socio-cultural education systems and lack of supports. The academic teaching staff showed lack of intercultural awareness by devaluing the multilingual and multicultural repertoires in written practices. Researchers argued academic lecturers make more efforts to accommodate them and provide enough writing supports; Also they suggested that they reconsider the non-native international students’ written tasks not as a problem to be fixed by standard English norm but as intercultural or transcultural repertoires.
Migration and Accumulation of Radioactive Cesium in the Upstream Region of River Watersheds Affected by the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Accident: A Review

Huge amounts of radioactive cesium (Cs) were released by the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the environment and widely contaminated the Tohoku and Kanto regions, especially mountainous area of Fukushima Prefecture. Much research on the migration and accumulation of radioactive Cs in the heavily contaminated upstream region mainly consisting of forested catchments and water bodies has been conducted to understand the current status and process of the contamination from the Fukushima accident. This paper organizes the scientific knowledge about the migration and accumulation of deposited radioactive Cs in contaminated upstream regions after the Fukushima accident, especially regarding the runoff characteristics from forest catchments, accumulation characteristics in bottom sediment of dam reservoirs and ponds, and the behavior of bioavailable radioactive Cs. It then highlights future research issues for providing local residents safe and secure lives based on the above knowledge.
Infant and child mortality in Nepal.

The 1996 Nepal Family Health Survey (NFHS) part of the World Demographic and Health Surveys collected information on fertility family planning and maternal and child health from 8429 ever-married women aged 15-49. The data were collected during the months of January through June of 1996. Birth histories of women included in the survey provide information for analysis of child characteristics. Basic results from the survey including analyses of infant and child mortality have been published in the first report (Ministry of Health 1997a). This report includes measures of levels and trends of mortality before age 5 by 5-year periods preceding the survey as well as differentials of mortality by selected socioeconomic background characteristics demographic characteristics and health care behavior. A second report has focused on selected topics including early infant survival (Ministry of Health 1997b). However a major limitation of both of these reports is that they do not identify the relative effects of various explanatory factors "net" of the effects of others. Here we remove this limitation by controlling for possibly confounding variables in our investigation of the effects of socioeconomic demographic and health care characteristics of children and mothers on infant and child mortality. Because many factors associated with variations in infant and child mortality are interrelated it is important to estimate the "net" effect of each factor. Hazard model analysis allows us to estimate net effects of each characteristic controlling for the effects of other characteristics. The hazard model can be viewed as a regression model of cohort life tables (Cox 1972). Because major causes of death differ substantially at different ages the effects on mortality of factors we examine may be quite different at different ages of children. The hazard models therefore are estimated for three age intervals separately: the neonatal period (first month) postneonatal period (exact ages one to 12 months) and childhood period (exact ages 12 to 60 months). (authors)
Investigating the Presence of Type IV Pilin Subgenus in Pseudomonas aeruginosa Isolated from Cystic Fibrosis, Burns and Environmental Samples

10.30699/ijmm.13. 3.164 Background and Aims: The type IV Pilin is an important colonization factor for opportunistic pathogens of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which plays a role in the formation of biofilms and binding to the host cells. Each type of Pilin is coded with a particular auxiliary gene. This specific relationship can be used as a therapeutic target for detecting P. aeruginosa strains as well as its molecular classification. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the frequency of different types of auxiliary genes in cystic fibrosis, burns, and environmental samples. Materials and Methods: Pseudomonas aeruginosa samples were collected from patients with cystic fibrosis, burns as well as environmental wastewaters during 2016-2017. Samples were cultured and identified using standard microbial and biochemical methods. DNA extraction was performed by boiling and PCR was performed through specific primers. Results: Totally, 90 isolates of P. aeruginosa samples (35 environmental, 30 burns, and 25 cystic fibrosis) were examined. tfpO and tfpZ were positive in 71 and 2 isolates, respectively . Conclusion: The results indicated that Pseudomonas aeruginosa Pilin types are very diverse. Regardless of the source of the samples, the most common tfp was tfpO. Taking into account the fact that tfpZ was found only in burns, it can be assumed that this particular type may appear in severe clinical conditions. Ultimately, larger statistical population and use of more comprehensive typing methods is suggested for better results.
Volume 16: How to Detect and Handle Outliers

Data sometimes include observations that don't appear to belong with the rest. If we understand in detail the mechanism that produces each observation, we might well be able to explain most of these anomalous results. For example, an instrument may have been calibrated improperly, a measurement may have been read incorrectly, an uncontrollable event may have affected the result, or a recording error may have crept in. Ordinarily we would act on such information by classifying the anomalous observations as outliers and setting them aside. Then our analysis would focus on the process that we intended to study. In practice, we may have only partial information on mechanisms underlying the observations, and we may not know about unusual circumstances affecting some of the data. Thus we may have to rely primarily on the data in judging which observations are outliers. Historically, scientists, engineers, and statisticians have faced . this challenge in a great variety of ways, responding to different needs and circumstances. A number of books cover the background and technical aspects and provide access to the extensive literature. This booklet concentrates on the practical aspects of dealing with outliers in data that arise most often in applications: single and multiple samples, linear regression, and factorial experiments. For each setting we present a technique that works well (and perhaps some alternatives), explain the motivation for it, discuss its strengths and weaknesses, and illustrate its use in examples. Where special tables are required, we include them in the appendix. Our intended audience includes practitioners in quality control, as well as workers in engineering and applied science who gather and analyze data. The booklet should also be helpful to advanced students in these fields and in statistics, both for a brief, practical introduction to the statistical treatment of outliers and as a stepping stone to more-comprehensive and more-technical treatments of the subject. In the setting of a single sample we discuss three main approaches. First, outlier labeling aims to flag observations as possible outliers for further investigation. Second, when the main need is to calculate an estimate (for example, of an underlying mean or median), outlier accommodation empha-
WEANING AND CHILDHOOD DIET AT CA-CCO-297

We reconstruct age of weaning and childhood diet in a population of individuals from CA-CCO-297, using stable isotope carbon and nitrogen analysis of dentinal collagen from permanent first molars. Because dental tissues do not remodel, teeth record a dietary signature of an individual at the time the teeth were forming, between age 0 and 9.5 for first molars. Results for six individuals with intact weaning curves indicate that children were weaned, on average, around 2.7 years of age. Five additional individuals did not display a weaning curve, likely due to heavy occlusal wear that removed the earliergrowing portions of the tooth. We also show that after weaning, children were consuming a diet rich in marine foods, and that isotopically, there is little difference between the diets of toddlers (age 1-3), children (age 4-9), and adults at CCO-297.
THE DIRICHLET PROBLEM FOR NONLOCAL ELLIPTIC OPERATORS WITH C EXTERIOR DATA

In this note we study the boundary regularity of solutions to nonlocal Dirichlet problems of the form Lu = 0 in Ω, u = g in Rn\Ω, in non-smooth domains Ω. When g is smooth enough, then it is easy to transform this problem into an homogeneous Dirichlet problem with a bounded right hand side, for which the boundary regularity is well understood. Here, we study the case in which g ∈ C0,α, and establish the optimal Hölder regularity of u up to the boundary. Our results extend previous results of Grubb for C∞ domains Ω.
Ecotoxicological Genetics: from Mussel Watch to Crop Watch

A good researcher usually specializes and enjoys a specific area of study. For example, the researcher is passionate to spend and devotes most of his/her time in studies like biomonitoring, ecology, ecotoxicology, genetics and plant crop improvements. The aim of this paper is to review Ecotoxicological Genetic (EG) study by using marine mussel Perna viridis under the Mussel Watch program and to discuss the potential EG o be applied to crop plants as Crop Watch.
Ethnobotanical Survey Of Medicinal Plants Used For Treatment Of Malaria By Kipsigis People In Kericho County, Kenya

Background: Ethnobotanical pharmacopoeia is importantly used in intervention of disease and need arises for documentation and preservation of tradition medicinal knowledge to boost the discovery of new drugs. Due to the emergence of drug resistance to malaria, there is a high possibility of development of resistance to ACT (that is the first line of treatment), thus a need for identification and development of new and novel therapeutic approaches. Herbs offer an opportunity for discovery and development of new chemically diverse antimalarial agents, however little documentation has been done. The first objective of the present study was to identify and document preferred medicinal plants used for treatment of malaria in Kericho East SubCounty. Methods: Field research was conducted in six SubCounties of Kericho County in Kenya namely Kipkelion East, Kipkelion West, Kericho West, Kericho East, Sigowet/Soin and Bureti. We randomly sampled 120 interviewees according to age, gender, occupation and level of education. Plant use data was collected through semi-structured questionnaires; transect walks, oral interviews and focus groups discussions. Voucher specimens of all cited botanic species were collected and deposited at National museum herbarium, Nairobi Botany department. Results Twenty medicinal plant species were yielded from the informants which are used to treat different symptoms and signs of malaria including; headache, fever, diarrhea, stomach-ache. Conclusions The ethnomedicinal use of plant species was documented in the study area for treatment of human malaria. The major threatening factors reported were factitious and natural. Ethnomedical documentation and sustainable plant utilization can support drug discovery efforts in developing countries.
Factors Influencing the Acceptance of Online Shopping in Pakistan

The rapid growth of the Internet and its extended reach has helped developing countries adopt e-commerce, thus enabling consumers to make transactions worldwide. This study identifies the factors related to online shopping and examines consumer motivation and acceptance in this context. We employ exploratory factor analysis, structural equation modeling, and cluster analysis and find that Pakistani consumers behave very differently from consumers in Western countries or countries that have adopted online shopping on a wide scale. While factors such as convenience and trust are seen to affect consumer behavior, other variables such as perceived price and information availability are less importance. The study also examines the reasons for this deviation from typical consumer behavior.