Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sustainable development in Indonesia : holistic assessments and pathways

This thesis assesses the status of sustainable development in Indonesia, identifies the systemic barriers, and offers holistic development pathways toward sustainability. The framework employed in this research looks at the interactions between the economy, employment, and environment while taking into account the forces of technology and globalization. It concludes that the development in Indonesia is not yet on a sustainable path. The economy is performing well and unemployment is low, but inequality is very high, capacity to adapt is low, and the environment is quickly degrading. The major barrier towards sustainability are fundamentally politics: messy decentralization, pervasive corruption, and persistent elite capture. Other systemic barriers are the low level of education, fragmented innovation system, and low awareness of sustainability issues. To make progress towards sustainability, the systemic barriers must be cleared. Local governments need to be made clean and competent; lifelong learning systems established; local innovations boosted; pollutions prevented at the source using technological or organizational innovations; and awareness of sustainability issues raised. The findings in this thesis are summarized and mapped to the UN Sustainable Development Goals in the concluding chapter. Thesis Supervisor: Nicholas A. Ashford Title: Professor of Technology and Policy
Thermal time in sprinkler-irrigated lowland rice

The objective of this work was to evaluate methods of thermal time calculation and the duration of the development stages of lowland rice (Oryza sativa) irrigated by sprinkling. The experiment was conducted during three growing seasons (2010/2011, 2011/2012, and 2014/2015), with five irrigation water depths, six cultivars, and four replicates. Six methods of thermal time calculation were tested: two using the minimum basal temperature; two using the minimum and optimum temperatures; and two using the minimum, optimum, and maximum basal temperatures. For the thermal time calculation, the crop development cycle was divided into the vegetative, reproductive, and grain-filling phases. The methods that used the three cardinal temperatures showed the lowest coefficients of variation for most of the developmental phases. Both irrigation water depths and rice cultivars affected the thermal time of the development stages. The greater the water availability, the lower the duration of the development cycle. Thermal time values depend on the calculation method.
Role of Computed Tomography Coronary Angiography in the Detection of Vulnerable Plaque, Where Does it Stand Among Others?

Recently, there has been a growing interest in identification of coronary “vulnerable plaques” that are prone to rupture; this potentially would help identify patients with higher risk of development of cardiac events. Recent advances in cardiac imaging modalities have been successful in studying various plaque vulnerability features to variable degrees, strengths and limitations. Computed Tomography Coronary Angiography (CTCA) has gained an increasing popularity in studying plaque anatomy, morphology and composition by the virtue of its widespread availability and non-invasiveness. CTCA has been validated against histology and IVUS with reasonable correlation; moreover, some follow-up studies have shown a significant association to the development of acute coronary syndromes. Nevertheless, attention should be paid to the whole patient big picture that includes other factors operating on other extra-coronary axes that involve inflammation, immunity, coagulation and neuroendocrine systems.
Sustainability and Adequacy of the Spanish Pension System after the 2013 Reform: A Microsimulation Analysis

Concerns about the consequences of demographic ageing on the sustainability of the pension system has led to the adoption of reforms reducing pension expenditure. However, the impact of these reforms on pension adequacy is now coming under increasing scrutiny. Taking recent Spanish reform as an example, this paper analyses the extent to which fostering pension sustainability threatens pension adequacy. Using an extension of the DyPeS behavioural microsimulation model, results show that the introduction of mechanisms linking retirement pensions to the evolution of the social security budget balance has strong and negative effects on adequacy. The gains in sustainability are mainly driven by the significant fall in the benefit ratio (average pension to average wage), worsening the relative eco¬nomic position of pensioners throughout forthcoming decades, reversing the past trend.
Post-Earnings Announcement Drift: The Role of Earnings Volatility

The study reported here consisted of examining the market’s reactions to the volatility effect on time series correlations of earnings in a post-earnings announcement drift context. Sample in this study comprises of 295 Canadian firms and covers 2006-2011 period. Firstly, our results show that earnings volatility is inversely related to earnings persistence (under the AR(1) and the Foster model assumption). Secondly, our findings confirm the aggravated negative effect of earnings volatility on seasonal unexpected earnings persistence. Finally, following Mishkin’s (1983) method of testing market efficiency, this study supports that capital market recognizes the earnings volatility effect on earnings persistence. Our results contribute to understanding the role of earnings volatility in explaining the persistence of PEAD.
Exact natural gradient in deep linear networks and its application to the nonlinear case

Stochastic gradient descent (SGD) remains the method of choice for deep learning, despite the limitations arising for ill-behaved objective functions. In cases where it could be estimated, the natural gradient has proven very effective at mitigating the catastrophic effects of pathological curvature in the objective function, but little is known theoretically about its convergence properties, and it has yet to find a practical implementation that would scale to very deep and large networks. Here, we derive an exact expression for the natural gradient in deep linear networks, which exhibit pathological curvature similar to the nonlinear case. We provide for the first time an analytical solution for its convergence rate, showing that the loss decreases exponentially to the global minimum in parameter space. Our expression for the natural gradient is surprisingly simple, computationally tractable, and explains why some approximations proposed previously work well in practice. This opens new avenues for approximating the natural gradient in the nonlinear case, and we show in preliminary experiments that our online natural gradient descent outperforms SGD on MNIST autoencoding while sharing its computational simplicity.
Increase in catheter associated urinary tract infections in intensive care units at a tertiary care centre: a cause of concern

Aim: Health-care associated infections (HAIs) affect 5-20% of patients admitted in the hospitals. Catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI) are the commonest HAIs accounting for about 35-45% of these nosocomial infections due to lack of aseptic procedures and prolonged catheterization. The spectrum and antimicrobial resistance pattern of micro-organism that cause CAUTIs vary among institutions and can change from year to year. Materials and Methods: A retrograde analysis was performed on patients with indwelling catheters admitted in medical and surgical ICU. The patient’s demographic details (name, age,sex), date of hospital admission, provisional diagnosis, treatment details, time and date of catheter insertion and removal were recorded as per CDC criteria. CAUTI was diagnosed as per CDC guidelines. Results and Conclusions: A total of 687 patients were catheterized in ICU for an aggregate of 2748 patient days. The device utilization rate was 0.66. The prevalence of CAUTI per 1000 device days was 8.73. The causative uropathogens included Candida , E.coli , Enterococcus spp . A high degree of resistance was observed in all the isolates. There is a need to introduce appropriate measures aimed at proper use of catheters, to organise more frequent suitable personnel training and emphasis on hand washing procedures.
Biochemical and fatty acid composition of Arca noae (Bivalvia: Arcidae) from the Mali Ston Bay, Adriatic Sea

Biochemical and fatty acid composition of the bivalve Arca noae were investigated in the Mali Ston Bay in relation to environmental conditions. Sampling was carried out monthly, from December 2001 to November 2002. Wet shellfish meat consists on average of 77.61% water and 22.39% dry matter, while dry shellfish meat consists on average of 89.04% organic and 10.96% inorganic matter. PCA analysis identified temperature, nitrate, silicate, MICRO, Chl a and salinity as the most important environmental factors influencing biochemical composition of A. noae . An increase of dry weight content of A. noae was observed during the spring when both the sea temperature and food supply increased rapidly. Contents of protein (54.39-62.06% of dry weight), carbohydrate (4.13-8.07% of dry weight) and lipid (3.46-8.58% of dry weight) varied significantly during the year. Protein and lipid level reached the maximum value in June. The fatty acid profiles of total lipids extracted from A. noae showed high level of unsaturation (UNS/SAT 1.9-3.4). Total polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) represented the majority of total fatty acids (40.3-59.9% of total fatty acids) and the most abundant were eicosapentaenoic (20:5n-3) and docosahexaenoic (22:6n-3) acid. n-3/n-6 PUFA ratio value varied between 2.1 and 5.0 and was the highest during the spring (April to June). Due to their low lipid and high percentages of healthy polyunsaturated fatty acids A. noae can be evaluated as a quality seafood product. The most suitable period of the year for its consumption is in the spring when it reaches its highest nutritional values.
Effect of Bolts on Flow and Heat Transfer in a Rotor–Stator Disk Cavity

Previous studies have indicated some differences between steady CFD predictions of flow in a rotor-stator disc cavity with rotating bolts compared to measurements. Recently time-dependent CFD simulations have revealed the unsteadiness present in the flow and have given improved agreement with measurements. In this paper unsteady Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes (URANS) 3600 model CFD calculations of a rotor-stator cavity with rotor bolts were performed in order to better understand the flow and heat transfer within a disc cavity previously studied experimentally by other workers. It is shown that the rotating bolts generate unsteadiness due to wake shedding which creates time-dependent flow patterns within the cavity. At low throughflow conditions, the unsteady flow significantly increases the average disc temperature. A systematic parametric study is presented giving insight into the influence of number of bolts, mass flow rate, cavity gap ratio and the bolts-to-shroud gap ratio on the time depended flow within the cavity.
Transnational Trade in ECOWAS: Does Export Content Matter?

In spite of the vast deposit of resources and human endowments in ECOWAS region, gains from trade have really been marginal in the region. ECOWAS region is characterized with poor performance in export of dynamic products; they remained commodity dependent in its exports, leading to transfer of economic gains across border. Over 90% of the region’s export is primary products with very little value-added which accentuated from commodity price and demand inelasticity resulting in terms of trade losses and volatile foreign earnings. Based on these facts, the study tries to investigate the impact of export diversification and composition on GDP growth and GDP per capita respectively. This was achieved using econometric analyses involving co-integration technique and a panel least square technique for the period of 1975-2009 and 1990-2007 respectively in 15 ECOWAS states. The study was deemed significant, as export diversification and manufacturing value-added index induced a positive and significant impact on per capita income growth. The study found high skewness of ECOWAS to commodity export in the period observed but a vertical diversification of product base would emanates more spill-over and surplus gains from the regions endowments. The conclusive finding centred on that fact that it is not how much that is exported that matters but very important is what is exported as regions with less specialization and more diversified exports generally experienced higher economic growth rates and contributed much more to overall exports. The notable recommendation for ECOWAS policy makers is the need to develop domestic processing capability and see export as originating from domestic sufficiency.
Language Assimilation and Performance in Achievement Tests Among Immigrant Children: Evidence from a Field Experiment

We provide new evidence about language assimilation and its effect on test scores using data from two rounds (conducted approximately six years apart) of the New Immigrants Survey (NIS). As part of the NIS interviews, U.S. born and foreign-born children of immigrants were asked to take Woodcock-Johnson achievement test. In both rounds, prior to the administration of tests, children of Hispanic origin were randomly assigned to take the tests either in Spanish or in English. Therefore, we can attribute the difference in scores to language proficiency and directly estimate the rate of assimilation. Our results suggest that in reading tests, U.S. born children of Hispanic immigrants perform better, when they are assigned to take the tests in English, and the advantage remains stable across two rounds of interviews. However, there is substantial heterogeneity. For example, U.S. born children at the top of score distribution perform better when they take tests in Spanish. Foreign-born children of Hispanic immigrants exhibit Spanish dominance during the first round, but it declines and in some cases completely disappears by the second round. We find that foreign-born children who immigrated to the U.S. after age six, exhibit Spanish dominance in reading tests in the first round. However, during the six years between interviews, Spanish dominance disappears among foreign-born children who immigrated between the ages of six and eight (in reading) and in all children (in math). Moreover, for children who still have Spanish dominance in reading, the score differences have narrowed.
Comparison of Potential Antihypertensive and Antioxidant Between Aqueous Extract of Purple Sweet Potato Tuber and Captopril in Hypertensive Patients

Hypertension is a cardiovascular disease that accompanied by oxidative stress. Treatment of hypertension with conventional drugs such as captopril could be expected to cope oxidative stress, but often cause side effects such as cough. It is necessary to find an alternative medicine instead of captopril, which has antihypertensive and antioxidant activities. Purple sweet potato tubers has been studied as an antioxidant in vivo , and has shown to decrease blood pressure in hypertensive rats. The purpose of this study was to compare the aqueous extract of purple sweet potato and captopril in relation with theire effects on blood pressure and oxidative stress in hypertensive patients. This research was limited clinical trials with randomized pre - test and post- test control group design, with a population of hypertensive patients. A total of 30 hypertensive patients were included in this study and they were divided into three groups of 10 patients each. The control group was given captopril only, treatment-1 group was given a purple sweet potato aqueous extract only, and treatment-2 were given a combination of captopril and purple sweet potato extract. This treatment was carried out for four weeks. The results showed that all treatments significantly (p 0.05 ). The conclusion from this study is that the aqueous extract of purple sweet potato obviously decreased the blood pressure and blood MDA levels that comparable to captopril, and a better ability to increase blood SOD levels in hypertensive patients. Keywords: Purple sweet potato, captopril, antioxidant, hypertensive patients
Optimal Machining Parameters for Achieving the Desired Surface Roughness in Turning of Steel

Due to the widespread use of highly automated machine tools in the metal cutting industry, manufacturing requires highly reliable models and methods for the prediction of output performance in the machining process. The prediction of optimal manufacturing conditions for good surface finish and dimensional accuracy plays a very important role in process planning. In the steel turning process the tool geometry and cutting conditions determine the time and cost of production which ultimately affect the quality of the final product. In the present work, experimental investigations have been conducted to determine the effect of the tool geometry (effective tool nose radius) and metal cutting conditions (cutting speed, feed rate and depth of cut) on surface finish during the turning of EN-31 steel. First and second order mathematical models are developed in terms of machining parameters by using the response surface methodology on the basis of the experimental results. The surface roughness prediction model has been optimized to obtain the surface roughness values by using LINGO solver programs. LINGO is a mathematical modeling language which is used in linear and nonlinear optimization to formulate large problems concisely, solve them, and analyze the solution in engineering sciences, operation research etc. The LINGO solver program is global optimization software. It gives minimum values of surface roughness and their respective optimal conditions.
Analysis Bending Solutions of Clamped Rectangular Thick Plate

The bending solutions of rectangular thick plate with all edges clamped and supported were investigated in this study. The basic governing equations used for analysis are based on Mindlin’s higher-order shear deformation plate theory. Using a new function, the three coupled governing equations have been modified to independent partial differential equations that can be solved separately. These equations are coded in terms of deflection of the plate and the mentioned functions. By solving these decoupled equations, the analytic solutions of rectangular thick plate with all edges clamped and supported have been derived. The proposed method eliminates the complicated derivation for calculating coefficients and addresses the solution to problems directly. Moreover, numerical comparison shows the correctness and accuracy of the results.
Stress-related biobehavioral profile of senior nursing students

Objective : The purpose of the study was to determine the levels of psychosocial (stress, moods, and loneliness) and salivary biomarker responses (cortisol, alpha-amylase, C-reactive protein, Interleukin-1β, estradiol, and testosterone) and their associations in senior nursing students. Because of diversity in student characteristics, we also examined group differences by age, prior degree status, and curricular tracks. Methods : In a cross-sectional study, 77 graduating baccalaureate nursing students completed questionnaires and provided a saliva sample via passive drool during fall semester, 2013. All data were collected between 8:00 am and noon. Biomarker levels were assessed with enzyme-linked immunoassays, and biological data were transformed prior to data analyses as needed. Results : On average, psychosocial and biological responses seem to be within normal ranges. One third of students, however, showed moderately high or high levels of stress. Stress was significantly and inversely correlated with estradiol, r = -. 25, p < . 04, and alpha amylase, r = -. 31, p < . 007. Anger and confusion were significantly and positively correlated with testosterone, r = . 24 to . 27, p < . 05. Despite the diversity, there were no significant psychosocial or biological differences between groups. Conclusions : Although average psychosocial and biological responses seem unremarkable, a subset of students showed relatively high levels of stress. Several psychosocial factors were significantly correlated with biological responses, suggesting biobehavioral interactions to influence the health. Regular stress assessment and campus resources may facilitate early stress management to minimize potential long-term adverse health outcomes.
Bioavailability of Bioactive Compounds

Arachidin-1 (Ara-1) and arachidin-3 (Ara-3) are stilbenoids found in hairy peanut roots, which have been shown to possess similar, if not higher, efficacy in biological activities when compared to nonprenylated analogs such as piceatannol and resveratrol. Blackberry essences are concentrated volatiles, which are characterized by low molecular weight, lipophilic properties, and have also been demonstrated to have health benefits. As interest in dietary bioactive compounds functional ingredients increase, more emphasis has been placed on identifying which compounds have high efficacy as well as bioavailability. The ability of a compound to exert its health promoting effects depends on its bioavailable dose, rather than the administered dose. The present study aimed to evaluate the stability of Ara-1 and Ara-3 under cell incubation conditions and attempts to determine bioavailability of Ara-1, Ara-3, and blackberry essences using an in vitro Caco-2 transport assay. Caco-2 cells were seeded on semipermeable membranes and allowed to differentiate into a morphology that resembles mature small intestine enterocytes. Sample preparation, extraction methods, and enzymatic treatments were adjusted to enhance recovery of Ara-1 and Ara-3. However, Ara-1 was shown to be more susceptible to the effects of oxidation and degradation. At this time, it is inconclusive whether Ara-1 and Ara-3 possesses higher bioavailability than its analog, resveratrol (Resv), in cell incubation conditions due to little to no recovery during transport. On the other than, individual volatiles from the blackberry essences were tentatively identified and transport rates determined based on the peak area found in the starting material. Results suggests that though esters and monoterpenes make up the two most abundant functional groups in the blackberry essence profile, higher transport rates and recovery were observed in aldehydes.
Measurement of residual stresses in dissimilar friction stir-welded aluminium and copper plates using the contour method

The longitudinal residual stresses in the friction stir-welded plates of 5A06 aluminium and pure copper were determined using the contour method. The results revealed the presence of high tensile and compressive residual stresses on the aluminium and copper sides, respectively. The residual stresses were detected on the weld zone as well as the thermo-mechanically affected zone (TMAZ) of the aluminium plate. In contrast, the compressive residual stresses in the copper plate had a much narrower width along the weld line. Peak tensile stresses up to 240 MPa were found in the TMAZ of the aluminium plate.