Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The determinants of collateral: a decision tree analysis of SME loans

Previous empirical research has devoted little effort on the role and determinants of business collateral and personal commitments in the credit acquisition process, even though this is a common feature of small business credit contracts. We modelled the collateralisation decision as a two decision process by investigating the differences in the determinants of the collateral decision versus the determinants of the choice between business collateral and personal commitments. The analysis was performed by a decision tree analysis. In the classification models, we concentrate specifically on relationship characteristics. The results reveal that relationship characteristics have a significant influence but not always in the direction as could be expected. Moreover, they do not seem to be the primary determinants in our classification models. The most important determinants in both decision models seem to be the loan amount, total assets and the family versus non family firm distinction.
Development of high strength pearlitic steel rail (SP rail) with excellent wear and damage resistance

NKK has developed a high-strength pearlitic rail named the SP (Super Pearlite) rail, which has superior wear and damage resistance and is most suitable for heavy haul railroads. Comprehensive research on the relation between microstructural factors and wear and RCF (Rolling Contact Fatigue) behaviors revealed that refining the pearlite colonies greatly improves wear and damage resistance. In the SP rail, the pearlite colonies are refined through microalloying design and TMCP (Thermo-Mechanical Controlled Processing). This paper introduces the basic properties of the SP rail including its wear and RCF behaviors as well as the concept of microstructural control.
Immobilization of ZnO Suspension on Glass Substrate to Remove Filtration During the Removal of Remazol Red R from Aqueous Solution

Photodegradation of textile dyes in the presence of an aqueous suspension of semiconductor oxides has been of growing interest. Although this method of destruction of dyes is efficient, the main obstacle of applying this technique in the industry is the time and cost involving separation of oxides from an aqueous suspension. In this research, an attempted was made to develop ZnO films on a glass substrate by simple immobilization method for the adsorption and photodegradation of a typical dye, Remazol Red R (RRR) from aqueous solution. Adsorption and photodegradation of RRR were performed in the presence of glass supported ZnO film. Photodegradation of the dye was carried out by varying different parameters such as the catalyst dosage, initial concentrations of RRR, and light sources. The percentage of adsorption as well as photodegradation increased with the amount of ZnO, reaches a maximum and then decreased. Maximum degradation has been found under solar light irradiation as compared to UV-light irradiation. Removal efficiency was also found to be influenced by the pre-sonication of ZnO suspension.
Isolation and Characterization of Siderophores from Azospirillum lipoferum D-2

Azospirillum lipoferum strain D-2 produces the phenolate siderophores 2,3-dihydroxybenzoic acid, 3,5-dihydroxybenzoic acid and salicylic acid under iron-starved conditions. Lysine and leucine were identified as the amino acid conjugates of the siderophores. The concentration of siderophores in the culture supernatant was maximal after 20 h growth. Iron-binding proteins were present in membranes of cultures grown under iron starvation. Iron uptake was enhanced in the presence of each of the siderophores.
A constraint upon the basal water distribution and thermal state of the Greenland Ice Sheet from radar bed echoes

Abstract. There is widespread, but often indirect, evidence that a significant fraction of the bed beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet is thawed (at or above the pressure melting point for ice). This includes the beds of major outlet glaciers and their tributaries and a large area around the NorthGRIP borehole in the ice-sheet interior. The ice-sheet-scale distribution of basal water is, however, poorly constrained by existing observations. In principle, airborne radio-echo sounding (RES) enables the detection of basal water from bed-echo reflectivity, but unambiguous mapping is limited by uncertainty in signal attenuation within the ice. Here we introduce a new, RES diagnostic for basal water that is associated with wet–dry transitions in bed material: bed-echo reflectivity variability. This technique acts as a form of edge detector and is a sufficient, but not necessary, criteria for basal water. However, the technique has the advantage of being attenuation insensitive and suited to combined analysis of over a decade of Operation IceBridge survey data.The basal water predictions are compared with existing analyses of the basal thermal state (frozen and thawed beds) and geothermal heat flux. In addition to the outlet glaciers, we demonstrate widespread water storage in the northern and eastern interior. Notably, we observe a quasilinear corridor of basal water extending from NorthGRIP to Petermann Glacier that spatially correlates with elevated heat flux predicted by a recent magnetic model. Finally, with a general aim to stimulate regional- and process-specific investigations, the basal water predictions are compared with bed topography, subglacial flow paths and ice-sheet motion. The basal water distribution, and its relationship with the thermal state, provides a new constraint for numerical models.
Perceived Discrimination and Thriving in Emerging Adults; The Role of Ethnic Identity

4 Introduction . 7 Method . 20 Participants . 20 Procedure . 20 Measures . 21 Results . 24 Analysis . 24 Discussion . 28 Limitations . 30 Conclusion . 33 References . 34 Appendix A: Models of Ethnic Identity . 41 3 Running head: PERCEIVED DISCRIMINATION AND THRIVING
FOOD DEMAND PATTERNS IN PAKISTANI PUNJAB

Flexible LA-AIDS model is used to examine food demand patterns in Pakistani Punjab. The model is also estimated for rural and urban households using the Household Integrated Economic Survey of Pakistan consisting of 5972 households of Pakistani Punjab. Food products are categorized into eight groups including wheat, rice, fruits, vegetables, milk, cooking oil, meat, and other food products. Results show that households in both rural and urban areas with head of family having agriculture as profession consume less of all foods with the exception of wheat. Households in both rural and urban areas with literate head of family consume more of all food products with the exception of vegetables and wheat. Both compensated and uncompensated own price and expenditure elasticities are significant and have the expected signs for both rural and urban consumers. The demand for all eight food groups is price inelastic with wheat having the most price inelastic demand. All of the expenditure elasticities are positive suggesting that all goods are normal with the largest expenditure elasticities found for milk followed by fruits, other food products, meat, rice, vegetables, wheat and cooking oil. The study recommends further investigation to study the price and income responsiveness of poor and rich across rural and urban areas in the four provinces of Pakistan to understand food demand in the country.
High-Risk Men’s Use of PSA Test

Purpose: The Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA) test was developed for early detection of prostate cancer. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommends against the use of PSA screening for men in the general U.S. population. The arguments made by the USPSTF apply to the general population with average risk, as opposed to men with increased risk, such as men with the BRCA 1 or 2 mutations. This study aimed to investigate utilization levels of the PSA test among high-risk men and identify if the test was recommended to them by their physicians. Methods: Data were gathered from a previous survey and men who answered ‘yes’ to having had a genetic test for hereditary cancer (n=63) in the past were considered high-risk. Results: Only 58.7% of high-risk men were recommended for the PSA test by their doctor or healthcare provider. The investigation also revealed approximately half (50.79%) of high-risk men had utilized the PSA test. Conclusions: Although the PSA test is an effective long-term diagnostic tool, it is utilized by about 50% of men who meet the criteria for being at high-risk for developing prostate cancer and physician recommendation is sub-optimal among high-risk men. Journal of Nature and Science, 1(6):e119, 2015
Uncertainty and the macroeconomy: evidence from an uncertainty composite indicator

ABSTRACT This article proposes a uncertainty composite indicator (UCI) based on three distinct sources of uncertainty (namely financial, political, and macroeconomic) for the US economy on the period 1985–2015. For that, we use a dynamic factor model, summarizing efficiently six individual uncertainty proxies, namely two macroeconomic and financial uncertainty factors based on the unpredictability, a measure of (micro)economic uncertainty, the implied volatility index, the corporate bond spreads, and an index of economic policy uncertainty. We then compare the effects of uncertainty on economic activity when the UCI is used instead of individual uncertainty proxies in structural VAR models. The interest of our UCI is to synthesize theses effects within one measure of uncertainty. Overall, the UCI was able to account for the most important dynamics of uncertainty which play an important role in business cycles.
Belief Diffusion in Social Networks

We report the results of a laboratory experiment investigating propagation of beliefs in a social network. During the experiment, participants faced several questions having objectively correct answers and could update their answers several times based on aggregate information about answers chosen by their neighbours. One of the novelties of the experiment was that the binary choices faced by participants were augmented to include an “I do not know” option and incentives to choose it when they felt indifferent between the actual options.We observe that the dynamics of decisions in the network strongly depends on the question type, logical or factual. The results also indicate that propagation of beliefs can be more accurately described by a threshold model rather than models of probabilistic contagion. However, in contrast with assumptions underlying standard threshold models, our results suggest that it is not the larger proportion of neighbours that is driving participants’ choices but the difference between the proportions of neighbours opting for the competing options.
Aetio-Pathological studies of digestive and respiratory affections in lambs

Aetio-pathological studies of digestive and respiratory affections were undertaken in lambs received for post mortem examination during a period of seven months (September, 2015 to March, 2016). Maximum mortality was seen in age group of 1 to 3 months. Sex-wise mortality was more in males as compared to female lambs. System-wise causes of death/mortality were highest due to involvement of digestive system alone followed by combined involvement of both the digestive and respiratory systems and respiratory system alone. Gastritis, enteritis, pneumo-enteritis, hepatitis and pneumonia were the main conditions encountered in lambs. Microbiological study of different samples collected from carcasses of lambs revealed that maximum bacterial species isolated was E. coli followed by Proteus spp. , Klebsiella spp. and Salmonella spp. Maximum numbers of bacterial strains were isolated from intestine followed by lungs, tracheal swab and heart blood. The results of in-vitro drug sensitivity to different bacterial species isolated from carcasses of lambs revealed that most of bacterial strains were found sensitive to gentamycin and resistant to tetracycline. Examination of faecal samples of diarrhoeic/diseased and dead lambs revealed presence of mixed infection of Strongyle spp. along with Strongyloid spp. and Eimeria spp.
A Bayesian Phylogenetic Classification of Tupí-Guaraní

This paper presents an internal classification of Tupi-Guarani based on lexical data from 30 Tupi-Guarani languages and 2 non-Tupi-Guarani Tupian languages, Aweti and Mawe. A Bayesian phylogenetic analysis using a generalized binary cognate gain and loss model was carried out on a character table based on the binary coding of cognate sets, which were formed with attention to semantic shift. The classification shows greater internal structure than previous ones, but is congruent with them in several ways.
Effects of Lactobacillus reuteri-based Direct-fed Microbial Supplementation for Growing-Finishing Pigs

Two experiments were conducted to evaluate the effects of direct-fed microbial supplementation on the growth performance and nutrient digestibility in pigs. In experiment 1, forty eight pigs were used in a 42-d growth assay. There were four pigs per pen and three pens per treatment. Dietary treatments included 1) NC (without antibiotic basal diet), 2) PC (NC diet+0.1% antibiotic, 100 g/kg chlortetracycline), 3) DFM-1 (NC diet+0.2% Lactobacillus reuteri and Lactobacillus salivarius complex) and 4) DFM-2 (NC diet+0.2% Lactobacillus reuteri, Lactobacillus salivarius, Lactobacillus plantarum and Yeast complex). For the overall period, no treatment had significant effects in growth performance. In the nutrition digestibility, the pigs fed DFM diets were improved in DM and N digestibility compared with the pigs fed NC and PC diets but it was not significantly different. In experiment 2, sixty four crossbred pigs were used in a 98-d growth assay. There were four pigs per pen and four pens per treatment. Dietary treatments included 1) HND (high nutrient diet), 2) LND (low nutrient diet), 3) HND+DFM (HND diet+0.2% Lactobacillus reuteri and Lactobacillus plantarum complex) and 4) LND+DFM (LND diet+0.2% Lactobacillus reuteri and Lactobacillus plantarum complex). For overall period of growing phase, the pigs fed LND diets had improved gain/feed (p=0.01) and for overall period in the finishing phase, the pigs fed LND with DFM diets had higher ADG, ADFI and gain/feed than the others but there were no significant differences (p>0.13). In total period of growing-finishing phase, the pigs fed LND diet had higher gain/feed than the pigs fed HND diets (p<0.05). In growing phase, there were not significant differences among the treatments means for DM and N digestibility. However, the pigs fed diets with DFM had improved N digestibility (p<0.02) compared to the pigs fed diets without DFM in finishing phase. In conclusion, DFM slightly improved the growth performance in growing-finishing pigs. (Asian-Aust. J. Anim. Sci. 2005. Vol 18, No. 3 : 370-374)
Conflict in Families of Adolescents: The Impact on Cohesion and Power Structures.

Family-related conflict has been a central focus of theory as well as research on adolescent development, both with respect to the characteristics of nature of conflict and the influence it has on adaptational outcomes. Conflict in families of adolescents was studied by examining three characteristics of family conflict (locus, content, and frequency) and changes in family cohesion and power in response to conflict. Using a clinically derived figure placement technique, 460 subjects including parents and 11to 20-year-old adolescents represented their family twice, as it was typically and in an important conflict situation. Subjects were also interviewed about the nature of the conflict. At a descriptive level, conflict in both marital and parent-adolescent dyads was frequently reported, and conflict over deviant behavior was described in addition to more mundane issues. Across adolescence, reports of parent-adolescent conflict tncreased, especially those related to autonomy. In general, conflict decreased cohesion and changed power relations in the representations of family structure. In particular, compared to others, conflict in the marital dyad was related to decreased cohesion and increased cross-generational coalitions, whereas conflict between mothers and adolescents was related to shifts in power. Both cross-generational coalitions and reverse power hierarchies were portrayed more often in conflict concerning deviant behavior. No gender differences were found. (Author/ABL) *********************************************************************** * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made * * from the original document. * *********************A*************************************************
Reflecting on Web-readings with Tag Clouds

Glahn, C. , Specht, M. , & Koper, R. (2008). Reflecting on Web-readings with Tag Clouds. Conference Paper, Computer-based Knowledge & Skill Assessment and Feedback in Learning Settings (CAF) Special Track at the 11th International Conference on Interactive Computer aided Learning (ICL 2008). September, 24-26, 2008, Villach, Austria.
Fourier Analysis on Starlike Lipschitz Surfaces

A theory of a class of singular integrals on starlike Lipschitz surfaces in Rn is established. The class of singular integrals forms an operator algebra identical to the class of bounded holomorphic Fourier multipliers, as well as to the Cauchy–Dunford bounded holomorphic functional calculus of the spherical Dirac operator. The study proposes a new method inducing Clifford holomorphic functions from holomorphic functions of one complex variable, by means of which problems on the sphere are reduced to those on the unit circle.
Ju l 2 01 6 STABILITY OF GLOBAL EQUILIBRIUM FOR THE MULTI-SPECIES BOLTZMANN EQUATION IN L ∞ SETTINGS

Abstract. We prove the stability of global equilibrium in a multi-species mixture, where the different species can have different masses, on the 3-dimensional torus. We establish stability estimates in L∞ x,v (w) where w = w(v) is either polynomial or exponential, with explicit threshold. Along the way we extend recent estimates and stability results for the mono-species Boltzmann operator not only to the multi-species case but also to more general hard potential and Maxwellian kernels.
Intake Fraction of Primary Pollutants : Motor Vehicle Emissions in the South Coast Air Basin

The intake fraction is defined for a specific species and emission source as the ratio of attributable population intake to total emissions. Focusing on California’s South Coast Air Basin (SoCAB) as a case study, we combine ambient monitoring data with time-activity patterns to estimate the population intake of carbon monoxide and benzene emitted from motor vehicles during 1996 – 1999. In addition to exposures to ambient concentrations, three microenvironments are considered in which the exposure concentration of motor vehicle emissions is higher than in ambient air: in and near vehicles, inside a building that is near a freeway, and inside a residence with an attached garage. Incorporating data on motor vehicle emissions estimated by the EMFAC2000 model, we estimate that the 15 million people in the Submitted to Atmospheric Environment January 27, 2003 2 SoCAB inhale 0.003 – 0.009% (34 – 85 per million with a best estimate of 47 per million) of primary, nonreactive compounds emitted into the basin by motor vehicles. This population intake of primary motor vehicle emissions is approximately 50% higher than the average ambient concentration times the average breathing rate, owing to higher concentrations in the three microenvironments and also to the temporal and spatial correlation among breathing rates, concentrations, and population densities. The approach demonstrated here can inform policy decisions requiring a metric of population exposure to airborne pollutants.
Diabetic Blood Glucose Level Profile with Stratified Dose Streptozotocin (SD-STZ) and Multi Low Dose Streptozotocin (MLD-STZ) Induction Methods

The prevalence of diabetes increased from year to year. Diabetic animal model was developed to study the pathogenesis and treatment in diabetes. The aim of this study was to determine the profile of diabetic blood glucose levels using a stratified dose streptozotocin (STZ-SD) and multi-low dose streptozotocin (MLD-STZ) induction methods. 27 Wistar rats were divided into three groups, control group, SD-STZ group, and MLD-STZ group. The induction of experimental animal was using the method of SD-STZ and MLD-STZ for 5 consecutive days intraperitoneally. SD-STZ method using stratified dose of 40, 35, 30, 25, and 20 mg/Kg of body weight, while MLD-STZ method using a dose of 20 mg/Kg of body weight for 5 times. The measurement of blood glucose level (BGL) and body weight (BW) in animal was made on 2, 4, 7, and 14 days after STZ induction. The results of this study indicate that the diabetic conditions (BGL ≥ 300 mg/dl) on the SD-STZ induction method was more stable, and no deaths occurred in experimental animals. Keywords: Streptozotocin (STZ), diabetes, blood glucose level (BGL).
Improvement Axons for Ardas Cultural Festival in Evros, Greece, based on attendees perceptions

Festivals provide not only the hosting community but the wider destination area as well, with many benefits. In consequence they have gained increasing attention in the prism of tourism growth. The most popular festival in Evros prefecture in the Thrace region (Northern Greece) is Ardas festival which takes place annually near the banks of the Ardas River and is known as “Festival Arda: youth gathering”. In the highly competitive tourism market, festival organizers need to keep their customers satisfied in order to maintain and increase their market share. To accomplish this task, festival organizers must understand the visitors’ behaviour and intentions and formulate their strategy accordingly. In this context, this study aims to examine the current status of Ardas Festival based on attendees perceptions and, secondly to propose a segmentation of the attendees market, based on their overall visiting experience as well as the degree of their satisfaction. quantitative research study was conducted on the premises of Ardas festival . The questionnaire developed specifically for this purpose. It includes the following areas of improvement which were generated based on a prior qualitative study. The quantitative research obtained a sample of 410 visitors attending the festival. Statistical analysis included classical descriptive analysis, cluster analysis, and cross-tabulation tests. Results showed that all statements were considered important for attendees of the festival (MS>3.51), with cleanness being the most important (MS=4.53) and the increase of the number of Balkan countries bands the least (MS= 3.62). Three clusters (n1=116; n2=146; n3=140) were produced based on the points of development as well as visitors’ satisfaction and impression. Results also showed that clusters were statistically significantly different regarding gender, marital status, education, occupation, and net individual monthly income. Results of the research can be a valuable input for the Ardas festival organizers. The findings can contribute to the success of the festival by satisfying the visitors and consequently increasing retention rate and loyalty