Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
FATIGUE BEHAVIOUR OF MMFX CORROSION-RESISTANT REINFORCING STEEL

Corrosion-resistant MMFX steel used for reinforced concrete was investigated in this study to determine its fatigue characteristics in air under constant amplitude cyclic load. Standard fatigue specimens were machined from MMFX reinforcing bars and subjected to fully reversed (R = -1) loading in load and strain control. In addition, as-received MMFX bars were subjected to load controlled R = 0 constant amplitude loading. The MMFX smooth specimens had a stress range fatigue limit of 1150 MPa, which agrees with rule-of-thumb estimates. The strain-controlled tests were used to obtain the strainlife (ε-2Nf) curve and cyclic fatigue properties of MMFX. The strain-life properties were then incorporated into a Neuber analysis used to predict the fatigue performance of reinforcing bars by considering the effect of stress concentration factors. A strain-life prediction model incorporating a Neuber analysis to account for plasticity and stress concentration factors of 1.6 and 2.6 successfully bounded MMFX rebar stress-life data. A fatigue life of about 310 MPa at 1 x 10 fatigue cycles was observed for MMFX in constant amplitude loading.
The effects of porous wall as a novel flame stabilization method on flame characteristics in a premixed burner for CH4/air mixture by numerical simulation

In the present investigation, the effects of inner diameter and length of porous wall on flame stability limits, temperature distribution, methane conversion, and pressure drop in a premixed burner are numerically analyzed. The governing equations are solved by the control volume method, considering Re-Normalization Group k-ɛ for turbulence modeling and eddy dissipation concept for turbulence–chemistry interaction modeling. The simulations are performed for various porous walls with the inner diameter of 30, 40, and 50 mm and the length of 22, 44, and 66 mm. The results demonstrate that the increase in inner diameter of porous wall causes an increase in the lower flame stability limit and a decrease in the upper flame stability limit, gas and solid temperatures, pressure drop, and methane conversion. Also, the maximum solid and gas temperatures in the porous wall and methane conversion are related to the porous wall with 44 mm length. Furthermore, the methane conversion and pressure drop increase with the rise in the equivalence ratio. Finally, it can be said that the change in inner diameter of porous wall is more important than the length of porous wall in the studied phenomena.
Exchange Rate Reconnect

Abstract It is surprisingly difficult to find economic variables that strongly comove with exchange rates, a phenomenon codified in a large literature as “exchange rate disconnect. ” We demonstrate that a variety of common proxies for global risk appetite, which did not comove with exchange rates prior to 2007, have provided significant in-sample explanatory power for currencies since then. Furthermore, during the 2007–2012 period, U.S. purchases of foreign bonds were highly correlated with these risk measures and with exchange rates. Our results support the narrative that the U.S. dollar's role as an international and safe-haven currency has surged since the global financial crisis.
Possible Mechanism of Action of the Hypotensive Effect of Peperomia pellucida and Interactions between Human Cytochrome P 450 Enzymes

Copyright: © 2012 Nwokocha CR, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Possible Mechanism of Action of the Hypotensive Effect of Peperomia pellucida and Interactions between Human Cytochrome P450 Enzymes
Monthly Bulletin, November 2004

ECB Monthly Bulletin November 2004 Oil plays an important role in the economy owing to its widespread use both as an input factor in the production process and as a final consumption good. As a result, any major change in oil prices affects the economy in various ways. On the price side, direct price effects via energy items in the consumer basket are unavoidable following an oil price shock, and indirect effects may emerge on account of higher input costs being passed on to consumer prices via the domestic production chain. Of particular importance is the avoidance of second-round effects through appropriate wage reactions to oil price increases. With regard to real economic activity, output is negatively affected by an oil price increase as a result of higher production costs and a decline in real purchasing power. Empirical estimates from large-scale macroeconomic models generally suggest that strong oil price changes have a noticeable effect on euro area inflation and, albeit to a somewhat lesser extent, on activity. It is important to bear in mind that these results are surrounded by uncertainty, as standard models cannot take into account all the ways in which oil prices affect the economy. Moreover, the full impact of oil price changes on prices and economic activity largely depends on the actual reaction of wages as well as fiscal and monetary policy. As for the containment of price pressures, a high degree of credibility and the appropriate monetary policy reaction are essential.
RRJoDST Table 2 : Effect of Prepartum BCS on Dairy Cows Performance

The present study was conducted to detect the effect of prepartum body condition score (BCS) on dairy cattle performance. Throughout the study, a total of 7956 dairy records were collected from six Holstein Friesian farms. According to the prepartum BCS, dairy cows were grouped into three main categories— low, medium, and over condition score cows for BCS values of 2–3, 3–4 and 4–5, respectively. Dairy cattles with BCS values under the level of 2 were culled as a part of culling policy in these farms. Productive parameters of milk yield (daily yield, 305-day yield and total yield), milk curve (days to peak, initial milk yield, peak milk yield and lactation persistency [LP]), milk somatic cell count (SCC) and somatic cell score (SCS), as well as some reproductive parameters (days to first estrus and days open) were determined to indicate the best dairy cattle prepartum BCS sustained high dairy performance. Prevalence of lameness and metabolic diseases (milk fever, abomasum displacement [DA] and ketosis) were also investigated in dairy cattle among different prepartum BCS. The best prepartum BCS was elucidated to reduce the prevalence of such diseases. Results of the present study revealed that the medium condition score cows produce more milk as compared to the over condition score cows. Medium condition score cows showed improved udder health and reproductive parameters. On the other hand, they showed decreased prevalence of lameness, milk fever, DA and ketosis. In contrast, it was obvious that over condition score cows suffered more from these metabolic disorders than low and medium BCS cows. The prevalence of lameness was more evident in low than in medium and over condition score cows.
How are Forest Policy Decisions Made in Nepal?

Taking a deliberative democracy perspective, we analyze the case of forest governance in Nepal with a view to understanding the extent and processes of citizen-state deliberations in forest policy making in relation to Nepal's specific historical and social contexts. We analyze 15 policy decisions which range from parliament-endorsed laws to executive decisions of the government that were made over the period 1998-2004. Our findings indicate that despite the functioning of a multiparty political system, most forest policy decisions made during the studied period involved limited democratic deliberation. Two reasons for this are identified as: a) continued dominance of the role of forest science and state forestry administration in forest policy making; and b) weak links between civil society and elected political leaders in the legislature and the government. Finally, we draw lessons for approaches to analyzing environmental governance.
The Role of Nonemployers in Business Dynamism and Aggregate Productivity

A well-documented observation of the U.S. economy in the last few decades has been the steady decline in the net entry rate of employer firms, a decline in business dynamism, suggesting a possible connection with the recent slowdown in aggregate productivity growth. We consider the role of nonemployers, businesses without paid employees, in business dynamism and aggregate productivity. Notwithstanding the decline in the growth of employer firms, we show that the total number of firms, which includes nonemployer businesses, has increased in the U.S. economy since the early 1980s. We interpret this trend, along with the evolution of the employment distribution across firms, through the lens of a standard theory of firm dynamics. The model implies that firm dynamics have contributed to an average annual growth rate of aggregate productivity of at least 0.26% since the early 1980s, over one quarter of the productivity growth of 1% in the data. Further, our implied measure of productivity growth moves closely over time with measured productivity growth in the data.
ProFilE aMong Candida albicans iSolatES BY USing DiFFErEnt PriMErS

By using RAPD method, a total of 28 primers were screened for discrimination among Candida albicans isolates. Seven of these primers were selected because they presented reproducible DNA banding patterns for all the strains of C. albicans. The same genetic profile was obtained by RAPD method using OPG 14 (5’-GGATGAGACC-3’) while the OPG 17 (5’ACGACCGACA-3’) demonstrated capacity to differentiate the isolates of C. albicans in 4 genotypes. According to the results obtained, we concluded that by using these primers, the RAPD analysis may be useful in providing genotypic characteristics for C. albicans in epidemiological investigation.
Failure modes of soft materials with sharp-hard inhomogeneity under heat flux

Abstract This article investigates the failure modes of the structure composed of a soft matrix and a hard line inhomogeneity under uniform remote thermo-mechanical loading. The inhomogeneity is assumed to be thermally permeable and the thermal expansion-induced stretch of the inhomogeneity is incorporated. For arbitrary uniform remote stresses and heat flux, the explicit solution to the full stress field in the matrix is derived by solving the corresponding Riemann-Hilbert problem, and the critical condition for the failure modes of the structure is obtained. The effects of the direction of the remote heat flux and those of the mismatch of thermal expansions on the failure modes of the structure are illustrated via numerical examples. It is shown that the heat-induced failure modes of the structure are distinct at the two tips of the inhomogeneity and are either interface puncture or interface separation depending on the direction of the remote heat flux and the disparity between the thermal expansion coefficients of the inhomogeneity and matrix. In addition, the heat flux-induced stress intensity factors at the inhomogeneity tips are found to be proportional to where a is the half-length of the inhomogeneity, indicating that the failure of the structure may be more sensitive to thermal loading other than mechanical loading.
Effects of lure type , fish size and water temperature on hooking location and bleeding in northern pike ( Esox lucius ) angled in the Baltic Sea

In recreational fishing, catch and release (C&R), where fish are released alive after capture, is commonly adopted to minimize fishing mortality. Injuries from hooking and the mode of de-hooking can affect survival probability, and the choice of angling gear can affect injury severity. We show for C&R angling for northern pike (Esox lucius) in the Baltic Sea that hooking location and size of fish captured vary among lure types. Hooking in gills and aorta increased bleeding severity, which was generally expressed more strongly in larger pike. Our results supported the notion that anglers can minimize injury in northern pike angling by the choice of appropriate gear. In addition, our study is one of the first to show that hooking location is also affected by water temperature; low temperatures tended to result in deeper hooking. Despite this, water temperature did not affect level of bleeding in pike, and low water temperatures may be beneficial as they likely reduce the overall stress response in released pike. © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Forecasting Human Fine-grained Behaviours

For self-driving cars and autonomous delivery platforms, one of the crucial steps to safe and seamless integration of these platforms is a human trajectory prediction module. While self-driving cars reach good performances in urban environments, crowded scenarios require a more accurate prediction of human-human and human-space interactions. Recent approaches perform the motion forecasting by using only coordinates and velocities of the pedestrians. Inherently, some things are impossible to predict with this representation, e.g., when a pedestrian starts walking or if people recognize and consequently walk towards each other. This work adds human pose information and human activity labels as features to allow a new way of forecasting pedestrian movements. For every human, a time series of bounding boxes, poses, and activities are used to train a Long-Short Term Memory (LSTM) network to predict a future time series of bounding box coordinates. Further experiments will be performed to analyze if predictions for activities and poses are feasible. The LSTM is trained and validated with annotated volleyball and basketball images. In the future, this work should be validated for a broad and general use in human trajectory forecasting.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF INTEGUMENTARY AND SKELETAL SYSTEMS OF STARVED NILE TILAPIA , Oreochromis niloticus

When young fishes are exposed to stressful conditions, such as starvation, the development of the skeletal and integumentary systems can be greatly affected. In this study, the effects of delayed initial feeding on the development of these systems in Oreochromis niloticus were examined using histological techniques. Results show a general decrease in the over-all size of the fishes as the number of days of delayed initial feeding increased. There is also a short delay in the formation of scales in the skin and the layers decreased in thickness. There is a noticeable decrease in mucous cells and the narrowing of the hypodermis suggests that adipose or fat cells are less in more starved fish. However, there is no noticeable effect in the skeletal system because only cartilage was still present. Thus, it can be said that delaying the initial feeding of the fish caused a subsequent delay in the development of the skin layers and the formation of scales, therefore making the fish susceptible to disease and environmental stress.
Investigating the Relationship between Parental Involvement and Student Academic Achievement in Barbados

This study investigated the nature and strength of the relationship between parental involvement and student academic achievement, the relationship between parental involvement and active engagement of students and the extent to which parental involvement predicted Student Proximal Academic Outcomes as measured by active engagement of students. Parental involvement and student proximal academic outcomes were measured by Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler’s model (1995, 1997, and 2005) and student academic achievement was measured using a standardized test, Barbados Secondary School Entrance Examination (B.S.S.E.E.). The sample was a cohort of 160 1 form students. The results indicated that there was no relationship between parental involvement and student academic achievement; however, there were significant positive relationships between parental involvement and student proximal academic outcomes.
Academic Engagement and Learning Outcomes of the Student Experience in the Research University: Construct Validation of the Instrument

The Student Experience in the Research University is an online survey instrument that serves to assess institutional functions of research universities in the U.S. and understand students’ behaviour, satisfaction, and achievement. The present study explored measurement models describing two primary domains (i.e., Academic Engagement and Self-Reported Learning Abilities), and examined the adequacy of the measurement models. Exploratory factor analysis was initially conducted to identify the number of structural components of each domain, which was followed by confirmatory factor analysis specifying a factorial structure and verifying how well the structural model fits into the collected data. Six and three factors were extracted from the academic engagement and the selfreported learning abilities domains. The structural model verified indicated that the relationships among the academic engagement and self-reported learning abilities domains and covariates such as grade point average, parental income, and education were consistent with the findings from relevant literature. The findings of the current study contribute to the understanding of student engagement in research universities in the U.S. Further, the implications for educational research and practice were discussed.
Neural correlates of opponent processes for financial gains and losses

Corresponding Author: Burak Erdeniz E-mail: burak.erdeniz@ieu.edu. tr Submitted: 14 May 2018 Accepted: 21 April 2019 You may cite this article as: Erdeniz B, Done J. Neural correlates of opponent processes for financial gains and losses. Neurol Sci Neurophysiol 2019; 36(2): 69-77. Abstract Objective: Functional imaging studies offer alternative explanations for the neural correlates of monetary gain and loss related brain activity, and their opponents, omission of gains and losses. One possible explanation based on the psychology of opponent process theory suggests that successful avoidance of an aversive outcome is itself rewarding, and hence activates brain regions involved in reward processing. In order to test this hypothesis, we compared brain activation for successful avoidance of losses and receipt of monetary gains. Additionally, the brain regions involved in processing of frustrative neutral outcomes and actual losses were compared in order to test whether these two representations are coded in common or distinct brain regions.
On Hatred

This paper investigates the effects of hatred in two-player games. We model hate as “reverse-altruism�? or a preference for low opponent payoffs, and derive implications for behavior in conflicts where players are motivated by hate. We use these results to illuminate several policy issues, both historical and contemporary: the strategy of non-violent resistance during the American civil rights era, shifts in U.S. national security strategy following 9/11, and the justification for penalty enhancements for hate crimes.
SEARCHING FOR TRUTH WITH HIGH EXPECTATIONS -5 Year Studies on Cold Fusion in China--

The "cold fusion" research in China is reviewed for the past five years. Emphasis is focused on the attempt to set up the Chinese-based reproducible experiments and the study on the key parameter which is supposed to control the reproducibility. Theoretical effort in understanding these phenomena is described as well. INTRODUCTION The situation of "cold fusion" in China is similar to that in Russia. Since communication was somehow delayed, we started the "cold fusion" research based on our own understanding and the resources available to us. After 5 years of studies on "cold fusion", more people in China think that there must be something behind it, and it is worthwhile to seek the truth for the fundamental physics, and for the possible future energy. Research in China has been c o ducted in both theory and experiments with more emphasis on experiments. The experiments are in two categories: (1) Attempt to set up a Chinese-based experiment; (2) Study the key parameters which might control the reproducibility of the experiments. We have three efforts to set up the Chinese-based experiments: (1) The electrical discharge in deuterium gas with palladium electrode; (2) Gas loading experiments with detectors to search the precursor and the energy carrier for the anomalous phenomena in D/Pd systems; (3) Excess heat measurements in D/Pd and D/Ti systems. Based on international academic exchange, the loading ratio of deuterium in palladium was selected as a key parameter to study. We designed several systems to study the various treatments which might affect the terminal loading ratio and the loading speed. Some factors have been identified which may enhance the loading ratio to pass the resistance peak, and over the threshold (i.e. D/Pd~0.84). Theory is important, although it is still in an immature stage. Wherever the experiments continued in these 5 hard years, there must be a plausible "theory" to stimulate the investigators. The penetration of the Coulomb barrier has been a persistent subject over 5 years. Bohm's theory has been developed in three aspects: (1) The direction of WKB connection formula, which has been a controversy for more than twenty years; (2) A simplified formalism for WKB method which is particularly useful for a chain of potential barriers and wells; (3) A new explanation of the penetration of potential barrier in quantum mechanics. The recent calculation shows that the split of the Coulomb barrier may be necessary, and some experiments have been suggested to test this idea.
LSHTM Research Online

Background: Impetigo and scabies are endemic diseases in many tropical countries; however the epidemiology of these diseases is poorly understood in many areas, particularly in the Pacific. Methodology/PrincipalFindings: We conducted three epidemiological studies in 2006 and 2007 to determine the burden of disease due to impetigo and scabies in children in Fiji using simple and easily reproducible methodology. Two studies were performed in primary school children (one study was a cross-sectional study and the other a prospective cohort study over ten months) and one study was performed in infants (cross-sectional). The prevalence of active impetigo was 25.6% (95% CI 24.1–27.1) in primary school children and 12.2% (95% CI 9.3–15.6) in infants. The prevalence of scabies was 18.5% (95% CI 17.2–19.8) in primary school children and 14.0% (95% CI 10.8–17.2) in infants. The incidence density of active impetigo, group A streptococcal (GAS) impetigo, Staphylococcus aureus impetigo and scabies was 122, 80, 64 and 51 cases per 100 child-years respectively. Impetigo was strongly associated with scabies infestation (odds ratio, OR, 2.4, 95% CI 1.6– 3.7) and was more common in Indigenous Fijian children when compared with children of other ethnicities (OR 3.6, 95% CI 2.7–4.7). The majority of cases of active impetigo in the children in our study were caused by GAS. S. aureus was also a common cause (57.4% in school aged children and 69% in infants). Conclusions/Significance: These data suggest that the impetigo and scabies disease burden in children in Fiji has been underestimated, and possibly other tropical developing countries in the Pacific. These diseases are more than benign nuisance diseases and consideration needs to be given to expanded public health initiatives to improve their control. diseases are lacking, particularly in tropical developing countries. We performed a series of studies in infants and primary school children in Fiji, a tropical developing country in the South Pacific. Impetigo was very common: more than a quarter of school-aged children and 12% of infants had active impetigo. Scabies was also very common affecting 18% of school children and 14% of infants. The group A streptococcus was the most common infective organism followed by Staphylococcus aureus . The size of the problem has been underestimated, particularly in the Pacific. It is time for more concerted public health efforts in controlling impetigo and scabies.