Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Update on Genetic Determinants of Type1 Diabetes

Type 1 diabetes (T1D) results from a progressive destruction of insulin-secreting β cells with consecutive life-long dependence to exogenous insulin. Avoidance of end-stage β-cell mass destruction through primary and secondary prevention strategies requires understanding of initial molecular events leading to insulinopenia. Although autoimmune dysregulation is predominant in T1D, environmental and genetic predisposing factors have been identified and partly account for the heterogeneity of the disease. The use of patient databases and the development of new technologies for genetic screening will help to identify at-risk individuals in the general population or in families with affected siblings. Here we discuss the latest developments in the identification of genetic determinants of T1D and their use for evaluation of disease risk.
Boundary Conditions in 2D Numerical and 3D Exact Models for Cylindrical Bending Analysis of Functionally Graded Structures

The cylindrical bending condition for structural models is very common in the literature because it allows an incisive and simple verification of the proposed plate and shell models. In the present paper, 2D numerical approaches (the Generalized Differential Quadrature (GDQ) and the finite element (FE) methods) are compared with an exact 3D shell solution in the case of free vibrations of functionally graded material (FGM) plates and shells. The first 18 vibration modes carried out through the 3D exact model are compared with the frequencies obtained via the 2D numerical models. All the 18 frequencies obtained via the 3D exact model are computed when the structures have simply supported boundary conditions for all the edges. If the same boundary conditions are used in the 2D numerical models, some modes are missed. Some of these missed modes can be obtained modifying the boundary conditions imposing free edges through the direction perpendicular to the direction of cylindrical bending. However, some modes cannot be calculated via the 2D numerical models even when the boundary conditions are modified because the cylindrical bending requirements cannot be imposed for numerical solutions in the curvilinear edges by definition. These features are investigated in the present paper for different geometries (plates, cylinders, and cylindrical shells), types of FGM law, lamination sequences, and thickness ratios.
Credit and Prices in Woodford's New Neoclassical Synthesis

Following recent debates on the New Neoclassical Synthesis, the theory of monetary policy has been renewed. The prevailing method, illustrated by Woodford's version of Interest and Prices, is a Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium Model in which the old LM curve is voluntarily substituted by an optimal monetary rule. Such a turning point requires a peculiar set of assumptions, especially regarding monetary prices. The recent debate pays attention to de-emphasis on the nominal monetary aggregate, which does not play any explicit role in monetary policy deliberations. Following Calvo's model, Woodford's neo-Wicksellian framework only considered monetary prices in equilibrium. This article demonstrates that even though the New Neoclassical Synthesis considers it essential to have a monetary theory for policymaking, the former offers the same answers as the traditional static macroeconomics. More precisely, it shows that the use of dynamic optimisation – such as the one developed by Woodford's approach – does not contribute in a decisive way to improving our understanding of the role that money prices play in monetary theory. Woodford's canvas is silent about the mechanisms whereby monetary policy induces agents to adjust individual money prices to the values that generate an equilibrium price level. Thus, if we want to close this gap, it may be useful to consider a 'forward guidance' strategy. By means of such a tool, central bankers are able to shape the public's expectations on economic outcomes by pre-announcing the time path of future policy actions.
Size of the Government, Quality of Institutions and Growth in SAARC Countries

One elusive question still attracts the attention of the researchers and policy makers whether government has a positive or negative role in the growth of a country. Washington consensus depressed the role of the government as an anchor of growth, while the post Washington consensus again focuses on the role of the government as the major player to revive growth. Theoretically, the linkages have been well established between the government spending and growth. However, the extensive use of cross country growth regressions in 1980s and 1990s highlighted the controversies in the empirical testing of these schools of thought using data for different countries and different techniques to prove their hypothesis. Most of these studies concentrated on the developed countries, while few try to explore the structure in developing countries. The question still remains, whether public sector promotes or retards growth.
Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics High Leverage and Willingness to Pay: Evidence from the Residential Housing Market

I document a strong correlation between paying the full listing price on homes and borrowing 100% loanto-value. Homebuyers who do both overpay by 2.8% to 3.9% ($4,800 to $6,700) and are 22.7% more likely to have their properties foreclosed within one year. The correlation is not mechanical: there is a discontinuity in the average leverage around the full listing price. The correlation is stronger for in areas with high fraction of financially constrained and unsophisticated residents, and in areas of high past price growth (potentially indicative of buyer optimism).
Review of the Assessment of Thermal Mass in Whole Building Performance Simulation Tools

There is a plethora of dynamic Building Performance Simulation (BPS) tools on the market, that use different methods in terms of how they calculate the effect of thermal mass in buildings. This paper analyses the ability of six widely known BPS tools to calculate the thermal mass potential in whole BPS. The first stage is focused on the analysis of heating and cooling energy consumption, produced for a single-zone test building. This is done using the IEA Building Energy Simulation test (BESTEST) diagnostic method. The results are compared among the different BPS tools in order to examine the extent of variations. The second stage is a systematic comparison of the tools against some key parameters on the calculation methods and aims to investigate the implications of the inter-model variability on the simulation results. The results indicate that there is a divergence in the BPS predictions, and that the relative differences in the simulation results of the different BPS tools are always higher for high thermal mass.
How Do Incentives Affect Creativity?

We compare performance in a word based creativity task under three incentive schemes: a flat fee, a linear payment and a tournament. Furthermore, we also compare performance under two control tasks (Raven’s advanced progressive matrices or a number-adding task) with the same treatments. In all tasks we find that incentives seem to have very small effects and that differences in performance are predominantly related to individual skills.
Operating Performance of the Firms Issuing Equity through Rights Offer

Rights equity issue is one of the most common methods for subsequent equity issue in the Indian market. In rights offer, current shareholders are given short-term warrants on a pro-rata basis with the option to either purchase the new shares or sell the warrants in the market before expiration. Rights equity issue can be a potential solution to the adverse selection problem associated with capital issue and has comparatively low direct costs. In this paper, the authors analyse the operating performance of the BSE- listed manufacturing firms following rights equity issue and their linkages with firm-specific characteristics as hypothesized in the finance theory. They have selected 392 rights equity issues during the period 1991-2000 and used a methodology robust to the mean-reverting nature of accounting income. Consistent with empirical results for seasoned equity offerings in the US market, there is a statistically significant decline in the operating performance after the rights equity issue. This decline in performance is more severe for big firms, low market-to-book value firms, and firms with lower directors' holdings. Interestingly, foreign companies and companies belonging to small business groups do not show any declining trend. The authors find that the decline in perform- ance is due to the inefficiency in utilization of assets and not due to decrease in profit margins. Further, various proxies measuring market valuation also decline during the post-issue period after a run up in the pre-issue period. The results of the study suggest that over-investment hypothesis and agency models can better explain the decline in performance compared to asymmetric information hypothesis. The results also indicate that rights equity issues are not simple de-leveraging decisions. These findings have implications for several groups of capital market participants and the authors conclude with specific guidelines for them which are as follows: The investing public and analyst who are too optimistic about the issuers should consider deteriorating performance while arriving at the valuations. Investors should be vigilant about the ‘empire building’ implications of increased investments through rights issue. Optimistic managers should reassess the investment opportunities and have con-servative plans before approaching the market. The policy makers and regulators should come out with better regulatory framework to control and penalize the opportunistic managers.
Constraints on the Evolution of the Galaxy Stellar Mass Function. II. The Quenching Timescale of Galaxies and Its Implication for Their Star Formation Rates

We study the connection between the observed star formation rate–stellar mass (SFR–M*) relation and the evolution of the stellar mass function (SMF) by means of a subhalo abundance matching technique coupled to merger trees extracted from an N-body simulation. Our approach consists of forcing the model to match the observed SMF at redshift , and letting it evolve down to according to a τ model, an exponentially declining functional form that describes the star formation rate decay of both satellite and central galaxies. In this study, we use three different sets of SMFs: ZFOURGE data from Tomczak et al., UltraVISTA data from Ilbert et al., and COSMOS data from Davidzon et al. We also build a mock survey combining UltraVISTA with ZFOURGE. Our modeling of quenching timescales is consistent with the evolution of the SMF down to , with different accuracy depending on the particular survey used for calibration. We tested our model against the observed SMFs at low redshift, and it predicts residuals (observation versus model) within observed scatter along most of the stellar mass range investigated, and with mean residuals below 0.1 dex in the range . We then compare the SFR–M* relation predicted by the model with the observed one at different redshifts. The predicted SFR–M* relation underpredicts the median SFR at fixed stellar mass relative to observations at all redshifts. Nevertheless, the shapes are consistent with the observed relations up to intermediate-mass galaxies, followed by a rapid decline for massive galaxies.
Multiwavength Observations of the Black Hole X-Ray Binary A0620-00 in Quiescence

We present results from simultaneous multiwavelength X-ray, radio, and optical/near-infrared observations of the quiescent black hole X-ray binary A0620-00 performed in 2013 December. We find that the Chandra flux has brightened by a factor of 2 since 2005, and by a factor of 7 since 2000. The spectrum has not changed significantly over this time, being consistent with a power law of and a hydrogen column of . Very Large Array observations of A0620-00 at three frequencies, over the interval of 5.25–22.0 GHz, have provided us with the first broadband radio spectrum of a quiescent stellar mass black hole system at X-ray luminosities as low as 10−8 times the Eddington luminosity. Compared to previous observations, the source has moved to lower radio and higher X-ray luminosity, shifting it perpendicular to the standard track of the radio/X-ray correlation for X-ray binaries. The radio spectrum is inverted with a spectral index ( ). This suggests that the peak of the spectral energy distribution is likely to be between 1012 and 1014 Hz, and that the near-IR and optical flux contain significant contributions from the star, the accretion flow, and from the outflow. Decomposing these components may be difficult, but holds the promise of revealing the interplay between accretion and jet in low luminosity systems.
Consumer Perceptions of Environmentally Friendly Products in New Foundland and Labrador

A stated-preference model was specified by a logit model to analyze consumersâ€™ willingness-to-pay a five-per cent premium to purchase environmentally friendly products in Newfoundland and Labrador. Although the industry suffers from insufficient number of certified producers in the region, the findings from the model reflect the existence of potential demands for environmentally friendly products. Results showed that survey respondents were willing to pay at least a five-per cent premium, as they believed pesticide residues would have negative impacts on their health conditions. In addition, being married, higher degree of education, knowledge about new methods of farming practices, such as integrated-pest management, and early adopters in trying newly introduced products were among the factors affecting consumer decisions in paying the premium.
Trial Selection Theory and Evidence: A Review

Trial selection theory consists of models that attempt to explain or predict the characteristics that distinguish cases that are litigated to judgment from those that settle, and the implications of those characteristics for the development of legal doctrine and for important trial outcome parameters, such as the plaintiff win rate. This paper presents a review of trial selection theory and evidence. We start with a review of the literature, and then present a model that includes Priest-Klein and asymmetric information theories as special cases. We conclude with a review of the empirical evidence.
THE INFLUENCE OF SEX, PERSONALITY TYPES AND TRAIT-ANXIETY ON LEARNING STYLES AMONG UNIVERSITY STUDENTS IN JORDAN

Abstrak: Penyelidikan ini bertujuan untuk menyelami pengaruh jantina, jenis personaliti dan kebimbangan-trait terhadap gaya belajar dari perspektif pendekatan pembelajaran dalam kalangan pelajar universiti. Penyelidikan ini telah dijalankan di Jordan. Sampel seramai 1,000 orang pelajar Universiti Jordan dipilih daripada dua aliran pengajian, iaitu Kemanusiaan dan Sains. Keputusannya menunjukkan berlainan pelajar mengamalkan gaya belajar yang berlainan. Tidak terdapat kesan jantina dan jenis personaliti terhadap pendekatan pembelajaran. Juga tidak terdapat kesan interaksi jantina dengan kebimbangan-trait, serta jantina dengan jenis personaliti. Walau bagaimanapun, terdapat kesan signifikan kebirnbangan-trait dan juga interaksi kebirnbangan-trait dengan jenis personaliti ke atas gaya belajar. Paras kebirnbangan-trait yang tinggi mencelarukan pilihan kepada pendekatan pembelajaran, manakala paras kebimbangan-trait yang rendah memperkukuhkan pemilihan pendekatan menurut pilihan yang normal bagi setiap pelajar. Kedua-dua golongan pelajar ekstrovert dan introvert berkebirnbangan-rendah mengekalkan pilihan kepada pendekatan pembelajaran yang normal bagi diri masingmasing; manakala pelajar ekstrovert berkebirnbangan-tinggi lebih terjurus kepada pendekatan metodikal, elaboratif dan pengekalan fakta dibandingkan dengan pelajar introvert yang juga berkebimbangan-tinggi.
SN Ia host galaxy properties and the dust extinction distribution.

Type Ia supernovae (SNeIa) display a complex relation with their host galaxies. An important prior to the fit of the supernovae’s light curve is the distribution of host galaxy extinction values that can be encountered. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey SuperNova survey project has published light-curve fits using both MLCS2K2 and SALT2. We use the former fits extinction parameter (AV) to map this distribution of extinction values. We explore the dependence of this distribution on four observables; the inclination of the host galaxy disc, radial position of the supernova, redshift of the supernova and host, and the level of star formation in the host galaxy. The distribution of AV values encountered by supernovae is typically characterized by :N0e −AV/τ , with τ = 0.4 or 0.33. We find that the inclination correction using an infinitely thin disc for the SN Ia is sufficient, resulting in similar exponential AV distributions for highand low-inclination discs. The AV distribution also depends on the radial position in the disc, consistent with previous results on the transparency of spiral discs. The distribution of AV values narrows with increased star formation, possibly due to the destruction or dispersion of the dusty interstellar medium by stellar winds prior to the ignition of the supernova. In future supernova searches, certainly the inclination of the host galaxy disc, should be considered in the construction of the AV prior with τ = 0.4/cos(i) as the most likely prior in each individual host galaxy’s case.
Predictors of career adaptability skill among higher education students in Nigeria

This paper examined predictors of career adaptability skill among higher education students in Nigeria. A sample of 603 higher education students randomly selected from six colleges of education in Nigeria participated in this study. A set of self-reported questionnaire was used for data collection, and multiple linear regression analysis was used to analyze the data. Results indicated that 33.3% of career adaptability skill was explained by the model. Four out of the five predictor variables significantly predicted career adaptability skill among higher education students in Nigeria. Among the four predictors, career self-efficacy sources was the most statistically significant predictor of career adaptability skill among higher education students in Nigeria, followed by personal goal orientation, career future concern, and perceived social support respectively. Vocational identity did not statistically predict career adaptability skill among higher education students in Nigeria. The study suggested that similar study should be replicated in other parts of the world in view of the importance of career adaptability skill to the smooth transition of graduates from school to the labor market. The study concluded by requesting stakeholders of higher institutions in Nigeria to provide career exploration database for the students, and encourage career intervention program in order to enhance career adaptability skill among the students.
Social Context, Self-Perceptions and Student Engagement: A SEM Investigation of the Self-System Model of Motivational Development (SSMMD).

Introduction. The present study aimed to test a theoretically-based model (the self-system model of motivational development) including at the same time the extent to which the social context provides structure, warmth and autonomy support, the students’ perceived autonomy, relatedness and competence, and behavioral, cognitive and emotional student engagement. Method. Three hundred and thirty one participants attending the last year at the university completed a self-reported questionnaire tapping the targeted variables. SEM analyses were used to test our hypotheses. Results. Results revealed that each dimension of the social context was associated with the corresponding self-perception variables which, in turn, predicted greater behavioral, cognitive and emotional engagement. Cognitive engagement was directly predicted by the three self-perception variables, and indirectly by an autonomy supportive social context. Structured so-cial context was indirectly associated, through perceived competence, with behavioral and emotional engagement. Discussion and Conclusion. Two underlying assumptions of the SSMMD (and more broadly of the SDT) were supported by the results of this study - the three dimensions of social con-text have specific effects on self-perception variables and these perceptions are mediators of the relationship between context and student engagement - one was not - the three self-perception variables do not have a direct impact on the dimensions of student engagement.
Effect of WC Nanoparticles on the Microstructure and Properties of WC-Bronze-Ni-Mn Based Diamond Composites

Metal matrix-impregnated diamond composites are widely used for fabricating diamond tools. In order to meet the actual engineering challenges, researchers have made many efforts to seek effective methods to enhance the performance of conventional metal matrices. In this work, tungsten carbide (WC) nanoparticles were introduced into WC-Bronze-Ni-Mn matrix with and without diamond grits for improving the performance of conventional impregnated diamond composites. The influence of WC nanoparticles on the microstructure, densification, hardness, bending strength and wear resistance of matrix and diamond composites were investigated. The results showed that the bending strength of matrix increased up to approximately 20% upon nano-WC addition, while densification and hardness fluctuate slightly. The grinding ratio of diamond composites increased significantly by about 100% due to nano-WC addition. The strengthening mechanism was proposed according to experimental results. The diamond composites with 2.8 wt% nano-WC addition exhibited the best overall properties, thus having potential to apply to further diamond tools.