Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Early Literacy Achievements , Population and the Transition to Modern to Modern Growth

The transition from economic stagnation to sustained growth is often modelled thanks to “population-induced” productivity improvements, which are assumed rather than derived from primary assumptions. In this paper the effect of population on productivity is derived from optimal behavior. More precisely, both the number and location of education facilities are chosen optimally by municipalities. Individuals determine their education investment depending on the distance to the nearest school, and also on technical progress and longevity. In this setting, higher population density enables the set-up costs of additional schools to be covered, opening the possibility to reach higher educational levels. Using counterfactual experiments we find that one third of the rise in literacy can be directly attributed to the effect of density, while one sixth is linked to higher longevity and one half to technical progress. Moreover, the effect of population density in the model is consistent with the available evidence for England, where it is shown that schools were established at a high rate over the period 1540-1620.
Demographic Trends and the Real Interest Rate

We quantify the impact of past and future global demographic change on real interest rates, house prices and household debt in an overlapping generations model. Falling birth and death rates can explain a large part of the fall in world real interest rates and the rise in house prices and household debt since the 1980s. These trends will persist as the share of the population in the high-wealth 50 age bracket continues to rise. As the United States ages relatively slowly, its net foreign liability position will grow. The availability of housing and debt as alternative stores of value attenuates these trends. The increasing monopolisation of the economy has ambiguous effects.
Identifying Industry Margins with Unobserved Price Constraints: Structural Estimation on Pharmaceuticals

We provide a method allowing identification of margins in an oligopoly price competition game when prices may not be freely chosen in some markets, for example due to regulation. We use our identification strategy to study the effects of regulatory constraints in the pharmaceutical industry. We provide the first structural estimation of price-cost margins on a regulated market with price constraints and show how to identify unknown possibly binding constraints thanks to three different markets (US, Germany and France) with varying regulatory constraints. We use the market for anti-ulcer drugs to identify whether regulation in France truly affects margins and prices and relate regulatory reforms to industry pricing equilibrium. Empirical results show that firms were especially constrained in price setting after the different reforms in 2004. Counterfactual simulations show that total spending significantly increased because of the new price regulation by displacing part of the demand from generics to branded drugs.
The Influence of Trust and Risk on Intention to Use E-Democracy in Nigeria

Studies revealed that the level of success and diffusion of e-democracy is low in the developing nation as opposed to the developed nations where it has reached active participation stage. To investigate users’ acceptance of e-democracy from developing nation’s perspective, this study employed an extended technology acceptance model (TAM) which integrates trust, perceived risk and task-technology fit. The results supported the hypothesized positive relationship between perceived usefulness and intention to use e-democracy. However, contrary to TAM perceived ease of use shows no significant effect on intention to use e-democracy. Finding also revealed that lack of trust in government and in the democratic process is a limiting factor to citizens’ e-democracy acceptance.
Short Communication: Strong genetic differentiation of the endemic rosin-producing tree Styrax sumatrana (Styracaceae) in North Sumatra, Indonesia

Rachmat HH, Susilowati A, Elfiati D, Hartini KS, Faradillah WN. 2017. Short Communication: Strong genetic differentiation of the endemic rosin-producing tree Styrax sumatrana (Styracaceae) in North Sumatra, Indonesia. Biodiversitas 18: 1331-1335. Styrax sumatrana is an economically important rosin-producing tree endemic to North Sumatra, Indonesia. Distribution of this species is very limited, and the high rate of forest degradation in Sumatra is increasing the necessity for conservation. To quantify genetic variation and population structuring, we collected individuals from 3 populations namely Pakpak Bharat, Humbang Hasundutan (Humbahas) and Tapanuli Utara in which each of the population was represented by 10 individuals. However, the successful rate of amplification was varied among populations and for later analysis, we only took an account those sequences showing clear electropherograms and disposed those which showed ambiguity. We sequenced trnL-trnF chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) region yielded 941 bp after alignment. The trnL-trnF assigned the species into 4 haplotypes in which Pakpak Bharat was differentiated significantly and not shared any similar haplotypes with two others populations. Humbahas and Tapanuli Utara was shared one common haplotype. Mean nucleotide diversity at silent sites ranged 0 - 3.33 x 10-3, while nucleotide diversity at non-synonymous site ranged 0 - 5.9 x 10-4. Strong genetic differentiation was also found among 3 origin populations, with the highest pairwise genetic differentiation found on Pakpak Bharat and Tapanuli Utara (FST= 0.80952). Clear and apparent genetic structuring was possibly caused by geographical barriers such as highland and mountain ranges (Bukit Barisan mountain ranges) which acted as effective barriers to gene flow among population. The findings suggest that conservation efforts should focus on every population because each of the population maintains distinct genetic identity.
Women business owners’ start-up motivations and network content

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine how women small business owners’ (SBOs) business start-up motivations influence their network content. Design/methodology/approach – Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 28 women SBOs who were recruited through purposeful sampling methods. Interview data on their start-up motivations were used to categorise them into three types: classic, forced and work-family. The interviews explored the network contents of the three categories of participants. Findings – There were many similarities between network contents of classic and forced SBOs, as both groups had started their business for financial reasons rather than family reasons. All the participants’ networks contained information and advice, economic transactions, intangible support and strong ties. However, the sources and types of network content were different for the classic and forced SBOs when compared to work-family SBOs. Research limitations/implications – This study has limitations that .
Detection of obstructive sleep apnea from cardiac interbeat interval time series

Presents a new automated method to diagnose and quantify obstructive sleep apnea from single-lead electrocardiograms based on the detection of the periodic oscillations in cardiac interbeat intervals that are often associated with prolonged cycles of sleep apnea. This technique employs the Hilbert transformation of the sinus interbeat interval time series to derive the instantaneous amplitudes and frequencies of the series and calculates their averages and standard deviations over a moving 5-minute window. The authors then apply a thresholding technique and detect continuous sequences of those windows that lie within threshold limits. When applied to the Computers in Cardiology sleep apnea test data, the authors' algorithm correctly classified 28 out of 30 cases (93.3%) of both sleep apnea and normal subjects, and correctly identified the presence or absence of sleep apnea in 14,591 out of a total of 17,268 minutes (84.5%) of the data from the test set.
Effect of moisture content on selected physical properties of shea kernel of varying slice thickness

Bulk density, kernel density, particle porosity and shrinkage of sheanut krnel slices were determined as a function of moisture content and slice thickness in order to establish preliminary design parameters for drying in an indirect solar dryer. Solid density increased linearly while bulk density decreased non-linearly during drying as the moisture content decreased from 150 to 5 %d.b. The porosities of the kernels ranged from 60.12 -67.91, 57.05-64.87 and 56.88-62.49%, respectively, for the 5, 10 and 15 mm slices. The volumetric shrinkage of the shea slices reduced with decrease in moisture content for all the particle sizes evaluated in this study. Among the shrinkage models tested, the empirical quadratic model gave the best fit of the experimental data. It is proposed that the mechanism of shrinkage in sheanut kernel slices is linked to the removal of water that leads to structural collapse. Key words: Density, porosity, volumetric shrinkage, sheanut kernel, slices.
PECULIARITIES IN THE DIELECTRIC RESPONSE OF NEGATIVE-PERMITTIVITY SCATTERERS

This study analyzes polarizability properties of spherically layered small inclusions that possess negative permittivity. Conditions for invisibility to external electric fields are derived. The complementary principle for two-dimensional scatterers is used to derive special properties of self-complementary inclusions. A singular behavior between the limits of invisibility and infinite response is underlined for a hollow circular shell. A similar, although not as drastic, phenomenon is shown to take place for the three-dimensional hollow sphere.
Molecular evidence of the evolutionary origin of a Bonin Islands endemic, Stenomelania boninensis

O. Miura1,2, H. Mori2, S. Nakai2, K. Satake3, T. Sasaki4 and S. Chiba2 Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Apartado 0843-03092, Balboa, Ancon, Panama, Republic of Panama; Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Graduate School of Life Sciences, University of Tohoku, Aobayama, Sendai 980-8578, Japan; Division of Environmental Biology, National Institute for Environmental Studies, Onogawa, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8506, Japan; and Institute of Boninology, Chichijima-Aza-Miyanohamamichi, Ogasawara, Tokyo 100-2101, Japan
On the application of the Jensen wake model using a turbulence‐dependent wake decay coefficient: the Sexbierum case

We present a methodology to process wind turbine wake simulations, which are closely related to the nature of wake observations and the processing of these to generate the so-called wake cases. The method involves averaging a large number of wake simulations over a range of wind directions and partly accounts for the uncertainty in the wind direction assuming that the same follows a Gaussian distribution. Simulations of the single and double wake measurements at the Sexbierum onshore wind farm are performed using a fast engineering wind farm wake model based on the Jensen wake model, a linearized computational fluid dynamics wake model by Fuga and a nonlinear computational fluid dynamics wake model that solves the Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes equations with a modified k-e turbulence model. The best agreement between models and measurements is found using the Jensen-based wake model with the suggested post-processing. We show that the wake decay coefficient of the Jensen wake model must be decreased from the commonly used onshore value of 0.075 to 0.038, when applied to the Sexbierum cases, as wake decay is related to the height, roughness and atmospheric stability and, thus, to turbulence intensity. Based on surface layer relations and assumptions between turbulence intensity and atmospheric stability, we find that at Sexbierum, the atmosphere was probably close to stable, although the stability was not observed. We support these assumptions using detailed meteorological observations from the Hovsore site in Denmark, which is topographically similar to the Sexbierum region. © 2015 The Authors. Wind Energy published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Simultaneous Sampling of Vapor and Particle-Phase Carcinogenic Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons on Functionalized Glass Fiber Filters

The sampling of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in the atmosphere is often performed on filters, which retain only aerosol particles, disregarding the vapor fraction; after the filter, an adsorbent (e.g., polyurethane foam, PUF, or styrene/divinylbenzene, XAD) is sometimes used for sampling vapors not retained from the filter. However, the use of an adsorbent may lead to many disadvantages: contaminations, analysis time and costs, and size problems when developing automated or personal samplers. In this work, a functionalized glass fiber filter for the simultaneous sampling of aerosol particles and vapor fraction is presented for the sampling of PAHs in air. A low sampling efficiency was observed for 3 ring PAHs, but all carcinogenic PAHs (according to IARC) were totally retained on functionalized filters. On the other hand, a comparison with normal filter sampling was performed, and results obtained confirm that ＞ 10% of benzo(a)pyrene can be lost from normal filters. Together with size reduction, another advantage of the functionalized filter is an enhancement in the extraction and purification recovery.
Geflüchtete Menschen in Deutschland: Warum sie kommen, was sie mitbringen und welche Erfahrungen sie machen

Bisher ist wenig über die Lebensumstände von geflüchteten Menschen in Deutschland bekannt. In einer qualitativen Studie wurden 123 Geflüchtete nach den Umständen der Flucht, ihren Einstellungen und Erwartungen, Bildungsbiografien und ersten Erfahrungen in Deutschland befragt. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die Geflüchteten sehr unterschiedliche Vor aussetzungen für ein Leben in Deutschland mitbringen. Gemeinsam ist ihnen eine hohe Arbeitsmotivation und Integrationsbereitschaft.
Musculoskeletal and other performance related disorders in South African undergraduate music students

Background: Performance related musculoskeletal and associated health issues are prominent amongst musicians. The aim of this study was to explore self-reported musculoskeletal and related health issues in undergraduate music students. A further goal was to ascertain how these problems impact students’ learning and playing their instruments. Materials and Methods: A longitudinal mixed method study was done over a period of three years with 145 undergraduate music students at the Department of Music, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa who completed a health survey, which included verbal statements to open-ended questions. The frequency and percentages of each quantitative variable were calculated using Excel software. Results: The results showed an overall 83% prevalence of musculoskeletal and related health problems among music students. The four most prominent problems cited were related to inappropriate tiredness, concentration problems, sleep disturbances and headaches. Prominent musculoskeletal problems included orofacial issues such as sinus problems, and pain experienced in the lower spine, upper spine, left and right forearm. Students were generally reticent to report problems to healthcare professionals, particularly if they were not musculoskeletal in nature. Conclusions: The current study shows that undergraduate music students at the University of Pretoria experience similar types of playing-related problems to students elsewhere in the world. However, there is a need to further probe and report playing-related musculoskeletal and its associated health problems at this institution as well as other tertiary institutions in South Africa. Furthermore, issues of diagnosis, treatment and impediments dedicated to specific instrument groups should be addressed.
Gr upSM Azacytidine Enhances Efficacy of Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitors in Aml Cells

Background: Azacytidine (5-Aza) is a chemotherapeutic drug used for DNA-de-methylation resulting in re-expression of silenced tumor suppressor genes (TSG). Epigenetic silencing of TSG is mediated by DNA methylatransferases (DNMTs) in several tumors and has been reported to play important roles in leukemogenesis. Cancer formation could be avoided by inhibition of DNMTs and over expression of TSG. Re-expression of TSG such as SHP-1 and SOCS-3 is inversely proportionate with STAT3 signaling. Lestaurtinib (CEP-701) and midstaurin (PKC-412) are multi-targeted tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI) that potently inhibit FLT3 tyrosine kinase and induces hematological remission in AML patients. However, resistance to both TKI is recorded in majority of AML patients in clinical trials. Therefore, the aim of this study, was to assess the effect of 5-Aza on re-expression of TSG and sensitivity response to CEP-701 and PKC-412 in resistant AML cells Methods: Resistant cells were developed by overexposure of MV4-11 cells to CEP-701 and PKC412, individually and treated with 5-Aza. Cytotoxicity of both TKI and apoptosis were determined using Annexin V and MTS assays, respectively. Gene expression profiling using microarray and Hamid Ali Nagi Al-jamal1, SitiAsmaa Mat Jusoh1, Rosline Hassan1 and Muhammad Farid Johan1* 1Department of Hematology, School of Medical Sciences, UniversitiSains Malaysia, Malaysia *Corresponding author: Muhammad Farid Johan, Department of Hematology, School of Medical Sciences, UniversitiSains Malaysia, Malaysia, Tel: +609 767 6200; Email: faridjohan@usm.my Published Date: April 30, 2016
Semiparametric efficient empirical higher order influence function estimators

Robins et al. (2008, 2016b) applied the theory of higher order infuence functions (HOIFs) to derive an estimator of the mean of an outcome Y in a missing data model with Y missing at random conditional on a vector X of continuous covariates; their estimator, in contrast to previous estimators, is semiparametric efficient under minimal conditions. However the Robins et al. (2008, 2016b) estimator depends on a non-parametric estimate of the density of X. In this paper, we introduce a new HOIF estimator that has the same asymptotic properties as their estimator but does not require non-parametric estimation of a multivariate density, which is important because accurate estimation of a high dimensional density is not feasible at the moderate sample sizes often encountered in applications. We also show that our estimator can be generalized to the entire class of functionals considered by Robins et al. (2008) which include the average effect of a treatment on a response Y when a vector X suffices to control confounding and the expected conditional variance of a response Y given a vector X.
Differentiate and make waves

In 1972 Gary Meisters and Wolfgang Schmidt showed that if the Fourier coefficient of a function is zero at the origin, then the function is a sum of three first order differences. They deduced from this that every translation invariant linear form on the space of square integrable functions on the circle group is automatically continuous. Their results were subsequently developed by the author for the case of n-dimensional Euclidean space (Lectures Notes in Mathematics, vol. 1586, Springer-Verlag,1994). The present paper gives an exposition of some of the ideas in this work, with the aim of minimising the technicalities. In particular, it is shown that if we differentiate s times the functions in the Sobolev space of order s on the real line, we obtain as the range of this operator a difference space of order s, where the form of the differences in this space can be explicitly described. This difference space is a Hilbert space, and the operation of differentiation s times is an isometry between these spaces. Whereas finite differences have long been used to approximate derivatives “locally”, these results reveal the precise “global” relationship. The main technique involves understanding how the operation of taking a derivative or a finite difference of a function affects the behaviour of the Fourier transform of the function near the origin on the real line.
Hand Movement Classification Using Burg Reflection Coefficients

Classification of electromyographic signals has a wide range of applications, from clinical diagnosis of different muscular diseases to biomedical engineering, where their use as input for the control of prosthetic devices has become a hot topic of research. The challenge of classifying these signals relies on the accuracy of the proposed algorithm and the possibility of its implementation in hardware. This paper considers the problem of electromyography signal classification, solved with the proposed signal processing and feature extraction stages, with the focus lying on the signal model and time domain characteristics for better classification accuracy. The proposal considers a simple preprocessing technique that produces signals suitable for feature extraction and the Burg reflection coefficients to form learning and classification patterns. These coefficients yield a competitive classification rate compared to the time domain features used. Sometimes, the feature extraction from electromyographic signals has shown that the procedure can omit less useful traits for machine learning models. Using feature selection algorithms provides a higher classification performance with as few traits as possible. The algorithms achieved a high classification rate up to 100% with low pattern dimensionality, with other kinds of uncorrelated attributes for hand movement identification.
Cell-based therapies for disorders of the CNS

There are few effective pharmacological-based treatments for acute neurological trauma or chronic neurodegenerative diseases. This has created a demand for innovative therapeutic approaches including gene therapy, deep brain stimulation and cell-based therapies. This review, briefly updates the progress made in recent clinical trials of neurotransplantation in Parkinson’s and Huntington’s disease, discusses challenges that still have to be overcome, and reviews the progress in meeting these challenges. The main focus of this review, however, will be on recent advances in using endogenous neural precursor cells (NPCs) to promote brain repair. The physiological role of NPCs, their response to various types of injury and other endogenous and exogenous factors will be discussed. Finally, their therapeutic potential and relevance to human disease will be considered.
Settlement pattern of Posidonia oceanica epibionts along a gradient of ocean acidification: an approach with mimics

Effects of ocean acidification (OA on the colonization/settlement pattern of the epibiont community of the leaves and rhizomes of the Mediterranean seagrass, Posidonia oceanica , have been studied at volcanic CO 2 vents off Ischia (Italy), using “mimics” as artificial substrates. The experiments were conducted in shallow Posidonia stands (2-3 m depth), in three stations on the north and three on the south sides of the study area, distributed along a pH gradient. At each station, 4 rhizome mimics and 6 artificial leaves were collected every three months (Sept 2009-Sept 2010). The epibionts on both leaf and rhizome mimics showed clear changes along the pH gradient; coralline algae and calcareous invertebrates (bryozoans, serpulid polychaetes and barnacles) were dominant at control stations but progressively disappeared at the most acidified stations. In these extremely low pH sites the assemblage was dominated by filamentous algae and non calcareous taxa such as hydroids and tunicates. Settlement pattern on the artificial leaves and rhizome mimics over time showed a consistent distribution pattern along the pH gradient and highlighted the peak of recruitment of the various organisms in different periods according to their life history. Posidonia mimics at the acidified station showed a poor and very simplified assemblage where calcifying epibionts seemed less competitive for space. This profound difference in epiphyte communities in low pH conditions suggests cascading effects on the food web of the meadow and, consequently, on the functioning of the system