Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
AREF_2nd proofs.indd

The automation of the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) in 2008, among other reforms, was expected to improve the effi ciency of the market. The extent of this truism has, however, not been empirically established for the GSE. In this study, we attempt to assess the impact of the automation on the effi ciency of the GSE within the framework of the weak-form Effi cient Market Hypothesis (EMH) based on the before and after approach. The study was done both at the aggregate and micro-level. The aggregate result showed that automation of the exchange did not improve the overall effi ciency of the exchange. However, there is evidence that the number of market participants involved in the exchange has increased in the post-automation era. The results of the impact of the automation on the effi ciency of the microstructure are, however, mixed. Generally, the rejection of the null hypothesis under homoscedasticity was found to be robust to heteroscedasticity for some fi rms, but the reverse was the case for other fi rms. This implies that the rejection of the null hypothesis under homoscedasticity is due to both heteroscedasticity and serial correlation. Based on the fi ndings, a mix of strategies aimed at improving the effi ciency of the exchange are recommended.
The effects of volatility on growth and financial development through capital market imperfections

This paper provides a model to account for the empirical evidence that volatility reduces growth. In the model, greater volatility increases the cost associated with capital market imperfections and induces the financial intermediaries to charge higher interest rates. The model is based on one of overlapping generations with two types of technologies. The more productive technology requires fixed investment in the first period. Individual with income less than the amount of fixed investment may borrow in financial markets to obtain more productive technology. Increase in volatility raises the cost of borrowing and makes it less attractive to invest in more productive technology for individuals whose first period income is below certain income. Hence, volatility reduces growth by deterring people from taking advantage of more productive technology. This model also explains the empirical findings of Ramey and Ramey (1995) that investment is not the channel between volatility and growth by suggesting that total factor productivity rather than total factor accumulation is the key for growth.
INFLUENcE oF THE NUMBER oF SETS IN cARDIoVAScULAR AND AUToNoMIc ADJUSTMENTS To RESISTANcE EXERcISE IN PHYSIcALLY AcTIVE MEN

Mailing address: UNINOVE rua Vergueiro 235/249 2o subsolo Mestrado 01504 001 São Paulo – SP. Brazil. prof.kangelis@yahoo.com. br ABSTRAcT Objective: To evaluate the influence of the number of sets on cardiovascular changes and heart rate variability (HrV) in resistance exercise (rE) recovery period in physically active men. Methods: The sample was composed of 13 (27.38 ± 1.59 years) normotensive men, practitioners of rE. Two rE routines were performed: routine 1 (r1) consisted of two sets of 10rM with 1 minute between sets and 2 minutes between exercises; and routine 2 (r2) was similar to r1; however, with three sets of each exercise. Blood pressure (BP), pulse interval (PI) and HrV were measured at rest and during recovery (60 minutes) from the rE. results: rE induced reduction in systolic BP after r1 (pre: 119.4 ± 1.70 vs. post: 110.8 ± 1.80 mmHg) and r2 (pre: 121.6 ± 2.20 vs. post: 110.3 ± 1.11 mmHg). However, diastolic BP (pre: 71.2 ± 1.80 vs. post: 64.3 ± 2.40 mmHg) and mean BP (pre: 88.0 ± 1.60 vs. post: 80.7 ± 1.60 mmHg) reduced only after the r2, and heart rate (Hr) was increased at this time. The r2 promoted variance of PI reduction in the recovery when compared to the r1. Furthermore, only the r2 induced increase in low frequency band and reduction in high frequency band of PI compared to rest values. Conclusion: BP reduction was associated with higher number of sets, but not with reduction in Hr and/or cardiac sympathetic modulation in rE practitioners.
AGAINST THE ESTABLISHMENT The Effect of Labor Market Disadvantage and Mainstream Party Convergence on Anti- Establishment Attitudes

Workers in precarious employment may have no incentives to support the political system. Drawing on the insider-outsider debate, and the populism and party decline literatures, this thesis first investigates David Rueda’s claim that workers in precarious employment may have reasons to turn against the political establishment (the exclusion hypothesis). Second, it examines whether the effect of labor market outsiderness on anti-political establishment attitudes is moderated by the ideological distance between the two largest left and right parties with regard to economic and cultural issues. As such, this thesis brings together theories of populism and anti-partyism, labor market dualization and party competition under the overarching insider-outsider divide framework. In addition, this thesis pays considerable attention to concept operationalization. The dependent variable, anti-establishment attitudes, is treated as a latent predisposition, and computed with factor analysis. The independent variable is operationalized as both current employment status and occupational unemployment risk, acknowledging the recent debate on outsiderness operationalization. I test the hypotheses with survey data from ten European advanced democracies in 2014 and find that labor market outsiders, identified by higher exposure to unemployment risk, are more likely to endorse anti-establishment attitudes. By contrast, labor market outsiderness defined as temporary employment has no effect on the outcome of interest. Finally, I find qualified support for the moderating effect of party distance on hypothesis 1: party convergence on the cultural dimension is associated with a stronger effect of occupational unemployment risk on antiestablishment attitudes, while party convergence on the economic dimension is statistically insignificant.
Emissions from the Krafla Geothermal Area , Iceland

Geothermal resource utilization although widely accepted as a clean energy source, has also contributed to the decreasing of air quality due to hydrogen sulphide and carbon dioxide emissions. Several studies have shown that CO2 emissions from geothermal/volcanic systems occur naturally and in some cases these natural emissions exceed the amount of CO2 emitted from the geothermal power plant utilizing the geothermal resource. This study is carried out to quantify the natural CO2 soil flux emissions from the Krafla geothermal field, see the relation between soil gas emission and the structural geology and compare the results to the CO2 emissions from the Krafla power plant. The results of this study show that the total CO2 flux from soil degassing is approximately 14.13 t d for a survey area of 2.5 km, a positive correlation between CO2 soil flux emissions and the structural geology of the area, and the CO2 emission from natural sources exceeds the emission from the power plant by approximately 3 times.
Pancreatitis and Metformin: Case-Report and Review of Literature

Metformin is the most used anti-hyperglycemic agent for the treatment of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus. It is considered a very good drug, with low risk and high benefit. Metformin intoxication can be due to massive ingestion or to a progressive accumulation due to renal failure. Fatal cases due to metformin intoxication have been described. With regard to that we present a fatal case of a fifty-six-year-old patient with severe metformin intoxication (100 μg/ml) who presented kidney failure, lactic acidosis, hyperglycemia and pancreatitis. He received alkalinization and hemodialysis therapy, afterwards which shortly hereby improved his condition, but the patient deceased after 7 days for a nosocomial pneumonia. Pancreatitis was confirmed by the post-mortem histopathological analysis. Acute pancreatitis as side effect of metformin is very rare, either in overdose or therapeutic dosage, and it has been attributed to an intrinsic toxicity mechanism. With regard to that, we performed a review of the literature of all cases in which pancreatitis was referred to metformin use in order to evaluate if this complication usually develops in presence of specific predisposing factors, or if it is unpredictable. From our review, according to the literature, we confirm that acute pancreatitis represents a very rare side effect of metformin, either in therapeutic dosage or overdose. In metformin intoxication, polypharmacy and high doses might be possible risk factors in order to develop pancreatitis. There is not a specific association of metformin related pancreatitis and hyperglycemia, even if pancreatitis is generally linked to glucose homeostasis alterations. It is possible to assume that the presence of hyperglycemia depends on the extent of pancreatitis that if much extended could lead to a deficit of insulin release and to an increase of blood glucose levels.
Optimization of Biogas Generation from Press Mud in Batch Reactor

Press mud collected from sugar mills in Punjab, India were characterized and found to contain 75-80% organic matter, which mainly consists of cellulose, hemicellulose, lignin, protein, sugar, wax, etc. Biogas generation from press mud in a 2-litre batch reactor was studied at solid concentrations of 4 to 12%. Maximum yield of biogas was 0.24 L/g with 6% solids. Effect of Co++ and Ni++ concentrations on biogas yield was also studied. It was maximum at 5 μ moles/L of Co++ and 6 μ moles/L of Ni++. The optimum C/N ratio for biogas generation was 18, which was higher than the normal C/N ratio of 14 in the press mud. Other substrates such as cow dung, bagasse and cane pith when mixed with press mud in different proportions have influenced biogas generation. Press mud when mixed with cow dung, biomethanation process became more stable. Particularly, cane pith when mixed with press mud in 1:1 ratio, the generation of biogas increased significantly. The methane content of the biogas was about 65%.
Denoising 2-D Vector Fields by Vector Wavelet Thresholding

Noise reduction is an important preprocessing step for many visualization techniques that make use of feature extraction. We propose a method for denoising 2-D vector fields that are corrupted by additive noise. The method is based on the vector wavelet transform, which transforms a vector input signal to wavelet coefficients that are also vectors. We introduce modifications to scalar wavelet coefficient thresholding for dealing with vector-valued coefficients. We compare our wavelet-based denoising method with Gaussian filtering, and test the effect of these methods on the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the vector fields before and after denoising. We also compare our method with component-wise scalar wavelet thresholding. Furthermore, we use a vortex measure to study the performances of the methods for retaining relevant details for visualization. The results show that for very low SNR, Gaussian filtering with large kernels has a slightly better performance than the wavelet-based method in terms of SNR. For larger SNR, the wavelet-based method outperforms Gaussian filtering, because Gaussian filtering removes small details that are preserved by the wavelet-based method. Component-wise denoising has a lower performance than our method.
Flow experience, attentional control, and emotion regulation: contributions for a positive development in adolescents

Research has shown that optimal experiences lead to positive development outcomes. Adolescence is a critical period for the engagement in daily optimal experiences, namely, flow experience, since it is a period of experimentation and definition of interests. Adolescents are more willing to attend new challenges and develop new skills, finding more opportunities within contexts to develop engaged and happy lives. In this article, we review the major findings of the impact of flow experience in adolescents’ lives and positive development, and the individual and contextual factors associated with this psychological state of consciousness. We specifically relate attentional control and emotion regulation concepts to flow experience. We discuss the possible link between flow and these self-regulation abilities and its potential for positive adolescent development. Finally, we make some conclusions and suggest new lines for future research concerning predictors of flow experience within a social and ecological framework.
Untangling the nexus of stock price and trading volume: evidence from the Chinese stock market

This paper explores the linear and non-linear causal relationship between stock price and trading volume in China. The empirical results substantiate that there is a long-run level equilibrium relationship between the stock price and trading volume in China. The results from the linear causality tests indicate that there is unidirectional causality running from price to volume for the case of Shanghai B and Shenzhen B shares in the short-run, but there is a bidirectional causal relation between price and volume for the case of Shanghai A share and Shenzhen A share. In the results of the non-linear Granger causality, evidence shows that there is neutral price-volume relation for Shanghai B share. However, there is a bidirectional non-linear price-volume causal relation for the case of Shanghai A share and Shenzhen A share. For the case of Shenzhen B share, there is a unidirectional non-linear Granger causal relationship running from the stock price to the trading volume.
Knowledge of cancer pain management among nurses in a Nigerian tertiary health institution

Background : Pain is a symptom of both physical and psychological disorder in patients. Pain may be acute or chronic. Chronic pain can also be the consequence of progressive diseases such as cancer. Cancer pain can be defined as a complex sensation that reflects both damage to the body and the body's response to the damage. Proper pain management is crucial in the overall care of patients. The doctor-patient ratio is still low in Nigeria according to World Health Organization (WHO) 2012, we have 1:3500 doctor-patient ratio as against the standard 1:600, but that of nurse-patient is better, 1:30 as against WHO standard of 1:6, however more nurses are needed to meet the need of the rising population of Nigeria. Incidence of cancer is rising worldwide and majority of the advanced cases occur in the developing countries like Nigeria. In order to uphold the standard of cancer pain management in our patients, active participation of the nurses is essential. More importantly all health professionals need to serve as advocates for adequate cancer pain control and should ensure that pain treatment is based on ethical principles and evidence-based standards. However nurses play a critical role in effective pain management because they have more contact time with patients in any healthcare setting. This vantage position gives the nurse a unique privilege to identify patients who have pain, assess the pain and its impact on the patients and their family members, thus initiate actions to manage the pain and evaluate the effectiveness of those actions. Aims and Objectives: This study is aimed at assessing the level of knowledge of cancer pain management among trained Nurses at the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, Nigeria. Materials and Methods: Trained nurses who consented to take part in the study were tested using self-administered questionnaire. The questionnaires consisted of 3 major sections namely (a) Demography, (b) Pain assessment, (c) Cancer Pain management. Their individual level of knowledge of cancer pain management was thereafter assessed from their response to the questionnaires. Results: 119 N urses completed the questionnaire. 105 (88.24%) were double qualified, Registered Nurse (RN) and Registered Midwife (RM), while 10 (8.40%) had only RN certificate. Approximately 21 (18%) respondents had additional formal training in pain management. 100 (84%) respondents gave correct definition of pain and out of these, only 2 (2%) could give a good account on the management for cancer pain. 24 (20%) of the respondent could use Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) for pain assessment. Only 23 (19%) could state the relevance of opioids in cancer pain management. Conclusion: This study revealed inadequate knowledge in cancer pain management among the nurses. To achieve holistic care for cancer patients in all health care delivery centers, additional training in pain management is required.
Projected global ground-level ozone impacts on vegetation under different emission and climate scenarios

Abstract. The impact of ground-level ozone (O3) on vegetation is largely under-investigated at the global scale despite large areas worldwide that are exposed to high surface O3 levels. To explore future potential impacts of O3 on vegetation, we compared historical and projected surface O3 concentrations simulated by six global atmospheric chemistry transport models on the basis of three representative concentration pathways emission scenarios (i.e. RCP2.6, 4.5, 8.5). To assess changes in the potential surface O3 threat to vegetation at the global scale, we used the AOT40 metric. Results point out a significant exceedance of AOT40 in comparison with the recommendations of UNECE for the protection of vegetation. In fact, many areas of the Northern Hemisphere show that AOT40-based critical levels will be exceeded by a factor of at least 10 under RCP8.5. Changes in surface O3 by 2100 worldwide range from about +4–5 ppb in the RCP8.5 scenario to reductions of about 2–10 ppb in the most optimistic scenario, RCP2.6. The risk of O3 injury for vegetation, through the potential O3 impact on photosynthetic assimilation, decreased by 61 and 47 % under RCP2.6 and RCP4.5, respectively, and increased by 70 % under RCP8.5. Key biodiversity areas in southern and northern Asia, central Africa and North America were identified as being at risk from high O3 concentrations.
Effect Of NPK Micro Doses Fertilizer On Leaf Area, Leaf Area Index And Pods And Hay Yield Of Six Genotypes Of Groundnut –North Kordofan State-Sudan

This experiment was conducted at two locations, in North Kordofan under rain fed conditions for two consecutive seasons (2011/012 and 2012/013), to study the effect of NPK micro doses on leaf area, leaf area index, pod yield and hay yield of six groundnut genotypes. The tested genotypes were arranged in a Randomized Complete Block Design with four replications. Leaf area increased rapidly up to 90 days from planting. Thereafter, it started increase but at slower rate in all treatments. Non significant differences were observed among genotypes and treatments in leaf area at 30 days after planting. At this stage the highest leaf area of about 278.4 cm2 was recorded by ICGV89171 without NPK treatment and the lowest of 149.5 cm2 by ICGV93255 with NPK treatment. At sixty days after planting the significant differences in leaf area were observed, the highest recorded by genotypes ICGV89171 (1278.8 cm2) with NPK treatment while the lowest by line ICGV93255 (743.8 cm2) without treatment. At 90 days after planting the leaf area showed high significant differences among genotypes, the maximum leaf area 1570.1 cm2 recorded by line ICGV92121 with NPK treatment. The Significant differences were record at 60 and 90 days after planting for leaf area index, NPK treatment increase the value 0.30 at all stages of genotypes. Significant varietal differences were observed for pod yield, hay yield, hundred seed weight, and number of pods per plant, while non significant differences were recorded in seeds per pod, shelling percentage and harvest index were not significant. The high significant correlation between leaf area and pod and hay yield were observed, with pod yield was 0.278 and with hay yield was 0.242 respectively.
Testing Astrophysical Radiation Hydrodynamics Codes with Hypervelocity Jet Experiments on the Nova Laser

Recent shock-tube experiments using the Nova laser facility have demonstrated that strong shocks and highly supersonic flows similar to those encountered in astrophysical jets can be studied in detail through carefully controlled experiments. We propose the use of high-power lasers such as Nova, Omega, Gekko, and the National Ignition Facility (NIF) to perform experiments on radiation hydrodynamic problems such as jets involving the multidimensional dynamics of strong shocks. High-power lasers are the only experimental facilities that can reach the very high Mach number regime. The experiments will serve as diagnostics of astrophysically interesting gasdynamic problems and could also form the basis of test problems for numerical algorithms for astrophysical radiation hydrodynamic codes. The potential for experimentally achieving a strongly radiative jet seems very good.
Design Collaborative Formative Assessment for Sustained Knowledge Building Using Idea Thread Mapper

This design-based study investigated collaborative formative assessment for knowledge building in two comparable Grade 6 science classrooms. Students assessed their collective knowledge progress using the Idea Thread Mapper (ITM)—a timeline-based collective discourse mapping tool—and planned for further efforts to address deeper issues. Analysis of students’ online discourse and individual portfolio notes suggests the positive impact of the assessment on the community’s knowledge building discourse as reflected in students’ idea-deepening and idea-elaborating questions, refined explanations, and build-on connections; and on student scientific understandings as documented in their individual portfolio notes.
Management of ERP Systems Implementation in Brazil

This paper presents the factors involved in the management of ERP implementation, based on a survey with project managers and users of 43 companies in Brazil, that had implemented or were in the process of implementing an ERP package. The results indicate the high share of services in the total cost, the intense use of the big-bang process for cutover and the need for information integration and the production of management information as the most important motives for beginning the project. The projects in general were successful in the implementation of the transaction-processing functions, but the decision-making resources remained underutilized. The paper proposes the measures for project success efficiency (project time and cost) and effectiveness (quality and process improvement), that are used to evaluate the importance of success factors in each project phase. The paper explores the managerial implications of the findings