Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Remedy for Banking Crises: What Chicago and Islam Have in Common: A Comment

Stability is a basic requirement for the proper functioning of the banking system and a key to its contribution to growth and development. Repeated failure of banks led some economists to believe that the banking and financial system may be suffering from structural problems and is in need of fundamental reform (Spong, 1993]. The Islamic monetary system is known to consider demand and investment deposits as two distinct contracts. Demand deposits are merely loans that are fully guaranteed by banks and must be returned on demand. Investment deposits are given to banks on a profit-and-loss sharing basis. They are clearly associated with risk-taking and have specific maturities which, in principle, are not revocable. That is why some economists insisted on the total separation between demand and investment deposits through subjecting the former to 100 percent required reserves (Al-Jarhi 1981, 1983). Compared to conventional finance, this sounds like narrow banking. Kenneth Spong [1993) argues that narrow banking would improve the competitiveness of banks and makes them more market responsive. With regard to the latter point, he suggests that narrow banking would make deposit insurance unnecessary. Garcia, Marino and Cibils (2000) find similarities between narrow banking and Islamic banking. As narrow banking seems to be an uncommon concept among specialists in Islamic economics, this comment is rather expanded to explain the what and why of narrow banking, how it relates to banking theory, its relationship with the long series of proposals for monetary reform, its pros and cons, and finally how it relates to Islamic banking. The paper concludes that narrow banking has merits that become especially obvious when other opportunities of investment outside the banking sector are recognized. It bears similarities with Islamic banking, to the extent that demand deposits are guaranteed both theoretically and practically. Under narrow banking, the role of investment banks would carry features similar to Islamic banking when the relationship between savers and banks are considered. However, when it comes to financing investment, Islamic banks avoid trading future for present money, while conventional investment banks stick to the interest-based modes of finance.
Can Adults Become Fluent Readers in Newly Learned Scripts

Adults learning new scripts have difficulty becoming automatic readers. They typically read haltingly, understand little of what they read, and may forget letter values. This article presents the hypothesis that halting reading among adult neoliterates is due to low-level perceptual functions in the brain that have a sensitive period. These may be related to feature integration; whether illiterate or educated, adults learning a new script may be perceiving letters as connected segments rather than unbreakable units. The time needed to resolve ambiguities and determine how the segments are combined may delay identification and result in letter-by-letter reading. This phenomenon could be called “adult neoliterate dyslexia. ” It has received little research or attention, possibly because few adults need to learn new scripts. Also unschooled illiterates are rare in industrialized countries where most reading studies are carried out. Research is needed to probe into the neuropsychological origin of the adults’ fluency difficulty. Potential remedies may include action videogames and thousands of trials through computerized media.
Barriers to Entry and Returns to Capital in Informal Activities: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa

This paper investigates the patterns of capital entry barriers and capital returns in informal Micro and Small Enterprises (MSE's) using a unique micro data set seven West-African countries. The author's findings support the view of a heterogeneous informal sector that is not primarily host to subsistence activities. While an assessment of initial investment identifies some informal activities with negligible entry barriers, a notable cost of entry is associated to most activities. The authors find very heterogeneous patterns of capital returns in informal MSE's. At very low levels of capital, marginal returns are extremely high- often exceeding 70 percent per month. Above a capital stock of 150 international dollars, marginal returns are found to be relatively low at around 4 to 7 percent monthly. The authors provide some evidence that the high returns at low capital stocks reflect high risks. At the same time, most MSE's appear to be severely capital constrained.
Comparison of multiple linear regressions and artificial intelligence-based modeling techniques for prediction the soil cation exchange capacity of Aridisols and Entisols in a semi-arid region

The cation exchange capacity (CEC) of the soil is a basic chemical property, as it has been approved that the spatial distribution of CEC is important for decisions concerning pollution prevention and crop management. Since laboratory procedures for estimating CEC are cumbersome and time-consuming, it is essential to develop an indirect approach such as pedo-transfer functions (PTFs) for prediction this parameter from more readily available soil data. The aim of this study was to compare multiple linear regressions (MLR), adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) and artificial neural network (ANN) including multi-layer perceptron (MLP) and radial basis function (RBF) models to develop PTFs for predicting CEC of Aridisols and Entisols in Khuzestan province, southwest Iran. Five soil parameters including bulk density, calcium carbonate, organic carbon, clay and silt were considered as input variables for proposed models. The prediction capability of the models was evaluated by means of comparison with observed data through various descriptive statistical indicators including mean square error (MSE) and determination coefficient (R2) values. Results revealed that the MLP model (R2=0.83, MSE=0.008) had the most reliable prediction when compared with the other models. Also results indicated that the ANFIS model (R2=0.50, MSE=0.009) had approximately similar accuracy with those of MLR (R2=0.51, MSE=1.21), while, their prediction performance was less than RBF (R2=0.74, MSE=0.034) model. However, regarding to obtained statistical indicators, ANNs especially MLP model provide new methodology with acceptable accuracy to estimate the CEC of Aridisols and Entisols that diminished the engineering effort, time and funds.
A Conceptual Model of Investor Behavior

Based on a survey of behavioral finance literature, this paper presents a descriptive model of individual investor behavior in which investment decisions are seen as an iterative process of interactions between the investor and the investment environment. This investment process is influenced by a number of interdependent variables and driven by dual mental systems, the interplay of which contributes to boundedly rational behavior where investors use various heuristics and may exhibit behavioral biases. In the modeling tradition of cognitive science and intelligent systems, the investor is seen as a learning, adapting, and evolving entity that perceives the environment, processes information, acts upon it, and updates his or her internal states. This conceptual model can be used to build stylized representations of (classes of) individual investors, and further studied using the paradigm of agent-based artificial financial markets. By allowing us to implement individual investor behavior, to choose various market mechanisms, and to analyze the obtained asset prices, agent-based models can bridge the gap between the micro level of individual investor behavior and the macro level of aggregate market phenomena. It has been recognized, yet not fully explored, that these models could be used as a tool to generate or test various behavioral hypothesis.
The Role of the Economy Structure in the U.S. - China Bilateral Trade Deficit

This study investigates the effect of the economy structure on the U.S. - China bilateral trade deficit as alternative to the influence of the exchange rate fluctuation. The revealed comparative advantage indices are proposed as the measure of the relative structural differences between two countries due to factor endowments and technology. A Bayesian Stochastic Search Variable Selection method is applied to the U.S. - China annual trade data for 57 commodity groups at the SITC 2-digit industry aggregation level to obtain empirical variable inclusion probabilities. Based on the data, we found no conclusive evidence against the hypothesis of the short-run effect of either of the explanatory factors, while the long-run influence is revealed to be insignificant in most of the cases.
Effects of fertigation strategies on water and nitrogen distribution under water storage pit irrigation for orchards

Water storage pit (WSP) irrigation is a simple and inexpensive technology suitable for orchards in semiarid and arid regions of North China. This study compared the effects of different fertigation strategies on water and nitrogen distribution, and ammonia volatilization. A fertigation experiment was conducted using a 30° wedge-shaped plexiglass soil container, which represents one-twelfth of the complete storage pit. The height of the container was 120 cm, and a plexiglass damper for simulating the zero flux plane of adjacent water storage pits was located at the 40 cm radius. Four fertigation strategies were used for WSP irrigation: solution application during the first half (N-W), the last half (W-N), the middle half of an irrigation cycle (W-N-W), and during the entire irrigation (N-N). Surface (SF) irrigation was used as a control treatment with solution application during the entire irrigation (SN-N). The experimental results showed that the soil water and ammonium contents at 0-10 cm soil depth under WSP irrigation were only 10.51% and 18.42% of those under SF irrigation, respectively. The cumulative NH3 volatilization under WSP irrigation was 51.71%-68.72% lower compared with that under SF irrigation. The soil water distributions were similar for all four fertigation strategies. NH3 volatilization mainly occurred at the pit wall interface, and cumulative NH3 volatilization loss followed the trend N-N > W-N > W-N-W > N-W. Ammonium was adsorbed into the soil and thus mostly remained near the pit wall. Low concentrations of ammonium were found near the edge of the wetting zone under all strategies. Compared to N-W, N-N and W-N-W treatments, W-N treatment decreased the nitrate accumulation at 80-90 cm by 38.6%, 19.0% and 10.3%, respectively. The W-N strategy was suggested for minimizing potential nitrate leaching. Keywords: water storage pit, fertigation, soil water, nitrogen distribution, orchards irrigation DOI: 10.25165/j.ijabe. 20181101.3282 Citation: Li J L, Chen P, Sun X H, Liu P. Effects of fertigation strategies on water and nitrogen distribution under water storage pit irrigation for orchards. Int J Agric & Biol Eng, 2018; 11(1): 165–171.
PHYLOGENETIC ANALYSES OF TRIBE LOTEAE ( LEGUMINOSAE ) : IMPLICATIONS FOR CLASSIFICATION AND BIOGEOGRAPHY

Molecular phylogenetic analyses have provided new insight into relationships among temperate herbaceous (TH) legumes. In this analysis, we examine molecular phylogenetic relationships among one group of TH legumes, the tribe Loteae. Members of tribe Loteae are largely centred in Old World regions in the Mediterranean, but are also distributed in various regions throughout the world. One genus, Lotus s.l. , occurs in both the Old and the New World, with a New World centre of diversity in western North America and Mexico. To examine more closely the monophyly of tribe Loteae and relationships among its component genera, we conduct molecular phylogenetic analyses using sequences of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) regions and the 5.8S region of nuclear ribosomal DNA. These data are used to evaluate both the biogeography and classification of tribe Loteae, with particular emphasis on the genus Lotus. Our results show that tribe Loteae is a monophyletic group, originating most likely in Eurasia and diversifying in temperate regions throughout the Mediterranean and western North America. The genus Lotus s.l. does not appear to be monophyletic in that members of Old World Lotus form a closer alliance to Old World Hammatolobium, than to western North American Lotus. Although other genera of Loteae form well-supported monophyletic groups, relationships among these genera are unresolved with respect to one another and to Lotus. These results encompass the most comprehensive taxonomic sampling of Loteae genera to date, and bring insight to the taxonomic circumscription of the tribe and its biogeography. 371 Allan, G.J., Zimmer, E.A. , Wagner, W.L. and Sokoloff, D.D. (2003). Molecular phylogenetic analyses of tribe Loteae (Leguminosae, implications for classification and biogeography. In: B.B. Klitgaard and A. Bruneau (editors). Advances in Legume Systematics, part 10, Higher Level Systematics, pp. 371–393. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. * author for correspondence: Gery.Allan@NAU.edu
Polymorphisms in Antioxidant Genes GCLM and GPX-4 and Ischemic Heart Disease Development in Kazakhstan Population

Background: This study investigated whether the main antioxidant genes GCLM and GPX4 single nucleotide polymorphisms are associated with Ischemic Heart Disease in people living in Kazakhstan. Methods and Results: We evaluated 166 patients with Ischemic Heart Disease and 172 healthy subjects aged 56 (range 42 – 63). All subjects were genotyped for the presence of GCLM gene promoter polymorphism -588C/Tand GPX-4 718C/T (rs713041) in 3’UTR region.Multiple logistic regression analysis was used to assess differences between age, sex, smoking status and polymorphisms genotyping. In our study GCLM -588TT genotype was significantly associated with the risk of Ischemic Heart Disease (OR=11.75, p=0.02) for general ethnically mixed group; GPX4 718CC geno type also showed a high risk in general group with Ischemic Heart Disease development (OR=2.16, p=0.02). Conclusions: the polymorphism -588TT of GCLM seems to be a strong risk factor for patients with Ischemic Heart Disease in Kazakhstan.
Effect of salt level in the feed on performance of red and fallow weaner deer

In Australia, many cropping areas are affected by salt. In these regions, Chenopodiaceous plants, such as Atriplex, Kochia and Bassia spp have been planted to improve soil conditions. These plants have become invaluable feed resources for grazing animals in dry summers, but have a high sodium content. To assess the impact of high salt intake on grazing deer, two experiments were conducted. The first experiment used 30 fallow weaner deer to examine the effect of salt level in the diet on feed intake, water intake and body weight of fallow deer. Salt was added to lucerne chaff at 0, 1.5, 3.0, 4.5 and 6% and fresh water was offered all the time. Increasing the salt level in the diet from 0 to 6% didn't affect feed intake, osmotic pressure and mineral concentration in blood of fallow deer. However, water intake was significantly higher (p0.056) for fallow deer in July and August when salt content was over 3%, suggesting they can ingest over 15 g sodium/day without significant depression in both feed intake and growth rate if the fresh water is available. In the second experiment, 18 red weaner deer were fed lucerne chaff diets containing 1.5, 4.5 and 6.0% salt with 6 deer/diet. The results revealed that feed intake and blood osmotic pressure were similar (p>0.05) for red deer fed different levels of salt although the feed intake declined from 1.91 to 1.67 kg with the increase of salt level from 1.5% to 6.0% in the diet. Water intake was significantly higher for deer fed diets containing over 4.5% salt, but there was no difference in body weight during the experiment. However, no recommendation can be made on the salt tolerance of red deer due to limited increment of salt level in the diet.
Activism and the Shift to Annual Director Election

We examine a comprehensive sample of firms that dismantle their staggered board in favor of annual director elections. We focus on the period following the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley act of late 2002 and we find 465 instances between 2003 and 2010. Investor reaction to these decisions is muted but nonetheless significantly positive at the 5% level. We find that the type shareholder activism is of considerable importance in determining the form of this self-imposed governance reform: when the change is pushed by aggressive hedge fund activists the board is more likely to embrace annual elections immediately and the markets react very favorably to the change, but if the change is pushed by non-binding shareholder proposals, the response is to drag out the change as much as possible and the markets are commensurately unimpressed. Moreover, our sample firms are substantially more likely to be taken over in the ensuing two years when the shift to annual director elections is pushed by activist hedge funds.
Dynamical Analysis and FPGA Implementation of a Novel Hyperchaotic System and Its Synchronization Using Adaptive Sliding Mode Control and Genetically Optimized PID Control

We announce a new 4D hyperchaotic system with four parameters. The dynamic properties of the proposed hyperchaotic system are studied in detail; the Lyapunov exponents, Kaplan-Yorke dimension, bifurcation, and bicoherence contours of the novel hyperchaotic system are derived. Furthermore, control algorithms are designed for the complete synchronization of the identical hyperchaotic systems with unknown parameters using sliding mode controllers and genetically optimized PID controllers. The stabilities of the controllers and parameter update laws are proved using Lyapunov stability theory. Use of the optimized PID controllers ensures less time of convergence and fast synchronization speed. Finally the proposed novel hyperchaotic system is realized in FPGA.
FORMULATION AND EVALUATION OF DOXORUBICIN CONTAINING NANOGELS FOR DELIVERY TO CANCER CELLS

The objective of this study is to prepare nanogels were prepared via charged gellan gum. It was prepared by in situ cross linking reaction between two oppositely charged materials by green method without use of chemical cross linking agents. The prepared nanogels were characterized by Dynamic light scattering, scanning electron microscopy, differential scanning calorimetry and X- Ray diffractometry. The prepared formulation had average particle size of 226 nm with polydispersity index of 0.3. The doxorubicin loaded nanogel demonstrated sustained release for 20 h. The prepared nanogels were hemocompatible and cyctocompatible as revealed by hemocompatibility and MTT assay respectively. All results confirmed that these nanogels can be used for cancer treatment. Keywords: Nanogel, Chitosan, Gellan gum, Doxorubicin, Cancer.
Influence of dose and the USP basket and flow-through cell dissolution apparatuses in the release kinetics of metronidazole immediate-release products

Metronidazole has been classified as a drug with high solubility/high permeability and for this compound a biowaiver monograph has been published however, no significant in vitro-in vivo correlation was found using the current pharmacopeial conditions. On the other hand, ineffectiveness due to low drug plasma levels in patients as well as differences in dissolution performance from commercial products even between batches of the same product, have been found. The objective of this study was to evaluate the dissolution performance of two metronidazole generic products and the reference product Flagyl® at two doses (250- and 500-mg) under the hydrodynamic environment generated by the flow-through cell (USP Apparatus 4) and to compare it with the results obtained with the USP official basket method. USP Apparatus 4 with laminar flow at 24 ml/min and 0.1 N hydrochloric acid solution as dissolution medium was used. In USP Apparatus 1, 250-mg products were classified as very rapid dissolution products (> 85% dissolved in 15 min), whereas the 500-mg products were classified as rapid dissolution (> 85% in 30 min). With the USP Apparatus 4, 250-mg products were considered rapid dissolution products (> 85% dissolved in 30 min) and 500-mg products were not considered rapid dissolution products due to not reaching 85% dissolution in 30 min. Under this system, that best simulates the gastrointestinal flow, only the 500-mg reference product achieved 100% release up to 52 min. Dissolution profiles were compared using model-dependent and -independent methods and with both approaches significant differences were found (p < 0.05). Metronidazole is considered an ideal drug for waiver of bioequivalence studies but their dissolution equivalence is not as obvious when doses or system are changed, which impacts on request biowaiver.
Structural changes in the shallow and transition branch of the Brewer–Dobson circulation induced by El Niño

Abstract. The stratospheric Brewer–Dobson circulation (BDC) determines the transport and atmospheric lifetime of key radiatively active trace gases and further impacts surface climate through downward coupling. Here, we quantify the variability in the lower stratospheric BDC induced by the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), using satellite trace gas measurements and simulations with the Lagrangian chemistry transport model, CLaMS, driven by ERA-Interim and JRA-55 reanalyses. We show that despite discrepancies in the deseasonalized ozone (O3) mixing ratios between CLaMS simulations and satellite observations, the patterns of changes in the lower stratospheric O3 anomalies induced by ENSO agree remarkably well over the 2005–2016 period. Particularly during the most recent El Niño in 2015–2016, both satellite observations and CLaMS simulations show the largest negative tropical O3 anomaly in the record. Regression analysis of different metrics of the BDC strength, including mean age of air, vertical velocity, residual circulation, and age spectrum, shows clear evidence of structural changes in the BDC in the lower stratosphere induced by El Niño, consistent with observed O3 anomalies. These structural changes during El Niño include a weakening of the transition branch of the BDC between about 370 and 420 K (∼100–70 hPa) and equatorward of about 60∘ and a strengthening of the shallow branch at the same latitudes and between about 420 and 500 K (∼70–30 hPa). The slowdown of the transition branch is due to an upward shift in the dissipation height of the large-scale and gravity waves, while the strengthening of the shallow branch results mainly from enhanced gravity wave breaking in the tropics–subtropics combined with enhanced planetary wave breaking at high latitudes. The strengthening of the shallow branch induces negative tropical O3 anomalies due to enhanced tropical upwelling, while the weakening of the transition branch combined with enhanced downwelling due to the strengthening shallow branch leads to positive O3 anomalies in the extratropical upper troposphere–lower stratosphere (UTLS). Our results suggest that a shift in the ENSO basic state toward more frequent El Niño-like conditions in a warmer future climate will substantially alter UTLS trace gas distributions due to these changes in the vertical structure of the stratospheric circulation.
DYNAMIC SIMULATIONS OF SUPERCONDUCTING QUANTUM INTERFERENCE DEVICE (SQUID) MEMORY CELL

A thorough investigation has been made to obtain SQUID device parameters and properties, and the optimization of the latter for the application of memory cells. The SQUID memory cells have been designed theoretically using the optimized techniques. Our concept of turn-on delay has been applied for critically ascertaining the switching speed of the logic gates and memory cells. The dynamic response of the memory cells have been obtained by computer-simu lation. This paper helps scientists and researchers in giving complete understanding of SQUID memory cells before they are fabricated experimentally.