Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
On the Association between Changes in Corporate Ownership and Changes in Auditor Quality in a Transitional Economy

This study uses agency theory to test whether the demand for quality‐differentiated audits by listed Chinese companies is systematically associated with changes in ownership structure, which is characterized by the dominance of government and institutional owners in a transitional economy. Our empirical test results are supportive of agency theory. Specifically, we find that a decrease of government shares and a corresponding increase of institutional shares lead to a general increase in the demand for higher‐quality audits in China's stock market. However, the influence of individual shareholders on a firm's auditor‐choice decisions appears insignificant. Our results suggest that in the absence of institutional features typically found in freemarket economies that provide incentives for managers to supply credible accounting information via quality audits, the introduction of large institutional blockholders can be a good alternative for a transitional economy.
Education reform in England: quality and equity in the performative school

This article argues that contradictory forces affect teachers' work in the neo-liberal school system in England, with a diversity of governance models alongside increasingly dominant orthodoxies of what constitutes ‘effective practice and leadership’. School reforms in England have focused on increasing overall attainment and on closing the achievement gap for pupils from ‘disadvantaged communities’; whilst there is evidence that reforms have delivered on the former, evidence is inconclusive on the latter, with some critics arguing that some reforms have increased social inequality. The future for teachers’ professional identity and practices in this landscape is uncertain. Whilst this article broadly concurs with many studies of teacher identity which argue that the ever-extending reach of performative mechanisms has restricted teachers’ opportunities to develop as activist professionals with ‘a moral purpose’, it also argues that the diversified landscape may provide the opportunity for new autonomous spaces. It goes on to suggest that further research is needed into the forms of locally determined values and practices emerging in ‘quasi-privatised’ academies and free schools in England, to explore whether these professional communities will be entirely managerialist/entrepreneurial in character, or whether models of practice underpinned by a concern with social equity and social justice issues may emerge.
Age-related susceptibility to infection with diarrheagenic E . coli in infants from peri-urban areas of Lima , Peru

Background—Diarrheagenic E. coli are being recognized as important pediatric enteropathogens worldwide. However, it is unclear whether there are differences in age-related susceptibility to specific agents, especially among infants. Methods—We conducted a passive surveillance diarrhea cohort study of 1034 children from 2 to 12 months of age in Lima, Perú. Control stool samples were collected from randomly selected children without diarrhea. All samples were analyzed for common enteric pathogens and for the diarrheagenic E. coli by a multiplex real-time PCR. Results—The most commonly isolated pathogens from 1065 diarrheal episodes were the diarrheagenic E. coli (31%), including enteroaggregative (15.1%) and enteropathogenic E. coli (EPEC) (7.6%). Diarrheagenic E. coli, Campylobacter and rotavirus were more frequently isolated from infants ≥ 6m. Diffusely adherent E. coli and enterotoxigenic E. coli (ETEC) were more frequently isolated in diarrheal samples than in controls in older infants (p<0.05). Children ≥ 6m infected with ETEC had a 4.56-fold increased risk for diarrhea (95% CI, 1.20 to 17.28). Persistent diarrhea was more frequent in infants < 6m (13.5% vs. 3.6%, p<0.001). Among diarrheagenic E. coli positive samples, co-infections with other pathogens were more common in diarrhea than in controls (40.1% vs. 15.6%, p<0.001). Conclusions—Diarrheagenic E. coli were more frequently isolated in older infants. In this setting with high frequency of pathogen exposure and high frequency of breastfeeding, we hypothesize that the major age-related differences result from decreased exposure to milk protective factors and with increased exposure to contaminated food and water. Corresponding author: Theresa J. Ochoa, MD, Instituto de Medicina Tropical “Alexander von Humboldt”, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, Av. Honorio Delgado 430. San Martin de Porras, Lima 33, Perú, Phone 51-1-482-3910. Fax: 51-1-482-3404, Theresa.J.Ochoa@uth.tmc. edu. Summary: Diarrheagenic E. coli were the most commonly isolated pathogens in a passive surveillance diarrhea cohort study of children < 1y in Lima. These pathogens were more frequently isolated in older infants, reflecting the increased pathogen exposure after 6m of age. There is no conflict of interest for all authors. NIH Public Access Author Manuscript Clin Infect Dis. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2010 December 1. Published in final edited form as: Clin Infect Dis. 2009 December 1; 49(11): 1694–1702. doi:10.1086/648069. N IH PA Athor M anscript N IH PA Athor M anscript N IH PA Athor M anscript
Assessment On Students Performance Using Rasch Model In Reinforced Concrete Design Course Examination

Assessment and measurement in teaching and learning process is one of the most vital process in order to enable the Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) can be implemented as assurance for a quality education system. One of the measurement methods that can be used is a Rasch Measurement Model. This paper describes a measurement model that is used to measure the student’s performance in the Department of Civil and Structural Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, University Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM). The assessment model is developed based on students mark entries and together with Rasch Measurement Model, it can be used to measure the students performance towards the final examination of the course. A study on 66 third year students (Male=30, Female=36) was conducted to measure student’s knowledge and understanding for subject KH3273 – Reinforced Concrete Design according to Blooms Taxonomy. A sample of final exam results is compiled and tabulated for evaluation using Rasch analysis software, Winstep. An overview of the measurement model and its key concept are presented in this study. From the study it shows that the Rasch Model can precisely classified the students according to their achievements and reveals the true degree of learning abilities of the students even with small number of sampling unit. The results also found that the difference of learning ability between the genders for male students have shown better performance if compared to the female students.
A Resolution of Cosmic Dark Energy via a Quantum Entanglement Relativity Theory

A new quantum gravity formula accurately predicting the actually measured cosmic energy content of the universe is presented. Thus by fusing Hardy’s quantum entanglement and Einstein’s energy formula we have de facto unified relativity and quantum mechanics in a single equation applicable to predicting the energy of the entire universe. In addition the equation could be seen as a simple scaling of Einstein’s celebrated equation when multiplied by a scaling parameter where is Hardy’s quantum entanglement and . Furthermore could be approximated to and thus may be interpreted as the inverse of the compactified bosonic strings dimension .
Discrete breathers in a two-dimensional Fermi–Pasta–Ulam lattice

Using asymptotic methods, we investigate whether discrete breathers are supported by a two-dimensional Fermi-Pasta-Ulam lattice. A scalar (one-component) two-dimensional Fermi-Pasta-Ulam lattice is shown to model the charge stored within an electrical transmission lattice. A third-order multiple-scale analysis in the semi-discrete limit fails, since at this order, the lattice equations reduce to the (2+1)-dimensional cubic nonlinear Schrodinger (NLS) equation which does not support stable soliton solutions for the breather envelope. We therefore extend the analysis to higher order and find a generalised $(2+1)$-dimensional NLS equation which incorporates higher order dispersive and nonlinear terms as perturbations. We find an ellipticity criterion for the wave numbers of the carrier wave. Numerical simulations suggest that both stationary and moving breathers are supported by the system. Calculations of the energy show the expected threshold behaviour whereby the energy of breathers does {\em not} go to zero with the amplitude; we find that the energy threshold is maximised by stationary breathers, and becomes arbitrarily small as the boundary of the domain of ellipticity is approached.
Inverse spinel structure of Co-doped gahnite

Abstract Powder ZnAl2O4 (gahnite) samples doped with 0-100 at% Co were obtained by a sol-gel technique. X-ray powder diffraction was used to characterize the samples. Gahnite samples are cubic with the normal spinel structure, space group Fd3̄m. Cobalt doping caused a nonuniform increase of unit-cell parameter. The structure of the gahnite samples was refined by the Rietveld method. The location of Co2+ was determined by EPR spectroscopy. Cobalt doping of gahnite induces the inverse spinel structure at only 4 at% Co, and the inversion parameter increases with Co2+ doping level. Metal-oxide distances in the (Al,Co)O6 octahedra dominantly influence the unit-cell parameter of Co-doped gahnite
FAR-IR/SUBMILLIMETER SPECTROSCOPIC COSMOLOGICAL SURVEYS: PREDICTIONS OF INFRARED LINE LUMINOSITY FUNCTIONS FOR z < 4 GALAXIES

Star formation and accretion onto supermassive black holes in the nuclei of galaxies are the two most energetic processes in the universe, producing the bulk of the observed emission throughout its history. We simulated the luminosity functions of star-forming and active galaxies for spectral lines that are thought to be good spectroscopic tracers of either phenomenon, as a function of redshift. We focused on the infrared (IR) and submillimeter domains, where the effects of dust obscuration are minimal. Using three different and independent theoretical models for galaxy formation and evolution, constrained by multi-wavelength luminosity functions, we computed the number of star-forming and active galaxies per IR luminosity and redshift bin. We converted the continuum luminosity counts into spectral line counts using relationships that we calibrated on mid- and far-IR spectroscopic surveys of galaxies in the local universe. Our results demonstrate that future facilities optimized for survey-mode observations, i.e., the Space Infrared telescope for Cosmology and Astrophysics and the Cerro Chajnantor Atacama Telescope, will be able to observe thousands of z > 1 galaxies in key fine-structure lines, e.g., [Si ii], [O i], [O iii], [C ii], in a half-square-degree survey, with 1 hr integration time per field of view. Fainter lines such as [O iv], [Ne v], and H2 (0–0)S1 will be observed in several tens of bright galaxies at 1 < z < 2, while diagnostic diagrams of active nucleus versus star formation activity will be feasible even for normal z ∼ 1 galaxies. We discuss the new parameter space that these future telescopes will cover and that strongly motivates their construction.
Effects of Pentoxifylline on Exercising Skeletal Muscle Vascular Control in Rats with Chronic Heart Failure

Purpose : Chronic heart failure (CHF) is hallmarked by cardiac and peripheral vasculature dysfunction which has been associated with elevations in tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) and exercise intolerance. The pharmaceutical TNF-α synthesis suppressor pentoxifylline (PTX) reduces plasma [TNF-α] and improves left ventricular (LV) function in CHF rats, but the effects of PTX on skeletal muscle blood flow (BF) and vascular conductance (VC) during exercise are unknown. We tested the hypothesis that PTX would elevate skeletal muscle BF and VC at rest and during submaximal treadmill exercise in CHF rats and improve exercise tolerance and peak O 2 uptake. Methods : CHF rats (coronary artery ligation) received i.p. injections of 30 mg·kg -1 ·day -1 of PTX (CHF+PTX, n=13) or saline (CHF, n=8) for 21 days. BF was measured using radiolabeled microspheres at rest and during exercise (treadmill, 20 m/min -1 , 5% grade). Results : Resting and exercising mean arterial pressures (MAP) were greater in CHF+PTX compared to CHF (i.e., closer to expected healthy values, both p<0.05). During exercise PTX increased total hindlimb BF (CHF: 83±9, CHF+PTX: 114±8 ml·min -1 ·100g -1 , p<0.05) and VC (CHF: 0.75±0.08, CHF+PTX: 0.88±0.06 ml·min -1 ·100g -1 ·mmHg -1 , p<0.05). Furthermore, exercising BF was increased in 21 and VC in 11, of the 28 individual hindlimb muscles or muscle parts with no apparent fiber-type specificity. Conclusions : PTX administration augments skeletal muscle BF and VC during locomotory exercise in CHF rats, but the lack of increased exercise tolerance or peak O 2 uptake suggest continued peripheral O 2 pathway dysfunction.
The Preboreal climate reversal and a subsequent solar‐forced climate shift

Accurate chronologies are essential for linking palaeoclimate archives. Carbon‐14 wiggle‐match dating was used to produce an accurate chronology for part of an early Holocene peat sequence from the Borchert (The Netherlands). Following the Younger Dryas–Preboreal transition, two climatic shifts could be inferred. Around 11 400 cal. yr BP the expansion of birch (Betula) forest was interrupted by a dry continental phase with dominantly open grassland vegetation, coeval with the PBO (Preboreal Oscillation), as observed in the GRIP ice core. At 11 250 cal. yr BP a sudden shift to a humid climate occurred. This second change appears to be contemporaneous with: (i) a sharp increase of atmospheric 14C; (ii) a temporary decline of atmospheric CO2; and (iii) an increase in the GRIP 10Be flux. The close correspondence with excursions of cosmogenic nuclides points to a decline in solar activity, which may have forced the changes in climate and vegetation at around 11 250 cal. yr BP. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The relationship between adaptive management of social-ecological systems and law: a systematic review

Adaptive management has been considered a valuable approach for managing social-ecological systems involving high levels of complexity and uncertainty. However, many obstacles still hamper its implementation. Law is often seen as a barrier for moving adaptive management beyond theory, although there has been no synthesis on the challenges of legal constraints or how to overcome them. We contribute to filling this knowledge gap by providing a systematic review of the peer-reviewed literature on the relationship between adaptive management and law in relation to social-ecological systems. We analyze how the scholarship defines the concept of adaptive management, identifies the legal barriers to adaptive management, and the legal strategies suggested for enabling this approach. Research efforts in this domain are still highly geographically concentrated in the United States of America, unveiling gaps concerning the analysis of other legal jurisdictions. Overall, our results show that more flexible legal frameworks can allow for adaptive management without undermining the role of law in providing stability to social interactions. Achieving this balance will likely require the reform of existing laws, regulations, and other legal instruments. Legal reforms can facilitate the emergence of adaptive governance, with the potential to support not only adaptive management implementation but also to make law itself more adaptive.
Latitudinal patterns and environmental determinants of recent human cultural diversity: do humans follow biogeographical rules?

Biogeographers have noted many strong patterns in the diversity and distribution of animal and plant taxa. Human cultural diversity also exhibits strong geographical patterns. Here we analyse the global distribution of 3814 human cultures in relation to latitude and climatic parameters. The density and diversity of human cultures decline with latitude and increase with temperature and rainfall. Human cultures in tropical, wetter or warmer areas have smaller ranges and are more densely packed and differentiated. These relationships can be documented statistically in ways that parallel species diversity among other organisms. The global nature of these patterns implies ecological equilibrium independent of evolutionary history in different continents. This has implications for the interpretation of human genetic diversity, as well as for the understanding of processes of human cultural diversification and their relationship to evolutionary and ecological mechanisms.
Effects of superinfection and cost of immunity on host-parasite co-evolution

In this paper, we investigate the cost of immunological up- regulation caused by infection in a between-host transmission dynamical model with superinfection. After introducing a mutant host to an existing model, we explore this problem in (A) monomorphic case and (B) dimorphic case. For (A), we assume that only strain 1 parasite can infect the mutant host. We identify an appropriate fitness for the invasion of the mutant host by analyzing the local stability of the mutant free equilibrium. After specifying a trade-off between the production and recovery rates of infected hosts, we employ the adaptive dynamical approach to analyze the evolutionary and convergence stabilities of the corresponding singular strategy, leading to some conditions for continuously stable strategy, evolutionary branching point and repeller. For (B), a new fitness is introduced to measure the invasion of mutant host under the assumption that both parasite strains can infect the mutant host. By considering two trade-off functions, we can study the conditions for evolutionary stability, isoclinic stability and absolute convergence stability of the singular strategy. Our results show that the host evolution would not favour high degree of immunological up-regulation; moreover, superinfection would help the parasite with weaker virulence persist in hosts.
Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation for Solid Tumors of Childhood Effective : October 1 , 2018

PLEASE NOTE: Contracts exclude from coverage, among other things, services or procedures that are considered investigational or cosmetic. Providers may bill members for services or procedures that are considered investigational or cosmetic. Providers are encouraged to inform members before rendering such services that the members are likely to be financially responsible for the cost of these services.
Reviews and syntheses: Carbonyl sulfide as a multi-scale tracer for carbon and water cycles

Abstract. For the past decade, observations of carbonyl sulfide (OCS or COS) have been investigated as a proxy for carbon uptake by plants. OCS is destroyed by enzymes that interact with CO2 during photosynthesis, namely carbonic anhydrase (CA) and RuBisCO, where CA is the more important one. The majority of sources of OCS to the atmosphere are geographically separated from this large plant sink, whereas the sources and sinks of CO2 are co-located in ecosystems. The drawdown of OCS can therefore be related to the uptake of CO2 without the added complication of co-located emissions comparable in magnitude. Here we review the state of our understanding of the global OCS cycle and its applications to ecosystem carbon cycle science. OCS uptake is correlated well to plant carbon uptake, especially at the regional scale. OCS can be used in conjunction with other independent measures of ecosystem function, like solar-induced fluorescence and carbon and water isotope studies. More work needs to be done to generate global coverage for OCS observations and to link this powerful atmospheric tracer to systems where fundamental questions concerning the carbon and water cycle remain.
Thermal transport in graphene supported on copper

We investigate the thermal transport in isolated single layer graphene (SLG) and SLG supported on Cu substrate using equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations and relaxation time approximation (RTA) method. We observe significant changes in the SLG dispersion curve in low frequency and low wave-vector region due to the interaction with Cu substrate. Several new phonon modes related to out-of-plane vibrations appear at the low frequency and small wave vector regions, but their contribution to graphene thermal conductivity is negligible. The thermal conductivity of graphene decreases by 44% due to the interactions with Cu substrate for high interaction strength parameter in Lennard-Jones potential formulation for graphene-Cu interaction. The phonon mode analysis through the RTA approach shows that the acoustic phonons dominate the thermal transport for both isolated and supported graphenes. The longitudinal acoustic (LA), transverse acoustic (TA), and out-of-plane acoustic (ZA) phonons contribute 654, 330,.
The two-dimensional Ising model

In this thesis the equivalence of the two-dimensional critical classical Ising model in the scaling limit without a magnetic field, the (one-dimensional) critical quantum Ising chain in the scaling limit, the free fermion with a Dirac mass term, theM(3, 4) minimal model is reviewed. It is shown that the affine diagonal coset model of E8 (respectively su(2)) describes the critical one dimensional quantum Ising model sightly perturbed with a magnetic field term (respectively an energy density term) from the critical point. Furthermore, the existence of six integrals of motion is proven in the critical quantum Ising chain perturbed with a small magnetic field term from the critical point, and using these conserved quantities, the existence of eight massive particles and their mass ratios are predicted, following a paper of Zamolodchikov. Title: The two dimensional Ising model Author: Sjabbo Schaveling, sjabboschaveling@student.uva. nl, 10001230 Supervisor: prof. dr. E. M. Opdam, prof. dr. B. Nienhuis Second Examiner: Prof. dr. B. Nienhuis Examination date: Februari 29, 2016 Korteweg-de Vries Institute for Mathematics University of Amsterdam Science Park 105-107, 1098 XG Amsterdam http://kdvi.uva. nl
Effect of a phytogenic feed additive on weaning-to-estrus interval and farrowing rate in sows

Oregano feed supplementation exerts positive effects against various gastrointestinal infectious or multifactorial diseases.1,3– 16 Khajarern and Khajarern8 found that when essential oils of the plant Origanum vulgare (commonly called oregano) were fed to sows, there was a significant positive effect on live born litter weights, weaning weights, preweaning mortality, and sow feed intake during lactation. There have been no previously published reports on the effect on WEI, farrowing rate (FR), and subsequent total born litter size when oregano essential oils are fed to a large number of sows under field conditions.
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) Investigation of Wind Turbine Nacelle Separation Accident over Complex Terrain in Japan

We have developed an unsteady and non-linear wind synopsis simulator called RIAM-COMPACT (Research Institute for Applied Mechanics, Kyushu University, COMputational Prediction of Airflow over Complex Terrain) to simulate the airflow on a micro scale, i.e., a few tens of km or less. In RIAM-COMPACT, the large-eddy simulation (LES) has been adopted for turbulence modeling. LES is a technique in which the structures of relatively large eddies are directly simulated and smaller eddies are modeled using a sub-grid scale model. In the present study, we conducted numerical wind diagnoses for the Taikoyama Wind Farm nacelle separation accident in Japan. The simulation results suggest that all six wind turbines at Taikoyama Wind Farm are subject to significant influence from separated flow (terrain-induced turbulence) which is generated due to the topographic irregularities in the vicinity of the wind turbines. A proposal was also made on reconstruction of the wind farm.