Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Attenuation of sound in concentrated suspensions: theory and experiments

Ensemble-averaged equations are derived for small-amplitude acoustic wave propagation through non-dilute suspensions. The equations are closed by introducing effective properties of the suspension such as the compressibility, density, viscoelasticity, heat capacity, and conductivity. These effective properties are estimated as a function of frequency, particle volume fraction, and physical properties of the individual phases using a self-consistent, effective-medium approximation. The theory is shown to be in excellent agreement with various rigorous analytical results accounting for multiparticle interactions. The theory is also shown to agree well with the experimental data on concentrated suspensions of small polystyrene particles in water obtained by Allegra & Hawley and for glass particles in water obtained in the present study.
Pecking Order Behavior in Emerging Markets

This paper examines the validity of the pecking order hypothesis in 23 emerging market countries. Emerging market countries would appear to be an ideal setting for the pecking order hypothesis to hold because of the presence of strong asymmetric information issues and agency costs. We observe, however, little support for the pecking order hypothesis as the primary financing theory for all emerging market firms. Firms in these countries finance their deficit mainly with equity, the opposite of what would be expected under this hypothesis. However, we do find support for the pecking order for firms in emerging market countries that suffer the most from either asymmetric information issues and/or agency costs. Our findings are consistent with the idea that the environment the firm operates in influences the financial decisions the firm makes.
Classroom Management in Pre-service Teachers’ Teaching Practice Demo Lessons: A Comparison to Actual Lessons by In-service English Teachers

The pre-service teachers find the chance to practice their classroom management skills during their practicum as they present demo lessons under supervision of their university instructors and mentor teachers. It had been discovered in a previous study, however, that the interactional features during the classroom management episodes in pre-service teachers’ demo lessons were different from those in the lessons of the in-service teachers. The aim of this study was to unveil how pre-service teachers manage their classes differently from in-service teachers by carrying out a fine-grained comparison. The point-by-point comparison revealed both qualitative and quantitative differences which might not be immediately obvious to an observer at first sight. The differences were discussed in terms of the specific procedures of the teaching practice course and some suggestions were presented.
ANALYSIS OF DETERMINANT FACTORS OF MANAGERIAL PERFORMANCE IN THE GOVERNMENT OF WEST NUSA TENGGARA PROVINCE

The governance of public sector management has long been challenges with low performance managers for the provision of public service deliveries. The demands for managers with integrity, professionalism, competency, high qualifications, personal development and accountability toward work performance are increasing over time. However, these qualifications were lacking in the workplace. Further, this situation createssignificant barriers to improve the quality of services within the public sector management.This research aims to empirically examine the direct influences of budgeting participation, organizational commitment, competency and performance incentives toward managerial performance in the government offices of the West Nusa Tenggara Province.The population for this research is selected from structural position starting from Echelons II, III and IV with total 51 provincial government offices. In total, this researched identified 1.095 people are in these position. Using the Stratified Random Sampling technique, the samples are selected for 293 people. Data collection is gathered using questionnaire for the government officials from various echelons. The returned questionnaires have reached 72.01 per cent, however, only 70.31 per cent were further proceed for the advance analysis using the Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) with software SmartPLS 3.0. The findings show that budgeting participation, competency and performance incentives have positive significance toward managerial performance of provincial government positions. However, organizational commitment has been unable to show positive significance toward the managerial performance of provincial government officials with echelons. This research has impacted upon the increase of managerial performance by taking into account the increasing role of budgeting participation through the involvement of manager and staff levels in the budgeting processes. The competency of these officials can be enhanced through increasing knowledge, understanding, ability and values as part the principle characteristics of managers to achieve highly targeted performances. The workloads and risks should be adjusted with the improvement of performance incentives. Finally, the organizational commitments that consist of affective commitment, continuance commitment and normative commitments, have less contribution toward the improvements of managerial performances.
Trace Metals Co-Toxicity in Hard Body Structures of Liza klunzingeri (Mugilidae: Perciformes) Mullet Fish

The possibility of inorganic pollutants causing stress to the marine ecosystem instigated us to conduct eco-toxicological tests on the predominant trace metals (Cu, Zn, Pb and V) in commercial important fish. Among the four metals, V had the lowest observed effect concentration (LOEC: LC15) at 6.3 I¼g L-1. Toxicity tests (96 h) using Multi factor Probit analysis revealed V (6.3 I¼g L-1) had the greatest effect at median lethal concentration (LC50) followed by Pb (6.7 I¼g L-1), Cu (7.8 I¼g L-1) and Zn (15.7 I¼g L-1) in Liza klunzingeri reared in filtered seawater in the laboratory. Fish exposed to trace metals mixture (1:1 ratio) showed synergistic co-toxicity coefficient (CTC) factor among Cu, Pb and Zn and antagonistic CTC with V mixtures. There was significant trace metals bioaccumulation in fish body structures (otolith, dorsal fins and scales) exposed for 180 day toxicity tests at LOEC. These results suggest there is value in ecologists to characterize L. klunzingeri as a bio indicator to metal pollution and enumerate the co-toxicity of trace metals in the marine environment.
U.S. TREND INFLATION REINTERPRETED: THE ROLE OF FISCAL POLICIES AND TIME-VARYING NOMINAL RIGIDITIES

This paper offers a reinterpretation of the Fed's time-varying implicit inflation target, based on two considerations. The first is that the need to alleviate the burden of distortionary taxation may justify the choice of a positive inflation rate. The second is based on compelling evidence that the degree of price and wage indexation falls with trend inflation. In fact, we find that a proper characterization of the joint evolution of fiscal variables and nominal rigidities has a strong impact on the Ramsey optimal policies, implying optimal inflation dynamics that are consistent with the observed evolution of U.S. trend inflation. By contrast, tax policies have been too lax, especially at the time of the controversial Bush tax cuts.
Photosynthetic rate of the aquatic macrophyte Egeria densa Planch. (Hydrocharitaceae) in two rivers from the Itanhaém River Basin in São Paulo State, Brazil

ABSTRACT Egeria densa is a submerged aquatic macrophyte which, in Brazil, causes problems specially for electric energy generation. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the photosynthetic rate of E. densa in two rivers (Aguapeu and Mambu) with different limnological features, both located in the Itanhaem River Basin. This species is abundant in both rivers without causing damages to their multiple uses. Photosynthetic rates were analysed in February, May, August and November 1998 and limnological variables of the water and sediment were also measured. The highest value of gross photosynthesis (GP) was detected in May (10.06 in Aguapeu and 6.10 mgO 2 /gDW/h in Mambu), when under-water photosynthetic active radiation (PAR) was also high (1,126.7 and 895.8 µmol/m/s, respectively). GP, total phosphorous, total CO 2 and PAR were always higher in Aguapeu River. Key words: Aquatic macrophyte, Egeria densa, photosynthetic rate, Brazil * Autho r f oc rr espond nce INTRODUCTION Aquatic macrophytes are considered to be one of the main primary producers in shallow water ecosystems; they show a great capacity to adapt to changing environmental conditions and, as a consequence, show a great ecological amplitude (Camargo and Esteves, 1995; Esteves, 1998). These characteristics, together with modifications of the environment caused by man, result in an undesirable growth of several species in some aquatic ecosystems. The excessive growth of aquatic macrophytes is a result of human activities, which create favourable conditions for their growth (Seshavatharam, 1990). According to Madsen (1998), the nonnative submerged species which cause most problems (affecting navigation, hydroelectric power generation, water supply, recreation and flood control) in the United States are Hydrilla verticillata (L.f.) Royle, Myriophyllum spicatum L. and Egeria densa Planch, known as Brazilian elodea. These three species have biological and physiological characteristics that enable them to exploit the aquatic environment in an opportunistic way, growing and reproducing in sub-optimal conditions, even when in competition with other species (Spencer and Bowes, 1990). For the management of submerged species, it is important to know about the conditions that favour and/or limit their growth, and one way is to estimate the photosynthetic rate. The photosynthesis and respiration rates of submerged macrophytes are directly related to temperature
How malaria parasites reduce the deformability of infected RBC

The pathogenesis of malaria is largely due to stiffening of the infected red blood cells (RBCs). The current understanding ascribes the loss of RBC deformability to a 10-fold increase in membrane stiffness caused by extra cross-linking in the spectrin network. Local measurements by micropipette aspiration, however, have reported only an increase of about 3-fold in the shear modulus. We believe the discrepancy stems from the rigid parasite particles inside infected cells, and have carried out numerical simulations to demonstrate this mechanism. The cell membrane is represented by a set of discrete particles connected by linearly elastic springs. The cytosol is modeled as a homogeneous Newtonian fluid, and discretized by particles as in standard smoothed particle hydrodynamics. The malaria parasite is modeled as an aggregate of particles constrained to rigid-body motion. We simulate RBC stretching tests by optical tweezers in three dimensions. The results demonstrate that the presence of a sizeable parasite greatly reduces the ability of RBCs to deform under stretching. With the solid inclusion, the observed loss of deformability can be predicted quantitatively using the local membrane elasticity measured by micropipettes.
A New Beaufort Equivalent Scale

By comparing Beaufort estimates with simultaneous wind speed measurements the relationship between both parameters can be determined in form of a Beaufort equivalent scale. Previous equivalent scales were derived without regard to the fact, that the error variances of the basic observations are different. In most cases, the variance of only one parameter minimized, either the variance of the Beaufort estimated or the variance of wind measurements. Such regression methods do not yield the universal relationship between both parameters, which is required for an equivalent scale. Therefore a new Beaufort equivalent scale is derived by comparing the three-hourly wind speed measurements from six North Atlantic Ocean weather stations between 1960 and 1971 with more than 300,000 Beaufort estimates of passing merchant ships. But these two raw data sets are not comparable without regard to the different structure of error variances. Firstly the random observation errors of the estimates and of the measurements are calculated to separate the error variance from natural wind variability in both data sets. In this way it can be shown that, as expected, the measurements from ocean weather stations are much more accurate than wind estimates. The difference in accuracy can be quantified. Secondly, daily means of wind speed from the measurements of the stationary ocean weather ships and spatial means from simultaneous estimates of surrounding merchant ships within an averaging area are computed. The latter comprise more individual observations than the means of ocean weather ships, so that the effects of the different observation accuracies are compensated. The radius of averaging areas are calculated separately for each season and each region, so that the spatial variability within this area is equal to the temporal variability at the ocean weather station within 24 hours. Only such pairs of averaged observations are suitable, because neither random observation errors nor natural variability has a falsifying effect. On these especially generated data pairs the method of cumulative frequencies, which allows one to detect also non-linear relationships, is applied in order to obtain the optimal Beaufort equivalent scale.
Knowledge and behaviours of drunk driving offenders in Guangzhou, China

This study focuses on a 2011 legislative amendment in China that made drunk driving (DWI) a criminal offence. However, it is not known whether drivers are aware of the law, and whether this knowledge, their exposure to enforcement and the existence of alcohol use disorders relate to their drink driving behaviour. This study explored these relationships in a sample of convicted drunk drivers. A survey collected information about offendersr knowledge and practices related to drunk driving in Guangzhou. The Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) assessed hazardous drinking levels. In total, 101 drunk driving offenders were recruited while in detention. Males represented 90 per cent of the sample; the average age was 33.6 years. The average age at which offenders reported starting to drink alcohol was 19.5 years. Driverrs licences had been held for a median of 7 years. Knowledge about legal limits for DUI and DWI offences was surprisingly low, at 27.7 per cent and 40.6 per cent respectively. On average, offenders had experienced 1.5 police alcohol breath tests in the previous year. AUDIT scores indicated that a substantial proportion of the offenders had high levels of alcohol use disorders. Higher AUDIT scores were found among the least experienced drivers, those with lack of knowledge about the legal limits, and recidivist drunk drivers. Limited awareness of legal alcohol limits might contribute to offending; high levels of alcohol consumption by many offenders suggest that hazardous drinking levels may also contribute. Novice drivers are a concern and their higher AUDIT scores merit some follow up. Overall, this study provides important information to assist in refining community education and prevention efforts to align with Chinars new regulations.
The distribution of phosphorus forms and fractions in Retisol under different soil liming management

Investigations on phosphorus (P) distribution in a naturally acid and limed moraine loam, Bathypogleyic Dystric Glossic Retisol were conducted in a site of a long-term experiment at the Vėžaiciai Branch of Lithuanian Research Centre for Agriculture and Forestry in 2008 and 2011. The aim of the present study was to determine the distribution of different phosphorus forms and fractions in naturally acid soil limed for a long time (62 years). During this study different amounts (18.4 and 104.9 t ha -1 ) of lime materials were incorporated into the soil and affected the formation of two soil pH KCl levels – acidic (5.6) and near to neutral (6.7). Seven different organic and mineral phosphate fractions and plant-available phosphorus were determined in the soil. The long-term soil liming was found to have no significant effect on the total P content and its distribution, but caused the changes in the proportions between the different phosphorus forms. Major part of mineral (74.02– 83.68%) and organic (88.9–93.8%) P was composed of Al and Fe phosphates. Soil liming using ×2.0 liming rates every 3–4 years influenced a significant increase of the phosphates (AlPO 4 and Al(Fe)PO 4 ) little-available to plants obtained by the second cycle of extraction. It was determined that when soil pH becomes near to neutral, water soluble and plant-available P increases compared to its value measured at native pH. Increase of soil pH KCl till 6.7 had a significant effect on the amount of little plant-available Ca phosphates and less soluble organic phosphorus fraction amount in soil. The relatively optimal amounts of phosphorus fractions available for plants were determined in the soil with a pH KCl of 5.6, achieved by liming with a 0.5 rate every 7 years.
Do Marital Status and Computer Usage Really Change the Wage Structure? Evidence from a Sample of Twins

Both marital status and computer usage on the job have been found to increase earnings by as much as two additional years of schooling. If correct, these findings suggest that factors other than long-term human capital investments are key determinants of earnings. Data on identical twins are used in this paper to sweep out selection effects and examine the effect of marital status and computer usage on wages. Within-twin estimates indicate that, unlike education, job tenure and union status, neither marital status nor computer usage have a large or significant effect on wages.
A Stationary Bike in Virtual Reality - Rhythmic Exercise and Rehabilitation

A stationary bicycle is a powerful rehabilitation and exercising device, due to its natural rhythmic component. Our goal in this paper is to discuss benefits of a stationary bike usage supplemented with augmented feedback, music and virtual reality (VR). In addition, we present some of the existing applications, which disabilities it might help, the role of VR in rehabilitation and the bases of rhythmic rehabilitation. Indoor exercising on the stationary bike might be a monotonous activity if not supported with some visual or auditory stimulation. Technology inclusive of different types of sensors and interfaces provides us with opportunity to make the stationary bike much more efficient and enjoyable tool. Our goal is to introduce a system which will serve for elderly people in retirement home, whom are not able or it is very difficult for them to train outdoor. The system will be adjusted to their needs and preferences. The stationary bike based exercises are recommended for a wide group of medical conditions (see section 2.3). Adding VR to the stationary bike might give psychological and physiological benefits. Holden (2005) in her review of research of motor rehabilitation in VR punctuated four major benefits of this approach: “(1) people with disabilities appear capable of motor learning within virtual environments; (2) movements learned by people with disabilities in VR transfer to real world equivalent motor tasks in most cases, and in some cases even generalize to other untrained tasks; (3) in the few studies (n = 5) that have compared motor learning in real versus virtual environments, some advantage for VR training has been found in all cases; and (4) no occurrences of cybersickness in impaired populations have been reported to date in experiments where VR has been used to train motor abilities". 2 BACKGROUND
Displacement, Diversity, and Mobility: Career Impacts of Japanese American Internment

One of the largest population displacement episodes in the U.S. took place in 1942, when over 110,000 persons of Japanese origin living on the West Coast were forcibly sent away to ten internment camps for one to three years. Having lost jobs and assets, after internment they had to reassess labor market and location choices. This paper studies how internees' careers were affected in the long run. Combining Census data, camp records, and survey data I develop a predictor of a person's internment status based on Census observables. Using a difference-in-differences framework I find that internment had a positive average effect on earnings in the long run. Chiefly due to strong pre- WWII anti-Asian discrimination, the comparison group is composed of non-interned Japanese and Chinese Americans. The evidence is consistent with mechanisms related to increased occupational and geographic mobility, possibly facilitated by the camps' high economic diversity. I find no evidence of other potential drivers such as increased labor supply, or changes in cultural preferences. These findings provide evidence of labor market frictions preventing people from accessing their most productive occupations and locations, and shed light on the resilience of internees who overcame a very adverse initial shock.
Molecular identification and characterization of Salmonella species isolated from poultry value chains of Gazipur and Tangail districts of Bangladesh

The aim of this study was to identify and characterize Salmonella species isolated from poultry value chains of Gazipur and Tangail districts of Bangladesh during the period of October 2015 to May 2016. For this purpose a total of 153 samples (35 chick meconium, 49 cloacal swab, 30 poultry carcass, 14 feed, 16 water, 7 transport swab, 2 floor swab) were collected and were subjected to various cultural, biochemical techniques and polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Furthermore, the isolated Salmonella species were characterized by antimicrobial susceptibility testing. Among the samples, 23.53% (n=36) were found to be associated with Salmonella species. The Salmonella species were identified by observing black centered colonies on XLD agar, positive to MR test and negative to VP and Indole test. All isolates of Salmonella species were positive to 16s rRNA gene based PCR (574 bp). Serogrouping of Salmonella species were performed by slide agglutination test using commercial Salmonella specific polyvalent O (A-I) antisera, Salmonella O group B (Factor O: 4, 5, 27) antisera and Salmonella O group D (Factor O: 9, 46) antisera. Among the 36 isolates, 30.56% (n=11) belonged to serogroup B and rest of the isolates 69.44% (n=25) to serogroup D. The most prevalent serogroup identified in this study was serogroup D. The isolated Salmonella species were subjected to antimicrobial susceptibility testing with the aid of disk diffusion method using 8 antimicrobial agents. All isolates of Salmonella species were susceptible to ciprofloxacin, norfloxacin, streptomycin and gentamicin. Out of 36 isolates 100% Salmonella species were resistant to erythromycin and tetracycline. The findings of this study revealed the presence of multidrug resistant Salmonella species in poultry value chains of Gazipur and Tangail districts of Bangladesh that posseses a serious threat to public and poultry health. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on the prevalence, serogrouping and antimicrobial resistance patterns of Salmonella species from poultry value chains of selected districts in Bangladesh. Key words: Isolation, identification, Salmonella species, poultry value chains, serogrouping, antibiogram study