Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Compact MEMS magnetometers for inertial measurement units

This work discusses the performance, in particular in terms of minimum obtainable resolution, for Lorentz force based MEMS magnetometers, both accounting for technological constraints (minimum air gap, package pressure, standard industrial process, .) and considering the final application in consumer electronics (bandwidth, noise, full scale range and linearity). Following an in-depth analysis of the operating principle, and carefully accounting for the damping behavior in the molecule-flow regime (typical for the used package), the expressions of the magnetometer sensitivity and intrinsic resolution (i.e. limited by thermo-mechanical noise) are derived. The predictions are compared to previous literature works and to recent experimental results obtained on a magnetometer designed and built using the ST Microelectronics ThELMA process. The given considerations are relevant for the co-design of a suitable low-power driving and readout electronics, an example of which is described in details.
Living with advanced chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: patients concerns regarding death and dying

Prognosis in COPD is poor and many patients perceive shortcomings in the education they receive about aspects of their condition. This study explores the experiences of patients with COPD, particularly fears surrounding death and dying. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 21 patients with moderate or severe COPD. Findings revealed that patient understanding of COPD was poor, most patients were unaware of the progressive nature of the condition, and few were aware they could die of COPD. Despite this, patients often expressed concerns that their condition might deteriorate. Patients had particular concerns regarding the manner of their death; the overriding fear was dying of breathlessness or suffocation. None of the patients’ had discussed these fears with a health care professional. Improved patient education is needed in order to improve patients understanding of their condition and prognosis. Open communication regarding death, as advocated in a palliative care approach, is also appropriate to alleviate patients fears and to allow them to make decisions regarding the management of their care at the end of life.
Words That Hurt: A Qualitative Study of s Parental Verbal Abuse in the Philippines

This article investigated opinions on what constitute parental abuse with interviews of 30 high school students, 30 parents, and 28 counselors. Despite increased reported cases of emotional abuses and child maltreatments in the Philippines, few empirical studies have explored the exact nature of parental verbal abuses in this country. This study is designed to address this gap in the literature. The results revealed nine categories of parental verbal abuses namely: (a) Put downs and shaming, (b) Rejection, (c) Blaming, (d) Fault Exaggerating, (e) Threat, (f) Invoking harm, (g) Regrets, (h) Unfair comparison, and (i) Negative prediction. Implications for research and practice were discussed.
Implementation of Simple Spectral Techniques to Enhance the Intelligibility of Speech using a Harmonic Model

We have designed a system that increases the intelligibility of speech signals in noise by manipulating the parameters of a harmonic speech model. The system performs the transformation in two steps: in the first step, it modifies the spectral slope, which is closely related to the vocal effort; in the second step, it amplifies low-energy parts of the signal using dynamic range compression techniques. Objective and subjective measures involving speech-shaped noise confirm the effectiveness of these simple methods. As the harmonic model has been used in previous works to implement the waveform generation module of high-quality statistical synthesizers, the system presented here can provide the synthesis engine with a higher degree of control on the intelligibility of the resulting artificial speech.
Understanding social enterprises in the United Kingdom: the case of South Yorkshire

Purpose This study aims to analyse the development of social enterprises in the UK, in the context of the increased need for creative solutions to ameliorate deprivation and deliver effective public services. Design/methodology/approach The investigation draws on a mixed method approach from a postal survey of 102 social enterprises complemented by detailed analysis of two selected cases and key informant interviews. Findings The results of the study show that there is a paradigm shift in the practice and conceptualisation of social enterprises in South Yorkshire, as they are increasingly taking a more corporate approach to achieve their outcomes. Research limitations/implications The study is limited to social enterprises in South Yorkshire, UK. Further comparative analysis in other regions and social contexts is required to explore if these results are widely applicable. Practical implications This study is of potential benefit to researchers and those involved in formulating policies for the development and support of social enterprise. Originality/value The study contributes to the extant literature by investigation of the development of social enterprise in competitive markets, which is an area that requires further academic scrutiny. The South Yorkshire region presents an interesting case that extends our understanding of the operations of social enterprises in the UK, given the high levels of deprivation because of the steady decline of its industrial base (Bache and Chapman, 2008).
High Speed Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Ischemia and Spontaneous Periinfarct Spreading Depression after Thromboembolic Stroke in the Rat

Spontaneous episodes of transient cell membrane depolarization (spreading depression [SD]) occur in the surroundings of experimental stroke lesions and are believed to contribute to infarct growth. Diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) is capable of detecting the water shifts from extracellular to intracellular space associated with SD waves and ischemia, and can make in vivo measurements of these two features on a pixel-by-pixel basis with good temporal resolution. Using continuous high speed DWI with a temporal resolution of 12 seconds over a period of 3 hours, the in vivo contribution of spontaneous SDs to the development of ischemic tissue injury was examined in 8 rats using a thromboembolic stroke model. During the observation period, the initial lesion volume increased in 4 animals, remained unchanged in 1 animal, and decreased in 3 animals (most likely because of spontaneous clot lysis). Irrespective of the lesion evolution patterns, animals demonstrated 6.5 ± 2.1 spontaneous SDs outside of the ischemic core. A time-to-peak analysis of apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) changes for each SD wave demonstrated multidirectional propagation patterns from variable initiation sites. Maps of the time constants of ADC recovery, reflecting the local energy supply and cerebral blood flow, revealed prolonged recovery times in areas close to the ischemic core. However, repetitive SD episodes in the periinfarct tissue did not eventually lead to permanent ADC reductions. These results suggest that spontaneous SD waves do not necessarily contribute to the expansion of the ischemic lesion volume in this model.
Growth of Stock Market in the UAE through Merger: A Comparative Study of GCC Stock Markets

In recent years, stock exchanges have increasingly been forming alliances or merging with each other. This study is carried out with the objective of finding out the benefits of having a larger single stock market in the UAE instead of the present two separate markets: Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange and Dubai Financial Market. The study covers a period of five years from 2010 to 2014. This study is based on secondary data collected from various stock exchanges in the GCC. The various stock markets in the GCC are compared against each other on the basis of volume and value of trading, market capitalization, number of shares listed and number of days traded. Then, a similar analysis is carried out with the combined ADX and DFM. It is observed that the merger of ADX and DFM brings in benefits on all these parameters. The study also shows that the merger will benefit all the stakeholders by reducing cost of operations facilitated by the large scale operations, sophisticated technology, single trading platform, one investor number, lower trading cost and earlier break-even. Moreover, through the merger the UAE will be able to attract more local and regional companies which will enhance the revenue, profitability and presence in the region.
Acute human Glufosinate-containing herbicide poisoning

Abstract Background. Glufosinate-containing herbicides are commonly used worldwide. Data on acute human glufosinate poisoning however remain scarce. Methods. We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of all glufosinate poisoned cases reported to the Taiwan National Poison Control Center and two medical centers in Taiwan from August 1993 through February 2010. Their demographic and clinical data were then analyzed to identify potential predictors of severe effects following acute glufosinate poisoning. Results. One hundred and thirty-one patients, including 115 oral and 16 non-oral exposures, were eligible for final analysis. Among patients with oral exposure, 25 were asymptomatic, while the others developed gastrointestinal, neurological, cardiovascular, and/or respiratory manifestations. Seven patients (6.1%) died following deliberate glufosinate ingestion. The median dose of glufosinate ingestion was 30.4 grams (interquartile range 18.5–45.6 grams) in the severe/fatal group compared to 6.8 grams (interquartile range 3.7–16.2 grams) in the non-severe group (p <0.001). Older age (≥61 years; adjusted OR 4.9, 95% CI 1.3–17.9) and larger amount of glufosinate ingestion (≥13.9 grams; adjusted OR 25.2, 95% CI 4.8–132.5) were positively associated with the development of severe toxicity, whereas ethanol consumption (adjusted OR 0.1, 95% CI <0.1–0.5) was inversely associated with the risk of severe toxicity. Conclusion. Although glufosinate is generally thought to be of low toxicity to humans, severe effects can occur and may be associated with older age, larger amount of ingestion and absence of concomitant ethanol consumption.
Temporal Dynamics of Soil Microbial Communities below the Seedbed under Two Contrasting Tillage Regimes

Agricultural productivity relies on a wide range of ecosystem services provided by the soil biota. Plowing is a fundamental component of conventional farming, but long-term detrimental effects such as soil erosion and loss of soil organic matter have been recognized. Moving towards more sustainable management practices such as reduced tillage or crop residue retention can reduce these detrimental effects, but will also influence structure and function of the soil microbiota with direct consequences for the associated ecosystem services. Although there is increasing evidence that different tillage regimes alter the soil microbiome, we have a limited understanding of the temporal dynamics of these effects. Here, we used high-throughput sequencing of bacterial and fungal ribosomal markers to explore changes in soil microbial community structure under two contrasting tillage regimes (conventional and reduced tillage) either with or without crop residue retention. Soil samples were collected over the growing season of two crops (Vicia faba and Triticum aestivum) below the seedbed (15–20 cm). Tillage, crop and growing stage were significant determinants of microbial community structure, but the impact of tillage showed only moderate temporal dependency. Whereas the tillage effect on soil bacteria showed some temporal dependency and became less strong at later growing stages, the tillage effect on soil fungi was more consistent over time. Crop residue retention had only a minor influence on the community. Six years after the conversion from conventional to reduced tillage, soil moisture contents and nutrient levels were significantly lower under reduced than under conventional tillage. These changes in edaphic properties were related to specific shifts in microbial community structure. Notably, bacterial groups featuring copiotrophic lifestyles or potentially carrying the ability to degrade more recalcitrant compounds were favored under conventional tillage, whereas taxa featuring more oligotrophic lifestyles were more abundant under reduced tillage. Our study found that, under the specific edaphic and climatic context of central Belgium, different tillage regimes created different ecological niches that select for different microbial lifestyles with potential consequences for the ecosystem services provided to the plants and their environment.
Comparison of a short-time speech-based intelligibility metric to the speech transmission index and intelligibility data.

Several algorithms have been shown to generate a metric corresponding to the Speech Transmission Index (STI) using speech as a probe stimulus [e.g., Goldsworthy and Greenberg, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 116, 3679-3689 (2004)]. The time-domain approaches work well on long speech segments and have the added potential to be used for short-time analysis. This study investigates the performance of the Envelope Regression (ER) time-domain STI method as a function of window length, in acoustically degraded environments with multiple talkers and speaking styles. The ER method is compared with a short-time Theoretical STI, derived from octave-band signal-to-noise ratios and reverberation times. For windows as short as 0.3 s, the ER method tracks short-time Theoretical STI changes in stationary speech-shaped noise, fluctuating restaurant babble and stationary noise plus reverberation. The metric is also compared to intelligibility scores on conversational speech and speech articulated clearly but at normal speaking rates (Clear/Norm) in stationary noise. Correlation between the metric and intelligibility scores is high and, consistent with the subject scores, the metrics are higher for Clear/Norm speech than for conversational speech and higher for the first word in a sentence than for the last word.
Rhetoric and hegemony in consumptive wildlife tourism: polarizing sustainability discourses among angling tourism stakeholders

ABSTRACT Nature-based tourism frequently results in controversies over access rights, but also over how resources should be managed and utilized. In this article, we explore disagreements on management strategies and angling practices, which followed in the wake of the gradual introduction of increasingly strict harvest regulations in salmon angling in the Orkla River of Norway. Different views on what represent the most severe threats to the salmon stock appeared in this case to originate in rather complex patterns with respect to the ways stakeholders related to and engaged with salmon, rivers and nature in general. The identification of incompatible goals and motives of various categories of stakeholders has for long been a dominant approach in research on these types of conflicts. In this contribution, we broaden the scope by exploring how such controversies involve competition for hegemony with respect to how management and angling practices should be discursively framed.
Hypodontia in twins.

Plaster study models and intraoral and extraoral radiographs of 165 twin pairs (99 mono and 66 dizygotic) were used to investigate: 1. the frequency of hypodontia of permanent teeth in twins, 2. the concordance-discordance rate of hypodontia in monozygotic and dizygotic twins, 3. the empirical risk of hypodontia occurring in twins. Out of 165 sets of twins, 14 (9 mono and 5 dizygotic) or 8.5% (5.5% monozygotic and 3.0% dizygotic) had hypodontia. This was within the frequency range of the general population (from 2.3% to 9.6%). Second maxillary incisors were the teeth most frequently absent or hypoplastic (peg-shaped). This was found in 5 monozygotic and 3 dizygotic sets of twins. It was followed by agenesis of the lower second premolars (in 5 pairs). Hypodontia of the remaining teeth was a rare finding. One member of a monozygotic pair showed agenesis of the left maxillary canine and the other agenesis of the right (a mirror-image similarity). The simultaneous appearance of missing teeth (hypodontia) and supernumerary teeth was found in two pairs of twins (1 monozygotic and 1 dizygotic). Monozygotic twins showed a significantly higher concordance rate for hypodontia than did the dizygotic. Out of 9 monozygotic pairs, 8 (88.9%) were concordant and only one pair discordant for the trait. On the other hand, all 5 dizygotic pairs were discordant for hypodontia. This suggests a high genetic component in the trait. Calculating the risk of hypodontia appearing in twins on the basis of the 14 pairs (both monozygotic and dizygotic) considered here showed that if one member of a pair of twins is affected by hypodontia, the risk of the other twin having the same abnormality increases to 57%. However, if one of a pair of monozygotic twins has the trait, the risk that the other will also have it is increased to 89%. Should however the pair be dizygotic, the risk of the other being affected is reduced to zero.
Limited Marital Commitment and Household Portfolios

This paper examines the link between marital decisions, consumption, and optimal portfolio choice in a life-cycle model with limited marital commitment. Without full commitment, individual income shocks lead to renegotiation between spouses, altering relative bargaining power and endogenously generating time-varying risk aversion at the household-level. Consequently, changes in relative income are associated with significant shifts in household portfolios. We find strong support for this prediction using data from the PSID. The model can also rationalize the link between marital transitions and portfolio allocations observed in the data. Finally, the risk-sharing benefits of marriage imply a positive link between wealth and risky asset holdings across households.
Mass and molecular composition of vesicular stomatitis virus: a scanning transmission electron microscopy analysis

Dark-field scanning transmission electron microscopy was used to perform mass analyses of purified vesicular stomatitis virions, pronase-treated virions, and nucleocapsids, leading to a complete self-consistent account of the molecular composition of vesicular stomatitis virus. The masses obtained were 265.6 +/- 13.3 megadaltons (MDa) for the native virion, 197.5 +/- 8.4 MDa for the pronase-treated virion, and 69.4 +/- 4.9 MDa for the nucleocapsid. The reduction in mass effected by pronase treatment, which corresponds to excision of the external domains (spikes) of G protein, leads to an average of 1,205 molecules of G protein per virion. The nucleocapsid mass, after compensation for the RNA (3.7 MDa) and residual amounts of other proteins, yielded a complement of 1,258 copies of N protein. Calibration of the amounts of M, NS, and L proteins relative to N protein by biochemical quantitation yielded values of 1,826, 466, and 50 molecules, respectively, per virion. Assuming that the remaining virion mass is contributed by lipids in the viral envelope, we obtained a value of 56.1 MDa for its lipid content. In addition, four different electron microscopy procedures were applied to determine the nucleocapsid length, which we conclude to be 3.5 to 3.7 micron. The nucleocapsid comprises a strand of repeating units which have a center-to-center spacing of 3.3 nm as measured along the middle of the strand. We show that these repeating units represent monomers of N protein, each of which is associated with 9 +/- 1 bases of single-stranded RNA. From scanning transmission electron microscopy images of negatively stained nucleocapsids, we inferred that N protein has a wedge-shaped, bilobed structure with dimensions of approximately 9.0 nm (length), approximately 5.0 nm (depth), and approximately 3.3 nm (width, at the midpoint of its long axis). In the coiled configuration of the in situ nucleocapsid, the long axis of N protein is directed radially, and its depth corresponds to the pitch of the nucleocapsid helix.
Total Knee Arthroplasty After High Tibial Osteotomy

Between 1980 and 1995, 95 consecutive total knee replacements were performed at an average of 10 years 4 months after high tibial osteotomy. The average age of the 82 patients was 66 years, with a preoperative diagnosis of osteoarthritis in 94 knees. One patient died 6 months after surgery. The followup of the remaining 81 patients (94 knees) averaged 8.6 years (range, 2-17 years). Knee Society knee score at final followup improved to an average of 87.6 points from a preoperative average of 38.1 points. No pain was present in 86.2% of knees, and 12.8% of knees had only mild or occasional pain. Tibial radiolucencies were identified in 12 (12.8%) knees at final followup, and in only four knees were radiolucent lines found about the lateral zones. Only one tibial component required revision 3 years after surgery. Although no preoperative factor was identified that predisposed to an inferior knee score, function score, or pain score, the severity of the preoperative flexion contracture and the number of previous surgeries did relate to diminished postoperative motion. However, an increased number of patellar radiolucencies were seen in the knees in which the lateral joint line was raised (referenced from the fibular head) a greater degree. The clinical results of total knee replacement after high tibial osteotomy appeared similar to those of primary total knee replacement. The previous high tibial osteotomy had no adverse effect on the eventual results of a cemented posterior cruciate retaining total knee replacement.
Experimental verification of the voltage divider with auto-calibration

The paper presents an experimental voltage divider circuit with the auto-calibration function during normal operation of the divider in the place of its installation. The results of first tests have been presented and on their basis the metrological properties of the system have been determined. Experiments proved that the circuit can successfully track changes of the divider parameters and correct their influence on the measurement results in a wide range of frequencies. Also, a major drawback, namely a systematic error of auto-identification results has been revealed. On the basis of additional tests the cause of the systematic error has been deduced to be the leakage of current between the elements of the divider through internal parasitic capacitances. This has led to the assumptions for another divider circuit design allowing for experimental verification of the hypothesis.