Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The impact of remittances on household food security: A micro perspective from Tigray, Ethiopia

While the volume of remittances to developing countries has been growing significantly over the years, the impact of remittances on food security has not received much attention. To bridge the gap this paper has examined the impact of remittances on farm household’s food security status, using a sample of 301 farm households from two livelihood zones of the Tigray Regional State of Ethiopia. The average treatment effect (ATT) results show that households with access to remittance have significantly lower Coping Strategy index (CSI), Reduced Coping Strategy index (rCSI) and Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) on average as compared to households without remittance income. However, there is no significant difference in the ATT effect of remittances on Food Consumption Score (FCS) between treated and control households. These findings suggest that remittances lower the frequency and the severity of coping strategies, and households with remittances have i) lower anxiety about not being able to procure sufficient food; ii) higher ability to secure adequate quality food; and iii) lower experience of insufficient quantity of food intake than those without remittance. Thus, it is imperative to include migration and remittances as important components of food security programs and food security policies in Ethiopia and should go beyond just food production measures, and include measures that help in generating adequate levels of effective demand via income growth or transfers policies.
Acoustics in a Two-Deck Viscothermal Boundary Layer over an Impedance Surface

The acoustics of a mean flow boundary layer over an impedance surface or acoustic lining is considered. By considering a thick mean flow boundary layer (possibly due to turbulence), the boundary-layer structure is separated asymptotically into two decks, with a thin weakly viscous mean flow boundary layer and an even thinner strongly viscous acoustic sublayer, without requiring a high frequency. Using this, analytic solutions are found for the acoustic modes in a cylindrical lined duct. The mode shapes in each region compare well with numerical solutions of the linearized compressible Navier–Stokes equations, as does a uniform composite asymptotic solution. A closed-form effective impedance boundary condition is derived, which can be applied to acoustics in inviscid slipping flow to account for both shear and viscosity in the boundary layer. The importance of the boundary layer is demonstrated in the frequency domain, and the new boundary condition is found to correctly predict the attenuation of upstream-propagating cut-on modes, which are poorly predicted by existing inviscid boundary conditions. Stability is also investigated, and the new boundary condition is found to yield good results away from the critical layer. A time-domain formulation of a simplified version of the new impedance boundary condition is proposed.
Human alternatively spliced tissue factor is not secreted and does not trigger coagulation

(P = 0.028). In the group of 51 patients who presented with VTE, survival was significantly worse in patients with elevated MP-TF activity than in those with normal MP-TF activity (P = 0.010). In univariate analysis only tumour type, thrombosis and MP-TF activity were significantly associated with survival. In multivariate analysis, adjustment for tumour type, age and stage, did not affect the association between MP-TF activity and mortality (P < 0.015). The present study is the largest series of unselected patients with both cancer and VTE, in whom MP-TF activity has been measured in the acute phase of thrombosis. The strength of the present study is that we did not select for any tumour type but instead investigated all cancer patients who presented with acute VTE irrespective of the type of malignancy. We observed that MP-TF activity in cancer patients with VTE is higher than in matched cancer patients without VTE. This finding strongly supports previous observations of a relationship between elevated MP-TF activity and VTE in patients with cancer from small studies of selected cancer patients [1,4–6]. It is interesting that the large majority of patients who develop VTE during chemotherapy have normal MP-TF activity, suggesting that an acute thrombotic event itself is not the cause of an elevated MP-TF activity. Our data point to a contribution of cancer cells themselves as (in) direct cause of elevated MP-TF activity and ask for novel studies better designed to study prospectively the relationship between chemotherapy, elevated MP-TF activity and venous thrombosis. Acknowledgements
Chinese Traders in Ghanaian Markets: A Bag of Threat and Opportunities

Although recent analyses on Chinese entrepreneurship in Africa attempt a departure from African opposition and present Africans response as more nuanced. Little is known of the characteristics and considerations that shape the complex positions of Africans to Chinese entrepreneurship in the distribution sector. This paper argues that Ghanaian trade actors’ response to the presence of Chinese traders is a function of their socio-demographic characteristics and trading capacity. While the young, educated and large scale importers are opposed to their presence, the old, lowly educated and small scale traders and other allies forge various relationships of mutual benefits with the Chinese.
Standardization of Neisseria meningitidis Serogroup B Colorimetric Serum Bactericida Assay

ABSTRACT The correlate of protection for serogroup B meningococci is not currently known, but for serogroup C it is believed to be the serum bactericidal assay (SBA). The current SBAs are labor intensive and the variations in protocols among different laboratories make interpretation of results difficult. A colorimetric SBA (cSBA), based on the ability of Neisseria meningitidis serogroup B to consume glucose, leading to acid production, was standardized by using group B strain Cu385-83 as the target. The cSBA results were compared to those obtained for a traditional colony-counting microassay (mSBA). Glucose and bromocresol purple pH indicator were added to the medium in order to estimate growth of cSBA target cell survivors through color change. Different variants of the assay parameters were optimized: growth of target cells (Mueller Hinton agar plates), target cell number (100 CFU/per well), and human complement source used at a final concentration of 25%. After the optimization, three other group B strains (H44/76, 490/91, and 511/91) were used as targets for the cSBA. The selection of the assay parameters and the standardization of cSBA were done with 13 sera from vaccinated volunteers. The titers were determined as the higher serum dilution that totally inhibited the bacterial growth marked by the color invariability of the pH indicator. This was detected visually as well as spectrophotometrically and was closely related to a significant difference in the growth of target cell survivors determined using Student’s t test. Intralaboratory reproducibility was ±1 dilution. The correlation between bactericidal median titers and specific immunoglobulin G serum concentration by enzyme immunoassay was high (r = 0.910, P < 0.01). The bactericidal titers generated by the cSBA and the mSBA were nearly identical, and there was a high correlation between the two assays (r = 0.974, P < 0.01). The standardized cSBA allows easy, fast, and efficient evaluation of samples.
Navigating towards Responsible Research and Innovation

Parliaments perform an important democratic function in overseeing and scrutinising government, making new laws, and debating the issues of the day. Effective research use can ensure that policies are cost effective, ensure that those debating and scrutinising policy are informed by the best possible evidence, and scrutinise the work of government effectively. Yet, despite having a long history, little is known about how research is used in decision making. The ways that research feeds into parliamentary processes were examined in a recent session organised as part of the 2015 PACITA conference. This chapter outlines two empirical examples of work in this area: an analysis of two parliamentary debates and the work of an internal parliamentary research advisory service. However, gaps in knowledge remain. The chapter goes on to discuss a study being conducted, which is examining how research, of all types, feeds into parliamentary processes and the demand for such services from policy makers and parliamentary staff.
Improving graduate outcomes for technical colleges in Nigeria

This study examined key issues affecting the effective management of carpentry and joinery workshops for improving the quality of graduates of technical colleges in Nigeria. Drawing upon data collected through a structured questionnaire administered to 27 technical colleges teachers and 13 craft trainers, plus a focus group, this study adopts a mixed methods approach. The survey was conducted in technical colleges in Enugu and Ebonyi States of eastern Nigeria; hence, this study cuts across single geographical boundaries. The patterns of responses among respondents suggested that poor student academic performance result from lack of equipment, funding, and support for technical colleges by the government, whereas effective management of workshops promoted learning and student discipline. The study addressed issues for how workshop success can be promoted.
PERAN MEDIASI E-SATISFACTION DAN E-TRUST TERHADAP E-LOYALTY

As the number of female customers shopping in online clothing stores increases, understanding how female customers ’ e-loyalty is formed and fostered in this type of online store becomes very important. The purpose of this paper is to focus on female online clothing shoppers and to examine the mediating of e-loyalty in the context of online clothing stores: e-satisfaction and e-trust. The number of respondents is 196 persons who have online clothing shopping experience in Jakarta. The structural equation modeling was performed to analyze the measurement and structural models. The results show that both Online Satisfaction and Online Security are positively associated with e-trust, whereas web design is not. Furthermore, Online Satisfaction turns positively influence e-loyalty for female online clothing shoppers.
Clobutinol Delays Ventricular Repolarization in the Guinea Pig Heart: Comparison With Cardiac Effects of hERG K+ Channel Inhibitor E-4031

Clobutinol has been clinically reported to induce long QT syndrome. To clarify its cardiac electrophysiological properties, we compared effects of clobutinol on the isolated myocardium and anesthetized guinea pig heart with those of a hERG K+ channel blocker, E-4031. In isolated guinea pig ventricular tissues, clobutinol (3 μM) as well as E-4031 (10-100 nM) prolonged the action potential duration without affecting maximum upstroke velocity, but no further prolongation was observed after application of 30 μM clobutinol. In anesthetized closed-chest guinea pigs, clobutinol (1 and 10 mg/kg, intravenously) and E-4031 (0.01 and 1 mg/kg, intravenously) prolonged the QT interval and duration of the monophasic action potential (MAP) in a dose-dependent manner and at the same time increased the beat-to-beat variability of the MAP duration and reversed use-dependent prolongation of the MAP duration and triangulation of the MAP configuration. These results suggest that clobutinol delayed the ventricular repolarization and increased the proarrhythmic parameters linked to the hERG K+ channel inhibitor-induced torsade de pointes arrhythmias.
Embedded deformation for shape manipulation

We present an algorithm that generates natural and intuitive deformations via direct manipulation for a wide range of shape representations and editing scenarios. Our method builds a space deformation represented by a collection of affine transformations organized in a graph structure. One transformation is associated with each graph node and applies a deformation to the nearby space. Positional constraints are specified on the points of an embedded object. As the user manipulates the constraints, a nonlinear minimization problem is solved to find optimal values for the affine transformations. Feature preservation is encoded directly in the objective function by measuring the deviation of each transformation from a true rotation. This algorithm addresses the problem of "embedded deformation" since it deforms space through direct manipulation of objects embedded within it, while preserving the embedded objects' features. We demonstrate our method by editing meshes, polygon soups, mesh animations, and animated particle systems.
Carbon isotope and magnetic polarity evidence for non-depositional events within the Cambrian-Ordovician Boundary section near Dayangcha, Jilin Province, China

Abstract Carbon isotope and magnetic polarity stratigraphic results from the Cambrian-Ordovician Boundary section at Xiaoyangqiao, near Dayangcha, Jilin Province, China, in comparison to a contemporaneous section at Black Mountain, Australia, indicate strata equivalent to major portions of the Australian sequence are either absent or are restricted to highly condensed intervals. These intervals are correlative with regressive sea level events identified in Australia and western North America, suggesting regional or eustatic sea level changes strongly influenced deposition of the Xiaoyangqiao sequence. These results also suggest the Xiaoyangqiao section is unfavourable as the site of the Cambrian-Ordovician Boundary Global Stratotype Section and Point.
Arthroscopic staple capsulorrhaphy for anterior shoulder instability

We reviewed the results of the arthroscopic staple capsulorrhaphy on 47 patients with a followup of 4 years. Thirty-four of the 47 shoulders had a history of traumatic dislocation, while the remaining 13 had a history of subluxation. The recurrence rate was 25%, with 8 shoulders developing recurrent frank dislocation and 4 developing subluxation. Only 21 of the 47 pa tients were able to resume normal sporting activities after surgical repair. We had no cases of staple loos ening within the joint, but we did have 3 patients whose staples were removed because of persistent pain in the shoulder.
Source stirring technique for reverberation chambers; experimental investigation

This paper discusses the source-stirring technique from an experimental point of view. This technique exhibits good statistics for S21. The results illustrate that the field in a source-stirred cavity has characteristics very similar to the field in a reverberation chamber when mechanical stirring is used. We show statistics for measurements of source stirring over a wide frequency range.
The acquisition of open access research articles

The behavior of researchers when self–archiving in an institutional repository has not been previously analyzed. This paper uses available information for three repositories analyzing when researchers (as authors) deposit their research articles. The three repositories have variants of a mandatory deposit policy. It is shown that it takes several years for a mandatory policy to be institutionalized and routinized, but that once it has been the deposit of articles takes place in a remarkably short time after publication, or in some cases even before. Authors overwhelmingly deposit well before six months after publication date. The OA mantra of ‘deposit now, set open access when feasible’ is shown to be not only reasonable, but fitting what researchers actually do.
Do hospitals respond to decreasing prices by supplying more services?

Abstract Regulated prices are common in markets for medical care. We estimate the effect of changes in regulated reimbursement prices on volume of hospital care based on a reform of hospital financing in Germany. Uniquely, this reform changed the overall level of reimbursement—with increasing prices for some hospitals and decreasing prices for others—without directly affecting the relative prices for different groups of patients or types of treatment. Based on administrative data, we find that hospitals react to increasing prices by decreasing the service supply and to decreasing prices by increasing the service supply. Moreover, we find some evidence that volume changes for hospitals with different price changes are nonlinear. We interpret our findings as evidence for a negative income effect of prices on volume of care.
Proactive Coping and its Relation to the Five-Factor Model of Personality

Research on personality's role in coping is inconclusive. Proactive coping ability is one's tendency to expect and prepare for life's challenges (Schwarzer & Taubert, 2002). This type of coping provides a refreshing conceptualization of coping that allows an examination of personality's role in coping that transcends the current situational versus dispositional coping conundrum. Participants (N = 49) took the Proactive Coping Inventory (Greenglass, Schwarzer, & Taubert, 1999) and their results were correlated with all domains and facets of the Five-Factor Model (FFM; Costa & McCrae, 1995). Results showed strong correlations between a total score (which encompassed 6 proactive coping scales), and Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Neuroticism, as well as between several underlying domain facets. Results also showed strong correlations between specific proactive coping subscales and several domains and facets of the FFM. Implications for the influence of innate personality factors in one's ability to cope are discussed. An individual's methods of coping with adversity are important aspects of their overall adaptation. Although characteristic ways of coping likely reflect learned experiences and situational factors to some degree, it is also likely that innate dispositions contribute to specific coping styles and overall ability to cope. Thus, there may be systematic relationships between enduring personality traits and coping ability. To show the theoretical importance of such a relationship, an account of empirical data that highlights the fundamental role of personality will develop a rationale for the hypothesized influence of personality on overall adaptation, and reasons why personality is likely to affect coping ability. Personality
Inpatients Perception about the Health Care Quality: Comparison of Public and Private Sector Hospitals in Karachi

This study was undertaken to analyze inpatients' perception about the health care quality in the hospitals of Karachi. As it was a comparative study, the population was divided into three groups. The inpatients perception was measured on the following variables: Communication quality of the health care service provider, experience of the health care service providers, quality of ward room and health care facility and the demeanor of the staff. The population was divided into three groups namely; public hospitals, private high hospitals, and private others. Sample size of hundred was drawn with convenience sampling from each of the three groups. Data was collected through a questionnaire developed on QSP (Quality Service Performance). The data analysis was done at two levels. The overall analysis of population was done for the sample size of 300. The analysis did not prove to be quiet revealing as the group effect caused the low performer to remain hidden behind the curtain of averages. The group comparison through one-way ANOVA proved to be the real opening. To support the findings of oneway ANOVA, relevant percentages were also calculated. Public sector hospitals and private others are found to be the group which needed improvement.
Hypertension and diabetes mellitus as determinants of multiple lacunar infarcts.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE We investigated the relationship between hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and lacunes. METHODS From 1237 cases of ischemic stroke in the Stroke Data Bank of the National Institute of Neurological and Communicative Disorders and Stroke, data from 637 patients whose initial computed tomogram showed lacunar (n = 184) or nonlacunar infarcts (n = 453) were analyzed. The group with lacunar infarcts was further divided into subgroups according to whether the patients had multiple (n = 40) or single (n = 144) lacunar infarcts. The association of hypertension and diabetes mellitus with lacunar infarcts was investigated using logistic regression models that included age, sex, and cardiac disease. Similar models were used to analyze the effects of diastolic and systolic blood pressure. RESULTS Hypertension (odds ratio [OR], 2.5; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.1 to 6.0) and diabetes (OR, 2.3; 95% CI, 1.1 to 4.5) were significantly related to multiple but not to single lacunes. Cardiac disease was inversely associated with both single and multiple lacunes. Diastolic blood pressure significantly affected the probability of multiple lacunar infarcts (OR, 1.4; 95% CI, 1.04 to 1.9), whereas systolic pressure did not. CONCLUSIONS There may be etiologically distinct lacunar infarct subgroups, with multiple lacunes being strongly related to hypertension and diabetes mellitus. Other stroke risk factors may be more important in patients with single lacunes. Diastolic rather than systolic pressure seems to be a major determinant of multiple lacunes.
Performance bound for maximum-likelihood reception of digital data

Maximum-likelihood sequence estimation (MLSE) of data sequences is considered as an approach to increasing data rates over band-limited channels, such as exist in analog telephone facilities. Analytical prediction of the efficacy of MLSE for specific channels had been viewed as intractable until Forney gave a formula for an asymptotic upper bound on the probability of symbol error p . Forney's bound involved an infinite series, and letting the noise power No --} 0, he chose the asymptotically largest series term as an asymptotic bound on p , ignoring a very basic perplexing open question: How do we know the bounding series is not identically infinity for all N_0 \rightarrow 0? We show that under very general conditions Forney's bounding series converges for a nontrivial interval N_0 > 0 . As a corollary, we prove Forney's aforementioned asymptotic formula for p . The analysis includes the class of channels with spectral nulls, since band edge nulls can be associated with telephone channels that are pulsed at high rates.
Dual Partial Dye Doping for Chromaticity Tuning and Performance Enhancement of White OLEDs

In general, a guest dopant is doped into a single host matrix for white-light emission with two complementary colors. In this work, however, we have fabricated a white organic light-emitting diode (WOLED) based on dual partial dye doping in which a guest dopant is partially doped into two different host emitters; namely, orange-red emitting 4-(dicyanomethylene)-2-methyl-6-(p-dimethylaminos-tyryl)-4H-pyran (DCM) is partially doped into both blue-emitting 4, 4'-bis(2,2'-diphenylvinyl)-1,1'-biphenyl (DPVBi) and green-emitting Tris-(8-hydroxyquinoline) aluminum (Alq3). We demonstrate that dual partial dye doping allows us to finely tune the Commission Internationale d'Eclairage (CIE) chromaticity coordinates to the equienergy white point (x = 0.33, y = 0.33). In addition, it enhances device performance further, compared to WOLEDs based on DCM partially doped into a single host matrix (either DPVBi or Alq3). Moreover, the dual partial doping scheme is shown to provide a way of suppressing the self-quenching effect (singlet-singlet annihilation). For a systematic study, we have implemented a comprehensive numerical model and performed simulations of the OLED structure, providing a clear understanding with regard to the underlying physics of OLEDs. We also carry out an investigation of the effects of key design parameters such as the doped layer position and thickness and dye.