Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Secular trends in the prevalence of iron deficiency among US toddlers, 1976-2002.

OBJECTIVE To examine secular trends in iron deficiency among US children 1 to 3 years old. DESIGN Secular trend analyses of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey II-IV. SETTING Large-scale national survey conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics from 1976 to 2002. PARTICIPANTS US children 1 to 3 years old. Outcome Measure Prevalence of iron deficiency. RESULTS Between 1976 and 2002, there was no change in iron deficiency prevalence in US toddlers. Iron deficiency prevalence remained unchanged in Hispanic and white toddlers but decreased among black toddlers. Across all 3 survey waves, racial/ethnic disparities in iron deficiency persisted between Hispanic and white toddlers, with a disparity ratio of at least 2. Iron deficiency prevalence remained high (20%-24%) in overweight toddlers, significantly higher than in those at risk for overweight (11%) and in normal weight or underweight toddlers (8%). Iron deficiency prevalence decreased from 22% to 9% in toddlers in poor households but remained unchanged in toddlers in nonpoor households (7%). In multivariable analyses, Hispanic, younger, and overweight toddlers had higher odds of iron deficiency. CONCLUSIONS Despite the decline in iron deficiency prevalence among 1-year-old, black, and poor children, iron deficiency prevalence in US toddlers overall has not changed in the last 26 years and remains elevated in certain high-risk groups: Hispanic, younger, and overweight toddlers. Efforts to reduce the prevalence of iron deficiency in infancy and early childhood are urgently needed and should target high-risk groups.
The Importance of Qualitative Risk Assessment in Banking Supervision Before and During the Crisis

Banking supervision requires regular inspection and assessment of financial institutions. In Germany this task is carried out by the central bank ('Deutsche Bundesbank, BBK') in cooperation with the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority ('Bundesanstalt fur Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht, BaFin'). In accordance with the Basel II approach, quantitative and qualitative information is used. It is still an open question whether supervisors provide information, based on on-site inspections, which is not known from the numbers already, or simply duplicate the quantitative information, or even overrule it by their impressions gained through visits. In our analysis we use a unique dataset on financial institutions' risk profiles, i.e. the banking supervisors' risk assessment. Methodologically, we apply a partial proportional odds model to explain the supervisor's ordinal grading by a purely quantitative CAMEL covariate vector, which is standard in many bank rating models, and we also include the bank inspector's qualitative risk assessment into the model. We find that not only the quantitative CAMEL vector is clearly important for the final supervisory risk assessment; it is, indeed, also qualitative information on a bank's internal governance, ICAAP, interest rate risk, and other qualitative risk components that plays an equally important role. Moreover, we find evidence that supervisors have become more conservative in their final judgement at the beginning of the financial crisis, i.e. the supervisory assessment seems to be more forward-looking than the mere numbers. This result underpins the importance of bank-individual on-site risk assessments.
Extension Management Competency Needs of Agricultural Extension Agents in Kenya

Improvement in the management of agricultural extension organizations has been identified as a key challenge in the delivery of extension services in Kenya. Ensuring effective management of agricultural extension services is crucial to the growth of the agricultural industry. To improve extension service delivery, the Agricultural Sector Development Strategy (ASDS) has been formulated with a paradigm shift from a top-bottom and centralized extension service to a decentralized and pluralistic extension service. Training staff to acquire capabilities to operate under these new management models is critical to the revitalization of the agricultural industry which is a key economic growth strategy in the Vision 2030. This requires an assessment of the management competencies required by extension staff in order to make recommendations for appropriate design of training programmes. Based on this premise, this study was conducted to examine the current extension management competencies of 440 staff in the public and private agricultural extension service sectors and assess differences in competency requirements between Frontline Extension Workers (FEW) and Subject Matter Specialists (SMS). A crosssectional survey was used and training needs determined and expediency prioritized using Borich’s Needs Discrepancy Model (BNDM) and a Mean Weighted Discrepancy Score (MWDS). The agricultural extension management competencies with the highest training need were; Motivating employees, Stress management, Managing conflict, Strategic planning, Mentoring/coaching employees, and Employee appraisal and counselling. Management competencies such as communication, extension program management and farmer group formation were also prioritized for training. There were no significant differences between the training needs of extension agents in the sectors and only managing finances was significantly different between SMS and FEW. The high MWDS obtained for management competencies form the basis for designing relevant in-service courses and warrant their inclusion in agricultural programs at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2013. v4n6p11
Internal Corporate Governance Structures and Firm Financial Performance: Evidence from South African Listed Firms

This thesis contains the findings of an examination of the relationship between internal corporate governance structures and the financial performance of South African listed firms. Specifically, using a sample of 100 South African listed firms from 2002 to 2006 (a total of 500 firm-year observations) and corporate governance data collected directly from company annual reports, the thesis seeks to ascertain whether better-governed listed firms tend to be associated with higher financial returns than their poorly-governed counterparts. Unlike prior studies, the internal corporate governance-financial performance nexus is investigated by applying both the compliance-index and equilibrium-variable research methodologies. The results based on the compliance-index model suggest that there is a statistically significant and positive association between the quality of the sampled firms’ internal corporate governance structures and their financial performance. This finding is robust whether an accounting (return on assets) or a market (Tobin’s Q) based measure of financial performance is used. Distinct from prior studies, an analysis of the impact of complying with the South African context specific affirmative action and stakeholder corporate governance provisions on the financial performance of South African listed firms is also investigated. The results indicate that compliance with the affirmative action and stakeholder corporate governance provisions impacts positively on the performance of South African listed firms. By contrast, the results based on the equilibrium-variable model are generally mixed. First, regardless of the financial performance measure used, board diversity, the frequency of board meetings, and the establishment of board committees except the presence of a nomination committee seem to have no impact on firm financial performance. Second, board size is statistically significant and positively associated with Tobin’s Q (Q-ratio), but statistically insignificant and negatively related to return on assets (ROA). Third, role or CEO duality is statistically significant and positively related to ROA, but statistically insignificant and negatively associated with the Q-ratio. Director shareownership is statistically insignificant and positively related to ROA, but statistically significant and negatively associated with the Q-ratio. Finally, the findings based on both the director shareownership squared and cubed do not support the statistically significant non-linear director shareownership-financial performance association reported by Morck et al. (1988). The findings from a series of robustness or sensitivity analyses carried out suggest that the empirical results reported are generally robust to potential endogeneity problems.
The Chemical compositions and the Antioxidant and Antimicrobial Activities of the Essential Oil of Rosemary Leaves from Eastern Morocco

The essential oils compositions of Rosmarinus. tournefortii wild plant, Rosmarinus. tournefortii domesticated plant, and Rosmarinus officinalis.L wild plant growing in different bio climates from eastern Morocco, was determined by GC-FID and GC–MS. Oils were assessed for their antimicrobial and antioxidant activities. A variation of chemical compositions attributed to varieties rather than to bio climates was revealed. α-Pinene (0.637% ; 44.22% ; 5.74%), Camphene (11.62% ; 6.52% ; 2.21%), s-Pinene (14.72% ; 1.14% ; 3.71%), 1,8Cineole (10.1% ; not identifying ; 56.51%) and Camphor (39.27% ; 7.64% ; 13.56%) were identified as the main constituents of R. tournefortii wild plant, R. tournefortii domesticated plant, and R. officinalis. L wild plant respectively. This study is based on the determination of the diameter of inhibition to moderate antimicrobial and antioxidant activities of oils revealed to be against eight bacteria tested. This was determined by 1,1diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) assay. The highest antimicrobial and antioxidant activities were found in oils from Rosmarinus. tournefortii domesticated plant.
The prognostic impact of obesity on molecular subtypes of breast cancer in premenopausal women.

PURPOSE The increasing incidence of obesity throughout the world will result in expansion of the number of women at risk for developing breast cancer. Obesity is associated with adverse outcomes in postmenopausal women with breast cancer. In premenopausal women, the association is less clear. We investigated the impact of obesity on tumor features, hormonal status, recurrence and mortality in premenopausal breast cancer patients, classified according to molecular subtypes. METHODS 818 premenopausal women with nonmetastatic breast cancer were analysed. Patients were classified into 3 groups according to body mass index (BMI): i) normal body weight (BMI: 18.5-24.9 kg/m(2)); ii) overweight (BMI: 25-29.9 kg/ m(2)); and iii) obese (BMI:>30 kg/ m(2)). Clinocopathologic characteristics and survival rates were analyzed for triple negative, HER-2 overexpressing and luminal subtypes. RESULTS Obese patients compared with normal-weight women were older at diagnosis (p<0.001) and more often had high grade tumor (57.1 vs 42.3%; p=0.04) with lymphovascular invasion (79.5 vs 63.9%; p=0.03). The median follow-up period after diagnosis was 29 months. According to the molecular subtypes, overall survival (OS) and disease free survival (DFS) were significantly shorter in obese patients with triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) (p=0.001 and p=0.006, respectively). Obesity (HR 1.4; 95% CI 1.0-2.1; p=0.04) and lymphovascular invasion (HR 2.1; 95% CI 1.3- 3.3; p=0.02) were found to be independent prognostic factors for TNBC mortality. CONCLUSION Obesity is associated with estrogen (ER) and progesterone receptor (PR) negative tumors and poor OS in premenopausal women with breast cancer.
Bio-Inspired Dynamic Radio Access in Cognitive Networks based on Social Foraging Swarms

There is strong trend, in current research on communication and sensor networks, to study selforganizing, self-healing systems. This poses great challenges to the research on decentralized systems, but at the same offers great potentials for future developments, especially in view of the current trend towards miniaturized systems. Even if the development of self-organizing systems is probably at the beginning, biological systems offers many examples of self-organization and selfhealing. This is as testified, for example, by swarming behaviors, brain activity, and so on. It is then of great interest to derive mathematical models of biological systems and see how they can suggest novel design tools for engineers. Signal Processing can play a big role in this cross-fertilization, as it can help to find out manageable mathematical problems, study their behavior and test the performance in the presence of disturbances. The challenge is to establish a cross-fertilization of ideas from biological to artificial systems, as well as to help understanding biological systems as such. This dissertation considers the problem of dynamic radio access based on sensing in cognitive radio networks. In particular, we follow a rather alternative path with respect to more conventional approaches and, inspired by biological models, we formulate the search for radio resources, i.e. time and frequency slots, as the search for food by a flock of birds swarming in a cooperative manner, but without any centralized control. The interference distribution in the time-frequency plane takes the role of the food spatial distribution: The birds (radio nodes) fly
Development of entrepreneurial environment in Slovakia

Entrepreneurial environment in Slovakia is monitored and recently demonstrates deteriorative level. Entrepreneurs themselves defined the shortfalls as it was also confirmed by analyses of regional and national agencies. In the Slovak Republic, the small and medium enterprises have an irreplaceable role to play. Entrepreneurs consider levying charges, frequent regulation modifications, difficult exaction of justice, unavailability of loans, ambiguous policies, corrupt practices at magistracies, tax charges, and many others to be the biggest obstacles. Definition and solution of these problems is highly important to support small and medium businesses. It can foster overall conditions of entrepreneurship in Slovakia and also increase Slovakia’s competitiveness. The aim of the article is to point out entrepreneurship and business environment conditions in the Slovak Republic, mainly the organisations oriented towards small and medium enterprises, which have an irreplaceable role predominantly in the field of workplace establishment and regional development.
Incidence and patterns of lumbosacral transitional vertebrae, in patients with low backpain in a Nigerian hospital.

BACKGROUND Lumbosacral transitional vertebrae (LSTV), is a structural anomaly, of the lumbosacral spine which has been variably associated with, low back pain (LBP) and its presence can also result in a level being wrongly identified pre-operatively. OBJECTIVES To determine the incidence, pattern of LSTV and its relationship with LBP in our tertiary hospital. METHODS A retrospective review of lumbosacral spine radiographs of 561 one consecutive patients with history of LBP was done from January 2006 to January 2008. The presence or absence of LSTV and degenerative changes were documented. RESULTS Fifty-one ((9.1%)) out of 561 patients had LSTV. Type II (incomplete) LSTV was the commonest type, occurring in 86.3% of patient with LSTV. Patients less than 30yrs with LBP and LSTV had no degenerative changes, while all patients with LSTV above 50 yrs had degenerative changes. CONCLUSION Lumbosacral transitional vertebrae type II was the commonest seen in this study, furthermore, LSTV appears to be a causative factor of LBP in young individuals. Careful evaluation of spinal radiographs of patients with LBP belonging to this group is advocated to assess for the presence or absence of LSTV.
Branded marketing events: a proposed "experiential needs-based" conceptual framework

Marketers and event organizers have long viewed sponsorship as a way to fund events and garner public attention for brands. Recent years has seen brands employ event techniques in their own right, with specific intent of more directly influencing the consumer's attitude toward the brand. We propose a conceptual framework for how those events affect consumers across the range of “typical” consumers that attend events. This is done through proposing a typology of experiential involvement that demonstrates the likely impact an event will have on a consumer; events are categorized as educational or entertainment. Combining the typology with event types we propose a hierarchy of effectiveness for researchers and practitioners to consider and further research.
Value-Based Management – Antecedents and Performance Effects

Value-based Management (VBM) is an approach to corporate governance that aims at the long-term maximization of the total value of a company. By focusing on measurable performance indicators and forward-looking capital market expectations, VBM is to prevent selfish or short-sighted actions, e.g., of top managers or other stakeholders. The aim of this work is the empirical investigation of success factors and the performance effects of VBM.
Household Perception and Preparednessagainst Flooding in Makurdi Town, Benue State, Nigeria.

Thispaper assessed household perception and preparednessagainst floodingin Makurdi Town. Data was obtained from the field via questionnaire survey. A total of 236 respondents, mainly household heads (both male and female), drawn randomly from residents living in flood prone areas were sampled for the study. Descriptive statistics and Chi square test were used to analyse the data. Findings reveal that most residents (84.9%) have experienced flooding in the area before and perceive that flood has increased in the last five years. Again, findings show that majority of the residents(48.7%) are aware that they are staying in areas rated to be at high risk of flooding, but have remained in the area mainly because they don't have an alternative. Findings further show that households are not adequately prepared against flooding. The Chi square analysis showed no association between perception of flooding and household preparedness behaviour. The study recommends that a massive and rigorous awareness campaign should be carried out by the Government to educate people on the dangers of flood and the need to prepare in advance.
On-line processing and comprehension of direct object pronoun sentences in Spanish-speaking children with Specific Language Impairment

ABSTRACT Eleven native Spanish-speaking children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) (8;3–10;11) and 11 typically developing children (8;7–10;8) received a comprehensive psycholinguistic evaluation. Participants listened to either Direct Object (DO) pronoun sentences or filler sentences without any pronoun, and they decided whether a picture on the screen (depicting the antecedent, another noun in the sentence, or an unrelated object) was ‘alive’. They answered comprehension questions about pronoun sentences. Children with SLI showed significantly poorer comprehension of DO pronoun sentences when answering comprehension questions than children with Typical Language Development (TLD). This poor pronoun sentence understanding correlated significantly with poor auditory sentence completion, non-word repetition task and expressive vocabulary skills. Children with SLI were significantly slower in the animacy decisions than children with TLD across all pronoun and filler sentence conditions. Both groups exhibited high accuracy in the animacy decisions for any conditions. Clinical implications are discussed.
Production and Status of Bacterial Cellulose in Biomedical Engineering

Bacterial cellulose (BC) is a highly pure and crystalline material generated by aerobic bacteria, which has received significant interest due to its unique physiochemical characteristics in comparison with plant cellulose. BC, alone or in combination with different components (e.g., biopolymers and nanoparticles), can be used for a wide range of applications, such as medical products, electrical instruments, and food ingredients. In recent years, biomedical devices have gained important attention due to the increase in medical engineering products for wound care, regeneration of organs, diagnosis of diseases, and drug transportation. Bacterial cellulose has potential applications across several medical sectors and permits the development of innovative materials. This paper reviews the progress of related research, including overall information about bacterial cellulose, production by microorganisms, mechanisms as well as BC cultivation and its nanocomposites. The latest use of BC in the biomedical field is thoroughly discussed with its applications in both a pure and composite form. This paper concludes the further investigations of BC in the future that are required to make it marketable in vital biomaterials.
Maturation of the cortical auditory event- related brain potentials in infancy

Although brain development continues well into adolescence, the most rapid and impressive improvements in motor, cognitive, and perceptual abilities take place during the first and second years of life. The progress of the neuroimaging techniques provided the neuroanatomical data, showing that the most rapid postnatal neuroanatomical development also occurs in the first two years of age, followed by much more gradual changes. A link between the rapidly emerging psychological and behavioral functions and the underlying neural mechanisms might be provided by the electrical activity generated by neurons within the functioning brain. The electrical signals related to some external or internal event (event-related potentials, ERPs) provide real time indices of neural information processing, and can be followed throughout this crucial period of the most rapid neuroanatomical and functional development. Addressing the issue of ERP maturation during infancy is not just of academic interest, but might also have wide clinical applications. To this end, it is very important to study the normal course of ERP maturation in the same infants in a fine-graded manner, in order to obtain a normative database. The present studies therefore aimed at investigating 1) the age-related obligatory ERP changes during the first 12 months of age; 2) the infantile ERP correlates of stimulus features (pitch, duration); 3) the maturation of the central processing of stimulus change from birth to 12 months of age. The results indicated, first, that all ERP peaks observable at the age of 12 months and later in childhood (the P150, N250, P350, and N450) could be identified as early as at birth. The second major finding was that the infant’s ERP was significantly affected by the duration of auditory stimuli at the latency zone of the N250. The pattern of the duration-
Does Academic Research Help or Hurt MBA Programs

Abstract Since the 1960s, scientific academic research has played a prominent role in most leading business schools. Recently, however, critics have argued that emphasizing research is misguided and may only serve the faculty's interests at the expense of students and the firms that employ them. This study attempts to inform this debate by investigating the short- and long-term effects of academic research in 57 business schools over 18 years on academics', recruiters', and applicants' perceptions as well as on the schools' education performance with current students. The authors find that academic research has positive long-term effects on the perceptions of these three constituents and on education performance, as well as short-term effects on academics' perceptions. Moreover, effect sizes are large and meaningful. A persistent increase of three single-author articles per year is associated with an improvement in a school's ranking among academics by one place, a decline in its acceptance rate of 1%, an.