Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prevalence of Noise Induced Hearing Loss among Employees at Wood Industry in Damietta Governorate

Background: Occupational noise-induced hearing loss (ONIHL) is a major health issue with high prevalence globally and has major social, economic and psychological effects. Aim of the work: Assessment of noise induced hearing loss (NIHL) prevalence among employees at wood industry in Damietta governorate. Patients and methods: The present cross-sectional study was carried out in New Damietta city, Damietta governorate, Egypt. Ten workplaces were selected through convenience sampling. From these ten workplaces, one hundred fifty (150) employees agreed to participate in the study. Pure-tone audiometry between 500 and 8000Hz frequencies determined the hearing condition of the participants and noise readings were conducted at the selected workplaces. Results: Among all study participants, the prevalence of noise induced hearing loss (NIHL) was 39% of carpenters and 44.4% of sawyers with no statistically significant difference (P = 0.253) between both groups. Noise levels ranged from 73 to 91.5 dBA in the various furniture factories and from 74.9 to 94.1 dBA in the different saw mills. Conclusion: Occupational noise induced hearing loss (ONIHL) is highly prevalent in Damietta governorate among wood workers, which might be due to lack of knowledge, awareness about NIHL among employers, workers, and health care workers along with absence and or implementation of hearing conservation programs in the work places.
Modeling and Monitoring of a Distillation Column

This paper presents the development of a real-time monitoring solution for a complex distillation column UOP3BM Armfield. A predictive controller was created and associated with a bond graph model. The developed solution was designed to track the time-varying and the non-stationary dynamics of the process. Furthermore, to improve the isolation capabilities, a bond graph approach was applied. Experimental results are given to support the theoretical development. Keywords-modeling; monitoring; distillation column; sensors placement.
Seasonal decline in leaf photosynthesis in perennial switchgrass explained by sink limitations and water deficit

Leaf photosynthesis of perennial grasses usually decreases markedly from early to late summer, even when the canopy remains green and environmental conditions are favorable for photosynthesis. Understanding the physiological basis of this photosynthetic decline reveals the potential for yield improvement. We tested the association of seasonal photosynthetic decline in switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) with water availability by comparing plants experiencing ambient rainfall with plants in a rainfall exclusion experiment in Michigan, USA. For switchgrass exposed to ambient rainfall, daily net CO2 assimilation ( A n e t ' ) declined from 0.9 mol CO2 m-2 day-1 in early summer to 0.43 mol CO2 m-2 day-1 in late summer (53% reduction; P<0.0001). Under rainfall exclusion shelters, soil water content was 73% lower and A n e t ' was 12% and 26% lower in July and September, respectively, compared to those of the rainfed plants. Despite these differences, the seasonal photosynthetic decline was similar in the season-long rainfall exclusion compared to the rainfed plants; A n e t ' in switchgrass under the shelters declined from 0.85 mol CO2 m-2 day-1 in early summer to 0.39 mol CO2 m-2 day-1 (54% reduction; P<0.0001) in late summer. These results suggest that while water deficit limited A n e t ' late in the season, abundant late-season rainfalls were not enough to restore A n e t ' in the rainfed plants to early-summer values suggesting water deficit was not the sole driver of the decline. Alongside change in photosynthesis, starch in the rhizomes increased 4-fold (P<0.0001) and stabilized when leaf photosynthesis reached constant low values. Additionally, water limitation under shelters had no negative effects on the timing of rhizome starch accumulation, and rhizome starch content increased ~ 6-fold. These results showed that rhizomes also affect leaf photosynthesis during the growing season. Towards the end of the growing season, when vegetative growth is completed and rhizome reserves are filled, diminishing rhizome sink activity likely explained the observed photosynthetic declines in plants under both ambient and reduced water availability.
On the relative importance of signaling and human capital accumulation: evidence from China

The relationship between educational attainment and labor market performance has been alleged to go through two main channels – one, providing students with skills that employers value, and two, signaling to potential employers which individuals are of high ability. We exploit the implementation of a policy that suddenly and dramatically raised the cost of education in China to estimate the relative importance of signaling in educational decisions and the labor market. We present three main results. First, we show that years spent in non-compulsory levels of school (e.g. middle or high school) do not decrease in response to an extra year of compulsory primary school. Second, we estimate the causal impact on earnings from an additional year of education to be a small but precisely estimated 1.9%. Third, we show that over 90% of individuals leave school at credential attainment years. We argue that together these results suggest the signaling value of attaining a credential is the dominant driver behind schooling decisions in China in the modern era. Our results also show that government decisions on the length of each level of schooling can have immense impacts on the time use of citizens, in this case reallocating 800 billion person-hours from the labor market to education. ⇤Eble: Department of Economics, Brown University. 64 Waterman Street, Providence, RI 02912. Email: alexander_eble@brown.edu; Hu: Dongling School of Economics and Management, University of Science and Technology Beijing, 30 Xueyuan Road, Haidian District, Beijing, China 100083. Email: feng3hu@gmail.com. We would like to thank Marianna Battaglia, Nate Baum-Snow, Ken Chay, Andrew Foster, David Glancy, Nate Hilger, Rob Jensen, Melanie Khamis, Sri Nagavarupu, Gareth Olds, Emily Oster, Rajiv Sethi, John Tyler, Zach Sullivan and seminar participants at Brown, NEUDC 2013, Wesleyan and APPAM 2014 for helpful suggestions. Eble gratefully acknowledges the support from the United States National Science Foundation through a Graduate Research Fellowship and an IGERT Fellowship, and financial and computing resources from the Brown University PSTC. All remaining errors are our own. JEL1: O15, JEL2: I25
A BEHAVIORAL FOUNDATION FOR ENDOGENOUS SALIENCE∗

We develop choice-theoretic foundations for the salient thinking model of Bordalo et al. [2013b] (BGS) with an endogenous reference point. We provide simple properties of a decision maker’s choices that are necessary and sufficient for representation by the model even when the reference point is determined by the menu. Our results highlight the model’s strong predictions and provide a new characterization of one of its key innovations, the salience function. To better understand the salient thinking model’s approach, a generalization, the regional preference model (RPM), is introduced that is more flexible while retaining its key ingredients. RPM provides a novel connection between three prominent models, as it also nests the loss aversion model of Tversky and Kahneman [1991] and the status quo bias model of Masatlioglu
Metaphor and Metonymy in Body Parts in some Amazigh Varieties: The Case of the ‘Head’ and its Parts

Cet article analyse la variation sémantique dans 28 variétés amazighes parlées au Maroc, en Algérie, Tunisie, Libye, au nord du Mali, au Nord et à l'ouest du Niger, en Mauritanie et dans l'oasis de Siwa en Égypte. La variation sémantique est étudiée à travers l'analyse de la terminologie des parties du corps, à savoir la tête et certaines de ses parties. Les données proviennent de dictionnaires bilingues publiés où les équivalents des termes désignant la tête, les cheveux, le visage, le cou, les yeux, les oreilles et la bouche ont été relevés. Les résultats de cette étude démontrent clairement une présence significative de la variation sémantique dans les parlers amazighes. Cette variation est principalement basée sur des extensions sémantiques impliquant des configurations métaphoriques et métonymiques. Par ailleurs, cette étude confirme l'hypothèse selon laquelle les parties du corps ne conduisent pas nécessairement à l'émergence d'extensions sémantiques universelles bien qu'elles soient une source universelle pour la construction du sens.
Heterogeneous Wealth Effects on Consumption for Older Homeowners with Unobservable Borrowing Constraints∗

This paper studies the marginal propensity to consume out of wealth (MPC) for heterogeneous older homeowners. It considers two aspects of heterogeneity, i.e. different preferences and different circumstances (cash-on-hand). In a structural model these two aspects generate alternative portfolio regimes that reflect different degrees of proximity to borrowing constraints. But empirically we cannot observe who is closer to the borrowing constraints. To determine the classification of regimes, I fit a multivariate Gaussian mixture model via a censored data expectation-maximisation (EM) algorithm on data from Wealth and Asset Survey (WAS). Based on the classification results, I estimate the structural parameters by matching the model predicted consumption with imputed consumption from the data for older homeowners. The estimation results show that households who are closest to the borrowing constraints (group 1) have highest MPC (close to 1 on average), i.e. they behave in a hand-to-mouth way. This may suggest a stimulus is most effective for the borrowing constrained, low net-worth households since their consumption is more sensitive to a wealth shock. I also find the MPC declines with total wealth, which is in line with the existing literature. The estimated average MPC (0.86) is bigger than in the existing literature (Japperlli and Pistaferri, 2014; Sahm et al., 2010), which may be a result of a shorter planning horizon and thereby less risk faced by older homeowners I use for estimation.
The Situation of Female Immigrants on the German Labour Market: A Multi-Perspective Approach

While general ethnic disadvantages are well documented, much less is known about coinciding disadvantages of ethnic origin and gender. Based on theoretical arguments of human capital theory, sociocultural approaches, labour market segmentation theory, and discrimination mechanisms, we investigate whether immigrant women experience more difficulties on the labour market than immigrant men, non-immigrant men and women. Using data from the German Socio-economic Panel from 2013 and 2015 we deal with interaction patterns of ethnic origin and gender regarding various labour market outcomes for immigrants from Turkey and the former Soviet Union. We analyse the impact of individual resources like education, language proficiency, and job characteristics on ethnic and gender gaps. We find evidence of additional disadvantages of immigrant women on each outcome variable that largely seem to be attributable to differences in qualifications and language proficiency. However, for women from the former Soviet Union and second-generation Turkish women specific disadvantages are apparent that cannot be explained by individual and job characteristics.
User Concerns on Cloud Security – A UAE Perspective

— Cloud computing is a technology that offers many benefits to users including access from anywhere and paying only for resources that are consumed. However there are many risks associated with cloud usage and a major area of concern for many users is the risk of privacy breaches. Studies in various countries have reported security and privacy concerns as the most significant barriers to cloud adoption. In the research described here a survey was conducted of 225 tertiary educated Internet users in the United Arab Emirates. The purpose of the survey was to explore user perceptions of privacy in cloud computing and also to explore their awareness of the privacy risks. The users were unrelated individuals working in a variety of occupations in different locations in the country. Our results show that users consider cloud services to be intrinsically insecure and do not trust service providers to keep their data private. In this paper we discuss the issue of privacy and the legal status of privacy protection in the UAE. We present the results of our study and discuss the findings. We make recommendations for possible measures that could be taken in the UAE to allay the concerns of potential users and facilitate greater uptake of cloud services.
An Exploratory Study on Adoption and Use of SMS/Mobile Banking in India with Special Reference to Public Sector Banks

Banking through Mobile is crucial these days for those who are busy with their jobs and also for those who are employed. The study is sought to investigate the perceptions of banks and customers regarding the adoption of technology by the use of a survey conducted in NCR (Northern Capital Region) during Feb-March 2012. A sample of two Public Sector Banks was chosen including 300 Bank customers using mobile banking for past six months. Data was gathered through questionnaire followed by small discussion with customers and hence was analyzed using descriptive analysis like Factor Analysis and ANOVA which were applied for interpretation. The findings revealed that Mobile Banking services is still in its fancy. Evidence showed that accessibility and security were the major hurdles to the adoption of SMS banking. The study recommends that two banks conducted an awareness campaign followed by training programme for their customers.
Socioeconomic Status and Livestock Study of Bihar, India

ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 8 Number 05 (2019) Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas. com To study the knowledge of dairy animal owners in improved dairy husbandry practices a field survey in Bihar state was conducted during April-June’2016. Data were collected through personal interview from randomly selected 1550 dairy animal owners from randomly selected villages from Chhapra, Vaishali district of Bihar with the help of pretested structured schedule. Survey indicates that the 71.67 percentage of the livestock farmers belonged to middle age category range from 35-50 years, followed by 15.00 percent in young age category and 13.33% belonged to old age category. Female participants were 40.36 percentage while 45.57 percentage were male participants. The average size of family in the study was 8.74 persons with 4.75 male members and 4.0 female members. 65.4% of the respondents’ family was formally educated followed 34.6% of the respondents’ family were not formally educated. In the present study it was observed that 30.7% of the respondents had acquired education up to 10th and 19.8% of respondents had acquired education upto 12th class. 13.3% of respondents had acquired education upto graduate and post graduate level while 13% of respondents had acquired education upto 5th class. Survey data revealed that the highest respondents were from OBC 59.4% class followed by 29.8% General Caste. Percentage of schedule caste was 8.1% and percentage of schedule tribe was 2.7 %. Average size of land owned was 2.24 percentage. 71.0 percentage belong to Marginal (0.1-1 ha) land while 13.7 percentage belong to small (1.1-2 ha), 3.5 percentage belong to owners having above 2 ha land. Average number of animals owned were 1.99 while average number of cow owned were 1.75. Average number of buffaloes owned was 0.24. For distribution of cows and buffaloes by type of breed show highest proportion was of crossbreed cow 75.92 percentage followed by 20.46 percentage of Indigenous cow and 3.62 percentage of Non-descript cow. In case of buffaloes it shows 55.76 percentage of upgraded buffalo and 44.24 percentage of non-descript buffaloes. In milk market study about 38.7% of farmers sell their milk to private dairy, followed by cooperative dairy (33.0%) and open market (28.2%). Likewise the average quantity of milk sold per farmer per day to private dairy was 2.72 litres, 2.32 litres to cooperative dairy and 1.98 litres to open market. Around 62.9% of the farmers sell their milk within the village while the remaining 37.1% farmers sell milk outside the village. K e y w o r d s APL, BPL, Crossbreed, Upgraded Accepted: 12 April 2019 Available Online: 10 May 2019 Article Info Int.J.Curr.Microbiol. App.Sci (2019) 8(5): 1240-1248
Prevalence and Molecular Detection of Blood Protozoa in Domestic Pigeon

They are closely related genetically but different in life history traits (Valkiunas, 1993). Avian malaria, caused by Plasmodium sp. is transmitted to birds by mosquitoes and has a long-term effect on the reproductive system of the host causing population decrease (Lapointe et al., 2012). Leucocytozoon sp. typically causes anaemia and enlargement of liver and spleen (Dey et al., 2010). Haemoproteus columbae commonly infect pigeon and doves and is widely distributed in tropical and subtropical regions and transmitted by blood sucking hippoboscid fly Pseudolynchia canariensis.
Corporate Cash Holdings and the Refinancing Risk of Bank Debt and Non-Bank Debt

We empirically examine the relationship between a firm’s debt composition and refinancing risk. In particular, we analyze the effects of non-bank debt on refinancing risk as the existing literature shows that both the ex-ante and ex-post costs of refinancing problems are higher for non-bank debt than for bank debt. We therefore propose that non-bank debt is associated with higher refinancing risk than bank debt. Following recent research findings we employ firms’ cash holdings as a proxy measure of refinancing risk for a sample of U.S. incorporated firms over the ten year period from 2003 to 2013. We find that firms seem to accumulate cash in order to offset the refinancing risk associated with non-bank debt. Further analysis indicates that the effect is most accentuated for firms with relatively high leverage and for firms with relatively high non-bank debt proportions. We also find indications that the observed hedging behavior could be either of negative value to shareholders or mispriced by equity markets.
Breaking the Sovereign-Bank Nexus∗

This paper develops a quantitative dynamic general equilibrium model that features endogenous bank failure and sovereign default risk. It studies the feedback loop between sovereign and banking crises, and evaluates the effectiveness of bank capital regulation in addressing it. In the model, bank failure contributes to an increase of sovereign default risk through the government bailout of bank creditors. Meanwhile, holding highyield risky sovereign bonds may be attractive to banks protected by limited liability. By increasing banks’ failure risk and their funding costs, sovereign exposures hurt bank lending and contribute to further contractions in aggregate economic activity. Capital requirements shape banks’ incentives to invest in sovereign debt. More stringent capital regulation makes banks safer, weakening the sovereign-bank nexus. This comes at the cost of constraining the overall supply of credit.
CLEP_A_200173 419..428

Christine Gyldenkerne Kevin Kris Warnakula Olesen Morten Madsen Troels Thim Lisette Okkels Jensen Bent Raungaard Henrik Toft Sørensen Hans Erik Bøtker Michael Maeng 1Department of Cardiology, Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus, Denmark; 2Department of Clinical Epidemiology, Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus, Denmark; 3Department of Cardiology, Odense University Hospital, Odense, Denmark; 4Department of Cardiology, Aalborg University Hospital, Aalborg, Denmark Purpose: We examined risk of myocardial infarction and all-cause death associated with the extent of coronary artery disease ascertained by coronary angiography in patients with diabetes mellitus. We hypothesized that risks of myocardial infarction and death were associated with extent of coronary artery disease in diabetes patients. Patients and methods: Weconducted a cohort study of patientswith type 1 and type 2 diabetes, who underwent coronary angiography from 2004 to 2012. Patients were stratified according to extent of coronary artery disease: 0-, 1-, 2or 3-vessel disease or diffuse vessel disease. Endpoints were myocardial infarction, all-cause death, and major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE), defined as the composite of myocardial infarction, cardiac death, or ischemic stroke. Adjusted incidence and mortality rate ratios (IRRsadj) were calculated using patients with 0-vessel disease as the reference group. Median follow-up was 3 years for a total of 45,164 person-years. Results: The study included 12,594 diabetes patients. Of these, 3,147 (25.0%) had 0-vessel disease, 1,195 (9.5%) had diffuse vessel disease, 3,001 (23.8%) had 1-vessel disease, 2,220 (17.6%) had 2-vessel disease, and 3,031 (24.1%) had 3-vessel disease. The myocardial infarction rate was 0.4 per 100 person-years (95% CI: 0.3–0.5) in patients with 0-vessel disease. Using patients with 0-vessel disease as reference, the risk of myocardial infarction increased according to the number of diseased vessels (diffuse vessel disease: 1.4 per 100 person-years, IRRadj 3.87, 95% CI: 2.41–6.23; 1-vessel disease: 1.9 per 100 person-years, IRRadj 4.99, 95% CI: 3.33–7.46; 2-vessel disease: 2.7 per 100 person-years, IRRadj 7.14, 95% CI: 4.78–10.65; and 3-vessel disease: 4.3 per 100 person-years, IRRadj 11.42, 95% CI: 7.76–16.82; ptrend<0.001). Similar associations were observed for all-cause death and MACE. Conclusion: The extent of coronary artery disease is a major risk factor for myocardial infarction and death in patients with diabetes mellitus.
Government Expenditure on Infrastructure as a Driver for Economic Growth in Nigeria

2016 Research Leap/Inovatus Services Ltd. All rights reserved. DOI: 10.18775/jibrm.1849-8558.2015.52.3004 URL: http://dx.doi. org/10.18775/jibrm.18498558.2015.52.3004 This study primary examines the effects of government infrastructural expenditure on economic development in Nigeria. Secondary data sourced from reported annual spending on selected infrastructure and annual Gross Domestic Products were statistically analyzed. The data treatments used for the secondary data were unit root and cointegration tests using Augmented Dickey–Fuller and Phillip–Perron model. Weighted least square was also used to test the sample of 37-year annual time series using vector error correction model. The data analysis was done with descriptive statistics. Findings from the study revealed that government spending on transport, communication, education and health infrastructure have significant effects on economic growth; spending on agriculture and natural resources infrastructure recorded a significant inverse effect on economic growth in Nigeria. An element of fiscal illusion was observed in the government spending on agriculture and natural resources indicating that government is not contributing as much as the private sector in spending on agriculture and natural resources infrastructure in Nigeria.
E uropean X tramile C entre of A frican S tudies (EXCAS) EXCAS Working Paper

This paper examines the governance-“education quality” nexus in a panel of 49 sub-Saharan African countries over the period 2000-2012. Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and Quantile regression (QR) are employed as estimation strategies. The following findings are established. First, from the OLS, governance variables are negatively correlated with poor education quality. Second, with regards to QR, about half of the governance dynamics are not significantly correlated with poor education quality in the lowest quantile of poor education quality. With the exception of corruption-control, the other governance dynamics are negatively correlated with poor education quality in a non-monotonic pattern.