Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
(Dis)Solving the Zero Lower Bound Equilibrium Through Income Policy

We investigate the possibility to reflate an economy experiencing a long-lasting zero lower bound episode with subdued or negative inflation, by imposing a minimum level of wage inflation. Our proposed income policy relies on the same mechanism behind past disinflationary policies, but it works in the opposite direction. It is formalized as a downward nominal wage rigidity (DNWR) such that wage inflation cannot be lower than a fraction of the inflation target. This policy allows to dissolve the zero lower bound steady state equilibrium in an OLG model featuring “secular stagnation” and in a infinite-life model, where this equilibrium emerges due to deflationary expectations.
The relationship between employee engagement and work performance for individuals working in active asset management: examining the moderate effect of age, gender, and job function.

vi LIST OF TABLES . ix LIST OF FIGURES . x INTRODUCTION . 1 LITERATURE REVIEW . 11 METHOD . 26 RESULTS . 38 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION. 44 REFERENCES . 55 APPENDICES . 65 CURRICULUM VITA . 72
Locally Delivered Umbilical Cord Mesenchymal Stromal Cells Reduce Chronic Inflammation in Long-Term Nonhealing Wounds: A Randomized Study

Inflammation is part of a complex biological response to injury that mediates a rapid mobilization of cells and triggers the restoration of tissue homeostasis. The systemic diseases of the connective tissues, repetitive strain injuries, neuropathy, and vascular impairment lead to the development of a chronic inflammatory state. In such cases, a forced intervention is required to trigger tissue regeneration. Mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) have been considered a perspective tool for regenerative medicine because of their ability to change the expression and secretory profile under the influence of signals from the microenvironment to perform a regulatory function at the site of tissue damage. In this study, MSCs were isolated from the human umbilical cord (UCMSCs). The ability of UCMSCs to regulate chronic inflammation was investigated in a randomized placebo-controlled pilot study to assess the efficacy and safety of UCMSC therapy in patients with nonhealing wounds. A total of 108 patients with chronic wounds of different etiologies were randomly divided into two groups according to the criteria of inclusion and exclusion. The group (n = 59) that was treated with a single local subcutaneous infusion of UCMSCs around the wound periphery showed a pronounced growth of granulation tissue, improved blood microcirculation, and reduction in wound size compared to the placebo group (n = 49). No prominent adverse events were detected in patients from the UCMSC group during the 1-year follow-up period. This research has demonstrated that locally delivered allogeneic UCMSCs can contribute to chronic wound repair and provide an additional support toward new therapeutic strategies. Registration certificate №FS2006/341 was issued by the Federal Service for Surveillance in Healthcare.
Low height-for-age among Limbu and Mech children and adolescents from two districts of West Bengal, India

Background: Low height-for-age (stunting) is a state of chronic undernutrition in children and adolescents. Studies reported that India has very high prevalence of stunting in children, particularly from rural and tribal communities. Objective of the present study was to record prevalence of stunting in 6 to 18 year-old boys and girls from two tribal communities (Limbu and Mech) in Darjeeling and Alipurduar districts of West Bengal, India. The study also aimed to compare height-for-age of the participants with standard growth reference curves. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, the sample comprises 1523 individuals of both sexes from Limbu (377 boys, 379 girls) and Mech (365 boys, 402 girls) communities. Height data was normalized using LMS. Results: Overall frequency of stunting among 6 to 18 year-old boys (33%) and girls (34.7%) was remarkably high. Prevalence of stunting was higher in Limbu boys (43.5%) and girls (44.6%) than their age-peers from Mech community (boys 22.2%, girls 25.4%). Height data after normalization, shows that all centile curves of height of Limbu and Mech boys and girls are consistently below the standard height-for-age reference curves of the WHO. Limbu and Mech children appear to be taller with respect to their median (50th percentile) height when compared with the median height of children in the dataset of Indian Council of Medical Research. Conclusion: High frequency stunting in Mech and limbu children was recorded and situation of girls was worse. There was a tendency of decline in prevalence of stunting with advancement of age among children.
Does It Pay to be Socially Connected with Wall Street? Evidence from Cost of Equity

We investigate whether social connections of a firm’s executives and directors with brokerage houses that follow the firm will affect the firm’s cost of equity. We find that a firm’s cost of equity significantly decreases with its social connectedness with brokerages, and that the effect is more pronounced for firms with more soft information, opaque information environment, tight financial constraints, or weak corporate governance. We use two types of quasi-natural experiments to address endogeneity concerns: 1) exogenous brokerage exit and 2) CEO turnover with internal CEO replacement. We find that an exogenous reduction in firm-brokerage social connections leads to an economically large increase in the firm’s cost of equity, indicating that the effect of social connections in reducing cost of equity is likely causal. Our results are robust to using alternative measures of cost of equity. Further, consistent with the evidence on cost of equity, we find that firm-brokerage social connections improve the firm’s equity valuation.
Examining predictors of minority stress among LGBTQ+ individuals.

Previous literature investigating the experiences of those who identify as LGBTQ+ suggests that these individuals face a number of mental health disparities when compared to their heterosexual and/or cisgender counterparts; this has been attributed to minority stress. This research study aims to investigate the predictive relationship between minority stress levels and stigma consciousness (expectations of being met with discrimination due to a stigmatised minority identity) and identity distress as proximal stressors along with sense of belonging to the LGBTQ+ community and self-esteem as protective factors. One hundred and eight participants recruited through volunteer sampling completed online questionnaires regarding these four predictors and their levels of minority stress. Due to multicollinearity, the self-esteem and identity distress measures were removed from further analysis. Results indicated that stigma consciousness was a strong predictor of minority stress levels while sense of belonging did not significantly protect individuals from experiencing minority stress. Results highlight the fact that more needs to be done to reduce levels of stigma consciousness among those who identify as LGBTQ+, ways to do this are discussed.
Multi-Task Learning for Storage Systems

Storage systems rely on predicting future workload behavior for making decisions in components such as caches, block allocators, and prefetchers. However, they are often oblivious to the applications using them, and rely on features such as access frequencies or offsets. This limits the prediction accuracy they can achieve. We propose a new approach to prediction in storage systems, inspired by recent multi-task learning successes in NLP. Instead of relying on low-level features, we propose to train a machine learning model on unstructured application-level features that are already available in distributed tracing systems, widely deployed in data centers. While these features are predictive, the long-tailed, heterogeneous and dynamic nature of data center workloads means that training such models is expensive and needs to be repeated when workloads shift or the prediction task changes. We address this problem through a multi-task model that jointly learns how to perform different storage-related tasks. The aspiration is that when a new scenario is encountered, the model can be ﬁne-tuned to the new task with a small number of samples instead of data-intensive end-to-end training. We present an instance of this approach, based on the Census distributed tracing framework and a shared multi-task Transformer model underpinning 4 task-speciﬁc models. We demonstrate that this shared model is stable over time, and can be co-trained to perform all four tasks. We believe that this approach represents a new strategy for ML in storage systems and shows that storage prediction tasks that have traditionally been treated as separate can share information.
The role of Trust in e-government effectiveness, operational effectiveness and user satisfaction : the case of Colombia

E-government systems are becoming an essential strategy for socio-economic development as countries’ governments begin to integrate their operations with local organizations or Government to Business (G2B). The purpose of this research is to investigate whether trust plays a relevant role in the alignment of system effectiveness— represented by the quality of the e-government systems, quality of the information and quality of the service—and the effectiveness of the operations—quality, cost, and flexibility—and user satisfaction of the organizations using these technological innovations, as these views have not been investigated before in South America, and particularly in Colombia. The preliminary findings resulting from the application of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to the hypothesized theoretical model, suggest that there is a predictive relationship of trust with quality of the system, quality of information, and quality of the service, and of quality of the information with quality, cost, and flexibility. Therefore, trust is built through the effectiveness of the operations that e-government systems bring to organizations, and trust also has a relevant role in the effectiveness of the e-government systems. Additionally, quality of the system and quality of the service have no impact on operational effectiveness. However, quality of information scored the highest and showed the most significant impact on operational effectiveness. In order to build up effective operations of the users of e-government applications, the government needs to improve the quality of the systems and quality of the service.
The Effects of an Active Learning Approach through Service Learning to Improve Students’ Learning Achievement and Enhance Public Consciousness of Undergraduate Students

The objective of this research was to examine the effects of active learning through the use of service learning by comparing the learning achievement and public consciousness of undergraduate students who were taught using active learning through service learning approach on the one hand, and through a normal approach on the other hand. The samples size was 63 undergraduate students that were selected using a cluster random sampling method. Those have been divided into two groups: 32 students in the experimental group and 31 students in the controlled group. Research instruments employed were as follows: (1) lesson plans for active learning through service learning, following the steps of SIARE Model, (2) a learning achievement test, and (3) a public consciousness test. The data analysis was conducted using Mean (X), standard deviation, and one-way MANOVA. The results were as follows: (1) the learning achievement and public consciousness of the group RESUMEN: El objetivo de esta investigación fue examinar los efectos del aprendizaje activo a través del uso del aprendizaje de servicio mediante la comparación del logro de aprendizaje y la conciencia pública de los estudiantes de pregrado a quienes se les enseñó el aprendizaje activo a través del enfoque de aprendizaje de servicio, por un lado, y a través de un enfoque normal. por otra parte. El tamaño de las muestras fue de 63 estudiantes universitarios que fueron seleccionados utilizando un método de muestreo aleatorio por conglomerados. Se han dividido en dos grupos: 32 estudiantes en el grupo experimental y 31 estudiantes en el grupo controlado. Los instrumentos de investigación empleados fueron los siguientes: (1) planes de lecciones para el aprendizaje activo a través del aprendizaje en servicio, siguiendo los pasos del Modelo SIARE, (2) una prueba de logro de aprendizaje y (3) una prueba de conciencia pública. El análisis de los datos se realizó utilizando la media (X), la HOME Revista ESPACIOS
The role of freshwater bioacoustics in ecological research

Conventional methodologies used to estimate biodiversity in freshwater ecosystems can be nonselective and invasive, sometimes leading to capture and potential injury of vulnerable species. Therefore, interest in noninvasive surveying techniques is growing among freshwater ecologists. Passive acoustic monitoring, the noninvasive recording of environmental sounds, has been shown to effectively survey biota in terrestrial and marine ecosystems. However, knowledge of the sounds produced by freshwater species is relatively scarce. Furthermore, little is known about the representation of different freshwater taxonomic groups and habitat types within the literature. Here we present results of a systematic review of research literature on freshwater bioacoustics and identify promising areas of future research. The review showed that fish are the focal taxonomic group in 44% of published studies and were studied primarily in laboratory aquaria and lotic habitats. By contrast, lentic habitats and other taxonomic groups have received relatively little research interest. It is particularly striking that arthropods are only represented by 26% of studies, despite their significant contributions to freshwater soundscapes. This indicates a mismatch between the representation of taxonomic groups within the freshwater bioacoustic literature and their relative acoustic contribution to natural freshwater soundscapes. In addition, the review indicates an ongoing shift from behavioral studies, often with focus on a single taxonomic group, towards field‐based studies using ecoacoustic approaches. On the basis of this review we suggest that future freshwater bioacoustics research should focus on passive acoustic monitoring and arthropod sound, which would likely yield novel insights into freshwater ecosystem function and condition.
The effect of salinity gradient and heavy metal pollution on arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal community structure in some Algerian wetlands

Algerian natural wetlands suffer from anthropogenic disturbances due to industrial development and urbanization. This study was designed to draw attention to arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) distribution and community assemblages following heavy metal and salinity concentrations in two wetlands subjected to domestic and industrial effluents. Rhizospheric soil and roots of 18 plant species were collected in two wetlands along a decreasing salinity gradient. The results showed that 72.72% of plant species exhibit an association within arbuscular mycorrhizas (AM), and 36.36% a dual association between AM and dark septate endophytes (DSE). A total of 33 AMF morphospecies were distinguished on the basis of morphological criteria dominated by taxa belonging to Glomeraceae and Acaulosporaceae. Soil contamination was investigated by determining metallic trace elements (MTE) (Cd, Cu, Ni, Pb, Cr and Zn) using an atomic absorption spectrophotometer. Values of the pollution index revealed wetlands that were particularly polluted by lead. Two-way ANOVA showed significant variations in metal content among sampling locations and transects. Principal component analysis showed that species richness, and mycorrhizal frequency were slightly affected by MTE. This opens possibilities for their utilization in polluted soil remediation.
Clusters of Individuals Experiences form a Continuum of Persistent Non-Symbolic Experiences in Adults

Persistent forms of nondual awareness, enlightenment, mystical experience, and so forth (Persistent Non-Symbolic Experience) have been reported since antiquity. Though sporadic research has been performed on these experiences, the scientific literature has yet to report a large-scale cognitive psychology study of this population. Method: Assessment of the subjective experience of 319 adult participants reporting persistent non-symbolic experience was undertaken using 6-12 hour semi-structured interviews and evaluated using grounded theory and thematic analysis. Results: Five core, consistent categories of change were uncovered: sense-of-self, cognition, affect, perception, and memory. Participants’ reports formed phenomenological groups in which the types of change in each of these categories were consistent. Multiple groupings were uncovered that formed a range of composite experiences. The variety of these experiences and their underlying categories may inform the debate between constructivist, common core, and participatory theorists.
The Balance between Interleukin 5 and Interleukin 10 Level in Persistent Atopic Asthma after House Dust Mite Allergen Dermatophaigoides pteronyssinus (Der p) Stimulation

Asthma is a chronic inflammation of the respiratory tract characterized by coughing, shortness of breath, wheezing and limited expiratory airflow. Interleukin 10 (IL-10) is a cytokine produced by T regulators which functions to suppress pro-inflammatory production and development. Interleukin 5 (IL-5) is glycoprotein produced by Th2 which acts as a proinflammatory agent. This study aimed to analyze how to balance between IL-10 and IL-5 levels on persistent atopic asthma. The study design was an experimental research method with invitro study used isolation and cell culture of Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cell (PBMC) with negative control Roswell Park Memorial Institute (RPMI) medium, positive control Phytohaemaglutinin (PHA) and house dust mite allergen stimulation 10 µl. This study involved 39 samples asthmatic. There was a significant increase in IL-5 levels after stimulation of house dust mite allergens with p: 0.000; there was a significant decrease in IL-10 levels after house dust mite allergen stimulation with p: 0.000. Our study suggests that IL-5 and IL-10 balance is related to persistent atopic asthma after house dust mite allergen Der p stimulation. Keywords: Interleukin 5, Interleukin 10, Atopic Asthma, house dust mite allergen, ELISA
Response of Immature Oil Palm Growth and CO2 emission on Intercropping System After Replanting

One of the problems in smallholder oil palm plantations was the financing for replanting and loss of revenues during immature oil palm period. One alternative to the problem was the development of an adaptive plant system through intercropping crops planted among immature oil palm crops. The research was conducted in banjar seminai village, dayun subdistrict, siak regency, Riau Province on May to October 2017. The study used a factorial randomized block design with three replications. Annual crops treatment consists of corn, soybean, eggplant and chili. The results showed that there was positive response of oil palm height on intercropping systems. Corn intercropping plants increased the height of oil palm crops. The intercropping plants had no significant effect on the number of leaf midrib and the width of oil palm canopy. Monoculture oil palm crops without intercropping produced average emissions of 8.78 t CO2 ha-1yr-1. Oil palm intercrop with eggplant and soybean produces the highest CO2 emissions of 10.4 and 10.2 t CO2 ha-¹yr-¹, while oil palm in intercrop with chili produced the lowest CO2 emissions of 8.66 t CO2 ha-1yr-¹.
Resistance Separation of Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cell by Polarization Curve and Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy

The separation of resistances during their measurement is important because it helps to identify contributors in polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cell performance. The major methodologies for separating the resistances are electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and polarization curves. In addition, an equivalent circuit was selected for EIS analysis. Although the equivalent circuit of PEM fuel cells has been extensively studied, less attention has been paid to the separation of resistances, including protonic resistance in the cathode catalyst layer (CCL). In this study, polarization curve and EIS analyses were conducted to separate resistances considering the charge transfer resistance, mass transport resistance, high frequency resistance, and protonic resistance in the CCL. A general solution was mathematically derived using the recursion formula. Consequently, resistances were separated and analyzed with respect to variations in relative humidity in the entire current density region. In the case of ohmic resistance, high frequency resistance was almost constant in the main operating load range (0.038–0.050 Ω cm2), while protonic resistance in the CCL exhibited sensitivity (0.025–0.082 Ω cm2) owing to oxygen diffusion and water content.
Teachers and researchers as co-designers? A design-based research on reading comprehension instruction in primary education

Insights from scientific reading research only partially resonate in Dutch teaching materials for reading comprehension, and hence in the classroom. As an attempt to bridge the gap between science and educational practice, a design-based research was conducted in which four primary school teachers translated four researcher-provided design principles into practice. In two successive design cycles, the teachers designed and implemented lessons on informational text structures, under supervision of two researchers. The aim of the study was to gain insight into the viability of the design principles and into the level of support teachers need in order to become effective co-designers. Based on data from lesson artefacts, teacher logbooks, panel interviews and lesson observations, we found that the teachers experienced several implementation difficulties. These difficulties were partially due to the fact that there was a tension between two design principles, and that one design principle needed refinement. However, in most cases, the implementation difficulties could be explained by teachers’ limited pedagogical content knowledge. As a result, the teachers needed a high level of support, especially in text selection and revision. Teacher beliefs and habits also interfered with the implementation of the design principles, especially when it came to the importance of working with authentic texts, and teachers’ views on effective modeling.Our study raises questions about the feasibility of equal participation of researchers and teachers at the start of a DBR project, but also shows how DBR can successfully contribute to teacher professionalization if researchers provide adequate support throughout the design process.