Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Risk-taking under Relative Performance Pay and Bonus Regulation

We conducted a lab experiment with 253 participants to examine how constraints on bonus akin to bonus regulations, such as bonus cap and malus, affect individuals’ risk-taking in the presence of relative performance pay. Participants took greater risks when bonus was linked to investment performance relative to that of their peers (relative performance pay) than when it depended on their own performance only. Moreover, participants took even greater risks when relative performance pay was made more competitive. While bonus cap and malus reduced risk-taking in the absence of relative performance pay, their risk-mitigating effects were significantly weakened in the presence of relative performance pay. In addition, we found that other things equal, participants took less risk, when bonus was made conditional on the profitability of the team. JEL Classification: C91, G28, G40, J31, J33, M52 1 Bank of England. Email: qun.harris@bankofengland.co.uk. Any views expressed are solely those of the authors and so cannot be taken to represent those of the Bank of England or to state Bank of England policy. This paper should therefore not be reported as representing the views of the Bank of England or members of the Monetary Policy Committee, Financial Policy Committee or Prudential Regulation Committee. 2 Bank of England. Email: misa.tanaka@bankofengland.co.uk 3 London School of Economics and Political Science. Email: e.c. soane@lse.ac. uk
PORTFOLIO LENDING STRATEGY AND BANKS PERFORMANCE IN JORDAN: WHAT TO DO?

This empirical investigation examines the impact of loan diversification; individual lending, mortgage lending, small-medium sized enterprises lending, government lending and corporate lending, in addition to bank size on Jordanian commercial banks performance. Thirteen commercial banks in Jordan used for the time period 2000-2018 applying Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR). The data was collected from central bank of Jordan website and the different websites for the relevant banks. The results indicate that loan diversification does impact Jordanian commercial banks performance. In particular, individual lending, corporate lending & mortgage lending have positive impact on banks performance, while the SMEs lending and government lending have negative impact on performance. The study recommends that banks must focus on lending sectors that positively affect its profitability such as mortgage lending, individual lending and corporate lending. Thus, the strategy that Jordanian banks should follow is to concentrate more on mortgage lending, individual lending then corporate lending in order to increase their performance.
The effect of enhanced recovery after surgery on lower limb varicose vein patients undergoing endovascular laser therapy

Objective: To assess the effect of enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) in patients with recurrent lower limb varicose veins (LLVV) who underwent endovascular laser therapy (EVLT). Methods: A total of 80 patients with recurrent LLVV receiving EVLT and the perioperative normal nursing mode from October 2016 to October 2017 were placed in the control group, and another 86 patients who underwent EVLT combined with ERAS from December 2017 to December 2018 were placed in the observation group. The swelling degrees of the affected limbs after the operations, the complications rates, the postoperative first ambulation times, the lengths of the postoperative hospital stays, the nursing quality, and the patients’ satisfaction scores were compared between these two groups. Results: The observation group had significantly milder swelling degrees of the affected limbs, lower complication rates, shorter postoperative first ambulation times, shorter lengths of their postoperative hospital stays, higher nursing quality, and higher patient satisfaction scores compared with the control group. The differences were regarded as statistically significant (P < 0.05). Conclusion: ERAS has a good effect in the treatment of recurrent LLVV with EVLT and can promote rapid recovery after surgery and improve nursing quality.
Python inspired artificial neural networks modeling in drilling of glass-hemp-flax fiber composites

As composites are materials whose properties can essentially be customized to suit the necessities of the engineering application on hand, they are being widely used in many applications for radically different purposes. In order to ensure quality in production process of composite products, a solid understanding of the process involved during its manufacturing is essential to ensure the product is free from both internal and external defects. To that aim, a study was conducted to model Thrust force and Torque on drilling of Glass-Hemp-Flax reinforced polymer composite by fabricating and maching the composite as per Taguchi's L 27 Orthogonal Array. The process parameters considered for modeling are drill diameter, spindle speed and feed rate. Using the process control parameters as inputs and thrust force and torque to be predicted as outputs, artificial neural networks (ANNs) were created to model the effects of the inputs and their interactions. The predictions obtained from the neural networks were compared with the values obtained from experimentation. Excellent agreement was found between the two sets of values, establishing grounds for more extensive use of neural networks in modelling of machining parameters.
We “Meme” Business: Exploring Malaysian Youths’ Interpretation of Internet Memes in Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is gaining momentum in recent years due to its ability in reaching out to the target audience in a short period of time. Many forms of social media marketing strategies have been introduced and tested and one that is widely used is Internet memes. Despite its widespread use, there is a need to know if iconicity of memes would be affected when they are used in local contexts. Iconicity refers to the match between form (images and texts) and meanings. This paper reports findings from a qualitative study that investigated the iconicity of memes used in marketing by analysing their language features in relation the feedback obtained from the target respondents namely Malaysian youths. A total of 50 respondents were involved and they were told to rate 30 memes in terms of their level of understanding and interpretation. The subsequent in-depth interviews were conducted on five respondents. The findings show that most of the memes were high in terms of iconicity and only seven of them were low. The predominant language features were also analysed and memes with low iconicity tend to use complex sentences, full of short forms and slangs as well as imperative words. The findings from this study may not be generalised but it has provided insightful outcomes for local businesses in planning their social media marketing especially those that plan to capitalise on the rising trend of Internet memes.
Aerobic endurance (VO2 max) in elite Indian basketball players: A cross sectional study

The physiological demands imposed on basketball players is provided by the aerobic and anaerobic energy systems. It was conventionally assumed that anaerobic training improved the strength and conditioning of basketball players. However, recent studies show the importance of aerobic training in athletes. The Yo-Yo intermittent recovery test is used to assess an athlete’s aerobic capacity. This study aimed to determine the maximal oxygen uptake (VO2 max) of basketball players using Yo-Yo intermittent recovery test. The study included 24 participants. The athletes were asked to follow the command given by an audio clip, to run back and forth between placed cones. Distance covered (marked at 5 and 20 meters) and speed levels were recorded (distance/time), and VO2 max was calculated using Yo-Yo intermittent recovery test. Results of the study reported that the VO2 max of the players was 48.06±60 ml/kg/min. Distance covered by the participants was 1456.67±313.39 meters, with minimum of 800 and maximum of 1880 meters. The maximum speed level was achieved by the player positioned in post/power forward (17.37±0.58 km/hr). The distance covered and the speed level had a strong correlation with VO2 max (P< 0.001). The study concluded that the VO2 max or the aerobic endurance is a key point in every sport, and yet there are no research papers on the aerobic endurance (VO2 max) of elite Indian basketball players. The aerobic endurance of basketball players in this study was found to be 48.06±60 ml/kg/min, suggesting further aerobic conditioning in basketball players in India is essential.
Relation between soil solution composition and petiole cellular extract of crops in western Mexico

Crop fertilization greatly impacts food production. However, insufficient applications can lead to poor yields. On the other hand, an excessive application leads to soil and aquifers pollution. In this paper, field studies were carried out to determine the ranges of mineral concentration and the interaction of the ions in the soil solution (SS) and the petiole cellular extract (PCE) in several cultures established in the states of Guanajuato, Colima and Jalisco, Mexico. The hypothesis states that there is a causal relationship between the mineral composition of the soil solution (SS) and the minerals and total soluble solids (TSS) in petiole cellular extract (PCE). The following cultures were studied in this research: avocado, blueberry, broccoli, cauliflower, raspberry, strawberry, lettuce, cantaloupe, papaya, and pepper. For each culture, PCE samples and SS samples using a press to break tissue and ceramic tip lysimeters were obtained. The results were processed to obtain ranges of variation within 50% of the closest values to the median. Correlations between the several ion concentrations were analyzed using analysis of variance. The results showed values (mg L-1) of NO3- (40-620), PO43- (17-66), K+ (3-377), Ca2+ (27-582), Na+ (15.3-500), Mg2+ (10-53), Fe3+ (0.6‑1.8), and Zn2+ (2.8-7.4) in soil solution, which allowed obtaining values of NO3- (27-9225), K+ (820-9375), Ca2+ (1.0-650), Na+ (25-620) and TSS (2-13 °Brix) in petiole cellular extract of petiole. Statistically significant correlations were observed between the concentrations of the SS ions regarding the concentrations in PCE in crops suggesting a relationship between the plant nutritive assimilation and cations or anions present in soil solution. The conclusion derived from this study is that ionic concentration ranges registered in the SS and in the PCE provide an approximation to the ranges of nutritional sufficiency for the horticultural crops established in the summer-winter in western Mexico.
Elevated Levels of CA-125, Estradiol and Cortisol as Prominent Markers to Diagnose Various Stages of Endometriosis

Background: Endometriosis is a chronic inflammatory disease condition that affects an estimated 176 million women worldwide. The disease causes unbearable symptoms of pelvic pain and infertility that limit the quality of reproductive life of affected women. Objective: An attempt has been made to identify certain physiological and/or hormonal factors that may behave as reliable diagnostic markers to assess the various stages of endometriosis. Design: A retrospective population-based study. Material and Methods: Questionnaire-based study was conducted on females of Eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar that were suffering from endometriosis. Prevalent patients were characterized in terms of their socio-demographic and clinical characteristics, including validated infertility and chronic disease registries. Results: Progression of the disease was not affected by age and Body Mass Index (BMI) of subjects. The concentration of blood sugar (fasting and PP), and levels of Serum Luteinizing Hormone (LH), Follicle Stimulating Hormone (FSH), T4, and Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH) did not change as the disease progressed from stage 1 to 4. However, levels of serum estradiol, cortisol, prolactin, T3, and CA-125 increased as endometriosis progressed. There also existed close associations between CA-125, estradiol and cortisol, and stages of endometriosis. Conclusion: Elevated levels of CA-125, estradiol, and cortisol may behave as prominent diagnostic markers to assess the progression of the disease and to discriminate between various stages of endometriosis.
A Study on the FTIR Spectroscopy of Polylactide Doped with Nano-Aluminium Oxide and Nano-Cupric Oxide

ABSTRACT Elucidation of the structure of naturally existing or synthesized substances is an important criterion in the study of materials to predict the application of the substance. In this study, polylactide was doped with nano-aluminium oxide and nano-cupric oxide with 1 and 3 mg of concentration variants. The interaction between the polymer matrix and the nanoparticles has been studied using Fourier transform infrared. Successful doping of the polymer has been observed. Attention has been drawn to check the intermolecular bonding in films having varying thicknesses, films prepared at higher sonication temperatures, and chemical homogeneity of the doped polymer films. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT
Examining the Gender and Grade Level Differences in Mathematics Anxiety

Globally, mathematics has always been perceived as a challenging subject, thus students across schooling levels have disliked mathematics leading to the feeling of anxiety towards the subject. This study investigated students’ mathematics anxiety levels across gender and grade (Grade 6 of elementary school and 4th Year of High School) in the south central part of the Philippines. The Fennema-Sherman Mathematics Anxiety Scale (FSMAS) was employed to examine the levels of mathematics anxiety of 6,672 elementary and secondary students from the seven school divisions in Region XII. The data were analysed by independent-sample t-test using SPSS 20. The results showed that there was a significant gender difference in terms of their anxiety towards mathematics. The results also indicated a significant difference on the anxiety levels between grade 6 and 4 Year of High School students, with grade 6 having the higher anxiety level compared to 4th year high school students. It is recommended to extend the study to different groups of students in different school levels using a more complex modelling and statistical methods.
Glutaminergic Signaling in the Nucleus Accumbens Modulates the Behavioral Response to Acute and Chronic Methylphenidate

Methylphenidate (MPD) is a psychostimulant that acts on the CNS to produce behavioral effects. The nucleus accumbens (NAc) is involved in this, however the role of the NAc’s glutaminergic system in the behavioral response to MPD has not been studied. Three groups of animals were used: control, sham NAc lesions, and glutaminergic-specific (ibotenic acid toxin) NAc lesion groups. On experimental day (ED) 1, all groups received saline. On ED 2, NAc surgeries took place, followed by a 5-day recovery period (ED 3-7). On ED 8 a post-surgical baseline recording was obtained. Groups then received six daily MPD 2.5 mg/kg injections (ED 9-14) to produce a chronic effect of MPD exposure, behavioral sensitization, then three days of washout (ED 15-17), followed by a re-challenge with 2.5 mg/ kg MPD on ED 18. Locomotive activity was recorded for 60 minutes after each injection. All groups showed an increase in behavioral activity following acute MPD exposure, and developed behavioral sensitization following chronic MPD exposure that was maintained after washout. Compared to NAc intact controls and sham lesions, glutaminergic selective ibotenic acid lesions to the NAc significantly (P<0.05) attenuated the horizontal activity response to both acute and chronic MPD. Glutaminergic selective ibotenic acid lesions to the NAc also resulted in further significant (P<0.05) augmentation of stereotypic activity above the control group. The glutaminergic lesion failed to modulate total distance traveled. This indicates that glutaminergic signaling in the NAc modulates behavioral activity circuits in the NAc differently, and suggests a role in the volitional response to MPD.
Hypouricemia in type 2 diabetes mellitus without nephropathy: A case control study

Introduction: Some previous studies and our recent study had shown low serum uric acid (UA) in Diabetic patients compared to Non diabetics and it was suggested that low serum UA levels in Diabetics are probably due to uricosuric effect of urinary Glucose. This study was conducted to have an insight regarding the pathophysiology of low serum UA levels in Diabetics. Materials And Methods: Fasting blood glucose(FBG) , Post lunch blood glucose(PLBG), serum UA and 24 hr urinary excretion were estimated in Type 2 Diabetics without nephropathy (Cases) and in Nondiabetic inpatients(Controls) who got admitted into various Departments of KIMS hospital. The comparison of serum UA and 24hr urinary excretion between cases and controls and correlation between 24 hr urinary excretion, FBG and serum UA in cases was tested using SPSS 19 version. Result: Serum UA Mean is low in Diabetics compared to Non diabetics and this difference is significant whereas 24 hr urinary excretion is significantly higher in Diabetics compared to Nondiabetics. Significant negative association between FBG and serum UA and positive association between 24hr urinary UA and FBG and negative association of 24 hr urinary excretion with serum UA in Diabetics which is nonsignificant. Summary and Conclusions: At high concentrations of FBG there is increase in 24 hr urinary excretion providing an objective evidence to hypothesis that low UA levels in diabetics are probably due to inhibition of UA reabsorption in the proximal convoluted tubule of kidney by glucose.
Acceptance of Childhood Vaccination among Parents in Baling , Kedah

Parents have the main role to make decision for vaccinating their child. Majority of children receive their vaccines on time. However, nearly 20 million worldwide still missed out pushing them at risk of serious disease, disability and ill health. A cross-sectional study was carried out in July-August 2019 in Baling, Kedah to determine the acceptance of childhood vaccination for their children among parents there. This research used convenience sampling method. Data then has been analyzed using SPSS version 25.0. The response rate was 100%. Majority of the respondents were female (61.5%), Malay race (48.2%), mean age of 36.24 years old, SPM educated (31.0%), work as government officer (42.4%) and had income level in the range of RM1,000-RM3,000 (42.4%). The socio-economics characteristics (education, occupation status and income level), perceived benefits and barrier and external cues to action can caused the acceptance of childhood vaccination. (45.5%). 93.0% parents accept the childhood vaccination for their children.
Impact of lateral groundwater flow on hydrothermal conditions of the active layer in a high arctic hillslope setting

Abstract. Modeling the physical state of permafrost landscapes is a crucial addition to field observations in order to understand its feedback mechanisms within a warming climate. A common hypothesis in permafrost modeling is that vertical heat conduction is most relevant to derive subsurface temperatures. While this approach is mostly applicable to flat landscapes with little topography, landscapes with more topography are subject to lateral flow process as well. With our study, we want to contribute to the growing body of evidence that lateral surface- and subsurface processes can have a significant impact on permafrost temperatures and active layer properties. We use a numerical model to simulated two idealized hillslopes with inclinations that can be found in Adventdalen, Svalbard, and compare them to a flat control case. We find that ground temperatures within the active layer uphill are generally warmer than downhill in both slopes (up to ~1.2 °C in the steep, and ~0.7 °C in the medium slope). Further, the slopes are found to be warmer in the uphill section and colder in the very bottom of the slopes compared to the flat control case. As a result, maximum thaw depth increases by about 5 cm from the flat (75 cm) to the steep slope (80 cm), while the medium case does not exhibit a deepening in thaw depth (75 cm). Uphill warming on the slopes is explained by additional energy gain through infiltration and lower evaporation rates due to a overall drier environment. The major governing process causing the cooling on the downslope side is heat loss to the atmosphere through evaporation in summer and enhanced heat loss in winter due to wetter conditions and resulting higher thermal conductivity. On a catchment scale, these results suggest that temperature distributions in hilly terrain can vary considerably compared to flat terrain, which might change the response of subsurface hydrothermal conditions to ongoing climate change.
D ON ’ T STACK LAYERS IN GRAPH NEURAL NETWORKS , WIRE THEM RANDOMLY

Several results suggest an inherent difﬁculty of graph neural networks in extracting better performance by increasing the number of layers. Recent works attribute this to a phenomenon peculiar to the extraction of node features in graph-based tasks, i.e., the need to consider multiple neighborhood sizes at the same time and adaptively tune them. In this paper, we investigate the recently proposed randomly wired architectures in the context of graph neural networks. Instead of building deeper networks by stacking many layers, we prove that employing a randomly-wired architecture can be a more effective way to increase the capacity of the network and obtain richer representations. We show that such architectures behave like an ensemble of paths, which are able to merge contributions from receptive ﬁelds of varied size. Moreover, these receptive ﬁelds can also be modulated to be wider or narrower through the trainable weights over the paths.
Tailoring Hollow Silicon–Carbon Nanocomposites As High-Performance Anodes in Secondary Lithium-Based Batteries through Economical Chemistry

A sustainable synthesis procedure of a rational-designed silicon–carbon electrode for a high-performance rechargeable Li-based battery has been developed. It was realized by an economical approach using low-cost trichlorosilane as feedstock and without special equipment. The synthesis strategy includes polycondensation of trichlorosilane in the presence of a surfactant to selectively form spheric silicon@silica particles via a hydrogen silsesquioxane (HSQ) intermediate. After subsequent carbonization of a sucrose shell and etching the composite, we obtained an anode material based on silicon nanoparticles with 2–5-nm average diameter inside a porous carbon scaffold. The active material exhibits a high rate capability of 2000 mAh/g at a current rate of 0.5 A/g with exceptional cycle stability. After almost 1000 times of deep discharge galvanostatic cycling at 2.5 A/g current rate the capacity is still 60% of the initial 1200 mAh/g. The excellent electrochemical performance is attributed to an interaction o.
Correlations of online social network size with well-being and distress: A meta-analysis

This meta-analysis examines the correlations of the number of social network site (SNS) friends with well-being and distress, based on 90 articles consisting of 98 independent samples on correlations of online social network size (OSNS) with happiness, life satisfaction, self-esteem, anxiety, depression, combined anxiety and depression, loneliness, social anxiety, social loneliness, well-being and distress. The correlations between OSNS and well-being indicators are positively weak (from .06 to .15), whereas those for distress indicators are inconclusive (from -.19 to .08). Studies recording the OSNS based on the participant profile have larger mean effect sizes for well-being (.21) and self-esteem (.31) than those based on self-reporting (.06 and .05, respectively). The correlation between OSNS and self-esteem is stronger in samples with a smaller mean network size.