Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Caring for older persons with dementia : the principles of person-centred care

Dementia is not a single disease or condition but a syndrome of multiple causes. It is usually used as an ‘umbrella’ term (Moore, 2009) for more than 200 different conditions and disorders characterised by a progressive deterioration in cognitive function, some of which are considerably rare. Knopman et al. (2003) proposed different diagnostic criteria for differentiating between the most common types of dementia, namely Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Vascular Dementia, Dementia with Lewy Body and Fronto-temporal dementia. Such cognitive decline includes loss of memory and impairment in executive functions such as planning and organisational skills, accompanied by personality changes and deterioration in cognitive function sufficient to limit social activities.
LIQUID – LIQUID EXTRACTION OF VANADIUM (V) FROM PERCHLORIC ACID SOLUTIONS BY TRIOCTYLPHOSPHINE OXIDE

Many inorganic acids lack counter-ions required for the formation of extractable metal species thereby necessitating a continuous search, which has been extended to perchloric acid (HClO4) used in the current work with trioctylphosphine oxide (TOPO) extractant dissolved in purified kerosene to extract vanadium (V). Batch extractions were carried out in a separating funnel mechanically shaken at 120 rpm. The analysis of the V (V) content of the aqueous and organic phases were by UV – visible spectrophotometry based on hydrogen peroxide complex formation method. Various experimental conditions that could affect the percentage V(V) extraction (extraction efficiency, E%) were investigated. With increase in concentration of HClO4 at the studied range (1.0 – 6.0 mol dm), the extraction efficiency increased to an optimal value of 43.3 % at [HClO4] = 6.0 mol dm at an ionic strength of [NaClO4] = 0.1 mol dm and extractant concentration of log [TOPO] = 1.19 mol dm, and least (E % = 10.0) at [HClO4] = 5.0 mol dm, while an intermediate value of E% = 33.3 was observed at [HClO4] = 3.0 mol dm, which was employed for a substantial part of the work to avoid TOPO degradation at higher concentrations. The mixing of other extractants with TOPO was found non synergistic to V (V) extraction. Increased ionic strength was observed to have no appreciable effect on the extraction efficiency. All the added foreign ions increased the E% for V (V), highest with V (E% = 50.0) and Sr (E% = 46.7) compared with E% = 33.3 without added foreign ion. Based on analytical and spectra data, the mechanism of extraction was deduced to be by the formation of two different extractable species VO2ClO4 . TOPO and (VO2ClO4)m . nTOPO (where m >> n) at lower and higher concentrations, respectively. It could be inferred at the studied conditions that TOPO was slightly efficient for the removal of V (V) from HClO4 solutions.
The combined effects of filter-feeding bivalves (Cristaria plicata) and submerged macrophytes (Hydrilla verticillate) on phytoplankton assemblages in nutrient-enriched freshwater mesocosms

Freshwater ecosystems are threatened by eutrophication, which causes persistent and harmful algal blooms. Filter-feeding bivalve mollusks and submerged macrophytes (SMs) alleviate the eutrophication effects by inhibiting phytoplankton biomass blooms. However, very little is known about whether and how the combined manipulation of filter-feeding bivalves and SMs control eutrophication and influence phytoplankton assemblages. Here, we performed a nutrient-enriched freshwater mesocosm experiment to assess the combined effects of the filter-feeding bivalve Cristaria plicata, a cockscomb pearl mussel, and the macrophyte Hydrilla verticillate on the biomass and composition of phytoplankton assemblages. We found that addition of C. plicata and H. verticillate decreased the water nutrient concentrations and suppressed overall phytoplankton biomass. Further, distinct differences in taxa between restoration and control treatments were observed and noticeably competitive exclusion of cyanobacteria in the restoration treatments occurred. An antagonistic interaction between filter-feeding bivalves and SMs was only detected for total cyanobacteria biomass demonstrating that a larger magnitude of SM restoration may override the effect of filter-feeding bivalves. Our results suggest that manipulation, through the addition of bivalves as grazers, associated with the restoration of SMs, is an efficient approach for reducing cyanobacterial blooms and alleviating eutrophication.
Dataset size considerations for robust acoustic and phonetic speech encoding models in EEG

In many experiments that investigate auditory and speech processing in the brain using electroencephalography (EEG), the experimental paradigm is often lengthy and tedious. Typically, the experimenter errs on the side of including more data, more trials, and therefore conducting a longer task to ensure that the data are robust and effects are measurable. Recent studies used naturalistic stimuli to investigate the brain's response to individual or a combination of multiple speech features using system identification techniques, such as multivariate temporal receptive field (mTRF) analyses. The neural data collected from such experiments must be divided into a training set and a test set to fit and validate the mTRF weights. While a good strategy is clearly to collect as much data as is feasible, it is unclear how much data are needed to achieve stable results. Furthermore, it is unclear whether the specific stimulus used for mTRF fitting and the choice of feature representation affects how much data would be required for robust and generalizable results. Here, we used previously collected EEG data from our lab using sentence stimuli and movie stimuli as well as EEG data from an open-source dataset using audiobook stimuli to better understand how much data needs to be collected for naturalistic speech experiments measuring acoustic and phonetic tuning. We found that the EEG receptive field structure tested here stabilizes after collecting a training dataset of approximately 200 s of TIMIT sentences, around 600 s of movie trailers training set data, and approximately 460 s of audiobook training set data. Thus, we provide suggestions on the minimum amount of data that would be necessary for fitting mTRFs from naturalistic listening data. Our findings are motivated by highly practical concerns when working with children, patient populations, or others who may not tolerate long study sessions. These findings will aid future researchers who wish to study naturalistic speech processing in healthy and clinical populations while minimizing participant fatigue and retaining signal quality.
Innovating Institutions: Enriching Innovation Systems with Institutional Entrepreneurship

Innovation systems provide an analytical framework to understand the emergence and diffusion of innovations. Innovations are accompanied by the institutionalization of new sociotechnical configurations and thus require institutional change. Sustainability transitions, which are increasingly important for policy makers to meet current global challenges, require such institutional change processes. An efficient innovation system is then one that is able to change its own institutions. Widely used innovation system approaches based on either territorial or technological premises are however flawed in their conceptualization of institutional context and embedded agency, which compromises thorough understanding of institutional change processes within these systems. To understand an innovation system in its capacity to change its own institutions, it is then important to create an innovation system theory that properly accounts for embedded agency and subsequently institutional change. To create such a theory, we turn to institutional entrepreneurship literature, which is a fully fledged theory on institutional change. We have performed a systematic literature review of 93 articles on institutional entrepreneurship to gather insights on components of structure and agency within institutional change processes and subsequently properly embed institutional entrepreneurship within the structural context of an innovation system. We found that the main strategies employed by institutional entrepreneurs are dependent on their institutional context (being either emerging or mature organizational fields) and the type of innovation (being either technological, organizational or cognitive/cultural) that takes place. Furthermore, we found institutional entrepreneurship is a collective rather than an individual endeavor, and includes multiple (dispersed) actors in addition to the institutional entrepreneur, whose influence cannot be overlooked in the process of institutional change. Our results contribute to the formulation of an encompassing innovation system theory accounting for embedded agency and institutional change processes. These insights are relevant for policy makers concerned with sustainability transitions, as they can aid in formulating policy to accelerate institutional change processes needed to pursue such transitions.
Political dynamics and the effectiveness of aid programmes

There is an increasing recognition amongst development scholars and practitioners that the obstacles to effective change in developing countries are not only related to technical or financial issues, but are also bound up with domestic politics and power relationships (DfID 2010a; DfID 2010b; Di John and Putzel, 2009; Leftwich: 2011; Parks and Cole, 2010; DFID 2016). As a result of the growing appreciation of the political barriers to development, donors and research organisations have developed a range of analytical frameworks and diagnostic tools to help navigate the political and economic conditions which can restrict the effectiveness of aid programmes.
Chemotherapy-induced thrombocytopenia and platelet transfusion in patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma

Background Currently, the risk factors associated with chemotherapy-induced thrombocytopenia (CIT) in patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) are still undefined. Our study aimed to analyze the effects of risk factors on thrombocytopenia and to identify the threshold for infusion platelets of CIT patients who have received platelet transfusions. Methods We conducted a retrospective analysis of 523 patients with DLBCL from 2011 to 2013. The clinical and demographic parameters were extracted, and the risk factors associated with CIT were analyzed. The threshold for platelet transfusions in DLBCL patients with a central venous catheter (CVC) was evaluated. Results A total of 227 (43.4%) DLBCL patients had thrombocytopenia, and 63 (12.0%) had thrombocytopenia without concomitant cytopenia. We found that the choice of chemotherapy regimen was positively correlated with thrombocytopenia (P<0.001). The chemotherapy regimens most likely to result in thrombocytopenia were dexamethasone, cytarabine, cisplatin (DHAP) (92.3%), isophosphamide, carboplatin, etoposide (ICE) (89.7%), gemcitabine, dexamethasone, cisplatin (GDP) (89.7%), gemcitabine, and oxaliplatin (Gemox) (69.0%). In addition to these, high lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) (P=0.004) and Ann Arbor stage III/IV (P=0.024) were determined to be risk factors leading to thrombocytopenia. Forty patients (17.6%) had transfused platelets, and all of them were placed in the CVC. The high-threshold group (platelet count ≤20×109/L had a significantly lower amount of platelet transfusions than the low-threshold group ≤10×109/L. The platelet transfusion amount was 1.44±0.77 vs. 2.05±1.13 (P=0.047), respectively. Conclusions The chemotherapy regimens of DHAP, ICE, GDP, and Gemox can easily lead to thrombocytopenia. A high level of LDH in the peripheral blood and Ann Arbor stage III/IV are also associated with risk factors for thrombocytopenia. A 20×109/L prophylactic platelet transfusion threshold value is safer, more effective, and thus a better choice for DLBCL patients with CVC.
MODIFICATION OF DATE PALM MUCILAGE AND EVALUATION OF THEIR NUTRACEUTICAL POTENTIAL

In the current panorama of the industrial world, nano particles have become the blessing to solve many of the industrial problems such as in medicines, food, health related products and different industrial operations because of their physiochemical properties. These properties are related to their behavior in electrical field, behavior under heat treatment, response to different electromagnetic radiations and their biological properties etc. Among the nanoparticles, silver nano particles exhibited excellent behavior towards electrical, magnetic as well as health care properties (Zhang et al., 2016; Bibi et al., 2017). As silver nano particles have excellent bactericidal effects and can retard the growth of bacteria as well as fungi. They heal up speedily wounds related to microbial infections. Due to their extraordinary medicinal effects, silver nano particles have tremendous application in medical devices, such as incorporated into bandages and medicines available commercially for their synergistic effects (Bibi et al., 2017). Silver nano particles are produced by number of methods but biologically produced silver nano particles are more ecofriendly, qualitatively more compatible, easy to produce, more reliable to use and having more efficiency and dynamic character in the green nano world (Zhang et al., 2016). In the process of nano formulation, number of biomolecules is the key factors. Most of the plants parts or plant extracts act as capping agent/ green matrix in metallic nano formulation during the biosynthesis of nanoparticles. These biosynthesized nano particles are more effective, non-toxic, fast acting and involving less input. These simple and fast acting biosynthesis methods can be used for the production of nano particles commercially (Shahid et al., 2016). Physiochemical as well as biological methods are available for the nano particles formulation and synthesis. In comparison to chemical preparations, ecofriendly nano particles can be synthesized by using biological molecules that resulted in the production of non-toxic, energetic products. Chemical preparations of nano particles not only resulted in the formation of nano formulation but also emission of toxic chemicals that are threat to environment as reported by Khatami and Pourseyedi (2015). In the past, for the production of metallic nano particles, different chemical or biochemical matrix (Starch and tannic acid) were used as capping material causing the reduction of metals. Recently, researchers have paid attention on the utilization of biological macromolecules such as carbohydrate polymers, gum and mucilages for the reduction of silver and gold during the process of nano formulation (Rashid et al., 2016). Mucilage are present in most of the plants as a intracellular metabolite whereas gums are product Pak. J. Agri. Sci., Vol. 57(2), 401-411; 2020 ISSN (Print) 0552-9034, ISSN (Online) 2076-0906 DOI: 10.21162/PAKJAS/19.8375 http://www.pakjas. com.pk
Mergers, Entry, and Consumer Welfare

We analyze mergers and entry in a differentiated products oligopoly model of price competition. We prove that any merger among incumbents is unprofitable if it spurs entry sufficient in magnitude to preserve consumer surplus. Thus, mergers occur in equilibrium only if barriers limit entry. Numerical simulations indicate that with profit-neutral mergers --- the best-case for consumers --- entry mitigates under 30 percent of the adverse price effects and, in most cases, under 50 percent of the consumer surplus loss. The results suggest a limited and conditional role for entry analysis in merger review.
EFFECT OF ENTREPRENEURIAL ORIENTATION ON PERFORMANCE OF ISLAMIC FINANCING AMONG MICRO AND SMALL ENTREPRISES IN KENYA

Small and Medium enterprises (SMEs) contribution to the Kenyan economy is widely acknowledged, they cut across all sectors of the economy and provide many employment opportunities and generate widespread economic benefits. However, SMEs face a mixture of success and failure with past statistics indicating that three out five fail within the first few months of operation. The main objective of the study was to investigate the effect of entrepreneurial orientation on the performance of Islamic Financed MSEs in the Kenya. The study also sought to establish the effect of Innovativeness, Risk taking, opportunity recognition and pro-activeness on the performance of Islamic Financed MSE’s in Kenya. The study used a descriptive survey design. The target population of this study was all the 410 SME owners being financed by Islamic banks in Kenya. A formula was used to establish a sample size of 202 respondents. Primary data was collected and analysed descriptively and inferentially. The study found that innovativeness was the most significant factor influencing the performance of MSEs in Kenya most, followed by proactiveness, opportunity recognition and risk taking. The study also found that financial risk, trusting of employees and investing in high risk projects as measures of risk taking among entrepreneurs were influencing the performance of Islamic financed MSEs. The study established that imitativeness towards competitors, imitativeness towards introducing new products as well as overall position as measures of pro-activeness were influencing the performance of Islamic financed MSEs. The study also established that emphasis on research and development, introduction of new products and changes to the current products as measures of innovativeness were influencing the performance of Islamic financed MSEs. The study revealed that number of opportunities in the past, presence of a vision and number of market opportunities as measures of opportunity recognition were influencing the performance of Islamic financed MSEs. The study recommends that MSE owners should improve their risk taking by taking goods on credit, mentoring and coaching of staff, delegation of duties and taking loans for expand their businesses. The study also recommends that MSE owners should be proactive through the development of strategic plans to guide their organizations on what to be done in the future. In addition, MSE owners should improve on the number of times they conduct industry analysis, competitor analysis or market research to at least twice an year.
Alternative Monetary Policy Rules in an Imperfectly Competitive Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium Model

In this paper we study optimal central bank interest rate policy, and compare it to interest rate rules, such as the Wicksell (1898), Fisher (1919) and Taylor (1993) rules, in an imperfectly competitive DSGE model of aggregate fluctuations. We demonstrate that in versions of the model with full price and wage adjustment, or staggered pricing, the optimal policy rule is the Fisher rule of absolute inflation stabilization. We also analyze a version of the model with exogenous inflation shocks, in which the ”divine coincidence” does not apply. In this case, the optimal monetary policy rule takes the form of a Taylor rule, the parameters of which depend on the structural and policy parameters of the model.
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DEBT FINANCING AND FINANCIAL SOUNDNESS OF NON-FINANCIAL COMPANIES LISTED IN NAIROBI SECURITIES EXCHANGE, KENYA

Since independence, Kenya has witnessed many cases of corporate failure among listed companies. In addition, instances of operational but financially struggling corporations have been numerous. This has not only resulted to erosion of confidence in the capital market but has also led to loss of investors’ wealth. Although subsequent investigative reports conducted by government agencies have attributed this phenomenon to aggressive financing by the firms that take up excessive debt to finance their assets, analysts and members of public alike have discredited these explanations on grounds of political expediency and lack of scholarly underpinning. This study therefore investigated the effects of debt financing on financial soundness of non-financial companies listed in the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE), Kenya. The study employed quantitative research design. A census of the 40 non-financial companies listed as at 31 st December 2013 was taken. The study used secondary panel data extracted from the published annual reports and financial statements of listed non-financial companies for the 10 years period from 2004 to 2013. The study estimated the specified the panel regression model INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ARTS AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP VOL. 4, ISSUE 12, 2015 Http://www.ijsse. org ISNN 2307-6305 Page | 18 for random effects as supported by the Hausman test results. Feasible Generalized Least Square (FGLS) regression results revealed that total debt is negatively and significantly related with financial soundness of non-financial firms listed in NSE. Further, long term debt had a positive and significant relationship with financial soundness. The study also found that short term debt was negatively and significantly related with financial soundness of non-financial firms. On the basis of these empirical findings, the study recommended that managers of listed non-financial companies should use debt financing sparingly in an effort to promote the level of financial soundness. Where debt financing must be utilized, long term debt should be employed as it increases the financial soundness of non-financial firms listed in NSE.
A randomized trial comparing beractant and poractant treatment in neonatal respiratory distress syndrome

Aim: To compare the effects of beractant and poractant in neonatal respiratory distress syndrome (RDS). Methods: Infants with RDS were randomized to receive beractant or poractant. The primary outcome measure was fraction of inspired oxygen (FiO2) requirement in the first 48 h after surfactant therapy. Results: 58 infants completed the study. The mean gestational ages for the poractant and beractant groups were 29.6±3.6 and 29.3±2.9 wk, with average birthweights of 1394±699 and 1408±534 g, respectively. In the first 48 h, infants who received poractant had a lower FiO2 requirement compared to those who received beractant (p=0.018). The prevalence of patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) was lower in the group of infants that received poractant (17%) compared to the group that received beractant (45%) (p=0.02).
Some ecological aspects of Phlebotomine sand flies (Diptera: Psychodidae) in an endemic area of leishmaniasis in Darab district, Fars province, southern Iran

Background: Phlebotomus species are solely responsible for transmitting leishmaniasis in the old world. The disease is endemic in several parts of Iran. Darab district located in Fars province of southern Iran is one of the most important endemic foci of cutaneous leishmaniasis. Sand flies and Methods: To identify the distribution of sand flies, a total of 5019 sand flies were collected in Darab district from May to September 2012. To determine the monthly activity, 2039 sand flies were biweekly collected from indoors and outdoors of two villages at lowland and highland regions. The relationship between the frequency of sand flies and wind speed (greater than 3 m/s as the influential factor) was studied. To determine the number of sand flies' bites per night, a native volunteer exposed his body every 1 h from sunset to sunrise. Results: In total, 13 species of Phlebotomine (five Phlebotomus spp. and eight Sergentomyia spp.) were identified. Besides, a relatively significant relationship was found between the frequency of sand flies and wind speed more than 3 m/s, especially in June and July 2012. Moreover, evaluation of the night blood-feeding peak during 8:00 P.M. –6:00 A.M. indicated that most bites occurred at 11:00-12:00 P.M. and 9:00-10:00 P.M. with 125 and 110 bites, respectively. Conclusion: Phlebotomus papatasi was the dominant species (49.2%). Additionally, wind speed more than 3 m/s showed a preventive effect on sand flies' activity. Thus, insecticide-treated nets are recommended to be used for all inhabitants, especially children and pregnant women, to prevent sand flies' bites through the night.