Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Brazilian Companies’ Dividend Payout in a Political Uncertainty Scenario

The analysis of the determinants of the dividend payout policy becomes even more relevant in a context of crisis. In this scenario, companies wonder which strategy shall prevail—either to keep the payout ratio constancy to signal to the market positive aspects about themselves or to adapt it to the external conjuncture, protecting themselves from future uncertainties. This being so, this study aims at identifying the determinants of the dividend payout policy, in the period before and after the former President Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment, by using logarithmic and probabilistic regression models. To this end, a sample of Brazilian non-financial publicly-held companies is considered, whose data are obtained from the Capital IQ base. As a result, the corporate dividend policy is identified as not being affected by the market environment. Such a fact indicates that Brazilian companies choose to maintain their dividend payout policy, even in scenarios of political uncertainty. This study differs from the others for analyzing the relationship between dividend payout decisions, whether in times of stability or in political and economic crisis.
Continuation is a Sub-Task of Fill in the Blank: Why Not Train for Both? Anonymous ACL-IJCNLP submission

The task of inserting text into a speciﬁed position in a passage, known as ﬁll in the blank, is useful for a variety of applications where writers interact with a natural language generation (NLG) system to craft text. However, NLG research has mostly focused on continuation models that append text to the end of a passage. Since continuation is in fact a sub-task of ﬁll in the blank, one where the blank is placed at the sequence’s end, we propose the training of a single model which can effectively handle both these tasks. The result is improved efﬁciency—as only one model needs to be maintained—without any negative impact on performance at either task.
Extracellular Matrix Abnormalities in the Amygdala of Subjects with Schizophrenia Christopher George Brown A Thesis in the Field of Psychology For the Degree of Master of Liberal Arts in Extension Studies

Schizophrenia is a chronic, progressive disease distinguished by bizarre thinking, emotional disturbances, difficulties in motivation, and social dysfunction. Consistent findings have linked the GABAergic neurotransmitter system and the mechanisms regulating neuronal migration, synaptic formation, and neuroplasticity to schizophrenia pathophysiology. Recent evidence has also implicated a previously unsuspected factor, the brain extracellular matrix, in pathophysiology. Perineuronal nets (PNNs) are aggregates of brain extracellular matrix molecules, which form mesh-like structures around distinct classes of GABAergic neurons during late postnatal maturation. PNNs are known to control neuroplasticity, stabilize synaptic connections, regulate receptor trafficking, and protect neurons from oxidative stress. Abnormalities in PNN formation in the amygdala of schizophrenia subjects have previously been reported. The present study focused on PNN formation within the central nucleus of the amygdala (CE), as this had not been previously examined. The CE is an area known to be involved in the expression of fear responses and the generation of social behavior. Results showed no change in either the total number or the numerical density of PNNs in the CE in either subjects with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, suggesting the resiliency of PNNs in this nucleus. Our study also revealed the presence of two distinct types of PNNs in the CE, whose morphology suggest they surround sub-types of GABAergic neurons expressing selected neuropeptides. Alterations in PNN formation seen within distinct amygdaloid nuclei offers clues into the neurobiological underpinnings of schizophrenia pathophysiology.
Impact of Physical Exercise and Food Habit on Type II Diabetes Mellitus Medicated Patients-A Cross Sectional Study

Diabetes mellitus (DM); Dyslipidemia; Food habit; Physical exercise; Logistic regression ABSTRACT: The study attempts at examining the impact of controlled food habit and regular physical exercise on type II diabetic hypertensive patients who were on medications for hyperglycemia and hypertension. A cross-sectional study was demonstrated, and 244 participants were selected from Khulna city of Bangladesh to meet the objective of the study. All the biochemical parameters such as blood sugar, glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c), triglyceride (TG), total cholesterol (TC), low density lipoprotein (LDL) and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) were taken from the blood test reports tested by the hospital. Among all the participants 46.7% were male, 53.3% were female and 61.1% were from urban community whilst 38.9% were from rural community, 29.92% were on medications with regular physical exercise and restricted diet jointly (M+E+F), 45.90% were dependent only on medications (M) and rest 24.18% were on medications with either regular exercise or food habit (M+E/F) for controlling diabetes. Chi-square and logistic regression analysis were used to portray the necessary associations. Chi-square values show significant association for fasting blood sugar (FBS) (p<0.001), blood sugar 2hr after breakfast (p<0.001), HbA1c (p<0.001), TG (p<0.02), TC (p<0.01) but insignificant for diastolic blood pressure (p=0.522), systolic blood pressure (p=0.598), HDL (p=0.764) and LDL (p=0.213) in respect of regular physical exercise and controlled food habit of the respondents. Logistic regression shows physical exercise and food habit are important determinants to control diabetes. Females are more prone to uncontrolled diabetes. Obesity and with increase in age, diabetes is hard to control. However, uncontrolled diabetes indulges dyslipidemia. This may be concluded from the conducted study that beside medication, regular physical exercise and controlled food habit help to control diabetes.
Hyperfine-Resolution Mapping of On-Road Vehicle Emissions with Comprehensive Traffic Monitoring and Intelligent Transportation System

Abstract. Urban on-road vehicle emissions affect air quality and human health locally and globally. Such emissions typically exhibit distinct spatial heterogeneity, varying sharply over short distances (10 m ~ 1 km). However, all-around observational constraints on the emission sources are limited in much of the world. Consequently, traditional emission inventories lack the spatial resolution that can characterize on-road vehicle emission hotspots. Here we establish a bottom-up approach to reveal a unique pattern of urban on-road vehicle emissions at 1 ~ 3 orders of magnitude higher spatial resolution than current inventories. We interconnect all-around traffic monitoring (including traffic fluxes, vehicle-specific categories, and speeds) via an intelligent transportation system (ITS) over the Xiaoshan District in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region. This enables us to calculate single-vehicle-specific emissions over each fine-scale (10 m ~ 1 km) road segment. Thus, a hyperfine emission dataset is achieved, and on-road emission hotspots appear. The resulting map shows that the hourly average on-road vehicle emissions of CO, NOx, HC, and PM2.5 are 74.01 kg, 40.35 kg, 8.13 kg, and 1.68 kg, respectively. More importantly, widespread and persistent emission hotspots emerge, of significantly sharp small-scale variability, up to 8 ~ 15 times, attributable to distinct traffic fluxes, road conditions, and vehicle categories. On this basis, we investigate the effectiveness of routine traffic control strategies on the on-road vehicle emission mitigation. Our results have important implications for how the strategies should be designed and optimized. Integrating our traffic-monitoring-based approach with urban air quality measurements, we could address major data gaps between urban air pollutant emissions and concentrations.
NDT_A_311514 1571..1577

1Department of Nursing, College of Health Science, Debre Berhan University, Debre Berhan, Ethiopia; 2Department of Midwifery, College of Health Science, Debre Berhan University, Debre Berhan, Ethiopia Background: Suicidal ideation is thinking about suicide/serving as the agent of one’s own death. Patients with a major depressive disorder are the highest group which are affected by suicidal ideation. It is a pre-condition for suicide attempts and to commit suicide among major depressive patients. Suicidal behavior and major depressive disorder have been becoming the main attention in recent years. In Ethiopia, there is limited knowledge of suicidal ideation among major depressive disorder patients and the factors of suicidal ideation are also limited. Objective: This study assessed the prevalence of suicidal ideation and its associated factors among major depressive disorder patients at Amanuel Mental Specialized Hospital, Ethiopia. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted from March 1–30, 2019. A total of 337 major depressive disorder patients were successfully interviewed using structured and pre-tested questionnaires. A systematic random sampling technique was applied. Logistic regression was applied to identify factors of suicidal ideation. Statistical significance was considered at P-value < 0.05. Results: In this study, the prevalence of suicidal ideation among major depressive disorder patients was 48.4%. Being female (AOR 2.4, 95% CI=1.40, 4.25), family history of suicide (AOR 3.2, 95% CI=1.26, 8.11), and having poor social support (AOR 4.2, 95% CI=2.29, 7.59) were significantly associated with suicidal ideation among patients with major depressive disorder. Conclusion: The prevalence of suicidal ideation among major depressive disorder patients was relatively high. Hence, due attention should be given to the screening of suicidal ideation for all patients with major depressive disorder to initiate timely interventions.
Existence of travelling waves and high activation energy limits for a onedimensional thermo-diffusive lean spray flame model

We provide a mathematical analysis of a thermo-diffusive combustion model of lean spray flames, for which we prove the existence of travelling waves. In the high activation energy singular limit we show the existence of two distinct combustion regimes with a sharp transition -- the diffusion limited regime and the vaporisation controlled regime. The latter is specific to spray flames with slow enough vaporisation. We give a complete characterisation of these regimes, including explicit velocities, profiles, and upper estimate of the size of the internal combustion layer. Our model is on the one hand simple enough to allow for explicit asymptotic limits and on the other hand rich enough to capture some particular aspects of spray combustion. Finally, we briefly discuss the cases where the vaporisation is infinitely fast, or where the spray is polydisperse.
Computational assignments of lattice vibrations of ice Ic

Herein, via the first-principles density functional theory, CASTEP code, we investigated the 15 vibrational normal modes of ferroelectric hydrogen-ordered phase of ice Ic. The physical mechanism of hydrogen bond vibrations has been indicated by two type of peaks: the weak peak corresponds to two hydrogen bonds participating in the basal plane and the strong peak is composed by four hydrogen bonding vibrations for one molecule along the optic axis. The assignments of vibrational spectrum are individually conducted via the analysis of normal modes. The agreements of experimental data with the computed results manifest that the hydrogen-disordered bulk Ic may be composed by domains of a ferroelectric-ordered phase. We also predicted that the ferroelectric phase of ice Ic should show a birefringent phenomenon along the optical axis provided that a single crystal of the ferroelectric phase of ice Ic could be made.
Novel Short-Course Therapy and Morphism Mapping for Clinical Pulmonary <italic toggle='yes'>Mycobacterium kansasii</italic>

Standard therapy (isoniazid, rifampin, and ethambutol), with or without a macrolide, for pulmonary Mycobacterium kansasii lasts more than a year. Therefore, shorter treatment duration regimens are required. We used data from 32 Taiwanese patients treated with standard therapy who were followed using repetitive sampling-based sputum M. kansasii time-to-positivity in liquid cultures to calculate kill slopes (g) based on ordinary differential equations and time-to-extinction of each patient’s bacterial burden. The g was 0.18 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.16 to 0.20) log10 CFU/ml/day on standard therapy. Next, we identified the M. kansasii time to extinction in the hollow-fiber system model of pulmonary M. kansasii disease (HFS-Mkn) treated with standard therapy, which was a g of 0.60 (95% CI = 0.45 to 0.69) log10 CFU/ml/day. The g and time-to-extinction values between the two data sets formed structure-preserving maps based on category theory: thus, we could map them from one to the other using morphisms. This mapping identified a multistep nonlinear transformation factor for time to extinction from HFS-Mkn to patients. Next, a head-to-head study in the HFS-Mkn identified median time to extinction for standard therapy of 38.7 (95% CI = 29.1 to 53.2) days, isoniazid-rifampin-ethambutolmoxifloxacin therapy of 21.7 (95% CI = 19.1 to 25) days, isoniazid-rifampin-moxifloxacin therapy of 22 (96% CI = 20.1 to 24.5) days, and rifampin-moxifloxacin-tedizolid therapy of 20.7 (95% CI = 18.5 to 29) days. Our transformation-factor based translation predicted the proportion of patients of 90.7 (88.74 to 92.35)% achieving cure with standard therapy at 12months, and 6-month cure rates of 99.8 (95% CI = 99.27 to 99.95)% for isoniazid-rifampin-ethambutol-moxifloxacin, 92.2 (90.37 to 93.71)% for isoniazid-rifampin-moxifloxacin, and 99.9 (99.44 to 99.99)% for rifampin-moxifloxacintedizolid. Thus, rifampin-moxifloxacin-tedizolid and isoniazid-rifampin-ethambutolmoxifloxacin are predicted to be short-course chemotherapy regimens for pulmonary M. kansasii disease.
Acceptor-modulated optical enhancements and band-gap narrowing in ZnO thin films

Fermi-Dirac distribution for doped semiconductors and Burstein-Moss effect have been correlated first time to figure out the conductivity type of ZnO. Hall Effect in the Van der Pauw configuration has been applied to reconcile our theoretical estimations which evince our assumption. Band-gap narrowing has been found in all p-type samples, whereas blue Burstein-Moss shift has been recorded in the n-type films. Atomic Force Microscopic (AFM) analysis shows that both p-type and n-type films have almost same granular-like structure with minor change in average grain size (∼ 6 nm to 10 nm) and surface roughness rms value 3 nm for thickness ∼315 nm which points that grain size and surface roughness did not play any significant role in order to modulate the conductivity type of ZnO. X-ray diffraction (XRD), Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDS) and X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) have been employed to perform the structural, chemical and elemental analysis. Hexagonal wurtzite structure has been observed in all samples. The introduction of nitrogen reduces the crystallinity of host lattice. 97% transmittance in the visible range with 1.4 × 107 Ω-1cm-1 optical conductivity have been detected. High absorption value in the ultra-violet (UV) region reveals that NZOs thin films can be used to fabricate next-generation high-performance UV detectors.
The Carbon Source Controls the Secretion and Yield of Polysaccharide-Hydrolyzing Enzymes of Basidiomycetes

In the present study, the polysaccharide-hydrolyzing secretomes of Irpex lacteus (Fr.) Fr. (1828) BCC104, Pycnoporus coccineus (Fr.) Bondartsev and Singer (1941) BCC310, and Schizophyllum commune Fr. (1815) BCC632 were analyzed in submerged fermentation conditions to elucidate the effect of chemically and structurally different carbon sources on the expression of cellulases and xylanase. Among polymeric substrates, crystalline cellulose appeared to be the best carbon source providing the highest endoglucanase, total cellulase, and xylanase activities. Mandarin pomace as a growth substrate for S. commune allowed to achieve comparatively high volumetric activities of all target enzymes while wheat straw induced a significant secretion of cellulase and xylanase activities of I. lacteus and P. coccineus. An additive effect on the secretion of cellulases and xylanases by the tested fungi was observed when crystalline cellulose was combined with mandarin pomace. In I. lacteus the cellulase and xylanase production is inducible in the presence of cellulose-rich substrates but is suppressed in the presence of an excess of easily metabolizable carbon source. These enzymes are expressed in a coordinated manner under all conditions studied. It was shown that the substitution of glucose in the inoculum medium with Avicel provides accelerated enzyme production by I. lacteus and higher cellulase and xylanase activities of the fungus. These results add new knowledge to the physiology of basidiomycetes to improve cellulase production.
Effectiveness of a combined obesity prevention program in South Korea for children from low-income families that included primary caregiver participation

Purpose Obesity among children from low-income families is becoming a social problem. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of an obesity prevention program that included physical activity, nutrition education, behavioral modification, and primary caregiver participation components among children from low-income families. Methods The study analyzed a nonequivalent control group using a pretest-posttest design. A total of 77 children were recruited from six community childcare centers using purposive sampling. For the intervention group (n=40), the pretest was administered before the combined intervention program involving the participants' primary caregivers was conducted for 8 weeks. The posttest was conducted immediately after the program and again four weeks after the program. Results Flexibility (F=4.64, p=.020), muscular endurance (F=11.22, p<.001), nutritional knowledge scores (F=4.79, p=.010), body image satisfaction scores (F=4.74, p=.012), and self-esteem scores (F=3.81, p=.029) showed significant differences and interactions between group and time for the intervention and control groups. Conclusion Strategies to actively engage the primary caregivers of low-income families in children's obesity programs are needed. Obesity prevention programs for children based on the program in this study should be routinely developed, and continuing attention should be given to children from low-income families.
Brakedown: Linear-time and post-quantum SNARKs for R1CS

This paper introduces Brakedown, the first built system that provides linear-time SNARKs for NP, meaning the prover incurs O(N) finite field operations to prove the satisfiability of an N -sized R1CS instance. Brakedown’s prover is faster, both concretely and asymptotically, than prior SNARK implementations. Brakedown does not require a trusted setup and is plausibly post-quantum secure. Furthermore, it is compatible with arbitrary finite fields of sufficient size; this property is new amongst implemented arguments with sublinear proof sizes. To design Brakedown, we observe that recent work of Bootle, Chiesa, and Groth (BCG, TCC 2020) provides a polynomial commitment scheme that, when combined with the linear-time interactive proof system of Spartan (CRYPTO 2020), yields linear-time IOPs and SNARKs for R1CS (a similar theoretical result was previously established by BCG, but our approach is conceptually simpler, and crucial for achieving high-speed SNARKs). A core ingredient in the polynomial commitment scheme that we distill from BCG is a linear-time encodable code. Existing constructions of such codes are believed to be impractical. Nonetheless, we design and engineer a new one that is practical in our context. We also implement a variant of Brakedown that uses Reed-Solomon codes instead of our linear-time encodable codes; we refer to this variant as Shockwave. Shockwave is not a linear-time SNARK, but it provides shorter proofs and lower verification times than Brakedown (it also provides a faster prover than prior plausibly post-quantum SNARKs). As a modest additional contribution, we observe that one can render the aforementioned SNARK zero knowledge and reduce the proof size and verifier time from O( √ N) to polylog(N)—while maintaining a linear-time prover—by outsourcing the verifier’s work via one layer of proof composition with an existing zkSNARK as the “outer” proof system. ∗This manuscript is an update to [LSTW21]. It contains substantial new results and updated presentation, including the design and implementation of a concretely efficient error-correcting code with linear-time encoding, and associated SNARK. 1In the Transformers universe, Brakedown and Shockwave are powerful (and fast) Decepticons.
Techno‐economic studies on the influences of nonuniform feeding in the biogas plants of educational institutions

The scarcity of conventional energy sources and their environmental impacts have led to successful implementation of biogas technologies in various applications. However, the lack of awareness in the society and economic viability are a few constraints that hinder the effective use of biogas in many sectors. Therefore, intensive research is needed to overcome the above said issues and extend the use of biogas into many newer avenues. Academic institutions are the places where people have more awareness on the environmental impacts. However, the nonuniform availability of biowastes and the lack of studies on the economic benefits of this technology restrict the implementation of the same. This study focuses on the economic benefits of implementing three types of biogas digesters, KVIC, JANATA, and Fiber‐glass reinforced polyester biogas plants, in five different academic institutions where the student population and generation of biowastes throughout a year are nonuniform, and the digester may not run with full load continuously. Based on a pilot study, the quality and quantity variations because of the nonuniform strength of student during a year have been studied and the same have been used to predict the biogas generation in the selected institutions. The result shows that biogas energy production is economically viable for capacities ranging from 25 to 450 m3 with a payback period between 3.18 and 7.59 years for various types used in the study. The economic viability of the biogas plants is proved with positive net present value. © 2018 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 37: 1901–1907, 2018