Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Exploring the Tactor Configurations of Vibrotactile Feedback Systems for Use in Lower-Limb Prostheses

Vibrotactile feedback may be able to compensate for the loss of sensory input in lowerlimb prosthesis users to improve mobility function. Designing an effective vibrotactile feedback system requires that users are able to perceive and respond to vibrotactile stimuli correctly and in a timely manner. Our study explored four key tactor configuration variables (i.e. tactors’ prosthetic layer, vibration intensity, prosthetic pressure, spacing between adjacent tactors) through two experiments. The vibration propagation experiment investigated the effects of tactor configurations on vibration amplitude at the prosthesis-limb interface. Results revealed a positive relationship 1This paper is based upon our conference paper accepted by the ASME IDETC/CIE conference (August 2018, Quebec City, Canada), with new work added to the paper content. Journal of Vibration and Acoustics VIB-18-1236 Shi 2 between vibration amplitude and intensity, and a weak relationship between vibration amplitude and prosthetic pressure. Highest vibration amplitudes were observed when the tactor was located on the inner socket layer. The second experiment involving a sample of 10 able-bodied and 3 amputee subjects, investigated the effects of tactor configurations on user perception measured by response time, accuracy identifying tactors’ stimulation patterns, and spatial error in locating the tactors. Results showed that placing the tactors on the inner socket layer, greater spacing between adjacent tactors, and higher vibration intensity resulted in better user perception. The above findings can be directly applied to the design of vibrotactile feedback systems to increase user response accuracy and decrease response time required for dynamic tasks such as gait. They can also help to inform future clinical trials informing the optimization of tactor configuration variables.
Kicking the can down the road or giving idlers the boot ? The effect of asset purchase programs on plant exits ∗

Very loose monetary policy may allow banks to postpone the termination of credit provision to unproductive corporate customers. We combine unique administrative data at the plant level with detailed exposures of individual banks to a specific asset purchase program shock in Germany to test if shocked banks deter Schumpeterian destruction in the real economy. Our results show that unproductive plants tied to shocked, but financially weak banks are less likely to close. We also show that both entry and exit rates in regional markets with high exposures to the shock are suppressed. Thus, asset purchase programs appear to reduce efficient churn, which may hamper the re-allocation of production factors and aggregate productivity growth. JEL classification: E58, G21, G28, G33
Peer Effects and Educational Inequality∗

We show how social multipliers reinforce preexisting socioeconomic disadvantages of children due to the German early tracking system. We estimate social multipliers from classroom-ability-social-interactions effects for 9th-grade students through a Conditional Quasi-Maximum Likelihood approach: we identify the average effect of classmates’ performance from the reduced form and treat a student’s potential (self-)selection in a classroom as an omitted variables problem. We find that a 1-point decrease in peer average performance in science leads to a 7.2-points decrease in classroom performance for the vocational training (Hauptschule) students at the lower end of the ability distribution but only to a 2.4-points decrease for the university-path (Gymnasium) students standing at the top of the performance ladder. Moreover, we conclude that a native student’s performance in the classroom is more important – either in a beneficial or detrimental way – than an immigrant’s performance.
Thai Gamers'attitude Toward Product Placement in Online Games

Marketers have been more attentive to advertisement in online games. Product placement via movies or news reports have been recognized; however, little is known about the placement in Thai online games. This study thus attempts to (1) report the profile of Thai online gamers, (2) explore their attitude toward in-game placement, and (3) analyze their awareness and product recall. Based on the 253 number of usable questionnaires, Thai online gamers are mainly young, male students, spending 2-9 hours a day playing the games. They perceived congruence between game content and in-game placement and did not object to have commercials in the games. Although 86% of the samples were aware of in-game placement, their product recall is fairly low. In addition to extending insight into online advertisement in the context of Thai gamers, marketers could arrange a more proper marketing plan based on these results.
TAX POLICY CHANGES IN THE CONTEXT OF CRISIS IN BRAZIL: IDEAS, INTERESTS AND INSTITUTIONS

The present paper aims to analyze the tax policy in Brazil since 2007 by three dimensions taken into account by neo-institutionalism approaches (Hall, Taylor, 1997): ideas, interests and institutions. According Palier and Surel (2005, p. 8), mobilize these three variables allows to take into account "the plurality of possible dimensions of analysis and the diversity of possible causes in the study of public action". Thus, the objective is to articulate these dimensions and at the same time decompose "the object studied in constituent units based on three" is "(Palier, Surel, 2005).
National data opt out programme: consequences for maternity statistics in England

Electronic health records offer great potential for individual care, service improvement and, when collated, the health of the wider population. Datasets composed of these types of records have been invaluable to our understanding of risk factors for maternal and infant ill-health. However, a potential barrier to data quality in England is emerging where patients choose to opt out of sharing their information beyond the NHS. Focussing on maternity statistics, we will present the importance of population level health data for monitoring NHS services, and the potential consequences for patients of opting out. Evidencing the success of similar systems in Nordic countries, we argue that the English population must be better informed of the implications of opting out of sharing NHS data for research and the safeguards in place to protect patient information.
Inter-market price spread and determinants of net farm income in watermelon marketing in Anambra State

*Corresponding Author Email: chinezenkamigbo@yahoo.com The study examined the inter-market price spread and determinants of net farm income in watermelon marketing in Anambra State, Nigeria. Specifically, it ascertained inter and intra market price spread and influence of respondents’ socio-economic characteristics on net marketing returns. Multistage sampling procedure was used to select 240 marketers (120 wholesalers and 120 retailers) and data collection was only on primary source using structured questionnaire and were analyzed by means of descriptive statistics and multiple regression techniques. From the result, the peak demand season for watermelon is from October to January while the lean demand season is between June and August. peak marketing margin realised by wholesalers was high in Oye-Nimo (N130.00) and the highest retail mean marketing margin of (N220.00) was recorded in Oye-Nimo The. The lean mean marketing realised by the wholesalers and retailers were highest in Oye-Achalla (N170.00) and Afor-Ogidi market (N170.00). Socioeconomic factors of education, marketing cost and product price significantly determined net marketing income realized by watermelon marketers at wholesale level. The coefficient of product price was positive and had a significant effect on the net marketing income at 5% probability level, an indication that the higher the price of watermelon, the higher the net returns The significant determinants of net marketing income realized by watermelon marketers at retail level were age, household size and marketing cost. There is a need for the government to improve and modernize existing market infrastructures so as to enhance marketing conditions and accommodate new entrances into the business. The study established that watermelon marketing is a profitable enterprises and a good source of livelihood and poverty alleviation.
Public size and Economic Growth relationship: can a better institutional qualityfix the outcomes?

This paper highlights two aspects of the public size and economic growth relationship. First, we test the functional form of the relationship for a large panel of 135 developed and emerging economies over the period 1996-2014. Second, we highlight the role of certain institutional characteristics in moderating the sensitivity of the relationship between the two variables. Our empirical results, based on system GMM and rolling regression models confirm an inverse U-shaped relationship between public size and economic growth. Moreover, we note that the adverse effects of excessive public size are stronger for economies with weak level of institutional quality. JEL classification codes: E02, H50, O43.
DRY BENEFICIATION OF LOW-GRADE IRON ORE FINES USING A TRIBO- ELECTRIC BELT SEPARATOR

ST Equipment & Technology LLC (STET) has developed a novel processing system based on tribo-electrostatic belt separation that provides the mineral processing industry a means to beneficiate fine materials with an energy-efficient and entirely dry technology. In contrast to other electrostatic separation processes that are typically limited to particles >75μm in size, the STET triboelectric belt separator is suited for separation of very fine (<1μm) to moderately coarse (500μm) particles, with very high throughput. The STET tribo-electrostatic technology has been used to process and commercially separate a wide range of industrial minerals and other dry granular powders. Here, bench-scale results are presented on the beneficiation of low-grade Fe ore fines using STET belt separation process. Bench-scale testing demonstrated the capability of the STET technology to simultaneously recover Fe and reject from itabirite ore with a D50 of 60μm and ultrafine Fe ore tailings with a D50 of 20μm. The STET technology is presented as an alternative to beneficiate Fe ore fines that could not be successfully treated via traditional flowsheet circuits due to their granulometry and mineralogy.
The Incentive Power of Employee Ownership through Stock Purchase Plan

The article is a first step toward a incentive theory of Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP). It is argued that ESPP is particularly relevant when the employer wants the employees to reveal suggestions that would improve the production process or the output quality. It is show that offering ESPP can be as efficient as suggestion pay and performance pay, and that it can outperform profit sharing. This contrasts Holmström’s interpretation that separating ownership and control is efficient. Firms have various motives to implement employee ownership. First of all, governments often offer some tax benefits for the employer, the employees or both. Indeed, employee ownership is often seen favorably by the politicians because it extends the democratic principles inside the firm. The European Union has also been an important advocate of employee ownership through the PEPPER reports. Furthermore, employee ownership is considered as a substitute to public and institutional investment in the sens that it allows the capital to remain domestic. This was indeed the main motive behind the recent Macron Law in France since it counterbalanced the withdrawal from traditional shareholders. Earlier, employees had also played an important role as investors during the privatization of public firms such as France Telecom and even more clearly during the transition period in communist economies such as Estonia (Jones et Mygind , 1999; DeVaro et Kato, 2011). In a similar fashion, some firms use stock ownership as a solution to hostile takeovers (Beatty , 1994; Shivdasani , 1993; Aubert et al., 2014; Kruse et al., 2010). When the positions of both the employer and the employees are threatened, it may be in their interest to collude by purchasing shares thereby preventing the takeover. As convincing as they may be, those determinants cannot be the sole motives for firms to implement some kind of shared ownership. Employees have owned shares for centuries, long before tax incentives were implemented and hostile takeovers were a significant threat. Proudhon was indeed a proponent of such ∗I am very gratfull to Nicolas Aubert, Gérard Ballot, Bertrand Crettez, André Lapied, Virginie Pérotin and Pierre Picard for their useful comments. I would also like to thank the participants of the CREQAM finance seminar and the ones of the CRCH seminar for their critics.
Does the Regulation Change Play a Role in the Dividend Policy ?: Empirical Study of REITs

According to Modernization Act (RMA) of 1999, real estate investment trusts (REITs) must distribute at least 90% of their taxable income to be exempt from tax at the corporate level, less than the percentage required prior to 2001 (95%), implying more funds from operation (FFO) are kept by REITs for growth and profitability. This study examines whether REITs disburse more cash by means of dividends after the tax regulation changes in 2001 to reduce agency problems. Our study reveals that excessive dividends paid by REITs increase with the excess funds from the operation. Furthermore, we document that managers pay excessive dividends after the change in required distribution from 95% to 90% of taxable income, implying that the tax regulation changes in REITs industry do impact excess dividends paid to reduce agency issues. These findings support the agency cost theory. In addition, our findings also imply that policy makers should consider not only stakeholders subject to regulations but also market reactions.
Exchange rates movements in Emerging Economies Global vs Regional factors

The aim of the article is to analyze the determinants of emerging markets’ exchange rate movements, particularly for Asia. We implement a dynamic latent factor model to investigate the determinants of 24 emerging countries’ exchange rates movements and decompose the evolutions into the contribution of a global factor, a regional factor and a country-specific factor. The results indicate that, on the whole period 2000-2015, the common global factor is by far the most important determinant of exchange rates variations for Asian economies and, albeit to a lesser extent, for Latin America. After 2005, there is a strong increase in the explanatory power of the regional factor in Asia, from 6% to 45%, becoming the dominant factor in this area. Then, we use a Vector Autoregressive model (VAR) and show that the regional factor Asia, estimated from the dynamic latent factor model, is mainly explained by Chinese economic variables. Indeed, our results highlight that bilateral exchange rate of China and macroeconomic economic climate in China greatly influence the regional factor Asia.
Environment performance, good corporate governance mechanism and firm’s value: Company performance as an intervening variable

Globalization era made development in almost all fields especially industrial sector. Each company in the fulfillment of its goals to increase the firm’s value might take extreme way that can damage the environment. Furthermore, the operation of the company also requires implementing a new paradigm in the management of a business, namely the principle of good corporate governance (GCG). The purpose of this research is to determine the influence of the environmental performance and GCG mechanism on firm value with company performance as an intervening variable. The manufacturing companies selected for this study are from the 2010-2013 list of Indonesia Stock Exchange (PROPER participants) which includes 14 companies with purposive sampling techniques. The data used was secondary data from company annual report and the announcements of the Ministry of Environment from Indonesia Stock Exchange website (www.idx.co.id), as well as the official website of the ministry (www.menlh.go.id). The path analysis approach was used for this research. The results showed that that the company's performance is not a mediating variable between environmental performances and firm’s value. Company performance as an intervening variable could not mediate environment performance, ownership concentration, and the effectiveness of audit committee on firm value.
Uncovering Access, Reuse, and Sharing Characteristics of I/O-Intensive Files on Large-Scale Production HPC Systems

Large-scale high-performance computing (HPC) applications running on supercomputers produce large amounts of data routinely and store it in files on multi-PB shared parallel storage systems. Unfortunately, storage community has a limited understanding of the access and reuse patterns of these files. This paper investigates the access and reuse patterns of I/Ointensive files on a production-scale supercomputer.
Overview of the Burkina Faso seed system: Case of the formal seed system

*Corresponding Author Email: alilardia@gmail.com/ nerbewende@yahoo.fr The seed law adopted since 2006 in Burkina Faso remains little known as its tools are unsuited to the conditions of the farmers. So, it must be revised to take into account the knowledge levels of different seed producers. To increase crops yields, the country has initiated an extension program of improved varieties. Despite the efforts to replace local seed system, the impact remains in general below expectation. In order to develop documentation on the seed sector and to have more information about the formal seed system, an investigation was carried out in six districts of Burkina Faso. The study revealed that the majority of farmers grow on a small area and only a small number of crops are improved seeds. Moreover, for the six districts, the study showed a weakness of this sector in Burkina Faso and a localization of the majority of seed suppliers in the sudanosahelian area of the country. The main cultivated crops are traditional cereals and leguminous species. Nevertheless, a continuous increase of seed suppliers was observed during the last ten years. Maize and cowpea are respectively the cereal and leguminous crops which had high certified seed production during 2001-2010 period. So, a strong complementarity between formal and local sector is necessary. The seed policies of both sectors must be carefully developed in the country with contribution of all actors of the seed system.
The Practical Work of Ensuring the Effective Use of Serious Games in a Rehabilitation Clinic: Qualitative Study

Background Many rehabilitation clinics adopted serious games to support their physiotherapy sessions. Serious games can monitor and provide feedback on exercises and are expected to improve therapy and help professionals deal with more patients. However, there is little understanding of the impacts of serious games on the actual work of physiotherapists. Objective This study aimed to understand the impact of an electromyography-based serious game on the practical work of physiotherapists. Methods This study used observation sessions in an outpatient rehabilitation clinic that recently started using a serious game based on electromyography sensors. In total, 44 observation sessions were performed, involving 3 physiotherapists and 22 patients. Observation sessions were documented by audio recordings or fieldnotes and were analyzed for themes using thematic analysis. Results The findings of this study showed that physiotherapists played an important role in enabling the serious game to work. Physiotherapists briefed patients, calibrated the system, prescribed exercises, and supported patients while they played the serious game, all of which amounted to relevant labor. Conclusions The results of this work challenge the idea that serious games reduce the work of physiotherapists and call for an overall analysis of the different impacts a serious game can have. Adopting a serious game that creates more work can be entirely acceptable, provided the clinical outcomes or other advantages enabled by the serious game are strong; however, those impacts will have to be assessed on a case-by-case basis. Moreover, this work motivates the technology development community to better investigate physiotherapists and their context, offering implications for technology design.
Notion for entrepreneurship in school entrepreneurial skills training

Entrepreneurial skills are understood as an attitude to solve new problems by unknown answers. A revision of the concept of “entrepreneurship” to be applied in an educational context is proposed. Method: its origin, its phases of conceptual variation, the diverse conceptions and the state of the art of the concept “entrepreneurship” are revised resorting to relational phenomenology in order to manage the evolution of the meaning. Results: The analysis identifies the nexus between economic activity and education aimed at encouraging the students’ entrepreneurial skills. Such an aim is recommended by European and world institutions as adequate to confront the economic problems in digital society. Conclusion: the proposals to include a curricular discipline of "entrepreneurial economy" or applying a “cross-training” are not mutually exclusive. From a syncretic perspective, a specific discipline is complementary of an entrepreneurial cross-training.
IDENTIFICATION OF CHEMICAL COMPOSITION OF Eugenia aromatica AND ITS BIO-EFFICACY AGAINST Sitophilus oryzae (L.) AND Tribolium castaneum (HERBST)

In this investigation plant oil and powder of E. aromatica were evaluated under laboratory conditions to determine their toxicity, fumigant effect and impact on F1 progeny of S. oryzae and T. castaneum adults. Essential oil and powder of flower buds obtained from Eugenia aromatica were purified and analyzed by Gas-Chromatography–Mass Spectrometer (GC-MC). The results obtained showed that the two products of E. aromatica had good disorders on the all tested parameters. For toxicity and fumigant effect the oil was the premier compared to powder. In addition, that the two products completely prevented the F1 emergence of the two insects. In respect of the toxicity and fumigation the T. castaneum was more tolerant than S. oryzae adults. Phytochemical analysis showed that euegnol (89.62%) was the premier component of essential oil, while euegnol (78.66%), caryophyllene (6.30%), -a-Terpinyl acetate (1.35%) were the major components for its powder. These findings suggest application of E. aromatica products as suitable tools as a potential source of insecticides, alternative to synthetic insecticides or using these products in integrated pest management program against stored product insects, especially S. oryzae or T. castaneum adults.